Axel blanked him. Reilly kept looking at the tanker. Her slow progress, her beauty and elegance on the grey water mesmerised him.
‘I’ve never laid a hand on anyone in my life,’ Axel said out of the blue. ‘Not on Jon, or anyone else.’
Reilly wanted to reply, but the drugs had made him sluggish and he was incapable of formulating a sentence.
‘Have I ever laid a hand on anyone?’ Axel asked.
‘Not really sure,’ Reilly mumbled.
‘Not really sure?’ Axel said. ‘What sort of an answer is that?’
But Reilly kept his mouth shut. When Axel lost his temper, it was best to lie low for a while.
A wide, frothing stream flowed into Glitter Lake, and on the bank a woman was watching the sky. She was one of those people whom life had treated well, so she had a little smile at the corner of her mouth. It came naturally to her. Behind her lay a hill surrounded by dense vegetation and further away a small sandy beach. She was sitting on a rock. Next to her was a canvas bag in which she kept a watercolour block, paints and brushes. She got water from the lake. Glitter Lake was a pretty landscape. She had an eye for detail and she was absorbed by the light, which changed constantly as the clouds were driven across the sky by a mild breeze. From time to time the sun would break through, and she would close her eyes, relishing its warmth. There was a green and black whirlpool where the stream poured into the lake, and the churning water had created a wide tuft of foam. A gnarled root from a tree stuck out of the whirlpool. This foreground constituted the subject. The root which had anchored itself in the mud was almost a sculpture in itself. She decided to tone down the cloud formations lest they distort the balance of the composition. The focal point should be low, the sky should play second fiddle. She placed the pad in her lap and started outlining the scene with a soft pencil, and anyone looking over her shoulder would have seen that she was a skilled artist. She did not hesitate for a second. There was a direct link between her eyes and her hand. While she worked, she enjoyed all the elements as different voices in an orchestra: the wind, the roaring water and the scent of grass. The whirlpool, she thought, it looks like a well, and the big tuft of foam looks like the cream on an Irish coffee. The root resembles an arm with an accusing finger. She imagined it was pointing to something far out in the lake. Look, it was saying, look out there! She stared with one hand shielding her eyes, but she saw nothing, only the glittering surface from which the lake took its name. She continued to draw. The smile at the corner of her mouth remained, she was so pleased with it all, with the lake and her own talent.
When she had finished sketching the scene, she went down to fill a plastic cup with water, and then she mixed colours in the lid of her watercolour box. Sounds from the forest reached her: a dove, a woodpecker at a tree trunk. All the time her brush raced across the paper in quick, light strokes, the thin marten hairs created circles and waves, saturated with green and blue. She had been painting Glitter Lake for years. At home she had countless variations painted under different conditions and seasons. When the picture was finished, she rested it against a stone. She took a few steps back and assessed her own work with a clear, cool head. I’m a decent artist, she thought, and smiled at her own cheek. She saw that it was not perfect, the root sticking out of the whirlpool really did look like an arm, as though a body had floated by and got caught. She turned abruptly and stared across the water. No, it can’t be, she thought. Nevertheless she went down to the water to investigate, gingerly stepping out on to some rocks and squatting down. In the slippery green and black she saw a tooth.
It was the body of a man, and he seemed to be of foreign origin. His long stay in the water had made his skin permeable and his body had bloated to almost twice its natural size. This made him look big and sturdy. In reality he was short and slender. He was wearing jeans and a thin windbreaker, and all they found in his pocket was a key attached to a bit of string. The key was made by Trio Ving.
The report from the Institute of Forensic Medicine began as follows: male, possibly Asian, one hundred and sixty-seven centimetres tall. Teeth intact and in good condition with no fillings. No surgical scars, no tattoos, no moles, no broken bones. Age: under twenty. They had compared their findings to the missing persons register. And they were creating a DNA profile.
Sejer and Skarre were about to leave the office. They got their coats and Skarre fished out a jelly baby from a bag.
‘I used to like the green ones best,’ he said, ‘but now I prefer the orange ones.’
Sejer watched him as he munched the small gelatinous figure. ‘I imagine they all taste the same,’ he declared, ‘but, of course, you expect something different from a red jelly baby and a yellow one.’
This statement made Skarre peer into the bag with a worried expression. ‘I need to work something out,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘Because we’ve found a man in a lake. Do you follow?’
‘I’m not a mind reader,’ Sejer remarked.
‘It reminds me I’m going to die one day,’ Skarre said. ‘I’m going to die, but it doesn’t worry me unduly.’
Sejer shuffled through his papers and his eyes fell on the report from the Institute of Forensic Medicine.
‘But then I think beyond that,’ Skarre continued. ‘Some years later those who knew me will die too, and then there won’t be anyone left to remember me. Or who’ll visit my grave. Jacob Skarre? people will say. Never heard of him.’
‘That’s very sad,’ Sejer agreed.
‘And then we reach the worst part,’ Skarre said. ‘My grave will be reused. And I won’t exist anywhere – not in other people’s memories and not in the cemetery.’
‘Why are you tormenting yourself with such notions?’ Sejer asked. ‘After all, you’re a Christian. You’re going to find eternal life.’
‘I doubt that,’ Skarre confessed.
‘But the Bible says so,’ Sejer objected. ‘Do you simply pick bits and pieces and stick them together just as you please?’
‘Yes,’ Skarre admitted. ‘That’s how we do it.’ He let himself fall into a chair.
‘All of mankind will disappear too,’ Sejer said. ‘One day only insects will be left. And no one will know that we were ever here.’
‘But we were a great idea,’ Skarre said.
The telephone rang and he answered it. ‘Forensics,’ he said. ‘Snorrason.’
Sejer took the receiver and grabbed a pen.
‘I’ve got a preliminary autopsy report for you,’ Snorrason said. ‘I’ve examined his lungs. And it’s hard to draw any definite conclusions after such a long time, but there is evidence to suggest he was dead when he fell in the water.’
‘Then we have a case.’
‘Probably.’
‘Any idea who he is?’
‘Not so far. I’ll let you know.’
‘Cuts? Bruises?’
‘Doesn’t look like it. I can find no internal or external injuries.’
‘Strangulation?’
‘Unlikely.’
‘Toxins?’
‘We’ve sent samples off for testing. They’ll take time.’
‘So you can’t tell me anything about the cause of death?’
‘Not yet. And I’m sorry to have to mention this, but it’s possible that we might fail. It does happen. This young Asian man is an enigma.’
‘Let’s hope you come up with something,’ Sejer said. ‘Somewhere his parents are waiting for him.’
‘Everyone who comes to me had parents,’ Snorrason said.
Sejer and Skarre left the office and went out into the corridor. For years they had walked like this, side by side, sometimes in animated discussion, sometimes silent as now. When Sejer suddenly stumbled, Skarre automatically rushed to support him. Sejer slumped against the wall. He stood with his eyes closed for a few seconds.
‘What is it?’ Skarre said.