‘Please don’t trouble yourself,’ Sejer said.
He regretted saying it immediately. Perhaps she would like to go to the kitchen and do something, boil water, fetch cups from the cupboard, do the things she normally did when she had visitors. And he had rejected her hospitality. For a while he wondered if he should ask for a cup anyway, but he was too slow.
‘Can you discover anything after such a long time?’ she asked. ‘I don’t want to blame anyone, but if someone is responsible for what happened, then they must be punished for it. The police thought he might have killed himself because they soon found out that he was lonely, obviously. But Kim would never have done anything like that.’
‘The case will be reopened,’ Sejer said. ‘Now that we’ve found him, it will be easier to investigate. He didn’t drown, that much we do know, but the cause of his death is unknown. Was he in good health?’
She nodded. ‘He was. He wasn’t on medication, or anything. He didn’t take drugs, I’m certain of it, and he didn’t smoke, either.’
Again she started to weep softly. She straightened out an embroidered tablecloth and smiled apologetically for becoming emotional.
‘If you discover the truth, I’ll be happy,’ she said. ‘As it is now, I lie awake at night and imagine the very worst. What if they killed him? All the drunk young people at the party. What if they killed him?’
‘They didn’t,’ Sejer said. ‘The forensic examiner would have discovered that.’
‘Is it possible to drink so much that it kills you?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ Sejer said, ‘it is. And the forensic examiner has taken samples which will reveal whether he died from alcohol poisoning, but we don’t think that’s what happened.’
‘Can you tell when people lie?’ she asked.
He contemplated this for couple of seconds. ‘Often, but not always.’
‘Will you be speaking to the people who were with him that night?’
‘I’ll be speaking to every single one of them.’
Yoo Van Chau looked at him with piercing eyes.
‘You must study everyone you talk to very closely,’ she said. ‘You must listen to their voices and look into their eyes to see if they speak the truth.’
‘I’ll listen very carefully to everything they’ve got to say,’ Sejer said.
‘And you must watch their hands,’ she said. ‘Observe what they do with their hands, if they flap.’
‘I’ll watch their hands,’ he promised.
‘Can you find out what happened?’ she said, and now her voice was urgent. ‘Will you know if anyone killed or tortured him? Can you find out why his heart stopped beating, his young, strong heart? There has to be a reason,’ she pressed on. ‘Nothing happens without a reason.’
‘You’re right about that,’ he said, ‘but you know, often several circumstances coincide.’
‘Then I want to know all about those circumstances,’ she said.
‘Can you find them out? Please,’ she added while she waited desperately for his reply. She looked small and lost in the big chair. Sejer did not want to promise her anything or give her any guarantees. He never did, he knew better than to do that. But suddenly he felt weak, and the forbidden words slipped out of him.
‘I’ll find out what happened,’ he said. ‘I promise.’
CHAPTER 23
The party had been held in Skjæret on 19 December. Skjæret was a town on the coast, near Åkerøy, and Irene Selmer was listed as the owner of a small flat with a terrace that overlooked the water.
They were walking to the car. Sejer confessed his brief moment of weakness when he was with Yoo Van Chau.
‘I promised her I would find out,’ he said.
‘What do you mean promised?’ Skarre said.
‘That I would make sure she gets an explanation for it all. It was impossible to turn her down. She wears slippers embroidered with dragons,’ he explained.
‘But we can’t promise her anything,’ Skarre said, aghast. ‘You need to use a stock phrase. We’ll do everything in our power. That one is quite good. It makes an impression, don’t you think?’
‘If you had seen Yoo Van Chau, you would have made promises too,’ Sejer said.
They drove out to Åkerøy.
Half an hour later they saw the fjord sparkle blue between the houses. Small islands dotted with red and white cottages lay beyond. Skarre spoke at length about his childhood. He had grown up in a vicarage on the south coast, and he could feel the pull of it now.
‘I want a flat out here,’ he said. ‘How much do you think they cost?’
‘Far too much for us,’ Sejer replied.
Skarre stared dreamily across the mouth of the fjord.
‘I suppose it gets cold here in the autumn and winter,’ he added. ‘After all, it’s right on the coast. What do you think?’
He looked to the inspector for support.
‘You can’t live out here,’ Sejer said. ‘It’s freezing cold.’
Irene Selmer was wearing a T-shirt which came down to her thighs and read: PRINCESS ON A BINGE. She acted curt. She seemed to think they might be selling something, and she wanted shot of them.
‘Police,’ Sejer said.
She gawped. Then she recalled what had happened. It had upset her.
‘Is it Jon Moreno?’
Sejer did not have time to answer.
‘I heard he killed himself,’ she said. ‘Did he?’
‘We’re here on another matter,’ Sejer said.
She tugged at her T-shirt. She showed no sign of inviting them in. Then another unpleasant thought occurred to her, something she had almost forgotten.
‘We’ve found Kim Van Chau,’ Sejer said.
‘Is he dead?’ she whispered.
‘Yes.’
‘Did he freeze to death? Where was he?’
‘We found him in Glitter Lake,’ Skarre explained.
She shook her head, baffled. ‘Glitter Lake? But he lives in Nattmål, in those terraced houses. Do you know what happened?’
‘No,’ Skarre said, looking at Sejer. ‘But we’ll do everything in our power to find out.’
She turned around and went back inside the flat.
‘I shouldn’t have thrown him out,’ she said. ‘He was so drunk. It’s all my fault.’
‘Why is it your fault?’ Sejer asked.
Without looking at them she began to explain. ‘If I had let him stay the night, he would have got home alive. But I didn’t want him here. I don’t know what I was thinking.’
‘Let’s begin at the beginning,’ Sejer said. ‘We can apportion blame later.’
They all sat down. Irene Selmer lifted the edge of her T-shirt and wiped her eyes, causing her black make-up to smudge.
‘I’ve given a statement,’ she said. ‘I’ve told you what happened several times already.’
‘And now you need to tell me again,’ Sejer said. ‘Tell us about the party.’
‘It was a house-warming party,’ she said. ‘My dad gave me this flat when I turned twenty. It was quite low-key. We sat on the floor because there weren’t enough chairs for everybody. I’d warned all the neighbours, these walls are so thin. But no one complained because everyone who lives out here is young, and they don’t mind. We ordered pizzas from Pizzabussen, they were delivered at ten.’
‘Did people get very drunk?’ Sejer asked.
She tugged at her shoelaces.
‘People wanted to get drunk. Some had brought beer and wine, others vodka. Of course people got drunk, I had expected them to.’
‘How did you know Kim Van Chau?’ Skarre asked.
‘I didn’t know Kim. He wasn’t invited.’
‘So tell us how he ended up at your party.’
‘He was hitch-hiking,’ she said. ‘From Nattmål. He wanted to go into town. Two friends of mine drove past on their way here and spotted him. And they invited him to come along. They just did it for a laugh.’
She jerked her head involuntarily. Perhaps she was ashamed or perhaps she had just had enough.
‘He sat down on the floor,’ she said, ‘and someone handed him a bottle of beer. And then another and another. He couldn’t hold his drink. We made him speak Vietnamese. It sounded so funny. Every time we started laughing, so did he. He did everything we asked him to.’