‘He certainly is a bit peculiar,’ she said, shaking her head. Her curls didn’t move a millimetre. But she was smiling now. Women tended to do that whenever they thought of Axel Frimann.
‘I need something to carry this in,’ Reilly said.
She popped into a closet and came out holding a dreadful plastic bag with pink handles.
‘That’s the worst bag I’ve ever seen,’ he said. ‘I can’t walk down the street with that.’
‘Have you turned into a show-off like Axel?’ she asked.
That evening he got very high. Afterwards he went on the Internet to read about the revolver he now owned. There were several models, but he soon pinpointed the one lying on the table. It had been in his family since the war and was a British handgun produced by the government-owned Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield. The first model was used by the police and a later one had been standard issue in the Second World War. The revolver weighed 765 grams and the chamber held six bullets. He also learned that when he cocked the hammer he could fire all six bullets in one sequence. He got up from his chair, raised the revolver and aimed it at a jar on the windowsill. Axel may have made plans, he thought. But with this in my hand, I’m in control.
CHAPTER 30
Sejer was kneeling by his wife’s grave, shivering in the cold. His dog, Frank Robert, waited patiently while he dug at random in the soil of the small bed where nothing grew. Please forgive me, Elise, he was thinking, I could have brought a rose. But the years pass. I’ve stopped looking over my shoulder. I know now that you won’t be there. Yoo Van Chau is still sitting in her chair listening out for footsteps. In brief moments she forgets what has happened. It takes a long time before it sinks in.
He got up and stuck his hands in his pockets.
But I won all the same, he thought. I won the biggest prize life’s lottery had to offer. I found you, and I got to have you with me for many years.
Elise. My first prize.
He left the cemetery and, still shivering, headed for the riverside promenade. It started to rain. The river was more turbulent than usual. It tumbled by with unstoppable force and whipped up white foam around the bridge supports. He followed the whirling currents with his eyes; they looked like boiling black cauldrons in the water. The rain got heavier. The dog looked up at him. Isn’t it time we got going? it seemed to be thinking. It’s freezing cold.
The worst thing about losing someone, Sejer thought, is the fear of further loss. One brick falls out and the whole wall is at risk. After the death of Elise he had grown terrified of losing his daughter. He imagined that his wife’s death had pointed a spotlight on his family, and in its revealing glare the devil himself could see them and would strike again.
‘We are going to stand here for a while and be cold,’ he told the dog.
‘We owe that to Elise.’
That night he had a dream. It was evening, and he was waiting at a bus stop with Frank Robert. After a long wait the bus arrived with lit-up windows and they both went inside where it was warm. Sejer rummaged around in his pockets for loose change and temporarily had to let go of the leash. Before he had time to turn around, Frank had jumped off the bus. He was just about to run after him when the accordion-style door closed and the bus drove off. Sejer asked the bus driver to stop.
‘You’ll have to wait. I’ve got a timetable to stick to.’
‘How far is the next stop?’ Sejer asked.
‘Far,’ the bus driver said. ‘Sit down.’
He found a seat by the window. He was unsettled because he had lost Frank. He stared out of the window. It was dark outside and there was not much to look at. He did not know where he was, either, it was an unknown landscape, and he could not see how Frank would be able to find his own way back to the flat. His imagination worked overtime. The dog might get run over by a truck and would have to be carried off in a sack.
He continued to stare out of the window. No one was out in the cold and there were long stretches with no lights. When the bus finally stopped, he jumped off and started running back. He kept calling Frank Robert’s name. He zigzagged across paths and tracks and through small groves, but the small grey Shar Pei seemed to have vanished into thin air.
A girl appeared in the dark.
‘There’s a kennel up that road,’ she said. ‘They take all the strays there.’
She pointed as she told him this. Sejer started running again. He reached a building that looked like a barn, found the entrance, flung open the door and explained why he had come. A man took him to a large room. Sejer looked inside and his heart sank because he knew he would never be able to find Frank among this multitude of dogs. They were all Shar Peis and they were all grey.
He awoke with a start. He lay awake for a long time. How can I apply that, he wondered, what I have learned, my knowledge of grief and death? How much can words help? I could discover an explanation and give it to Yoo Van Chau, but that would not be enough. She wants it to make sense. What would she say if I were to tell her she had won first prize in life’s lottery? He switched on his lamp and looked down at the floor. Frank Robert was sleeping with his head on his paws.
CHAPTER 31
Axel turned up that Friday at six o’clock in a silver Nissan Micra.
‘What is that?’ Reilly said. He gawped at the small vehicle.
Axel patted the roof of the car. ‘It’s a rental car,’ he said. ‘The police have picked up my Mercedes and taken it to forensics.’
‘Why?’
‘It needs to be examined as part of their investigation,’ Axel explained. ‘We’ve got to make do with this.’
Reilly looked at the car dubiously. He was holding a bag. Inside it was a warm sweater. Wrapped in the sweater were the Koran and the Enfield revolver with six bullets in its chambers. At his feet stood a small travel kennel. The kitten peered nervously out through the bars.
‘Are you sure that’s a real car?’ Reilly said. ‘And not a Christmas decoration?’
‘Have you got the letter?’ Axel asked. ‘Give it to me. I want to have a look at the bloody thing.’
Reilly pulled the envelope from his back pocket.
Axel tore out the sheet and held it up to the light.
‘No self-respecting man would use this kind of stationery,’ he said. ‘This is a woman’s writing paper.’
He folded the sheet, put it in his pocket and opened the boot. Reilly placed his bag next to Axel’s backpack and a cardboard box of groceries.
He left the kennel with the kitten on the back seat.
After a few kilometres the kitten started to drool.
‘He’s travel-sick,’ Reilly explained.
‘Is he going to throw up?’ Axel frowned.
‘If he does, he’ll only throw up inside the cage,’ Reilly said, ‘and I’ve lined it with newspaper.’
Axel braked and turned into a Shell petrol station. ‘I forgot something,’ he said. ‘Won’t be a minute.’
He disappeared into the shop and returned with a carrier bag. Reilly heard him open the boot and rummage around. Then he was back behind the wheel.
‘I’ve bought some great food,’ he said. ‘Free-range pork.’
‘What kind of pork is that?’ Reilly asked.
‘From pigs that have been reared out in the open. They’ve never been confined in crates with other pigs.’
Reilly wondered if Axel might be having a laugh at his expense.
‘You want me to believe it tastes better than any other pork?’
‘Of course. A free pig is a happy pig, and a happy pig is a tasty pig.’
‘Now I get it,’ Reilly said. ‘A happy pig is a more expensive pig. And we can’t tell the difference anyway.’
‘I can,’ Axel said. ‘Pigs in crates can’t even turn around. They spend their whole lives standing up, crammed together, biting each other.’