"No, if I call, then I'll give my name. After all, I'm not doing anything wrong by calling. But it will make them go straight to his house."
"Well, they won't find him if he's at the hospital."
"They'll find him sooner or later. And what if I'm wrong?"
"It's good if you're wrong, I suppose," Einar said.
"I don't know. I don't know him that well either. He is very private, is Gunder. Doesn't say much. Could you call?"
Einar rolled his eyes.
"Me? No, I couldn't." He dismissed the idea. "You're the one who was involved in this."
Kalle put his cup on the counter.
"It's only a phone call," Einar said. "It's not the end of the world."
Once again there was the sound of Linda's shrill laughter. One of the journalists was standing bent over the girls' table.
"I'll think about it," Kalle said.
Einar lit a cigarette. He watched the journalists in animated conversation with Linda and Karen. Then he opened the door to his office. A tiny room where he could take a break or could sit and do his bookkeeping. Behind the office was a cold-storage room where he kept the food. He opened this door, too. For a while he stood, at a loss, staring into the narrow room. His anguished eyes rested on a large brown suitcase.
Chapter 7
The press descended like flies, behaving as though they owned the whole village. They were on the prowl, their mouths their weapons. Every one of them had their own point of view and an original headline which no-one else had thought of. They took dramatic photographs, which showed nothing at all because they had not been allowed close to the scene of the crime. Nonetheless, they had crawled on their stomachs and focused in on it through the rushes and the grass with their camera lenses. So that man's incomprehensible inhumanity to man could be portrayed in the form of white tarpaulin with a few withered flowers in the foreground. They had a huge talent for empathetic facial expressions and they perfectly understood people's need for their fifteen minutes of fame.
The young certainly appreciated the excitement. At last we've got something to look at, said Karen. Linda preferred the ones in uniform, reporters are so scruffy, she complained. They had stopped giggling. Both had acquired an expression of mature horror. They discussed the awful murder in subdued voices and were emphatic in their conviction that it could not have been committed by anyone from the village. They had lived there all their lives, after all, and knew everyone.
"Where were you around nine o'clock last night?" one of the journalists asked them. He watched their young faces as they retraced the hours.
"I was with her," Linda said, pointing at Karen.
Karen nodded. "You left at a quarter to nine. Why nine o'clock?" she said.
"The murder is supposed to have happened around nine o'clock," the reporter told them. "A shopkeeper who lives near the crime scene has said that he heard faint cries and the revving of an engine. Halfway through the evening news."
Linda was saying nothing. You could tell that she was trawling through a myriad of thoughts. Then it came to her, what they had been giggling so foolishly about just now. When she had ridden home from Karen's, she had passed the meadow at Hvitemoen. She was back there now in her mind. Zooming along noiselessly on her bike. She had spotted a car parked on the roadside and had to swerve. Then she had glanced at the meadow and seen two people there. They were running after each other like in some giddy game, it was a man and a woman. He had caught her and pushed her over. She had seen arms and legs flail about violently and was suddenly really shaken because she had known at once what she was seeing. Two people who clearly wanted to have sex. Quite explicitly, in the open while she was going by on her bike and could see everything. She was both embarrassed and aroused at the sight, while feeling cross at the same time because she was still a virgin. A fear that she might die an old maid had nagged her for a long time. That was why she made sure she always behaved as if she was up for it. But those two people! Linda thought it through. The journalists were waiting. A disturbing idea came to her. What if they had not been playing at all? What if he was trying to catch her, if what she had seen was not a game, but the actual murder? It didn't look like a murder, though. The man ran after the woman. The woman fell. Arms and legs. Suddenly she felt nauseous and gulped down her soft drink.
"You passed Hvitemoen on your bike?" the journalist said. "About nine o'clock?"
"Yes," Linda said. Karen noticed the change in her and recognised the seriousness of it because she knew Linda well.
"It's an awful thought. Perhaps it happened just afterwards."
"But you didn't see anything? Along the road or in the vicinity?"
Linda thought about the red car. She shook her head decisively.
"Not a living soul," she said.
"If you did think of something, you should call the police," the journalist said.
She shrugged and became uncooperative. The two men got up and eased the straps of the camera equipment over their shoulders. Glanced sideways towards Einar at the counter. Karen leaned forward across the table.
"Imagine if that was them!" Her voice was trembling.
"But the people I saw were doing something else!" Linda objected.
"Yes, but perhaps they had sex first and then he killed her afterwards. That's quite common, isn't it?"
Linda now had something momentous to think about.
"I think you should call," Karen said.
"I hardly saw anything!"
"But if you think about it? Perhaps you'll remember more after a while?"
"There was a car on the road."
"There you are!" Karen exclaimed. "They're interested in cars. Any type of car which was in the vicinity. They're mapping all movements in the area. What make of car was it?"
"A red one."
"You don't remember anything else?"
"I was busy swerving to avoid it," Linda said.
"But what did you see then? What did they look like?"
"I don't remember. A man and a woman."
"But pale or dark, fat or thin. Things like that?"
"Dunno," Linda said. They were silent for a moment. Einar was at work behind the bar.
"But how about the car? If you think about it. Old or new. Big or small?"
"Not very big. Paintwork was quite nice. Red anyway."
"Is that all you can remember?"
"Yes. But if I saw one like it, I'd recognise it. I think."
"I think you should call," Karen said again. "Talk to your mum, she'll help you."
Linda pulled a face at the idea. "Couldn't we ring together? What if I say something stupid? Do I have to give them my name?"
"Dunno. You won't say something stupid. They'll just note down what you say and compare it with other stuff they know. If more people have seen a red car, they'll start looking for a red car. Something like that."
Linda was still stricken by doubt. Caught between the desire actually to have seen something and the fear of deluding herself. All the same, it was tempting. "The police have a key witness in the Hvitemoen case. The witness spotted a car and we now have a partial description of two people seen in the area."
What had they in fact looked like? She remembered something blue, dark blue perhaps, and something white. The man wore a white shirt. The woman was dressed in something dark. She wanted to go home and watch the news.
"I have to think about it," she said.
Karen nodded. "Before you call you need to write everything down so you know what you want to say. They'll probably ask you a lot of questions. Where you were coming from, where you were going, and what you saw. What time it was."
"OK," Linda said. "I'll write it all down."
They emptied their glasses and shouted "See ya" to Einar. His expression told them he was miles away.
Gunder had let go of Marie's hand. He was sleeping soundly now, his chin resting on his chest. He was dreaming of Poona. Of her smile and the large white teeth. He dreamt of Marie as a little girl, considerably chubbier then. While he was sleeping, the door opened and two nurses rolled in a bed. Gunder woke up and blinked in confusion.