– Thank you, likewise, Anne Sofie Richter replied, and the dolly-sweet voice conjured up an image of her face in his mind. As though covered in wax; that was the impression he’d had when he visited them.
– My husband and I have talked a lot about what you called him about last Monday. We can’t remember that Ylva was ever interested in that television person.
Roar adjusted the mobile, which had slipped out of position. – Did she own any of his records?
– Not that we know of.
Anne Sofie Richter was silent for a few moments before continuing. – I did send you that list of the activities Ylva was involved in at school and in her spare time.
– We’re very grateful for that, Roar assured her. – We’ve certainly found it useful, in some ways.
– But did you find anything there?
He was negotiating a narrow bend in the Store Ringvei; the road was slippery and a Nor-Cargo trailer laid itself up tight against his side. Had he been with the traffic police, he would probably have stopped the guy and given him a hefty fine. On the other hand, he wasn’t driving strictly by the book himself either, not with his back hunched and holding a mobile phone between his ear and his shoulder.
– I’m afraid I can’t comment on that at the moment.
– There’s one other thing I remembered.
He was entering the tunnel at Bryn and didn’t hear so well.
– I don’t think it’s of any importance… he made out before he had to drop his speed to get daylight between himself and the trailer.
– Importance?
She carried on talking. The sound from the Nor-Cargo monster echoing along the tunnel walls was like a brass band from hell.
– Everything is important, he yelled to Anne Sofie Richter. – Just one moment. He dropped the phone and took the turn-off directly after the tunnel, pulled into a layby and switched on his warning light.
– Everything is important, he repeated. – I’d like to hear what you have to say.
It took a couple of seconds for her voice to return at the other end.
– Something happened once. It was so long ago I didn’t write it down on the list I sent you.
– How long ago?
– In the late summer of 1996. Or early autumn. We were on a week’s holiday in Greece.
Roar grabbed a pen and an envelope from the glove compartment.
– How do you spell that? So that’s Ma-kri-gialos. On Crete. What happened?
– One evening when we went back to our apartment after a meal out, we found a kitten. Someone had hung it on a rope that was tied to our door. One side of its head was completely crushed. And then the eyes… It was unpleasant, the boys were small. We didn’t sleep very well after that. My husband reported it, but you know, the police down there weren’t exactly…
Dead cat, Roar had noted. Hanging from the door.
– Of course I realise this can’t have any connection with what happened later, but you did mention holidays and so on and unpleasant experiences.
– What did you say about the eyes?
– It was my husband who saw it, I couldn’t bear to look at the poor creature. But apparently both eyes were cut to pieces.
Roar started tapping his pen against the envelope. – Now tell me everything you remember about that episode. Absolutely everything.
– I’ve just told you all there was.
– What about Ylva?
– She was furious. We had a cat of our own in those days. And then she said something…
When Anne Sofie Richter didn’t say any more, Roar urged her to continue: – Then she said something?
– It was something about one of the boys there. Someone her own age. She thought he was odd and did all she could to avoid him. I don’t know what it was about, but as soon as she heard about that cat, Ylva said she knew who had done it. We asked her about it, and that’s when she said this about that boy. But it was just something she believed, she hadn’t seen or heard anything. He was in the apartment next to ours. A terrible family that got drunk and made scenes and left the kids to fend for themselves. I’ve never seen anything worse, not anywhere…
– Can you remember the boy’s name?
– It was something short, like Roy or Bo.
– And the family, can you remember anything more about them?
She couldn’t, and he assured her that it wasn’t surprising after more than twelve years.
– But I spoke to my husband and he thought he might remember. You know how it is, when people stand out from the crowd in that sort of way, some kind of nasty association attaches itself to the family name. We tend to remember them better than other people.
There was no more room on the envelope. Roar found a parking ticket in the door pocket and scribbled down suggestions for the surname Ylva Richter’s father had offered. For almost half a minute after the end of the conversation he sat staring at one of them in particular. Then he picked up his mobile again and began a directory search.
5
A WIND HAD got up. Liss had been sitting for a long time staring into the fire. An hour, maybe more. The fire had gone out, but it was so warm in the little room that she didn’t feel the need to put on more logs.
The embers changed all the time, a brilliant orange that gave way to black, then glowed up again. A picture appeared, she didn’t know if it was a memory. They’re sitting like this in front of the fire, Mailin and her, one on each knee. There’s a little man standing between the logs. It was her father’s voice. A gnome? Yes, a tiny little humpy-backed one. He keeps puffing and blowing on the embers, because once they go out, he’ll be gone for ever.
She picked up the wine bottle again, tried to force the cork down into the neck. Gave up and went out into the kitchen, climbed up on a chair and found a couple of miniatures at the back of the top cupboard. One was vodka, the other egg liqueur, half full. She had never liked vodka but transferred the tiny amount into a glass. The taste was nauseating, but it felt good as it etched its way down her throat and into her stomach. Afterwards she dug her bag of food out of the rucksack. A packet of crispbread, an apple; she couldn’t stand anything on the crispbread. Leaned against the kitchen surface and ate, washed it down with the rest of the vodka. Listened to the sound of the rye as it broke and was crushed between her teeth, and the wind that periodically tried to make its way down the chimney.
Suddenly she began to doubt what it was she had actually found in the book hidden at the back of the shelf. She fetched it and settled down once again in the chair in front of the fireplace. On the back cover were a few lines about the author. Sándor Ferenczi had struggled against professional hypocrisy. Then something about him being sensitive and self-critical. Liss flipped through it for the fourth or fifth time. No underlining or notes in the margin. It looked almost as if the book was a recent purchase. Mailin had brought it with her to read here.
She came to that page somewhere near the middle in which a few letters had been written in the space below the print. She lifted the lamp and again studied the sloped handwriting: Ylva and Jo. The letters were smudged, probably written with charcoal from the fire. Suddenly she had an image of her sister’s dead body in the Chapel of Rest at the Riks Hospital. The pale, waxy skin, the wrinkled hands, the thumb and index finger of the right hand blackened with soot. That was what had happened: Mailin had been sitting in this same seat that day, just before she was murdered. She’d picked up a piece of charcoal from the fireplace… Liss turned the page. There was the rest of what her sister had scrawled: Ylva Richter and Johannes Viljam Vogt-N.