She poured powder into the washing machine and pressed the button.
So we hadn’t seen one another for nearly twenty-five years. I met her at Glassmagasinet, I’d been to the paint shop and exchanged a canister of fixative. We went to the café on the first floor and had coffee.
She went into the kitchen and filled the sink with water.
And we talked about the old days, the way girls do. Did I know she was a prostitute? Well, she did tell me that, as a matter of fact. She wasn’t ashamed of it either. She treated me to dinner, we went to Hannah’s Kitchen.
Eva squirted washing-up liquid in the sink and put glasses and cutlery into the hot water. The washing machine was slowly filling in the utility room.
After the meal I went back to her home. Yes, that’s right, we took a taxi. But I wasn’t there all that long. Oh yes, she talked about her clients, but she didn’t mention any names or anything. The painting?
Eva picked up a glass with a stem, held it up to the light, and began to wash it.
Yes, it’s my painting. Or rather, Maja bought it from me. For ten thousand kroner. But only because she felt sorry for me, I don’t think she really liked it. But then she hadn’t got much idea about art anyway. So the following evening I went round to deliver it, I took a taxi. I had a cup of coffee and left quite soon. She was expecting a client. Did I see him? No, no, I didn’t see anyone, I went before he arrived. I didn’t want to be there then.
She rinsed the glass under the tap and took another. It was frightening how many wine glasses had accumulated. The washing machine began to slosh. It was really fairly simple, she thought, as she’d obviously never be suspected of the murder itself. A woman doesn’t murder a friend, another woman. So they had no reason to suspect her at all. No one could prove what she’d seen.
But the money, which she’d taken...
She inhaled and tried to calm herself. Suddenly the full force of it shook her: she’d taken Maja’s money. Why on earth had she done that? Simply because she needed it? She was just picking up another glass when the doorbell rang. The ring was firm and authoritative.
No! It couldn’t be! Eva started so violently that she crushed the glass. Her hand began to bleed, the water turned red. She bent toward the window to peer out, but she couldn’t see who it was, only that someone was standing there. For goodness’ sake, who could possibly...
She raised her hand and wrapped a dishcloth around it so that blood wouldn’t drip on the floor. She went out into the hall, regretting that she’d chosen frosted glass for the narrow window next to the door, as it was impossible to see through it. Then she opened the door. A man was standing outside, very tall, slim and gray-haired, he seemed rather familiar. He resembled the man in the paper, the one who was leading the investigation, but surely it was too soon for that, it was only Friday morning after all, and there were limits to what they could discover in a single night, even though they’d certainly...
“Konrad Sejer,” he said. “Police.”
Her heart sank and landed in the region of her stomach. Her throat tightened with a little cluck, not a sound emerged. He stood motionless, staring inquiringly at her, and when she didn’t say anything, nodded at the dishcloth: “Has something happened?”
“No, I was just washing up.” She found it impossible to move her legs.
“Eva Marie Magnus?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
He gazed at her intensely. “May I come in?”
How has he managed to find me? In only a few hours, how the hell...
“Yes, of course, I was just a bit preoccupied with my hand, I’ll get a plaster. It was only a cheap glass, so it doesn’t matter, but I’m bleeding like a stuck pig and it’s so annoying when you get blood on the furniture and carpets. Impossible to get it off... police?”
She backed away, trying to remember what to say, it had all gone right out of her head now, but obviously he had to ask something before she could answer, the best thing was to say as little as possible, just answer the questions, not go cackling on like a hen about this and that, or he’d simply think she was nervous, which she was, but he mustn’t find that out.
They were in the living room.
“You deal with that hand first,” he said briskly. “I’ll wait here till you’re ready.” He studied her carefully, noted the split lip, which had swollen up.
She went to the bathroom, didn’t dare look at herself in the mirror in case she got a shock. She took a roll of plaster out of the medicine cabinet and cut off a bit, slapped it over the cut and inhaled deeply three times. Maja and I were childhood friends, she whispered. Then she returned.
He was still standing, so she nodded for him to sit. In the second he opened his mouth it struck her like a bolt of lightning that there was something she’d forgotten to work out, something critically important. She wanted to hurry and solve the problem, but it was too late, he’d already begun to speak now and she could no longer think.
“Do you know Maja Durban?”
She steadied herself on the chair back. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
“Has it been long since you saw her last?”
“No. It was — yesterday. Yesterday evening.”
He nodded slowly. “At what time yesterday?”
“Er, between six and seven I should think.”
“Did you know that she was found dead at her apartment at ten P.M. last night?”
Eva sat down, moistened her lips, and gulped. Did I know? she thought, have I heard already, this early in the morning... Suddenly she was staring right at the newspaper, front page up. “Yes. I saw it in the paper.”
He picked it up, turned it, and looked at the back. “Ah? You’re not on the mailing list, I see. No address label. So you go out and buy the paper early in the morning?”
There was something tenacious about him, he was the type who could get a stone to talk. She had no chance. “Well, not every single day. But quite often.”
“How did you know it was Ms. Durban who was killed?”
“What do you mean?”
“Her name,” he said quietly, “isn’t mentioned in the article.”
Eva felt she was about to faint. “Well, I recognized the building in the picture. And her window was marked. I mean I knew from the content of the article that it was Maja. She was a bit unusual. It says” — she leaned forward and pointed with her finger — “‘known to the police’ and ‘prostitution.’ And she was thirty-nine. So I knew it was her, I knew at once.”
“Uh-huh? And what did you think then? Once you realized she’d been murdered?”
Eva struggled manically to find the right words. “That she should have listened to me. I tried to warn her.”
He was silent. She thought he was going to continue, but he didn’t, he looked around the living room, studied her large paintings, not without a certain interest, and gazed at her again for a while, still without speaking. Eva felt herself sweating and her hand began to ache.
“You’d have got in touch with us, I assume, if I hadn’t come along here first?”