Something frigid and raw gripped Eva with terrific force. She had fallen forward and lay on her stomach in the grass. The river rushed onward as before, completely indifferent. All was quiet. With amazement she registered a paralysis spreading slowly through her entire body, she couldn’t move a muscle, not even her fingers. She hoped someone would find them soon. The ground was wet and chilly and soon she began to feel cold.
31
She raised her head and found herself staring directly at a blue and white trainer, then further up his leg, and wondered why he hadn’t fallen. He looked ludicrous. As if he’d fallen asleep while inspecting the engine. But it was strange nothing had happened. People hadn’t come rushing up, there were no wailing sirens. Just the two of them, alone in the darkness.
No one had seen them. No one knew where they were, maybe not even that they were together.
She struggled to her feet, swaying slightly, and feeling sticky and wet. The distance from the car to the water might be ten or twelve meters and he wasn’t inordinately large, maybe seventy kilos. She weighed sixty, it should be possible. If he was carried by the current a bit before he was found, down toward the town, and if she moved the car, they wouldn’t locate the spot where he was killed, and where she’d certainly have left clues. She considered a while, surprised by her own clear logic, and approached the car. Carefully, she raised the bonnet and propped it up again. He remained suspended. She would have to touch him now, touch the slippery leather jacket with its large blotches of blood. Automatically closing her nostrils to any smell, she grasped his shoulders and tugged. He slid backward and fell like a sack across her feet. She pulled them from under him. He was lying on his back now. She bent over him, and all at once she had the idea of stealing his wallet from his jacket pocket. As if that would hamper them in establishing his identity. It was risible. Then she put a hand under each of his shoulders, turned, looked down at the bank, and began to haul.
He was heavier than she’d imagined, but the grass was wet, and he slid along in short spurts, his legs akimbo. She heaved twice and rested, twice and rested, and slowly she approached the water. After a while she halted and stared down at the pale crown of his head, before continuing. At last he was resting with his face in the water. She let go of him and tentatively dipped a foot in the water. It was shallow. She took another couple of steps, almost slipping on the slimy stones, but was still able to wade. Eventually the water rose above her boots and gushed icily down over her feet. Still she went a few steps further, stopping when the water reached to just above her knees, then returned to the bank. She grasped him once more and started dragging him into the strong current, and soon he began to float and lighten. She kept moving out into the river until she felt the current pressing dangerously against her legs, then she turned him around onto his stomach. The water rocked and lapped at him, and then he began to drift. The current carried him quickly. The back of his head was a light patch on the dark water. She stood with the water almost to her thighs and watched him, as if spellbound, and then suddenly something strange happened. One of his feet rose and his head disappeared beneath the water. It almost looked as if he’d dived. A slight bubbling could be heard over the steady rush, then he was gone.
She went on watching fixedly, expecting him to resurface, but the river flowed on and vanished into the darkness. Slowly she waded ashore, turned and had to look again. Then she went over to the car. Carefully she lowered the bonnet. She retrieved the torch and the wallet, opened the trunk. It was tidy and organized inside, she caught sight of a green beaver nylon boiler suit. She pulled it on. She was still wearing gloves, she’d had them on the whole time, and now she slipped into the driver’s seat. But she jumped out again, and began searching the grass. She found the sheath just in front of the car and stuffed it into her pocket. She heard a couple of cars on the road, so she waited before switching on the lights. When they’d passed, she put the car in gear and drove slowly through the small clump of trees. She put the heater on full and turned on to the road. Her feet were like two lumps of dead meat. Perhaps they’d find him as soon as it got light. Or perhaps, she thought, he’d got caught on something and been dragged under. It had certainly looked like that. As if his clothing or perhaps an arm had snagged something that was sticking up from the bottom, a tree, for example, that had toppled and fallen into the river, or something else, anything, and maybe he’d lie there billowing with the current until his bones were scoured clean by the water and the fish.
The car handled well, she thought, and she kept a steady speed toward the town. Each time she met an oncoming car she held her breath, as if they could see through the windshield at what had happened. When she’d crossed the bridge, she turned on to the motorway and drove towards Hovland and the rubbish dump. She would abandon the car there. They’d find it quickly, maybe even the following day, there was no point in trying to hide it forever. But this way they’d search the dump and waste time, search through the rubbish. And perhaps he’d float a long way, perhaps right out to sea and come ashore somewhere else, in some other town, and there’d be further searches in the wrong place, and time would pass and settle like dust over everything.
32
Sejer rose and walked to the window.
It was late at night. He searched for stars, but could see none, the sky was too light. At this time of year he often felt that they’d disappeared for good, that they’d left and gone to shine over another planet. The thought saddened him. Without the stars he didn’t have the same feeling of security, it was as if the earth no longer had a roof over it. And the sky simply went on and on forever.
He shook his head at his own thoughts.
Eva took the last cigarette out of the packet, she looked collected, almost relieved. “When did you know it was me?”
He shook his head again. “I didn’t know. I thought possibly there might be two of you, and that you’d been paid to keep your mouth shut. I really didn’t know what you wanted with Einarsson.” He went on staring out of the window. “But now I see,” he muttered.
Her face was calm and open, he’d never seen her like this before. Despite the swollen lip and the cuts to her chin, she was beautiful.
“You didn’t think I looked like a murderer?”
“No one looks like a murderer.” He sat down again.
“I didn’t plan to kill him. I took the knife with me because I was scared. No one will believe that.”
“Well, you must give us the chance.”
“It was in self-defense,” she said. “He would have killed me. You know that.”
He made no answer. Suddenly the words sounded so strangely familiar to her ears. “This man who pulled you down the cellar steps, what did he look like?”
“Dark, foreign. Rather slight, almost thin, but he spoke Norwegian.”
“It sounds like Cordoba.”
Eva started. “What did you say?”
“His name’s Cordoba, Ms. Durban’s husband. Jean Lucas Cordoba. Quite a name, isn’t it?”
Eva began to laugh, with her face hidden in her hands. “Yes,” she spluttered, “almost worth marrying just for the name, isn’t it?” She wiped away some tears and drew on her cigarette. “Maja got all sorts. Policemen, too, did you know that?”