She was freezing, she should have worn warmer clothes. Dagny looked at the time again.
“Is it me you’re waiting for?”
Her heart stopped.
How in all the world had he managed to sneak right up on her without her seeing him coming?
She nodded.
“Are we alone?”
Dagny nodded again.
“Really? No one else has come to celebrate our marital covenant?”
Dagny opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out.
Svein Finne smiled. His thick, wet lips curled against his yellow teeth. “You need to breathe, darling. We don’t want our child to suffer brain damage from lack of oxygen, do we?”
Dagny did as he said. Breathed. “We need to talk,” she said in a shaky voice. “I think I’m pregnant.”
“Of course you are.”
Dagny only just managed to stop herself from pulling back when he raised his arm — and for a moment she saw the light from the lamp above the church door shine through the hole in his hand before he held it, warm and dry, against her cheek. She remembered to breathe, and swallowed. “We need to talk about practical matters. Can we go in?”
“In?”
“Inside the church. It’s cold out here.”
“Of course. We’re getting married, after all. No time to lose.” He ran his hand down the side of her neck. She had taped the tiny microphone onto her bra, between the cups, inside her thin sweater and coat. Hole had said they couldn’t be sure of getting a decent recording until she got him into the church, where they would be free of the background noise of the city, and where she would also have a reason to take off the sound-muffling coat. He wouldn’t be able to escape in there, and they would grab Finne as soon as they had enough evidence to get him charged.
“Shall we go in, then?” Dagny said, pulling away from his hand. She put her hands in her coat pockets and managed to summon up a visible shiver.
Finne didn’t move. He closed his eyes, leaned his head back and sniffed. “I smell something,” he said.
“Smell?”
He opened his eyes and looked at her again.
“I smell sorrow, Dagny. Desperation. Pain.”
This time Dagny didn’t have to pretend to shiver.
“You didn’t smell like that last time,” he said. “Have you had a visit?”
“A visit?” She tried to laugh, but all that emerged was a coughing sound. “Who from?”
“I don’t know. But there’s something familiar about that smell. Let me search my memory...” He put his finger under his chin. Frowned. Studied her. “Dagny, don’t tell me you’ve... You haven’t... have you, Dagny?”
“Have I what?” She tried to fend off the panic that was creeping up on her.
He shook his head sadly. “Do you read the Bible, Dagny? You know the parable of the sower? His seed is the word. The promise. And if the seed doesn’t take root, Satan will come and devour it. Satan will take away faith. Will take our child, Dagny. Because I am the sower. The question is, have you met Satan?”
Dagny swallowed, moved her head, wasn’t sure if she was nodding or shaking it.
Svein Finne sighed. “You and I, we conceived a child together in a precious moment of love. But perhaps you regret that now, perhaps you just don’t want a child. But you can’t go through with the cold-blooded murder of it as long as you know that it’s a real love-child, so you’re trying to find something that would make it possible for you to get rid of it.” He was talking loudly, and his soft lips were forming the words very clearly. Like an actor on stage, she thought. Using volume and diction so that every word was audible, even in the back row. “So you’re lying to your own conscience, Dagny. You tell yourself that that wasn’t what happened, that I didn’t want it, he forced himself on me. And you tell yourself that you can get the police to believe that. Because that man, that Satan, has told you that I have served time for other supposed rapes.”
“You’re wrong,” Dagny said, giving up any attempt to control the tremor in her voice. “Aren’t we going inside?” She could hear herself pleading.
Finne tilted his head to one side. Like a bird looking at its prey before it strikes. Almost contemplatively, as if it hasn’t quite decided whether or not to let its prey live. “A marital vow is a serious thing, Dagny. I don’t want you to enter into it lightly or act too hastily. And you seem... uncertain. Perhaps we should wait a little?”
“Can’t we talk about it? Inside?”
“Whenever I’m not sure,” Finne said, “I let my father decide.”
“Your father?”
“Yes. Fate.” He felt in his trouser pocket and pulled something out between his thumb and forefinger. Blue-grey metal. It was a dice.
“That’s your father?”
“Fate is the father of us all, Dagny. A one or a two means we get married today. Three or four that we wait until another day. Five or six means...” He leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “That you’ve betrayed me, and I’ll have to slit your throat here and now. And you’ll stand there dumb and obedient like the sacrificial lamb you are, and just let it happen. Hold out your hand.”
Finne straightened up. Dagny stared at him. There was no emotion in his eyes, or at least none that she recognised: no anger, no sympathy, no excitement, no nervousness, no amusement, no hate, no love. All she saw was will. His will. A hypnotic, commanding force that required neither reason nor logic. She wanted to scream. She wanted to run. Instead she held out her hand.
Finne shook the dice in his cupped hands. Then he quickly turned the lower hand and put it over Dagny’s palm. She felt his warm, dry, raw skin against hers and shuddered.
He took his hand away. Looked down at hers. His mouth stretched into a broad smile.
Dagny had stopped breathing again. She pulled her hand back. The dice was showing three black dots.
“See you soon, my darling,” Finne said, looking up. “My promise still holds.”
Dagny looked automatically at the sky, where the lights of the city were colouring the clouds yellow. When she looked down again Finne was gone. She heard a noise from one of the archways on the other side of the street.