He tried to turn away.
– Brede? he asked.
– Your family’s here. Is that his name, your son?
Marlen slipped into the room and stopped just inside the door. Tom pushed her to one side and opened the door all the way. Then Bie appeared and closed it behind them. She was wearing her short jacket. The black leather looked soft.
Marlen ventured closer. She peered up at Axel’s face, dropped a bouquet of flowers on to the bed. She put something else there too, a sheet of paper, before taking a few steps back.
– Is it true that you fought with that bear? she whispered.
He moved his head carefully, tried to nod.
– I’ve done a drawing for you.
He picked it up. Animal shapes against a dark blue background, and a little yellow sun with something bright green in the middle of it.
– This is your eye in the sky, she explained, still whispering. – It’s a new star now. Right next to Cassiopeia.
– Come here, he said as distinctly as he could. – You too, Tom.
They stood by his bed. Tom had his arm around his little sister, as though making sure she didn’t run off.
– Daniel will be here soon, he said. – His plane lands in an hour. It was me who rang and asked him to come over.
Axel took his hand. He felt a burning sensation where his eye had been.
Bie still stood there, a little behind them. Her eyes were as hard as tiny sapphires.
– I’ll do the right thing, he said.
About Torkil Damhaug
Torkil Damhaug studied literature and anthropology in Bergen, and then medicine in Oslo, specialising in psychiatry. Having worked as a psychiatrist for many years, he now writes full time. In 2011 Torkil’s third Oslo Crime Files novel, FIRERAISER, won the Riverton Prize for Norwegian crime fiction – an accolade also awarded to Jo Nesbø and Anne Holt – and his books have been published in fifteen languages. He lives with his wife and children near Oslo.
There are four deeply dark thrillers to discover in Torkil Damhaug’s Oslo Crime Files series: MEDUSA, DEATH BY WATER, FIRERAISER and CERTAIN SIGNS THAT YOU ARE DEAD.
