‘So why did he kill her?’ Gjerstad says.
Bjarne expels the air from his lungs hard.
‘I don’t know. But the killer appears to have been angry with her. Killing her wasn’t enough. He also had to whack knitting needles into her eyes. But Erna Pedersen had dementia and dementia sufferers have poor short-term memory. Things from the past, however, are crystal clear.’
Bjarne looks across to Sandland who nods.
‘Is it possible that the killer tried to make her remember something from the past? The missing school photo could suggest that. And since he ended up killing her, it’s tempting to think that she hurt him a long time ago.’
‘So we’re talking about an ex-pupil of hers?’ Fredrik Stang says. ‘Since the missing picture was a school photo, I mean?’
‘It could be anyone, really. A pupil, a colleague, an angry family member or an enraged neighbour who cared about the person or persons Pedersen had harmed.
Bjarne’s mouth is dry from talking so he sips some water. He studies the faces in the room for signs that his arguments have swayed anyone. He has no sense of whether he has been successful.
‘But there are aspects of the killer’s MO that match in both cases,’ he continues. ‘And if we treat the murder of Erna Pedersen as a clumsy first attempt, then the killing of Johanne Klingenberg suggests that this time the killer had much more control over his actions. It might mean that murdering Erna Pedersen was what got him started.’
‘So you’re saying we could be dealing with a serial killer?’ Nøkleby asks. She sounds sceptical.
Bjarne looks at her for a few seconds before he replies. His voice sounds a little more feeble than he intended: ‘Possibly.’
He scans the room for support and receives a nod from Gjerstad. Nøkleby follows shortly.
Bjarne is pleased with his reasoning, but two questions immediately present themselves. Why did the killer damage the picture of Erna Pedersen’s son and the little boy whose picture Johanne Klingenberg had on her wall? And if they really are dealing with a serial killer who has now finished warming up – might their friends and relatives be his next victims?
Chapter 53
Once he killed a bird with his bare hands. The feeling of life ebbing away between his fingers made his heart beat faster, but it never came close to a thrill. Neither did suffocating the neighbour’s cat, which had strayed into their house and refused to leave.
He was home alone that day, sick under the duvet and watching videos on the sofa; there was no way he would tolerate the presence of a cat, which would stink up the whole house with its pee. So he tossed the duvet over it and trapped it. And even though he had a temperature, he experienced the intoxicating sensation of being master of life and death.
But in neither of those instances had he seen the actual death, observed the precise moment when the spark is extinguished and time stops. He thought he might see it with the fish he caught down on Vippetangen where all the East Europeans go to fish, when he held the slippery creatures, alive and wriggling, before slowly twisting their necks. He saw the blood and felt their frantic death throes between his fingers, but there was never any change in the eyes of the fish. He never saw them die.
He didn’t have time to see it in the eyes of that old bat, either. She was dead before the veil lifted and he could see clearly again.
But now he has seen it. And now he understands.
This is what it’s all about. This is what he has been looking for.
And he can’t stop thinking about the light that faded from her eyes when she looked at him, pleading. It was as if the light travelled into him and started radiating from his own eyes and illuminated the path that lay in front of him. The path he had been wandering recently suddenly felt clearer and wider. He felt a sense of purpose. Something inside him slotted into place.
For that reason he is going home.
For the last time.
When he was a boy, he liked travelling by train. He also liked watching them. Before taking their bicycles across the level crossing they always had to look right and left and then right again. Or perhaps it was the other way around. The coolest and scariest thing he knew was standing on the platform on Nordby Station, as close to the tracks as possible, waiting for the trains to whizz by. And when they did, it was so loud, so powerful and with so much air passing right in front of him that he almost lost his balance.
He looks out at the small village of his childhood, which is no longer small. Everything has changed. The houses, the people, cars; he feels at home, but at the same time not. Everything is bigger, everything is different. He is different.
Some passengers get off, others get on. The doors close and the train moves on. He doesn’t feel like leaving the train at the next station; he would prefer to stay where he is and watch the world go by, watch autumn settle over the rooftops and colour the sky. But he can’t do that, either.
The train slows down again and he gets off at Nordby Station. Nor is this place anything like he remembers it. Gone is the old station building where they wrote rude graffiti, misspelt because they hadn’t quite mastered double consonants yet. The new building is bigger and made from glass. Even the platform has been replaced. Wooden boards have turned into concrete.
He walks past Østafor Care Home where she would probably have lived now, the old crone, in her retirement, had she stayed here. She could have sat on the veranda and watched the trains go past. Perhaps they would have made her forget about fractions.
A few minutes later he stands outside the door to his childhood home. It has been a while since he last visited. Before he goes inside, he takes a look at the garden and remembers the shovel, the snow that whirled around them that day, the cave that collapsed on top of Werner and squeezed the life out of him. It happened so quickly, but even now, so many years later, it still makes the hairs on his neck stand up.
He opens the front door and enters; he sees how she jerks upright in the green leather Stressless armchair where she sits embroidering, a hobby of hers, but it doesn’t take long before her confusion turns to delight. And, for a brief moment, he thinks that this is exactly how it ought to be. That’s how people should react. This is what it feels like to be part of a normal family.
He wonders what kind of father he would have made; if his child would also have stood close to the tracks to watch the trains whizz by. If his son might have conquered his stutter and made something of himself. There must be qualities you pass on, surely, or traits, in the same way you pass on hair and eye colour. Perhaps Sebastian would have broken free, been his own man, his father’s direct opposite, the person he tried so hard to become when he was little? First he wanted to be a pilot; no, a butcher actually, he longed to look into the stomachs of dead animals. But then he wanted to be a hunter and later a professional football player. And then he stopped wanting to be anything at all.
She comes to greet him, her arms wide open and she pulls him close. And he stands there, he doesn’t put his arms around her, he just recognises the smell of her, the familiar smell of something sweet mixed with the aroma from the kitchen. Lamb and cabbage, black pepper and potatoes; the smell of stew usually makes his mouth water, but today it just makes him feel nauseous.
‘How nice that you were able to come after all,’ she practically shouts and holds him out away from her.