This reminiscence could equally well have emanated from a book he had read, or a film he had seen a long time ago. The drawer in the bedside table on her side was not properly closed. Naked, he got up and walked around the bed. No earrings, no rings left behind on the table top. He was about to close the drawer properly when he spotted something. He pulled out the drawer. It was a book. Poetry. Her book. The one she often had her nose in. For a brief instant he saw himself coming into the bedroom from the bathroom: Elisabeth naked on the bed, her chin supported by her arms; she looked up at him and closed the book.
Her book. The images were no longer faded. It was like holding a fragment of Elisabeth between his hands. He perched on the bed, excited by his discovery.
He opened the book with trembling hands. There was a bookmark. The sight of it caused a shiver to run down his spine. It was an embroidered bookmark – delicate – white silk with black designs embroidered in tiny stitches. The image the signs formed gave him a shock. It was the same motif as Elisabeth’s tattoo. He moved the bookmark to one side and read:
I forget no one
pain also passes
along a snapped twig
I forget no one
if I kiss you
He sank back down onto the bed. The words evoked their decisive encounter: the evening she had followed him home. The crush on the Metro, the sound of footsteps on the tarmac, the image of her silhouette against the street lamp. He could feel her warm breath on his cheek.
He flicked back. The words were the last verse of a long poem written by the deceased lesbian writer, Gunvor Hofmo.
He read the first verse of the poem:
I have lost my face
In these wild rhythms
Only my white body dances
Was that how she saw herself? A body without a face? He read again: ‘I forget no one if I kiss you’. The image of Elisabeth dissolved as he read. Had she left the book on purpose? Or had she simply forgotten it? A replica of Elisabeth’s tattoo, so peculiar to her, and unlike anything else, an intimate signature taken from her body, placed over the sentence she had used to initiate their relationship – I forget no one if I kiss you.
He could hear Gunnarstranda’s voice in his head: long bones. The words were immediately drowned by the noise of the crackling flames in his head. An image: a gigantic bonfire, a house aflame, a glowing heat, window panes exploding. Nothing else visible except the contours of a body enveloped in flames. Zooming in. The contours materialize into flesh – flesh blistering, melting, body fat hissing, burning with a yellow flame until it is carbon. His thoughts stood still, paralysed by the vision until he began to feel the book in his hands again.
If they were Elisabeth’s remains in the ashes of Reidun Vestli’s weekend chalet, if Elisabeth was dead, how was he ever going to recover?
He read the poem again. New images in his consciousness: him in the act of making love, a long time ago, the image duller, no colours. Elisabeth putting down the book and saying it wasn’t possible to read the same book twice.
Then he knew: it was about an old love. The sentence referred to one person in particular. He stood up and gazed blindly out of the window: Elisabeth initiating a relationship with him back then had to mean betraying someone else. But whom had she betrayed? Reidun Vestli? Could it be so simple? No, it couldn’t. This was about forgetting. This was something from the distant past. But who was it she didn’t want to forget?
And who was unable to answer? Her brother was dead. Reidun Vestli – dead. He weighed the embroidered bookmark in his hand. Embroidery. A motif tattooed on Elisabeth’s hip. There was a chance that someone had seen this tattoo before.
After a long shower and some breakfast, he switched on the computer and logged onto the net, Yellow Pages, Tattooists, Search. The list of outlets was long: Purple Pain in Heimdal, Odin’s Mark in Lillestrøm, Ow! Tattoo and Piercing in Bergen, Hole in One in Bodø. He narrowed the search down to the Oslo region and printed out the list. He looked at it. Almost like working as a cop again. A house-to-house job.
Perhaps he should do that? Report back to work and continue the investigation as part of his job? He dismissed the thought, left his flat and went down to his car.
It was a trek, in and out of tattoo parlours, walls covered with kitsch – motorbikes, skulls, sword and flames, roses, scorpions. In most of the places young girls were lying on their stomachs having a decoration tattooed onto the small of their backs. In others they lay on their backs and had roses or calligraphic symbols on their groins and thighs. One man wanted a crown of thorns around his arm; another wanted the name Leif Ericson on his leg. The routine was repeated: first of all, Frank Frølich showed the photograph of Elisabeth, then the bookmark with the unusual motif on. It looked like crow’s feet: strange lines with curls on. He didn’t find anything remotely similar. Many of the tattooists supplied photographs of their body decorations. Most of the practitioners looked like followers of the motorbike culture. But not a nibble anywhere.
In between visits, he stayed at home continuing the search on the net. He searched the words from the poem, a variety of word combinations, but without success. It was while he was going through the list on the printout for the third time that his eye was caught by a business called the Personal Art Tattoo Studio. What was special about the shop was that it was located in Askim.
It was a shot in the dark, but Jonny Faremo’s body was found there – in Askim. He might as well try there as anywhere.
He got ready, picked up his car keys and took the lift down. Out on the street, he breathed in the damp, heavy air. It had turned mild again. It wasn’t raining, but the air was full of vapour, a grey moist consistency, tiny drops of water, hovering in the mist and gently, ever so gently, floating to the ground.
After getting in the car, he took a wrong turn and ended up driving towards Olso city centre instead of towards Ski. So he headed for Simensbråten, went up Vårveien, over the hump and turned right, down Ekebergveien. He braked just before Elisabeth’s apartment block. A sudden impulse almost made him come to a complete halt. You aren’t dead. I refuse to believe that. It was pathetic, but the emotion was strong. He was certain she was there, in her flat. He reversed into the car park, got out and ran down the steps to the Faremo apartment. The door hadn’t been sealed. He stood gasping for breath. And rang. Not a sound. He rang again, listened and knocked. The apartment was dead.
But there were sounds coming from the neighbouring flat. He turned towards the adjacent door. The sounds from behind it died away. He went over and rang the bell. The sound of feet. A shadow flitted across the peephole in the door. More seconds ticked past until the chain rattled and the door was opened.
‘Nice to see you again,’ Frølich said.
The old man stared at him. His lips were quivering; his face was distorted into a grimace with a fixed squint into a sun long since disappeared.
‘We met a few days ago. I was making enquiries about Elisabeth Faremo. You said she had packed a rucksack and had gone away. You’ve spoken to the police about the same conversation. Do you remember me?’
The man nodded.
‘I was wondering about something,’ Frank Frølich said. ‘You’ve lived here longer than the Faremos, haven’t you?’
The man nodded again.
‘Do you know how long they lived together here? Did they move in at the same time?’
‘Why -?’ The man spluttered and found his voice. ‘Why are you here asking questions?’
Frølich chewed that one over. In the end he said: ‘For personal reasons.’