Bad Intentions (11 page)

"We were walking down the road," Axel said. "We were in the middle of a conversation. My dad was quite talkative; he always had something to say, an opinion about something or other. A point of view. Suddenly he shot off to the left and then he simply ran into the ditch headfirst. I've never seen anything so terrifying. It was like the air going out of an inflatable toy. All I could think about was the stinging nettles. He was wearing a shortsleeved shirt. When I bent over, I noticed his jaw had slackened, it was disgusting. On one side. Do you know what I mean?"

Reilly knew. He saw Axel touch his jaw. He moved to the wall for support. The drugs he had taken were making him dizzy.

"His face was completely distorted," Axel said. "I didn't know what was happening, so I phoned for help. It was a long wait. I couldn't get anything out of him. I just squatted down in the sun thinking that someone had beaten him up. Because that's what it looked like. Someone had given him a beating that he would never recover from. I didn't know exactly what had happened, but I was certain of this: he had been destroyed. He was gurgling and waving one hand as though he wanted me to go away. I didn't know what to do and I couldn't bear to look at him. I had to get up and walk a little way down the road, but I kept hearing the noises he was making. Then they came to get him. They rolled him onto a stretcher and later into a bed. That was the last time we had a conversation."

"But he does make sounds?" Reilly tried. Gravity making its way through his drug-induced haze.

"Yes, but they're completely meaningless," Axel interrupted him. "Just gurgling and grunting. It would be better if he would just shut up. I can hardly bear to look at him, either. I don't even know if he is pleased to see me. I don't think so. I don't think he gives a damn. Everything about it is embarrassing. It's humiliating and revolting. He needs help with everything. From strangers."

"Does he know who you are?" Reilly asked cautiously.

"Yes."

"How do you know?"

"He starts to cry."

Axel paused. The pain hammered away at his jaw and he was about to be overcome by a violent attack of self-pity.

"He's been lying in that bed for four years," he said.

"Mm," Reilly sighed.

"He's got bedsores," Axel said. "Lots of them. They're really deep."

Reilly nodded for the second time. He had never seen bedsores because his job was moving beds around, but he understood that if you spent years lying in a warm bed, then your skin would not get the circulation that it needed, especially not where the skin was stretched tightly across the bones. It grew red and tender and eventually tiny cracks would form. That was how he imagined it.

"They're deep," Axel repeated. "His body is riddled with holes and the holes have turned into long tunnels."

Reilly's eyes widened. He visualized the long tunnels through the haze, and he began to feel queasy.

"It's like an eel has bored through him," Axel said, "and it's no use closing the sores, they're too big. I was there once when they changed his bandages. They stank of decay. He's completely perforated. Like a worm-eaten apple."

"What's this really about?" Reilly asked. "You're completely manic."

"Infected wisdom tooth."

"Christ Almighty. Does it hurt?"

"Like hell," Axel replied.

"You might have told me straightaway," Reilly said. "Instead you go on about your perforated dad."

Axel groaned. "I just wanted to make a point," he said. "My dad did everything right. His whole life. Because he believed it would lead to something good. But I've learned my lesson. I don't owe anyone anything. I reserve the right to make my own rules. I've never signed any contracts and I've never made any promises. I could do the right thing my whole life, but no one would reward me for it."

"I'm not sure where you're going with this," Reilly stuttered.

"I'm not going anywhere," Axel barked. "I can give everything I own to a poor man in Africa, and the next second I might get run over by a truck. That's how it is and we have to accept it. So don't ask me to make moral decisions! And don't you whine on about Jon!"

Reilly opened his mouth to say something, but Axel went on, his eyes shining.

"Don't you dare quote the Koran!" he yelled.

Reilly pulled a chair over to the window. Axel had a view of the river. They saw a tanker move slowly, its lights on. A long silence followed Axel's bitter rant.

"What do you think it's carrying?" Reilly asked and pointed.

Axel massaged his jaw and said nothing.

"Chemicals, probably," Reilly mused.

"I don't give a damn about its cargo," Axel said. "For all I care it could be chocolate mice."

"The crews of chemical tankers become sterile," Reilly said. "They never have kids. By the way, we don't import chocolate mice," he added, "we make our own. It's Nidar, isn't it, who makes the mice?"

Axel focused on his breathing. He knew that oxygen was important when it came to pain management. "I need to talk to Hanna Wigert," he said. "I need to know if she suspects anything. I need to be in control."

"We lost that in December," Reilly said.

Axel swallowed a large mouthful of red wine.

"It's worth keeping your eyes open," he said. "And then there's Molly. I don't trust her either. Girls like her have a vivid imagination. And fantasies can turn into rumors."

Reilly shook his head in disbelief. "You had best take an axe and kill off all of Ladegården just to be on the safe side. Cut them down. Right at the root. Best kill Ingerid, too, she's probably reading Jon's diary this very minute."

Again he looked out at the huge ship. The child in him marveled that it was possible for thousands of tons to float. Axel would explain in his usual way that it was a matter of even weight distribution, it was always about that. Also, when you move through enemy territory, he would say, it's a question of putting your feet down with care.

"I'd like to work on a boat," Reilly said. "Being in constant motion, under the sky, seeing new cities, new landscapes. Standing on the top deck at night and gazing at the stars. The feeling of floating, drifting, not being tied to anything. They earn good money too. Not that I care about that."

Here he glanced at Axel. "'Better starve free than be a fat slave,'" he said.

"I'm starting to get fed up with the Koran," Axel said.

"It's not from the Koran. It's just an old proverb."

They fell silent. Reilly savored the gentle haze that filled his head and made him feel brave and brimming with confidence. The drugs dulled his conscience, and he became generous and indulgent toward himself. I haven't really done anything wrong, he thought, I'm a victim. Of circumstance. I damn well am. He looked out at the river again. Then he burst out laughing at the idea that the huge ship might be loaded with chocolate mice after all. He imagined the mice escaping through the packaging and darting around the hold, crawling around the boat and spilling out onto the deck while the crew pressed themselves against the rail and watched the invasion.

"Could you keep it down, please," Axel said. "I'm in pain."

Reilly calmed down and felt remorseful.

"I'm really sorry about your dad," he said.

Axel ignored him. Reilly kept looking at the tanker. Her slow progress, her beauty and elegance on the gray water mesmerized him.

"I've never laid a hand on anyone in my life," Axel said out of the blue. "Not on Jon, or anyone else."

Reilly wanted to reply, but the drugs had made him sluggish and he was incapable of formulating a sentence.

"Have I ever laid a hand on anyone?" Axel asked.

"Not really sure," Reilly mumbled.

"Not really sure?" Axel said. "What sort of an answer is that?!"

But Reilly kept his mouth shut. When Axel lost his temper, it was best to lie low for a while.

A wide, frothing stream flowed into Glitter Lake, and on the bank a woman was watching the sky. She was one of those people whom life had treated well, so she had a little smile at the corner of her mouth. It came naturally to her. Behind her lay a hill surrounded by dense vegetation and farther away a small sandy beach. She was sitting on a rock. Next to her was a canvas bag in which she kept a watercolor block, paints and brushes. She got water from the lake. Glitter Lake was a pretty landscape. She had an eye for detail and she was absorbed by the light which changed constantly as the clouds were driven across the sky by a mild breeze. From time to time the sun would break through, and she would close her eyes, relishing its warmth. There was a green and black whirlpool where the stream poured into the lake, and the churning water had created a wide tuft of foam. A gnarled root from a tree stuck out of the whirlpool. This foreground constituted the subject. The root which had anchored itself in the mud was almost a sculpture in itself. She decided to tone down the cloud formations lest they distort the balance of the composition. The focal point should be low, the sky should play second fiddle. She placed the pad in her lap and started outlining the scene with a soft pencil, and anyone looking over her shoulder
would have seen that she was a skilled artist. She did not hesitate for a second. There was a direct link between her eyes and her hand. While she worked, she enjoyed all the elements as different voices in an orchestra: the wind, the roaring water and the scent of grass. The whirlpool, she thought, it looks like a well, and the big tuft of foam looks like the cream on an Irish coffee. The root resembles an arm with an accusing finger. She imagined it was pointing to something far out in the lake. Look, it was saying, look out there! She stared with one hand shielding her eyes, but she saw nothing, only the glittering surface from which the lake took its name. She continued to draw. The smile at the corner of her mouth remained, she was so pleased with it all, with the lake and her own talent.

When she had finished sketching the scene, she went down to fill a plastic cup with water, and then she mixed colors in the lid of her watercolor box. Sounds from the forest reached her: a dove, a woodpecker at a tree trunk. All the time her brush raced across the paper in quick, light strokes, the thin marten hairs created circles and waves, saturated with green and blue. She had been painting Glitter Lake for years. At home she had countless variations painted under different conditions and seasons. When the picture was finished, she rested it against a stone. She took a few steps back and assessed her own work with a clear, cool head. I'm a decent artist, she thought, and smiled at her own cheek. She saw that it was not perfect, the root sticking out of the whirlpool really did look like an arm, as though a body had floated by and got caught. She turned abruptly and stared across the water. No, it can't be, she thought. Nevertheless she went down to the water to investigate, gingerly stepping out onto some rocks and squatting down. In the slippery green and black she saw a tooth.

***

It was the body of a man, and he seemed to be of foreign origin. His long stay in the water had made his skin permeable and his body had bloated to almost twice its natural size. This made him look big and sturdy. In reality he was short and slender. He was wearing jeans and a thin windbreaker, and all they found in his pocket was a key attached to a bit of string. The key was made by TrioVing.

The report from the Institute of Forensic Medicine began as follows: male, possibly Asian, one hundred and sixty-seven centimeters tall. Teeth intact and in good condition with no fillings. No surgical scars, no tattoos, no moles, no broken bones. Age: under twenty. They had compared their findings to the missing persons register. And they were creating a DNA profile.

Sejer and Skarre were about to leave the office. They got their coats and Skarre fished out a jelly baby from a bag.

"I used to like the green ones best," he said, "but now I prefer the orange ones."

Sejer watched him as he munched the small gelatinous figure. "I imagine they all taste the same," he declared, "but, of course, you expect something different from a red jelly baby and a yellow one."

This statement made Skarre peer into the bag with a worried expression. "I need to work something out," he said.

"Why?"

"Because we've found a man in a lake. Do you follow?"

"I'm not a mind reader," Sejer remarked.

"It reminds me I'm going to die one day," Skarre said. "I'm going to die, but it doesn't worry me unduly."

Sejer shuffled through his papers and his eyes fell on the report from the Institute of Forensic Medicine.

"But then I think beyond that," Skarre continued. "Some years later those who knew me will die too, and then there won't
be anyone left to remember me. Or who'll visit my grave. Jacob Skarre? people will say. Never heard of him."

"That's very sad," Sejer agreed.

"And then we reach the worst part," Skarre said. "My grave will be reused. And I won't exist anywhere—not in other people's memories and not in the cemetery."

"Why are you tormenting yourself with such notions?" Sejer asked. "After all, you're a Christian. You're going to find eternal life."

"I doubt that," Skarre confessed.

"But the Bible says so," Sejer objected. "Do you simply pick bits and pieces and stick them together just as you please?"

"Yes," Skarre admitted. "That's how we do it." He slumped on to a chair.

"All of mankind will disappear too," Sejer said. "One day only insects will be left. And no one will know that we were ever here."

"But we were a great idea," Skarre said.

The telephone rang and he answered it. "Forensics," he said. "Snorrason."

Sejer took the receiver and grabbed a pen.

"I've got a preliminary autopsy report for you," Snorrason said. "I've examined his lungs. And it's hard to draw any definite conclusions after such a long time, but there is evidence to suggest he was dead when he fell in the water."

"Then we have a case."

"Probably."

"Any idea who he is?"

"Not so far. I'll let you know."

"Cuts? Bruises?"

"Doesn't look like it. I can find no internal or external injuries."