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Authors: Karin Fossum

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BOOK: Bad Intentions
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Jon was lying on a stretcher. Never before had he looked so small, so defenseless. Reilly turned away and took a few steps toward the forest. Poor Jon. Consumed with guilt and shame. The next instant he felt bitter because he would have to bear this torment until the day he died. And even worse, it dawned on him, Ingerid Moreno would ask them to be pallbearers. From now on they would have to pretend. They would have to fake it for the rest of their lives, weigh up every single word, calculate every gesture, every glance.

He stopped and looked back. It was not easy to see that it was Jon lying on the stretcher, it was just a skinny carcass with the face of a stranger. How much death takes from us, he pondered—warmth, color and vitality. Now there is only wet, gray skin over sharp bones. Axel went over to the stretcher. He fell to his knees and mumbled a few words which the wind carried in Reilly's direction.

"Sorry, Jon, for not taking better care of you."

 

They were told to come to the police station.

Axel closed the windows in the cabin and Reilly cleared up the rooms. All the way back to town he sat with the cake tin on his lap as he fretted about what the police would do to them. Axel insisted it would be a mere formality. Everything would be over and done with in a matter of minutes.

"What more can we say apart from what we've already told them?" he said. "Jon went to bed around midnight and that was
the last we saw of him. We've just simplified events. They can't pin anything on us. What evidence is there?"

Reilly stroked the kitten. They did not talk much the rest of the way because ultimately no words could express what had happened.

Three hours later they parked outside the police station. They had to wait in reception. Again Reilly voiced his concerns about everything that could go wrong.

"It'll be fine," Axel reassured him. "It's a straightforward story. It's impossible to get it wrong."

Reilly became aware of two people crossing the room. One of them seemed familiar. He gripped Axel's arm.

"It's Ingerid," he whispered.

Reilly had known this was something they would have to get through, but it was happening sooner than he had imagined, and he hadn't had time to prepare himself. Ingerid Moreno was accompanied by a female police officer and now she spotted them. She collapsed and started sobbing. Axel shot up from his seat.

"We didn't know he was in such a bad way," he said. "If we had known, we would have taken better care. And if the hospital had known about his intentions, they would not have given him permission to leave for the weekend. Ingerid. Listen to me. None of us could have foreseen this."

Ingerid Moreno nodded and wiped away her tears. Reilly remained in his seat without saying anything. Ingerid did not appear to see him. She was caught in the light which always surrounded Axel. If Axel could act so convincingly, with such apparent sincerity, how often had he himself been deceived? What was the basis of their friendship? Was it all just one big lie, a star performance?

"You must come and visit me sometime," Ingerid pleaded. "We need to talk. Please."

"We'll come," Axel said. "There is so much we want to tell you. All the things we shared with Jon. Which you don't know about."

"Tell me he was a good boy," Ingerid begged. "Tell me that he was a good person."

"Yes," Axel Frimann said. "Jon was a good person."

 

"It's possible that Jon Moreno took his own life," Sejer said.

Axel and Reilly looked at him in amazement. His words were so unexpected that they gawped. Was he considering other options? Why would he do that? Was it an automatic response? Perhaps he instinctively thought they were dishonest because in the course of his work he was unaccustomed to meeting honest people? It struck them that this man never made assumptions, not even about an obvious suicide. And if he decided Jon's death had been a suicide, he would still want to know why it happened and if it could have been prevented. If Jon had tried to kill himself before, if there had been warning signs, if they had ever discussed the subject of death and what, if anything, Jon had expressed. Anxiety, relief, longing. If he was taking something in addition to his prescribed medication, if he had said anything during the evening which had made them wonder.

"Think back," he said. "Go through everything that happened. What about the drive there in the car: did something happen on the way, did you stop anywhere?"

They had not expected such attention to detail. Calmly and methodically Sejer worked through the events of the past two days and Skarre noted down everything that was said.

"In cases such as this," Sejer went on, "we follow a procedure. It consists of a series of questions. We will come back to you when we have more information such as the autopsy report, and after other friends and relatives have been interviewed."

Skarre had pushed his chair toward the wall. He exuded a boyish enthusiasm as though these routines had not yet started to affect or bore him.

"Let's talk about last night," Sejer said. "His last hours. Was he in a particular mood or had anything about him changed?"

"It was a quiet evening," Axel said. "We just discussed stuff as friends do."

"Such as?"

"You want to know what we talked about?"

"Yes, please."

"But why?"

"It's one of the questions we need to ask."

Axel Frimann raised an eyebrow.

"We talked about films," he said. "We go to the movies a lot and we have strong views about what we see."

"Are you interested in acting?"

"I'm fascinated by it," Axel admitted. "All the roles we need to play. If we're good, we'll go far."

"Are you good?" Sejer wanted to know.

Axel smiled a patronizing smile.

"I do all right," he said.

Skarre's pen raced across the pad. From time to time he looked up, alert.

"What about Jon?" Sejer asked. "Could he play a role? Was he capable of acting?"

Axel hesitated.

"Jon was quite helpless," he said. "What can I say? He was at the mercy of reality. No shield. So I suppose the answer is no."

"Can you tell me anything about Jon's reality?" Sejer asked.

Axel looked to Reilly for support, but he had lowered his head so that his long hair concealed his face like a curtain.

"You had better ask at the hospital," Axel suggested. "Ask his
doctor. She must have found out something during the last few weeks."

"I will talk to his doctor," Sejer said, "but I also need to ask his best friends. You were close, weren't you? What else did you talk about?"

"Ladegården Hospital. Jon told stories from the ward. It was funny."

"How long was he there?"

"Four weeks."

"You visited him there?"

"Yes."

"Did he like it there?"

"He didn't have a choice," Axel said.

They talked about Jon for an hour. When it was all over, Axel held out his hand.

"Please don't hesitate to get in touch if there is anything else," he said.

Chapter 6

W
ELL, WHO WOULD HAVE
thought it?" Jacob Skarre said. "Frimann, Reilly and Moreno are in our system. And they have been since last December."

Sejer leaned forward and read the screen.

"They were questioned as part of a missing person's case," Skarre said, "but it was just a routine interview. An odd coincidence. Or perhaps there's no such thing?"

"I'll have a look at the file," Sejer said. "But there's no reason to suspect that a crime has been committed, so we'll proceed on that basis. For now," he added. "And if there is a link, it'll show up eventually, don't you think?"

"It'll show up," Jacob Skarre agreed.

Three days later they visited Axel Frimann in his apartment. Axel was convinced that he had made a good impression on the two men. There were several factors which contributed to his credibility; his attractive appearance and broad shoulders were
only two of them. He was eloquent too. He spoke with concern and restraint and most of the time he felt on top of the situation. Concealing details about Jon's suicide was a tiny act he had performed to spare Ingerid Moreno more painful knowledge. He directed Sejer and Skarre to the sofa while he pottered about because being active gave him a sense of control. Axel Frimann never relinquished power.

"When it comes to Jon's death," Sejer said, "there are a few details which baffle us. That's why we are here."

Axel looked at him, open and inquisitive, and thanks to his complete mastery of his features his face took on an expression of mild, indulgent patience. He moved closer to the window. As though he wanted to steal radiance from outside and appear in an innocent light.

"We would like to talk to you about them," Sejer said.

Axel noticed that Skarre was already busy taking notes.

"At some point during the night Jon got up and went outside," Sejer said. "He sneaked out of the cabin while you and Reilly were asleep. You heard nothing, so we don't know what time that was."

Axel had found a comfortable position leaning against the wall.

"If we presume that he left with the intention of drowning himself in the lake," Sejer went on, "there are several things which are hard to understand."

It grew silent in Axel's living room. He rarely found himself with nothing to say and he realized that the very silence itself was revealing.

"Jon was wearing very warm clothing," Sejer said. "If I hadn't known better, I would have assumed he was dressed for a walk in the forest."

Axel smiled a glum smile.

"Surely it's not very odd," he declared, "that he put on a jacket. It was just out of habit. Because he was going outside."

"He had buttoned all the buttons," Sejer said. "He laced up his boots and tied a double knot."

Skarre looked up from his notepad. It was already covered with writing.

"Jon was very neat," Axel said. "In absolutely every situation. Take the laces. We used to tease him about them. He always tied a double knot. In winter, when we were kids, we had to pour warm water on those knots to untie them."

He turned away for a moment. He could see the river from the window and while no help could be found there, he needed some breathing space. The way they obsessed about minor things aggravated him, as though it was he who had driven Jon over the edge or as if somehow he could explain to them how suicidal people behave during their final hour.

"I don't know," he said. "I'm not an expert. Perhaps he was unable to go to sleep and he might just have wanted to go for a walk initially, that was why he got dressed properly. And then something overwhelmed him, something broke him. Some sort of despondency or a melancholy which got too much for him. After all, he did suffer from anxiety."

"Yes," Sejer said, "that is a possibility. That something overcame him later and it all happened very quickly. First he gets dressed with military precision and then he jumps off a cliff."

Axel was not sure what Sejer was thinking. His lined face did not reveal much, apart from skepticism.

Skarre looked up from his notepad. "There's another detail which baffles us," he said. "I'm talking about the fact that Jon could not swim. But we found him quite far out. One hundred meters from shore, to be precise. How did he get that far?"

Axel was slightly taken aback.

"I imagine that he drifted for a while," he said. "I don't know."

"There's no current in that lake," Skarre said.

"I don't think it's up to me to explain this," Axel said, "as you are well aware. I work in advertising. I don't know about such things."

"Right," Sejer said. "That's our job. Isn't it, Skarre?"

"It is our job," Skarre agreed.

Sejer retrieved something from his inside pocket and Axel recognized Jon's cell phone. Axel knew that Jon had a photo of a small white dog on the display.

"We've obviously got the phone records," Sejer explained. He started pressing the keys.

"Sent box," he said. "Friday, September 13, text sent to Molly Gram, just before ten o'clock in the evening. Molly was Jon's girlfriend at Ladegården," he added. "Did you know that he had a girlfriend?"

Axel could feel his composure trickle away.

"'Hi Molly. Trying to cope up here in the cabin. My anxiety seems to get worse when I'm away from the hospital. Hope I make it. Looking forward to seeing you on Sunday. Love, Jon.'"

Sejer returned the phone to his inside pocket.

"This text wasn't sent by someone planning to kill himself," he stated.

"Jon might not have been thinking about it when he sent the message," Axel said. "Something must have happened in the course of the night."

"Did he feel threatened?"

"By us, you mean?" Axel said. "We're his best friends."

"He was looking forward to Sunday," Skarre said. "But he never came back to Ladegården. He didn't make it. What do you think happened to him?"

"Jon was very volatile," Axel explained. "His mood changed
from one hour to the next, up and down, like a roller coaster. The guy was worn out. You won't be able to find a logical explanation for what happened."

Sejer and Skarre exchanged looks. Simultaneously they got up from the sofa and prepared to leave.

Chapter 7

R
EILLY WAS STANDING
in the doorway holding the kitten.

His pale skin was covered with thin, red claw marks.

"Come on," Axel said. "We need to go and see Ingerid."

"Do we have to?"

"Yes, we do. We can't put it off any longer, she's expecting us. She probably has a lot of questions, so we have to make up something which sounds plausible. About that evening. What Jon said and did, how he was, all the little details that she'll want to know. How are you?" he asked. "You're not high, I hope?"

Reilly grunted a reply. He went back inside the apartment, a tiny studio on the fourth floor. His bed was unmade.

"I need to feed the kitten first," he said.

Axel followed. He slammed the door shut.

"Forget about the kitten," he said. "Have you gone mad? We need to leave now. The situation is getting a bit tense," he added. "The police are all over this with a diligence I've never seen
before. You would think it was our fault Jon ended up in the lake."

BOOK: Bad Intentions
5.19Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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