The Indian Bride (9 page)

"Newspapermen," Einar said. "Don't talk to them!"

Kalle wondered at Einar's reaction. It sounded like an order, but he didn't protest. The two men came over to the counter, greeted first Kalle and then Einar, then took in the surroundings. Einar nodded reservedly and took their order of Coke and rissoles. He worked swiftly, with his back to them. Kalle was still standing there with his coffee. He suddenly felt exposed, no longer protected by Einar.

"A terrible thing," one of them said, looking at him. Kalle nodded, but he said nothing. He remembered that he had his travel log in his pocket, so he took it out and set about studying the record of his regular jobs with a look of concentration.

"Such a tragedy probably seems like an earthquake in a small place like this. How many people live here?"

It was a simple question. The girls in the corner had fallen quiet; they watched the journalists with interest. Kalle had no choice but to reply.

"A couple of thousand," he said coolly, and stared into his notebook.

"But she wasn't from around here, am I right?"

The other one stuck his head forward. Einar turned around and slammed two plates on the counter. "When the police don't know who she is, you surely don't expect us to?" he said.

"There's always someone who knows something," the journalist said knowingly, offering Einar a sour smile. "And it's our job to find out."

"You'll have to do that somewhere else," Einar said. "People come here to eat and relax."

"Food looks good," the other one said and bowed. They raised their eyebrows at each other and made their way to a table by the window, keeping an eye on the two girls.

"Let's hope they don't get their claws into Linda," Einar said, lowering his voice. "She doesn't know what's good for her."

Kalle did not understand Einar's ill humor. But perhaps he was brighter than most and knew best how to handle these hyenas from the city. He reached out for the pot to refill his cup.

"Have you heard about Gunder's sister?" Einar gave him a
quizzical look. "She's in the hospital, in a coma. On a respirator," Kalle said.

Einar frowned. "Why? Have you spoken to him?"

"He called me. It was a car crash."

"Really?" Einar said tentatively. "Did he call to tell you that? You two aren't usually so close."

"No." Kalle hesitated. "It so happens that Gunder was expecting a visitor from abroad, but instead of going to the airport he had to be with his sister in the hospital. That's why he called me. He asked if I would drive to Gardermoen and get this ... visitor."

"I see," Einar said. Something was at work beneath the red hair. Kalle wasn't sure what.

The journalists were watching them. Kalle spoke as quietly as he could. "You know Gunder went to India?" he said.

Einar nodded. "His sister said so. She was here buying cigarettes."

"But do you know what he did down there?"

"On holiday, I suppose?"

"Yes and no. But the thing is that he went and got married down there. To an Indian woman."

Einar looked up then. His eyes were wide with genuine surprise.

"Jomann? To an Indian woman?"

"Yes. That's why he called me. Because his wife was arriving on this plane. So he sent me to pick her up. Because he had to stay with his sister."

Einar was shocked. Kalle couldn't stop talking now.

"He explained everything, which flight and so on. Her name and what she looked like. He was very upset that he couldn't go himself. So I drove there." Kalle swallowed and looked at Einar. "But I couldn't find her."

"You couldn't find her?" Einar said, bewildered.

"I looked everywhere, but I couldn't find her."

Einar was now openly staring at him. An impulse made Kalle turn. The journalists were still watching them. He lowered his voice still further.

"So I called Gunder at the hospital and explained what had happened. We agreed that she'd probably taken another taxi and gone to his house. That she would be waiting there. After all, she had his address. But she wasn't there, either."

A long pause followed. Einar could tell where Kalle was going with this. He looked haunted.

"Then I heard the news—about the dead woman at Hvitemoen. I got really scared. There aren't many foreign women around here. So I called him."

"What did he say?"

"He sounded strange. Didn't really answer my questions, said something about her probably being on her way. I've begun to think that it's her. That someone killed her on her way to Gunder's. Hvitemoen—that's not very far from Gunder's house. Less than a mile."

"Less than a mile," Einar said. "So, do you know her name?"

Kalle nodded earnestly.

"You have to call the police," Einar said firmly.

"I don't think I can," Kalle said. "Gunder needs to call himself. But I don't think he dares. He's pretending that nothing's happened."

"You have to talk to him," Einar said.

"He's at the hospital," Kalle said.

"But what about his brother-in-law?"

"He's in Hamburg," Kalle said. He suddenly felt exhausted.

"This hotline," said Einar. "You can call anonymously."

"No, if I call, then I'll give my name. After all, I'm not doing anything wrong by calling. But it will make them go straight to his house."

"Well, they won't find him if he's at the hospital."

"They'll find him sooner or later. And what if I'm wrong?"

"It's good if you're wrong, I suppose," Einar said. "I don't know. I don't know him that well, either. He is very private, is Gunder. Doesn't say much. Could you call?" Einar rolled his eyes.

"Me? No, I couldn't." He dismissed the idea. "You're the one who was involved in this."

Kalle put his cup on the counter.

"It's only a phone call," Einar said. "It's not the end of the world."

Once again there was the sound of Linda's shrill laughter. One of the journalists was standing, bent over the girls' table.

"I'll think about it," Kalle said.

Einar lit a cigarette. He watched the journalists in animated conversation with Linda and Karen. Then he opened the door to his office. A tiny room where he could take a break or could sit and do his bookkeeping. Behind the office was a cold-storage room where he kept the food. He opened this door, too. For a while he stood, at a loss, staring into the narrow room. His anguished eyes rested on a large brown suitcase.

The press descended like flies, behaving as though they owned the whole village. They were on the prowl, their mouths their weapons. Every one of them had his or her own point of view and an original headline that no one else had thought of. They took dramatic photographs, which showed nothing at all because they had not been allowed close to the scene of the crime. Nonetheless, they had crawled on their stomachs and focused in on it through the rushes and the grass with their camera lenses. So that man's incomprehensible inhumanity to man could be portrayed in the form of white tarpaulin with a few withered flowers in the foreground. They had a huge talent for empathetic facial expressions and they perfectly understood people's need for their fifteen minutes of fame.

The young certainly appreciated the excitement. At last we've got something to look at, said Karen. Linda preferred the ones in uniform; reporters are so scruffy, she complained. Both Karen and Linda had stopped giggling and had acquired an expression of mature horror. They discussed the awful murder in subdued voices and were emphatic in their conviction that it could not have been committed by anyone from the village. They had lived there all their lives, after all, and knew everyone.

"Where were you around nine o'clock last night?" one of the journalists asked them. He watched their young faces as they retraced the hours.

"I was with her," Linda said, pointing at Karen.

Karen nodded. "You left at a quarter to nine. Why nine o'clock?" she said.

"The murder is supposed to have happened around nine o'clock," the reporter told them. "A shopkeeper who lives near the crime scene has said that he heard faint cries and the revving of an engine. Halfway through the evening news."

Linda was saying nothing. You could tell that she was trawling through a myriad of thoughts. Then it came to her, what they had been giggling so foolishly about just now. When she had ridden home from Karen's, she had passed the meadow at Hvitemoen. She was back there now in her mind. Zooming along noiselessly on her bike. She had spotted a car parked on the roadside and had to swerve. Then she had glanced at the meadow and seen two people there. They were running after each other like in some giddy game. It was a man and a woman. He had caught her and pushed her over. She had seen arms and legs flail about violently and was suddenly really shaken because she had known at once what she was seeing. Two people who clearly wanted to have sex. Quite explicitly, in the open, while she was going by on her bike and could see everything. She was both embarrassed and aroused by the sight, while feeling angry at the same time because she was still a virgin. A fear that she might die an old maid had nagged her for a long time. That was why she made sure she always behaved as if she was up for it. But those two people! Linda thought it through. The journalists were waiting. A disturbing idea came to her. What if they had not been playing at all? What if he was trying to catch her, if what she had seen was not a game, but the actual murder? It didn't look like a murder, though. The man ran after the woman. The woman fell. Arms and legs. Suddenly she felt nauseous and gulped down her soft drink.

"You passed Hvitemoen on your bike?" the journalist said. "About nine o'clock?"

"Yes," Linda said. Karen noticed the change in her and recognized the seriousness of it because she knew Linda well.

"It's an awful thought. Perhaps it happened just afterward."

"But you didn't see anything? Along the road or in the vicinity?"

Linda thought about the red car. She shook her head decisively.

"Not a living soul," she said.

"If you did think of something, you should call the police," the journalist said.

She shrugged and became uncooperative. The two men got up and eased the straps of the camera equipment over their shoulders. Glanced sideways toward Einar at the counter. Karen leaned forward across the table.

"Imagine if that was them!" Her voice was trembling.

"But the people I saw were doing something else!" Linda objected.

"Yes, but perhaps they had sex first and then he killed her afterward. That's quite common, isn't it?"

Linda now had something momentous to think about. "I think you should call," Karen said. "I hardly saw anything!"

"But if you think about it? Perhaps you'll remember more after a while?"

"There was a car on the road."

"There you are!" Karen exclaimed. "They're interested in cars. Any type of car that was in the vicinity. They're mapping all movements in the area. What make of car was it?"

"A red one."

"You don't remember anything else?"

"I was busy swerving to avoid it," Linda said.

"But what did you see then? What did they look like?"

"I don't remember. A man and a woman."

"But light or dark, fat or thin? Things like that."

"Dunno," Linda said. They were silent for a moment. Einar was at work behind the bar.

"But how about the car? If you think about it. Old or new, big or small?"

"Not very big. Paintwork was quite nice. Red anyway."

"Is that all you can remember?"

"Yes. But if I saw one like it, I'd recognize it. I think."

"I think you should call," Karen said again. "Talk to your mom. She'll help you."

Linda made a face at the idea. "Couldn't we call together? What if I say something stupid? Do I have to give them my name?"

"Dunno. You won't say something stupid. They'll just write down what you say and compare it with other stuff they know. If more people have seen a red car, they'll start looking for a red car. Something like that."

Linda was still stricken by doubt. Caught between the desire actually to have seen something and the fear of deluding herself. All the same, it was tempting. "The police have a key witness in the Hvitemoen case. The witness spotted a car and we now have a partial description of two people seen in the area."

What had they in fact looked like? She remembered something blue, dark blue perhaps, and something white. The man wore a white shirt. The woman was dressed in something dark. Linda wanted to go home and watch the news.

"I have to think about it," she said.

Karen nodded. "Before you call you need to write everything down so you know what you want to say. They'll probably ask you a lot of questions. Where you were coming from, where you were going, and what you saw. What time it was."

"Okay," Linda said. "I'll write it all down."

They emptied their glasses and shouted "See ya" to Einar. His expression told them he was miles away.

***

Gunder had let go of Marie's hand. He was sleeping soundly now, his chin resting on his chest. He was dreaming of Poona. Of her smile and the large white teeth. He dreamed of Marie as a little girl, considerably chubbier then. While he was sleeping, the door opened and two nurses rolled in a bed. Gunder woke up and blinked in confusion.

"I think you should lie down," Ragnhild said, smiling. "Look. Some sandwiches for you. And there's coffee, if you'd like some."

He jerked upright in the chair. Looked at the bed and the food. The dark-haired, sullen nurse did not look at him. They checked the drip-counter and cleaned the tube. Lie down? He ran his hand over his forehead and felt the tiredness like a lead weight on his head. What if Karsten turned up while he was sleeping? He had a tendency to snore sometimes. He imagined his brother-in-law, pale with worry after the long journey from Hamburg. He imagined himself snoring on the bed or with his mouth full of sandwich. He looked away from the food. There was pâté and ham with cucumber and a glass of milk. But some coffee, perhaps?

"I think you should lie down," Ragnhild said again.

"No," said Gunder, appalled. "I'll have to stay awake. In case anything happens."