Black Seconds (25 page)

***

Later he was back in his living room. He could not stay by the waterfall till nighttime. He could not escape, either; he had nowhere to hide. It was a question of waiting. Thirty minutes later he heard a car door slam out on the drive. Emil planted his palms on the windowsill and rested his whole body weight on them. That weight was considerable. The windowsill groaned and squeaked like the floorboards. It was not his mother's car. He looked at the bird. Stuck his finger into the cage. Instantly it started nibbling him and licking his finger with a warm black tongue. It was coarse, like sandpaper. Then came the knocking he was anticipating, three sharp knocks. Emil took his time. Checked that the bird had food in both its cups, water and cubes of apple. Softly he walked to the door. At first he was puzzled. The police officer was a woman; he had not expected that. He made no sound, just stood still watching her. She actually looked friendly. Another officer stepped out of the car, the same one with the curly hair who had visited him earlier. Emil saw the Band-Aid on his finger. What an idiot, he thought. But his expression was kind. At the same time they appeared serious. Emil sensed this seriousness, but he could not tell them that.

"Emil Johannes Mork?" the female officer said.

He did not nod, just waited.

"You need to come with us, please."

He stood for a while considering this. She was asking him nicely. Emil went back inside the house. There was something he had to take care of first. He put a towel over the birdcage and checked the radiator below the window. Opened up the curtains and made sure that they did not overhang it. There was all this talk of fire precautions; his mother went on about it all the time, so he was aware of such things.

Then he went back out into the hall and found his green driving jacket. They waited by the car while he locked the front door. He thought about his mother, wondered if they had picked her up too. He thought so.

Jacob Skarre held out his hand. He asked for the key to the house. Emil hesitated. His mother had cleaned it. Thrown away the garbage and tidied everywhere. He handed over his key. They held open the car door for him and helped him get seated in the back. He rarely went in a car. He felt enclosed; it was airless. The female officer took the wheel. She had a long blond braid down her back. It was fastened tightly and shone like a nylon rope. Emil kept looking at it. It was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen, but it would have looked nicer if she had tied a bow at the end of it.

***

Elsa Mork was arrested simultaneously. She wanted to see Emil and became quite difficult when they refused. As if denying her access to her own son were completely unheard-of and thoroughly reprehensible. Is it legal to treat people in this way? she asked. And they answered, yes, it's legal. She said that Emil Johannes could not be questioned at all, because he simply could not speak, and they said, yes, we know. They asked her if her son could write. Her reply was evasive. The ground beneath her feet, which had been solid for more than seventy years, crumbled away. She reached out to the wall for support.

"His name," she said. "I've taught him that. But as for anything else—I don't really know what he can or cannot do."

And her ignorance made her feel terribly ashamed.

"He has a newspaper delivered," she remembered. "But I don't know what he does with it. Perhaps he has fun taking it out of the letterbox every morning like other people. Perhaps he likes the pictures. Perhaps he can manage the headlines. I really don't know." She ventured a bitter suggestion. "You'll just have to find out for yourselves."

Everything seemed unreal to her. They took her coat and her handbag, which she was clinging to tightly. A female officer reached out for it; Elsa held on to it. At the same time she could see how ridiculous the situation was. But she felt naked without the bag. She watched as they emptied the contents onto the table. Mirror, comb, and handkerchief. And a mock-crocodile purse. She stood still, her hands unoccupied for once, taking in the strange surroundings. People came into the room and left again. She felt they were staring at her. It was just as well that Emil was the way he was, she thought. All he had to do was what he had always done. Keep quiet.

She was waiting in the interrogation room. Sejer walked slowly along with a folder tucked under his arm. Oh, she's good at cleaning, he thought. But not that good. If Ida was in her son's house, we'll know about it.

What was going on inside her head? He thought she was mainly concerned about Emil. Even though he did not know her, he did not underestimate how strong and determined she might be. She had lived her whole life with a son who was different. A son she had cleaned up after, washed for, and taken care of for more than fifty years. How well did she know him? How disabled was he? Had it been his own choice to withdraw from all contact? People did, sometimes for good reasons. What kind of life had they lived? Perhaps she had no life of her own because she had never wanted or been able to have one? She got involved with the lives of others instead, and cleaned up after them. He thought of her with humility as he walked down the corridor. She was a person who had never previously broken the law. At the same time he was thinking of Ida.

She was sitting with both hands in her lap. It would be wrong to describe Elsa Mork as a beautiful woman. But everybody has got something, Sejer thought. Now he noticed her posture. Her back was effortlessly straight. There was fighting spirit in her strong face. Her hands, hidden under the table, were red and dry from cleaning. He remembered this from their first meeting. She was wearing a thin sweater with a round neck and a straight skirt with no pleats. It reached halfway down her calves. She wore low-heeled, sensible shoes with laces. No perm in her hair, which was short and the color of steel, not unlike Sejer's own.

He greeted her kindly and pulled out a chair. She nodded briefly, but did not smile. Her face was expectant. Beneath that calm exterior she had to be under great stress, Sejer thought, but she was hiding it well. This might mean that she was used to hiding things, used to keeping up appearances, like the one he was observing now. But this is about a dead child, he thought. An adorable child with brown eyes, who looked like Mary Pickford. Elsa Mork had a child of her own. It had to be possible to reach her.

He poured himself a glass of Farris mineral water. The fizz from the water was the only sound in the quiet room. It seemed very loud. Elsa waited. Sejer drank from his glass.

"The air in here is dry," he stated. "I'm just telling you. It helps having something to drink, should you begin to feel tired." He indicated the bottle next to her seat.

She did not reply. He was friendly, but she was on her guard. She was used to it; she was always on her guard.

"Do you understand why you're here?" he began.

Elsa had to think about that. Of course she did. However, it was important to articulate this in the best possible way.

"I think so," she said stiffly. "Emil and I have both been brought here in connection with that case. The girl you found by the road."

"Correct," he said, watching her. Her gaze was steady for the time being.

"Do you recall her name from the papers?" he said. She was reluctant to say the name out loud, but it came anyway. "Ida Joner," she said in a subdued voice.

"Did you ever meet Ida Joner?" Sejer asked. "No." The answer came quickly. It might also be partly true. Perhaps she had only seen her once she was dead. "Do you know if your son ever met Ida Joner?" Again this
no,
again the same firmness. "He owns his own house?" Sejer said. "No, it's public housing," she said.

"I see." Sejer nodded. "But he lives on his own. You often go there to help him, but most of the time he is on his own. Is it totally impossible that Ida might have been in his house without you knowing?"

Elsa had to think about that. She could not appear too certain. Sejer could tell that she was searching desperately for plausible lies. On top of that she was quite rightly anxious about the evidence they had already collected and of which she knew nothing. It was likely that they had searched Emil's house as well as her apartment.

"Of course, I can't swear to it," she said eventually, having thought about it for a long time. "I'm not there every hour of the day. But to be honest, I find it hard to believe that a little girl would go home with Emil of her own accord. No one would dare."

"Would you please clarify?" he asked cautiously.

"He doesn't talk," she said. "And he's very slow. And he looks gruff. Even though he isn't. That's just how his face is."

Sejer nodded. "But we can't discount the possibility that your son might have had Ida in the house?"

"There are so many strange things going on in my life right now that I'm not discounting anything," she said brusquely.

She was close to boiling point. She calmed herself. Sejer looked at her earnestly. For a second he had caught a glimpse of the forces that raged inside her: despair and fear.

"Sometimes people like Emil find it easier to form bonds with children," he said gently. "They feel less threatened by them. It wouldn't be the first time."

She did not comment on this. She chose silence. It struck her that silence was effective. And that Emil had realized this long ago.

"Your son keeps a bird?" he said, changing the subject. "Yes. A parrot."

"Do you think he benefits from that?"

She felt that this was a safe topic and gave herself permission to reply. "I hope so," she said. "It chirps and sings and is a sort of companion to him. It doesn't need more care than Emil can manage."

"When I questioned you about it earlier, you denied knowing anyone who owned a bird. Do you recall that?" "Yes," she said, biting her lip. "Why did you deny it?" "Don't know," she said defiantly.

"Well," Sejer smiled, "it certainly isn't friendly. One of my officers is walking around with a fair-sized hole in his finger."

She was listening, but his remark failed to produce a smile in her. "It'll never be tame," she said by way of explanation.

"Why not?"

"Don't know. I know nothing about birds. It was ten years old when I bought it. It's nearly sixteen now."

She looked as if she wanted to run away. Her whole body was trembling. She did not want to answer his questions, but she liked him. This confused her. She did not often speak to men. Only with Margot from next door and the women in the sewing circle. Everywhere she went, nothing but women. Now she listened to his deep voice, a professional and very correct voice, agreeable to listen to.

"It's very quiet in his house," she said. "After all, he never has any visitors. In the shop they told me that the bird could talk. I thought it would do him good to hear a few words every now and again. I had hoped it might trigger something in him."

"What does the bird say?" Sejer asked with interest.

"Well..." She shrugged. "Hi. Hello. Good morning. Things like that. It mainly sings tunes. It picks them up from the radio and the television. Jingles and so on." She stared at the table. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted the bottle of mineral water. The glass was cloudy with condensation. "I don't know how long you're thinking of keeping us here," she said, "but the bird is going to need feeding and watering."

Sejer nodded to indicate he had taken this on board. "We'll take care of the bird, should it prove necessary," he said.

He knew he would make Elsa Mork talk eventually. He knew that he was stronger than she was. He felt sad when he thought of this. Because right now she felt she was the strong one. She had made the decision not to talk. But she did not know what he knew. Therefore she could not fabricate a story, because she could not see which cards he held. He held many. Ida's purse, for example, which they had found inside a box of crispbread in Emil's kitchen cupboard. Perhaps Emil had liked the purse and Elsa had missed it when she cleaned the house. So he had thought of a hiding place for it. There was also the old chest freezer in the basement. Several dark hairs found on the bottom of it had been sent off to forensics. Elsa had not remembered everything; hardly anyone does. Now she was waiting calmly in her chair, determined to win one trick at a time, endure the pain it caused her and think up new answers. After a while, hours or days perhaps, she would start to tire. She was a bright woman. When she realized she was beaten, she would surrender. He allowed the silence to continue for a time and looked at her sideways. Her shoulders were tense, expectant. She can handle a great deal, he thought. A very tough old woman. A real fighter.

"You'll get a female defense lawyer," he said. "She has a child, too."

"Really?" Elsa said.

"I just wanted you to know that," he added.

Elsa disappeared back into her silence. I should have done this more often, she thought. I've been talking my whole life. God only knows what I've been saying.

"Please tell me if there's anything you need." Sejer said it with such kindness that she felt it like a caress. She looked at him blankly. Her face opened up for a moment, then it closed suspiciously.

"I don't need anything," she said. "I can manage on my own. I always have."

Sejer knew it. He could attack now, suddenly and unexpectedly, just to watch her stumble for a moment. He did not do so. It had to be possible to defeat her in such a way that she kept her dignity. He shrank from pressuring her, shrank from luring her into a wilderness. He would take no pleasure from seeing her shame when he caught her contradicting herself. Most of all he wanted to reach the point where she would tell him everything. Where she would finally unburden herself and confess.

The press had been hovering, cruising listlessly while there was little progress in the Ida Joner case. Now the journalists nose-dived from a great height toward their rather exotic prey. A seventy-three-year-old woman and her fifty-two-year-old son with learning difficulties. This led to much speculation. What exactly had happened to little Ida Joner, what exactly had they done to her? Even though there was nothing to suggest that Ida had been sexually assaulted, and this was made clear in all the papers, it did not stop the journalists. Surely he must have done something with her? They knew the art of implying. They wrote nothing explicit, but encouraged their readers to use their own imaginations, which they duly did. At this point it was extremely unclear what precisely had happened to Ida. As a result the journalists had to focus on other things. This was a juicy story. The rumors about the bird with the portentous name, Henry the Eighth, made an impression. Not only did Ida's suspected killer own a bird that could talk, but it also bore the name of a murderer. This story had legs.