Black Seconds (23 page)

His voice sounded mechanical, like he was delivering a rehearsed speech. She had never questioned Tomme’s honesty. She took it completely for granted. She thought the same of her daughter, Marion, and her husband, Sverre. That they always told the truth. Yet she felt uneasy whenever she thought of her son and the way he was acting. Something kept on nagging her. She had a strong feeling that he was struggling with something. A deep-seated instinct was telling her that he was lying. It’s just because I’m tired, she thought, I’m not thinking straight. It’s a vicious circle. From now on I 237

have to trust that he’s telling me the truth. From now on, she thought.

Cheered by this decision, she faced the evening. She thought, life goes on. Ida has been buried. The police will find her killer. She calmed down. Made coffee and heated up some waffles in the micro wave. Called to Marion.

‘Come downstairs,’ she said, ‘and let’s watch the news.’

They sat close together on the sofa. Ruth put her arm around Marion’s shoulder. Again they showed the photo of the white nightie.

‘It’s a pretty nightie,’ Marion said.

‘Mm,’ Ruth said quietly. ‘It must be strange for Helga to see it on the telly.’

‘Why do you think they did it?’ her daughter asked, looking at her.

‘Did what? Kill her, you mean?’ Ruth said.

‘No. Why did they dress her in a nightie?’

‘Why do you want to know?’ Ruth asked.

‘Don’t know,’ Marion said gravely. ‘I don’t really know.’

‘Everything can be traced,’ Ruth speculated.

‘They can find out everything about that nightie. Life’s strange like that. It’s practically impossible to hide anything. The truth will always out. It just takes time.’ She stroked her daughter’s chubby cheek. ‘Are you scared?’ she wanted to know.

‘No,’ Marion said.

‘I mean, when you’re out walking and a car drives past you?’

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‘But I’m hardly ever outside now,’ Marion reminded her.

‘No,’ Ruth said. ‘I’m sorry if I’m going on about it. It’ll get better.’

‘Yes.’

Marion put jam on a heart-shaped waffle.

Tomme came down stairs and sat in an armchair. This did not happen often. Ruth appreciated it. Everything was so peaceful. His dark head was bent over a magazine. Marion ate waffles till she was sated and then started on her homework. Sverre was abroad again, in London this time.

Then the telephone rang. Tomme did not seem to want to answer it. Ruth went over. Baffled, she listened to the voice at the other end. It was a woman. She introduced herself as Anne Oterhals, and Ruth realised that she was Willy’s mother. She stared at her son in disbelief; she could not take in what she was hearing. For a moment she felt dizzy. She could see Tomme sitting there, terrified at what was happening right now; she could tell from his shining eyes that something very complicated was going on inside his head. He kept his eyes fixed on the magazine, but he was no longer reading.

‘Tomme,’ Ruth said reluctantly. ‘Do you know where Willy is?’

He looked at her with glassy blue eyes. ‘Willy?

He’s with a friend, I think.’ His voice was so faint, Ruth thought. He held her gaze for two seconds, then he hid behind his magazine once more. Ruth recognised it as
Illustrated Science
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Tomme was staring right at a photo of the Egyptian god Anubis. It looked like Willy, he thought. The lean face with the protruding chin. Like a dog. He heard the ticking again. He thought his mother could hear it too, and his sister, who was sitting over by the dining table. It filled the whole room; it was like a prickling sensation in his ears. His mother was still on the telephone. She was bewildered. ‘I don’t understand this,’ she said down the telephone. ‘Tomme went to Copenhagen with Bjørn. Bjørn Myhre.’

She listened to the other woman. Her face is so naked, Tomme thought. He was peering up at her. He did not like seeing her like this. Marion was bent over her books. She was listening too. There was something wrong with the mood in the whole room; she dared hardly breathe or cough or stir over by the table. In her maths book were illustrations of squares, triangles and cubes. She decided to make this her own private universe and lose herself in it. So that was what she did.

‘Aha?’ Ruth was saying. She was yanking the telephone cord while her eyes flickered. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Hold on. I’ll just ask.’ She pressed the receiver against her chest and looked at her son. ‘It’s Willy’s mother. He hasn’t come home after his trip to Denmark. You said you were going with Bjørn. Did Willy come too? What’s going on?’ she hissed.

‘It was just Willy and me,’ Tomme said. The words were barely audible. The ticking faded for a moment, but increased in volume when he stopped talking. 240

‘You lied to me?’ Her voice was quivering.

‘Yes,’ he said flatly.

‘So where is he then?’ she said, louder this time.

‘His mother is saying he’s not back. Did you get on the same bus?’

‘We went our separate ways in Oslo,’ Tomme said, studying Anubis. ‘He got on the underground. At Egertorg.’ He visualised the dark blue jacket as it disappeared down into the depths. He had

rehearsed this image earlier.

His mother passed this information on to Willy’s mother. Her eyes still had a naked expression. Most of all she felt like slamming down the receiver and hurling herself at her son. Instead she was forced to listen to the endless flow of words coming from the other end. Willy’s mother wanted to know exactly where they had said goodbye. What Willy had said. She went on and on.

‘I caught the bus at Universitetsplassen,’ Tomme said truthfully. ‘Willy didn’t tell me who he was going to see, he just went off. Said he was meeting a mate.’

His mother passed on this information as well. Finally she hung up. She remained standing, looking at him.

‘You owe me an explanation,’ she said, her voice eerily calm now. She knew that Marion was listening, but she could not stop herself. Tomme nodded. ‘He asked if I wanted to come,’

he admitted. ‘I didn’t think I could say no. He spent days working on the car.’

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‘I think it’s about time you started making your own decisions,’ Ruth said firmly. ‘You’ve got to stop letting him order you about like this. But the worst thing is that you’ve lied to me.’

‘Yes,’ Tomme said feebly.

‘There will be no more lies!’ she said furiously.

‘You’ve let me down!’

‘Yes,’ Tomme said. He let it all rain down on him, he did not try to escape.

Suddenly Ruth started to cry. Tomme sat in the armchair, motionless, and Marion hid behind her maths book.

‘I’m just so tired,’ Ruth sobbed.

As neither of the children said anything, she tried to pull herself together. ‘But why hasn’t Willy come home?’ she asked.

Tomme was still staring at his magazine. ‘I suppose he had some stuff to do,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t really that interested. It’s not like he’s my boyfriend.’

‘No.’ She hesitated. ‘I just think it’s strange. That he didn’t go straight home.’

Tomme finally turned to the next page. Ruth thought about Willy. After all, he was twenty-two. Surely there was no need for her to worry about him. But once again something made her anxious. She could not calm herself down. She paced up and down the house and started tidying up. Her rage was rekindled and it struck her that Tomme was getting off far too lightly. She would have no more lies in this house; they made her feel sick. In the hall 242

she found Tomme’s bag with his jumper and his jacket. And some brown plastic bags. There were four of them, the size of ground-coffee bags. Baffled, she held one of them up and squeezed it. Its contents felt like tiny pills. Her words were coming faster than her thoughts as she marched back to face her son. She was raging like a volcano at the point of eruption. Her whole body shook and her face was scarlet.

‘What on earth did you buy in Copenhagen?’

Tomme looked at the bag. For a while he just sat there gawping. Slowly the truth dawned on him; it crept up his body like wriggling worms, starting from his toes. Willy had slipped the drugs into his bag. He understood it now and wanted to explain, but no words came out.

Ruth lost it completely. She was very scared, but her fear had sunk deep down inside her, only to surface as violent rage. Now her very worst fears had been realised, and this time she would not hold back. She marched over to the coffee table where Tomme was sitting and tore open the bag with her fingernails. Hundreds of tiny pills spilled out. They rolled past the coffee cups and the teaspoons, they spilled over the edge and down on to the carpet. She forgot that Marion was sitting at the dining table doing her homework, forgot everything about discretion and sensitive approaches, because this was serious! Now she could finally confront her son; every single one of her suspicions had turned out to be well founded.

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Tomme was still gawping. The magazine had slipped out of his hands. He saw Marion like a shadow at the table.

‘Now I get it,’ he said feebly.

Ruth was white as a sheet. ‘Well I don’t!’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘And this time I want you to tell me exactly what it is you and Willy are up to!’

When people tell the truth, the whole truth, the truth straight from their heart, a special light appears in their eyes, a glow of innocence that is mirrored in their voice, which in turn takes on a distinctive and sincere tone, a persuasive force it is quite simply impossible to ignore. When people are scared the way Tomme was scared now, only the unadulterated truth can save them. That is why truth will always out in the end. When everything has gone too far. When too many awful events have happened. And when death has touched a house, then only a hardened and habitual liar would risk inventing another story. That was what Ruth was thinking as she listened to Tomme and his tale. And she believed him. Not because I’m his mother, she thought, but because I know him and I can tell when he’s lying. And he has done that so many, many times. But he is not lying this time. He had let go of the magazine and held his fists clenched in his lap. He looked at her, his blue eyes shining with the light of innocence and a fervent plea, a passionate supplication that now, at this very moment, after many dubious stories, he was finally telling her the truth.

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Ruth nodded. Willy had tricked Tomme in the most horrible way. He had forced him to carry the tablets through customs. She wiped her tears and sensed how the exertion had made her warm. And she was strong. She laid down conditions. He was to break off all contact with Willy and see other friends. Together they would flush the tablets down the toilet. They really ought to take them to the police, but he deserved one last chance. And when Willy turned up to get his drugs, Tomme would have to face him and tell him the truth. That they had been flushed down into the sewer.

It was Tomme’s turn to nod. He looked his mother straight in the eye and nodded his dark head emphatically. All the while remem

bering the

moment when Willy had nipped out from the bar and gone down to the cabin ‘just to check some thing’. It all made sense to him now. Ruth believed him. His behaviour towards Willy matched her knowledge of him; he was not strong enough to stand up to someone who was four years his senior. She could forgive this. And she was convinced that Tomme himself had never taken drugs. She would have noticed. They spoke for a long time about many things. Tomme realised that he could not leave; he had to stay there until his mother had finished. When she finally stopped talking he would go upstairs to his room and lie down on his bed. Then he would stare at the ceiling, lost in a world of his own. And the ticking would continue. It’s so strange, he thought, that this is happening. That I’m 245

sitting here in this armchair, nodding. There are waffles and jam on the table. If I wanted to, I could help myself to some. When she stops talking. I think I fancy a waffle. In his mind he could conjure up the taste of sweet jam and salty butter.

‘Now I don’t want any more trouble from you for a very long time,’ Ruth said. ‘Do you hear?’

Tomme nodded. Poor Mum, he thought, and felt like laughing, but he controlled himself. There would be plenty of time for laughing. Later. Ruth suddenly remembered that Marion was still at the dining table. Giddily she ran over to her and hugged her tightly.

‘Marion!’ she said. ‘Willy’s the one who’s broken the law. He’s trying to drag your brother into this, but we won’t let him succeed. Do you understand?’

Marion nodded into her book and concealed her face with her hand. It was impossible to work out what her answer was. Ruth sniffed again and mustered a brave smile to lighten the mood.

‘It’s going to be all right,’ she said, hugging Marion’s plump body. Marion was practically crushed by her arms. ‘Everything is going to be fine. I promise you!’

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I’ve always been open-minded and tolerant. I’m not normally biased. I’d stake my reputation on that, Konrad Sejer thought. Everyone deserves a chance. Pigeonholing people destroys any possibility of seeing them as they really are. Yet the information on the screen had got him thinking. It was technically correct that Elsa Marie Mork had a fifty-two-year-old son who was unmarried. He was also receiving incapacity benefit. He’ll never have kids, she had said. As though he was different in some way and should not expect the same blessings in life as everyone else. When speaking of Elsa, Margot Janson had hinted that she had problems of her own. Perhaps she was referring to the son. For a while he stared at the name. It was unknown to him, but it had a pleasant ring to it. A name given in love, not allocated casually. He wrote it down on a scrap of paper and went over to the map on the wall. Slowly and carefully he stuck red and green pins into significant locations. Ida’s house on Glassblåserveien. Laila’s Kiosk. The substation at the end of Ekornlia. Lysejordet where Ida was found. Elsa Marie Mork’s house and finally her son’s. Then he 247

stepped back and studied the result. The pins circled an area with a diameter of ten kilometres. He left the office, found Skarre in the meeting room and handed him the scrap of paper.