In the Darkness (27 page)

‘Was that why you took a shower while you were there? Because you felt ill?’

‘Yes!’ she replied quickly. Now she was the one who was silent. He saw the beginnings of rebellion in her eyes. Quite soon she would clam up completely.

‘You managed to do quite a lot while you were there. In only one hour. Did you also take a little nap, too, in the guest room?’

‘A nap?’ she asked wanly.

‘Someone had lain on the bed in there. Or is the simple truth, Mrs Magnus, that you were really Durban’s partner, and that you shared the flat? Just like her, you had a little sideline in prostitution to ease the finances?’

‘NO!’ Eva screamed and stood up. Her chair shot back. ‘No, I did not! I didn’t want anything to do with it. Maja was the one who tried to persuade me, but I wouldn’t!’ She was shaking like a leaf and her face was chalky white. ‘Maja was always trying to persuade me, she had the oddest ideas. Once, when we were thirteen …’ Then she began to sob.

Somewhat taken aback, he stared at the tabletop and
waited
. Outbursts like these made him embarrassed. Suddenly she looked so pathetic. Her turban had come undone and had fallen to her shoulders, her hair was wringing wet.

‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ Eva whispered, ‘if you don’t think I’m the one who did it.’

‘Obviously that’s a possibility we’ve considered,’ he said quietly, ‘and here I’m not thinking so much about any motive you may have had, or whether you’re capable of killing someone and all that. We go into that later on. In the first instance we look at who was in the vicinity, who, in purely physical terms, had the opportunity to commit this murder. Then we look at alibi. And lastly,’ he said nodding, ‘we consider motive. And in this case the fact is that you were there just a short time before she died. But let me make it quite clear at once – we’re certain that Ms Durban’s murderer was a man.’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Yes?’

‘I mean, wasn’t it one of her clients?’

‘Is that what you believe?’

‘Well, I – wasn’t it though? That was what the papers said!’

He nodded and leant forward. He smells nice, she thought, like Dad when he was younger.

‘Tell me what happened.’

She sat down again, made a terrific effort and approached the truth in tiny increments. She ought to tell him now, what had happened, that evening on the footstool. And he’d ask why on earth she hadn’t confessed all this at once. It was because, she thought, she was a fickle person, someone lacking discipline and character, undependable, cowardly, with questionable morals, who didn’t stand up
for
an old friend who’d meant so much, but who’d then taken her money instead, she could hardly believe it was true, it was unbearable.

‘We haven’t got much money, me and Emma,’ she mumbled. ‘It’s always been like that, ever since Jostein went away. I told Maja about it. She wanted me to solve the problem her way. I was to borrow the spare room. We were at Hannah’s and we were drunk. I began to consider her proposition, I was so tired and I couldn’t take any more sleepless nights, threats in the mail and disconnected phones. So we arranged that I’d return – and try it. She would help. Show me the ropes.’

‘Yes?’

‘I was slightly pissed when I arrived, I couldn’t face being sober, because then the decision would sort of become concrete, I came as arranged, and I’d decided …’

She stopped, because just then it had actually dawned on her, in all its horror. She was a potential prostitute. And now
he
knew it too.

‘But then I couldn’t go through with it. Maja gave me a Coke and I sobered up as I was sitting there, and my courage evaporated. I thought they might take Emma away if it got out. It made me ill, I ran away from the whole thing. But before that she explained certain things to me.’

‘Explained what?’

‘Well, how things worked.’

‘Did she show you the knife?’

Eva held back for a moment. ‘She did show me the knife. She said it was to engender fear and respect. I was lying on the bed. That was when I got frightened,’ Eva said quickly. ‘That was when I decided to pull out. I don’t know how you managed to find all this out, I don’t understand anything.’

‘The knife obviously wasn’t much help?’ he said doubtfully.

‘No, she …’ Eva stopped dead.

‘What were you about to say?’

‘She probably wasn’t tough enough.’

‘Your fingerprints were all over the flat,’ he went on. ‘Even,’ he said slowly, ‘on the phone. Who did you phone?’

‘Fingerprints?’ Her fingers curled at the thought of it. Perhaps they’d been in her house while she was up in the mountains, perhaps they’d picked the lock and tiptoed about with those small brushes they used.

‘Who did you phone, Eva?’

‘No one! But I did consider – phoning Jostein,’ she lied.

‘Jostein Magnus?’

‘Yes, my ex. Emma’s father.’

‘And why didn’t you?’

‘Well, I simply changed my mind. He walked out on me, I didn’t want to ask him for anything. I got dressed and left. I told Maja that what she was doing could be dangerous, but she only smiled. Maja never listened to anyone.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me all this the first time I came?’

‘I was embarrassed. I really did consider becoming a prostitute, and I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone knowing it.’

‘I’ve never, ever, in all my life looked down on women who are prostitutes,’ he said simply.

He rose from the sofa as if he were satisfied. She couldn’t believe her eyes.

He stood for a short while out on the steps, gazing at the drive, looking at the car and at Emma’s bike which was propped against the house. Then his stare moved further out, down the street to the other houses, as if trying to form an opinion about the area she lived in, what sort of person she was to live just here, in this neighbourhood, in this house.

‘Did you get the impression that Ms Durban had a lot of money?’

The question came suddenly.

‘Oh yes. All her things were expensive. She ate in restaurants and that sort of thing.’

‘We’re wondering if she might have had a tidy sum stashed away somewhere,’ he said, ‘and that someone might have known about it.’ His gaze struck her like a laser beam right between the eyes and she blinked in terror. ‘Her husband arrived by plane from France yesterday, we’re hoping he can tell us something when we get him in for questioning.’

‘What?’ She steadied herself on the door frame.

‘Ms Durban’s husband,’ Sejer repeated. ‘You look frightened.’

‘I didn’t know she had one,’ she said lamely.

‘No? Didn’t she say?’ He frowned. ‘That’s a bit strange, her not saying anything, if you were old friends?’

If, she thought. If we really were old friends. If I’m telling the truth. She could go on talking till the cows came home, he obviously wouldn’t believe her.

‘Nothing more to add, Mrs Magnus?’

Eva shook her head. She was petrified. The man who’d arrived at the cabin could have been Maja’s husband. Searching for his inheritance. Perhaps, perhaps one day he’d turn up on her doorstep. Maybe during the night when she was asleep. Maja could have told him that they’d met. If she’d had time. She might have phoned. International call to France. Sejer went down the four wrought-iron steps and halted on the gravel.

‘You should put an ankle like that in hot water. Make sure you wrap a bandage round it.’

Then he left.

Chapter 28

THE MONEY HAD
to be moved out of the house. As the big Peugeot slowly disappeared, she pushed the door shut with a bang and rushed down to the cellar. Her foot was feeling numb again. She prised the lid off the tin with a knife and emptied the packets on to the concrete floor; then she sat and began tearing the foil off them. They were bound with rubber bands. She realised quite quickly that there was a system to the bundles. All the thousand-kroner notes were together, and the hundreds, it was easy to count them. The floor was very cold and she lost sensation in her bottom. On and on she counted, keeping a mental tally of each, laying it aside, and counting the next. Her heart thumped ever louder. Where could she hide such a huge sum? A safe-deposit box was too risky, she had the feeling that they’d be watching her now, watching her every move, Sejer and his people. And Maja’s husband.

Maja was married. Why hadn’t she said so? Had she felt that a husband, a companion for life, was an impediment? Or was he more a kind of business partner to share the running of the hotel? Or just a bloke she didn’t want to acknowledge? The last seemed the most likely.

The paint tin was a wonderful hiding place really, but she had to keep it somewhere else, somewhere no one would think of looking and where she could easily help herself to more when she needed it. At her father’s, of course, in his cellar, along with all the old junk he’d accumulated over the years. Eva’s childhood bed. The apples which lay rotting in the old potato bin. The defective washing machine. She lost count and had to begin again. Her hands were sweating and this made it easy to separate the crisp notes from one another, soon she had half a million in one big heap and there was masses more. Maja’s husband. Maybe he was a really shady character – if Maja had been a prostitute, what might he be? A drug dealer or something similar. Perhaps neither of them had any moral sense. Have
I
got any? she thought suddenly, she was getting close to a million now and she was making inroads into the money. This, she thought, probably represents a good deal of the housekeeping money of hundreds of housewives in this town, money that should have been used for nappies and tins of food. It was an odd thought.

She was on the hundred-kroner notes now, and it took longer. She thought the five hundreds were the nicest-looking, the colour and the pattern, beautiful blue bills. One point six, her fingers were icy, she was counting fifties. If he’d got her registration number, it would only take minutes for him to find her address, if he phoned the Vehicle Registration Office, if he’d even noticed the car; if he’d had some imagination he’d probably have looked at it and considered the possibility, been surprised that it was standing there unlocked. Up in the mountains, not far from the cabin. But he hadn’t had the imagination to search in the earth closet. One point seven million. And a few fifties. Maja had been close to her goal. One point
seven
million kroner. Pieces of foil lay glinting in the light from the bare bulb in the ceiling. She put the money in the tin again and went up the stairs, the swelling in her foot seemed to have eased, perhaps because of the cellar’s coldness. Her dark hair hung like frozen twigs down her neck. She put the tin in the utility room and went back to the bathroom, took a quick hot shower and got dressed.

The millionaire in the mirror was tenser now. She had to get hold of a tarpaulin for the car in case he was sniffing around. Or she could buy a new car. An Audi perhaps? Not one of the biggest ones, perhaps even second-hand. Suddenly she realised it was impossible. She could only buy bread and milk as before. Even Omar would begin to speculate if her shopping basket grew larger. She limped out and fetched the tin. This would have to do. And anyway, they could move. She got some aluminium foil from a kitchen drawer, wrapped the bundles up neatly and laid them in the tin, all except one. On this she stuck a piece of masking tape, pondered a second and wrote ‘Bacon’ on it. Then she put it in the freezer. No point in running out straight away. The sixty thousand in the little tin had been considerably depleted. She put on her coat and went out. But first she examined her mailbox, which had entirely escaped her mind. A green envelope lay in it, from the Arts Council. She gave a smile of surprise. Her grant had come.

‘You’ve started going out at night,’ smiled her father, ‘that’s a good sign.’

‘How so?’

‘I kept ringing you yesterday, right through till eleven o’clock.’

‘Oh yes, I was out.’

‘Have you found someone to keep you warm at last?’ he asked expectantly.

I was just about freezing to death, she thought, I was sitting waist-high in excrement half the night.

‘Well, yes, sort of. I’m not saying any more.’

She played secretive, hugged him and went inside. The paint tin was in the car boot, she’d fetch it later and smuggle it down to the cellar.

‘Was there something in particular?’

‘My fire alarm was wailing and I couldn’t switch it off.’

‘Ah,’ she said quickly, ‘so what did you do?’

‘I rang the fire station and they came at once. Nice people. Sit down now, how long can you stay, can you stay a while? By the way, how long’s Emma going to be at Jostein’s, you’re not thinking of giving her up?’

‘Don’t be so silly, I’d never even entertain the idea. I can certainly stay for a bit, I could make us dinner.’

‘I don’t think I’ve got anything in.’

‘Then I’ll go out and buy something.’

‘No, you haven’t got the money to feed me, I’ll have a bowl of porridge.’

‘What about fillet steak?’ she asked with a smile.

‘I don’t like you saying silly things,’ he said crossly.

‘My grant came today, and I’ve got nobody else to celebrate with.’

At that he gave way. Eva began to potter about the house, and his mind gradually became tranquil. It was the sounds he missed most of all, the sounds of another human being who breathed and padded about, radio and television weren’t the same.

‘Have you seen the papers?’ he growled a little later, ‘Some poor girl’s been suffocated in her own bed. People who do that sort of thing should be knocked on the head
with
a club. Poor young thing. Treating a girl like that, when she’s offering a service and a bed and everything, never heard the like. I thought her name sounded rather familiar, but I can’t place it, did you read about it, Eva? Is it anyone we know?’

‘No,’ she called from the kitchen.

He frowned. ‘Well, that’s a mercy anyway. If it had been someone I knew, I’d have tracked the bloke down and knocked him on the head with a club. Only punishment he’ll get is a cell with TV and three meals a day. I mean, does anybody even ask if they’re sorry?’