Hell Fire Page 13

  “It’s Bonnie,” she said as she went over to him. “How are you?”

  He turned his head and looked at her. He definitely recognized her, but he did not give her a smile. He turned his gaze back to the cars outside the window, his bushy gray eyebrows knitted.

  “You don’t need to speak so loudly,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with my hearing.”

  Bonnie looked at his large white ear, and thought suddenly that it reminded her of a beautiful conch shell. She wondered, if she put her ear to his, whether she would hear the sound of his long life. Which was over now. The memory of life in his old house with the horses outside the window was all that he had left. Ahead there was nothing.

  Then she did something she had never done before. She gave his cheek a gentle stroke. And that teased out a little smile.

  When she was in the car driving home again, she thought to herself that she never wanted to be old. She couldn’t face the deterioration, the helplessness. She didn’t want her hair to go gray and her jowls to sag. She thought about her father; he was like a child now. His life was over too, even though he was only seventy-five. He was in another world, but he was in good physical health and might live for years yet with serious dementia. She had seen an Alzheimer brain on TV once, and it was as full of holes as Swiss cheese.

  That evening she sat on the sofa with Simon and looked through a photo album. She had to point out and explain who was who all the time.

  “That’s Granny and Grandpa,” she said, “on their wedding day. Isn’t Granny lovely?”

  Simon agreed. There wasn’t a picture like that of his mother and father because they never got married.

  “Look, that’s me,” she pointed and laughed. “I was just a baby there, and I was pretty fat. And there I’m ten; we’re at the beach. I remember that swimsuit because I had it for a long time.”

  “And that’s me and Daddy,” Simon said as he looked up at her. “And I’ve got a sister.”

  “A half-sister,” Bonnie corrected him. “It’s not quite the same.”

  She helped him brush his teeth, tucked him into bed, and switched off the light. She felt utterly exhausted and went back into the living room and sank down in an armchair. She tried to find something to watch on television. Where was her life going? What was going to happen? Sometimes, like now, she felt that something was close, something she couldn’t articulate.

  24

  EVERY WINTER, on the night before Christmas Eve, Eddie went to bed first. When the door closed behind him, Mass swung into action. She filled an old red stocking with candy and hung it above the door to her son’s bedroom. He would lie awake in bed and listen to the hammering. Early the next morning, he would empty the contents of the red stocking out onto the table and munch his way through it in no time. And now it was already January. Mass had tidied Christmas away and all the pine needles had been swept up.

  Eddie had been working on the crossword for some time, chewing a pencil that was about to disintegrate. Intrigue. Plot. When he had finished, he sat and pondered. And after he had pondered for a while, he sat down at the computer. Mass took over the newspaper but kept an eye on her son staring at the screen. After a while, he turned and looked at her.

  “When was Dad born?” he asked.

  “Oh, darling, I’ve told you so many times before.”

  “Well, tell me again,” Eddie insisted. “I need to get it absolutely right.”

  “November sixth, 1945,” she said with a frown.

  Something about her son’s behavior made her uneasy. There was a determination about him that she had seen on a couple of previous occasions; it meant he was up to something.

  “Do you have his personal ID number as well?”

  “No.”

  “And where was he born?” Eddie asked.

  “In Bergen.”

  “And when did he leave us?”

  Mass sighed in exasperation. “Eddie, darling, why do you want to know all this?” she asked anxiously.

  “When did he move?” Eddie persisted.

  “In 1987. On May twenty-seventh.”

  He looked at her in surprise. “Crikey, you even remember the date?”

  “Women remember things like that,” she said wearily. “Men don’t always pay attention to the details.”

  “And when did he die?”

  “In ’92. But don’t ask me the date because I don’t know. And I don’t know where he’s buried, and I don’t know if he had any children with his new wife. And I don’t want to know. He was a coward.”

  “Why do you always say he was a coward?” Eddie asked.

  Mass thought for a while before she reluctantly replied: “Well, when you were little, you weren’t very easy to deal with.”

  Eddie looked at his mother with piercing eyes. “Why? What do you mean?”

  “You didn’t want to do anything. You didn’t want to go to daycare; you didn’t want to be with other children. You clung to us all the time because you suffered from what’s called separation anxiety. So even though we managed to get you a place at daycare, we couldn’t use it. I’m just being honest now. And Anders was at the end of his tether. He didn’t think you’d ever amount to much. He called you a sniveling brat, and fathers shouldn’t say things like that about their own children. It’s just not right.”

  “But if you weren’t in touch, how did you find out that he’d died?”

  “His wife wrote me a letter.”

  “His wife?” Eddie exclaimed. “Wrote you a letter?”

  “Yes.”

  “But she didn’t say where he was buried?”

  “No, and I didn’t particularly want to know either, because I had no intention of visiting his grave.”

  “But if you got a letter”—Eddie was excited now—“then you know her name, don’t you? And then I can find out.”

  “I don’t remember much of the letter,” she admitted.

  “Nothing?”

  “Good Lord, Eddie, you do go on. You’re starting to annoy me now.”

  “But you do remember her name, don’t you?” he nagged. “You can remember the date he moved to Copenhagen. So that means you’ve got a good memory, just like me.”

  She closed her eyes and a considerable amount of time lapsed before she opened them again. “Well, since you’re obviously not going to give up, her name was Inga.”

  “Inga what?”

  “Inga Margrethe.”

  “What else?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “But it must have been written on the back of the envelope,” he said. “Have you still got the letter?”

  “Of course not,” she snapped. “Why would I keep it?”

  Eddie thought about what his mother had told him, that he was a difficult child. Even though it had never been said so directly, it was something he already knew. He turned back to the computer screen and opened a new document. He sat for a while and thought before he started to write.

  To the Tracker Tore production team,

  My name is Eddie Malthe, and I am writing to you because I need help to find my father’s grave in Copenhagen. He left my mother and me on May 27, 1987, and then remarried and moved to Denmark. My father’s name is Anders Kristoffer Malthe, and he was born in Bergen on November 6, 1945. His new wife is named Inga, but I don’t have a surname, I’m afraid. They settled in Copenhagen. I know that he died in 1992 but I don’t have the exact date. I watch your program every week, and I know that you have found people all over the world. It would mean a lot to me, because then I could go to Copenhagen and lay flowers on his grave. All I have is an old photograph that hangs over my bed. I hope that you will be able to help me find him.

  Yours faithfully,

  Eddie Malthe

  He mailed the letter the same day. He had printed it on good paper because he thought that it might be more personal that way. No doubt they got heaps of letters. He didn’t want his to drown in them all. He had written his address and telephone numb
er at the bottom, and, to be on the safe side, had stuck on two stamps. The long wait started. He would sit by the kitchen window and watch for the red mail van, and as soon as he saw it, he would rush out into the snow. Ansgar often came out at the same time with the cat at his heels. Presumably he stood by the window waiting as well, but Eddie just grabbed what was in the mailbox and disappeared back into the house as fast as he could. Sometimes he had Shiba with him. Her legs were getting worse and worse, but every time he mentioned it to his mother, she got upset. Some days she laid out a newspaper by the front door, so the dog could shit there. But Shiba also had good days, and then Mass held on to the hope that she would get better. She couldn’t bear to accept the inevitable. And all the time, Eddie waited for a letter from Tracker Tore. His body ached with anticipation and he was constantly in and out of his room to look at the photograph. His father really was a handsome man, he thought, with broad shoulders and thick blond hair. He had forged a steely determination to find his father’s grave. He would look day and night for months if he had to.

  25

  August 2005

  SEJER AND SKARRE went back to see the Haydens because they had some more questions. They saw that the chair by the window was empty as soon as they came in.

  “Is he at Hallingstad?”

  “No, he’s in bed. I can’t always get him up,” Henny explained. “And it doesn’t really matter where he is. He just sits with his hands in his lap and hardly ever speaks, and when he does, it’s just nonsense.”

  “And how are you?” Sejer asked with concern.

  “I take it hour by hour,” she said in a tired voice. “Sometimes I go into her old room and lie down on the bed. And it feels like there is no reason in the world to get up. Have you found anything? Is that why you’re here? Have you got some more information?”

  Sejer had to admit that they didn’t.

  “All you have is a footprint,” she said despondently. “And that’s not going to get you very far.”

  “I’m afraid we have to talk to you about something,” Skarre said. “There are things in Bonnie’s life that we need to investigate more closely.”

  “I see.” She didn’t look at them when she answered.

  “Bonnie was bright,” Skarre started, “and her dream was to become a doctor. Instead she ended up as a home health aide, which is not quite the same. Why was that, do you think?”

  “I suppose it was just one of many dreams that weren’t fulfilled,” Henny said with a sigh. “That’s what happens sometimes. And she liked her work as a home health aide; she put her heart and soul into it.”

  “Was she in any way disappointed that she never fulfilled her dream?”

  “I don’t think so. She certainly never said anything about it. But life was a struggle for her, especially after Olav left. I will never forgive him. Fortunately he had the sense to stay away from the funeral. If he had shown up, I would definitely have told him what I thought. That a grown man can fall for a teenager and give up all he has is more than I can understand.”

  “I need to ask you some difficult questions,” Skarre ventured. “But please remember we are on your side. Do you have any family secrets that we should know about?”

  “Don’t all families have secrets?” Henny replied. “I think perhaps you should show a little more sensitivity. Things are bad enough as they are—we’re in shock.”

  “But a murder is a matter of public concern,” Skarre told her. “In fact, you are duty-bound to answer our questions. Only when the witness is a close relative of the accused are they absolved of that duty. And that’s not the case here, is it? I think you should let us decide what is important or not.”

  She didn’t say anything. She looked down at her hands and then at the empty chair. They could see she was struggling. She had no doubt imagined the scene in the trailer, the raised knife, over and over again. She had heard their screams in her head; she would hear them until she died. Sometimes Sejer was filled with despair at all the questions he had to ask, but he was also used to the family being keen to help.

  “I’ve got something else on my mind too,” he said.

  “I’m terribly tired,” she said. “I just want to be left alone.”

  “I understand that, and we’ll leave you in peace very soon. But it’s been brought to our attention that Bonnie suffered from anorexia when she was a teenager. And we have to talk to you about it. Now, you might not think that it has anything to do with the case, but we ask you to bear with us. So, can you tell us about it?”

  She straightened her back as though she were about to defend herself. As though she wanted to say that she had nothing to hide when it came to her daughter’s illness, and that she and her husband were not to blame in any way.

  “She was seventeen when she went on a diet,” she explained. “She weighed one hundred and forty-seven pounds, which wasn’t much for Bonnie really, as she was quite tall. And then it got out of control and the weight fell off her. She sat and picked at her food and withdrew into herself, as if she wanted to disappear altogether. She went down to eighty-eight pounds within the year and we went to lots of doctors for help. She couldn’t have cared less. She even started to lose her hair, and she had pressure sores, as if her bones were trying to break out of her skin. It was awful to see. She was in the hospital several times. The doctors were worried about organ failure, so it was extremely serious. We were terrified we were going to lose her. Neither Henrik nor I could sleep at night.”

  “How did she manage to turn it around?” Skarre asked.

  “Eventually we found a doctor whom she connected really well with. It was as though he found the key. And then slowly but surely she started to get better. I’ve never been more relieved in all my life than when she started to eat again. At first, she only ate soup and porridge because she found chewing hard. But then finally it was all in the past. And she’s never had any problems like that since.”

  “I imagine that you and Henrik gave considerable thought to what might have caused the illness,” Skarre said. “What was your conclusion?”

  She looked as if she was about to cry. “It wasn’t our fault,” she said, distraught. “But we often felt that that was what the doctors thought—that they judged us and the way we treated Bonnie.”

  “And how did you treat her?”

  “We were rather strict, I suppose. Especially Henrik, as he was very overprotective. He would stand at the window every time she went out and watch her go to the gate. Sometimes we worried that someone with a big motorbike might be waiting for her on the main road. And that she might not have a helmet. Isn’t that what all parents think?”

  “Yes,” Sejer said and smiled. “I have a daughter too.”

  “He always told her to be back by nine at the latest,” Henny continued. “And generally she was home on time because she was a good girl. But every now and then she was late. Henrik would stand by the window and wait, and when she finally came home, he would bombard her with questions. Why didn’t you come home when you were told to? Who were you with? Where have you been and what did you do, and are you going to see him again? Have you been drinking or taken anything else? Can we trust you? And Bonnie would get really upset. She’d say she’d been with her girlfriends and forgotten the time. And she would apologize a thousand times and then scuttle off to bed to get away from it. Some girls who develop eating disorders do it to gain some kind of control over their lives, that sort of thing.”

  “Do you think Bonnie had lost control of her life?” Sejer asked.

  “No teenager is in control, really,” Henny replied. “They’re still so unprepared. And Bonnie was the sort of girl who couldn’t say no.”

  “Do you think there’s more?” Skarre asked later. “Is there something she’s not telling us?”

  “Perhaps. But she’s started processing it now, so we’ll just give her space. I’m sure she’ll tell us in her own time. Maybe she’s ashamed of something. And shame is a powerful enemy.”
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  They drove into the parking garage in the basement and then walked up to reception. There was a girl waiting there. She looked around eighteen, maybe twenty, and her hair was bleached by the sun.

  “I’ve been on vacation in Spain, and I’ve just come home,” she said. “I left on July sixth, at seven in the morning. It’s about what happened at Skarven Farm. The papers are full of it and I’ve read everything. And, well, I’ve been thinking.”

  “Did you see something?” Sejer interjected.

  “Possibly.”

  “Come up to the office and tell us about it.”

  She followed him into the elevator and up to the fifth floor. When they came into the office, Frank got up from under the desk. She greeted him enthusiastically, admiring his wrinkly head and black eyes.

  “I was in the parking lot in Geirastadir on July fifth,” she said. “A friend and I wanted to get out in the good weather and go for a walk. We thought we’d go up to Saga.”

  “Carry on.”

  “Well, I was sitting in the car waiting because my friend had called to say she was running a bit late.”

  “And what did you do while you were waiting?”

  “I sat in the car and listened to the radio. I had the engine running because I needed the air conditioning on. The parking lot was almost full, but then, a while later, another car came. It was an old red station wagon, I think. I don’t know much about makes, but it was definitely not a small car. And the driver struggled to find a space to park. But eventually he managed to squeeze in.”

  “So it was a man?”

  “Yes.”

  Two red cars, Sejer thought, one at Skarven Farm and one in Geirastadir.

  “Then he got out of the car,” the girl continued. “I thought he was probably going to walk to Saga or Svarttjern, but he didn’t. He disappeared down across the fields instead. Toward Skarven.”

  “Did you notice what he looked like?”