The Caller Page 16

  ‘If everyone were like you, Johnny,’ Henry said contentedly, ‘this world would be a better place.’

  Johnny patted him on his nearly bald head. ‘I know. I’m a man of action.’

  They talked about this and that, as was their routine, and a few afternoon hours passed quickly. Because he had so much care, Henry felt spoiled, and Johnny felt indispensable. ‘It’s us against all the rest of them,’ he told Henry.

  Johnny carried the mugs and plates to the kitchen and put them on the worktop. He found the plastic canister in the shed, walked down to Bjørnstad Centre and filled it up. As he walked back across Askeland with the heavy can in his hand, he fantasised. His mother would look up when he entered, perhaps from her knitting, smile and say, There you are, how lovely. I’ve waited so long. Are you hungry? Can I make you something to eat? What do you feel like eating, Johnnyboy?

  He liked this fantasy, so he continued to let his thoughts wander.

  I’ve baked you a kringle, she might say. It’s cooling on a rack on the worktop.

  With almonds and sugar on top.

  Let’s have a nice, quiet evening at home together.

  When he was finally home after his long walk – the ten-litre canister had made his right arm numb – he filled the moped tank. Draining the can properly was difficult.

  He heard it splash at the bottom, probably only a drop left. Thoughts of the sweet kringle were swept away and replaced with bitter ones. If she’s lying on the sofa pissed, he thought, I’ll pour the rest of the petrol on her head and light it.

  My mother in flames, he thought.

  The smell of grilled hyena spreading over Askeland.

  He went inside the house.

  There was nothing on the stove, and no hot, sweet kringle cooling on a rack.

  He headed into the lounge and stood stock-still in the door frame, staring. His mother sat on the sofa, the tension between them palpable as humidity in the air.

  ‘What do you want?’ she said. ‘Been with the old man, I imagine. What did you get out of him today?’

  He lowered his head. She was right: his grandfather had given him money. But he hadn’t begged for it. He had only mentioned the empty tank, had said it without complaint, as an explanation.

  ‘Don’t stand there gawking, it makes me nervous. Do you know you have a piercing stare? Go to your room.’

  Johnny did as his mother told him. In his room he took Butch from his cage, lay down on his bed and closed his eyes, letting the hamster crawl across the duvet on its tiny, fast feet. Low sounds reached him from the kitchen. Maybe she had started dinner. He heard drawers and cupboards opening, and footsteps shuffling back and forth. The clatter of cutlery. Well, he thought, the hyena is scraping a meal together. Another thought slithered through the silence into his room, an evil and shrewd one. The police were right behind him now, so it was important to exploit the time he had left. He listened to all the noises in the kitchen, noticing how she paced from the kitchen to the lounge and back. She kept busy, turning on the taps, slamming cupboard doors. Finally, after twenty minutes, he heard her go into the bathroom. He leapt quickly from the bed and opened a drawer in his chest of drawers. The box of rat poison was hidden behind an old T-shirt. He removed the lid and studied the pink grains. You would think the grains looked tasty, if you didn’t know any better – that is, if you didn’t know they were deadly. Keeping his ear trained on the bathroom, his listened for his mother. I’ll have to act fast, he thought, while I’m at my most vicious. While I don’t care what’s happening, either about the night ahead or tomorrow – to hell with the consequences. He tiptoed into the kitchen. A saucepan simmered on the hob. On the worktop next to it was a wooden spoon. The meat and vegetables in the pan were mixed in a dark sauce. He drained the entire box of rat poison into the pan and stirred it around, until it was absolutely impossible to see the minuscule grains. This will be interesting, he thought. He stuck the empty box under his pullover and ran back to his room. The entire operation had taken only a few seconds. When he heard his mother leave the bathroom, he slipped into the hallway and opened the front door, his cheeks flushed.

  She heard him and immediately stepped into the hallway. ‘So,’ she said, ‘just when I make dinner for us, you leave.’

  ‘I’ll eat later. Don’t wait for me, go ahead and eat.’

  She returned to the stove, stirring the food in the poisoned pan. The last he saw of her were her blue-veined legs.

  Johnny Beskow stayed away from the house for several hours.

  Hot, out of breath and excited about what he’d done. Now there was no way back. His fantasies ran wild, imagining dramatic scenes of his mother and the poisonous stew: of her eating from the spoon so that it ran down her chin, of her emptying the pot and scraping the bottom. He had visions of his mother convulsing. He saw her teeth clattering in her mouth, saw her suddenly collapse on to the table, then leap up and stumble around in the throes of death, eyes bloodshot and foam spilling from her mouth. She sounded her death rattle, drooling and falling, then scrambled to her feet and stumbled through each room. When she reached the telephone to call for help, her eyesight was weak, and she couldn’t see clearly. She tried to open a window, to call out to someone walking past, but her fingers disobeyed her and she failed to pop the latch. And anyway, she had lost her voice. Now she was poisoned. Her arms and legs were poisoned; her heart and brain were poisoned. Poison pumped through her bloodstream, made its deadly way to every last cell of her body. Finally she went down for good. Maybe she dragged something with her when she fell, made a violent commotion. Because she shouldn’t be allowed to die in a peaceful manner. She should leave this world in pain and suffering.

  Or so Johnny Beskow thought.

  He rode to the Sparbo Dam. Parked the moped against a spruce, put his gloves inside his helmet. He walked ten steps along the dam wall, and sat down. The water roared and foamed on its way through the pipes and down into the valley. He sat there a long time waiting for the poison to take effect. Restlessly he roamed the forest trails, rode here and there and watched the time. After four hours he figured it was over. He set his course for home, rolled into the driveway and parked.

  He stood there a while, listening.

  The house had never been so quiet.

  He imagined her lying in the bathroom.

  On the floor, her face flat against the old yellow tiles. Maybe she had fallen next to the sofa, having attempted to reach it. Or maybe she had dragged herself into the bedroom and lain on her bed. Standing still in the hall, he could not hear a sound. From there he went into the bathroom, and from the bathroom he went into the lounge. Where she stood rummaging in a drawer of her writing desk. She looked up.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she shouted. ‘Why are you sneaking about like that? You look like a thief in your own house. For God’s sake, you scared me. Why do you stand there gawping like that? Have you seen a ghost or what?’

  Alive and kicking, she gesticulated wildly with her hands. She had a pulse, she made sounds. She could think, cobble sentences together into bad thoughts – just as he had done. She could go on pouring her vodka. In his confusion Johnny was mute. She didn’t look sick at all. There was even a trace of colour in her cheeks.

  He went into the kitchen, puzzled. The pan was on the stove, but it was empty. His mother had poured the stew into a large, blue Tupperware container with a lid. She came in.

  ‘Take what you want,’ she said. ‘I’ll put the rest in the freezer. We’ll eat it another time.’

  Escaping to his room, he felt gloomy and disappointed, because he hadn’t been able to create a spectacle and hadn’t got rid of her once and for all, as he’d thought. He spent the entire evening on his bed pondering while Butch scampered around on the duvet. Apparently she hadn’t eaten enough of the poisonous stew, or hadn’t eaten any of it.

  Night came, and he went to bed.

  He heard his mother bustling about in her room. A logical thought struck him:
maybe she had eaten, maybe even a good portion, but the rat poison worked very slowly. That’s what he’d read on the package – that the rats need several doses before they breathed their last. So maybe it would take the hyena a while to die. The thought of her pain lasting several days excited him. Poisoning was like a war, and there was a kind of logic to the way the small grains attacked. First they destroyed the liver and kidneys, then the lungs and the heart.

  He wrapped the duvet snugly around him, a warm lair of down and cloth.

  He tried to make plans for the following day. I’ll have to do something creative, he thought, while I wait for the poison to do its work. While I wait for the hyena to fall to her knees.

  Chapter 26

  Little Theo Bosch sat attentively in front of the television, a bag of De-light crisps in his lap. With just 9 per cent fat, the crisps were approved by his mother, who was careful about such things. He had put a DVD in the machine and followed closely what happened on the screen. Watching Lars Monsen’s green canoe slice through the water, Theo thought he looked like a real mountain man with his tangle of hair and beard: fishing for trout, making up a campfire, sleeping under the open sky. If the wolf howled out there in the dark, Lars Monsen didn’t get scared, because it was just Good Old Greyleg gathering his flock. A fearless man, Lars Monsen wandered the wilderness with such confidence that Theo dreamed himself far away. After he’d watched two whole episodes, he leapt from the sofa and ran to find his mother. But she wasn’t in the kitchen or out in the garden. His father came in while he was searching for her.

  ‘She’s resting,’ he said. ‘She has a headache. That’s women for you. They need a room of their own where they can be in peace.’

  Theo raced up to his parents’ bedroom on the first floor, where he found his mother lying on the queen-sized bed, her face towards the wall. It was stifling hot. She had removed all her clothes and had simply pulled the sheet over her. But the sheet had slid down, and her naked white rump glowed in the dark room.

  Theo stood there, staring, a finger in his mouth.

  Hannes tiptoed in. He leaned against the door. ‘Look at that,’ he said. ‘Her bottom looks like two soft buns.’

  At that they laughed in the way of boys.

  ‘Can I hike to Snellevann?’ Theo asked. ‘By myself?’

  Hannes Bosch furrowed his brow. He glanced down at his wife’s tempting behind, and then looked at his son. Theo was an obedient child with a certain intensity which often served him well.

  ‘To Snellevann. By yourself? Now? Do you mean right now?’

  Theo nodded. He looked pleadingly at his father. His head was filled with images of the wilderness and so too was his heart. He could hear the song of the forest in the enormous spruces. He wanted to hear the birds sing, see the fish jump. Theo the explorer, that’s what he wanted to be.

  ‘I’ll take my lunch,’ he whispered. ‘You can help me pack my rucksack so I’ve got everything I need.’

  Hannes Bosch cast a glance at his watch. It was still early. He put his hand on his son’s head. Theo wasn’t much more than a tiny tot, but he was a bright boy, and no sissy. To Snellevann, he thought, on his little legs. That would take him an hour. Then he’d probably sit at the water’s edge for twenty minutes before coming home; all in all, it’d take two hours and twenty minutes – a long time for a little boy. To Snellevann. All by himself. Hannes walked to the window and looked out. The weather was fine, and nightfall was a long way off. There was also a good deal of pedestrian traffic on the way to Snellevann. Landowners and farmers spent time in their fields seeing to their cows and sheep, putting out salt blocks, checking the fences. Not to mention hikers and cyclists, and maybe people picking berries. But Theo was just eight years old. On the other hand, it’s safer in the woods than almost anywhere else. They’d agreed on that long ago.

  ‘Your mum would probably tell you no,’ he whispered.

  ‘But we won’t ask her,’ Theo said cleverly, with a sideways glance at his father.

  They tiptoed out of the bedroom.

  Hannes rested a hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘If you’re going out hiking, then you’ve got to plan ahead. Having a plan is important. Lars Monsen never goes off without planning first, right down to the smallest detail. Food. Equipment. Clothing. Everything.’

  Theo nodded.

  ‘You’ve got to dress properly,’ Hannes said. ‘Don’t wear sandals. Find something else.’

  ‘Shorts,’ Theo said. ‘Because it’s hot. And trainers. An extra jumper in my rucksack. Food and water.’

  ‘And you’ve got to have a good knife,’ Hannes said. ‘You can’t go to the woods without one. I’ll let you borrow my hunting knife. But don’t tell your mum. You know how women get with knives. They don’t understand.’

  Theo collected everything he needed. He was flushed and eager. When he became a famous explorer, like Lars Monsen, journalists would ask him about his very first expedition. Oh, that, he would say. I was just a boy. I hiked to Snellevann and back, and I was really proud of myself.

  Hannes packed Theo’s lunch. While he did that, he prepared a few good arguments for when Wilma woke up to find that her little boy had gone off to Snellevann on his own. With a heavy hunting knife in his belt.

  But for God’s sake, Wilma, he’s eight years old. You know how he is, with all his Lars Monsen ideas. He’s got it into his head he wants to be an explorer, and you’ll never be able to stop him. I think we should be proud and happy. Some kids can’t be bothered to get off the sofa. What did you say? He’ll get lost? He’s going to Snellevann, Wilma. He’s following the trail, which he’s done a hundred times before. No, the weather is fine, and he will be back in a couple of hours. Or I should say two and a half hours. Think about how proud he’ll be. Self-confidence is pretty important, Wilma, don’t you agree?

  He put salami on a slice of bread.

  I made sure he took his mobile phone. He’s just a dial away. You can call and check up on him. That is, if you want to ruin the whole experience for him.

  So that his son would have some variety, he put Swiss sausage on the second slice and cheese on the third. He mixed blackcurrant squash and poured it in a Thermos. Theo came into the kitchen. He had retrieved his rucksack, and in it he had put his favourite toy, Optimus Prime.

  ‘Get a belt,’ Hannes said. ‘Where you can put the knife. It should always be easily accessible, you know. In case the Indians come,’ he winked.

  Theo fetched a belt. He put on his trainers and tied the shoelaces in a double knot, and was so excited his cheeks flushed. There was something manly about him, something brave and grown-up.

  ‘I’ll walk you to the metal barrier,’ Hannes suggested.

  ‘Yup.’

  They closed the door and locked it. Wandered down the main road. It took them a quarter of an hour to reach the barrier near Glenna. They stopped and exchanged a few words.

  ‘Put your jumper on if you get cold.’

  ‘I will, Papa,’ Theo said.

  ‘And don’t leave any rubbish behind. Put it in your rucksack after you’ve eaten.’

  ‘I will. I’ll clean up after me.’

  ‘If you use the knife, do so carefully. It’s sharp.’

  ‘I’ll be careful, Papa. I promise.’

  Then Theo turned and walked on. He had inherited his father’s big feet, and in the enormous trainers, he reminded his father of a little tottering duck.

  Hannes watched his small son until he disappeared round a bend. Then the boy was absorbed by the forest.

  Wilma Bosch wasn’t merciful.

  Though they were still attractive, the soft cheeks Hannes had admired had disappeared into a pair of bleached jeans. But he knew better than to put his claws on them, because now she was on the offensive.

  ‘How will he cope if something happens?’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean, “happens”? Nothing will happen in the woods, Wilma. There are only acorns and hares as far as you can see. What are you
really afraid of?’

  Wilma moved to the window facing the road. She had clogs on her feet, and they clopped against the wooden floor. Even though she couldn’t see Theo from there, it was her attempt to get closer to him.

  ‘You ask what could happen,’ she said. ‘A lot, Hannes. An eight-year-old boy is so helpless. He could slip on the rocks, then hit his head and fall in the water. There are snakes and they’re big this year, at least that’s what everyone who knows anything says. There are cows grazing, and moose. Sometimes they attack people,’ she said. ‘You know, when they have young.’

  Hannes tried to digest what she’d said.

  ‘You’re afraid he’ll be afraid,’ he said. ‘Is that what this is all about?’

  ‘Yes. He’s just eight!’

  ‘But everyone’s afraid now and then. Maybe he’ll hear strange sounds in the trees, and maybe his heart will leap.

  But so does my heart, and I’m thirty-eight. I could slip on the rocks too, hit my head and end up on life support. With no contact with the rest of the world. If we were to discuss all the things that could happen.’

  Wilma fell into a chair so heavily that it moved a few centimetres. ‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘I think all that Lars Monsen stuff is too much.’

  She pouted. She had folded her hands in her lap, and Hannes noticed the remains of dark red nail varnish. It looked as though tiny drops of blood had trickled from her nails. He patted her arm lightly then reached into his pocket for his mobile. He punched in Theo’s number and waited. He pushed the speaker button so Wilma could hear.

  ‘Howdy, Theo,’ he said. ‘How far along are you?’

  Wilma sat listening to the short conversation. She imagined, at that instant, her son on his way into the big forest.

  ‘You’re past Granfoss?’ Hannes said. ‘OK. Have you run into anyone? … No one? What about animals? … No, OK.… You’re not cold? … Good, good. Put on your jumper if it gets cloudy … You’re out of breath,’ he added. ‘Are you going up the hills over towards Myra?’