Calling Out For You aka The Indian Bride

Chapter 23

Friis tried to keep himself under control.

"Do you understand what you have done?" he said hoarsely. "Do you understand the seriousness?"

"Yes," Gøran said. He lay dozing on the bunk. His body was entirely filled with serenity.

"You have confessed to the most serious crime of all, carrying the law's most severe penalty. Despite the fact that the police doesn't have a single conclusive piece of evidence. It is highly questionable whether they are able to bring a case on this weak basis at all. In addition they have to find a jury willing to convict you on postulations and hearsay."

He paced the floor angrily.

"Do you really understand what you've done?"

Gøran looked at Friis in surprise. "What if I did it?"

"What if! You said you were innocent. Have you changed your mind?"

"I don't care about that any longer. Perhaps I did do it. I've been sitting in that room for so many hours thinking so many thoughts. I don't know what the truth is any more. Everything is true, nothing is true. I don't get to work out. I feel like I'm drugged," he snuffled.

"They've put pressure on you," Friis said earnestly. "I'm asking you to please withdraw your confession."

"You could have sat in there with me! Like I asked you to! That's my right!"

"It's not a good strategy," Friis said. "It's best for us if I don't know what happened between the two of you. That way I can cast aspersions on Sejer's methods. Do you hear me? I want you to withdraw your confession!"

Gøran looked at him in amazement. "Isn't that a bit late?"

Friis started walking up and down the cell floor again.

"You've given Sejer the one thing he wanted. A confession."

"Are you looking for the truth?" Gøran said.

"I'm looking to save your skin!" he said sharply. "It's my job and I'm good at it. Heavens above, you're a young man! If they convict you, you'll be going down for a long time. The best years of your life. Think about it!"

Gøran turned towards the wall. "You can go now. To hell with it all."

Friis sat down next to him. "No," he said, "I'm not going. Under duress you have confessed to a crime you didn't commit. Sejer is older than you, an authority. He has exploited your youth. It's a miscarriage of justice. You're probably completely brainwashed. We will withdraw the confession and they'll just have to lump it. Now lie down and rest. Try to get some sleep. There's still a long way to go."

"You have to talk to my mum and dad," Gøran said.

The fact of the confession had barely been published when the papers had to inform their readers about its withdrawal. At Einar's Café people sat reading, their eyes wide. Those in doubt, who had maintained his innocence all along, felt tricked. In their heart of hearts they could not believe it. That a young man would confess to smashing a woman's head to a pulp in a meadow if he had not done it. They felt sick at the very thought. Gøran wasn't the person they thought he was. They could not relate to the legal and technical arguments or the article itself, which listed examples of people who had confessed to murders and much else besides which they had never committed. One newspaper reeled off several cases. They examined themselves and felt the resistance, felt that it had to be impossible. And that the people who would be on the jury one day would think as they did.

It was quiet at the café, no fresh debates, just people in doubt, wavering. Mode said, no, for fuck's sake, I'd never have believed it. Nudel was silent and Frank shook his heavy head in disbelief. What the hell were you supposed to think? Ole Gunwald was relieved. He had fingered Einar, but he had turned out to be innocent as the driven snow. True, that was what he had assumed about young Seter, but on reflection he did have sufficient imagination to accept the notion of a raging, over-fit young man who had just been cast off by his girlfriend. And then his mistress, so it was said. How had the papers put it? "A killer with brutal strength."

Gunder had twice come to the telephone to listen to Sejer's explanations. First that they had finally achieved a result, then just hours later this retreat, which didn't worry him, he said, the confession would weigh heavily in court, it needed explaining. We're hopeful that Gøran will be convicted, he said, sounding very persuasive. Gunder thanked him, but he didn't want to hear any more. He wanted it all to be over.

"How is your sister doing?" Sejer said.

"No change."

"Don't give up hope."

"I won't. I've got no-one else." Gunder thought for a while. There was something he wanted to mention. "By the way, I've received a letter. From Poona's brother. It's still in the drawer. A letter which Poona wrote to him after our wedding. In the letter she told him everything. He thought I'd like to have it."

"Did it make you happy?"

"It's in Indian," Gunder said. "In Marathi. That's no use to me."

"I can arrange to have it translated if you like."

"I would, yes please."

"Send it to me," Sejer said.

Robert Friis staunchly maintained that Gøran's confession was incomplete. That he had not in any way accounted for the murder. He didn't remember the woman's clothes, just that they were dark. There was no mention of gold sandals, likewise something as unusual as a Norwegian brooch on the woman's clothes. He had no opinion of the deceased's appearance, though everyone else who had had dealings with the victim had mentioned the protruding teeth. It's reconstruction, pure and simple, Friis thundered, volunteered in a moment of doubt and exhaustion. When questioned about where exactly in Norevann he had thrown the clothes, Gøran was unclear. The initial confession was full of holes and unrelated detail. The later, subsequent reconstruction would reveal this. Friis ran into Sejer in the canteen and though the inspector stared resolutely at his prawn sandwich, Friis flopped down at his table. He was a gossip, but a real pro. Sejer was a man of few words, but equally sure of his ground.

"He's the right man and you know it," he said tersely, harpooning a prawn with his fork.

"Probably," Friis said immediately, "but he shouldn't be convicted on this basis."

Sejer wiped a trace of mayonnaise from his lips and looked at the defence lawyer.

"He'll be released back into the community sooner or later, but if he walks away from this, he'll still be ticking away like an unexploded bomb."

Friis smiled and started on his own sandwich. "You probably don't concern yourself with murders which have yet to be committed. You're busy enough as it is with the cases on your desk right now. So am I."

For a while they both ate.

"The worst thing is," Sejer said, "that Gøran felt at ease with himself for the first time in a long while. By withdrawing the confession he'll have to go through it all over again. It doesn't get him anywhere. He should have been spared this."

Friis slurped his coffee.

"He should never have been charged in the first place," he said. "You're an old hand at this, I'm surprised you took the risk."

"You know that I had to," Sejer said.

"And I know how you work, too," Friis said. "You're on his side. Buttering him up. Listening sympathetically, slapping him on the shoulder. Complimenting him. You're the only one who can get him out of that room and to some other place, irrespective of all his rights. They're the first thing you take away from him."

"I could shout and beat him up," Sejer said simply. "Would you have preferred that?"

Friis didn't answer. He chewed carefully for a long time. And then he said sharply: "You've planted an Indian woman in his consciousness. Like a scientist once planted a polar bear. An experiment, pure and simple."

"Really?" Sejer said.

"Play that game with me. If you know it."

"I think I do."

"Think about anything at all for a few seconds. Create an image of anything you like. Everything is allowed except this: that the image must not contain a polar bear. Apart from that, everything is allowed. But don't think about a polar bear. Do you get my drift?"

"Better than you think," Sejer said.

"So, start thinking."

Sejer thought, but he went on eating. An image came to him quickly. He remained sitting watching it.

"Well?" Friis said.

"I see a tropical beach," Sejer said. "With azure blue water and a single palm tree. And white foaming waves."

"And what comes padding along the beach?" Friis teased.

"The polar bear," Sejer admitted.

"Exactly. You escaped as far from the north of Norway as you could go, but that blasted bear followed you all the way to the tropics. Because I planted it there. Just as you planted Poona Bai in Gøran's mind."

"If you disapprove of my methods, you'll just have to accompany your clients to the interrogations."

"I've too many of them," Friis said.

"The video of the interrogation will be ready soon," Sejer said. "Then you'll have to change tack."

He went to his office and found Skarre there. Without a word Skarre handed him an envelope with a small newspaper cutting. Sejer read it.

"'Man (29) found stabbed in Oslo street. He died later from his injuries.' In your letterbox? No postmark?"

"That's right."

Sejer looked at him searchingly. "Does it worry you?"

Skarre messed up his curls nervously. "My tyres were slashed with a knife. We're talking about a knife here, too. Whoever it was has come right to my front door. Followed me. Wants something from me. I don't understand it."

"How about Linda Carling? Have you considered her?"

"I have, as a matter of fact, but this isn't a particularly feminine thing to do. Neither is slashing tyres."

"Perhaps she's not very feminine."

"I'm not quite sure what she is. I called her mother recently. She is very concerned about her. Says she's changed completely. Stopped going to college. Dresses differently and has become really withdrawn. Plus she's knocking back painkillers. One bottle after another. Then she said something really strange. That her voice had changed."

"What?"

"You remember her? The high-pitched voice, that distinctive chirping which teenage girls have?"

"Well?"

"It's gone. Her voice is deeper."

Sejer looked again at the cutting.

"Would you do me a favour and watch yourself?"

Skarre sighed. "She's sixteen years old. But, OK, I'll keep looking over my shoulder. However, I keep thinking about those pills."

"She's drugging herself," Sejer said.

"Or she's in pain," Skarre said. "From being attacked, perhaps."

Linda was sewing something on a white blouse. She sat very still beneath the lamp, sewing with a dedication and a meticulousness her mother had never seen in her. Didn't know where she'd got the blouse from either.

"Is it new? Where did you get the money?"

"I bought it from Fretex, 45 kroner."

"It's not like you to wear a white blouse."

Linda tilted her head. "It's for a special occasion."

Her mother liked the reply. She supposed it meant that there was a boy involved, which to some extent was true.

"Why are you swapping the buttons?"

"Gold buttons look silly," Linda said. "The tortoiseshell ones are better."

"Did you hear the news today?"

"No."

"They're going to put Gøran on trial. Even though he withdrew his confession."

"I see," Linda said.

"It'll come to court in three months. I can't believe he did it."

"I can," Linda said. "I wasn't sure at first, but now I am."

She kept on sewing. Her mother saw that her daughter was beautiful. Older. More quiet. Nevertheless she felt anxious about something.

"You never see Karen any more?"

"No."

"It's a shame. She's a nice girl."

"True," Linda said. "But dreadfully ignorant."

Her mother was taken aback. "Ignorant about what?"

Linda put down the blouse. "She's just a kid." Then she went on sewing. Looped the thread around the button and tied a knot.

"It's strange about Gøran," her mother said pensively. "Can they convict him solely on circumstantial evidence? The defence says there's not one shred of conclusive evidence." She was quoting from the newspaper.

"One shred of circumstantial evidence wouldn't mean much," Linda conceded. "But if there are enough of them that changes the character of the case."

"How so?" She looked at her daughter in amazement.

"Preponderance of evidence."

"Where on earth did you learn words like that?"

"The newspapers," Linda said. "He drove a car like the one I saw. He was dressed like the man I saw. He can't find the clothes he was wearing or his shoes. He can't account for where he was, he's told several lies to give himself an alibi, all of which have been repudiated. His face was scratched the day after the murder. He kept something, which definitely could have been the murder weapon in his car. Traces of magnesium were found on the victim that probably came from Adonis, and he came straight from being there with his girlfriend right after she'd broken up with him. And last, but not least: during the interrogation he confessed to having murdered her. What more do you need?"

Her mother shook her head in confusion. 'Uo, good God. I wouldn't know." She looked once more at the white blouse. "Wher '1 you be wearing it?"

"I'm meeting someone."

"Now, tonight?"

"Sooner or later."

"That's cryptic." Once again her mother felt uneasy. "You're strange these days. Well, I'm sorry, but I don't get you. Is everything all right?"

"I'm very happy," she said precociously.

"But what about college and everything? What about that?"

"I just need a break." She looked up, lost in thought. Held the white garment up against the light. In her mind she could clearly see the blouse red and sticky from Jacob's blood. She would save it forever and ever as a token of her love. Suddenly she had to laugh. She shook her head giddily. It was a long way from thinking something to actually doing it, this much she understood. However, she enjoyed the game. It made her feel alive. Take the bus into town. Hide in the stairwell with the knife behind her back. Suddenly she spots Jacob as he comes in from the street. In the light from the streetlamp his curls shine like gold. She springs out of the darkness. His voice filled with wonder. The last words he would ever say: Linda. Is that you?