The Drowned Boy

1

The dizziness hit him in short, sharp bursts that overwhelmed him. Even though he fought against it, he lost his balance. This is not good, he thought to himself in desperation. This is it. He tried as best he could to stay on his feet, managing somehow to get over to the mirror on the wall to study his face with keen eyes. No, I can’t ignore it anymore. It must be a tumor, he thought, presumably a brain tumor. Why should I get away with it? I’m no better than anyone else, not in the slightest. Of course it was cancer. That’s what we die of these days, one in three, he thought. Even one in two if we live to be old enough. And soon I’ll be an old man; I’m halfway to a hundred. But I’m probably going to die now. Just like Elise died of cancer at the age of forty. Slowly, over time, she was drained of strength and became pale, jaundiced, and emaciated, with liver failure and all that goes with it. An attack of hysterical, rampant cell division as she lay in a cool white bed for those final hours in University Hospital. Stop, don’t think about that now. There’s enough suffering in the world.

He stood leaning against the wall for a while. Trying to breathe slowly and steadily, to gather his strength, pull himself together. Well, so be it, he thought. I can’t say I wasn’t prepared, because I am. I’ve always known it would end like this, known it for far too long. I subconsciously harbored the fear that it would get me in the end too. Like Elise. Struck down like lightning. By a virulent and aggressive disease: let’s get the lungs, now the bones, and then the brain. We’ll break this organism down, because that’s what we do. Got to be dignified about this, he thought. Don’t make a fuss — that’s never good. On the other hand, it might be nothing. Please, dear God, let it be nothing. What God? he asked himself in desperation. I don’t have a God, and perhaps I’m going to die. And afterward all will be dark and empty, a great nothingness, a deafening silence.

His cell phone started to ring in his pocket; despite all the chaos inside, he had to get a grip. He put the phone to his ear and heard the voice of his colleague Jacob Skarre on the other end. He sounded agitated. He was overwhelmed by another bout of dizziness. It was sudden and brutal and nearly knocked him off his feet. The cell phone fell out of his hand, so he bent down quickly to pick it up. But instead he managed to push it across the floor and under the sofa. He swore out loud and got down on his knees, then lay on his stomach and wriggled under the sofa. He spotted the phone right at the back against the baseboard. But then something caught his eye, something small and red. To his surprise, he saw that it was a Lego brick. It must have been there since Matteus was little and had managed to avoid the mop for years, a sign of sloppy work. It was a small square brick. A beautiful, completely perfect little red cube: the most versatile and beautiful brick there was, as it fit everywhere. He squeezed it in his hand and felt the sharp edges dig into his skin. And there, lying on his stomach under the sofa, childhood memories from Gamle Møllevej in Roskilde came flooding back. The white brick house with painted blue window-frames and hollyhocks by the wall, the lawn and old plum trees, and the brown speckled bantams that tripped around the lush, flowering garden. Every morning he was allowed to collect the tiny eggs in a basket. He remembered his father, stern and gray, tall and lean like himself, and his mother’s porcelain figurines in the kitchen window. He snapped back and wriggled out again. He lay there for a moment, gasping for breath.

“Are you there? What happened? Did you lose your balance again?”

He muttered something unintelligible in reply, embarrassed and evasive and anxious. “It was you who called,” he said brusquely. “You’re the one with something to tell.”

He sat up, brushed the dust from his shirt, and popped the Lego brick in his shirt pocket. The dizziness had finally subsided.

“We’ve got a drowning,” Skarre told him. “In Damtjern, the pond up by Granfoss, you remember? About twenty minutes from Møller Church. A little boy, sixteen months old. His mother found him by the small jetty, but it was too late. The ambulance crew tried to resuscitate him for about three-quarters of an hour, to no avail. Some uncertainty as to how he ended up in the water. Also, he was naked, but we’re not quite sure what that means. So pretty uncertain all around. He could of course have gotten there on his own two feet. But, well, I’m not so sure in this case. If you come over, perhaps we can sort it out. It’s the last house in Dambråten, white, with a red outhouse. The boy is lying on the grass here.”

“Right,” he said. “I’m on my way. There in half an hour.”

And then, after a short pause: “Is there something that doesn’t feel right? Is that why you called?”

“Yes,” Skarre replied, “it’s the mother. I can’t explain it, but I think we should look a bit closer. Let’s just leave it at that; you know what I mean.”

“Don’t let people stomp all over the place,” Sejer said. “Keep an eye on them. Where are the parents now?”

“At the station,” Skarre informed him. “Holthemann is looking after them. The mother is hysterical and the father hasn’t said a word.”

His dog, Frank Robert, a Chinese Shar-Pei whom he simply called Frank, raised his head in anticipation and looked at him eagerly. In among the folds and wrinkles so characteristic of the breed, he saw those intense eyes that always hit his soft spot. Eyes that pleaded and begged, that he found hard to resist and made his authority drain away like spilled water. The dog was his weakness and he did nothing to fight it; spoiling the wrinkly little mutt was his greatest pleasure — a pleasure that had resulted in a few too many pounds.

“Come on, fatty,” he said. “Let’s go out to the car.”

The dog jumped up, shot over to the door, and stood there whining; he couldn’t get out soon enough. Sejer’s apartment was on the twelfth floor, and they always used the stairs, the dog bounding down the steps in a steady, well-practiced rhythm. They came out onto the square and walked over to the car. The dog collapsed in the back seat of the Volvo with a great sigh, true to habit. A baby, Sejer thought, only sixteen months old. Well, it was, in all likelihood, an accident. Or it could have been the mother, unhappy or psychotic, or beside herself with rage at a difficult child. It had happened before. Or the father, or both of them together. That had also happened before. So, drowned in a pond, he thought. Well, well, we’ll see. He turned on his blinker and pulled out onto the main road. Again, he felt a faint dizziness, but to his great relief it quickly faded away. He was in the car, so he had to keep a clear head. And always, when the dizziness subsided, he felt hugely optimistic about the future. If it happened when he was driving, he pulled over and stopped right away. But it had passed quickly this time. As though it was just a false alarm and nothing to worry about at all. Dear God, please let it be nothing.

“For goodness’ sake, go and see a doctor,” his daughter Ingrid had said many a time, but she was particularly vehement the day she saw it for herself. He had suddenly lost his balance and collapsed by the kitchen table. Sejer had retorted that there was probably nothing he could do. It was just something he had to live with. Maybe the arteries at the back of his neck were calcified. The blood wasn’t getting to his brain, which is apparently quite common in elderly people. And whether he liked it or not, he’s getting older. From here on in, it’s a gradual decline.

“Dad,” she said, slightly exasperated. “Come on, you’re only fifty-five! Go and talk to Erik then, if you don’t want to go to your physician.”

“But Erik is an ER doctor,” he protested. “He won’t know about dizziness.”

“OK, if you want to be difficult, I can’t be bothered talking about it anymore,” she said, laughing as always. And every time he heard her laugh, it warmed his heart. But now he had to focus on the dead child found in the pond they call Damtjern. Don’t jump to any conclusions, he thought. Be open and clear and considerate. It’s important that everything is right, that it’s fair. That is what had driven him ever since he was a boy in Gamle Møllevej, and still did in his work as a police inspector in Søndre Buskerud Police District.

A strong and burning desire for truth and justice.

Three vehicles had arrived before he did: Skarre, the forensics team, and an ambulance. They were all leaning against their cars, as there was nothing more they could do. The little boy who had drowned in Damtjern was lying on a tarpaulin. Sejer looked down at the boy. A naked, smooth little body with visible veins. Don’t get dizzy now, he thought, not at any cost. Not with people watching.

The boy appeared to be well looked after and in good shape with no deformities as far as he could see. His veins were very visible at the temples, a fine web of greenish-blue. His eyes were colorless and dull, but he could tell that they had once been blue; yes, the child was definitely in good shape. If he had suffered any kind of maltreatment, it was certainly not visible.

“The mother said that she went into shock,” Skarre told him. “She was doing something in the bathroom, and when she came back into the kitchen he was gone. She ran out into the yard and down to the pond, fearing the worst. She saw him by the jetty, threw herself into the water, and pulled him out. The water was about three feet deep where he was. And she tried to resuscitate him, but couldn’t. Well, that’s her preliminary statement anyway. We’ll see if it changes.”

“No visible trauma,” Sejer pointed out. “No cuts or bruises. He looks fit and healthy.”

He checked his watch; it was half-past two. Wednesday, August 10, beautiful weather, no wind and quite warm. It had been a long, hot summer with almost no rain and the grass around the pond was yellow and dry as straw. And now this — this little body with tiny hands and round cheeks, pale, bluish, and cool as smooth marble.

“Will you call Snorrason?”

“Yes,” Sejer replied. “We’ll drive the boy’s body straight there. We’ll get some answers pretty quickly. If he was alive when he fell in the pond, there will be water in his lungs. We might as well start there.”

“A sad sight,” Skarre said and nodded at the little body.

“Yes,” Sejer agreed. “A very sad sight indeed.” And I’m dizzy again, he thought to himself, and took a deep breath. He was squatting down next to the dead child and dreaded trying to stand up in case he gave himself away. Then they would find out that he, an inspector, was no longer at his best, but in serious decline. That age had caught up with him, or worse. So he stayed where he was and waited for it to pass.

“Do they live in the white house?” he asked and pointed to the old building with red window-frames.

“Yes,” Skarre replied. “And they’re very young. Only nineteen and twenty, in fact, so they started early. But, well, he looks a bit odd, doesn’t he?”

Sejer studied the small face with colorless cheeks. Yes, there was something special about him, something familiar.

“Down syndrome,” he said decisively. “I’d put a bet on it. Look at his eyes; that’s where you usually see it. And his hands, at that line, the one that runs across.” He lifted the boy’s hand to show him. The hand was cold and smooth.

“But he’s definitely old enough to walk,” he added. “He may even have crawled from the house down to the jetty.”

Skarre wandered around in the dry grass. His body was trim and agile, ready for action. His shirt was clean and freshly ironed as always, his shoes shiny. And if these virtues were not enough, he also believed in God. Jacob Skarre had given himself up to the mystery they call faith.

“I wonder why he’s naked,” Sejer mused. “There must be a reason. But then again, it is warm. Babies only sweat from their heads. Maybe they undressed him because it was so warm.”

“It’s obviously quite possible that he went down to the pond on his own,” Skarre agreed. “It’s not far. And most children learn to walk around one. Speaking of which, I didn’t start walking until I was eighteen months. My parents couldn’t sleep at night, because they thought I was disabled.”

“Who’d have guessed it?” Sejer exclaimed. “You who are so nimble?” Then he turned to the forensics team: “Can you drive the body down to Snorrason and say I’m waiting?”

He took a few steps across the grass and stared up at the white house with the dark windows. A swing set added a splash of red and he noticed a small sandbox with some brightly colored toys in it. Three old bikes stood leaning against the wall. A flower bed that needed weeding ran along the front of the house. And a blue Golf was parked by the swing.

“If they’re only nineteen and twenty,” he said, “I presume they don’t have any more children.”

“That’s right,” Skarre confirmed. “Just the one. It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

Afterward, when the body had been driven away, he went back to the car and let out the dog, who bounded around happily in the grass. Skarre watched the fat little beast with a mildly reprimanding smile.

“No one can accuse you of choosing him for his looks,” he commented. “He looks like a dishcloth.”

“Beauty is transient,” Sejer parried. “I’m sure you know that.”

He walked across the small jetty and stood looking out over the water, which was like a mirror. The surface gave away nothing about what had happened.

“Why did you call?” he asked, turning to Skarre. “Tell me your thoughts, and why you brought a couple of forensics with you to what was probably nothing more than a tragic accident.”

“I don’t know,” Skarre said. “The mother seems so artificial. It’s difficult to make eye contact and she’s very evasive. And, well, alarm bells started to ring, so I didn’t want to take any chances. If it is murder, she could get away with it pretty easily,” he added. “I don’t understand the law on that point, I have to say; a life is a life and we’re all of equal value.”

“Hmm,” he paused. “Not sure everyone would agree with you there. But there’s no doubt that the bond between mother and child is special. And her young age might also contribute to a more lenient sentence. Nineteen. Goodness, she started early. It will be easy for the defense to find mitigating circumstances. If there is a case and if we decide to prosecute. But we shouldn’t speculate so early on in the process. What’s your impression of the boy’s father?”

“He is extremely quiet and reserved,” Skarre said. “He’s barely said a word. They’re being held separately. They haven’t spoken since they were taken to the station. The mother went back to the house to put on some dry clothes. Holthemann has been looking after them, and he contacted a psychologist from Unicare as it’s obviously a crisis situation, whatever happened. Guilty or not, we still have a dead toddler.”

Sejer searched for a packet of Fisherman’s Friends in his pocket and popped one in his mouth.

“And you?” Skarre asked, looking at him intently. “Have you had any more of those dizzy spells that were bothering you?”

“No,” Sejer snapped. “No, I haven’t noticed anything. It must have been a virus, passed pretty quickly. Happens, I guess.”

“You’re an incredibly bad liar,” Skarre said, smiling. “Come on, let’s measure the distance from the pond to the house. I reckon it’s about one hundred and sixty-five feet. And that’s nothing for a little lad out exploring.”