The Fourth Man

1

Two men had stopped outside the gate. Time to check them out. Frank Frølich skipped down the last two steps, went through the gateway, past the two men and out into the street. They didn’t react. He thought: They should have reacted. Why didn’t they react? He shoved his hands deep into his jacket pockets and with lowered eyes continued walking. In the window of the fishmonger’s, a man was shovelling ice into a polystyrene box. He shot a quick glance back over his shoulder. Neither of the men was taking any notice. They were still fidgeting with their rosary beads. One of them said something and both burst into laughter.

A rusty cycle stand creaked. A woman was pushing her bicycle into it. She walked past the boxes of vegetables on display. She opened the door to Badir’s shop. The bell over the door jingled. The door closed behind her.

Frank Frølich felt as though some wild beast were gnawing at his stomach: a customer in the shop? Uh-oh. That wasn’t supposed to happen at all.

He leapt into the road. A car braked sharply. The car behind hooted its horn and almost crashed into it. Frank Frølich ran up the pavement. He passed the bicycle, the boxes of mushrooms, grapes, lettuce and peppers – went through the door into the shop, which smelt like a rotten-apple cellar with the added sickly-sweet odour of oil.

The woman was alone in the shop. She had a shopping basket hung over her arm and was walking slowly between two lines of food shelves. There was no one else in sight. No one was sitting by the cash till. The curtain in the doorway behind the cash machine flapped gently.

The woman was short in stature. Her black hair was gathered at the back of her head. She was wearing jeans and a cut-off jacket. A small rucksack swung from her shoulder. Black gloves on her hands, fingers clutching a tin can. She was reading the label.

Frank Frølich was two metres away when it happened. He glanced to his left. Through the shop window he saw the police car on the other side of the street. They had started.

Suddenly he launched himself at her and dragged her down with him. Half a second later there was a screech of brakes. The man who sprang across the counter was one of the two with the rosary beads. Now he was holding a gun. A shot was fired. There was a jangle of broken glass. The display case containing tobacco and cigarettes tipped over. Another shot was fired. And then chaos. Sirens. Barking voices. Clattering heels. The noise of a door and glass breaking, shattering in a never-ending stream. The woman lay still beneath him. Cigarette packets showered down onto them. She was probably around thirty years of age, smelling of perfume. Her blue eyes glinted like sapphires. Finally Frank Frølich managed to tear his eyes away. Then he discovered her hands. Fascinated, he lay watching them industriously working away. Long fingers clad in leather, small hands automatically stuffing packets of cigarettes into her rucksack, which had come loose in the fall. Then he became aware of the silence. There was a draught from the door and window.

‘Frølich?’ The voice came from a megaphone.

‘Here!’

‘Is the woman all right?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re a policeman,’ the woman whispered. She cleared her throat to speak.

He nodded and finally let her go.

‘Wouldn’t be a smart idea to pinch anything then?’

He shook his head, fascinated yet again by how efficiently the small hands took the cigarettes out of the rucksack. He rose to his knees.

They stood there looking at each other. She was attractive in a vulnerable sort of way; there was something about her mouth.

‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘This shouldn’t have happened. Someone should have stopped you. Long before you came into the shop.’

She continued to stare.

‘There was a foul-up somewhere.’

She nodded.

‘Are you all right?’

She nodded again, put her arms to her sides. As yet he hadn’t looked around him, gained an overview of the situation. He heard the cold sound of flexi-cuffs being tightened around wrists and the curses from one of the men arrested. That’s what it’s come to, he thought. I rely on others.

‘May I take your name?’ he asked in an unemotional voice.

‘Have I done something wrong?’

‘No, but you were here. Now you’re a witness.’

The autumn days passed. A gloom pervaded the daylight hours and time crystallized into work: larceny – petty and grand, murders, suicides, robberies and domestic violence; everyday life – a series of incidents, some of which make an impression, while most are soon forgotten. Your consciousness is trained to repress. You crave a holiday, two weeks on a Greek island in the summer or, slightly shorter-term, a long weekend on the ferry to Denmark. Drinking, shouting, laughing, homing in on a woman with just the right kind of husky laugh, who has warm eyes and thinks pointed shoes are absolutely great. But until that happens: days like photographic slides – images which flicker for a few seconds before disappearing, some easier to remember than others, but then those disappear too. Not that he thought any more about her. Or perhaps he did? Perhaps he occasionally remembered the sapphire blue eyes, or the feeling of her body pressed against his – there on the floor of Badir’s shop. Or the man who was now slowly but surely being dragged through the mill of penal indictment, soon to be convicted of the organized smuggling of meat and cigarettes, then resisting arrest, threatening behaviour, illegal possession of a weapon and so on. Soon to swell the ranks of those waiting for an available cell to serve their term. Despite such thoughts crossing his mind, there was one thing Frank Frølich was pretty sure about, and that was he would never see her again.

It happened one rainy afternoon in late October. Darkness was drawing in; a cold wind was blowing up Grensen in Oslo city centre. The wind caught hold of people’s clothing, replicating Munch’s paintings: shadows of figures ducking away from the driving rain, huddling up, using their umbrellas as shields or – if they didn’t have an umbrella – thrusting their hands into their pockets and sprinting through the rain in search of a protective ledge or awning. The wet tarmac stole the last of the daylight, and the water trickling into the tramlines reflected the neon glare. Frank Frølich had finished work and was feeling hungry. Accordingly, he made for Kafé Norrøna. The room smelt of hot chocolate with cream. He immediately wanted some and queued up. In front of the cash till, he changed his mind and asked what the soup of the day was.

‘Italian. Minestrone.’ The serving lady was the impatient kind, sour expression and limp posture.

He took his tray of hot soup, a roll and a glass of water. Found a place by the window, eased himself onto the stool and stared out at the people hurrying down Grensen with upturned collars. A woman rested her chin on the lapels of her jacket to keep it closed. The rain worsened. The reflections of car lights and flashing neon signs swept across house walls. People in the street resembled cowering children, hiding from a booming voice somewhere above.

‘Hello.’

Frank Frølich put down his spoon and turned round. There was something familiar about her face. About thirty years of age, he thought. She had black hair, partly covered by a woolly hat, held in place like a beret. Her complexion was pale, her lips were bright red and her eyebrows formed sharp angles, two inverted Vs high on her forehead.

Classy, he thought. It struck him that she wouldn’t have been out of place in a black-and-white still from a forties film. She was wearing a long, clinging woollen skirt and short jacket. Her outfit emphasized her figure – hips, waist and shoulders.

‘Torggata,’ she said, tilting her head, becoming a little impatient at his slow-wittedness. ‘Marlboro, Prince, cigarettes.’

Then he remembered: the eyes and especially her mouth. Which lent her an air of vulnerability. But the small wrinkles around her mouth told him she was older than he had at first believed. Instinctively, he searched for the blue of her eyes – without being able to find it immediately. Must be the light, he thought, must be the harsh neon light which deadened the blue. The lightbulbs in Badir’s shop must have been the regular variety.

‘You let me go.’

He suddenly felt uneasy and looked for ways out. Not much was left of the soup and he had paid. Something about this encounter put him on edge; the situation activated a slumbering sensation at the back of his mind. He would have to rebuff her approach, but he was slightly reluctant. She was standing quite close to him, looking into his eyes. It would be unpleasant turning his back on her. He said: ‘My pleasure. You hadn’t done anything wrong.’

‘You don’t think so?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I took three packets of Marlboro and a Snickers bar.’

He pushed his bowl away. ‘So you’re a thief, then.’

‘You saw, didn’t you?’

‘Saw what?’ He put on his jacket and patted his pocket to check he had his wallet.

‘You saw me.’

For a brief moment, the words unsettled him. You saw me. She could have expressed herself differently, but this was a message which he could not misunderstand. It was an attempt to present herself not just as an object for his attention, but to suggest she owed him a favour because he had done something for her, something that would have to remain a secret.

‘I have to go,’ he announced. ‘All the best…’ He reflected. Her name. She had told him her name. He had even made a mental note of it. In the nick of time the name emerged in his consciousness. He said: ‘… Have a nice evening, Elisabeth.’

He stood still for a few seconds as the glass door slid to behind him. The wind had dropped a little, but the rain was still pouring down. Buttoning his jacket, he shook himself, as if to rid himself of the discomfiture of the incident. He took the few metres to the underpass leading to the Metro at a brisk pace. Here, he went into his usual Metro trance to the accompaniment of the smell of refuse, used air, wet woollens, autumn and influenza; elderly women ran gloved fingers under their noses; men raised their eyes to God in a quiet prayer to be spared another bout of angina, here in this tight scrum of humanity in which everyone was blind to each other’s existence. He squeezed back against the glass wall of the Metro carriage, touched the condensation on the glass; only to wake from the trance when the doors shut at Manglerud and the creature of habit in him liberated itself from its corner to step closer to the doors as the train braked on its approach to Ryen station. The doors were two metal lips which opened, ready to spit him out. At this altitude, the rain had turned into the autumn’s first sleet showers. Car headlights shone on the tarmac of the ring road and were devoured by the blackness. He trudged up the hill as cars sped by.

Something must have caught his attention, a sound or a shadow behaving differently, as he approached the entrance to his flat. He stopped and turned. The street light by the petrol station was directly behind her, outlining her silhouette in yellow light. She stood still. He stood still. They were alert to each other’s every move. Her hands deep in the pockets of the short jacket and her facial expression in shadow. Her hair cascaded down onto her shoulders, with the light from the street lamp like an aura above the woolly hat, the tight jacket and the skirt covering her knees.

It was just the two of them – in the dark. No one else around. The remote drone of the traffic. A street lamp buzzed. He walked towards her with determined steps. She didn’t move. He walked into the road and then around her, forcing her to follow him with her eyes and turn towards the light so that he could see her face.

They were staring into each other’s eyes throughout this whole carousel movement. He detected something in her gaze: an energy, something he couldn’t define in words, something it was difficult to confront without speaking. ‘Are you following me?’

‘You’d rather I didn’t?’

The response took his breath away – again.

Finally she lowered her gaze. ‘You saw me,’ she said.

Those three words again. ‘And?’ he said.

They stood close to each other. He had gone right up to her but she hadn’t budged. He could feel the warmth of her breath on his cheek.

She took his hands in hers.

His mind froze. He cleared his throat, but didn’t move. She had heavy eyelids and long, curly eyelashes. At the end of each lash a tiny drop of condensation had gathered. Her breath streamed like mist from between the half-open lips, caressing his cheeks before it dissipated. As she spoke, the words nestled against his cheeks.

‘What did you say?’ was as much as his voice could manage. His mouth was only a few centimetres from hers as she softly whispered: ‘I forget no one if I kiss you.’

Then he released his hands and clasped her slender face between them.

Before leaving, she stood for a long time in the shower. He lay on his back in bed listening to the murmur of the water.

When she closed the front door behind her, it was four o’clock in the morning. Then he got up and went into the bathroom. He stood with his forehead against the tiled wall as the water stroked his shoulders. His mind was on the hours that had passed. The way his body towered over hers. The way she had held his gaze as he breathed in again and again, then let it out loudly, breathing in again and again, letting it out loudly again and again. The beads of sweat between her breasts, reflecting thousands of facets. The way her soft breasts rose and fell to the rhythm of her breathing before he thrust the breath out of her. The desire raw, untamed, hungry – the kind that leaves in its wake guilt, shame, abortions, fatherless children, HIV. He could still feel the pressure of her fingers as she grabbed him hard around the waist, ten nails digging into him. She wanted more, yet had less breath because she could see the countdown flicker behind his eyelids.

Afterwards, alone, his head pressed against the tiles: Frank Frølich twists the tap to red and allows himself to be scalded by boiling-hot water – recalling the strange tattoo on her hip as she straddles him backwards. He cannot picture this without becoming aroused yet again, feeling the urge to do it once more, knowing that if she had walked in through the door at that moment, he would have thrown her down on the bathroom floor, or in there, over the desk – and he would have been unstoppable.

Such thoughts are a virus. In the end they disappear, but it takes time. Eventually everything passes. Three days, possibly four, a week – then the thoughts release their grip. In the end your body is left numb and begins to function normally, glad that it is over.

Six days went by. He was back in shape. But then the mobile phone on his desk bleeped. One message. He read it. A single word: Come!

He automatically tapped in the sender’s number and sent it off to enquiries. His phone bleeped again. Another message. This time with the sender’s name and address: Elisabeth Faremo.

Frank Frølich sat down. His body was tingling. He lifted his hand. It wasn’t shaking. Nevertheless, this woman had thrown a switch. He had assumed he was symptom-free and unaffected, assumed he had come to terms with the intoxication. But no. Bang. Feverish. Unable to think. A bundle of pent-up energy. He was charged up. As a result of one solitary word!

He sat looking at the small phone with its illuminated display. It began to vibrate in his hand. The phone rang. The same number.

‘Hi, Elisabeth,’ he said and was surprised at the clarity of his voice.

Two seconds of silence. Long enough for him to think: Now she knows I have looked up her telephone number. She knows the effect she has on me, she knows she can throw a switch and raise my temperature to fever pitch by keying in a message. But then came the gentle voice he had not heard for several days: ‘Where are you?’

‘At work.’

‘Where?’

‘Police HQ, Grønland.’

‘Oh.’

It was his turn to speak. He cleared his throat, but he had hardly drawn breath before she interrupted: ‘Don’t you have a break soon?’

‘What’s the time?’ he asked, looking at the place where the clock had been that had hung over the door until a few weeks ago but was no longer there. Just two wires protruding from the wall.

‘No idea. Around lunchtime.’

‘Where shall I pick you up?’

‘Are you driving?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll be at Lisa Kristoffersens plass, near Voldsløkka.’

‘In ten minutes.’

He couldn’t think. No room in his head for anything but images: the curve of her back, the roundness of her hips, the black hair flowing across the pillow – the sapphire-blue stare.

He threw on his jacket and left. Down the stairs and into the street. He started the car and drove off. What was the time? He didn’t have a clue. He didn’t give a shit about anything in the world, concentrated simply on not hitting pedestrians. Accelerated. As he was driving down Stavangergata she appeared from nowhere, came walking towards him on the pavement. With her came the scent of late autumn, perfume and throat lozenges. She took a seat without uttering a word.

He fixed his eyes on the wing mirror. Breathing normally, despite her sweet fragrance. Cold, controlled check of the mirror. He waited until the road was clear, then signalled and drove off – conscious of her constant gaze, directed at his impassive profile. She wriggled out of her lined brown leather jacket.

Finally, after passing the turn-off for Nydalen, she broke the silence: ‘Aren’t you happy to see me?’

He stole a furtive glance at her. She was feline. Two huge blue eyes with large pupils, the look of a cat. He could feel his pulse racing. Temples pounding. But he maintained his mask. ‘Of course I am.’

‘You don’t say anything.’

Her hand over his, on the gear stick. He glanced down at the hand – the fingers, glanced at her again. ‘Hi. Nice to see you again.’ The words stuck in his throat. He was driving towards Kjelsås, Brekke and Maridalen.

What am I doing?

Lips stroking his cheek. The hand that slipped off his and under his jacket. It was as if she had filled a recently tuned engine with high-octane fuel and pressed START. His heart was beating so fast and so hard that the blood in his ears was thumping. Trees on both sides. He slowed down, drove into the lay-by, over to the copse, away from the road. Came to a halt. Put the car in neutral and let the engine idle. As he snatched another sidelong glimpse, she covered his lips with hers.

When she spoke, it was the first time for an hour: ‘Would you mind driving me somewhere?’

‘Where?’

‘Blindern.’

‘What are you going to do there?’

Wrong question. Her eyes narrowed.

The atmosphere melted away.

He breathed in and stared at the trees outside – collected himself to look at her again. The daggers in her eyes had changed into a kind of preoccupied sheen – she regarded him from inside a private room where she did not want to share anything with him. The voice from a cool, smiling mouth: ‘I’m going to look for a job.’ He pulled into the kerb and dropped her off in Moltke Moes vei. He sat watching her. A tiny amount of snow had fallen overnight; he noticed it now for the first time. The snow had melted into a slush in which her footsteps left large puddles. The woman who until a short time ago had been a very part of him was now reduced to a slight figure lifting her feet much like a cat not wanting to get its paws wet. Is it possible? Is this small stooped figure, a mere nobody wrapped in cotton, wool and skin, is this the creature who has me totally in her power, who makes my heart pound so hard that I feel my chest will explode?

Drive! Far away! After a couple of weeks she will be forgotten, airbrushed out. But as the slender form disappeared into the Niels Henrik Abel building he switched off the engine, opened the car door and got out. He followed her. Why I am doing this?

Because I want to know more about her.

She had continued through the building to the other side. He followed fifty metres behind her. A mini-tractor came across the snow-covered flagstones. He moved to the side and walked past students conversing in low voices in twos and threes. She went into the Sophus Bugge building. He stopped a good way behind her, observing her through the high windows as she disappeared into an auditorium.

If she was a student, what was she studying? He entered the building through the heavy doors.

He walked towards the broad door leading into the auditorium. Reidun Vestli’s name dominated the timetable. It was she who was now giving the lecture.

He took a seat outside and picked up a newspaper lying there. He was plagued by doubt. What would he do if she came out and saw him?

He closed his eyes. I’ll tell her straight. I’ll tell her it isn’t enough to have casual sex in a parked car – I want to know who she is, what is going on in her mind, why she does what she does…

Do you yourself know why you do what you do?

Frank Frølich sat staring blindly at the front page of the newspaper. A photograph of a military vehicle. Civilians murdered. An incident which engaged people’s attention all over the world. Dagsavisen had given it front-page status believing that he would care, would be lured into immersing himself in all the verbiage they managed to spawn about this incident. But he didn’t care. Nothing at all was of any significance now, nothing, except for Elisabeth, this – from where he stood – completely anonymous and rather delicate woman with the pale face, red lips and eyes of a blue he had never seen before. Her existence meant something, meant a great deal. He had no idea why. He only knew that she did something to him – physically, but also mentally, something which aroused a craving in him he had only read about, heard about, something he had never given credence to – and now he was spying on her.

He had met her three times.

That phone message: Come! His brain was immediately empty of all other images except those of her body – her lips, her eyes. And barely half an hour later they were caught up in a sexual intensity he had seldom experienced the like of before. The word – did she know what she had set in motion? Was she doing it on purpose?

At last the door opened. Out streamed a faceless mass of students. Most wearing their outdoor clothes. He looked at his watch. It was four o’clock. The lecture was over. He had butterflies in his stomach. What if she sees me?

There were fewer and fewer students emerging now. Soon there wouldn’t be any more. Had she passed him?

Slowly Frank Frølich stood up. He walked warily towards the door and opened it.

He was at the top end of the auditorium, behind the rows of chairs looking down on the lectern. There were two people down there. Elisabeth was one of them. The other woman was talking to her in a soft voice. She was in her fifties with black hair in a kind of page-boy cut, wearing a long black dress.

They were standing very close to each other. They may have been very good friends. They could have been mother and daughter. But mothers don’t caress their daughters like that.

He was spotted.

The two women looked up at him. Both very calm, as if they were politely waiting for him to retreat. He searched for something in Elisabeth’s eyes, but he found no signs of recognition, no suggestion of guilt, no shame, nothing.

They stood like that for several seconds, three pairs of eyes meeting across rows of chairs, until he backed out and left.

2

From time to time he tried to see himself from the outside. Focus on the subject – which caused his cheeks to burn with anger and shame. His brain dominated by one single desire: to rewind and edit out everything, to escape such an embarrassing, abject condition. So, Elisabeth was no more than a student involved with a lecturer – who, furthermore, was a woman. Frank Frølich made up his mind: never again. Never go near her again.

But the rational voice inside him protested. Why? Because she is dangerous? Bisexual? Mysterious? Because she had pretended not to know him? Because he had been snubbed in such an ignominious way?

No, thought the scorned voice, not to be silenced. It was because she had put him in a fever. Because she had rendered him incapable of action, and weak – turned him to jelly.

When she rang him next time he didn’t answer. He sat there with the mobile phone in his hand. It vibrated as if a little heart was beating inside it. Her name glowed in the display. But he didn’t stir. Ignored it every time.

Soon she began to ring him at home.

It was a farce. Running to the phone and reading the name in the display. Not answering it if it was her. Definitely not touching the phone if it was an anonymous number. Thus he sat at home late one evening letting the phone ring and ring. He didn’t get up because it was her calling. That was how much power she had over him – even when he was alone, he struggled to extricate himself.

A week went by. Frank Frølich felt that the fever had almost run its course. It was Thursday afternoon now. He had finished work, endured the mind-numbing journey on the Metro as usual and strolled up to the front door. One of the elderly ladies living on the seventh floor of his block was going through her post box in the entrance hall. Frølich was still in his Metro state. He held open the lift door for the stooped woman, who was no different from all the other stooped women he occasionally met in the lift. As the door closed he pressed the button. He stared vacantly in front of him at the floor dividers on his way up.

He got out of the lift.

He heard the bump as it continued on its way upwards while he fumbled in his pocket for his keys.

He froze.

A tiny detail about the front door stopped him in his tracks. The peep hole in the door glowed yellow. It was usually dark. Had he forgotten to switch off the light in the hall this morning?

Finally, he slipped the key into the lock, hesitated, then turned it. The door opened without a sound. He sidled in. Closed the door quietly behind him. Held his breath. The lights in the hall, that was one thing, but the door to the living room ajar – that was quite another.

This moment was to imprint itself on his consciousness ever after.

Someone was in his flat.

He stood still, mulling the notion over and over again as his body slowly went numb, his mouth dried and he lost sensation in his hands. Without considering what he was doing, he noiselessly glided two metres across the floor to the living room door. He was no longer in control. It was as if he was watching himself from the outside: he saw himself lift one hand and cautiously place it on the door and push it open.

Sharp intake of breath. His body still numb, as though from shock.

She was sitting with her back to him. On the floor. Undressed, wearing only turquoise underwear. The delicate back bent forwards. Two prominent birthmarks beside her spine. From a distance her tattoo looked like a long, dark pen stroke. She was sitting cross-legged in front of the record player and stereo unit. She couldn’t hear him. Over her ears she wore his new headphones. The music in the room sounded like wind rustling dried leaves. She seemed very much at home. She had intruded into his space and then encapsulated herself in her own world. CDs and LPs were strewn across the floor.

His emotions formed a knot in his stomach: tension, fury, curiosity. She had forced her way into his flat – his mind raced. One thing was the physical intrusion – the practical side, her ‘actually doing it’. The other was the mental intrusion, forcing her way into his innermost sanctuary, his home – simply performing this act without asking him, usurping the right. He was unable to break the spell. A flood of emotions had him in thrall.

Perhaps it was the draught from the door, perhaps a glint in the glass door of the cabinet, but suddenly she gave a start, ripped off the headset and jumped up.

‘My God, you gave me a fright!’

The next moment she was close to him. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi to you, too.’

She looked up, sensed the agitation, the well of conflicting feelings besetting him.

‘Aren’t you just a tiny bit… happy?’

‘How did you get in?’

‘I borrowed a key.’

‘Borrowed a key?’

‘When I was here last.’

‘So you’re a thief?’

An echo of an earlier conversation. Utterly composed, she looked into his eyes and said: ‘You knew, didn’t you?’ Provocatively at first, but then she lowered her gaze – as if ashamed.

As if, he thought repeatedly: As if!

‘I borrowed it. From the bowl in the kitchen.’

‘Borrowed the key?’

‘Are you annoyed?’

‘Did you take the key from my kitchen last time you were here – without mentioning it to me?’

‘You’re annoyed.’

‘Far from it.’

‘You don’t like this kind of surprise?’

‘I’m not sure if “like” is the right word.’

‘I meant well, though.’

‘Why aren’t you wearing more clothes?’

Her voice darkened. ‘So you can see me better.’ She feigned a giggle when he didn’t respond.

There was an inherent vulnerability in her awkwardness. But she sensed that he noticed, and smothered this mental nakedness in a tighter embrace, quickly adding: ‘No, it wasn’t that. I took a shower. I was so cold.’ She tugged at his body and stiffened slightly when she felt his reluctance. ‘I know it was wrong. Borrowing the key without asking. Sorry.’

She let go of him and marched through the room, towards the kitchen.

Her jacket was on the chair under the window. She bent down for it, keeping her legs straight – a living pose from a glossy men’s mag. She looked through the pockets and showed him the key, flicking back her dark hair. The pearl in her navel glinted and then she was back close again. ‘I won’t ever do it again.’ Then she marched into the kitchen. He heard the key clink against the foreign coins and the odds and ends in the bowl. She straightened up, rested her head against the door frame and studied him. He had to swallow. When she moved towards him, it was as though she was walking on a catwalk, one foot in front of the other. She held his eyes the whole way. Her lips said: ‘I thought you would be happy. Probably because I like surprises myself.’ Her hand groped and she glanced up at him. ‘You are happy. Your body is happy.’

‘But how did you manage to find the right key?’

She loosened his belt, pulled his shirt loose; her fingers undid the button on his trouser waistband. The cool fingers gliding down his stomach. She stood there with her eyes closed and lowered her voice. ‘Why do you always have to talk about dreary things, Mr Grumpy?’

He relented and kissed her.

‘She’s my mentor,’ she said simply.

‘Who is what?’

‘Reidun, the lecturer at Blindern university, she’s my mentor.’

‘Now you’re talking about dreary things. Anyway, you appeared to be totally immersed in each other.’

‘She is.’

‘She is what?’

‘She’s in love with me.’ She faltered, then looked up. ‘And neither you nor I can do anything about that, can we?’

He didn’t say anything.

‘I had to listen to her. She was telling me something important. Anyway, it wasn’t very nice of you to follow me, was it?’

He held his tongue. Wasn’t sure whether it was nice or not. All the blood in his body was drawn down to her cool hand. Her lips curled into a smile as his erection grew. A smile with closed eyes; some make-up on her eyelids had dried into clumps.

She sank onto one knee. He closed his eyes and breathed in sharply. He ran his fingers through her hair. She glanced up. The rustling sound from the headset on the floor returned. He asked her: ‘Shall we go into the bedroom?’

‘Are you frightened someone will see us?’

‘I want all of you.’

He lifted her, carried her slender body, which weighed nothing at all, threw her laughing onto the bed, ripped off her underwear and grabbed her ankles. The gold ring on her big toe shone in the light of the afternoon sun coming through the window. He held her tight. She liked that, being held tight.

That night he followed her. It was almost three o’clock when she crept out. He gave her three minutes before sneaking after her. His brain was in turmoil. Part of his consciousness stretched out like a cat in the sun, remembering how she had taken what she wanted but had also given so much back. Another part of his brain sat behind a bush, suspicious, jealous, fearful that the performance was a deception. This is what drove him out into the cold autumn rain, what made him skulk along the street a hundred metres behind her, hiding in the shadows. You’re doing this because she already had a secret plan to break into the flat when she first went there. She stole a key! She took the fucking key! And she lets herself in – as if she lived there. She speaks in codes, never talks about herself, doesn’t say what she does and avoids openness even when you ask. She plays down her relationship with the lecturer and makes up some pretext. She’s full of lies!

She walked ahead of him with long bouncing strides. Suddenly there was a vibration in his pocket. His mobile phone. He took it and looked at the display while trying to keep in the shadow of the trees shielding him from the street lights. He read: ‘Hi Frank, Thank you for a wonderful evening. Sweet dreams, kiss, Elisabeth.’ Involuntarily, he stopped. He observed the slim back well ahead of him. From a distance she seemed so delicate, so well meaning. What am I up to? Following a woman who has given me the night of my life! You know where she lives. She’s on her way home.

Standing there in the dripping rain, mobile in hand, he came to. He looked up. She was gone. He jogged down Ryenbergveien. At the bottom he caught sight of her figure again. A taxi with an illuminated light on the roof passed him. It was on its way towards her. He hid as she turned towards the taxi. It slowed down but continued on past her as she made no move to flag it down. So she was telling the truth. She had felt like walking, not getting home quickly.

He was taken aback when he saw the complex of flats where she lived. Even more taken aback when he read the names by the doorbells. More than taken aback. He was stunned. Elisabeth and Jonny Faremo.

3

He was in a new phase of convalescence.

First day: fever.

Second day: fever.

Third day 07.30-12.00: no fever; prospects of recovery looking good.

12.03: SMS: Come!

12.03: fever returns!

12.06: mobile rings. It is her number.

He let it ring. He stood in the canteen queue with the phone ringing in his hand. People turned to face him. He ignored their looks. Sweated. Clenched his fists and looked in a different direction. The rest of the day passed in a haze.

On the fourth day, the first thing he did was to check criminal records. The search came up with one hit: Jonny Faremo. History: three convictions for GBH and one for armed robbery, one for breaking into a car and stealing. Total time behind bars: thirty-eight months of a five-year sentence. Time served in Ila, Sarpsborg and Mysen prisons.

The sweat ran down his back. He blinked twice but was alert enough to print out the page. Then a new search: Elisabeth Faremo, no hits. An unblemished record.

But if Elisabeth was married to Jonny Faremo, she could have taken his name. Perhaps she was registered under another one?

He felt queasy. He could see her face in front of him. No, not the face, just the body. His hand tightly grasping her ankle, her feet and the contours of her figure on the bed beneath them. He blinked again. What trap have I walked right into?

The door opened. Yttergjerde stomped in. Yttergjerde with the snus lip – the plug of tobacco under his top lip made him look like an overgrown rabbit with a deformed set of teeth – with the unshaven chin but shaven skull.

Yttergjerde: ‘Hi there!’

Frølich felt his head nodding in response. He wasn’t in a mood to talk now, wasn’t in a mood to grin at Yttergjerde’s stale jokes, angling anecdotes or tales of flings with women.

The odour of gentlemen’s cologne filled the room. Yttergjerde always smelt like the taste of chewing gum. Frølich had no idea how the man could stand it.

‘Well, I never.’

He looked up. Yttergjerde was standing in front of the printer. In his hand he was holding a printout about Jonny Faremo. Frølich could feel the sweat breaking out again – all over his body this time. He blinked. His eyes were dry, absolutely dry. He felt like throwing up.

‘I know this one,’ Yttergjerde mumbled.

‘Which one do you know?’

‘Faremo, Jonny. What has he been up to now?’

Frølich cleared his throat: ‘I’m just checking out a few names. Let’s hear it.’

‘Hear what?’

‘What you know about Jonny Faremo. For me he’s a beefcake who wears caps and sun glasses.’

‘Well, there are three in the gang. Armed robbery, same type of guys as the Stavanger mob – commando style, automatic weapons, balaclava and overalls. I can remember an armoured van job about five-six years ago. It says here the van went from Østfold to Oslo. He’s a hard nut. Hit first and ask questions afterwards. I’m one of very few to have had the pleasure of smacking him in the face a couple of times. I was in the party when we arrested them for robbing the armoured van.’

‘He did his stint a long time ago. Do you know any more?’

Yttergjerde turned to face him.

Frølich automatically went on: ‘I know he lives in quite a flashy area. Terraced apartments on Ekeberg Ridge.’

‘You know what it’s like. These guys drive fast cars and drink Hennessy when they’re not inside, that’s why they end up inside.’

‘So the flat is just show?’

‘No, I believe they inherited it. The place is theirs. I remember it was an incontrovertible fact at that time – during the trial.’

‘They inherited? Who are they?’

‘Him and his sister. He lives with his sister. Used to at any rate – then.’

Yes! She isn’t married! It’s her brother!

Frølich, stony-faced: ‘And her?’

‘Her?’

‘Is she implicated too?’

‘Don’t think so. Seems more like his mother in fact. Although she’s younger. But I don’t know. Where there’s shit, there’s usually a lot more to wallow in, as my uncle used to say. He was a farmer.’

A lot more to wallow in. He blinked. ‘How do you mean “like his mother”?’

Yttergjerde shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Just something I said. No idea. Why are you so curious?’

‘Eh?’ He could feel the sweat breaking out again.

‘Faremo,’ Yttergjerde said impatiently. ‘Why are you so curious about Faremo?’

‘A tip-off. Someone said I should take note of the name.’

Yttergjerde turned round, his eyebrows raised. His powerful hands wrenched the top off a Coke bottle.

Frølich blinked. Get this conversation over with before it stinks to high heaven!

Yttergjerde, pensive, ears pricked up: ‘A tip-off?’

‘Forget it. I only needed to know who we were talking about. And how are things otherwise? Still with the Thai patootie you were checking out?’

‘Gentlemen prefer blondes!’

‘So she finished it?’

Yttergjerde used his forefinger to scrape out the plug of tobacco. He grinned, showing his brown-stained teeth. ‘Hey, at the station it’s me who finishes relationships!’

Frank Frølich went to the toilet to be alone and think. He was alarmed by his own reaction, the boundless joy he had felt when he found out that Elisabeth was Jonny Faremo’s sister and not his wife. But the brother’s being a criminal was a problem. What was the right way to behave now?

He looked at his reflection. He told himself aloud: ‘The right thing would be to confront her, to talk about her brother. No, you must cut the connection.’

He sat down on the toilet seat and chewed his knuckles. What is the right thing to do? Break all contact over the phone? Stammer out: You know I can’t have a relationship with the sister of a criminal! Only to get the obvious response: Frank, is it me you’re interested in, or my brother?

He ran the back of his hand across his forehead. Was this actually so unusual? Others must have been in this situation too. He tried to console himself by finding examples. The head of Inland Revenue discovers one day that his wife is fiddling taxi bills and deducting them from tax. No. Irrelevant. This is about relationships. There are socialist party members who go to bed with right-wingers and vice versa. Women prison officers who start relationships with inmates.

This last analogy makes him sweat even more.

A male priest, who is against women becoming priests, woos a woman priest. A militant neo-Nazi goes to the wrong pub and realizes he is homosexual. Fatuous examples. Use your head! The chairman of a local right-wing extremist party finds out his daughter has got engaged to a black man who, in fact, is a great guy.

Frank Frølich shook his head at himself. Is that why I’m getting anxious, because it’s about me this time? Is this panic caused by my paranoia, or is the fact that her brother has done time the real problem?

He imagined the conversation again: You have to understand, Elisabeth. I’m a cop! Your brother is a member of a gang. These are not people who are open to the general blather about individually tailored safeguards and fresh starts in life with roses and violins. Jonny and his pals are hardened criminals. We’re talking about organized crime!

He shook his head at himself. As if she didn’t already know these things!

Well, isn’t that the heart of the problem?

Yes, the problem is that she has kept her mouth shut. She knows I’m a policeman, has always known that. We first met because I was a policeman. So she should have said something about her brother a long time ago!

The brutal truth of this conclusion unnerved him at first. Afterwards it was like emerging from the water after holding your breath too long. The conclusion would be his platform. She had kept her mouth shut, she had manipulated him, kept things quiet, had played with him.

Straightaway he took a decision.

He washed his face with cold, clean water, dried it with a paper towel and went out, back to his office.

Gunnarstranda had arrived. He said: ‘You look pale, Frølich. Tired?’

Frølich took his jacket, threw it over his shoulder and walked towards the door. ‘No, just bloody sick of paperwork.’

Gunnarstranda peered over his glasses. ‘Take it easy. Soon be Christmas. Then, on Christmas Eve, some jealous young brat is bound to exact his murderous revenge for being cuckolded.’

Gunnarstranda’s wheezing laughter followed him out into the corridor.

When she next rang he answered the phone. All his unease was instantly swept away by her gentle, veiled voice.

She wanted to go to the cinema.

He said yes.

They met outside the Saga cinema. First of all, they went to Burger King. He had a baconburger and she wanted a milkshake. A vanilla milkshake.

‘I only eat burgers at McDonald’s,’ she said as they sat down by the window facing the street. There were almost no customers on the first floor. Apart from a father with two daughters who were making a mess and smearing ketchup all over their clothes.

‘Shall we go to McDonald’s instead?’

‘No. Now I want to have a milkshake. When you come to visit me I’ll make you a banana milkshake. You’ll like it.’

‘Have you thought about inviting me home?’

She, glancing up: ‘Why shouldn’t I?’

‘No, why shouldn’t you indeed?’

Silence – uneasy silence. And then – as if she had read something in his facial expression, as if a light had gone out somewhere: ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Hmm?’

‘I can see there’s something wrong. Tell me what it’s about.’

He took another bite. The burger tasted of cardboard. But it was better to stuff cardboard in your mouth than fly off the handle. Besides he didn’t know how to express himself. Immediately he became hot and flustered. He didn’t like the place: the stench of frying oil, the stuffy air, cold walls and the harsh light that turned your skin an unhealthy shade of pale and your eyes colourless. ‘There’s something I have to talk to you about,’ he said quickly.

‘Wait,’ she said.

‘Right,’ he said.

‘First of all, there’s something I have to say to you. It’s about my brother.’

He held his breath. Can she read my mind?

‘My brother, Jonny. He…’ She went off into a dream and fidgeted with her serviette. The slim fingers folded the serviette, then again, as she gazed pensively out of the window.

‘What about your brother?’ he heard his own voice say as she chewed her lower lip.

‘We live together.’

‘And?’

She tore the serviette slowly into two pieces. ‘Jonny… he’s… he’s done time.’

She stared at him now. He stared at her. The toxin was gone; the narcosis that made him feel as if he was fumbling in her presence, incapable of action in a deadened cotton-wool world, had worn off. His body felt as if it had been squeezed out of a cocoon. An unpleasant, clammy straitjacket had been removed. He breathed more easily, his heart wasn’t beating like a drum any more, his ears weren’t rushing like gushing blood. The person on the other side of the table was a fragile creature with dry lips whose sapphire-blue eyes avoided him, the same as prisoners who lower their gaze as they frantically search for fragments of a story they can fabricate, revealing dry lips with tiny flakes of skin hanging off, which sting but which they feel an irresistible urge to moisten.

This is what I am waiting for, for her to moisten her lips and serve up the first lie. What is going on inside my head?

‘Jonny has always been a little wild and crazy, but there’s only him and me. He’s four years older than me and he’s the only brother I have – let’s put it like that – my big brother, my… what can I say?… he’s the fixed point in my universe. But you’re a policeman. I do realize that I have to tell you that he’s been inside. He’s done more than three years altogether. Jonny can walk down the street and be nicked by plainclothes men at any time simply because he’s Jonny – an old acquaintance of the police, as they say on TV. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s my brother, do you understand? I can’t love my brother less because he’s been to prison. He’s all I can call family. It’s always been us two. Do you understand that?’

‘Elisabeth, what are you trying to say?’

Look up. Let me see you.

‘I’m trying to say that maybe you won’t like my brother. But that doesn’t mean I feel any less for you. Your being a policeman doesn’t have to make any difference. Jonny is looking for a new job. He’s going straight.’

‘Does Jonny know about me?’

‘Hm?’

She doesn’t know what to say. She’s trying to gain time.

A noise broke the tension and gave them some respite.

Footsteps clattered on the spiral staircase by the end wall. He looked over. Someone was on their way up. It was someone he knew: Lena Stigersand, a police colleague, Lena and her racist friend/lover, coming up the staircase, each with a tray of food. The staircase was five metres away. Soon Lena would be level with them and exit the stairs facing this way. She would see him with Elisabeth.

‘Your brother, does he know about us?’

‘I don’t think so.’

At that moment Lena turned to look for somewhere to sit. She was only seconds away from spotting Frank Frølich out on the town with a new lady friend; he was seconds away from a rumour about him being spawned.

Elisabeth smiled disarmingly.

As he refrained from answering the smile, she became earnest and looked down. Fidgety fingers. ‘Does it matter?’

‘Does what matter?’

‘About Jonny. Does it matter?’

Lena Stigersand shouted: ‘Hi, Frank!’

Game over.

Frølich peered up and pretended to be surprised: ‘Hi, Lena!’

Elisabeth remained absolutely silent.

Lena Stigersand came over to him with a smile, accompanied by her idiot of a partner/undercover policeman, who was bound to know about Jonny Faremo and probably even knew that Jonny had a sister. Both were now waiting beside the table where he was sitting with Elisabeth, who was concentrating on sucking her straw.

Frølich cleared his throat. ‘Lena, meet Elisabeth.’

It enveloped them, the slightly reserved atmosphere that arises when you exchange names.

Smiling, Lena said, ‘We’ve met before, Elisabeth.’

‘Oh?’ Elisabeth replied, puzzled.

Frølich remembered before Lena could say anything. So he interceded in and told her himself. ‘In Torggata, Badir’s shop. Lena was leading the operation.’

Elisabeth’s face cracked into a smile. ‘That was where Frank and I first met.’

Lena Stigersand’s face was a transparent pane of glass. He was able to see the wires connecting up in her head. The look she gave him. The detective now, the policewoman making connections, not the nice woman friend meeting a good colleague in town.

Lena and her partner moved off and were soon out of hearing. They scraped their chairs at the far side of the room. Frank Frølich pushed the half-eaten burger away. He was unable to think about food. ‘Elisabeth…’

‘Yes?’

‘I asked if your brother knew about us.’

‘I don’t know.’

He took a deep breath. ‘If you have talked to him about me, he knows.’

‘I don’t think he knows about you.’

‘You haven’t said a single word about me to your brother?’

‘Relax, calm down.’ Elisabeth had tears in her eyes now.

‘It’s you I’m interested in,’ Frølich said reassuringly. ‘I’ve never considered starting a relationship with your brother.’

Her face all smiles and gleaming eyes again. But why was she relieved? He reflected and knew the answer: she was relieved because the conversation was over.

4

Frølich was at work, sitting at his desk. He gave a start. Momentarily, he had been absent, his mind elsewhere – with her.

He gave another start as Yttergjerde repeated: ‘Go on, Frankie.’

He sat staring at Yttergjerde. For those blanked-out seconds he had no idea what they were talking about.

This is me. I start a conversation and switch off. What is going on?

His memory returned. He resumed the theme he had initiated: ‘I was just saying we were on a course learning about those blind dogs.’

‘They’re called guide dogs.’

‘Yes, that’s it. We were learning about how to recognize particular signs in dogs, ones which might be suitable for the job, about their natures…’ Frølich stared at Yttergjerde’s face, almost switching off again as his mind went in a different direction. But he focused firmly on the task in hand and continued: ‘And the eyes, the body language, right? It’s the same with drugs dogs. Some are suitable, some aren’t.’

Yttergjerde nodded enthusiastically. He sensed a witticism coming.

‘So, there I was, looking at these dogs, using what I had learned, right, and convinced that the Alsatian in the middle, that Alsatian was guide dog numero uno, right…’

‘Yes?’ Yttergjerde had a broad grin on his face, ready. He was already laughing at an as yet undelivered punch line. A grin was straining, held in by tensed cheek muscles.

And I’m sitting here, he thought, as the tip of Yttergjerde’s chin impatiently bobbed up and down, waiting for the gag, for the twist, the final quip which would justify the release of his laughter. What am I doing?

‘And the course director says we have to show what we have learned and there I am, sitting there, having sussed out the top guide dog in all of Norway, right, and I put out my hand, don’t I…’

‘Yes?’ More laughter, more bobbing chin.

‘And I get up…’

‘Yes?’

‘Go over to the dogs, the dog, the Alsatian in the middle…’

‘Yes?’

‘Stick out my hand…’

‘Yes?’ Yttergjerde’s laughter was on its way up his throat, it was already in the man’s mouth.

‘Then the dog snaps at my hand and I topple over backwards!’

He sat watching Yttergjerde, who had released his laughter.

Is this what I want? Is this what is known as social competence? Is this what defines me as a successful person? Is this the moment I might jeopardize by making a false move? Is this the moment I’m risking? A moment I’m not even sure I enjoy.

Yttergjerde wiped the tears of laughter from the corners of his eyes. ‘Oh shit,’ he sighed. ‘That’s so bloody typical, oh shit…’

‘The rumour’s true,’ Frølich said abruptly.

Yttergjerde, who didn’t know what he was talking about, said: ‘What rumour?’

‘About me and this woman, Jonny Faremo’s sister.’

Yttergjerde’s face was in flux, a laughing mask stiffening into a gentle gape. Yttergjerde was shaken, as they say in boxing circles. He was at that stage when the shock has had its physical effect, but he still hasn’t begun to comprehend that he has been struck.

‘So now you know,’ said Frølich grimly. ‘Everything the lads say is true. I’ve got together with Jonny Faremo’s sister – the same Jonny Faremo who served three years for armed robbery.’

He grabbed hold of his jacket and left.

5

Simple Minds were on the stereo. The voice was singing ‘You Turned Me On’ and a little later ‘Alive and Kicking’. As soon as the voice finished, the CD player went back to the beginning and a song called ‘Hypnotized’.

She wanted to have music on when they made love. She wanted precisely this music. But that was fine by him. There were two of them now; he was in her and she was in him. Her eyes betrayed no uncertainty, no pretence, no dissimulation. So the noise around them was of no significance; the music simply completed the picture, in the same way that on-shore breezes emphasize that air is something you breathe, that moisture states that water is matter in which you can swim. But he wasn’t listening to the words of the songs, he didn’t hear the drum rolls, or the backing vocals; his body was simply dancing with hers, he was focused on two lights quite close and at the same time far away, her blue eyes.

When he came in from the bathroom, she was lying on the bed reading. ‘Is that the same book?’ he asked.

‘The same?’

‘You always seem to be reading the same book.’

She put it down on the bedside table. ‘Have you ever heard anyone say that you can never go into the same river twice?’

‘Greek philosophy?’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe. But I don’t believe it’s possible to read the same book twice.’

She made room for him under the duvet.

A little later she asked him: ‘Why did you become a cop?’

‘I just did.’

‘You don’t even believe that yourself.’

He turned his head and looked into her face. Smiled instead of answering.

‘Are we in a private domain?’ she asked. ‘Keep off! Danger! Beware of the dog?’

‘I applied to Police College when I finished studying law and I got in.’

‘After law? You could have started in a solicitor’s office. You could have been a practising solicitor and earned millions. Instead of that, you run around snooping into other people’s business.’

‘Snooping into other people’s business?’

The intonation. It had been the tiniest bit sharp. But it was too late to moderate it after it was said. He cast her a glance. She was resting her head on his chest while the fingers of his left hand were following the pattern of the wallpaper. He stroked her hair with the other hand, knowing that she was trying to appraise the atmosphere.

‘It does happen, doesn’t it? You do snoop?’

He didn’t answer.

‘Are you annoyed?’

‘No.’

‘At least you aren’t a judge, that’s good.’

‘What’s the matter with judges?’

‘I have a few problems with judges, either because of the job they do or because they’re just so – judgemental.’

They lay in silence. Her head on his stomach. He lay there, playing with a lock of her black hair.

She said: ‘What are you thinking?’

‘That actually I could have become a judge. Perhaps from a career point of view I should have done.’ He was still playing with her hair. She was lying still. He said: ‘I like my job.’

She raised her head: ‘But why?’

‘I meet people. I met you.’

‘But there must have been something that made you consider becoming a cop. At some point, you must have wanted to become one, a long time ago.’

‘But why do you want to know?’

‘I like secrets.’

‘I guessed that.’

Her head went down again.

‘There was a policeman living in our street,’ he said. ‘The father of a nice girl in my class, Beate. He drove a Ford Cortina. The old model with the round rear lights – in the sixties.’

‘I have no idea what car you’re talking about,’ she said, ‘but it doesn’t matter.’

‘In the flat above me there was a girl called Vivian who went on the game, even though she was only eighteen or nineteen.’

‘How old were you?’

‘Ten maybe. I didn’t have a clue what a prostitute was. Didn’t have a clue about sex. The other boys talked about Vivian and showed me pornographic magazines with women baring their sexual parts. I thought the pictures were revolting.’

‘Were there pictures of her, of Vivian?’

‘No, but the boys wanted me to see what she did, or it gave them a hard-on, who knows? I was a late developer in this area. When I was ten, I was only interested in fishing, my bike and things like that. I remember Vivian as a rather drained, dark-haired girl with lots of thin, blue blood vessels on her legs. And her legs were always quite pale. She often sat on the steps smoking. Anyway, one day two men came along. One was wearing a coat and had slick, greasy hair. The other one, with a fringe, wore glasses and a short leather jacket. His face kept twitching. I was playing rounders with the other boys in the street and Vivian was sitting in her hot pants on the steps, smoking. When the two men came, she got up and went inside. Just sloped off.’

Frølich went quiet when the telephone rang.

She peered up at him. ‘Don’t tell me you’re going to answer the phone now.’

‘Maybe not,’ he said and watched the telephone without moving a muscle.

They lay listening to the ring tones until they stopped.

‘Go on,’ she said.

‘Where was I?’

‘Two men and Vivian went off.’

‘One of the boys was called Yngve. He had a Tomahawk bicycle, one of those with a long saddle. Yngve picked up a stone and threw it at the two men. And we joined in immediately. The two men were the enemy, sort of. Then we picked up a couple of stones too.’

‘Two ten-year-olds?’

‘There were probably five or six of us. Yngve was the oldest, he was fourteen. My friends were thirteen and twelve. I was the youngest and I remember I was shit scared. I’d never been so frightened. The man with the twitch went for Yngve and he lay on the road bleeding. He had to go in the ambulance afterwards. I remember I ran behind the block of flats, panic-stricken. I hid between the rubbish bins and was sick, I was so scared.’

He looked down at his chest and met her eyes. He grinned.

She whispered: ‘Go on.’

‘Beate’s father sorted everything out. He was the undisputed king, he didn’t say a word, he didn’t flash police ID or a badge, he wasn’t in uniform, he just came and put the world back to rights. I suppose it all started there. His character – a symbol.’

‘Bruce Willis,’ she grinned.

‘He wasn’t a particularly nice man.’

‘Bruce Willis?’

‘Beate’s father.’

‘What did he do?’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Beate became a heroin addict and died a few years ago. At the class reunion she was the only one who didn’t turn up and all the girls talked about how she had been mistreated, screwed by her father for years.’ He stretched. ‘Illusions fade and die,’ he said drily.

She didn’t say anything.

‘It’s inherent in the word. Illusion, something which isn’t real.’

‘You’re telling me.’

‘What do I like?’ He lay on his back thinking. ‘I like playing air guitar to ‘LA Woman’ by The Doors.’

‘You’re so boring. Come on. Say what you like doing.’

He stretched under the duvet and said: ‘I like looking out of the window when I wake up in bed in the morning.’

‘More,’ she said.

‘More what?’

‘More of what you like.’

‘You first.’

‘I like lying on the grass in the summer and seeing what images the clouds form.’

‘More.’

‘Cycling down a mountain on a mild summer’s evening.’

‘More.’

‘Now it’s your turn.’

‘I like copying down the titles of my records and organizing them alphabetically.’

‘Is that true?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right.’ She snuggled down under the duvet. ‘It’s your turn,’ she whispered.

‘I like being on my own in a special place.’

‘So do I.’

She lifted her head from his chest and looked up. ‘A beach,’ she said. ‘In the evening when I sit there, eventually all I can hear is the lapping of the waves on the shore. If anyone comes and talks, you don’t hear it.’

‘Water’s like that,’ he said. ‘I have the same experience when I go fishing, by rivers or streams with rapids.’

‘I don’t believe that.’

He looked at her again. She seemed slightly offended. ‘OK, I give in. It’s not like that.’

‘When you say things like that I don’t feel like saying any more,’ she said.

‘You!’ He sat up until they had eye contact again. ‘Don’t be cross.’

‘I’m not cross.’

‘So what’s the name of your beach?’

She smiled. ‘Hvar.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The name. Hvar.’

‘Of the beach?’

‘It’s an island.’

‘Where is it?’

She rested her head without answering.

He caressed her hair and yawned. Soon he would be asleep, he could sense that and he was happy. ‘By the way,’ he mumbled and yawned again. ‘I like the smell of bonfires in spring.’

At one point during the night he opened his eyes and the weight of her head was gone. He heard a soft voice speaking. She was sitting on the chair by the window with her mobile phone to her ear. ‘Aren’t you asleep?’ he asked. ‘What’s the time?’

‘I’m coming now,’ she whispered. ‘Just go to sleep.’

His eyes were closed and he felt her crawl in under the duvet. Before drifting off again he looked at her black hair cascading over the pillow.