The Whisperer

Chapter 3

Her face came alive as she talked. She captivated him, despite her lack of voice. She radiated sincerity. Every now and then she held up a hand and made a gesture in the air as if to underline something, to help herself, to create the illusion of sound. Her whispering made him lower his own voice. He listened with such intensity that he could no doubt have heard a cat creeping up on its prey.

‘You told no one,’ Sejer said. ‘Not your neighbours, or your colleagues, or Irfan in the shop or anyone else you knew. Nor Rikard Josef in Berlin. Of course the letter you found in your mailbox was a threat. That came from nowhere, like a bolt out of the blue. But you confided in no one.’

Ragna could see his face clearly in the light from the computer screen. The deep lines that ran from his nostrils to the corners of his mouth, the straight eyebrows that had once been dark but now were laced with silver. He was there the whole time, always present and near. He did not take his eyes off her, was never tempted to turn towards the screen, to see what was happening there. His phone flashed red occasionally, but he did not answer. She felt like a fish that had been caught in a net, and she lay softly against the fine mesh. There was a pile of papers on his desk, and a notepad, where he sometimes scribbled something down with such speed that she wondered if he wrote shorthand.

‘It was embarrassing,’ she whispered. ‘I felt ashamed.’

She could see that he was considering her answer. That he did not leap to any conclusions. That he certainly seemed to understand her. What would Lars and Gunnhild and all the others have thought about the letter? What would they have said, how would they have reassured her? Other than smile about it, dismiss it as nonsense? They would never understand how much the letter had unsettled her. It must be something about her, they would think, something that had made some malicious soul choose Ragna Riegel, of all people. Point her out, without pity, tip her balance. It was not random, they would think, because nothing frightens people more than randomness. There had to be a reason, or some form of culpability. If they found no reason, no blame, then anything could happen, then any kind of precaution was pointless — hiding, keeping one’s nose clean.

Ragna observed the inspector thinking. He understood the gravity of the situation, her distress, she could see it in his grey eyes. Not that she had never thought about death. Dear God, she had thought about death. But when she got the letter, she thought about it all the time, from minute to minute. She thought about the envelope that had not been franked. That meant he had driven there, or walked along Kirkelina. He had stopped at her mailbox, stared up at the house, watched for shadows in the window to check if he had been seen. Then he had hurried off into the darkening evening, or night, if it had been night, with his coat collar turned up and his hands deep in his pockets, with a plan, some intention that she could not fathom. She wondered if maybe he had tormented cats when he was a boy. The thought made her shudder.

‘Did you think of anyone in particular?’ Sejer asked. ‘Someone you once knew or had a relationship with, or worked with or a neighbour, someone’s toes you may have stepped on, a distant relative?’

‘I weigh practically nothing,’ Ragna whispered. ‘If I stepped on anyone’s toes, they wouldn’t notice, no more than they would a mouse.’ She pouted when she said ‘mouse’, and smiled at him.

‘You’re certainly not a mouse,’ Sejer said. ‘But there are sensitive souls out there who are offended by the slightest thing. I have to look everywhere, in the past as well. What about Rikard Josef’s father? You haven’t said anything about him yet.’

‘There’s nothing to tell. He would be over seventy now.’

‘So you count the years?’

She felt mortified about everything again. Someone had found her in the multitude and callously turned a spotlight on her, a light she was not able to ignore. The house where she had grown up on Kirkelina, her own little nest that she loved, was now left standing in the autumn dark with all the lights on like an American weatherboard ready for Christmas. She was exposed for all the world to see. Even though she was not guilty of anything, she was convinced that the man who had tormented her had something on her.

For a brief moment, Sejer caught sight of a kind of defiance, as though she wanted to say to him, I know why I’m sitting here but I don’t want to grovel. And he was not asking her to. They would go through this together, he without judging, and she without losing her dignity. That was what he wanted. It was what Ragna needed.

‘Your son,’ Sejer said. ‘Was he the result of a brief relationship?’

‘He’s the result of a single night. I was at a party and I drank far too much. Even though I hid myself away in a corner, one person found me. I didn’t dare let any awkward teenage boys near me. But they didn’t want to be near me anyway, I had none of the things they wanted.’

‘What do you think they wanted?’

‘Don’t ask stupid questions.’

‘So,’ Sejer prompted. ‘One night. And then you never saw him again?’

‘Oh yes, I did, a couple of times.’

‘Do you ever think about him?’

‘Very occasionally. But I have a big chest of drawers in my bedroom, and in the bottom drawer is a photograph that he took of me one day when we were walking through the park. A black-and-white photograph that he enlarged and wanted me to keep. He said that I should look at the photograph and know that I had been seen, that I deserved to be seen. I was never beautiful,’ she hastened to say, ‘not even when I was sixteen, but he somehow managed to catch me at a good moment. In a favourable light. No one else had managed that. I look like an angel in that picture.’ After a pause, she added: ‘He’s a photographer.’

She looked down again, regretted what she had said. She had blown her own trumpet. Saying ‘angel’ was going too far. She blushed violently and did not want to look up again for a good while.

‘But the photograph is still in a drawer? Even though it is the most beautiful version of you that you’ve ever seen?’

‘The photograph,’ she whispered curtly, ‘is nothing more than pure chance. A slight mist. The setting sun. Things like that.’

‘But you haven’t thrown it away. What did you say his name was?’

‘Walther Eriksson. He lives in Stockholm, he’s lived there for years. I guess he’s retired now.’

‘So you do keep track, all the same?’

She looked away. He had never seen such a thin neck, you could probably break it with one hand.

‘My world is very small,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t have much to do with other people, only those from work. I spend a fair amount of time online, and there’s stuff about him there. He’s won a few prizes for his portraits. No, not a few, a lot.’

‘So, a good photographer,’ Sejer said, ‘an excellent one, in fact. Good photographers don’t win prizes because of chance. They have a good eye. A special kind of relationship with their subjects and good timing. They know when to fire.’

He leaned forward, and said emphatically: ‘Sooner or later, that picture should be hung on the wall.’

Sometimes he chose to say nothing. Not to create uncertainty, but he did use silence as a tactic. It could trigger a body language that told him something about the person, or they might talk too much, get nervous, and give themselves away. But now it was more a case of giving her space and an opportunity to compose herself. To process and defend the things she had confided in him, things she had never told anyone. When he said nothing, her eyes roamed around the room. She noticed things, the way quiet people do, and because she had problems with communicating, she was a good listener.

‘I like Grace Kelly too,’ she whispered, and nodded at a photograph on the wall. ‘I like old American films. They’re buried together, the prince and her, in the palace. There are always flowers on the grave. And there are always people there.’

Ragna was given one of Sejer’s rarest smiles.

‘That’s my wife, Elise. She’s buried too, and there are always flowers on the grave. But there are not many people there, just Frank and me.’

‘Oh,’ she whispered. ‘But she’s like her. She looks so like her.’

‘Everyone says that,’ Sejer replied proudly.

‘Oh,’ she whispered again.

She gazed at the portrait for a while, then looked at Sejer, then back at the portrait. And again she felt ashamed that she had spoken about her own portrait in a way that suggested it was beautiful.

‘Elise?’

He nodded.

Silence followed. He sat there looking at her nylon work coat; it was far too big, he could barely guess what her figure was like.

‘Do you often lose control, Ragna?’ he asked, out of the blue.

She laughed, a few short breaths.

‘Look at me. Listen to my voice. Does it look like it?’

Her eyes met his, she was surer of him.

‘No,’ he had to admit. ‘But you do have that most important of instincts in you — rage. Everyone does. Because at some point or other, we all find ourselves in a situation where we need it. The adrenaline, that is. It makes us strong and fast. Men have it more than women, of course; men have to go out and hunt, they’re the ones most likely to encounter wild animals. But you have a bit too, don’t you? That’s why you’re sitting here now, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘But women have other weapons as well, only they’re not often aware of it, or just what they are capable of. Goodness, Gunnhild at work bought some pepper spray, which she always keeps in her handbag. So in that moment when she’s panicking she has to rummage around in her bag. Get the lid off, aim and hit the mark, while all the time some lunatic is threatening her with a knife.’

‘I can see the problem,’ he nodded.

‘But there’s something else that will always scare an attacker,’ she continued. ‘Something that all women have. That they don’t need to look for, and yet they always hesitate to use.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘A scream.’

That reminded him of many cases, many women. A rape could take place in a bedroom while other people were enjoying themselves in the living room. Women had been raped in doorways while people walked past on the street. That paralysing fear. The fear that things might escalate.

‘It’s best to keep still. Not to move a finger. It will soon be over.’

She started to become more aware of people in a different way. She had always thought they were so similar, especially in the autumn. They all dressed the same, whether they were women or men, in down jackets and denim, black, dark blue and anonymous. Teenagers all dressed the same as well, though not as many of them came into Europris, and she was not out on the street much. But now they were no longer a homogenous mass. The troll had always had many heads, and now she could see each one of them.

She was working the early shift and was on the till. She kept the customers at a distance with a tight smile, but she nodded to the amount displayed on the card terminal, and with her hand on the box of carrier bags, looked up with questioning eyes. No one said anything when they were at the till. And practically no one looked at her either, she was simply part of the card terminal. But now Ragna studied each individual carefully. That is to say, not the women so much, and they were definitely the majority, but all the others, the men, to see if they were sending out signals, something she should notice, that extra something, be it a cryptic smile or disturbed expression. Something special about their body language, an opaque comment, or for that matter, a distinct smell, even though she realised she was no bloodhound. She could smell neither fear nor aggression. But there were no men like that, there was no one who stood out. She did not see anyone who might be the anonymous letter writer, who was maybe out to get her, or to get attention. They were no longer the same, though; despite the down jackets and denim, she saw them clearly now. She saw the subtleties and details. Even the regular customers, the ones she thought she had studied and pigeonholed once and for all, were given another assessment. No, it was none of them. Could a young father looking for a cheap toboggan, with a toddler in tow, be her tormentor? Or an older woman looking for Jamie Oliver’s new frying pan, which normally cost twelve hundred kroner, but they sold for half-price? There’s something I’ve missed, she thought, something I’ve forgotten, something from way back. But she didn’t like to think about the past, she had enough as it was with the present, her head was full of the moment, the sounds and smells, the stream of people, it filled her completely. Everyone said that we only use parts of our brain, hah! She knew better than that. Every single cell was being used, there were no empty pockets in Ragna’s head.

She let the products glide past on the short conveyor belt and was absolutely certain that her harasser from Kirkelina would show up at some point or other. Suddenly he would be standing there, staring at her, perhaps with a knowing smile. To take the game a step further, because it was a game, after all. To observe his victim close at hand, to relish her ignorance and vulnerability. Maybe say a few words that she would not understand the significance of to begin with, but then, a few hours later, it would dawn on her. Dear God. It was him, it was him! There was scarcely a metre between her and the customers when she sat at the till, and she used every second well. As a result she got more tired than she usually did, her senses were on full alert. When the long shift was finally over, she had to count the money, make sure it was right, which it always was, she was very careful. And then the minutes it took to walk to the bus stop, get on the bus, find her usual seat, the third back on the left-hand side. Relieved and frustrated at the same time because she had not picked up on anything. Her suspicion had not been aroused, she had not received any cryptic signs. That meant that she had blended into the crowd, like a fish in a shoal. She sat slumped against the bus window, with the knowledge that when she got off forty minutes later and walked the last few metres along Kirkelina, she would have to open the mailbox with ‘Riegel’ on it.

The street lamp by her driveway came on at dusk and she was careful not to block the light as she lifted the lid. When she stared down into the box, she nurtured the burning defiance that would turn to rage if she found another anonymous letter. But there was no new letter. She gathered up the newspaper and advertisements, a begging letter from the Norwegian Air Ambulance Foundation and an electricity bill, and when she then sat down on her chair, by the standard lamp, she read the local news to see if any of the other readers had experienced the same as her, and if they had written about it on ‘My Page’. It could not just be her! If other people had received a similar message, then it would mean nothing, but if she was the only one, she could not see it as anything but a real threat. If it was a threat at all. The message was concise, that she was going to die, and that was true enough. Someone had just felt the need to point it out, some disturbed soul, perhaps. Some poor lonely person who craved attention, or someone who was going to die themselves very soon. She flicked through the paper from start to finish, and when she got to the obituaries, she read them with great interest. Strange, isn’t it, she thought, I don’t know anyone, no one in this town at all. She didn’t want to know anyone, either. But she got it into her head that whoever had sent the message was sitting there reading the obituaries too, with equal interest, and his fingers would be black with ink, like her own, when he put the newspaper to one side. And that’s the way it should be, she thought, as she made her way through the list of names. The suffering of the world should leave its mark, not just flash on a screen. She never read the news online, she liked the sound of the paper rustling as she turned the page. She remembered that when her father read something upsetting, he would sometimes shake the paper hard, without mercy, as if it were a naughty child. Then it was not just a faint rustling, it was hard and loud.

He’ll get bored of the game, Ragna thought, after a while. Soon I’ll be able to shake off this unease, laugh about it and forget it. It will die down, in the same way that the memory of Walther Eriksson has burned out, and my grief that Rikard Josef has gone to Berlin and doesn’t contact me, other than sending garish cards with ready-printed words. That had also died down. The distance between them had become normal, a habit. That was how her life was now. She reflected on her own cowardice for a moment, it was like a cold shower. Why had she never taken him up on it, demanded an explanation? Had she neglected him, was he perhaps embarrassed about her, or was he just a man who found intimacy and contact difficult? But then what about the hotel, she thought in the next moment. A successful, five-star hotel, with all the guests and staff, he had to deal with them constantly. He would have to talk to them, care about them and serve them. Did I treat him badly? Is there something essential that I didn’t give him? No! Her throat tightened. She felt irritated, she did not want to think about all this again, it was that stupid message making her so sensitive. She reminded herself that intimacy and contact were not something that was automatic in every family. Some people didn’t want it, some people weren’t good at it. Lots of people just upped and left, some even went to the other side of the world. They did not necessarily leave because they were bitter, or because they hated their roots. After all, Rikard Josef sent Christmas and birthday cards, and she sent him cards too, there was still a line of communication. But ringing or sending an email would be crossing a boundary; it would seem confrontational and invasive, she felt. Not that she had his email address, just a mobile number that she never dared to ring. And anyway, he had never accused her of anything, never expressed any kind of anger or hurt, and she certainly was not going to disinherit him for that. I don’t have any claims, she realised, he’s his own boss. Rikard Josef just wanted to live his own life in Hotel Dormero. As the top manager.

She had got into the habit of glancing down to the road whenever she passed the window. Not that she expected to catch the letter writer red-handed, bent over the mailbox, but something had come into her life that made her nervous and agitated. It was like her body was fevered. She could not help it, she kept watching what was going on in a new way, and even the planes overhead were studied carefully. There was a fair amount of traffic along Kirkelina. She heard the sound of the cars, a steady hum, especially in the afternoon. The new articulated buses that were now in use were eighteen metres long and so could not pull into the bus stop and had to stand in the road, causing a jam. She thought about the letter writer again, she thought about him more and more. He had attached himself like a burr. How pathetic, she thought, how sad. A loser, an anonymous coward. Riff-raff. And yet she could not bring herself to tell anyone, not Olaf next door, not her colleagues at work. Every now and then it struck her that he might not be an idiot at all, but a perfectly ordinary man with a wife and children, someone who wanted for nothing in his life. He just had a secret perversion. That frightened her even more. Often when she sat thinking like this, she felt her nails digging into the palms of her hands, her own modest form of anger, which she did not know how to channel, other than back on herself. Going to bed at night was a good thing. Another day without threats. She would often stand for a long time by the open bedroom window to cool down, as her cheeks were so warm. She must not fuel this flame, not at any price.

But one evening she sat down to write to her son in Berlin, all the same. Just a short letter, nothing much. He might wonder why she had written, after all, she had never done it before, and it was not Christmas or his birthday; she was not selling the house or moving, and she was not seriously ill, nor was she getting married. It was of course connected to the message, it made her behave differently, think differently. She took care to keep a light tone. The short greeting must not make him worried or signal something new, or in any way come across as a demand that he respond immediately. But she felt impelled to say hello, to remind him that she was sitting there all alone in the old house where he had grown up. And that he was still part of her daily life, in her thoughts, he must never think otherwise. But she wanted to create a space for herself in his life too, it was never too late and it was important, they were both still young. In her mind, as she sat there writing as beautifully as she could, she was standing in the lobby of the Hotel Dormero, where she had never been before. In December, the staff would decorate a tree with lovely twinkling lights, for the enjoyment of all who stepped inside. She was sure that it was her son who oversaw this. That he decided where the tree should stand, and how it should be decorated. She could just picture him, standing there directing the staff in a firm voice, pointing, dressed in an elegant, dark suit. He might even have a gold badge with ‘Director’ written on it. Or ‘Manager’. Suddenly, she was not sure of her son’s title.

She signed the letter ‘Mum’ and the image of him disappeared. She felt that she had crossed a line. She was afraid he would feel guilty. Perhaps she should wait and send it nearer to Christmas.

But she put a stamp on the envelope all the same and left it on the sideboard in the hall. It was a thin, shiny white envelope that would brighten the bottom of his mailbox on Landsberger Allee when he put his hand in to fish it out. He would turn it over and see the Norwegian stamp. There was no mention of the death threat she had received. Not a word.