KILLERINSTINKT (Killer Instinct)
by Thomas Enger
Pages: 256
Publisher: Kagge Forlag
Sample translation
pp. 5-26
1.
‘Nervous?’
The guard at Nedre Romerike District Court gave me a cautious smile. I stopped twisting my sweaty fingers.
‘Is it thatobvious?’ I asked. The guard’s smile widened. She’d been sitting beside me for fifteen minutes, at least, but it was only now that I noticed her teeth were yellow.
‘Is it the first time you’ve been called as a witness?’
‘Yes.’
‘Quite a case,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I replied.
I hadn’t said much about what happened. The police had questioned me straight after, obviously, but I’d said no to all requests for an interview. I didn’t want to be on TV or the radio, to talk to people I didn’t know.
Now I no longer had the choice.
I’d tried to prepare myself as best I could, but my only experience of court cases was from Netflix, and something told me that the reality would be different, in Norway at least. It was one of the reasons why I hadn’t slept very well for the past few nights. The uncertainty, and all the memories I’d have to go through again.
The door in front of me opened. A man in uniform nodded his head in a “come with me” way. I took a deep breath and stood up. Looked at the guard.
‘Your turn,’ she said, and gave me an encouraging smile. I straightened my trouser legs, buttoned my jacket and pulled down my slightly too-short shirt sleeves.
‘My turn,’ I echoed.
I wondered whether I’d be able to tell them everything, how honest I would manage to be. I hoped that everyone at home in Fredheim, as well as people in the rest of Norway, would get a better understanding of what happened in our community on those cold, wet October days last autumn.
The man in uniform showed me through a wide door into a large room. It was just like on TV; all the faces that turned towards me, a sudden, expectant hush that was soon replaced by mumbling. I focused on a point straight ahead of me, and just stared at it, glad that the witness box was a few metres away. The sound of my steps also gave me something to concentrate on.
I raised my eyes and spotted Mum. I could see she was suffering, that she was trying not to let the nasty comments I’d heard on the way into court this morning, affect her.
I sat down in the witness box and turned to face the courtroom. Only now did I realise how many people had come to hear me. The room was about the size of half a handball court, but there were people everywhere, in all the seats. Some were even standing at the back. At first, I couldn’t really see anyone, all I saw was heads, but it helped to sit down. To take a deep breath. Then I saw the journalists, the computer screens, I saw Chief Inspector Yngve Mork next to Brakstad, the principal, and Kaiss and Fredrik were there too with some others I knew from school. A voice cut through and I realised I was being asked to tell the court my name.
I turned to face the judge and two lay judges.
‘Even Tollefsen,’ I said, and cleared my throat – I had to lean in towards the microphone so that everyone could hear.
‘How old are you, Even?’
‘Eighteen.’
I only registered where the questions were coming from, not the person who was asking. My only thought was that I had to answer as well as I could, one question at a time. And it would be over soon enough.
Or would it?
I once read somewhere that if you just decided to carry on living, then life would return to normal. Only I couldn’t understand how we were going to manage that.
I was asked to tell the court where I lived and what I did. I said Granholtveien in Fredheim and that I was still at school.
‘Is that Fredheim Senior High?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘And you are the son of Susanne Tollefsen?’
‘Yes. I have a younger brother called Tobias, and my father, Jimmy, died when I was young.’
I didn’t know much about the lawyer who was asking, other than that her surname was Håkonsen. She was small and slim and looked almost like a man in her black, tight-fitting suit. She took a sip of water from the glass in front of her. I was tempted to do the same; every time I spoke you could hear my tongue sticking. Then I had to swear to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. I did and swallowed hard.
‘Mari Lindgren,’ the lawyer said. ‘Can you please tell the court what kind of relationship you had with her?’
I took a deep breath and thought about how I’d felt that morning when I woke up. Even then part of me knew that something was wrong, that something terrible was going to happen. I could feel it in my bones.
‘She was my girlfriend,’ I said. ‘We’d been together for a while.’
‘But she wasno longer your girlfriend on the 17th of October last year, was she?’
I shook my head.
‘It’s important for the sake of protocol that you answer the questions,’ the lawyer said.
‘Uh, no,’ I said.
The truth was that Mari had split up with me two days before. She’d sent me a text message in the middle of the second half of the Premier League game between Chelsea-Leicester. It said:Even, you’re a really nice guy, but I can’t be together with you anymore. Sorry.
That was it.
I’d tried to get some kind of explanation, but she just didn’t reply – not when I phoned her, nor when I texted her. When I went to her house, she was somewhere else. And she wasn’t at school on that Monday, the 17th of October. I tried to talk to her mum, but she had no idea where Mari was or what had happened. It was only later it dawned on me that Cecilie Lindgren was lying. That several of Mari’s friends were lying as well, and that none of them wanted to help me find her. That Mari was in fact hiding from me.
‘And the school show was that evening?’
I was about to nod, but then stopped myself and said “yes”.
‘But you didn’t go?’
I leaned in towards the microphone again.
‘No.’
I was supposed to be playing in the band, but couldn’t face the idea of sitting on stage, looking out at the audience and then maybe seeing Mari. I knew that she’d be there for the school paper, and that I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on what I was supposed to be doing if I saw her. And I didn’t want to ruin it for everyone else, so my father’s brother, Uncle Imo, stepped in for me. He was the musical director for the show, and he’d written all the music anyway, so it wasn’t really a big deal. Imo said that I wasn’t feeling well, which wasn’t too far from the truth. My whole body ached. I just lay on my bed and stared at the wall, hoping all the while that Mari would call. But she didn't.
I tried to explain all this to the court.
‘So you didn’t go out at all that evening?’ the lawyer asked.
‘No, I was at home in my room.’
She checked in the notes she had in front of her, straightened her glasses and said: ‘Tell the court what happened the next day, as you experienced it.’
I couldn’t bear lying in bed, twisting and turning, so I got up, even though it was still early. I felt restless and uneasy in a way I’d never felt before. It was like something inside was trying to tell me something I didn’t want to know.
This horrible feeling lingered, even after I’d showered and had breakfast, but I tried to convince myself that it was because I hadn’t slept well enough or eaten enough food.
I went out into the hallway and got ready for school. Looked at myself in the full-length mirror for a few seconds, wondering what I’d done to Mari. If I’d said anything. If she just didn’t like me anymore. I ran a hand through my hair, there was enough wax in it to get it to do more or less what I wanted – slick it straight back, so it covered my neck. I knew that I was quite good looking. Around 1.8 metres tall and nospare fat on my body. I was pretty smart and a lot nicer than most. I think. I told myself that I wouldn’t have any problems finding a new girlfriend.
But I didn’t want a new girlfriend.
I wanted Mari.
‘Are you going to school?’
I turned around. Tobias came padding down the stairs. When I looked up and saw him from below, I thought to myself how much he’d changed in the past six months. He had long hair now, which he sometimes – when he wasn’t wearing a baseball cap – put up in a little topknot. He only wore jogging trousers that he could barely keep on and his head was always hidden in a hood of some sort or another. Even when he was wearing a baseball cap.
‘Aren’t you?’ I asked.
He came down into the hall, his hands in his pockets.
‘Yeah.’
He watched me as I pulled on my waterproof trousers. It was pouring outside – a hard, lashing rain. I looked up at the clock on the wall.
‘Well, you’d better get a move on then,’ I said. ‘It’s only thirty-five minutes to the bell.’
Tobias didn’t answer. Just ambled into the kitchen.
‘There’s no milk, by the way,’ I called after him. ‘Don’t think there’s any cornflakes either.’
Tobias closed the door without saying anything. I wondered if he actually intended to go to school or not, and if I should maybe wait to make sure he did. Mum was at Knut’s, so basically we’d been left to our own devices. As usual. But then I thought about Mari again, and I put on my rain jacket and hurried out into the deluge.
Fredheim Senior High was three kilometres from our house, and I always cycled, no matter what the weather was like. I pulled my hood tight, which meant I couldn’t hear everything, but it was easy to see the lights and anything bright under the heavy grey lid over us on that dark October morning.
And that was why I stopped a few hundred metres from the school. From a distance, it looked like someone had coloured the clouds over the big, flat-roofed building. The flashing blue light cut through the trees between the school and the car park, and from the opposite direction I heard an insistent wailing getting closer and closer.
I cycled up the hill towards the school and got off when it was no longer possible to manoeuvre because of the people. All around me were pupils, teachers, uniformed police, men and women in paramedic uniforms. The school was cordoned off with red and white tape.
Lots of the pupils had their arms round each other. Some were crying. I felt something heavy and hard pressing against my chest.
I spotted Tic-Tac, the janitor, who was talking to a policeman under the open rear door of an estate car. They both looked grim. I tried to find Oskar, Kaiss or Fredrik. Couldn’t see them anywhere.
Then I saw Brakstad, the principal, who was taller than everyone else, and hurried over to him.
‘Mr Brakstad,’ I said, ‘what the hell’s going on?’
The heavy rain had pressed the principal’s hair flat against his skull. There was a thin layer of condensation inside his thick glasses, but I could still see his eyes, howdark they were.
‘Hi Even,’ he said, and looked around. He didn’t say any more, so I asked again. ‘Has there been an accident or what?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Brakstad said, his voice shaking ever so slightly. ‘The police chased me away from the school as soon as I got here.’
‘But...’ I started, and didn’t manage to say any more. I stood there listening to the rain falling on my jacket and hood, which I pulled down so I could hear better. But I only caught snatches of what people around me were saying:
‘....it was Tic-Tac who called the police...’
‘... blood everywhere...’
I turned and saw an officer lift up the cordon. He let in two men and a woman who were dressed head to toe in white plastic overalls. They looked like something from a movie. One of them was carrying a small, black case.
Another voice cut through:
‘... lying in the music room...’
I turned towards Brakstad again, who just stared back. I couldn’t make out the expression in his deep, sad eyes that bored into me.
‘Who is it?’ I asked, and tried to swallow. ‘Who’s been killed?’
A second later I saw Ida Hammer. Mari’s best friend. Everyone looked at her, because she was screaming. She threw herself to the ground and howled, and for a few moments that was all I heard; Ida on all fours on the wet asphalt, howling. Some of her friends tried to hold her up. I didn’t register that I lost hold of my bike. I only heard the crash when it hit the ground.
I turned towards Brakstad and saw it in his eyes, what I hadn’t understood until now. It hit me with full force. And I knew it was Mari – my Mari – who was dead.
2.
‘You knew that it was Mari?’ the lawyer asked. ‘How could you know that?’
‘Well, I suppose I didn’t know,’ I replied. ‘But I could feel it.’
Ms Håkonsen, the lawyer, seemed to be expecting me to elaborate, she looked over at the judge, but when he neither coughed nor hinted in any other way that I needed to say more, she asked: ‘What did you do after that?’
I leaned forwards to throw up, but when I opened my mouth, nothing came up – just dry, thick air, the smell of old crispbread and butter, mixed with toothpaste. I tried to listen to the voice in my head saying: ‘You’re wrong, it’s not Mari that’s dead, it’s someone else.’ And for a few seconds this thought won over the others – I managed to straighten up and think: ‘take it easy, she’ll turn up soon enough, forget why she broke up with you – it’s not a problem. Soon she’ll come walking up the hill in the rain, and then she’ll find her friends and stand here crying for someone else.’
But I couldn’t get Ida and her howling at the wet, metal-grey sky out of my head. Her pounding the asphalt.
Oskar appeared beside me; I hadn’t seen him coming.
‘Hey,’ he said, and took his white earpieces out. ‘Fucking mad.’
Brakstad turned away and went to stand by one of the teachers. I noticed they were looking at me.
‘Have you heard anything?’ I asked.
Oskar sighed and said: ‘Just rumours so far.’
‘Is... is it Mari....?’
I twisted round and pointed to the entrance. Oskar kept looking straight at me, but shook his head and said he didn’t know. Part of me was still trying to convince myself that I was dreaming, that nothing was real. But I needed to know. Someone had to tell me the truth. Now.
I saw that Tic-Tac was still standing beside the police car, but he was alone now. He was smoking, feverishly. I left my bike where it was and went over to him.
‘Tic-tac,’ I said. ‘What the hell’s going on in there?’
Tic-tac was normally a big man, almost broader than he was tall. But it was like someone had punctured him. He was slouching forwards, struggling to keep himself upright.
The janitor lifted his head, looked at me and said: ‘I’m not allowed to say anything.’ He nodded towards the police officer.
‘For fuck’s sake, Tic-Tac.’
He took another draw on his cigarette, then dropped it to the ground, crushed it hard underfoot, even though it had landed in a puddle. He looked at me again. And I could tell that whatever he’d seen in there had made a big impression. Tic-Tac was in shock. His hands were shaking. It wasn’t so unusual for him to have the shakes – that’s why we called him Tic-Tac, after all. The muscles in his face sometimes locked, causing spasms.
I tried to give my voice some warmth.
‘Everyone’s wondering, Tic-Tac. Who’s lying in there?’
He fumbled in his inner pocket for his tobacco. Started to roll another cigarette, but his fingers wouldn’t stop shaking.
‘I only saw Johannes,’ he said in a guarded voice.
‘Johannes?’
Tic-Tac hushed me and gave me a hard look. I didn’t understand. So Mari wasn’t dead after all?
Johannes Eklund was the vocalist in the band. Without a doubt the biggest star of the show. I took a step closer to Tic-Tac and waited for him to tell me more.
‘He was lying on the stairs up to the first floor.’
Tic-Tac tried to control another spasm in his face.
‘There was... a lot of blood everywhere. Don’t know where they found the girl.’
The girl.
I stood there with my mouth open.
There were two dead people in there.
Johannes.
And a girl.
I looked around. Suddenly it felt like everyone was staring at me.
I couldn’t stay there any longer, so I just started to walk, quickly, and soon I was running towards the car park and out onto the pavement; I ran as fast as I could – all I could hear was the rain and my shallow breathing, the sound of the raindrops whipping my face. Eventually I was running so fast that I suddenly fell forwards; I only just had time to put out my hands. I slid along the asphalt. Scraped up my skin. Lay there, gasping for breath, then I began to scream as well.