There is a strange noise inside his head.
Is it the sound of the sea? He can definitely hear waves crashing.
Henning swallows, but the sound refuses to go away. It’s as if he has been to a concert where the noise level was too loud. He blinks as well, but the people around him still look weird. They blur and dissolve. Their voices mingle. The grass under him seems to come closer. An ant climbs up on his hand. It looks as if it is about to crawl inside his skin when Henning flicks it away and gets up. He stands there, swaying. The first steps hurt, the next ones are even worse. He turns away from the sun and lets it burn his neck instead. He carries on walking. The fence, where’s the fence? Tarmac under his feet again. The whoosh from a bicycle racing past grabs hold of him just as a fresh, sharp pain begins under the soles of his feet. When he puts pressure on them, they feel wet.
Nearby something bounces.
‘Oi!’
Henning is startled and looks up.
‘Stop the ball!’
He sticks out his more painful foot, feels something hit it and come to a halt. Someone runs towards him. Henning keeps the ball in place under his foot. He sees a boy with long blond hair. Ice-blue eyes. There is something familiar about them.
‘Thanks,’ the boy says. He is eight, maybe nine years old. ‘Can I have it back, please?’ he asks. Henning looks at him.
‘What’s your name?’ he hears himself say.
‘Fredrik.’
Henning takes a step to the side for support, tries to make eye contact with the boy, but can’t manage it. Instead he rolls the ball towards the boy, who kicks it up and catches it with his hands, but drops it instantly.
‘Yuk, it’s covered in blood!’
The ball rolls away. Henning tries to work out where it has gone, but he can’t. He only registers that the boy is leaving. The stinging pain under his feet grows more intense. He looks down. It’s not until then he realises that he is wearing slippers.
*
Thorleif has always experienced a sense of calm when travelling by train. There is something infinitely serene about gazing idly through a window. If his eyes follow the tracks, the world rushes past. If he looks out at the landscape, everything seems almost stagnant. It’s something which has always fascinated him. But not now.
Today he can’t be bothered to look for deer or admire the fields or the passing mountains. Instead he closes his eyes and tries to clear his mind. It proves to be impossible; he can’t stop reliving what he has done. On his fingertips Thorleif can still feel the tiny hairs on Tore Pulli’s body as he attached the microphone to the tight T-shirt. The needle in the palm of his hand, clammy and smooth. The startled look in Pulli’s eyes as he Thorleif can’t bear to complete the thought. He wonders what everyone will think in the next few days. Especially the children. Elisabeth will probably tell them that Daddy had to go abroad for work and that she doesn’t know how long he will be away. But how long will she be able to keep that up? Pal is eight years old and he is a bright boy. He will soon guess that something is wrong. I need to let them know that I’m in one piece, Thorleif thinks, tell Elisabeth not to worry. But how will he manage that if their flat is being monitored? What if they have bugged Elisabeth’s mobile? I can’t risk it, Thorleif concludes. I can’t risk them suspecting that she knows where I am.
So what the hell can he do?
She might still be at work. Perhaps he can call the school office and Damn, he doesn’t have a mobile. He looks around, sees several of his fellow passengers fiddle with their mobiles. Perhaps he could borrow one of theirs? He dismisses the thought instantly. A conversation of that sort must be had in private, and no sane person would hand over their mobile to a man who says he needs to go away to make a personal call. The best he can hope for is to wait until he leaves the train and look for a public telephone.
If he is to get hold of Elisabeth before she finishes work today, he needs to take action soon. Should he stay on the train until its final destination? Or is it better to get off along the way, at a smaller station? It will be easier to keep track of what is going on in a small town, fewer people around. However, if he is discovered and someone comes after him, he will be making their job easier.
An ad above the luggage shelves further along the carriage attracts Thorleif’s attention. He looks at the pictures and reads the caption. Get your dream cabin now. Under the caption there is a scenic photo of mountains and open spaces, white, beautiful and dramatic with small dark cabins dotted around the landscape. It says Ustaoset at the bottom as if the ad promotes a film starring the Norwegian winter.
Thorleif straightens up in his seat. The ad reminds him of Einar Flotaker, a childhood friend with whom he lost contact after they both had children. But Thorleif will never forget the trip they made as teenagers many, many years ago to Einar’s family’s cabin in Ustaoset. It was the height of winter, Thorleif recalls, and it was down to minus thirty degrees Celsius when they arrived. Once they got off the train they had to walk quite a distance from the station lugging their supplies and skis before they reached it. Inside the cabin it was minus twelve degrees before they got the fire going, and it wasn’t until the next day that they could take off their coats and walk around in normal indoor clothes.
The cabin is probably still there, Thorleif thinks. And I can’t imagine that anyone is using it at the moment.