Bad Intentions (14 page)

Sejer did not reply.

"Kim didn't have many friends," she went on. "And whenever he found someone to spend time with, they wanted to go out drinking. That's what he said to me: if I want to hang out with them, I have to go drinking."

She stopped her flow of words.

Sejer had listened in silence. To come all this way, he thought, from beautiful Vietnam, to the dark Norwegian winter with ice and snow and lose everything you have. And yet sit there calmly
talking with your hands in your lap. Tiny porcelain hands. And fire-breathing dragons on your feet.

"Isn't it odd that some people end up without friends?" she said. "After all, he wanted for nothing. He did well at school and you can see from the photo that he was good-looking, so it's hard for me to understand. It's very hard indeed."

"Tell me about the night he went missing," Sejer asked.

"Yes," she said, "I will tell you. It was December 19 last year, in the early evening. He wanted to go into town. He wasn't meeting anyone in particular, he just wanted to watch the world go by, he said, and I told him to dress up warm because it was freezing cold that day. And a seventeen-year-old boy should have some independence, I do know that, so I was happy that he wanted to go out and meet people even though I didn't know who they were. He called out to me from the hall. That was the last time I heard his voice, I can still hear his very last words. I went to bed at midnight, but I didn't go to sleep. I lay waiting for his key in the lock because it makes quite a loud noise, you can't mistake it. I listened out for his voice and his footsteps, and I waited for the pipes in the bathroom to gurgle. The night has never been so full of sounds. I kept hearing things, and every time I sat up with a start. Kim's coming, that's definitely Kim. Wasn't that the sound of a car starting in the road? They must have given him a lift home, after all he's gone out with nice people. Because he's a nice boy. That's what I thought as I lay in my bed. After several hours dawn broke and then I was sure that something must have happened. I stood in the doorway and looked at his empty bed. I could hardly believe it. Then there was the business of trying to find out what had happened. When he was reported missing in the newspaper, the police received some calls. It turned out he had met some young people and gone to a party with them, and they'd all been questioned, but none of them had any idea what might have happened to him. Kim had done what they had
done. He had been drinking and he wasn't used to that. They made no bones about it. Kim was drunk. And I don't know what happened, but he shouldn't have been drinking because he can't handle it."

"What do you think might have happened?" Sejer asked.

"For a long time I thought he might have fallen asleep in a ditch on his way home and frozen to death, but then I heard that he had been given a lift as far as the letterboxes and that's when I started to have doubts. But the days passed and no one found him, and I knew that this was something completely different, something incomprehensible. I don't understand why they found him in the water, perhaps he fell through the ice. But it was so cold last winter. The ice must have been thick, and what would he have been doing up at Glitter Lake?"

She wiped tears from her cheek. "Are you sure you don't want some tea?" she asked again.

"Please don't trouble yourself," Sejer said.

He regretted saying it immediately. Perhaps she would like to go to the kitchen and do something, boil water, fetch cups from the cupboard, do the things she normally did when she had visitors. And he had rejected her hospitality. For a while he wondered if he should ask for a cup anyway, but he was too slow.

"Can you discover anything after such a long time?" she asked. "I don't want to blame anyone, but if someone is responsible for what happened, then they must be punished for it. The police thought he might have killed himself because they soon found out that he was lonely, obviously. But Kim would never have done anything like that."

"The case will be reopened," Sejer said. "Now that we've found him, it will be easier to investigate. He didn't drown, that much we do know, but the cause of his death is unknown. Was he in good health?"

She nodded. "He was. He wasn't on medication, or anything. He didn't take drugs, I'm certain of it, and he didn't smoke, either."

Again she started to weep softly. She straightened out an embroidered tablecloth and smiled apologetically for becoming emotional.

"If you discover the truth, I'll be happy," she said. "As it is now, I lie awake at night and imagine the very worst. What if they killed him? All the drunk young people at the party. What if they killed him?"

"They didn't," Sejer said. "The forensic examiner would have discovered that."

"Is it possible to drink so much that it kills you?" she asked.

"Yes," Sejer said, "it is. And the forensic examiner has taken samples which will reveal whether he died from alcohol poisoning, but we don't think that's what happened."

"Can you tell when people lie?" she asked.

He contemplated this for a couple of seconds. "Often, but not always."

"Will you be speaking to the people who were with him that night?"

"I'll be speaking to every single one of them."

Yoo Van Chau looked at him with piercing eyes.

"You must study everyone you talk to very closely," she said. "You must listen to their voices and look into their eyes to see if they speak the truth."

"I'll listen very carefully to everything they've got to say," Sejer said.

"And you must watch their hands," she said. "Observe what they do with their hands, if they flap."

"I'll watch their hands," he promised.

"Can you find out what happened?" she said, and now her voice was urgent. "Will you know if anyone killed or tortured him? Can you find out why his heart stopped beating, his young,
strong heart? There has to be a reason," she pressed on. "Nothing happens without a reason."

"You're right about that," he said, "but you know, often several circumstances coincide."

"Then I want to know all about those circumstances," she said. "Can you find them out? Please," she added while she waited desperately for his reply. She looked small and lost in the big chair. Sejer did not want to promise her anything or give her any guarantees. He never did, he knew better than to do that. But suddenly he felt weak, and the forbidden words slipped out of him.

"I'll find out what happened," he said. "I promise."

T
HE PARTY HAD
been held in Skjæret on December 19. Skjæret was a town on the coast, near Åkerøay, and Irene Selmer was listed as the owner of a small apartment with a terrace that overlooked the water.

They were walking to the car. Sejer confessed his brief moment of weakness when he was with Yoo Van Chau.

"I promised her I would find out," he said.

"What do you mean promised?" Skarre said.

"That I would make sure she gets an explanation for it all. It was impossible to turn her down. She wears slippers embroidered with dragons," he explained.

"But we can't promise her anything," Skarre said, aghast. "You need to use a stock phrase. We'll do everything in our power. That one is quite good. It makes an impression, don't you think?"

"If you had seen Yoo Van Chau, you would have made promises too," Sejer said.

They drove out to Åkerøay.

Half an hour later they saw the fjord sparkle blue between the houses. Small islands dotted with red and white cottages lay beyond. Skarre spoke at length about his childhood. He had grown up in a vicarage on the south coast, and he could feel the pull of it now.

"I want an apartment out here," he said. "How much do you think they cost?"

"Far too much for us," Sejer replied.

Skarre stared dreamily across the mouth of the fjord.

"I suppose it gets cold here in the fall and winter," he added. "After all, it's right on the coast. What do you think?"

He looked to the inspector for support.

"You can't live out here," Sejer said. "It's freezing cold."

Irene Selmer was wearing a T-shirt which came down to her thighs and read:
PRINCESS ON A BINGE.
She acted curt. She seemed to think they might be selling something, and she wanted them to be gone.

"Police," Sejer said.

She gawped. Then she recalled what had happened. It had upset her.

"Is it Jon Moreno?"

Sejer did not have time to answer.

"I heard he killed himself," she said. "Did he?"

"We're here on another matter," Sejer said.

She tugged at her T-shirt. She showed no sign of inviting them in. Then another unpleasant thought occurred to her, something she had almost forgotten.

"We've found Kim Van Chau," Sejer said.

"Is he dead?" she whispered.

"Yes."

"Did he freeze to death? Where was he?"

"We found him in Glitter Lake," Skarre explained.

She shook her head, baffled. "Glitter Lake? But he lives in Nattmål, in those terraced houses. Do you know what happened?"

"No," Skarre said, looking at Sejer. "But we'll do everything in our power to find out."

She turned her back to them and went back inside the apartment.

"I shouldn't have thrown him out," she said. "He was so drunk. It's all my fault."

"Why is it your fault?" Sejer asked.

Without looking at them she began to explain. "I keep thinking that if I had let him stay the night, he would have got home alive. But I didn't want him here. I don't know what I was thinking."

"Let's begin at the beginning," Sejer said. "We can apportion blame later."

They all sat down. Irene Selmer lifted the edge of her T-shirt and wiped her eyes, causing her black make-up to smudge.

"I've given a statement," she said. "I've told you what happened several times."

"And now you need to tell me again," Sejer said. "Tell us about the party."

"It was a house-warming party," she said. "My dad gave me an apartment when I turned twenty. It was quite low-key. We sat on the floor because there weren't enough chairs for everybody. I'd warned all the neighbors, these walls are so thin. But no one complained because everyone who lives out here is young, and they don't mind. We ordered pizzas from Pizzabussen, they were delivered at ten."

"Did people get very drunk?" Sejer asked.

She tugged at her shoelaces.

"People wanted to get drunk. Some had brought beer and wine, others vodka. Of course people got drunk, I had expected them to."

"How did you know Kim Van Chau?" Skarre asked.

"I didn't know Kim. He wasn't invited."

"So tell us how he ended up at your party."

"He was hitchhiking," she said. "From Nattmal. He wanted to go into town. Two friends of mine drove past on their way here and spotted him. And they invited him to come along. They just did it for a laugh."

She jerked her head involuntarily. Perhaps she was ashamed or perhaps she had just had enough.

"He sat down on the floor," she said, "and someone handed him a bottle of beer. And then another and another. He couldn't hold his drink. We made him speak Vietnamese. It sounded so funny. Every time we started laughing, so did he. He did everything we asked him to."

"Did he tell you anything about himself?"

She thought about it.

"He lived with his mom in one of those terraced houses in Nattmal. And he went to Sanderud College. His dad is dead. That was all we knew."

She looked up at Sejer.

"He had a bottle in his hand the whole time," she said, "and I told them they had to stop it because we didn't even know if he was allowed to drink alcohol. And he still had to get home. Somehow or other."

"And that was how the evening went on? You sat on the floor drinking?"

"As you can see, there's not enough room to dance here," she said.

"Go on," Sejer said. "What happened next?"

"It was late," she said, "and I had to throw people out because no one wanted to leave. It was so cold outside. It's impossible to have a conversation with drunk people," she sighed.

Sejer looked at her gravely.

"Was there anything else, apart from alcohol, being passed around that night?"

"Not that I know of. And if I had suspected anything, I would have made people stop. I can't risk it. My dad would kill me."

"Do you like Axel Frimann?" Skarre asked.

She looked confused. "He's always got loads of girls chasing after him."

"Strictly speaking that's not a proper answer to my question," Skarre said.

"Being Axel's girl gives you status," she explained.

"I understand he's quite a guy," Skarre said.

"I don't care about status," she said.

"You started throwing people out," Sejer said. "How did they get home?"

"Most of them took a cab. They shared and split the fare. Some walked because they live locally, and a few had caught the last bus."

"And Kim Van Chau?"

"He was the biggest problem. At that point he was really drunk. But it was three o'clock by then, and I didn't want anyone sleeping on the floor when I woke up in the morning. He didn't have any money either, so I told Axel and the others that they had to give him a lift back. They could drop him right where my friends had picked him up, right by the letterboxes at the bottom of the hill in Nattmal. From there it's only a short walk to his front door. I thought about his mom, she was probably waiting up for him. Then we had an argument."

"And what was the outcome?" Sejer asked.

"It ended up that Axel and Reilly dragged him through the door and bundled him into the Mercedes," she said. "But that was after I had argued with Axel for a long time. He is very stubborn."

"Had Axel been drinking?"

"Don't think so," she mumbled. She started twirling a ring on her finger and Sejer recalled Yoo Van Chau's words. Watch their hands carefully, see if they flap.

"What about Reilly and Jon?"

"Jon was completely out of it," Irene said, "because he couldn't hold his drink either. And Reilly was looking pretty wasted, too."