Burned

Anette is standing in front of the rectangular hole in the ground, where Henriette Hagerup will be laid to rest. Even now, Anette is carrying her backpack. A sudden onset of nerves sweeps through his body as he decides to join her. There is no one around. She is wearing a black skirt and black blazer over her blouse, which is also black.

Anette turns as he approaches from behind.

‘So you couldn’t stand it inside, either?’ she says and flashes him a smile.

‘Hi, Anette,’ he says, stops next to her and looks down into the hole.

‘I hate funerals,’ she begins. ‘I think it’s better to say goodbye like this, out here, before the hysteria begins.’

He nods. Neither of them speaks for a while.

‘I hadn’t expected to see you here,’ she says, finally looking at him. ‘Dull day was it?’

‘No,’ he replies. ‘I’m right where I need to be.’

‘What do you mean?’

He takes a step closer to the edge of the hole and looks at it again. He is reminded of Kolbein Falkeid’s poem, which Vamp set to music: When evening falls, I quietly embark and my lifeboat is lowered six foot down.

Twenty-three years, he thinks. Henriette Hagerup only lived for twenty-three years. He wonders if she had time to feel that she had had a life.

He sticks his hand into his jacket pocket.

‘You thought you had remembered everything,’ he says, meeting Anette’s eyes. Her cautious smile melts into an uneasy twitch in the corner of her mouth. He can see his words have taken her by surprise. Good, he intended them to. He waits until the dramatic effect is complete.

‘What?’

‘I couldn’t understand why you suddenly became so helpful and obliging. You drove me up to Ekeberg Common, right in the middle of a rainstorm. At that point, Stefan’s death wasn’t public knowledge. But you knew about it. You knew because you were the last person to see him alive. You knew because you talked him into taking his own life.’

She raises her eyebrows.

‘What the hell are you — ’

‘You suffer from epilepsy, don’t you?’

Anette shifts her weight from one leg to the other.

‘Can I have a look in your backpack?’

‘What — no.’

‘Epileptics are often prescribed Orfiril. I bet you have Orfiril in there,’ he says, pointing to her backpack. ‘Or perhaps you’ve run out?’

She doesn’t reply, but sends him a look that suggests he has wounded her deeply.

‘Orfiril tablets look just like this,’ he says and pulls out a bag of Knott from his suit pocket. He takes out a small, white pastille and holds it up.

‘Stefan had already let the cat out of the bag to his parents. You were going to prison for a long time, both of you. You saw a chance for Stefan to take all the credit. Or was that your plan all along?’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘I stepped on one of these, when I found Stefan dead in his bed,’ he says, and shows her the sweets. ‘Orfiril mixed with alcohol is a lethal cocktail. But the only one who took Orfiril was Stefan. You swallowed a fistful of sweets. Yum. After all, you enjoy eating them all at once. The only problem with Knott is that sometimes they fall out of the bag or you spill some when you’re trying to swallow a handful.’

Anette shakes her head and holds up her hands.

‘This is beyond me. I’m leaving.’

‘I know why you gave me a lift to Ekeberg Common,’ he says, following her. She turns and stares at him again. ‘You were nervous. You knew that Stefan had blabbed, you were scared he might have told his parents what really happened, revealed the name of his partner in crime. You couldn’t ask Stefan about it that afternoon — he would have twigged that you were up to something — that the suicide pact wasn’t genuine, at least not as far as you were concerned. That’s why you offered to drive me: it gave you a reason to be there and find out how much his parents knew. That’s why you appeared in the tent.’

Anette puts her hands on her hips. She is about to say something, but she stops.

‘And what a performance,’ he continues. ‘You realised that Ingvild didn’t know who you were. You were safe. And you knew that Ingvild had been raped, because Stefan had told you. You also knew that she had taken self-defence classes, that she had a stun gun and that she had been trained to react defensively if someone approached her from behind. Like you did in the tent. Such a compassionate gesture, placing your hand on her back, near her throat, to show kindness, but you did it because you knew what Ingvild would do, she would stun you and surely there can be no better way to remove suspicion from yourself than by becoming the next victim, even if you survive.’