Midnight Sun by Jo Nesbø Page B

silencer. She opened the bedside cabinet.
    â€˜No condoms left,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to be careful, because I don’t want a kid.’
    â€˜I’m no good at being careful,’ I said quickly. ‘Never have been. Maybe we could just . . . er, play around a bit?’
    â€˜Play around?’ She uttered the words as though they disgusted her. ‘Dad’s got condoms.’
    She left the room naked and I heard the door to the next room open; the snoring stuttered a bit before carrying on as before. A few seconds later she was back with a worn brown wallet which she was searching through.
    â€˜Here,’ she said, tossing a little square of plastic at me.
    The plastic was frayed at the edges. I looked for an expiry date, but couldn’t find one.
    â€˜I can’t do it with a condom,’ I said. ‘It just doesn’t work.’
    â€˜Yes, it will,’ she said, grabbing hold of my terrified cock.
    â€˜Sorry. So what do you do here in KÃ¥sund, Anita?’
    â€˜Shut up.’
    â€˜Hmm. Maybe it needs a bit of . . . er, iodine?’
    â€˜I said shut up.’
    I looked down at the little hand which evidently believed it could work miracles. I wondered where Johnny could be. In such a small village it wouldn’t be difficult to find someone able to tell him that the recently arrived southerner was staying in the hunting cabin. He would look there and at the wedding party. Kornelius had promised to keep quiet. As long as I stayed where I was, I was safe.
    â€˜There, see!’ Anita chirruped happily.
    I looked down at the miracle, astonished. It had to be some sort of stress reaction – I’ve read that hanged men sometimes get erections. Without letting go or stopping, she picked up the condom packet with her left hand, tore it open with her teeth, sucked out the condom and formed a circle around it with her lips. Then she dived down, and when she lifted her head again I was equipped and ready for battle. She leaned back on the bed and spread her legs.
    â€˜I just want to say that—’
    â€˜Haven’t you finished talking yet, Ulf?’
    â€˜I don’t like being thrown out immediately afterwards. It’s all to do with self-respect, if you—’
    â€˜Just shut up and get going while you still can.’
    â€˜You promise?’
    She sighed. ‘Just fuck me.’
    I crawled up onto the bed. She helped me into place. I closed my eyes and started to thrust, not too fast, not too slow. She groaned, cursed and swore, but in a way I found encouraging. In the absence of any other metronome, I fell into the same rhythm as the snoring in the next room. I could feel it building. I tried not to think about the state of the condom, or what a combination of Anita and me would look like.
    Suddenly she stiffened and stopped making any noise at all.
    I stopped thrusting. I thought she’d heard something, some irregularity in her father’s snoring, or someone approaching the house. I held my breath and listened. To my ears the jagged snoring sounded just the same as before.
    Then the body beneath me suddenly went completely limp. I looked down at her anxiously. Her eyes were closed and she looked lifeless. Carefully I put my thumb and forefinger to her throat, feeling for a pulse. I couldn’t find it. Fuck, where was the pulse, was she . . .?
    Then a low sound emerged from her mouth. First a dull growl, which got louder. And turned into something very familiar. Grating breaths in, breaths out like a broken silencer.
    Yep, she was her father’s daughter.
    I squeezed in between the slim female form and the wall, and felt the cold wallpaper behind my back and the bed frame against my hip. But I was safe. For the time being.
    I closed my eyes. Two thoughts struck me. That the thought of Valium
hadn’t
struck me. And
you’re going to shoot the reflection
.
    Then I drifted off into dreamland.

CHAPTER 9
    WHEN I SAW