The Indian Bride by Karin Fossum Page A

was sucking a Fisherman's Friend. In addition Skarre was the only one in the department who had achieved the feat of persuading the inspector to go out for a beer after work. And on a weekday, too. Some people thought Sejer was weird and arrogant. Skarre knew that he was shy. Sejer addressed him as Skarre when they were in company. He only ever called him Jacob when they were alone.
    Sejer had paused at one of the drinking fountains. He bent down over the jet and slurped up the cool water. He felt a certain dread. The man he was looking for might be a pleasant man. With the same hopes and dreams in life as he himself had had. He had been a child once; someone had loved him very much. He had ties, obligations and responsibilities, and a place in society he was about to lose. Sejer walked on. He never wasted much time thinking about his own affairs. However,

deep inside this formal character was a huge appetite for people. Who they were, why they behaved as they did. Whenever he caught a guilty person and obtained a genuine confession, he could close the case and file it. This time he was not so sure. Not only had the woman been killed, she had been beaten to a pulp. To kill was in itself extreme. To destroy a body afterward was bestial. He held many and frequently contradicting views about the concept of crime; primarily he was concerned with all the things they had yet to discover.
    There was a woman in his life. Sara Struel, a psychiatrist. She had her own key to his house and came and went as she pleased. There was always a slight excitement in his body when he climbed the thirteen steps to his apartment and reached the top. He could see from the narrow, dark crack between the door and the doorstep whether she was there or not. He also had a dog, Kollberg. It was his one personal extravagance. Sometimes at night the heavy animal sneaked up onto his bed. Then he would pretend to be asleep and not notice. But Kollberg weighed a hundred and fifty pounds and the mattress sagged mightily when he settled at the foot of the bed.
    Sejer came into the duty office and nodded briefly to Skarre and Soot, who were manning the hotline.
    "Do we know who she is?"
    "No."
    He looked at his watch. "Who are the calls coming from?"
    "Attention seekers, mostly."
    "That's inevitable. Anything interesting at all?"
    "Car observations. Two callers have reported seeing a red car drive toward Hvitemoen. One has seen a black taxi going at a hell of a speed toward town. There's hardly any traffic along that stretch, apart from between 4 P.M. and 6 P.M. Plus a number of complaints about journalists. Any other news?"
    "The reports from the door-to-door interviews are being typed up now. All forensic samples have been sent off," Sejer
said. "They promised to make it top priority. We've got forty people working on this case. He won't get away."
    He studied the list of incoming telephone numbers. The numbers were preceded by the same four digits, which identified the callers as mostly people from Elvestad or the vicinity. As he was standing there, the phone went again. Skarre pressed the speaker button. A voice could be heard in the room.
    "Hello, I'm calling from Elvestad. My name is Kalle Moe. Is this the police?"
    "It is."
    "It's about the business at Hvitemoen."
    "I'm listening."
    "It's actually about a friend of mine. Or rather, an acquaintance. He's a really decent guy, so I'm a bit worried that I might be causing problems for him."
    "But you're calling all the same. Can you help us?"
    Sejer took note of the man's voice: middle-aged and very nervous.
    "Perhaps. You see, it so happens that this acquaintance of mine, he lives alone and has for years. A little while back he went on holiday. To India."
    The mention of India made Sejer pay attention.
    "Yes?"
    "And then he came back."
    Skarre waited. A silence followed. Soot shook his head dismissively.
    "Well, then, on the afternoon of August 20th, he called because he needed help."
    "He needed help?"