Free He Who Fears the Wolf by Karin Fossum Page A

victim."
    "Did Errki know that the boy had spotted him?"
    "He thought so, yes."
    "But Errki didn't try to stop him?"
    "Evidently not. He disappeared into the woods."
    "Let's go inside."
    Gurvin led the way, unlocking the door and heading down the little hall and into the kitchen. Halldis Horn was beginning to take shape for Jacob Skarre as he stepped on to the linoleum and looked at the tidy kitchen. Copper pots, shiny and clean. An old-fashioned sink with green rubber around the edge. An old refrigerator from Evalet. And an old newspaper, folded up on the windowsill. Skarre lifted the lid of the bread tin.
    "Where did you find the fingerprints?"
    "On the kitchen doorknob and door frame. No prints on the bread tin except for Halldis's. If the fingerprints belong to the killer, why were they so indistinct on the hoe? And why were there none on the bread tin? How could he take out the wallet without leaving any prints, even though he left prints elsewhere in the house? I don't understand it."
    Skarre narrowed his eyes. "But surely other people came here once in a while?"
    "Almost never, but we did find a letter," Gurvin said. "Posted this week in Oslo. It says, 'I'll come to visit. Greetings, Kristoffer'."
    "One of her relatives?"
    "We don't know, but I think she was killed by someone she knew. Statistics will support the theory. He obviously panicked."
    "Human beings are strange that way."
    Skarre went into the living room. There was her rocking chair, with a shaggy blanket. He picked it up and sniffed cautiously, recognising the smell of soap and camphor. A strand of hair tickled his nose. He plucked it up between two fingers. It was almost half a metre long and silver in colour.
    "Did she have long hair?" he asked in amazement.
    Gurvin nodded. "She was a beauty when she was young. As kids we didn't know that; we just thought she was fat and friendly. Her wedding picture is on the wall over there."
    Skarre went to look at it. The image of Halldis Horn as a bride was breathtaking.
    "Her dress was made from parachute silk," Gurvin said. "And the veil is an old English lace curtain. She told us all about it. And we listened politely, the way children do, because we had to repay her in some way for the raspberries and rhubarb."
    He turned abruptly and went back to the kitchen.
    "Where is the bedroom?" Skarre called.
    "Behind the green curtains."
    He pulled them aside and opened the door. The room was small and narrow. From the bedroom window Skarre looked out at the woods and one side of the shed. Thorvald's side of the high-posted bed was neatly made. A framed verse hung over the bed.
    You have seen him among the falcons.
He comes from the south, all ablaze.
Carries everything out, leaves nothing behind.
For the gnat you forget in a crack,
he will call you to account.
    Underneath someone, possibly Halldis, had written in blue ink: How horrid!
    Skarre gave a little smile. He noticed that Gurvin had gone outside, and followed him out. They began combing through the grass, hoping to find a clue, something the others might have overlooked. A cigarette end, a match, anything at all. He glanced back at the house. Just below the kitchen window there was a gash in the timber, repaired, but still visible.
    "That's from the day Thorvald died," Gurvin said, pointing. "Halldis was standing in the kitchen, about to call him in for dinner. She thought he was driving unusually fast, as if he had turned reckless in his old age and wanted to show off. The tractor came rolling up the road with a terrific roar. The next second it crashed right into the wall. Halldis stood at the window and looked straight into the cab. She saw that Thorvald had collapsed over the wheel. He was dead before the tractor came to a stop there."
    Skarre glanced up towards the woods again. "Where do you think we should look for Errki?"
    Gurvin squinted at the sun. "He's almost certainly roaming around, sleeping rough. He hasn't been back to his flat, at least not yet.