Free The Caller by Karin Fossum

hand to her heart. She could hardly breathe. No, it was a mistake. If it wasn’t a mistake, there must be others called Gunilla Mørk. She glanced around the kitchen to reassure herself that everything was in order – that she wasn’t caught in some form of madness. But all she saw was the good old kitchen, with cups and bowls. She reread the notice. Everything was correct, the birth date, the year.
    OUR KIND AND CARING MOTHER, MOTHER-IN-LAW AND SISTER, GUNILLA MØRK, BORN 17 JULY 1939, PASSED AWAY QUIETLY IN HER SLEEP TODAY, 25 JULY.
    IT’S GOOD TO REST
    WHEN YOUR STRENGTH FAILS YOU
    AFTER YEARS OF TOIL AND STRUGGLE
    AT SOME POINT
    THE HOLY NIGHT COMES
    AND THE MUSES OF ETERNITY
    CHANGE THE BITTEREST SORROW
    YOU’VE HAD TO A HUNDRED FIDDLES
    ERIK AND ELLINOR, FRIENDS AND OTHER RELATIVES. FUNERAL SERVICE TO BE HELD AT EASTERN CREMATORIUM, SMALL CHAPEL, 1 AUGUST, 10.30 A.M.
    Gunilla Mørk put her head down on the table.
    She knocked over her coffee cup.
    The newspaper said she was dead.
    Erik and Ellinor – her children. And that stupid poem. Erik and Ellinor would never have chosen something so pompous, something so ridiculous and distasteful. And Eastern Crematorium, good Lord. What did it mean? Who had done this inexplicable thing? Could the newspaper have made a mistake? Of course they couldn’t have; if they had, the world had become unhinged. She shot up from the chair and paced around the room. Stood in front of the mirror over the sink. An old woman stared back at her with a face she had never seen. It was unsettling. Everyone I know will read the announcement, she thought. I have to call them. I have to call Erik and Ellinor. She returned to the chair and slumped in it, gripping the edge of the table. Maybe I nodded off and dreamed it, she thought, but that was obviously silly. Again she read her own obituary. She sat motionless, growing cold all over, because someone had picked her out. From the mass of people they had found her and hatched their hideous plans. She wanted to grab the telephone; she wanted to dial her son Erik’s number at once. Then she would know what had happened. But it took some time for her to get up. And when she was finally on her feet, the phone in her hand, she began to cry.
    Johnny Beskow sneaked into the hallway.
    Because it was important to be prepared, he stood there listening. Apparently, his mother was not at the stove. There was no smell of food, just the familiar stench of coats, dust and mould. She must be on the sofa, he thought, and looked at the clock. It was eleven in the morning, and it wasn’t uncommon for her to be drunk at this hour. Once he’d found her at seven in the morning, drinking vodka in big gulps while clinging to the armrest with her free hand. She’d done this for an hour before going off to lie down, under the duvet. In this manner she moved from the chair to the bed, to the sofa, and to the chair again. And to the grave, he thought, can’t you move to the grave? I’ll dig the hole. Then you can just roll over the edge. He slipped into the lounge to see. Yep, she was lying on the sofa under a blanket. So he shuffled off to his room and closed the door. He lifted Bleeding Heart from the cage and fell on the bed with the guinea pig at his neck. People believe what I tell them, he thought with satisfaction. I can call whoever I want and claim whatever I want, or demand whatever I want, and people do what I say. They are polite and friendly, and they are happy to help. It’s pure magic. The possibilities are endless. I can disrupt an entire community, it occurred to him, an entire city. All I have to do is pick up the phone or write a letter. I hold this power. He could feel the power in his head, the power rushing through his veins, and it made him warm and strong, even though he was, strictly speaking, a weakling. Or as they’d called him at school: the wimp from Askeland.
    After a while he put the guinea pig back in the cage. The cage was filled