Free The Caller by Karin Fossum Page A

with woodchips and cotton rags, some colourful plastic toys. He’d got the money to buy it from his grandfather, same as the moped – it had been a gift for his confirmation, which hadn’t amounted to anything. His mother couldn’t stay sober long enough to plan a party, and anyway there was no one to invite.
    Hungry, he went to the kitchen. There was nothing on the hob, so he looked for milk in the fridge. Sat at the kitchen table and ate cereal while staring out the window. Because she was drunk, his mother wouldn’t stir until evening. Then she’d scuttle to the bathroom, drag a brush through her hair, wobble back to the lounge and suddenly see him sitting in front of the television. From that point until he went to bed, she would play her role as parent. She’d ask where he had been and what he had done. What he had eaten. Whether he was going to get a job, something to bring more money to the household. Then she would complain about her headache, say it had been a little worse today so she had needed to lie down. It’s actually a little better now, she would say. To justify that she’d been in a drunken stupor half the day.
    He finished eating. He rinsed his plate and returned to the lounge, fell into a chair. His mother was flat on her back with a blanket under her chin; her skin seemed clammy, as if she had a fever; her eyelids had glided halfway up. I wish you were dead, he thought, I wish you would stop breathing right now. When you die I will clap my hands in joy, and in the middle of your funeral service I will sing and dance. And when you’re finally in the ground, I’ll visit you every night to piss on your grave.
    He sent his thoughts to her in a steady, wicked stream. He liked to imagine they reached her somehow. That the hate he felt for her quietly broke her down, like a slow-working poison. He touched the army knife which hung on his belt, felt the warm metal in his hands. I will slice your eyeballs, he thought, and your eardrums. I’ll hoist you into a wheelbarrow and haul you to the woods so the foxes find you. And the badgers, and the cats.
    He stood up and returned to the kitchen; he had something to take care of. Looked in the drawers and cupboards. After searching for a while, he found an old pizza box under the worktop, and a pair of scissors and a marker in a drawer. With these simple tools he shuffled back to his bedroom to make a sign.

Chapter 11
    Erik and Ellinor went to the police station together, on behalf of their mother, Gunilla. Erik Mørk was the elder of the two, already grey at the temples; his fair-haired sister was a good deal younger. You could tell there was a bond between them, a connection that had grown tight during their lives. And now that this awful thing had happened, they appeared as one furious entity. They had brought the local newspaper with their mother’s obituary.
    Sejer read it.
    ‘She’s seventy,’ Erik Mørk said. ‘She just turned seventy, and she’s always been quite healthy. Now she’s very upset. You’ve got to find out what the hell is going on, right now, because this is offensive, I’m sure you’ll agree.’
    He had worked himself up quite a bit.
    ‘I do agree,’ Sejer said. He reread Gunilla Mørk’s obituary, then looked hard at the two siblings. ‘If you think about her friends and acquaintances, or the rest of the family, is there anyone you would suspect? Someone who feels slighted and wants to be noticed?’
    Ellinor shook her head decisively. ‘We don’t know anyone like that,’ she said. ‘Nor will you find any among her neighbours. Only decent people.’
    ‘Where does she live?’
    ‘In Kirkeby,’ Erik Mørk said. ‘At Konvalveien. She’s a widow, and she’s been alone for many years. She’s never been the nervous type, but at this point she’s tied in knots. She doesn’t know what to make of it, this thing that’s happened to her. I mean, what do they want?’
    ‘The only way to reassure her is to find the