Free Bad Intentions by Karin Fossum

it," he said. "Perhaps there were things he wanted to spare you."
    She looked surprised. Her eyebrows shot up.
    "What would they be?"
    "Well," Axel hesitated. "Those confessions may not be intended for our eyes. For yours, I mean."
    "But he's my son," she said, "and now I've got nothing left. Only his thoughts in that diary and I so want them."
    Axel tightened his grip on her arm.
    "But the things you write in a diary are the very things you want to keep secret," he said.
    Ingerid Moreno started to waver.
    "I know that. But Jon took his own life. He left me all alone again. Who is going to bury me now, can you tell me that? Do
you know what this means? I'll have to die among strangers. I'll forgive Jon, but only if he had good reason."
    "Well." Axel nodded. "As long as you're not disappointed. As long as it doesn't make matters worse."
    Ingerid Moreno freed her arm from Axel's grip.
    "Jon would never disappoint me," she said. "I'm sure of that."
     
    Axel was always the driving force in our little engine, Philip Reilly mused. He was in charge of operations and maintenance. He got us out of every scrape. Whenever it started rattling in one place, he would be there in a split second and tighten a bolt.
    Whenever they needed forgiveness for some boyish prank, he would charm people into submission, men and women alike. They had been able to get away with anything. Axel Frimann had his own light, an overwhelming aura of warmth, and when he looked at people, their sense of self-worth would instantly soar. Now he had lost his usual composure. Axel was normally a man of action. He could turn every situation to his own advantage. He had no time for people who surrendered to their fate. But now it appeared that Jon's innermost thoughts were to be found inside that diary, and he was no longer in control.
    "You know what this means, don't you?"
    "You leave Ingerid alone," Reilly said.
    Axel stopped pacing. What had Ingerid said? That she would do as Jon had done and put the diary in a drawer. And then, when she summoned up the courage one day, she would read it.
    "There's a desk just inside the front door," he said. "I bet the diary is in one of the drawers."
    Reilly gave him a horrified look. The ideas taking shape in Axel's head were more than he could tolerate.
    "We need that diary," Axel said.
    "And here I was thinking I was the crazy one," Reilly said. "It
is completely out of the question and I sincerely hope that you understand that."
    "The diary is evidence."
    "That depends on what Jon wrote in it," Reilly said. "Don't underestimate him."
    Axel crossed to the open window. He stared out of it, both hands planted firmly on the windowsill. His muscles bulged under his shirt and Reilly was reminded of an ox in front of a closed gate.
    "Deep down you're really very naive," he said. "You think we've got a chance to get away with it all, but we don't. And that might be just as well. I've always known that this day would come. But then again, I'm not the one worrying about a top job with Repeat."
    "No, you live in a hovel," Axel said. "And you've got a crap job."
    "I like my hovel. I like moving beds around."
    Over at the window Axel groaned loudly. His broad back was outlined by the light from outside.
    "Do you know what occurred to me in the church today?" he asked. "Jon wouldn't have made it anyway. Jon was constantly on edge, breathless, practically. You would have thought he had a heart defect."
    Reilly was pondering something else.
    "What do you think it looks like inside his coffin?" he asked.
    "What are you talking about now?"
    "It hit the ground. Jon must have skidded forward. Perhaps he's squashed up in a corner."
    "There's no room for movement inside a coffin," Axel said. "They're made to measure. And even if he did bump his head against a corner, there's no one to see it anyway."
    Reilly did not reply. But the thought that Jon was not lying as he should haunted him for a long time.

Chapter 11
    T HE REMAINS OF the summer's