In the Darkness by Karin Fossum Read Free Book Online Page B

again. Inside the car it didn’t sound so piercing, but when its hundred decibels had been going for a few seconds, the first face appeared at one of the shiny windows. Then another. Then one of them opened a door and walked out on to the balcony at the end of the building. They could see him raise a hand and shade his eyes from the sun.
    ‘They think it’s at least a murder!’ the boy exclaimed.
    Sejer chuckled and studied the winter-wan faces that continued to emerge from the building.
    ‘We’d better pipe down. See if you can switch it off, now.’
    He could. His eyes were shining with delight and his cheeks were flecked with red.
    ‘How does it work?’ he asked with childish confidence in Sejer’s abilities.
    ‘Well,’ said Sejer digging deep into his memory, ‘it’s like this, first they make an oscillating circuit electronically, which in turn creates a square pulse, which is amplified by an amplifier and fed into a loudspeaker.’
    Jan Henry nodded.
    ‘And then they vary it from eight hundred to sixteen hundred cycles. In other words, they alter its strength, to make it easier to hear.’
    ‘At the siren factory?’
    ‘Yup. At the siren factory. In America, or Spain. But now we’ll go and get an ice cream, Jan Henry.’
    ‘Yes. We deserve one, even though we haven’t caught any baddies.’
    They pulled out on to the main road again and turned left towards the town. When they got to the trotting course, he stopped, parked and steered the boy over to the kiosk. Once he’d got it, he needed a bit of help with the paper. They sat on a bench in the sun sucking and licking. Jan Henry had chosen an ice lolly, red and yellow and tipped with chocolate, while Sejer ate a strawberry ice cream, which had been his favourite ever since boyhood. He’d never seen any reason to change.
    ‘Are you going back to work afterwards?’ Jan Henry was wiping juice from his chin with his free hand.
    ‘Yes, but I’ve got to visit a man first. In Erik Børresensgate.’
    ‘Is he a baddie?’
    ‘No, no,’ Sejer smiled. ‘Probably not.’
    ‘But you’re not completely certain? He
could
be?’
    Sejer had to capitulate and chuckled a little.
    ‘Well, yes, possibly. That’s why I’m going to see him. But it’s mainly to make sure that he
isn’t
. Because then I can cross him off the list. That’s the way we do it, you see, until there’s only one person left.’
    ‘I bet he’ll be scared when you come in that car.’
    ‘Yes, I’m sure he will. Everyone is. People are funny like that. You see, nearly everyone’s got something in their past they feel guilty about. And when I suddenly turn up at their door, I can almost see them searching their memories to work out what I’ve discovered. I shouldn’t laugh, but sometimes it’s impossible not to.’
    The boy nodded, and basked in the company of this wise policeman. They finished their ice creams and returned to the car. Sejer got a serviette from the kiosk, and wiped the boy’s mouth and helped him with his seat belt.
    ‘Mum and me are going to town to hire videos. One for each of us.’
    Sejer put the car in gear and checked the mirror.
    ‘And what are you going to get? A film about baddies?’
    ‘Yes.
Home Alone 2
. I’ve seen the first one twice.’
    ‘You’ll have to take the bus out and back. If you haven’t got a car.’
    ‘Yes. It takes rather a long time, but it doesn’t matter, ’cause we’ve got lots of time, really. Before, when Dad – when we had a car, it only took a minute to drive there and back.’ He poked a finger up his nose and picked it a bit. ‘Dad wanted a BMW. He’d been to see it. It was white. If that woman had bought the Manta.’
    Sejer almost drove off the road. His heart gave a great leap, then he controlled himself.
    ‘What was that you were saying, Jan Henry – I wasn’t quite paying attention.’
    ‘A woman. Wanted to buy our car.’
    ‘Did Dad talk about it?’
    ‘Yes. In the garage. It was that day – the