The Water's Edge by Karin Fossum Read Free Book Online Page B

hit you, is he?'
'Oh, no, he would never hit me. But he breaks me in other ways. I'm such a coward.'
'You've got to stand up to him once and for all and tell him what you think,' Irmelin stated. 'He'll be able to handle it, you keep telling me how strong he is.'
'I'm scared that something will break,' she said, 'if I tell it like it is. If I start being completely honest with him, then nothing will be like it was before.'
'But you don't want it to be. Try something different, stand up for yourself and tell him what you think. Perhaps it'll turn out better than you imagine.'
Kristine fetched mugs from a cupboard and poured coffee.
'Most of all I want to leave,' she said, 'but I can't leave without taking something with me. If I don't have something to take with me, then all these years will have been for nothing.'
'Take something with you? What do you mean?'
'A child,' she said.
'But do you want a child with him? When you can't stand him?'
'Well, who else is there?' She shrugged despondently. 'I'm thirty-seven years old.'
Then she pulled herself together and started to defend him.
'Perhaps he's just clueless,' she said. 'Perhaps he's as shocked as I am, and he can't think of any other way to express it. I mean, he's a man, after all. They're hopeless when it comes to showing their feelings.'
Irmelin shook her head. 'You always try to defend him,' she said. She got up and went over to the door to the living room; she hid behind it and spied on the men through the crack between the door and the frame.
'You were right,' she whispered. 'They're looking at the pictures now.'

CHAPTER 11
'Why are we so drawn to the death of others?' Skarre asked.
Sejer shook his head, he had never considered this question before. He was not drawn to death, he had never been seduced by sensation. Not even when he was a young officer.
'I'm not drawn to death,' he said. 'Are you?'
'But we chose this profession,' Skarre said. 'The murder of Jonas is a dreadful event. Others could have dealt with it, and we could be doing a much nicer job.'
Sejer started rolling a cigarette. He allowed himself one only every evening, as befits an exceedingly temperate man.
'A nicer job?' he asked suspiciously. 'Like what?'
'Well, you could have been a pastry chef,' Skarre suggested. 'You could have spent your whole day decorating cream cakes. And making tiny marzipan roses.'
'I could never have been a pastry chef,' Sejer declared. 'Cream cakes are pretty to look at, but they have no stories to tell. What would you have been doing?'
'I would have been a taxidermist.'
'Someone who stuffs dead animals, you mean?'
'Yes. Squirrels, minks and foxes.'
Sejer instinctively picked up his dog and put him on his lap. 'So tell me this,' he said. 'Why are you interested in criminals?'
'It's possible that somewhere deep inside I might be just a tad jealous of them,' Skarre said.
'Jealous? Of criminals?'
'They do what they want. They have no respect for authority: if they want something they just take it and they have nothing but contempt for us. It's a kind of protest, a deep and profound disdain. Personally, I am extremely law-abiding, to the point where it becomes scary, if you know what I mean. Why do you think people are so fascinated by crime?' he went on. 'Nothing sells better than murder and the worse it is, the more interested people are. What does that say about us?'
'I'm sure there are many answers to that,' Sejer said, 'and you're just as well placed to provide them as I am.'
'But you must have thought about it?'
'I think it has to do with the image we have of our enemy,' he said. 'All nations have an image of their enemy, you know, something that unites people. During the war we were united against the Germans. It gave us a sense of identity and camaraderie, it made us take action and behave heroically. People were forced to choose sides, and in that way we could tell the good from the bad. But in our wealthy western world where peace and democracy reign, criminals have