Page 144 of The Living and the Dead

“And you,” he said forcefully, “told Filip.”

Isidor opened his mouth to respond. But then he shook his head one last time.

“I’m bound by confidentiality. I can’t say.”

As though there could be no explaining it, what he had gone through.

“So you sit there with him at Rasmusgården,” Vidar said. “Once a week, month after month. I’ve seen the documents, I know. Never in the capacity of a psychologist, and not even, really, as a priest—just as someone he can talk to. Someone with ties to the place where he grew up, who knew the people around him. It helped him. And there you sit, with reason to believe his brother’s killer is alive.”

“But I didn’t say anything!” Isidor exclaimed fiercely, as if an invisible pressure inside him had grown too strong.

Behind Vidar, a colleague had stopped short, reacting to Isidor’s outburst.

“Is everything all right in here?”

Adrian raised a hand in reassurance. Isidor was breathing hard.

“For God’s sake, I was the one who buried him! Can you imagine?The nightmares! Had the casket been empty? The ash at the interment—what was in that urn, dust? I know what I’m looking at when I look at the ashes of a human child. I buried someone, I know that much. But who?”

“So when,” Vidar repeated, “did you tell him? Was it recently, this summer?”

“Filip had…he had matured. Become more grounded, somehow. He had gotten his life together, he had a job. Bought the house from Frans. He mentioned more than once that he wasn’t as angry anymore, that he didn’t…All he wanted was to find answers, so he could stop imagining what they might be. That was all. He needed to know, like one last step before he could move on to the rest of his life. And then, at that point, yes—back in June when we met for one last conversation, I suppose I said more than I should have.” A long, tense silence. “What was I supposed to do?”

No one said anything. Maybe the question wasn’t directed at them anyway.

“Thank you,” Vidar said at last. “Now we know.”

“Is it true,” Isidor went on, “that you have the material from Rasmusgården?”

“Why do you ask?”

Isidor nodded at Adrian. “He said you did.”

Vidar stared at Adrian, who blushed.

“You should be able to find Filip’s account in there,” Isidor said, “of the night his brother died. I got him to write it down for his own sake, but I never read it. No one did.”

“When did he write that?”

“I don’t remember, sometime while he was at the facility. I’m sure you know better than I do, incidentally, if you have the records. I want to go home now.” Isidor looked awfully sick. “Can I please do that?”

111

Siri was standing in the rain when Vidar came out. She had stayed in his car with Felicia until they saw blue lights flashing among the trees. After seeing to it that Felicia received care from two police officers, she didn’t know quite what to do and simply stayed out in the rain.

At last she crossed the road to the field, all a violet-tinged expanse in the dark. The night played tricks on her eyes and she couldn’t see where the field ended; it seemed to stretch on and on, unending.

And there she stood, even now. She thought of the years gone by, how much she had forgotten, how much she remembered. All the time she had spent silently carrying what she suspected—no, knew—about Killian Persson. She should have called her husband, her children; they had tried to reach her multiple times. But she didn’t know what to say.

Vidar came to stand beside her with an umbrella.

“Thank you,” she said stiffly.

Vidar held a thick binder in his other hand. She took note of it but avoided looking at him. Perhaps, at last, the truth had shown itself plainly: it wasn’t always worth the price one might pay. Or it simply hurt too much. She didn’t know anymore.

“I had to tell someone,” she said. “But who could I turn to?”

Silence. The rain struck the earth so hard the drops splashedup.