“See you soon, my darling,” Finne said, looking up. “My promise still holds.”
Dagny looked automatically at the sky, where the lights of the city were colouring the clouds yellow. When she looked down again Finne was gone. She heard a noise from one of the archways on the other side of the street.
She nudged the door behind her open and went inside. It was as if the organ notes from the last mass were still lingering in the large nave. She walked over to one of the two confessionals against one of the back walls and sat inside it. Pulled the curtain.
“He left,” she said.
“Where?” the voice behind the grille said.
“Don’t know. It’s too late, anyway.”
—
“Smell?” Harry said, and heard the word echo around the church. And even if he was sure they were alone in there, sitting in the back row, he lowered his voice. “He said he couldsmellit? And threw a dice?”
Dagny nodded and pointed at the recording device she had placed on the bench between them. “It’s all on there.”
“And he didn’t confess anything?”
“No. He just called himself a sower. You can hear for yourself.”
Harry managed to stop himself swearing and leaned back so hard against the back of the bench that the whole thing wobbled momentarily.
“What do we do now?” Dagny said.
Harry rubbed his face. How could Finne have known? Apart from him and Dagny, Kaja and Truls were the only people who knew about the plan. Maybe he had just read it from Dagny’s face and body language? That was obviously possible; fear acts as an amplifier. Either way, what they were going to do now was a bloody good question.
“I need to see him die,” Dagny said.
Harry nodded. “Finne’s old, and a lot of things can happen. I’ll let you know when he’s dead.”
Dagny shook her head. “You don’t understand. I need to be watchingwhenhe dies. If I don’t, my body won’t accept that he’s gone, and he’ll haunt me in my dreams. Like my mother.”
A single buzz announced the arrival of a text message, and Dagny pulled a shiny silver phone from her pocket.
It struck Harry that Rakel hadn’t haunted his dreams after he’d seen her dead. Not yet, at least not that he could remember when he woke up. Why not? He had dreamed that he’d seen her face, lifeless, dead, after all. And then it hit him that he wanted, hereallywanted her to haunt him; sooner a death mask and maggots crawling from her mouth than this cold, empty nothingness.
“Dear God…” Dagny whispered.
Her face was lit up by the screen. Her mouth was open, her eyes wide.
The phone fell to the floor with a clatter and lay there, screen upwards. Harry bent over. The video had stopped playing, and was showing the final image, a watch with luminous red numbers. Harry pressed Play, and the clip started again. There was no sound, it was grainy and the camera was moving, but he could see that it was a close-up of a white stomach with blood pumping out of a wound. A hairy hand with a grey watch strap came into shot. It happened so fast. The hand vanished inside the wound, all the way to the screen of the watch, which activated and lit up as more blood pumped out. The camera zoomed in on the watch, then the picture froze. The clip was over. Harry tried to swallow his nausea.
“What…what was that?” Dagny stammered.
“I don’t know,” Harry said, staring at the final image of the watch. “I don’t know,” he repeated.
“I can’t…” Dagny began. “He’s going to kill me too, and you won’t be able to stop him on your own. Because you are on your own, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Harry said. “I’m on my own.”
“Then I’m going to have to look for help somewhere else. I have to think of myself.”
“Do that,” Harry said. He couldn’t tear his eyes from the frozen image. The picture quality was too poor for the stomach or hand to be used to identify anyone. But the watch was clear enough. And the time. And the date.
03:00. The night Rakel was murdered.
19
