Read In the Darkness for Free Online Page A

her eyes. It was pleasantly dusky in the room and perfectly still. She breathed as calmly and regularly as she could and allowed the silence to settle over her. This was the sort of moment she must enjoy to the full, treasure and remember. She knew it wouldn’t last.
    Sejer had poured himself a generous whisky and chased the dog off the sofa. It was a five-year-old male Leonberger weighing seventy kilos, but really soppy, and his name was Kollberg. In fact, he was called something else, because the kennel put their name on the pedigree according to their own system. In his case they’d used Beatles song titles. They’d begun at the beginning of the alphabet, and by the time Kollberg had been born they’d got to L. And so he was given the name Love Me Do. His sister was called Lucy In the Sky. Sejer groaned at the mere thought of it.
    The dog resigned himself with a heavy sigh and settled at his feet. His great head rested on Sejer’s feet and caused him to sweat inside his tennis socks. But he hadn’t the heart to move them. And anyway it was lovely, especially in the winter. He sipped his whisky and lit a roll-up. These were his vices, this one glass of whisky and a single hand-rolled cigarette. Because he smoked so little, he immediately felt his heart begin to beat a little faster. On calm days he went to the aerodrome and went parachuting, but this he didn’t regard as a vice, as Elise had done. Now he was in his eighth year of widowhood and his daughter was grown up and well taken care of. In any case, Sejer wasn’t a daring man, he never jumped except in ideal weather conditions and never tried any dangerous stunts. It was just that he enjoyed the tremendous rush through the air, the relinquishing of all contact, the giddying view, the perspective it gave him, the farms and fields so far below with their lovely patterns of subdued colour, the light, delicate road network in between, like the lymphatic system of some giant organism, and the buildings arranged in neat rows, red, green and white houses. Man really is a creature who needs systems, he thought, and blew smoke under the lampshade.
    Egil Einarsson had a system, too, with his orderly life, a job at the brewery, a wife and son, a stable group of friends and the pub on the south side. A fixed routine year after year, home, brewery, home, pub, home. The car with all its minute parts that needed to be cleaned and oiled and tightened. Week after month after year. Nothing on his file. No drama of any sort had ruffled his life, he had toiled his way through school like every other youngster, without arousing much attention, was confirmed, went on to do an engineering apprenticeship in Gothenburg which lasted two years, and which he never actually used, and finally ended up as a brewery worker. Liked it. Earned enough. Never reached any of life’s dizzying heights, but didn’t fall into many of its sloughs either. A straightforward man. His wife was nice enough and had certainly done her bit. And then someone had stabbed him. Fifteen times. How could a bloke like Einarsson arouse such passions? Sejer wondered. He sipped his whisky and went on grappling with vague thoughts. Of course it was true that they ought to have some new names on their list, people they hadn’t thought of, people he could interview, so that an entirely new angle might suddenly emerge and throw new light on the whole tragedy. He kept coming back to the car. An Opel Manta, ’88 model. All of a sudden he’d wanted to sell it. Someone had expressed an interest in it, that was what must have happened. He hadn’t advertised it in any of the papers, hadn’t told a soul he wanted to sell, they’d checked that. He sucked at his roll-up and held the smoke inside him for a few seconds. Who had he bought it from? he thought suddenly. That was a question he’d never actually asked himself. Perhaps he should have done. He jumped up and went to the phone. Just as he heard the ringing tone he