Sarah Kiese was sitting in the reception area in her lawyer’s office in Tøyen, growing increasingly irritated. She had expressly told the lawyer that she wanted absolutely nothing to do with her late husband’s estate. What kind of inheritance was it anyway? More kids with other women? More letters from debt collectors demanding money and threatening to seize her belongings? Sarah Kiese was not perfect, far from it, but compared to her late husband she was a saint. Having a child with that loser had been a massive mistake. She had been ashamed of it then, and she still was. Not only had she had a child with him, she had even gone and married him—Christ, how stupid could you get? He had charmed her; she remembered the first time she saw him in a bar in Grønland, she had not fancied him right off, but she had been weak. He had bought her beers, drinks, yes, she’d been an idiot, but so what? It was over now. She would love her daughter forever, but she wanted nothing to do with that loser. When did he ever visit her? Whenever he wanted money. A loan for one of his schemes. He had claimed to be a builder, but he never had a steady job. Or started his own business. No, nothing like that, never any plans, no ambition either, just odd jobs here and there, a hand-to-mouth existence. And he would always come home smelling of other women. Didn’t even bother to shower before slipping under her freshly washed sheets. Sarah Kiese felt sick just thinking about it, but at least it was over now. He had fallen from the tenth floor of one of the new developments down by the Oslo Opera House. She imagined he had gotten himself a job of some kind there—cash under the table, no doubt, that was how it usually was with him, casual nighttime work. Sarah Kiese smirked when she thought how awful it must have been, falling ten floors from a construction site; she had chuckled with glee when she heard the news. A fifty-meter drop to his death, served him right. Surely he must have felt extreme terror while it happened. How long could that fall have lasted? Eight, ten seconds? Fantastic.
She glanced irritably at the clock in the reception area and then at the door to her lawyer’s office. No, no, no, she had said when he called, I want nothing to do with that jerk, but the sleazy lawyer had insisted. Bunch of sharks, the lot of them. There would never be another man in her life unless he was the crown prince, and perhaps not even him. No more men for her. Just her and her daughter, now in their new small apartment in Carl Berner Square. Perfect. Just her own scent under the duvet, not fifty other cheap perfumes mixed with bad breath. Why had she even agreed to come here? She’d said no, hadn’t she? Wasn’t that what they’d practiced in that class she had been offered through Social Services: Say no, say no, build a ring around yourself, you’re your own best friend, you need no one else. No, no, no, no.
“Sarah? Hi. Thanks for coming.”
The dodgy lawyer with the comb-over stuck out his head and waved her into his office. He reminded her of a small mouse. Feeble, tiny eyes and hunched shoulders. No, not a mouse, a rat. A disgusting, cowardly sewer rat.
“I said no,” Sarah said.
“I know,” the sewer rat fawned. “And I’m all the more grateful for your making the trip. You see, it turns out . . .”
He cleared his throat.
“I overlooked something when I settled the estate, a small detail, that’s all it is, my mistake obviously.”
“More debt collectors? More court summonses?”
“Ha, no, no.” The sewer rat coughed and pressed his fingertips together. “This is it.”
He opened a drawer and placed a memory stick in front of her.
“What is it?”
“It’s for you,” the sewer rat said. “Your late husband left it with me some time ago, asked me to give it to you.”
“Why didn’t he give it to me himself?”
The sewer rat offered her a faint smile. “Possibly because he got a hot iron in his face the last time he showed up at your apartment?”
Sarah felt pleased with herself. Her husband had let himself into the apartment. Startled her. Suddenly he had appeared in her living room. Wanting to touch her, be all nice like he always used to be shortly before he would ask her to do him a favor. The iron had hit his gawking face with considerable force. He hadn’t seen it coming, and it had floored him on the spot. She had not seen or heard anything from him since that day.
“I should have given it to you long ago, but we’ve been very busy,” the rat said, sounding almost apologetic.
“You mean, he promised to pay you to do it but you never saw the money?” Sarah said.
The lawyer smiled at her. “At least that should conclude matters.”
Sarah Kiese took the memory stick, put it into her handbag, and headed for the door. The rat half rose from his dusty chair and cleared his throat.
“Well, well. And how are you doing otherwise, Sarah? You and your daughter are all right and—”
“Fuck off,” Sarah Kiese said, and left the office without closing the door behind her.
Several times on her way back to the new apartment in Carl Berner Square, she considered chucking the memory stick. Toss it in a garbage can and she would be finished with him, but for some reason she didn’t. Not because she was curious, Sarah couldn’t give a rat’s ass about its contents; it was more about tying up loose ends. The lawyer was a rat, but he was still a lawyer. Her husband had been an idiot, but he’d had a last wish. Give that memory stick to Sarah and only to her.
She let herself into the apartment and turned on her computer. Might as well deal with it sooner rather than later. The black laptop slowly roused itself. She inserted the memory stick and copied the contents to her hard drive. It contained only one file, which was called Sarah.mov. A film. Okay. So she would be forced to look at his ugly mug one more time, was that it? Even from beyond the grave, he was bothering her. She double-clicked the file to play the film.
He had recorded himself with a small camera. Possibly on his phone, she couldn’t be sure. His horrible face was close to the lens, but it had an expression she hadn’t seen before. He seemed scared out of his wits.
Sarah, I don’t have much time, but I have to do this, I have to tell someone, because something here doesn’t feel right.
He filmed his surroundings.
I was offered a job, and now I’ve built this. I’m far away in . . .
She heard noises, muffled, as if he were covering the microphone on his cell phone. She couldn’t make out what he was saying. Her late husband continued filming his surroundings with trembling hands while he spoke, stuttering most of the time. So he had built something, so what?
. . . And I’m scared that . . . well, what did I actually build? Look at this. I’m deep underground. I thought that it might be a panic room, but it’s not. There’s a small hatch. . . .
The voice disintegrated again while he carried on filming. It was a kind of underground shelter.
. . . And no, it doesn’t feel right, something is going on here. Something . . . Take a look at this. Just look. You can hoist things up and down. Like an old service elevator or . . .
Her late husband suddenly jerked and looked around. The whole scene reminded her of a film she had seen years ago, The Blair Witch Project, about some terrified teenagers running around the forest filming themselves.
. . . What the hell do I know, but I’m worried that something might happen to me. I can feel it. Have you any idea how far away I am? Please, would you write down what I’m saying, Sarah? Where I am and how I got this job, and well, then you can go to the police if anything should happen to me? I got the job from someone who . . .
More scrambling. Sarah could not hear a word of what her late husband was saying; she could only see his frightened eyes and trembling lips as he babbled away. This lasted just over a minute. Then the film ended.
So who did you have to sleep with to get this job? Or was it a job in return for sex? I certainly never saw any of that money. Help you? I don’t think so.
The short film clip had been very unpleasant to watch, but she no longer had the energy to care. The whole thing could be nonsense for all she knew, some idiotic hoax. She had given up believing anything that idiot said a long time ago.
Sarah deleted the film from her computer, took out the memory stick, threw it in the trash can, went out into the stairwell, and threw the trash bag down the shaft. Just like that. The house was tidy once more. Only her. No trace of him.
Soon her daughter would come home from school. Life was wonderful. In this apartment Sarah was in charge. She went outside on the terrace and lit a cigarette. Put her feet on the table, smiled to herself, closed her eyes, and enjoyed a glimpse of the spring sunshine that had finally made an appearance.
Her life. No one else’s. At last.