A forty-year-old woman in a short, red puffa jacket was standing under a streetlight by Bislett Stadium, watching a fat man in a beige duffel coat leave the block of flats. He lit a cigarette and looked as if he was pondering something before getting into a black Audi and driving off.
‘What are we waiting for?’
The young lad next to her, twenty years her junior, glanced around warily, pulling his beanie further down over his ears.
‘I’m freezing.’
‘Be quiet,’ the woman said, sticking a hand into her pocket to check that it was still there.
The bracelet.
‘How hard can it be?’ the young lad said, and lit a roll-up dangling from the corner of his mouth with trembling fingers. ‘I thought you said she was going to give us money?’
The woman in the red jacket regretted bringing him along; after all, they did not know each other well. This was something she should have done on her own, something she ought to have done a long time ago.
She tightened the jacket around her and continued to look up at the second-floor flat. There was a faint light up there, so she must be home, and yet something did not feel right.
‘I need a hit,’ the lad said with a light cough.
‘Be quiet,’ the woman said again, because now she could feel it, too.
The craving for the needle that would make her misery disappear, that would give her the warmth she wanted.
‘Show me,’ he said, holding out his hand.
‘Show you what?’
‘The bracelet. I thought you said she would pay us for it?’
She looked up at the flat again and showed the boy what was in her pocket.
‘That thing?’ The boy sounded incredulous as he held up the bracelet to the light from the street lamp.
‘How can that be worth anything? Looks like tat to me, something a kid would wear. Shit. We could have robbed a kiosk or something, a 7-Eleven, in and out in five minutes; what are we going to make from this? Come on, have you gone mental?’
The woman snatched back the bracelet and slipped it into her jacket pocket.
A silver bracelet, a heart, an anchor, and a letter. M.
‘Sentimental value,’ she said quietly, the craving hitting her with full force now.
‘Eh?’
The young lad glanced around nervously and took another drag on his roll-up.
‘Sod it, let’s do a 7. Or see if Leffe will give us some. He owes me a favour. I’m sure he’ll give us a fix, and he lives nearby – how about it? Fuck it, that bracelet isn’t even worth a fiver – what’s the point of that? I’m not hanging around here.’
The woman in the red jacket looked up as a door opened and the dark-haired girl appeared on the balcony. She had a drink in one hand. She stayed there for a little while; she seemed to be peering into the city darkness, then she went back inside, closing the door behind her.
Mia Krüger.
She should have done this a long time ago.
A long, long time ago.
‘Oh, come on,’ the young lad said, almost pleading now, tossing aside his cigarette butt. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here, all right? I’m bloody freezing.’
‘Shut up. It’s not just about the money.’
‘It isn’t?’ the boy said.
‘No.’
‘But for fuck’s sake, you said that—’
‘We used to be friends,’ the woman interrupted him, irritated now.
She should have come alone.
‘Friends? Who? You and that woman up there?’
‘Shut up, will you?’
‘If you’re friends, why don’t you just ask her for money? Christ, Cisse, this is ridiculous! Why are we standing out here?’
‘No, not her. Sigrid.’
‘Who is Sigrid?’
‘Her sister.’
The boy fetched a nearly empty tobacco pouch from his pocket and tried making another roll-up with the crumbs that remained, his eyes darting frantically.
‘Bloody hell, Cisse, I wasn’t kidding, I can’t wait any longer, I need something now. Don’t you?’
‘I was there,’ the woman in the red jacket said, without taking her eyes off the shadow in the flat above them.
‘Where?’
‘I saw him.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I saw him kill her.’
He grew quiet now. Stopped with the thin roll-up between his lips and the lighter in front of it without lighting up.
‘Christ, Cisse, you’re freaking me out. Killed who?’
Sigrid.
She could feel it coming back.
She should have come a long time ago.
She was there.
‘For fuck’s sake, Cisse, I just wanna get high. I thought you said we were going to get some cash?’
‘What?’
‘I know Leffe will give us credit. It’s not far. Come on. This is a total waste of time.’
The forty-year-old woman carefully curled her fingers around the small silver bracelet in her pocket once more, feeling it between her fingers as the light in the flat above them suddenly went out and only darkness was left.
‘Come on.’
‘Do you think you could shut up for a moment?’
‘Fuck you, Cisse! Are you coming, or what?’
‘You’re sure Leffe will give us credit?’
‘Of course, he owes me. This is useless. Let’s go.’
She threw a final glance up at the dark windows of the flat.
And followed the twitchy young man down towards Pilestredet.