York.”
“But wasn’t there a lake they swam in? I seem to remember that.”
Harry ran a closer eye over her. She was sitting hunched over her food, concentrating. The freckles were bunched in a cluster over her nose. She was pretty, that was Harry’s opinion.
“You shouldn’t know that kind of thing. You’re too young.”
She laughed. “And what are you—past it?”
“Me? Well, some days I might be. It comes with the job—somewhere inside you age all too quickly. But I hope I’m not so disillusioned and jaded that I can’t feel alive now and then.”
“Oh, poor you …”
Harry had to smile. “You can think what you like, but I’m not saying that to appeal to your maternal instinct, even though that might not have been a bad idea. It’s just the way it is.”
The waiter passed the table and Harry took the opportunity to order another bottle of water.
“You’re a tiny bit damaged every time you unravel another murder case. Unfortunately, as a rule there are more human wrecks and sadder stories, and fewer ingenious motives, than you would imagine from reading Agatha Christie. At first I saw myself as a kind of knight dispensing justice, but at times I feel more like a refuse collector. Murderers are generally pitiful sorts, and it’s seldom difficult to point to at least ten good reasons why they turned out as they did. So, usually, what you feel most is frustration. Frustration that they can’t be happy destroying their own lives instead of dragging others down with them. This probably still sounds a touch sentimental …”
“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to appear cynical. I understand what you mean,” she said.
A gentle breeze from the street caused the flame of the candle on the table to flicker.
Birgitta told Harry about how she and her boyfriend had packed their rucksacks in Sweden four years ago and set off, how they had traveled by bus and hitched from Sydney to Cairns, slept under canvas and in backpacker hotels, worked there as receptionists and cooks, dived by the Great Barrier Reef and swum side by side with turtles and hammerhead sharks. They had meditated on Uluru, saved their moneyto catch the train from Adelaide to Alice Springs, been to a Crowded House concert in Melbourne and hit the wall in a motel in Sydney.
“It’s strange how something that works so well can be so … wrong.”
“Wrong?”
Birgitta hesitated. Perhaps she was thinking she’d said too much to this rather direct Norwegian.
“I don’t really know how to explain it. We lost something on the way that had been there and we’d taken for granted. We stopped looking at each other and soon we stopped touching each other. We came to be no more than traveling companions, someone it was good to have around because double rooms were cheaper and tents safer with two. He met a rich man’s daughter, German, in Noosa and I kept on traveling so that he could continue the affair in peace. I didn’t give a shit. When he arrived in Sydney I told him I’d fallen in love with an American surf freak I’d just met. I don’t know if he believed me, perhaps he understood that I was giving both of us a pretext for finishing things. We tried to argue in the motel room in Sydney, but we couldn’t even do that anymore. So I told him to go back to Sweden first and I would follow.”
“He would have quite a head start on you now.”
“We were together for six years. Would you believe me if I said I can hardly remember what he looked like?”
“I would.”
Birgitta sighed. “I didn’t think it would be like that. I was sure we would get married and have children and live in a little suburb of Malmö with a garden and
Sydsvenska Dagbladet
on the doorstep, and now—now I can hardly remember the sound of his voice, or what it was like to make love with him, or …” She looked up at Harry. “Or how he was too polite to tell me to shut up while I was babbling on after a couple of glasses of wine.”
Harry
“But wasn’t there a lake they swam in? I seem to remember that.”
Harry ran a closer eye over her. She was sitting hunched over her food, concentrating. The freckles were bunched in a cluster over her nose. She was pretty, that was Harry’s opinion.
“You shouldn’t know that kind of thing. You’re too young.”
She laughed. “And what are you—past it?”
“Me? Well, some days I might be. It comes with the job—somewhere inside you age all too quickly. But I hope I’m not so disillusioned and jaded that I can’t feel alive now and then.”
“Oh, poor you …”
Harry had to smile. “You can think what you like, but I’m not saying that to appeal to your maternal instinct, even though that might not have been a bad idea. It’s just the way it is.”
The waiter passed the table and Harry took the opportunity to order another bottle of water.
“You’re a tiny bit damaged every time you unravel another murder case. Unfortunately, as a rule there are more human wrecks and sadder stories, and fewer ingenious motives, than you would imagine from reading Agatha Christie. At first I saw myself as a kind of knight dispensing justice, but at times I feel more like a refuse collector. Murderers are generally pitiful sorts, and it’s seldom difficult to point to at least ten good reasons why they turned out as they did. So, usually, what you feel most is frustration. Frustration that they can’t be happy destroying their own lives instead of dragging others down with them. This probably still sounds a touch sentimental …”
“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to appear cynical. I understand what you mean,” she said.
A gentle breeze from the street caused the flame of the candle on the table to flicker.
Birgitta told Harry about how she and her boyfriend had packed their rucksacks in Sweden four years ago and set off, how they had traveled by bus and hitched from Sydney to Cairns, slept under canvas and in backpacker hotels, worked there as receptionists and cooks, dived by the Great Barrier Reef and swum side by side with turtles and hammerhead sharks. They had meditated on Uluru, saved their moneyto catch the train from Adelaide to Alice Springs, been to a Crowded House concert in Melbourne and hit the wall in a motel in Sydney.
“It’s strange how something that works so well can be so … wrong.”
“Wrong?”
Birgitta hesitated. Perhaps she was thinking she’d said too much to this rather direct Norwegian.
“I don’t really know how to explain it. We lost something on the way that had been there and we’d taken for granted. We stopped looking at each other and soon we stopped touching each other. We came to be no more than traveling companions, someone it was good to have around because double rooms were cheaper and tents safer with two. He met a rich man’s daughter, German, in Noosa and I kept on traveling so that he could continue the affair in peace. I didn’t give a shit. When he arrived in Sydney I told him I’d fallen in love with an American surf freak I’d just met. I don’t know if he believed me, perhaps he understood that I was giving both of us a pretext for finishing things. We tried to argue in the motel room in Sydney, but we couldn’t even do that anymore. So I told him to go back to Sweden first and I would follow.”
“He would have quite a head start on you now.”
“We were together for six years. Would you believe me if I said I can hardly remember what he looked like?”
“I would.”
Birgitta sighed. “I didn’t think it would be like that. I was sure we would get married and have children and live in a little suburb of Malmö with a garden and
Sydsvenska Dagbladet
on the doorstep, and now—now I can hardly remember the sound of his voice, or what it was like to make love with him, or …” She looked up at Harry. “Or how he was too polite to tell me to shut up while I was babbling on after a couple of glasses of wine.”
Harry
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