Black Seconds by Karin Fossum, Charlotte Barslund (Translator)

From the Publisher

Ida Joner gets on her brand-new bike and sets off toward town. A good-natured, happy girl, she is looking forward to her tenth birthday. Thirty-five minutes after Ida should have come home, her mother starts to worry. She phones store owners, Ida’s friends, anyone who could have seen her. But no one has.

Suspicion immediately falls on Emil Mork, a local character who lives alone and hasn’t spoken since childhood. His mother insists on cleaning his house weekly—although she’s sometimes afraid of what she might find there. A mother’s worst nightmare in either case: to lose a child or to think a child capable of murder. As Ida’s relatives reach the breaking point and the media frenzy surrounding the case begins, Inspector Konrad Sejer is his usual calm and reassuring self. But he’s puzzled. And disturbed. This is the strangest case he’s seen in years.

The Washington Post - Daniel Mallory

What a spare, artful novel this is: how lean, how swift, how bitterly sad. The solution to its mystery will not astonish perceptive readers, but even seasoned crime aficionados should savor the ineluctable undertow of dread surging beneath the surface of Black Seconds, dragging the characters out to sea—quite literally, in one instance—and snarling their destinies like twine. We approach the final pages feeling wounded, as though a dagger had been plunged into our heart; and in her concluding sentences, Fossum twists the blade one last time. It's a merciless conclusion to a novel of rare, hypnotic power.

Publishers Weekly

Gumshoe Award-winner Fossum (When the Devil Holds the Candle) once again wraps a blanket of methodical police work and infectious psychological tension around a relatively quiet crime in her fifth Inspector Sejer mystery to be made available in the U.S. When nine-year-old Ida Joner takes off for town (never named) on her new bike one afternoon and is never seen again, suspicion falls on Emil Johannes Mork, a silent, simple man. Emil, however, doesn't appear to have the heart of a killer. The narrative shifts smoothly among those affected by the tragedy: Emil's beleaguered mother, a good woman with little life of her own; a male cousin of the missing girl who may suffer some secret guilt; and, of course, Insp. Konrad Sejer and his younger colleague, Jacob Skarre. Sejer is a beautifully created character, a thoughtful, lonely man with great empathy. As he investigates Ida's disappearance, it's not so much the facts of the case as the impact of it on the people who surrounded the girl that fuel the story. (July)

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Michele Leber - Library Journal

A parent's worst fears are realized in this absorbing psychological study, the fifth of the Inspector Konrad Sejer series (after The Indian Bride) to be translated into English. Just days short of her tenth birthday, Ida Joner-a particularly lovely only child-takes off on her bicycle and doesn't come home. As residents of her small Swedish town search for Ida, Sejer sifts through possibilities. The woman who runs the shop that was Ida's destination has a suspicious background, Ida's 18-year-old cousin Tomme Rix is overly emotional about crashing his prized secondhand Opel on the day Ida disappeared, and 52-year-old autistic man Emil Johannes is found to have connections to Ida. Sejer seeks the truth through dogged police work (including reading letters between Ida and her German pen pal), keen intuition, and a brilliant means of communicating with Emil. Fossum's superb characterizations include three mothers: divorced Helga Joner, who lives in fear of losing her daughter; her sister Ruth Rix, who foresees damage to her family; and Emil's widowed mother, Elsa, who protects and provides for her disabled son. Even a predictable outcome does nothing to lessen this novel's effect. With appeal to fans of Barbara Vine and Minette Walters, this is recommended for most collections.

Kirkus Reviews

Chief Inspector Konrad Sejer heads an increasingly desperate search for a schoolgirl missing from her Norwegian suburb. Ida Joner is such a perfect daughter that her mother worries about her after she's 20 minutes late coming home from running an errand. Helga Joner's fears are deepened by a sense she's always had that Ida was too good to last. Her sister Ruth phones the police, but even though nearly everyone in Glassverket volunteers to help look for Ida, they can find no trace of her or the yellow bicycle she was riding. As Helga sinks deeper into despair, Fossum cuts away from her to focus on several of her friends and neighbors-Ruth's teenaged son Tomme, his older friend Willy Oterhals, reclusive cyclist Emil Johannes Mork, his elderly mother-with a gaze so intense that they all look sinister. At length a series of breaks that begin with the discovery of Ida's bicycle put Sejer and his colleagues on the track of a probable killer. But even after they've identified a suspect who almost certainly knows what happened to Ida, it's by no means certain that they'll be able to prevent him from retreating into a silence that seems to hang over the entire community like a dark cloud. Less original than Sejer's four other cases to have appeared in English translation (The Indian Bride, 2007, etc.), but it's equally sensitive and compassionate in its handling of the troubled souls on both sides of the law.

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CHAPTER 1

The days went by so slowly.

Ida Joner held up her hands and counted her fingers. Her birthday was on the tenth of September. And it was only the first today. There were so many things she wanted. Most of all she wanted a pet of her own. Something warm and cuddly that would belong only to her. Ida had a sweet face with large brown eyes. Her body was slender and trim, her hair thick and curly. She was bright and happy. She was just too good to be true. Her mother often thought so, especially whenever Ida left the house and she watched her daughter’s back disappear around the corner. Too good to last.

Ida jumped up on her bicycle, her brand-new Nakamura bicycle. She was going out. The living room was a mess: she had been lying on the sofa playing with her plastic figures and several other toys, and it was chaos when she left. At first her absence would create a great void. After a while a strange mood would creep in through the walls and fill the house with a sense of unease. Her mother hated it. But she could not keep her daughter locked up forever, like some caged bird. She waved to Ida and put on a brave face. Lost herself in domestic chores. The humming of the vacuum cleaner would drown out the strange feeling in the room. When her body began to grow hot and sweaty, or started to ache from beating the rugs, it would numb the faint stabbing sensation in her chest which was always triggered by Ida going out.

She glanced out of the window. The bicycle turned left. Ida was going into town. Everything was fine; she was wearing her bicycle helmet. A hard shell that protected her head. Helga thought of it as a type of life insurance. In herpocket she had her zebra-striped purse, which contained thirty kroner about to be spent on the latest issue of Wendy. She usually spent the rest of her money on Bugg chewing gum. The ride down to Laila’s Kiosk would take her fifteen minutes. Her mother did the mental arithmetic. Ida would be back home again by 6:40 P.M. Then she factored in the possibility of Ida meeting someone and spending ten minutes chatting. While she waited, she started to clean up. Picked up toys and figures from the sofa. Helga knew that her daughter would hear her words of warning wherever she went. She had planted her own voice of authority firmly in the girl’s head and knew that from there it sent out clear and constant instructions. She felt ashamed at this, the kind of shame that overcomes you after an assault, but she did not dare do otherwise. Because it was this very voice that would one day save Ida from danger.

Ida was a well-brought-up girl who would never cross her mother or forget to keep a promise. But now the wall clock in Helga Joner’s house was approaching 7:00 P.M., and Ida had still not come home. Helga experienced the first prickling of fear. And later that sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that made her stand by the window from which she would see Ida appear on her yellow bicycle any second now. The red helmet would gleam in the sun. She would hear the crunch of the tires on the pebbled drive. Perhaps even the ringing of the bell: Hi, I’m home! Followed by a thud on the wall from the handlebars. But Ida did not come.

Helga Joner floated away from everything that was safe and familiar. The floor vanished beneath her feet. Her normally heavy body became weightless; she hovered like a ghost around the rooms. Then with a thump to her chest she came back down. Stopped abruptly and looked around. Why did this feel so familiar? Because she had already, for many years now, been rehearsing this moment in her mind. Because she had always known that this beautiful child was not hers to keep. It was the very realization that she had known this day would come that terrified her. The knowledge that she could predict the future and that she had known this would happen right from the beginning made her head spin. That’s why I’m always so scared, Helga thought. I’ve been terrified every day for nearly ten years, and for good reason. Now it’s finally happened. My worst nightmare. Huge, black, and tearing my heart to pieces.

It was 7:15 P.M. when she forced herself to snap out of her apathy and find the number for Laila’s Kiosk in the phone book. She tried to keep her voice calm. The telephone rang many times before someone answered. Her phoning and thus revealing her fear made her even more convinced that Ida would turn up any minute now. The ultimate proof that she was an overprotective mother. But Ida was nowhere to be seen, and a woman answered. Helga laughed apologetically because she could hear from the other woman’s voice that she was mature and might have children of her own. She would understand.

"My daughter went out on her bicycle to get a copy of Wendy. From your shop. I told her she was to come straight back home and she ought to be here by now, but she isn’t. So I’m just calling to check that she did come to your shop and bought what she wanted," said Helga Joner. She looked out of the window as if to shield herself from the reply.

"No," the voice answered. "There was no girl here, not that I remember."

Helga was silent. This was the wrong answer. Ida had to have been there. Why would the woman say no? She demanded another reply. "She’s short, with dark hair," she went on stubbornly, "nine years old. She is wearing a blue sweatsuit and a red helmet. Her bicycle’s yellow." The bit about the bicycle was left hanging in the air. After all, Ida would not have taken it with her inside the kiosk.

Laila Heggen, the owner of the kiosk, felt anxious and scared of replying. She heard the budding panic in the voice of Ida’s mother and did not want to release it in all its horror. So she went through the last few hours in her mind. But even though she wanted to, she could find no little girl there. "Well, so many kids come here," she said. "All day long. But at that time it’s usually quiet. Most people eat between five and seven. Then it gets busy again up until ten. That’s when I close." She could think of nothing more to say. Besides, she had two burgers under the grill; they were beginning to burn, and a customer was waiting.

Helga struggled to find the right words. She could not hang up, did not want to sever the link with Ida that this woman embodied. After all, the kiosk was where Ida had been going. Once more she stared out into the road. The cars were few and far between. The afternoon rush was over.

"When she turns up," she tried, "please tell her I’m waiting."

Silence once again. The woman in the kiosk wanted to help, but did not know how. How awful, she thought, having to say no. When she needed a yes.

Helga Joner hung up. A new era had begun. A creeping, unpleasant shift that brought about a change in the light, in the temperature, in the landscape outside. Trees and bushes stood lined up like militant soldiers. Suddenly she noticed how the sky, which had not released rain for weeks, had filled with dark, dense clouds. When had that happened? Her heart was pounding hard and it hurt; she could hear the clock on the wall ticking mechanically. She had always thought of seconds as tiny metallic dots; now they turned into heavy black drops and she felt them fall one by one. She looked at her hands; they were chapped and wrinkled. No longer the hands of a young woman. She had become a mother late in life and had just turned forty-nine. Suddenly her fear turned into anger and she reached for the telephone once more. There was so much she could do: Ida had friends and family in the area. Helga had a sister, Ruth, and her sister had a twelve-year-old daughter, Marion, and an eighteen-year-old son, Tomme, Ida’s cousins. Ida’s father, who lived on his own, had two brothers in town, Ida’s uncles, both of whom were married and had four children in total. They were family. Ida could be with any of them. But they would have called. Helga hesitated. Friends first, she thought. Therese. Or Kjersti, perhaps. Ida also spent time with Richard, a twelve-year-old boy from the neighborhood, who had a horse. She found the contact sheet for her daughter’s classmates stuck on the fridge: it listed everyone’s name and number. She started at the top, with Kjersti.

"No, sorry, Ida’s not here." The other woman’s concern, her anxiety and sympathy, which concluded with the reassuring words, "She’ll turn up, you know what kids are like," tormented and haunted her.

"Yes," Helga lied. But she did not know. Ida was never late. No one was home at Therese’s. She spoke to Richard’s father, who told her his son had gone down to the stable. So she waited while he went to look for him. The clock on the wall mocked her, its constant ticking: she hated it. Richard’s father came back. His son was alone in the stable. Helga hung up and rested for a while. Her eyes were drawn to the window as if it were a powerful magnet. She called her sister and crumbled a little when she heard her voice. Could not stand upright any longer, her body was beginning to fail her, paralysis was setting in.

"Get in your car straight away," Ruth said. "Get yourself over here and together we’ll drive around and look for her. We’ll find her, you’ll see!"

"I know we will," Helga said. "But Ida doesn’t have a key. What if she comes back while we’re out looking for her?"

"Leave the door open. It’ll be fine, don’t you worry. She’s probably been distracted by something. A fire or a car crash. And she’s lost track of time."

Helga tore open the door to the garage. Her sister’s voice had calmed her down. A fire, she thought. Of course. Ida is staring at the flames, her cheeks are flushed, the firemen are exciting and appealing in their black uniforms and yellow helmets, she is rooted to the spot, she is bewitched by the sirens and the screaming and the crackling of the flames. If there really were a fire, I, too, would be standing there mesmerized by the shimmering heat. And besides, everything around here is like a tinderbox, it hasn’t rained for ages. Or a car crash. She fumbled with her keys while she conjured up the scene. Images of twisted metal, ambulances, resuscitation efforts and spattered blood rushed through her mind. No wonder Ida had lost track of time!

Distracted, she drove to her sister’s house in Madseberget. It took four minutes. She scanned the sides of the road the whole time; Ida was likely to appear without warning, cycling on the right-hand side as she should, carefree, safe, and sound. But she did not see her. Still, taking action felt better. Helga had to change gears, steer, and brake; her body was occupied. If fate wanted to hurt her, she would fight back. Fight this looming monster tooth and nail.

Ruth was home alone. Her son, Tom Erik, whom everyone called Tomme, had just passed his driving test. He had scrimped and scraped together enough money to buy an old Opel.

"He practically lives in it," Ruth sighed. "I hope to God he takes care when he drives. Marion has gone to the library. They close at eight, so she’ll be home soon, but she’ll be fine on her own. Sverre is away on business. That man’s never here, I tell you." She had her back to Helga and was struggling to put on her coat as she spoke the last sentence. Her smile was in place when she turned around.

"Come on, Helga, let’s go."

 

 

Copyright © Karin Fossum 2002

English translation copyright © Charlotte Barslund 2007

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be submitted online at www.harcourt.com/contact or mailed to the following address: Permissions Department, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.

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Black Seconds
By Fossum, Karin
Harcourt Copyright © 2008 Fossum, Karin
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780151015276



CHAPTER 1

The days went by so slowly.

Ida Joner held up her hands and counted her fingers. Her birthday was on the tenth of September. And it was only the first today. There were so many things she wanted. Most of all she wanted a pet of her own. Something warm and cuddly that would belong only to her. Ida had a sweet face with large brown eyes. Her body was slender and trim, her hair thick and curly. She was bright and happy. She was just too good to be true. Her mother often thought so, especially whenever Ida left the house and she watched her daughter’s back disappear around the corner. Too good to last.

Ida jumped up on her bicycle, her brand-new Nakamura bicycle. She was going out. The living room was a mess: she had been lying on the sofa playing with her plastic figures and several other toys, and it was chaos when she left. At first her absence would create a great void. After a while a strange mood would creep in through the walls and fill the house with a sense of unease. Her mother hated it. But she could not keep her daughter locked up forever, like some caged bird. She waved to Ida and put on a brave face. Lost herself in domestic chores. The humming of the vacuum cleaner would drown out the strange feeling in the room. When her body began to grow hot and sweaty, or started to ache from beating the rugs, it would numb the faint stabbing sensation in her chest which was always triggered by Ida going out.

Sheglanced out of the window. The bicycle turned left. Ida was going into town. Everything was fine; she was wearing her bicycle helmet. A hard shell that protected her head. Helga thought of it as a type of life insurance. In her pocket she had her zebra-striped purse, which contained thirty kroner about to be spent on the latest issue of Wendy. She usually spent the rest of her money on Bugg chewing gum. The ride down to Laila’s Kiosk would take her fifteen minutes. Her mother did the mental arithmetic. Ida would be back home again by 6:40 P.M. Then she factored in the possibility of Ida meeting someone and spending ten minutes chatting. While she waited, she started to clean up. Picked up toys and figures from the sofa. Helga knew that her daughter would hear her words of warning wherever she went. She had planted her own voice of authority firmly in the girl’s head and knew that from there it sent out clear and constant instructions. She felt ashamed at this, the kind of shame that overcomes you after an assault, but she did not dare do otherwise. Because it was this very voice that would one day save Ida from danger.

Ida was a well-brought-up girl who would never cross her mother or forget to keep a promise. But now the wall clock in Helga Joner’s house was approaching 7:00 P.M., and Ida had still not come home. Helga experienced the first prickling of fear. And later that sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that made her stand by the window from which she would see Ida appear on her yellow bicycle any second now. The red helmet would gleam in the sun. She would hear the crunch of the tires on the pebbled drive. Perhaps even the ringing of the bell: Hi, I’m home! Followed by a thud on the wall from the handlebars. But Ida did not come.

Helga Joner floated away from everything that was safe and familiar. The floor vanished beneath her feet. Her normally heavy body became weightless; she hovered like a ghost around the rooms. Then with a thump to her chest she came back down. Stopped abruptly and looked around. Why did this feel so familiar? Because she had already, for many years now, been rehearsing this moment in her mind. Because she had always known that this beautiful child was not hers to keep. It was the very realization that she had known this day would come that terrified her. The knowledge that she could predict the future and that she had known this would happen right from the beginning made her head spin. That’s why I’m always so scared, Helga thought. I’ve been terrified every day for nearly ten years, and for good reason. Now it’s finally happened. My worst nightmare. Huge, black, and tearing my heart to pieces.

It was 7:15 P.M. when she forced herself to snap out of her apathy and find the number for Laila’s Kiosk in the phone book. She tried to keep her voice calm. The telephone rang many times before someone answered. Her phoning and thus revealing her fear made her even more convinced that Ida would turn up any minute now. The ultimate proof that she was an overprotective mother. But Ida was nowhere to be seen, and a woman answered. Helga laughed apologetically because she could hear from the other woman’s voice that she was mature and might have children of her own. She would understand.

"My daughter went out on her bicycle to get a copy of Wendy. From your shop. I told her she was to come straight back home and she ought to be here by now, but she isn’t. So I’m just calling to check that she did come to your shop and bought what she wanted," said Helga Joner. She looked out of the window as if to shield herself from the reply.

"No," the voice answered. "There was no girl here, not that I remember."

Helga was silent. This was the wrong answer. Ida had to have been there. Why would the woman say no? She demanded another reply. "She’s short, with dark hair," she went on stubbornly, "nine years old. She is wearing a blue sweatsuit and a red helmet. Her bicycle’s yellow." The bit about the bicycle was left hanging in the air. After all, Ida would not have taken it with her inside the kiosk.

Laila Heggen, the owner of the kiosk, felt anxious and scared of replying. She heard the budding panic in the voice of Ida’s mother and did not want to release it in all its horror. So she went through the last few hours in her mind. But even though she wanted to, she could find no little girl there. "Well, so many kids come here," she said. "All day long. But at that time it’s usually quiet. Most people eat between five and seven. Then it gets busy again up until ten. That’s when I close." She could think of nothing more to say. Besides, she had two burgers under the grill; they were beginning to burn, and a customer was waiting.

Helga struggled to find the right words. She could not hang up, did not want to sever the link with Ida that this woman embodied. After all, the kiosk was where Ida had been going. Once more she stared out into the road. The cars were few and far between. The afternoon rush was over.

"When she turns up," she tried, "please tell her I’m waiting."

Silence once again. The woman in the kiosk wanted to help, but did not know how. How awful, she thought, having to say no. When she needed a yes.

Helga Joner hung up. A new era had begun. A creeping, unpleasant shift that brought about a change in the light, in the temperature, in the landscape outside. Trees and bushes stood lined up like militant soldiers. Suddenly she noticed how the sky, which had not released rain for weeks, had filled with dark, dense clouds. When had that happened? Her heart was pounding hard and it hurt; she could hear the clock on the wall ticking mechanically. She had always thought of seconds as tiny metallic dots; now they turned into heavy black drops and she felt them fall one by one. She looked at her hands; they were chapped and wrinkled. No longer the hands of a young woman. She had become a mother late in life and had just turned forty-nine. Suddenly her fear turned into anger and she reached for the telephone once more. There was so much she could do: Ida had friends and family in the area. Helga had a sister, Ruth, and her sister had a twelve-year-old daughter, Marion, and an eighteen-year-old son, Tomme, Ida’s cousins. Ida’s father, who lived on his own, had two brothers in town, Ida’s uncles, both of whom were married and had four children in total. They were family. Ida could be with any of them. But they would have called. Helga hesitated. Friends first, she thought. Therese. Or Kjersti, perhaps. Ida also spent time with Richard, a twelve-year-old boy from the neighborhood, who had a horse. She found the contact sheet for her daughter’s classmates stuck on the fridge: it listed everyone’s name and number. She started at the top, with Kjersti.

"No, sorry, Ida’s not here." The other woman’s concern, her anxiety and sympathy, which concluded with the reassuring words, "She’ll turn up, you know what kids are like," tormented and haunted her.

"Yes," Helga lied. But she did not know. Ida was never late. No one was home at Therese’s. She spoke to Richard’s father, who told her his son had gone down to the stable. So she waited while he went to look for him. The clock on the wall mocked her, its constant ticking: she hated it. Richard’s father came back. His son was alone in the stable. Helga hung up and rested for a while. Her eyes were drawn to the window as if it were a powerful magnet. She called her sister and crumbled a little when she heard her voice. Could not stand upright any longer, her body was beginning to fail her, paralysis was setting in.

"Get in your car straight away," Ruth said. "Get yourself over here and together we’ll drive around and look for her. We’ll find her, you’ll see!"

"I know we will," Helga said. "But Ida doesn’t have a key. What if she comes back while we’re out looking for her?"

"Leave the door open. It’ll be fine, don’t you worry. She’s probably been distracted by something. A fire or a car crash. And she’s lost track of time."

Helga tore open the door to the garage. Her sister’s voice had calmed her down. A fire, she thought. Of course. Ida is staring at the flames, her cheeks are flushed, the firemen are exciting and appealing in their black uniforms and yellow helmets, she is rooted to the spot, she is bewitched by the sirens and the screaming and the crackling of the flames. If there really were a fire, I, too, would be standing there mesmerized by the shimmering heat. And besides, everything around here is like a tinderbox, it hasn’t rained for ages. Or a car crash. She fumbled with her keys while she conjured up the scene. Images of twisted metal, ambulances, resuscitation efforts and spattered blood rushed through her mind. No wonder Ida had lost track of time!

Distracted, she drove to her sister’s house in Madseberget. It took four minutes. She scanned the sides of the road the whole time; Ida was likely to appear without warning, cycling on the right-hand side as she should, carefree, safe, and sound. But she did not see her. Still, taking action felt better. Helga had to change gears, steer, and brake; her body was occupied. If fate wanted to hurt her, she would fight back. Fight this looming monster tooth and nail.

Ruth was home alone. Her son, Tom Erik, whom everyone called Tomme, had just passed his driving test. He had scrimped and scraped together enough money to buy an old Opel.

"He practically lives in it," Ruth sighed. "I hope to God he takes care when he drives. Marion has gone to the library. They close at eight, so she’ll be home soon, but she’ll be fine on her own. Sverre is away on business. That man’s never here, I tell you." She had her back to Helga and was struggling to put on her coat as she spoke the last sentence. Her smile was in place when she turned around.

"Come on, Helga, let’s go."

 

 

Copyright © Karin Fossum 2002

English translation copyright © Charlotte Barslund 2007

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be submitted online at harcourt.com/contact or mailed to the following address: Permissions Department, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.

Continues...

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