The Storyteller

Abel nodded. “Hair-cutting day. I’m wondering what will happen when I switch this thing on.”

“Buzz cut,” A

He nodded again. And then A

“Tell me … where’s that sweatshirt of mine?”

She reached into her backpack, gri

He shook his head. “Just be careful, A

“Magnus asked me to tell you something … from him,” she said. It was just as well he had to keep still now, she thought, because then he also had to listen to her. “My father … We’ve been talking about a few things. Not about everything, not about Sören Marinke, for example. But about the fact that your mother left … and that money isn’t exactly raining down from the sky. I know you don’t want charity. Don’t move, I’m dangerous with these scissors. But he said he’d like to offer you something. He’d lend you the money, and later, when you’ve finished school, when you have a job … you can pay him back. He’d be in no hurry to get the money. You could pay it back, slowly, no matter how long it took. It would be a loan without interest, not like a bank … that would be the advantage …”

Abel didn’t say anything. For a while, there was only the sound of the scissors. Outside, cars were racing by. A

“Thanks,” he said. She followed him into the bathroom and looked into the mirror from behind him. He was smiling. “You should think about becoming a barber. I mean … I know that’s why you’re taking finals. Ha! Look, I’m not sure about your father’s offer. I mean, I don’t know him.”

“No,” A

“More than I’ll ever know about my father,” Abel said. “I don’t even know his name. About university … I told you we only have that one account. Well, that’s not quite true. We do have another one. One that was opened a long time ago. For school. I don’t work only so that we have something to live on. I also work to be able to put money into that account, so that, later, everything can be different … for Micha … that’s what matters most, that things will be different for her than from how they’ve been for me. It’s not enough, of course, the money in that account, not yet. I’ll think about your father’s offer. Give me some time.”

“Okay.” She put her arms around him and kept looking into the mirror, looking at the two of them. “Do you have to go out tonight?”

“No.” He looked down at her arms slung around him. She thought he’d remove them, but he didn’t. “The only thing is … I’d like to go out to the beach,” he said. “People say they come back, don’t they?”

“Who?”

“Murderers. They come back to the site of the murder. Now, at night, when nobody else is at the beach … maybe we’ll meet someone there. Maybe not … maybe it’s crazy. Probably it is.”

“It is,” A

The beach lay in the light of a vague half-moon, long and gray. Up in the night sky, clouds chased each other. It was windy and ice-cold. A

A

She let her eyes wander along the beach, and, for a moment, she thought she saw someone at the other end. But there was no one.

She must have been mistaken. And if there was someone lurking behind the surfers’ hut right now, someone with a weapon …? And if someone was waiting in the dark shade under the trees, behind the fence …? If someone was standing near the houses closest to the beach, holding a pair of binoculars, looking their way …? The island of the murderer was empty. He was close, very close. It was as if she could feel his eyes on her.

“Abel,” she whispered. “What are you thinking about?”

He had clenched his fist around the police tape and was staring down into the pit from which they’d pulled Sören Marinke’s body. “I’m wondering if he had children,” Abel said. “Strange. I didn’t think about that before.”

“They didn’t say anything about children on the news. So I think probably not.”

“Or a wife. A girlfriend. Anybody. Anybody who cared about him. I wonder who’s crying for him.” He shook his head. “Let’s go. There’s nobody here. It was a stupid idea to come.”

Black shadows filled their footprints in the beach like puddles, the blackness grabbing their ankles as they walked. At the other entrance, closer to the mouth of the river, Abel took A