Time for the Dead

Welcome to our regular feature showcasing the talents of the nation’s best writers.

Inspector Alvis Olsen watched the snow-dusted coast of Scotland approach from his window seat. They said that whatever weather you left behind in Stavanger, you met it again in Aberdeen an hour later. Rising early this morning, he’d found the sky still heavy with snow clouds from an overnight fall, the picturesque wooden buildings of old Stavanger draped in white. On this day, the saying was proving to be true. By the time he’d set off for the Commissariat de Polis on Lagårdsveien, the snow underfoot had already turned to slush, though the brightly lit giant winter cruise ship tied up in the harbour still glistened like a frosted, tiered Christmas cake.

His usual route took him from his apartment on Kirkegata through the park at Breiavatnet and along the western flank of its shallow lake, after which the pedestrian walkways gave way to cars as he crossed the road to Lagård Gravlund.

Just as every other day, Alvis entered the graveyard and, turning left, made his way to the quiet rear of the cemetery. Here the usual cypress trees and grey headstones had their own frosting of snow although underfoot the path was clear. Reaching his wife’s grave, he sat down, ignoring the fact that the bench too had been exposed to the elements. Composing himself for what he wanted to say to Marita, he remained silent for a moment, wondering when or if the urge to speak to his dead wife would ever be satisfied.

It was verging on three years now since she’d died in the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland. Since that time he’d managed to revisit the place of her death, even made a sort of peace with it. In fact he’d planned to go back there today for a week of winter walking, had it not been for the phone call he’d made yesterday to Scotland.

Calm now, the words ready, Alvis explained why he wouldn’t be going where he had planned, but somewhere else entirely. n