The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

blood, his feet propelling him forward without consuming any energy, his pleasure making him
glow like a cutting loop. For he knew this was the beginning. The beginning of the end.
Holmenkollen Residents’ Association was having its summer party on a burning hot August day.
On the lawn in front of the association pavilion the adults were sitting on camping chairs under
umbrellas and drinking white wine while the children ran between tables or played football on the
gravel pitch. Although she was wearing enormous sunglasses that concealed her face, Mathias
recognised her from the photograph he had downloaded from her employer’s website. She was
standing on her own, and he went over to her and asked with a wry smile if he might stand beside
her and pretend he knew her. He knew how to do this sort of thing now. He was not the Mathias
No-Nips of old.
She lowered her glasses, scrutinised him quizzically and he established that the photograph had lied
after all. She was much more beautiful. So beautiful that for a moment he thought plan A had a
weakness: it was not a foregone conclusion that she would want him; a woman like Rakel – single
mother or not – had alternatives. Plan B had, to be sure, the same result as A, but would not be
anywhere near as satisfying.
‘Socially timid,’ he said, raising a plastic beaker in an embarrassed gesture of greeting. ‘I was
invited here by a chum living nearby, and he hasn’t showed up. And everyone else looks as if they
know each other here. I promise to decamp the second he appears.’
She laughed. He liked her laugh. And knew that the critical first three seconds had gone in his
favour.
‘I just saw a boy score a fantastic goal on the gravel pitch down there,’ Mathias said. ‘I wouldn’t
mind betting you’re related to him.’
‘Oh? That might have been Oleg, my son.’
She succeeded in hiding it, but Mathias knew from countless sessions with patients that no woman
can resist praise of her child.
‘Nice party,’ he said. ‘Nice neighbours.’
‘You like parties with other people’s neighbours?’
‘I think my friends are worried I’m spending too much time on my own,’ he said. ‘So they try to
cheer me up. With their successful neighbours, for example.’ He took a sip from the plastic glass.
‘And with the very sweet house wine. What’s your name?’
‘Rakel. Fauke.’
‘Hello, Rakel. Mathias.’
He shook her hand. Small, warm.
‘You haven’t got anything to drink,’ he said. ‘Allow me. House sweet?’
On his return, and after passing her the glass, he took out his pager and looked at it with a
concerned expression.