Death of the Demon: A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

left on Sunday evening. Then she drank herself through the week to steel herself for the next forty-eight hours of sobriety. However, she was indisputably Raymond’s mum and Raymond was doing fine.
    There was not much to mention about the other residents, apart from Olav.
    “We’ve really got our hands full with that one,” sighed Cathrine,an anorexic day shift worker in her thirties. “Honestly, everybody, I’m actually scared of that boy! I haven’t a chance when he refuses to budge!”
    “Eat a bit more, then,” Terje muttered, but was ignored.
    “It was pretty melodramatic when his mother was leaving on Thursday,” remarked Eirik, who had been on duty then. “He hung on to her legs, and she just stood there stock-still, staring at me, without even attempting to bring him to his senses. When I crouched down to try, I got this for my trouble!”
    Leaning forward over the table, he tilted his head to one side, and everybody could see a bluish-yellow ring surrounding his left eye.
    “The boy’s downright dangerous! And his mother is creepy, for sure!”
    “He never attacks the other children,” Maren objected. “Quite the opposite, for he can actually be helpful. He has good habits and polite manners when he wants to show them. We mustn’t exaggerate. As far as his mother’s concerned, she’s just desperate.”
    “Exaggerate! Is it not melodramatic when he kicks me in the eye, threatens to kill me, and then rips up all the other children’s drawings into a thousand pieces?”
    “As long as it’s you and the drawings that suffer, then we have to take it in our stride,” Agnes concluded, without even mentioning that morning’s dramatic episode and indicating the meeting was over by packing her papers together. While chairs scraped the floor as the others stood up, she made a restraining motion with her hand and added, “I’d like to have an interview with each and every one of you,” she said, without looking at any of them. “A kind of appraisal interview.”
    “Appraisal interview?”
    Cathrine pointed out it was not normal to conduct reviews now, without warning and two months in advance of the due date.
    “We’re having them now. They’ll be fairly brief. Terje, you first. We’ll go up to my office.”
    In reality if not by name, Maren Kalsvik functioned as a kind of deputy director at Spring Sunshine, and she scrutinized her boss now. Agnes seemed exhausted. Her hair was lifeless, and the features of her usually round, smooth face had become sharper. Unbecoming shadows were visible underneath her eyes, and she occasionally appeared almost uninterested in the children. It had to be her marriage. Maren and Agnes weren’t exactly friends, but they worked closely together and sometimes chatted about this and that when they were alone. Her marriage had been ailing in the past few months, that much she knew, and perhaps it was more serious than Agnes had confided. The punishment she had dished out for Olav’s outburst was troubling. Had Agnes gone stark raving mad? Maren would use the interview to probe her boss’s psychological state. She would ensure that Olav’s punishment was overturned, and rightfully so. Punishing children by denying them the company of their parents was not only uneducational, it was also totally illegal.
    “Can I be number two?” she asked. “I have a dentist’s appointment later today.”
    Agnes did not complete the interviews with her colleagues until almost four hours had elapsed, despite the final two interviews lasting only ten minutes.
     • • • 
    The house seemed to be breathing. Deeply and quietly. A safe, snug fortress for eight sleeping children.
    At least they’re having a good rest, Eirik thought contentedly as he switched off the TV.
    The hour had drawn on until half past midnight, but, unusually for him, he did not feel tired. Could he have been asleep without noticing? He lifted a deck of playing cards and started a game of solitaire,