The Fourth Man Read Online Free PDF

go to McDonald’s instead?’
    ‘No. Now I want to have a milkshake. When you come to visit me I’ll make you a banana milkshake. You’ll like it.’
    ‘Have you thought about inviting me home?’
    She, glancing up: ‘Why shouldn’t I?’
    ‘No, why shouldn’t you indeed?’
    Silence – uneasy silence. And then – as if she had read something in his facial expression, as if a light had gone out somewhere: ‘What’s the matter?’
    ‘Hmm?’
    ‘I can see there’s something wrong. Tell me what it’s about.’
    He took another bite. The burger tasted of cardboard. But it was better to stuff cardboard in your mouth than fly off the handle. Besides he didn’t know how to express himself. Immediately he became hot and flustered. He didn’t like the place: the stench of frying oil, the stuffy air, cold walls and the harsh light that turned your skin an unhealthy shade of pale and your eyes colourless. ‘There’s something I have to talk to you about,’ he said quickly.
    ‘Wait,’ she said.
    ‘Right,’ he said.
    ‘First of all, there’s something I have to say to you. It’s about my brother.’
    He held his breath. Can she read my mind?
    ‘My brother, Jonny. He …’ She went off into a dream and fidgeted with her serviette. The slim fingers folded the serviette, then again, as she gazed pensively out of the window.
    ‘What about your brother?’ he heard his own voice say as she chewed her lower lip.
    ‘We live together.’
    ‘And?’
    She tore the serviette slowly into two pieces. ‘Jonny … he’s … he’s done time.’
    She stared at him now. He stared at her. The toxin was gone; the narcosis that made him feel as if he was fumbling in her presence, incapable of action in a deadened cotton-wool world, had worn off. His body felt as if it had been squeezed out of a cocoon. An unpleasant, clammy straitjacket had been removed. He breathed more easily, his heart wasn’t beating like a drum any more, his ears weren’t rushing like gushing blood. The person on the other side of the table was a fragile creature with dry lips whose sapphire-blue eyes avoided him, the same as prisoners who lower their gaze as they frantically search for fragments of a story they can fabricate, revealing dry lips with tiny flakes of skin hanging off, which sting but which they feel an irresistible urge to moisten.
    This is what I am waiting for, for her to moisten her lips and serve up the first lie. What is going on inside my head?
    ‘Jonny has always been a little wild and crazy, but there’s only him and me. He’s four years older than me and he’s the only brother I have – let’s put it like that – my big brother, my … what can I say? … he’s the fixed point in my universe. But you’re a policeman. I do realize that I have to tell you that he’s been inside. He’s done more than three years altogether. Jonny can walk down the street and be nicked by plainclothes men at any time simply because he’s Jonny – an old acquaintance of the police, as they say on TV. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s my brother, do you understand? I can’t love my brother less because he’s been to prison. He’s all I can call family. It’s always been us two. Do you understand that?’
    ‘Elisabeth, what are you trying to say?’
    Look up. Let me see you.
    ‘I’m trying to say that maybe you won’t like my brother. But that doesn’t mean I feel any less for you. Your being a policeman doesn’t have to make any difference. Jonny is looking for a new job. He’s going straight.’
    ‘Does Jonny know about me?’
    ‘Hm?’
    She doesn’t know what to say. She’s trying to gain time.
    A noise broke the tension and gave them some respite.
    Footsteps clattered on the spiral staircase by the end wall. He looked over. Someone was on their way up. It was someone he knew: Lena Stigersand, a police colleague, Lena and her racist friend/lover, coming up the staircase, each with a tray of food. The