Dead Joker

by Anne Holt

  24

  The girl had been both cheap and willing. It had all been accomplished quickly. Evald Bromo now stood on the quayside, staring intently into the black waters.

  He was not brave enough.

  The craving had been too intense. Margaret thought he was at a seminar. He had walked the streets for twenty-four hours, and although he had tried to avoid the city center for as long as possible, he had finally ended up there. Afterward he had gone to the harbor. A narrow strip of light was beginning to appear in the east, and Evald Bromo had started to get the days mixed up. He wheeled around and raised his eyes. The City Hall towered above him: dark gray contours against a black, starless sky. What he wanted to do most of all was turn back. He tried to work up the courage to retrace the required steps along the quayside and down the fjord.

  He could not do it.

  There were five months and twenty-two days left until the first of September, and he could not even keep away from little girls.

  25

  She wondered why hospitals always had that hospital odor. Perhaps it was like garbage. Regardless of what was placed in a trashcan liner, whether it be meat or vegetables, diapers or fish, strong cheese or empty milk cartons, after a few hours it always smelled the same.

  Hanne Wilhelmsen had called in sick. As she replaced the receiver after delivering the message to Beate in the front office, she swallowed down something resembling shame. She had not said a word about Cecilie.

  Cecilie had protested. It was not necessary for Hanne to be present. There wasn’t really anything she could do. It was a waste of time. Hanne had sat on the edge of her bed late last night; the nurse had rather brusquely tried to prevent her from entering the room where Cecilie lay almost merging into the white bedcovers.

  “Just be here when I wake,” she had requested, stroking her fingers along the back of Hanne’s left hand. “That won’t be until late in the afternoon. Why don’t you leave it till then?”

  All the same, she smiled when Hanne turned up at seven o’clock on Wednesday morning. Her face showed something of its old cheerfulness; one eye closed more than the other because her smile was slightly crooked.

  “You came,” was all she managed to say before a porter arrived to collect her for the operation. “You came after all.”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen shut her eyes on the chaotic thoughts that had already made her feel exhausted even though it was not yet ten o’clock. She had made an effort to read a crime novel for half an hour, but it was unrealistic and boring. Then she tried to concentrate on Doris Flo Halvorsrud’s murder, but all she could summon up was an image of the headless woman surrounded by a vast black darkness.

  She must have slept in spite of her uncomfortable position, because the voice startled her.

  “So this is where you are.”

  Police Chief Hans Mykland was wearing a red check flannel shirt and blue trousers that must have been from the seventies. The crease line was stitched, and across the thigh, where the fabric stretched as he sat down in the chair beside her, the material was threadbare and pilled. She hardly recognized him.

  “I don’t always wear uniform,” he said with a smile. “I thought I couldn’t really come here without changing.”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen stared at his shoes without uttering a word. They were brown and must have been bought at the same time as the trousers. She felt faint and could not fathom how he had discovered where she was.

  “When do they reckon it’ll be over?” he said, looking around. “Is there a coffee machine anywhere near here?”

  Hanne remained silent. The Police Chief put his hand on her thigh. Hanne Wilhelmsen, who hated being touched by anyone she did not know well, shook her head faintly at the reassurance that his hand conveyed. It warmed her, and she felt an overwhelming urge to slip back into sleep.

  “Here,” he said, offering her a candy. “You’d probably prefer a smoke, but you’ll have to make do with this. Have they said anything about when they’ll be finished?”

  “About two o’clock,” Hanne Wilhelmsen mumbled, rubbing her face, still confused about why the Police Chief was there. “Approximately, if everything goes to plan.”

  “How are you doing?”

  He pulled back his hand, and wriggled in his seat in an effort to make eye contact. She would not cooperate, and covered her face with her hands.

  “All right,” she said into her palms, sounding muffled.

  The Police Chief chuckled, a soft laughter that echoed faintly off the concrete walls.

  “Have you ever admitted that you’re not doing fine?” he asked. “Have you ever answered, for example, ‘No, at this point I’m feeling really awful’?”

  Hanne did not reply, but she did at least remove her hands and force some kind of smile. They sat in prolonged silence.

  “My boy died,” Hans Christian Mykland said suddenly. “My eldest son. He died four years ago. I thought I would die too. Quite literally. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t eat. When I cast my mind back to the months after Simen’s death, I don’t really think I felt so very much, either. I spent most of my time concentrating on …”

  He laughed softly again, and Hanne looked at him at last.

  “I focused on my skin,” he said.

  “Your kin?” Hanne asked, clearing her throat.

  “No. My skin. I went around trying to touch the limits of my own being. Take hold of it, I mean. It was quite fascinating. I could lie all night long, probing it piece by piece, centimeter by centimeter. I expect I had some kind of need to—”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen shuddered, and he stopped.

  “Strange, you saying that,” she murmured. “I know what you mean.”

  The hospital porter parked a bed directly in front of them. An old woman was lying asleep in the midst of all the snowy whiteness, a cannula firmly taped to her skinny hand with its large, prominent veins. Saline fluid dripped from a transparent plastic bag down into the woman’s arm. Her eyes fluttered open when the bed came to a halt. Hanne thought for an instant that she could detect a smile meant only for her.

  She was so beautiful.

  Hanne Wilhelmsen could not take her eyes off her. The woman’s hair was brilliant white and pulled back from her narrow face. She had high cheekbones, and in the almost imperceptible moment when she may have smiled and had certainly opened her eyes, Hanne noted that her eyes were a paler blue than any she had seen before. The skin stretched across her facial features seemed so soft that Hanne felt an urge to stand up and stroke her cheek.

  She did so.

  The woman opened her eyes again, properly this time, before raising her free hand and placing it carefully on top of Hanne’s. The porter returned.

  “And then there were the two of us,” he said, mostly to himself.

  Hanne remained on her feet, watching the bed until it disappeared around a corner twenty meters further down the corridor.

  “How did you know I was here?” she asked in an undertone, without resuming her seat. “Why are you here?”

  “Sit down,” Mykland said.

  She ignored his instruction.

  “Sit down,” he repeated, this time in a harsher voice.

  He was her superior officer. She sat down, still without looking at him.

  “You can take compassionate leave,” he said. “It is hereby granted. For as long as you want. You—”

  He checked himself, and Hanne completed the sentence for him.

  “Deserve it,” she spat out. “I deserve it. Do you have any idea how bloody sick I am of always hearing that I deserve some time off? Isn’t that just a pretty euphemism for you all deserving some time off from me?”

  “Now you’re being paranoid, Hanne.”

  His voice sounded dejected as he continued. “Can’t you simply accept that people think you’re smart? And that’s the sum total. And that people in the police station—”

  “The district,” she interrupted crossly.

  “… that people think it’s only ri
ght that you take a few days off in this situation?”

  Hanne inhaled sharply, as if she wanted to say something. But she held her breath, shaking her head.

  “You have a gigantic communication problem,” he said quietly. “You should know that you’re the very first colleague I’ve mentioned my son’s death to. You gave me no response whatsoever. I can live with that. Can you?”

  “Sorry,” Hanne mumbled. “I’m really sorry. But I’d really prefer to be left alone.”

  “No.”

  He put his hand on her thigh again. Now, feeling nothing but disgust at his touch, she stiffened.

  “That’s not what you want,” Mykland continued. “What you want most of all is for someone to talk to you. Listen to you. Get you to talk. That’s what I’m trying to do. I haven’t had much success.”

  The hospital smell suddenly became overwhelming. Hanne Wilhelmsen’s body tensed even further; there was a pain in her thigh, and she did her utmost to stretch it to make the man remove his hand. A wave of nausea coursed through her, and she swallowed only with difficulty.

  “I want to work,” she said through gritted teeth. “All I want is to be left in peace and allowed to get on with my job. I have …” She stood up abruptly, and stood facing him as she counted on her fingers and hissed, “… a knife killing. A bar fight. A racially motivated attack. And on top of all that, the case of a decapitated woman that I don’t have a clue about. Have you any idea how much we have to do in the department? Have you any idea about me and what is best for Hanne Wilhelmsen personally at this very minute?”

  When she spoke her name, she tapped her right forefinger on her chest so hard that it hurt.

  “No. You’ve no idea. I on the other hand, I know that all I can do as things stand just now is get on with my job! Cope with my job. Can you understand that?”

  The words reverberated off the walls. A Pakistani couple sitting ten meters along the corridor turned inquisitively in their direction. A male nurse slowed down and looked as if he intended to stop and ask if he could be of assistance. When he met Hanne Wilhelmsen’s gaze, he decided to mind his own business and picked up speed again.

  “Do you believe in God, Hanne?”

  “Huh!” She slapped herself on the forehead in an exaggerated, mocking gesture. “That’s why you came. A little missionary expedition to Ullevål to save Hanne Wilhelmsen’s lost soul. No. I don’t believe in God. And he doesn’t particularly believe in me either.”

  For lack of anything better to do, she began to walk. The Chief of Police stood up slowly and followed her.

  “You’re wrong,” he said almost inaudibly behind her back. “I was just interested.”

  She increased her pace but did not really know where she was headed. When she finally reached the end of the corridor, she turned on her heel and made an attempt to retrace her steps. The Chief of Police stopped her.

  “I won’t bother you any longer. I only came to talk to you. To show you that I care. I imagined, wrongly, perhaps …” A self-conscious smile spread over his face. “… that I know something about how you’re feeling. But you don’t know me. This was an effort to put that right. For what it’s worth, I’m all ears if you should change your mind. You should at least talk to Billy T..”

  Hanne made another attempt to walk past him, but did not succeed.

  “That guy is as fond of you as it’s possible for someone who’s not a relative to be,” Mykland commented. “You must see that. And value it. Maybe even make use of it. Now I’ll be on my way.”

  His hand just brushed her shoulder as he let her go. He stood there, following her with his eyes.

  “Billy T.,” Hanne muttered contemptuously, rummaging furiously in her bag for the second-rate crime novel.

  When she looked up, the Police Chief was gone. The Pakistani couple had been joined by a small child, who was clambering on two vacant beds placed against the wall opposite. Hanne Wilhelmsen struggled to make sense of the emotion she experienced when she realized that Mykland had not actually pursued her. Most of all it felt like disappointment.

  26

  The Chief Editor of Aftenposten was one of those people who rejoiced in the myriad opportunities made possible by technology. As early as 1984, she had invested in her first computer – a so-called portable machine from Toshiba. It would be more accurate to call it transportable than actually portable, and it had cost more than sixty thousand kroner. As soon as something called the Internet came into existence, she had arranged to get connected. She was so early on the scene that there was hardly anyone to send emails to.

  Now she received over a hundred emails a day. She had repeatedly tried to persuade her contacts – and not least her staff – to rank their communications according to how urgent they were. A flag or an exclamation mark, it was all the same to her, but the workday would be considerably improved if people were more disciplined about clarifying the contents of their emails.

  Almost in a dream, she sat going through that morning’s inbox. She had just discovered a ladder in the left leg of her tights, but the third desk drawer from the top, where she usually had several spare pairs, was empty. She tugged distractedly at the hem of her skirt, making rapid keystrokes as she worked her way through the list without really doing any more than skimming the majority of them.

  One message made her stop in her tracks. The subject box stated “You should be concerned”. The email was short: “You ought to investigate what is wrong with Evald Bromo. He has been upset about something lately. As his Chief Editor, you should ask him whether something is bothering him.”

  She read the message twice before shrugging and clicking the inbox closed. Then she looked at the clock. She was ten minutes late for a meeting.

  On her way out of the office, she twisted around to check her tights. The nail varnish had not succeeded in stopping the ladder, and now it had widened and run all the way down to her high-heeled black shoes. She suppressed a colorful oath.

  As far as she was aware, there was nothing the matter with Evald Bromo.

  27

  “IKEA,” Billy T. said derisively, scanning the room. “This is quite different from your old office at Aker Brygge!”

  He sat down warily in the vacant chair, as if not entirely sure whether it would bear his weight. Then he produced a half-liter plastic bottle of cola from the pocket of his voluminous jacket.

  “But very comfortable,” he slurped, holding out the bottle to Karen Borg. “Do you want some?”

  “No thanks.”

  She swiveled from side to side in her wide office chair as she sipped at a cup of tea. Since she had resigned from a renowned commercial-law practice with a fashionable address and expensive furnishings from Expo-Nova in order to start out on her own without any help other than a secretary obtained through a public agency, she had not touched coffee. There was a certain symbolism about it all. At Aker Brygge, everyone drank cappuccinos. Here, in this bright, personal room with green pot plants and a portfolio as diverse as a general store, it had to be tea.

  “Sad about Cecilie,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “Really dreadful. I just wish I had known about this earlier.”

  “It wouldn’t have been any use,” Billy T. replied, yawning. “It’s totally impossible to speak to Hanne. Besides, she didn’t know about it herself until Monday. I spoke to Cecilie by phone yesterday. She is having surgery …” He fished out a pocket watch and squinted at the hands on the dial. “… right now.”

  They fell silent. Billy T. noticed a faint scent of vanilla and leaned over to the cup Karen Borg was holding between her hands. He smiled feebly and glanced out the window, where a man was standing in a cradle wiping a dirty cloth over the glass. He waved his squeegee cheerfully at Billy T. and dropped his cleaning rag in his haste. It did not faze him, and he pulled out a new cloth from a bucket of water that should have been replenished three stories earlier.

  “How serious is it really?” Karen eventually asked, putting her cup as
ide.

  “They’ll know that today, as far as I understand. But don’t phone Hanne. She should be locked in a cage. Dangerous to approach right now. She’ll more than likely bite your ear off.”

  The window cleaner was finished and waved goodbye politely as he was hoisted up to the next floor. His work had hardly been worth the effort, since he’d left streaks of dirt like prison bars across the glass.

  “Muffin bag,” Billy T. said suddenly, placing a folder with a pink cover on Karen’s desk.

  “What?”

  “The money was wrapped in a muffin bag from Hansen the baker’s. Five fingerprints. Two are unidentified. The other three belong to Halvorsrud. So it wasn’t very smart of the guy to deny any knowledge of the cash.”

  “Having his hands on a bag of muffins hardly proves anything,” Karen Borg said tersely. “Did you find any prints on the money?”

  “Yes. Lots of different ones. None identified. But they were all used notes, so that in itself isn’t so strange.”

  He spent some time rubbing his scalp vigorously with his knuckles. A cloud of dry skin flakes momentarily encircled his head like a halo in the light from outside.

  “It’s not my job to give advice to your client,” he said, picking up the cola bottle again. “But wouldn’t it be an idea to provide an explanation that’s a little more credible? Everything, absolutely everything, points to him having killed his wife. Couldn’t he mention something about sudden madness, say that something snapped in him when she wanted a divorce or something like that? Then he’ll get ten years in jail, out after six. More or less. And make it to his daughter’s wedding, at least.”

  “But he didn’t do it,” Karen Borg remarked, yet again turning down the offer of some lukewarm cola. “It’s as simple as that. That’s the way he sees it. And that’s what I must respond to. And there’s one thing I don’t know if you’ve considered.”

  Billy T.’s eyes opened wide in a shocked grimace, as if the mere idea that something in this case had not been carefully mulled over and analyzed by the police was outrageous.