by Anne Holt
This evening she had not accompanied him.
She had gone to bed early, and he had taken his evening stroll extremely late. It was almost a quarter past midnight when he shook the dirt and gravel off his shoes and closed the door behind him, having been out walking for more than half an hour. The house was silent. Only the massive grandfather clock in the hallway was ticking sluggishly; the beats, combined with the sound of his own pulse in his eardrums, caused him to hold his breath momentarily before twisting out of his jacket and heading for the living room.
The polar-bear-skin rug had been removed long ago.
The parquet flooring was paler where the rug had been; it had left an outline, a bulky blob with arms, legs and head. In the faint glimmer from the floor lamp beside the settee, the impression was reminiscent of a dead body. Halvorsrud dimmed the light and turned away. He sat down in an armchair beside the window and remained there, not entirely sure whether he had nodded off, until he was satisfied that all the children were asleep, at about half past one.
Then he let himself out again.
He had not noticed any police presence earlier that night. He had been extra cautious, keeping his eyes peeled. The Easter holidays had begun, and the police force might be short of staff too. In any case, the street was totally deserted. Pettersen’s garage was still out of commission and his vehicles were parked on the road. Apart from that, there was not a single car in the vicinity. Sigurd Halvorsrud sat behind the wheel and began to drive in the direction of Oslo city center.
He thought himself unseen, but he was mistaken.
61
Cecilie was a lot better. In the car on Route E18 she had sung along loudly to a CD of old Cat Stevens songs and in between had talked non-stop. They had taken a break to fill up with gasoline at the strange new roundabout directly south of Holmestrand, and Cecilie had bought ice cream and managed to eat it without feeling sick. When Hanne swung onto the final stretch leading down to Karen Borg’s cottage – built on the ruins of the original one, following a fierce fire at the beginning of the nineties that had almost cost Karen her life – Cecilie could hardly wait.
“I’m so looking forward to it,” she said aloud. “It’ll be so lovely to start spring beside the sea!”
She laughed as Hanne had forgotten she could laugh. Hanne swallowed the last remnants of her reluctance and felt happy she had agreed to come. She was still furious at Karen, but she decided to let it drop when she saw her waving frantically from the terrace. Hanne drove in underneath an old pine tree and parked.
“Silie, Siiiilie!” Hans Wilhelm yelled. He stormed over toward Cecilie as she stepped out of the vehicle, then came to a sudden halt two meters away and held out a grubby hand.
“You’re very sick, Silie. You can’t put up with much. Daddy has a big secret.”
He bowed. Cecilie laughed and rumpled his hair. Hanne lifted up Liv, who had come toddling after her brother with what looked like a dead cat tucked under her arm.
“Pussycat,” the two-year-old said proudly, holding the limp soft toy up to Hanne. “Hanne cuddle Pussycat.”
Hanne gave Pussycat a hug. Håkon came down to the parking area to help with their luggage. Hans Wilhelm forgot all the admonitions and hung onto Cecilie like a horsefly, making a fuss about a secret he was not allowed to talk about but that was big and red and really cool. The sky was only lightly overcast and looked promising, and the temperature had climbed sufficiently for them to sit outside by the south-facing wall to have coffee and waffles. Karen had understood Hanne’s offer of a truce when they’d first exchanged looks. On the Skagerrak, the sea was churning white, and the wind was veering in a northeasterly direction as the afternoon drew in.
“When are you going to show it off?” Karen eventually said, nodding at Håkon over a glass of Farris mineral water.
Standing up abruptly, Håkon Sand flung out his arms demonstratively and roared at the sea. “NOW!”
“Now! Now!” Hans Wilhelm yelled, charging inside through the verandah doorway.
They could hear feet tramping down the stairs to the basement and the outside door down there slamming behind him.
“Come on,” Håkon said to Hanne. “You’re coming to see something.”
“I’ll stay here,” Cecilie said with a smile, drawing the blanket more snugly around her when Hanne looked at her quizzically. “I’m fine right here.”
There was a motorcycle inside the garage.
A Yamaha Diversion 900 cc, bright red with a half fairing.
“Eh?”
As far as Hanne was aware, Håkon had sat on a motorbike only once before in all his life. That was as a pillion passenger on a bike she had stolen and ridden because they had had to reach the cottage that had stood here previously that same evening, before it burnt to the ground. The trip had been extremely dangerous, wet and freezing cold, and Håkon had later sworn that nothing would persuade him on to anything with two wheels and an engine ever again.
“That can’t be yours,” she said doubtfully, gazing at Håkon.
“Yeees!” Hans Wilhelm screamed, climbing quick as a flash onto the seat.
“Ooops,” Hanne said, lifting him down again. “We need to put it onto the center stand first. Never leave it resting on the side stand, Håkon. It might topple.”
With well-practiced movements, she heaved the motorbike onto the two-legged stand in front of the rear wheel. Then she placed Hans Wilhelm on the seat and pulled the helmet hanging on the handlebars onto his head.
“Like so,” she said, knocking on the helmet. “Now you look fantastic.”
“The bike, then,” Håkon mumbled, scratching himself on the belly. “What do you think of it?”
Hanne did not answer. She circled the crimson machine twice, patted the gasoline tank, hunkered down and studied the engine, and ran her fingers lightly over the leather seat behind the little boy who was broom-brooming and roaring, obviously taking part in an important race.
“Beautiful color.” She nodded and put her hands on the side. “Red. Lovely.”
Håkon wrinkled his nose.
“But have you applied for …” Hanne went on. “Have you really got a license for such a heavy bike?’
“Yep. Four weeks ago. Then I bought this last week.”
He was smiling broadly into his holiday beard. His upper lip was full of snuff, and the juice was running blackly between his front teeth.
“And you had the guts to do that,” Hanne said distractedly.
Håkon removed the helmet from Hans Wilhelm, lifted the boy off the bike and slapped him fondly on the backside.
“Pop up and see Mummy and tell her I said you could have a cola.”
The boy tore out of the garage.
“It was just something I had to do,” Håkon said slowly. “Call it a boy’s toy if you like. Call it a middle-aged crisis if you want. Call it whatever you bloody well like, but there was something about not daring to do it. I wanted to do it. To dare to do it. First of all it was important to get the license. Then it became important to buy the bike.”
Hanne raised her leg and sat astride the motorbike.
“It must be bloody easy to ride,” she said tersely, rocking a little on the seat. “Low center of gravity and childlike sitting position.”
“Try it out, then.”
Håkon felt miffed. Hurt, even. He wanted to leave. He had looked forward to this. When he’d bought the bike, he’d done so because of other people. So that everyone around him would admire him. So that Hans Wilhelm would have something to boast about. So that Karen would shake her head and roll her eyes and call him macho-man. So that his colleagues would gaze lingeringly after him as he whizzed home in his multicolored leather suit and red helmet. And so that Hanne would be impressed. At the very beginning, before the first, wobbling trips around the parking lot at the Munch Museum on the driving-school’s motorbike, he’d thought he was doing this for himself. But he was scared. He was scared every time he sat on the frightening,
noisy monster. He was never in full control, and every single trip was a sweaty and pressured experience it took him half an hour to recover from. Håkon Sand had taken some time to admit the truth to himself, and thought he would never confess it to anyone else: he had wasted more than a hundred thousand kroner in order to make an impression. But Hanne did not like the motorbike. Håkon had been looking forward to this scenario for an entire week, but she did not even like his new bike.
“Nice for a Japanese bike,” she said in a conciliatory tone. “A very good bike for someone who can’t tinker with it. Safe and good and easy to ride.”
“Have a test ride,” he repeated. “Here. You can borrow my suit. Have you got your own bike out again yet? For spring?’
She hesitatingly accepted the leather suit. Holding it up in front of herself, she shook her head.
“It’s far too big for me,” she said. “And no. The Harley’s in storage. Waiting for a new exhaust. Anyway, I’ve not had a minute to spare. For the third …”
She held the suit up against her body and stared down at her frame. “Besides, I’m going to sell it.”
“Sell it? Why on earth? You’re practically attached to that Harley for the entire six months of summer!”
“Exactly,” she said curtly. “Time to grow up.”
Håkon spat his snuff out onto the concrete garage floor, and she rushed to add, “I don’t mean that you’re childish, by the way. To be honest, I think it’s really impressive that you’ve managed it. I remember how frightened you were when …”
She laughed loudly and slipped off her training shoes.
“You nearly fainted from fright when we stole that motorbike to get here in time that night. But then you stormed into a burning building to rescue Karen. You’re brave about the important things, Håkon. You’re not like most other men. You’re not the show-off type. You’re kind and faithful and wise. Karen doesn’t know how lucky she is.”
She tenderly stroked the stubble on his face. Her hand rested on his cheek, and she stretched up on tiptoe to brush her lips gently on his forehead.
“I mean it,” she said, gazing into his eyes for a few seconds before starting to step into the suit that was far too big for her. “I’ve never thanked you for coming that evening. And the following Sunday. I’m not going to either. You’re kind, Håkon. Really, truly kind. And then you’ve put on such a lot of bloody weight since you’ve had children.”
She tugged at the green-and-gray leather that puffed out around her stomach, and pulled up the zipper.
“Look at me! A multicolored monster! Why didn’t you buy a black suit?”
Håkon sat down on an old saw bench. The garage showed signs of having survived the fire almost seven years earlier, standing as it did fifty meters away from the cottage. Admittedly, it had been freshly painted in the same shade of red as the cottage, but the interior stank of gasoline and oil, damp and stuffy. Someone years ago had tried to create a system for storing garden tools, implements and bicycles on the walls. Now the nails were bent, and the outlines painted on the fiberboard to ensure that items were suspended in the right places had almost disappeared. At the farthest end, on the gable wall, an ancient hammock was hanging low, its fabric ripped.
“I have done all this to impress,” he muttered. “Just to impress.”
Hanne was taken aback. She sat down beside him on the saw bench with the helmet on her knee.
“What do you mean?” she asked, stroking her hair back from her forehead.
“I just wanted to make an impression. That was why I took the test. And bought this damn bike.”
He kicked out in the direction of the motorcycle without saying any more.
“I’m tempted to laugh,” Hanne said.
“I’m sure you are.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“Just go ahead and laugh. I deserve it.”
Her laughter ricocheted off the walls and Håkon rubbed his face.
“I’m fucking petrified every time I ride it,” he said with feeling. “You should have seen me on the trip down here. I took four hours from Oslo. Blamed it on the traffic. Actually I was sitting in every second roadside café trying to pluck up the courage to continue. Now I don’t quite know how I’m going to get myself out of this.”
He got to his feet. Hans Wilhelm had come back and was sucking on a half-liter bottle of cola with a straw.
“Are you going to try it?” the boy slurped.
“Yes. I think I will go for a spin. This will be the first one this year.”
“Can I come with you?”
“Sorry. You’ll have to wait a couple of years or so.”
Hanne laced up her training shoes again before slipping the helmet over her head and lifting the visor. She switched on the ignition.
“I won’t be long. An hour or so. When’s dinner?”
“Late,” Håkon said, patting the luggage carrier. “We’ll wait until the children have gone to bed. Have a really good trip.”
When he saw how she accelerated out of the garage and maneuvered the motorbike over the loose gravel in the courtyard outside, he realized he was never going to master his new Yamaha Diversion.
“I want to come with you,” Hans Wilhelm whined. “I never get to come along.”
“Come on, let’s play Nintendo,” his father comforted him.
In the far distance they could both hear the dwindling noise of a powerful motorbike. The temperature had started to drop. The swallows were flying low above the tops of the pine trees, and there was a scent of rain in the air.
It would be best to close the garage doors.
62
Ole Monrad Karlsen opened the door a crack, without removing the security chain.
He had been sitting there at his leisure on Good Friday, reading the Monday edition of Østlands-Posten, the only newspaper Karlsen had any time for. The Oslo newspapers were so full of murder and sex. In the Østlands-Posten, which he had subscribed to since he had married and it became clear that Klara did not want to move to Larvik, he could follow all the goings-on, big and small, in his hometown. Admittedly, he’d been very young when he’d signed on as a seaman before the war and moved out of his parents’ little house in Torstrand, in Reipmakergata just beside the Fram stadium, but he had always longed to return home. Continually. After Klara died, he had considered moving south again. His sister had invited him to move in with her. She had been recently widowed herself, and would appreciate the company. The nagging had continued for months. She still asked quite frequently, in her letters, which arrived monthly, and her sporadic phone calls. Karlsen’s brother-in-law had been an engineer with the local council, and his sister had been left on her own in an enormous villa in Greveveien. He was given to understand it was empty and gloomy. The idea of moving was tempting, naturally, but then there was this caretaker’s job. And the apartment. It was as though Klara’s presence still permeated the walls: this was the apartment he and Klara had shared, and that memory belonged to them. He would stay there until he had to be carried out feet-first.
Then the doorbell had rung, several times.
Ole Monrad Karlsen was extremely vexed at being disturbed but shuffled reluctantly in his slippers to the door.
“What is it?” he asked brusquely with one eye peering through the chink.
The man outside was fairly tall, wearing a gray overcoat and most certainly did not belong here at Vogts gate 14.
“Are you from the police again?” Karlsen asked gruffly. “I’ve nothing more to say about Ståle. If he’s dead, then he’s dead. Not much I can do about it.”
“I’m not from the police,” the man said. “I just have a couple of questions about something that happened here last night.”
Karlsen immediately stiffened and pushed the door to so that the chink measured only five or six centimeters.
“What about it?” he grunted.
“I was walking home about two o’clock last night. I live right down the street here
, you see. I’d been at a party up at … Could I come in?”
The stranger took a tentative step toward the door. Ole Monrad Karlsen did not react.
“Well,” the man said, running a skinny finger over his bottom lip. “So I was walking past the block here, and I saw something that looked like …”
He placed the flat of his hand on the doorframe and moved his face close to Karlsen’s.
“It really would be much better if you’d let me come in,” he said. “Or if you could open the door at least. It’s a bit annoying to stand here making conversation without being able to see you properly.”
Karlsen was in two minds. Perhaps he ought to have called the police last night, after all. God only knew what this guy might get up to if he didn’t take the time to talk to him.
“Wait a minute,” he said grumpily. He closed the door and removed the metal chain.
He opened up again, a wider gap this time, but did not let go of the door handle.
“That’s better,” the man said cheerfully.
He reminded him of someone. Karlsen thought he might have seen him before. If he was from the neighborhood as he claimed, then that could be it.
“It looked as though a man was trying to break in at the main door down here,” the stranger continued, pointing down the corridor. “I called the police from my cell phone, but I didn’t have time to wait. The reason I’m bothering you at the minute is just that I’d like to know if they ever turned up. The police, I mean. Did they come?”
Karlsen grudgingly let go of the door and rubbed his hand over his sore shoulder. He should have phoned the police himself. The burglar in the basement last night had come straight at him. Karlsen had been woken by strange sounds in the apartment block. With an iron rake in his hand, he had approached the basement door, noticing it was ajar and banging on its hinges. The guy had rushed headlong at Karlsen before he’d had time to collect himself, running as if the Devil himself was at his heels. He had struck Karlsen on the left side and nearly sent him flying. When the thug had disappeared and he had found nothing missing from the basement, Karlsen had thought it not worth the bother of alerting the police.