by Jo Nesbo
Helga drove to Schrøder’s with Harry and Oleg. Nina had laid a long table for them.
A dozen people showed up, and Harry was sitting hunched over his coffee listening to the sound of the others talking when someone put a hand on his back. It was Bjørn.
“I don’t suppose people usually give presents at funerals.” He handed Harry a flat, rectangular parcel. “But this has helped me through some rough times.”
“Thanks, Bjørn.” Harry turned the present over. It wasn’t hard to guess what it was. “By the way, there’s something I meant to ask you.”
“Oh?”
“Sung-min Larsen didn’t ask me about the wildlife camera when he interviewed me. Which means you didn’t mention it when they spoke to you.”
“He didn’t ask. And I thought it was up to you to mention it if you thought it was relevant.”
“Mm. Really?”
“If you didn’t tell them about it either, then it strikes me that it can’t be that relevant.”
“You didn’t say anything because you’ve figured out that I’m planning to go after Finne without Kripos or anyone else getting involved?”
“I didn’t hear that, and if I did, I wouldn’t have a clue what you were talking about.”
“Thanks, Bjørn. One more thing: what do you know about Roar Bohr?”
“Bohr? Only that he’s the guy in charge where Rakel worked. Something to do with human rights, isn’t it?”
“The National Human Rights Institution.”
“That’s it. It was Bohr who called to say they were worried when Rakel didn’t show up for work.”
“Mm.” Harry glanced over at the door when it swung open. And instantly forgot whatever follow-up question he had been thinking of asking Bjørn. It was her, the woman who had been talking to Bohr with her back to Harry. She stopped and looked around tentatively. She hadn’t changed much. That face with its high cheekbones, prominent, jet-black eyebrows above almost childishly large green eyes, her honey-brown hair, full lips and slightly wide mouth.
Her gaze finally found Harry and she lit up.
“Kaja!” he heard Gunnar Hagen exclaim. “Come and sit down!”
The Police Chief pulled out a chair.
The woman by the door smiled at Hagen and indicated that she wanted to say hello to Harry first.
The skin of her hand felt just as soft as he remembered.
“My condolences. I really do feel for you, Harry.”
Her voice too.
“Thanks. This is Oleg. And his girlfriend, Helga. This is Kaja Solness, an old colleague.”
They all shook hands.
“So you’re back,” Harry said.
“Not for long.”
“Mm.” He tried to think of something to say. Found nothing.
She put a feather-light hand on his arm. “You carry on, and I’ll go and talk to Gunnar and the others.”
Harry nodded and watched as her long legs wove their way between the chairs to the other end of the table.
Oleg leaned closer to him. “Who’s she? Apart from an old colleague?”
“Long story.”
“So I saw. What’s the short version?”
Harry took a sip of coffee. “That I once let her go in favour of your mother.”
* * *
—
It was three o’clock when the first of the final three guests, Øystein, stood up, misquoted a Bob Dylan lyric in parting and left.
One of the two remaining guests moved to the chair next to Harry’s.
“Haven’t you got a job to go to?” Kaja asked.
“Not tomorrow either. Suspended until further notice. You?”
“I’m on standby for the Red Cross. I mean, I’m getting paid, but right now I’m just waiting at home for shit to kick off somewhere in the world.”
“Which it will, of course?”
“Which it will. When you look at it like that, it’s a bit like working in Crime Squad. You go around almost hoping that something terrible is going to happen.”
“Mm. The Red Cross. That’s a bit of a leap from Crime Squad.”
“Yes and no. I’m in charge of security. My last deployment was two years in Afghanistan.”
“And before that?”
“Another two years. In Afghanistan.” She smiled, revealing her small, pointed teeth, the imperfect feature that made her face interesting.
“What’s so good about Afghanistan?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “To start with it was probably just the fact that you were confronted with problems so big that your own personal problems seemed small. And that you could be useful. And then you get to like the people you meet and work with.”
“Like Roar Bohr?”
“Yes. Did he tell you he was in Afghanistan?”
“No, but he looked like a soldier who doesn’t want to step on any mines. Was he in Special Forces?”
Kaja looked at him thoughtfully. The pupils in the centre of those green irises were large. They didn’t waste energy on the lighting in Schrøder’s.
“Confidential?” Harry asked.
She shrugged again. “Yes, Bohr was a lieutenant colonel in the Special Operations Forces. He was one of the team sent to Kabul with a list of Taliban terrorists that the ISAF wanted taken out.”
“Mm. A desk jockey, or did he shoot the jihadists himself?”
“We both took part in security meetings at the Norwegian Embassy, but I was never told any details. All I know is that Roar and his sister were both shooting champions in Vest-Agder.”
“And he dealt with the list?”
“I assume so. You’re pretty similar, you and Bohr. You don’t give up until you’ve got the people you’re after.”
“If Bohr was so good at the job, why did he leave and start working with human rights?”
She raised an eyebrow. As if to ask why he was so interested in Bohr. But she seemed to conclude that he just needed to talk about something different—anything, as long as it wasn’t Rakel, himself, the current situation.
“ISAF was replaced by Resolute Support, which meant a transition from so-called peacekeeping to non-combat operations. So they were no longer allowed to shoot. Besides, his wife wanted him home. She couldn’t handle being left on her own with two children any longer. A Norwegian officer with ambitions to become a general needs to have completed at least one tour in Afghanistan, so when Roar requested a transfer, he knew he was effectively ruling himself out of a senior position. And it probably just wasn’t as enjoyable anymore. Besides, people with his leadership experience are highly sought-after in other branches.”
“But to go from shooting people to human rights?”
“What do you think he was fighting for in Afghanistan?”
“Mm. An idealist and a family man, then.”
“Roar is a man who believes in things. And who’s prepared to make sacrifices for the people he loves. Like you did.” She pulled a face. A fleeting, painful smile. She buttoned her coat. “That’s worth respect, Harry.”
“Mm. You think I sacrificed something back then?”
“We like to think we’re rational, but we always follow the diktat of our hearts, don’t we?” She pulled out a business card from her bag and laid it down on the table in front of him. “I still live in the same place. If you need someone to talk to, I know a bit about loss and longing.”
* * *
—
The sun had slipped down behind the ridge, colouring the sky orange, when Harry let himself into the wooden house. Oleg was on his way back to Lakselv and had given him the keys so that he could let an estate agent in once a week. Harry had asked Oleg to think about whether he really wanted to sell the house, if it wouldn’t be useful to come back to when he’d completed his year on placement. Somew
here for him and Helga, possibly. Oleg promised to think it through carefully, but it sounded like he’d made his mind up.
The crime-scene investigators had finished their work, and had cleaned up after themselves. That’s to say: the pool of blood was gone, but not the classic chalk outline showing where the body had been lying. Harry could imagine the estate agent anxiously trying to find a tactful way to suggest that the chalk should be removed before the first viewing.
Harry went over to the kitchen window and watched the sky grow pale as the glow disappeared. Darkness took over. He had been sober for twenty-eight hours, and Rakel had been dead for at least 141.
He walked across the floor and stood above the outline. He knelt down. Ran his fingertips over the rough wooden floor. He lay on the floor, crawled inside the lines, and curled up into the same fetal position, trying to stay within the white lines. And then, at last, he started to cry. But there were no tears at first, just hoarse wails that started in his chest, grew and forced their way out through his too-narrow throat before finally filling the room, sounding like a man who was struggling to stay alive. When he stopped screaming, he rolled onto his back to catch his breath. And then the tears came. And through the tears, swimming forward as if in a dream, he saw the crystal chandelier directly above him. And saw that the crystals formed the letter S.
14
The birds were singing with joy in Lyder Sagens gate.
Possibly because it was nine o’clock in the morning and nothing had spoiled the day yet. Possibly because the sun was shining and it looked like it was going to be the perfect start to what was forecast to be a warm weekend. Or possibly because the birds in Lyder Sagens gate were happier than in the rest of the world. Because even in a country that regularly topped the statistics of the happiest countries in the world, this not particularly striking street named after a teacher from Bergen was a particular high point: 470 metres of happiness, free not only from financial worries, but also from exaggerated materialism, with solid, unfussy villas and large but not excessively neat gardens, where children’s toys lay scattered with a charm that left no doubt as to the families’ priorities. Bohemian, but with a new Audi, though not one of the flashy ones, in a garage full of old, heavy and delightfully impractical garden furniture made of well-seasoned wood. Lyder Sagens gate may have been one of the most expensive streets in the country, but its ideal resident seemed to be an artist who had inherited the house from their grandmother. Either way, the residents largely appeared to be good social democrats who believed in sustainable development and had values as solid as the outsized wooden beams that jutted out here and there from their old-fashioned houses.
Harry pushed the gate open and the creak sounded like an echo from the past. Everything seemed the same as before. The creak of the steps that led up to the door. The bell with no nameplate. The man’s shoes, size forty-six, that Kaja Solness left outside to deter burglars and other unwelcome visitors.
Kaja opened the door, brushed a sun-bleached strand of hair from her face and folded her arms.
Even the woolly cardigan that was too big for her and the shabby felt slippers were the same.
“Harry,” she stated.
“You live within walking distance of my flat, so I thought I’d try calling round instead of ringing.”
“What?” She tilted her head to one side.
“That’s what I said the first time I rang your doorbell.”
“How can you remember that?”
Because I spent a very long time thinking about what to say and practising it, Harry thought, and smiled. “Memory like an elephant. Can I come in?”
He saw a hint of hesitation in her eyes, and it struck him that it hadn’t even occurred to him that she might have someone. A partner. A lover. Or some other reason to keep him on the other side of the threshold.
“If I’m not disturbing you, I mean?”
“Er, no, it…it’s just a bit of a surprise.”
“I could come back another time.”
“No. No, goodness, I said you could come anytime.” She stepped aside.
* * *
—
Kaja put a cup of steaming tea on the coffee table in front of Harry and sat down on the sofa, tucking her long legs beneath her. Harry looked at the book that lay open, spine up. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. He remembered something about a young woman who fell in love with a gloomy loner who was separated but who turned out to have his wife locked up in the attic.
“They’re not letting me investigate the murder,” he said. “Even though I’ve been ruled out as a suspect.”
“That’s standard procedure in cases like this, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know if there’s a set procedure for murder detectives whose wives have been murdered. And I know who did it.”
“You know?”
“I’m pretty certain.”
“Evidence?”
“Gut feeling.”
“Like everyone else who has ever worked with you, I have the greatest respect for your gut feeling, Harry, but are you sure it’s reliable when it comes to your own wife?”
“It isn’t just my gut. I’ve ruled out the other possibilities.”
“All of them?” Kaja was holding her cup without drinking it, as if she had made the tea mostly to warm her hands up. “I seem to remember having a mentor called Harry who told me that there are always other possibilities, that conclusions based on deduction have an undeserved good reputation.”
“Rakel had no enemies apart from this one. Who wasn’t actually hers, he’s my enemy. His name is Svein Finne. Also known as the Fiancé.”
“Who’s he?”
“A rapist and murderer. He’s called the Fiancé because he impregnates his victims and kills them if they don’t give birth to his child. I was a young murder detective, and I worked day and night to catch him. He was my first. And I laughed with joy when I put the cuffs on him.” Harry looked down at his hands. “That was probably the last time I felt so happy when I arrested someone.”
“Oh? Why?”
Harry’s eyes wandered across the beautiful, old, floral-patterned wallpaper.
“There are probably several reasons, and my self-awareness is pretty limited. But one reason is that as soon as Finne had finished his sentence, he raped a nineteen-year-old girl and threatened to kill her if she had an abortion. She had one anyway. A week later she was found lying on her stomach on a forest track in Linnerud. Blood everywhere, they were sure she was dead. But when they turned her over they heard a sound, a babyish voice saying ‘mama.’ They got her to hospital, and she survived. It wasn’t the girl talking. Finne had cut her open, inserted a battery-operated talking doll, and sewn her up again.”
Kaja gasped for breath. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m a bit out of practice.”
Harry nodded. “So I caught him again. I set a trap and caught him with his trousers down. Literally. There’s a photograph. Bright flash, slightly overexposed. Apart from the humiliation, I have personally been responsible for the fact that Svein Finne, the Fiancé, has spent twenty of his seventy-plus years behind bars. Among other things, for a murder he says he didn’t commit. So there’s the motive. That’s the reason for my gut feeling. Can we go out onto the terrace for a cigarette?”
They got their coats and sat down on the large, covered terrace that looked out onto a garden full of bare apple trees. Harry glanced up at the windows of the first floor in the neighbouring house on Lyder Sagens gate. There were no lights on in any of them.
“Your neighbour,” Harry said as he took out his cigarette packet. “Has he stopped watching over you?”
“Greger turned ninety a couple of years ago. He died last year,” Kaja sighed.
“So now you have to take care of yourself?”
She shrugged. There was a rhythm in the movement, like a dance
. “I have a feeling someone’s always watching over me.”
“Have you got religious?”
“No. Can I have a cigarette?”
Harry looked at her. She was sitting on her hands. The way he remembered her doing because she got cold so quickly.
“You know we sat right here doing this years ago? Seven years? Eight?”
“Yes,” she said. “I remember.” She pulled one hand out from beneath her. Held the cigarette between her index and middle fingers as she let Harry light it. She inhaled and breathed out grey smoke. She handled the cigarette just as clumsily as she had last time.
Harry felt the sweet aftertaste of the memories. They had talked about all the smoking in the film Now, Voyager, about material monism, free will, John Fante and the pleasures of stealing little things. Then, as punishment for those pain-free moments, he started at the sound of her name and the knife was twisted again.
“You sound so certain when you say that Rakel had no enemies apart from this Finne guy, Harry. But what makes you think you know all the details of her life? People can live together, share a bed, share everything, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they share each other’s secrets.”
Harry cleared his throat. “I knew her, Kaja. She knew me. We knew each other. We didn’t have any sec—” He heard the tremble in his own voice and broke off.
“That’s great, Harry, but I don’t know what you want me to be here. Comforter or professional?”
“Professional.”
“OK.” Kaja put her cigarette down on the edge of the wooden table. “Then I’ll give you another possibility, just as an example. Rakel had embarked on a relationship with another man. It might be impossible for you to imagine that she would have gone behind your back, but believe me, women are better at hiding things like that than men, especially if they think there’s good reason to. Or, to be more accurate: men are worse at uncovering infidelity than women.”