by Gard Sveen
The words It’s all my fault suddenly rang in his ears.
Those were the words Kristiane’s mother had screamed.
He shook the computer mouse, and the Dagbladet website appeared on the screen. The photograph of Kristiane Thorstensen lit up before him. He lowered his eyes a moment, not wanting to stare into her blue irises.
He closed the website and went into the national registry for the justice sector. Kristiane’s father, Per-Erik Thorstensen, was registered at Tveita, only a stone’s throw from where he himself had grown up. No one else lived at that address. A quick Google search showed that he worked part-time in the IT Department at the Furuset School. He found his phone number on the Yellow Pages site.
Then he slowly entered the mother’s name into the search field “current or former names.”
Elisabeth Thorstensen.
He’d had her number in his phone, but deleted it after a week.
He could simply not understand why she was at that funeral. Could it be merely out of sympathy? How could she seek out such pain again? He’d eventually decided that she must have her reasons and given up trying to understand.
But now he couldn’t avoid contacting her. Regardless of how much pain it would cause.
He pressed “Enter” and stared out at the white wall of snow. The thought that everyone in this building was alone in the world reminded him of a science fiction film he’d seen once when he was in his early teens. Only a few hundred people had survived an atomic disaster, and an endless winter followed, like this one.
He looked back at the computer screen.
So her name was still Elisabeth Thorstensen. Lived on Bekkelagsterrassen in the Bekkelaget district of Oslo. But her phone number was no longer listed. She must have gotten an unlisted number after the episode at the cemetery at Alfaset. She was married to Asgeir Nordli, who was born in 1945. She had two sons: Alexander, Kristiane’s brother, and Peter, twelve years old, whom she’d had with Asgeir in 1992.
He found Asgeir’s phone number in the Yellow Pages. Two cell-phone numbers and one landline number.
Asgeir Nordli. Why did that sound familiar?
He did a Google search and discovered that he ran a real estate company, but that didn’t ring any bells. He clicked around on the website, which offered property development and management services. It sounded boring, but based on the annual reports in the Brønnøysund Register, the business appeared to be doing well, and the tax agency confirmed that Elisabeth Thorstensen did not lack for money in her new marriage.
He entered the number for the residence in Bekkelaget before he could change his mind.
It rang for a long time. He expected voice mail to come on at any moment, but it just continued to ring. He looked at the clock. Ten o’clock. They must be at work—though he imagined that Elisabeth no longer worked.
Just as he was about to hang up and try again later, the receiver was picked up on the other end.
But only silence followed.
“This is Tommy Bergmann from the Oslo police,” he said, a little louder than he intended.
The person on the other end took a breath, as if about to say something, but then hesitated.
“I would like to speak with Elisabeth Thorstensen.”
They hung up.
Bergmann called one of the cell-phone numbers listed for Asgeir Nordli. He answered at once, brusquely, as if the person on the other end of the line was something the cat dragged in.
Bergmann introduced himself, and could almost hear Asgeir change his attitude.
“I would like to speak with Elisabeth,” said Bergmann.
“She’s on sick leave.”
After a few minutes Bergmann finally convinced Asgeir to give him her number. He had to try three times before she finally answered.
“Elisabeth Thorstensen?”
“Speaking,” said a female voice on the other end, but so quietly that he could hardly make out the words.
Bergmann braced himself, sensing that he only had one shot. “This is about—” He stopped, as though incapable of pronouncing her name. “Anders Rask, the reopening of the case.” He thought for a fraction of a second that he ought to have said it concerned Kristiane instead, but now it was too late.
All that he heard was a half-muffled “Good-bye.”
Then a busy signal.
Bergmann closed his eyes. He could still picture Elisabeth sitting on the kitchen floor in Skøyenbrynet, the deep cuts in her wrist, her picture-perfect face distorted by grief, her despairing gaze drained of hope.
He entered the number again, but changed his mind and hung up.
He got up and went to the restroom to rinse his face with cold water. After several minutes, the bags under his eyes had faded somewhat.
Back in the office he called Per-Erik Thorstensen.
“The person you are trying to reach . . .”
He tried the landline, but a voice reported that the number was no longer in use.
He bit his lower lip and studied his hands. Clenched his fists and opened them again. Again and again. Then he took out his phone and found the number for Dagbladet’s Frank Krokhol.
Bergmann kept his cards close to his chest. They simply agreed to meet at the regular place.
He looked at the clock for a long time. Eight hours until dinner with Krokhol.
And what should he use Susanne for? “She’s a bit more organized than you.” Wasn’t that what Reuter said? God only knew if he was right.
She was in her office talking on the phone. Her desk was bare, apart from the computer, a perfectly arranged document holder with copies of the cases she was working on, an in-basket, and an out-basket. She emptied the wastebasket at least once a day. Two photographs of her daughter, Mathea, stood beside each other on the desktop, each in a minimalist floating frame. It looked like she was expecting a visit from an interior design magazine at any moment. He didn’t understand how anyone could live that way. And she undoubtedly didn’t understand how he could make it through his days.
He leaned against the door frame and observed her for a while. She must have gotten highlights recently, as her hair was lighter than he remembered. The sight reminded him more of Hege than he liked. He consoled himself with the fact that Susanne was actually dark blonde, borderline brunette, and she had brown eyes, not blue. Besides, he didn’t know if he particularly liked her. Or did he? She had worked on patrol for almost ten years, and he liked that about her. Besides, he knew that she was just shy of getting her law degree, with only her master’s thesis to finish. He should have done the same himself, but he never had time. What kind of excuse was that, though? She even had a little girl.
All in all she was probably not that bad.
He knocked hard on the door. She jumped and turned her chair around.
“I’ll have to call you back,” she said to the person on the other end.
“You know the Kristiane case?”
She fumbled in her hair for her reading glasses, which were about to fall down, but didn’t reply, simply furrowing her finely penciled dark eyebrows.
“You and I are going to solve it.”
She smiled carefully. Not the usual laugh—the kind that would have made clear to Bergmann that Susanne Bech was too domineering and self-centered to be his type—but a cautious, tentative laugh.
“We have a week.”
“Are you serious?” she said gravely, as if only now fully registering what he had said. She pulled on the neck of her thick, tight-fitting woolen sweater, as if it had suddenly become too warm for her.
“Whose idea was that?”
“Finneland’s orders. Papa signed off, of course. Reuter said I should use you. He’s filling in for me this week. So we’ll have to see what we find.”
Susanne’s frown deepened, and her cheeks looked pinker on her winter-pale face.
“Who, I mean, was it you who—” She stopped.
“What?”
She shook her head.
&nb
sp; “Nothing.”
“We’ll have to split up. Unfortunately I have to give you the shit work. I’ll call Kripo, and you’ll head up there now and pick up what we need. Put everything else on hold.”
She got a slightly strange look on her face and took off the hair band she had around her wrist to pull her hair back into a tight ponytail. Then she put on her brown reading glasses.
“Okay. Just call Kripo,” she said.
“How much can you work over the next week?”
“You mean, do I have Mathea?”
“Yes.”
“Is that going to be a problem? I have an ex, girlfriends, neighbors, friends, and parents. I’ll work it out. You know that.”
He held his hands up.
“Fine. Why don’t you head up there right now then,” he said. “I’ll make a couple of calls.”
He spent the whole morning on the phone.
First he called the Ringvoll Psychiatric Hospital at Toten, where Anders Rask was incarcerated. The consulting physician, Furuberget, talked nonstop for an hour; he was clearly the sort of man who thought he was God’s gift to humanity. When he hung up, Bergmann sensed that he’d been detained with empty talk—as if Furuberget didn’t want to get to the heart of the conversation Bergmann needed to have.
He spent the next hour and a half on the phone with the old Kripo investigator who had led the investigation until Rask was arrested. Bergmann understood that he was not going to be of any great help. On the contrary. He was going to do his utmost to camouflage the weaknesses of the old investigation. Chief Inspector Johan Holte had retired as one of the greatest heroes in Norwegian police history; he was known as the man who got the better of Anders Rask. Now he was well over seventy, and Bergmann knew that Holte didn’t want to have the myth of his excellence torn to pieces by Rask’s new attorney.
If Chief Public Prosecutor Svein Finneland was right, that was exactly what was going to happen.
“So you’re quite certain that it’s Rask?” Bergmann concluded.
“Certain?” said Holte, almost spitting out the word. He was the type who still thought that was intimidating. “Rask is a shrewd bastard, Bergmann. I’m certain that he’s fooled everyone up there at Ringvoll. Mark my words. And do you think he has fond feelings for me?” Holte snorted. “If he ever comes here, I’ll personally kill him myself, and then drive a stake through his heart just to be sure that he never rises up again.”
23
The hands of the clock on the wall had moved ominously fast. Susanne Bech checked her watch just to be sure it was right. She looked over at the head of archives, then averted her gaze from his plumber’s crack, which got bigger and bigger as he loaded the final paper boxes onto the cart.
Two hours already.
Two hours still to go.
She imagined an hourglass with sand running too quickly through its narrowest point. She had to get control of this. Her life almost depended on it. Scratch almost, she thought. While Tommy bloody Bergmann planned to sit at his desk and talk on the phone all day—was that how he intended to resolve this case in a week?—she had to take on what he so tactfully called the shit work. She had to smile at that whole colossus of a man. What was it her mother always said? “If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.” Not that she was one to complain, but to be reduced to a servant, a mover? She hadn’t applied to work in investigations to do that. He could have gotten one of the secretaries up here to do this, then she could have lit a fire under this investigation before the day was over. The only redeeming feature of male dominance techniques was that they were so damned easy to see through.
And Finneland’s orders? Orders my ass.
She didn’t know what to make of that. She hadn’t been invited to the meeting this morning; Svein didn’t want to grant her that kind of access. But helping Bergmann in this case, receiving second-hand information, she was somehow good enough for that. It could only mean that he wanted to pull her panties down again, as he’d done that night after the summer party at Fredrik Reuter’s. And five times after that. She had promised herself never again to have anything to do with a charmer with a wandering gaze.
Crafty devil.
She only had two months left in this temporary position and had to deliver like hell now. Otherwise it would be back to patrol duty before she knew what hit her. And ever since the divorce, it was impossible for her to work those shifts. She didn’t get the permanent investigator job in the Violent and Sex Crimes Division that she’d applied for last fall, and she knew why. Now he’d evidently decided that he wanted to give her another chance. One last chance. It was almost Christmas; he must get soft this time of year. Part of her wanted to say to hell with damned old faithless menfolk, but another part of her just wanted to wake up beside him. The one who would never be there the morning after. He was married to a woman his own age after all.
It didn’t help that she’d gone behind the back of another woman, she’d thought that June night, and blamed it on being too drunk. Good Lord, why should she blame herself? She’d lived like a nun for almost six months after telling Nico he had to move out, that she wanted a divorce, that he’d had enough chances.
But God help her, she’d been so drunk that night.
The next few times with Svein Finneland she’d been stone sober. Just so she could really see if her feelings might be genuine.
The man, who was old enough to be her father, had a stronger hold on her than she liked. Than she was ready for. She’d managed to put a stop to it before summer turned to fall, but that was not to say that she’d stopped thinking about him.
Although he was married for the second time, no doubt notoriously unfaithful and twenty years older than her, she still had the text messages from Chief Public Prosecutor Svein Finneland on her phone. He must have sent her ten or fifteen after she said that she didn’t want to see him anymore, each one more ingratiating than the last. In his world it was surely inconceivable that she could reject him like that. She was recently divorced, alone with a five-year-old, while he had all the power in the world and could get her as far as he wanted in the system. She could easily have remarried once the divorce was final, but everyone she met was just like Nicolay. Overgrown boys, virtually incapable of taking on a child or living the way she wanted. Nico always said that he was a playful dad, but there had to be limits to that. That he never set any limits was only the start. It never turned out the way she wanted.
The way I wanted? she thought and involuntarily brushed up against the hand of the head of archives.
She laughed it off and fumbled for her reading glasses in her hair to draw up a receipt for the loan of the documents. He pointed down at the counter between them and slowly pushed the glasses toward her.
She briefly studied her signature. Susanne Bech. Though it had improved a bit over time, her writing still looked childish and uncertain. Like her life. Unsteady, with no direction, incapable of standing with legs planted in one place and one place only.
Like hell was Svein Finneland coming back into her life.
The head of archives helped her push the three heavy carts laden with boxes of overstuffed case files down to the loading dock. The sight of the enormous quantity of documents made her melancholy for a moment, similar to the depression she’d felt as a teenager but fortunately grown out of. Or simply suppressed with work. Or Mathea.
Maybe it was just that she dreaded seeing what those cartons contained. She only vaguely recalled Anne-Lee Fransen in Tønsberg, but she remembered the Kristiane case much better than she would have liked. Somewhere deep inside she knew everything in those papers by heart, but she’d repressed Kristiane in her daily life, just as she imagined most women her age had done. She was one year older than Kristiane, and the pictures of a girl who could have been her, in print in the papers every single day that winter, had frightened her so deeply that she hadn’t walked alone for a single second before it was spring again and life appeared
to return to normal. Her mother had always said she was overly sensitive, and she said as much when Susanne told her that the Kristiane case had almost ruined her entire first year of high school. It wasn’t the same with the young prostitute who was killed in February 1989, but Kristiane could have been her. For a while it was almost her.
She helped load the cartons into the van, stuffing the last two into the passenger seat.
“Where are you going to sit?” asked the driver, a young guy in his early twenties.
With one box in her arms and the other under her feet, they made their way back down to headquarters. The driver, Leo—South American, Chilean—joked with her all the way down from Helsfyr. She loved men like him—light, carefree, without a worry in the world. Every time he said something she smiled. As if she wanted to forget all the seriousness that lay ahead of her.
“Maybe we could have coffee sometime?” said Leo when he’d parked the car outside the loading dock.
“I’m much too old for you, kid. Will you give me a hand with these boxes, though?” She eased a carton into his arms. He gave her his card anyway, in case she changed her mind.
“You don’t need to worry about that,” she said.
When all the boxes were stacked in her office, she could barely breathe in there. And Bergmann wanted her to copy the most important files. The most important? She didn’t even know if she’d brought the most important ones. She felt guilty that she hadn’t been able to take the materials covering the three prostitutes. Nine months into this job as an investigator, and she had nothing to show for it but guilt over everything she hadn’t accomplished. On patrol they could just pass the problem on to the next shift. Now she had to solve the problem herself. Investigation was the final resting place for all the world’s misery.