by Gard Sveen
“I took over the team at the end of the spring season in 1988. I was the one who convinced her to keep going. She could have been very, very good . . . yes, she could have gone as far as she wanted.”
A silence fell between them. Farberg shook his head again.
“I remember you now. You were good, weren’t you?”
“So-so,” said Bergmann. “Good, but not good enough.”
“But you came here to talk about Anders, not handball.” Farberg changed his tone, taking his voice down a notch, so that it sounded darker, not at all like the boyish tone he’d used earlier in the conversation. It tormented him, this thing with Rask, even a child could have seen that.
“How well did you know him?”
“Fairly well. To be fair, he wasn’t a person you could get close to easily. A few times he opened up. But he was a curiosity in the teachers’ lounge, lacked social antennae. He was capable, though, in some ways very capable, and the kids were fond of him.” He glanced down, realizing too late that the expression fond of him was inappropriate.
“Did you have suspicions?”
The phone rang almost inaudibly on the desk, and Farberg apologized before answering it. He closed his eyes while he listened to the person on the other end, a woman. His wife or partner, thought Bergmann. He let his gaze wander around the room. He thought the office was surprisingly messy for someone in private business. In contrast to how well-groomed Farberg was as a person, the office looked like it belonged to someone in a creative occupation, or perhaps an overworked attorney. Or a teacher, one of the popular ones, the type who got along well with the students and liked to appear at school graduations, had the power of words and made the mothers smile and perhaps think they wanted such a man instead of the boring fellow they were actually married to. Piles of papers were stacked on the desk, and the art on the walls had obviously been purchased by Farberg himself, as the styles were much too different to be part of a company’s cohesive program for procurement of art and design.
“Let’s talk about it later,” said Farberg to the woman on the other end of the line. He hung up without saying good-bye.
“Have you ever been married?” He frowned at Bergmann.
“Live-in.”
Farberg nodded.
“Then you know what I’m talking about. Or maybe not. We separated many years ago; she even got my apartment, very close to here, worth a fortune today. And half the money. All the same. There’s always something you can be blamed for.”
“You’re remarried?”
Farberg nodded.
“Why did you take responsibility for the grief work?”
“You mean at the school?”
“Yes. I don’t mean to offend you,” said Bergmann in an attempt to seem disarming. “But you do understand why I ask? It’s often the pyromaniac who’s most eager to put out the fire.”
Bergmann studied Farberg’s expression. He appeared calm on the surface, and his eyes still had the same hint of sorrow. Either he was a good actor, or else he was simply not the type to let himself be drawn out by deliberate provocations.
Farberg nodded.
“The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime, the man who reports his wife missing and drowns himself in sorrow is almost always guilty,” said Bergmann.
Still no noticeable reaction from Farberg. He nodded slightly again, his gaze fixed someplace on the desktop in front of him.
“You have a job to do, I understand that, your conclusions, your reality. In my reality, I wanted to help people—children, in this case—who were upset.”
“So you opened the school and consoled the pupils out of the goodness of your heart?”
Farberg’s palm pounded the table, and Bergmann jumped at the sudden sound.
“For Christ’s sake, Bergmann!”
Farberg studied the palm of his hand, as if slamming the table had hurt far more than he thought it would.
“Is this the sort of thing you do now, waltz in and conduct yourself like a sack of shit? I don’t have to put up with this.” His voice was a little calmer now, but his mood still seemed to be a smoldering fire beneath the surface.
Bergmann leaned back in his chair and felt calmer from Farberg’s reaction. There was every reason to suspect people who acted like saviors of the most outrageous actions. A person who showed his feelings was much preferred.
“So tell me again why you opened the school for a pupil who wasn’t even one of your own. Why take such initiative?”
“Simply because no one else did it. The Sunday evening she was found, I called the rector. I needed someone to talk to, and she was a good personal friend of mine too. She was completely crushed, almost incapable of talking. So I called the superintendent, who was on a weekend trip to Copenhagen, and just ended up taking on the responsibility myself.”
“What about her homeroom teacher?”
“He was a strange character. He’d always been cowardly, but never more so than then. I tried to convince him to take the lead, but he didn’t want to, thought it wasn’t a school matter. He didn’t even show up that evening. It was just me and some of the younger teachers. The young ones always want to help.”
Bergmann noted, Homeroom teacher?
“What’s his name?”
“Gunnar Austbø. An old bachelor from Grenland. Conservative fellow, Christian guy, whom I suspected of being a little right-wing around the edges. Wore a suit, a bit of a character, but a good teacher, somewhat of a math genius. But not an emotional person. And damned conflict averse.”
“Do you know where he is today? Do you think he’s retired?”
Farberg thought for a while.
“I think he moved to Spain after he quit, but I’m not sure. I can check with some old colleagues, if you want.”
“Please do. But back to Rask. Where were we?”
“Suspicions,” said Farberg. “You asked whether I had any suspicions. The answer is no. Who can suspect someone of such things? He was eccentric, but I never thought he was capable of something like that.”
“What do you think about the reopening of the case? Do you think he’ll be acquitted?”
“What should I say? I don’t have an opinion about it.”
No, thought Bergmann. Who can blame you for that? He looked at his watch. He’d killed a little time and gotten a name in his notepad: Gunnar Austbø. Damned peculiar behavior when your student is killed.
“I wish I could be of more help, but there’s not that much to say.” Farberg placed the business card Bergmann had given him in his jacket pocket and stood up to follow him to the door.
They went down the corridor to the elevator together, where Farberg gave him the same firm handshake as before.
Bergmann tried to turn off his brain and concentrate on the view from the elevator. He could just glimpse the Lysaker fjord in the light from the neighborhood offices.
Dark had fallen. Again. The winter had rarely felt more burdensome than this year. Maybe it was age. Most likely it was Kristiane.
Out in the parking lot he lit a cigarette and took out his phone. He tried to orient himself. E18 hummed a hundred yards farther down; Lilleakerveien went up to the left. How in the hell was he supposed to reach Lysaker station without being run over in this endlessly dark city?
He’d only taken a few steps when he heard someone behind him say his name.
“Bergmann, Bergmann! Tommy!”
He stopped, but didn’t turn around. The boyish voice was unmistakable.
Farberg came up beside him. Beads of sweat had formed on his temples. Maybe he’d run down the stairs. His expression had changed. He looked as if he’d just seen a ghost.
“Is something wrong?” said Bergmann.
Farberg wiped his forehead and nodded.
“Or no.”
“Okay.”
“I just thought of something. It struck me quite suddenly after you’d left. You’ve reopened the investigation of the Kristiane murder, right? To
revisit whether Anders was innocent.”
Bergmann didn’t reply.
“Otherwise you wouldn’t have come here.”
Bergmann took a drag of his cigarette. That wasn’t something he could admit to Farberg.
“In any event. I’m not sure that it’s important, but—”
“But what?”
“Anders told me once about a friend he evidently talked to a good deal.”
Bergmann frowned.
“And?”
“No, maybe it’s nothing.”
“What was the name of this friend?”
“Yngvar.”
“I see. Where did Rask know Yngvar from? And what’s his last name?”
“Well, I’m sure it’s nothing. I don’t know much more other than that his name was Yngvar.”
“I’m sure you know more,” said Bergmann. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have come after me.”
“Anders said once, many years ago, that Yngvar wasn’t an altogether good person. He could get so angry, he said once. He was afraid of what he might do.”
Yet another thing to check out when he received the tons of documents from Kripo. It was almost certainly a long shot, but in such a big investigation, vital details could theoretically have been missed.
“I got the impression that Anders and Yngvar had worked together before.”
“At a school?”
“I assume so. He never told me that. I’m sure it’s not that important, but I just had a bad gut feeling when you left.”
“Okay, did you ever tell this to the police?”
“No. No one at school suspected Anders of anything. I was never questioned. And when I hear myself now, I realize it may not be relevant.”
“No, maybe not.”
Bergmann couldn’t say much else. Farberg looked cold standing there without an overcoat. He buttoned his suit jacket with slightly trembling hands.
“It’s gotten cold,” he said.
It’s been cold for weeks, thought Bergmann.
He followed Farberg with his eyes until he’d gone back into the building.
Ten minutes later the Ski train glided into Lysaker station and saved him from hypothermia. He found a vacant seat by the window. The violet cloth on the seatback in front of him had been shredded with a knife, and someone had written a name and a cell-phone number in black marker.
He stared at his reflection in the window.
Gunnar Austbø, he thought. Kristiane’s homeroom teacher.
29
What god could have created such a world? Elisabeth Thorstensen asked herself. It was so full of evil, so contemptible and incomprehensible, that its very existence was proof there was no god. She’d known that since the age of nine, but the realization felt a little worse every time.
She had locked herself in the office after dinner and refused to come out, even though Asgeir asked her to several times.
In one movement she swept all the newspapers she had gathered off the desk. Kristiane’s face mixed with that of Anders Rask. In one picture, he stood apathetically, his arms by his sides, looking like a shy boy in the forest somewhere in Vestfold.
A shiver passed through her body and a gap opened somewhere inside, as if she’d woken up from a nightmare and only seconds later understood that it wasn’t a dream, but reality. The voices outside the door were loud, like the screeching of gulls on a summer day; then they began scraping their beaks against the gap between the door and the floor. The beaks came across the floor now, more and more of them, pecking at the bookshelves, all these books she had acquired, as if they could save her. They had once been her escape, had she forgotten that?
The beaks reached her temples, and she covered her head to keep from being struck. It would be so nice for the family there, not like down here. He would never lay a hand on her again. Never lie down beside her in bed. Never again force himself into her, as he had every night. When had she stopped calling him that name? Daddy? It sounded so foreign, like something from another country.
Everything would be fine, if only girls didn’t turn out the way she had.
She jumped at a knock at the door.
“I’ve made tea for you.” Asgeir’s voice was gentle, as always. He’d always been kind, much too kind. All the things he’d pretended not to see? She wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for him.
“Just set it in the kitchen. I’ll be out soon.”
She could picture him out in the hall. First he’d offered her dinner, but she said she wasn’t hungry. Then again, after he and Peter had dinner, coffee and dessert. Once again, no. “A cup of tea,” she had said, automatically and distant, as if she were an unfeeling grandmother in a British film about upper-crust society.
He was surely standing there deliberating over what to say next, how to persuade her to come out.
But he chose to remain silent.
Finally his steps disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.
Elisabeth sat down in the chaos of newspapers and fumbled through them, as if she believed she might find Kristiane there, the girl’s warm hand against her own. There was barely any membrane left between her and the final solution. Tonight, tonight she would do it, she had to do it.
She took the letter from the prosecutor’s office and tore it into fine strips. Then she suddenly got up and pulled the curtains back and stared into the dark windowpane.
“Do you see that?” she said. “Do you see?” she screamed a moment later.
Only now did she hear the sound of the phone out in the hall.
Faint steps.
A muffled voice.
Finally the knocking on the door again.
She stood with her face toward the windowpane, the train slashing against her eyes, a row of lights through the hedge. What prevented her from butting her head through the window and simply bleeding to death?
“It’s that policeman,” said Asgeir. “Bergmann.”
Elisabeth smiled faintly at her own reflection. She brought her hand up to her face and stroked her cheek.
“Bergmann,” she said quietly. “You said you would save me.”
“Did you say something?” said Asgeir on the other side of the door.
“Go away.”
He waited.
“You said you would save me. Don’t you remember that?”
“But—”
“Go away!” she screamed, so loud that it would be heard all the way into the train cars.
30
Bergmann took the trolley so rarely these days that he felt like a tourist in his own city. He studied a young foreign woman just to his left. She had a white hijab with embroidered silver stripes and was wearing as much makeup as a Western woman. She reminded him uncomfortably of Hadja, just like the prostitute a moment ago had. Occasionally a childish hope rose up in him before handball practice. He hadn’t seen her for a year, since before Christmas last year when she was at a few of the matches.
You can’t carry on like this, he thought, pressing the “Stop” button before Rosenhoff station. Tomorrow, at handball practice, he would chat with Sara, Hadja’s daughter, and ask how things were going for them. Sounded simple enough.
From Rosenhoff he walked almost blindly up to Frank Krokhol’s regular Indian restaurant. He stepped gingerly, he had to pee so bad. After taking the train into Oslo Central Station from Lysaker, he’d had two beers for the sheer hell of it at a nearby pub. Not to ruin the evening for the detectives who pretended to be drunk, but simply to observe the drunks, the whores, the pimps’ errand boys, old junkies, and the whole hodgepodge of petty gangsters, all those who found themselves at the bottom of the criminal food chain, and who would stay there until they passed away. A Bulgarian whore who he guessed was in her late twenties, and who for some reason didn’t realize he was a cop—or maybe didn’t give a damn—sat down beside him, so close to him that he could feel her thigh against his, feel her sweet, heavy perfume in his nostrils. She asked if he was alone, and of course he was. Her da
rk eyes and curly coal-black hair made him think of Hadja. He’d briefly considered asking her to take a taxi up to Lambertseter tonight and stay there until tomorrow. There were worse ways to lose your job.
He’d left when she went to the restroom. He had placed three two-hundred kroner bills in a napkin, on which he’d scribbled, “You’re too good for this,” and gave it to the bartender, whom he recognized from the old days. “Make sure she gets it, and no one else,” he’d said.
As soon as he came in the door of House of Punjab, he gave a signal to the waiter. The gesture for a half-liter beer was the same all over the globe, including at an Indian restaurant in Sinsen. A group of Indians, or more likely Pakistanis, turned toward the open door, but quickly turned back to the big flat screen on the wall behind the bar. They were as interested in him as he was interested in the cricket match on TV.
He made a beeline for the john in a way that made Frank Krokhol laugh like a teenage boy.
“To be honest, Tommy . . . now I’m really curious,” said Krokhol when he was back. The old Marxist and chick magnet tore a pinch of Borkhum Riff out of the package, and meticulously filled his pipe. Bergmann studied his companion’s careful movements while he mechanically lit his own cigarette. The advantage of an Indian place was that while the owner no doubt wanted to adopt the smoking ban introduced last summer, he would do so when he thought the time was right. Now—in the middle of what appeared to be an important cricket tournament—was evidently not a good time. The gathering of menfolk from the crown jewel of the British empire cheered in unison at something they saw on TV, and they didn’t seem to care at all about the two Norwegian men who sat at the very back with their heads huddled together. Krokhol was smart enough to always meet police officers at places where not a soul knew who he was.
“So, what do you think this is about?” said Bergmann.
“Kristiane Thorstensen,” said Krokhol while he peeked at the concise menu, which he probably already knew by heart. He tapped his pipe a couple of times, then fixed his gaze on Bergmann.
Bergmann shook his head and smiled faintly to himself. He let his gaze wander around the room, stopping on the TV screen, with its white-clothed men on green grass.