by Mark Davis
___________
As the others gathered into the caravan of police cars, Elizabeth told the group she felt like walking the city. As Elizabeth turned, Lars Stenstrom smiled for once and waved goodbye.
Elizabeth turned a corner and went down an alley between tall brick walls. It was becoming an effort to walk, as if her feet had been packed with sand. She slowed down and rested a shoulder against the bricks.
“You all right?”
Nasrin had followed her.
“Just need to catch my breath, Inspector,” Elizabeth said. “From the smell of that place.”
“I know what you mean. And again, please use my first name. We’re going to be working together for a while.”
Nasrin lit a cigarette and handed it to her.
“Hell of a way to catch one’s breath,” Elizabeth said. “And I don’t smoke.”
“So one won’t hurt you.”
Elizabeth took the cigarette, tasting the residue of Nasrin’s lipstick, tart like apples. The aroma of the freshly lit cigarette was as pleasant as brewing coffee in the morning. Elizabeth drew it deep into her lungs, the narcotic effect almost immediate. She let the smoke out through her nostrils like an accomplished smoker.
“Better?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said.
“You look like you could get used to this.”
Elizabeth took another drag.
“I smoked for a year, just after my father died when I was in college.”
“Did it help?”
“It gave me a cough. And a bad taste in my mouth in the mornings.”
“Fair enough,” Nasrin said, taking the cig back and inhaling. “I don’t do this often myself. Just one a day. Takes discipline. Going for a walk?”
“Going shopping. I can’t come to Stavanger without getting my son a sweater.”
“Could you use some company? I know I can,” Nasrin said. “Bloody weird day. Bloody weird case.”
Elizabeth nodded.
They took a cab to Old Stavanger, a neighborhood of winding, cobblestone streets and shops in small white homes that looked like doll houses.
One shop sold only sweaters. After much deliberation and trying on, Elizabeth selected a Nordic wool sweater, a dark blue one with a large, white snowflake. It would look good on Max … if he would wear it.
Elizabeth held the sweater up for Nasrin’s approval.
Nasrin stared at Elizabeth for a long moment.
“It also would look very good on you,” Nasrin said.
They walked around. Stavanger had a charming fish market along a wooden pier, with stalls selling every size and color of fish on ice along with the occasional chunk of whale meat. Elizabeth used her phone to snap pictures of the old Hanseatic-style mansions and simpler, wooden homes, which she texted to Max. They browsed the tchotchkes and curios in a string of intriguing little shops along the harbor and then stopped at an outdoor café for a glass of wine.
Elizabeth felt safe around Nasrin. And it was good to have a new friend. Over a glass of wine, the conversation turned from the case to their pasts.
Nasrin’s mother hailed from a prominent family that included the personal physician to the Shah. Her mother had studied at the London School of Economics, where she had fallen in love with a skinny Englishman named Jones. Nasrin’s maternal grandparents had never approved of the marriage, even though Mr. Jones had gone on to become a prominent barrister and Nasrin’s mother had flourished as an academic, both happily married and devoted to their one child.
“Did you grow up speaking Farsi?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yes, my mother made sure of it,” Nasrin said. “I am really quite good at it. Comes in handy these days in my line of work.”
“Men?”
“One or two,” Nasrin looked down at her nails. “I was actually married to a man for six whole months.”
The way she said it made Elizabeth laugh.
Nasrin leaned forward.
“Tell me about yourself.”
And so Elizabeth did, from her mother’s death, to her father’s suicide, then Mike’s … Elizabeth’s mentoring at the university, finding salvation in her work. A difficult marriage to a difficult man. Hard divorce. Raising Max as a single mother while building a career … tenure, licensing, practice, publishing and not perishing.
Nasrin’s eyes scanned Elizabeth’s with interest and compassion as she told her story. To Elizabeth’s surprise, by the time she finished, Nasrin’s eyes were glistening with held back tears.
“You might think yourself vulnerable,” Nasrin said. “But from what you say, you have survived things that would slay the strongest.”
“I am a survivor,” Elizabeth said. “That much I know.”
After they finished their wine and went back out on the street, Elizabeth caught a glimpse of copies of a London tabloid in a kiosk. It had a front-page picture of the Pulpit Rock under a headline in a huge font.
“Terror on the Cliffs,” screamed The Daily Mail. “Playwright, Author, CEO and XRO Exec Take the Plunge,” read the subhead. “They held hands all the way down,” read a quote from a supposed witness in a box.
“Barmy press,” Nasrin said and then checked the time on her smartphone. “I’ve got to go. Got to pick up a package at the UK consulate.”
Nasrin gave Elizabeth a warm smile.
“It’s been lovely, dear. It’s nice to know I have a friend on this assignment. Perhaps I’ll check in later in case you want to share a late-night cocktail?”
Elizabeth nodded. She kept walking around the old city. By 7 o’clock in what in most parts of the world was the evening, the summer sun was as strong and bright as mid-afternoon. The sunlight made everything crisp and clean—the blue-gray harbor, the blinding-white hulls of cruise ships and fishing boats, the pubs with murals of Norwegian history and pop art on their walls—all of it underneath bright red flags with blue crosses that snapped in the wind.
Elizabeth realized she had eaten nothing since her morning yogurt.
She easily found her way back to the Hotel Victoria, where the members of the little investigative group had checked in after their Lysefjord excursion, a definite improvement over the hikers’ inn where they had spent their first night. The Victoria was a block-long rectangle of red and brown brick with subdued Edwardian accents. It was a practical choice that—however unintended—kept the team in communion with the dead they studied.
Elizabeth went into the hotel’s Holmen Pub and saw Lars Stenstrom sitting at the dark wooden bar, nursing a beer alone.
“Good evening Inspector,” Elizabeth said.
Stenstrom turned slowly, even a little lazily, no sign of the brisk manner he displayed on-duty.
“Doctor Browne, I hope you have had a nice day since the unpleasantness at the morgue.” Stenstrom’s blue eyes seemed electric when he smiled.
“We all deserve a little vacation after the horror show of this morning. May I buy you a drink?”
“You certainly may,” he said.
Elizabeth took an adjoining stool.
“And please, call me Lars.”
“Likewise,” Elizabeth said.
“So you want me to call you Lars?”
A warm smile broke across his face when he made her laugh. As Lars Stenstrom lifted his glass, Elizabeth couldn’t help but notice how the low sunlight inflamed the blonde hairs that bristled along his thick forearms and the backs of his large hands. A worker’s hands. She also couldn’t help but notice that his left hand, flat on the bar, was without a ring.
The bartender took her order, a local microbrew, which he pumped from a beer tap. The beer arrived, a clean lager with a slightly sweet head.
“I would never have thought you to be a beer drinker,” Lars said.
“I am a bit of a fanatic about it, actually,” Elizabeth said. “If I won the lottery, there would be nothing to stop me from doing a microbrew tour of the world. Mind if I eat?”<
br />
She ordered a cheeseburger with Swiss cheese and a reindeer patty.
“Another surprise,” he said.
“You had me pegged as a chardonnay-sipping, salad eater, right?”
“You must work out,” he said.
“I like to walk. A lot. And yoga. Occasional hikes.”
“I thought Washington was a flat swamp.”
“There are mountains nearby. Nothing like yours.”
The hamburger was good and juicy, the meat not at all gamey. Elizabeth ate half of it, and washed it down with the ice-cold beer.
“So any new thoughts?” he asked.
“With a complete absence of suicide notes, we won’t know until you tell us what you find when you crack their computers and phones. You must already know some new things?”
Lars Stenstrom nodded.
“Want to share anything?”
“Don’t you want to hear it all tomorrow naïve?”
“Oh not you, give that a rest. I mean for good.”
“Before I tell you anything, I truly would like to know what you think beforehand.”
Elizabeth sipped her beer.
“Well, as I said, they were definitely indoctrinated and turned into an affinity group. Probably online.”
Lars ran a big hand across the blonde stubble of his jaw. The sunlight was getting low now, casting a golden glow on the brass fixtures in the bar.
“And,” Elizabeth added, “there is a belief system at work here.”
“Reasonable,” he said.
“I will go farther,” she said. “This is something fervent, some shared sense of the sacred they concocted. A small-group religion.”
“Nothing we have seen to date would suggest that,” Lars said. “They just had one meal together, at the World Tree.”
“Any details?”
“The pub’s just down the street,” Lars said. “They were there for a good two hours.” He squinted as he searched his memory. “A Caesar salad, small pizza, two orders of local salmon, one order of swordfish, two hamburgers, one of them a reindeer burger like yours. Fourteen beers and … uh, two bottles of an expensive California pinot noir, followed by, I believe, some cheesecake, vanilla ice cream and coffee. Three thousand and thirty-nine Kroner, or about five hundred and fifty dollars, U.S.”
“Who paid?”
“Does it matter?” Lars said. “I believe it was Woods, the oil company executive, who put it all on his credit card.”
“What does the wait staff remember?”
“They remember them as all relaxed, jovial, a bit loud. Nothing out of the ordinary.”
The people Elizabeth had seen on the metal trays in the morgue had, a mere two nights ago, been out in the fun part of this small city, sharing a hearty meal, drinks and laughs. They went back to their rooms, set their alarms, woke up in the pre-dawn hours to dress warmly in appropriate hiking clothes, and then marched to their doom through the dark forest like the seven dwarves.
Elizabeth looked out the window at the last rays of the sun glinting off the metal bands and handles on the sailboats in the harbor. She tried to register some insight in reaction to the disparity between these chosen deaths and the cheerful city outside, but she couldn’t.
____________
The knock on her door was soft.
It was Nasrin Jones, her jacket off but still wearing a starched white shirt neatly tucked into a gray skirt.
Nasrin smiled.
“My chores are done. It’s been an absolutely shambolic day. I thought it might be nice to end it with a friendly face.”
“Please come in.”
The detective padded into Elizabeth’s room like a cat, the scent of her jasmine perfume trailing her.
Elizabeth closed the door. By then, Nasrin had walked to the center of the room, and performed a quick pirouette to face Elizabeth.
“I caught a glimpse of you and Lars talking in the bar on my way through the lobby,” Nasrin said. “He is just a highly promoted park ranger, you know that, don’t you?”
“He seems like a trained investigator to me. We talked about the victims’ last meal at the World Tree,” Elizabeth said. “Lars also told me something I didn’t want to know. This is the room that Sandra Armstrong had stayed in.”
Nasrin stepped toward Elizabeth, a pert smile on her nicely formed lips.
“Don’t tell me that you believe in ghosts?”
“That would be an occupational hazard in my profession,” Elizabeth said.
“Me, too. I enjoyed our afternoon together.”
“So did I.”
“Tell me, Elizabeth, are you okay? You seemed troubled when I caught up with you in the alley.”
“Well … despite the late sun and beautiful scenery, I can’t shake the feeling that this place is gloomy.”
“I know what you mean,” Nasrin replied. “A little lonely, too, perhaps? I know I am, especially given the prospect of having to stay here and follow such a dismal inquiry. Do you ever feel lonely here?”
“A little, yes.”
Nasrin stepped in a bit closer.
“I don’t want to be presumptuous, but over our two days together, I think I may have caught a sense . . .”
Elizabeth thought, Did I do something wrong at the suicide scene?
“. . . of a kindred soul, of shared sensibilities.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “I feel that.”
“You have a pretty way of cocking your head when you’re perplexed, did you know that?”
Nasrin took one more step into her personal space, gently lifted Elizabeth’s chin with a long, slender finger and kissed her.
Elizabeth had never been kissed by a woman before, not like that. Nasrin’s lips were soft and pleasing. Nasrin’s breasts, tight against her shirt, pressed against her own.
Elizabeth felt a brief quiver of pleasure bolt through her chest.
Nasrin pulled back, a little breathless.
“Do you desire me?”
Elizabeth said nothing, her heart hammering from the surprise.
“Do you want to lie down with me?” Nasrin said, nodding in the direction of the bed.
“If you like,” Elizabeth said. “Never really thought about it.”
That put her off a beat. Elizabeth decided it would be best to let Nasrin down gently by making herself the odd duck.
“But you do want to, with me?”
“Not especially, but I will.”
The truth is, it was not entirely out of the realm of possibility. The kiss had been sweet and there was something about Nasrin that intrigued Elizabeth.
Nasrin stepped back, incredulous.
“Haven’t you ever been with a woman before?”
“No.”
“Not even in college?”
“No,” she said. It was true, and a little astonishing, considering that Elizabeth Barrett Browne had earned her B.S. in biochemistry at Smith, where Sapphic experimentation was practically a requirement.
“And yet you would just be compliant?”
“Sure, why not?”
Nasrin shook her head, whether in astonishment or disgust it was hard to tell. Her pretty face fluttered with powerful and conflicting emotions.
“I misread the signals, sorry,” Nasrin said. “Please, do me a favor Elizabeth and let us just wind this back.”
Elizabeth tried to imagine what signals she might have given off.
“Wound back it is,” she said.
Nasrin smiled and nodded a bit too energetically, embarrassed. She left without another word.
Her jasmine scent lingered in the room.
Elizabeth stood frozen for a moment, too astonished for a moment to know what to do next. She washed her face, brushed her teeth, rubbed her face with night cream, put on a nightie and went straight to bed.
She thought of reading, but took a sleeping pill instead, followed by a half pill. She turned off the light.
The room was dark and cool and Elizabeth wanted to keep a tight rein on her imagination.
FOUR
They met in a conference room inside a structure of stacked steel and concrete boxes, each box with an acrylic window to provide a view of the city below. It could have been the headquarters of a top-flight creative ad agency, but it was instead the Oslo headquarters of the Directorate of the Environment.
Elizabeth took a seat in a webbed chair to join the others around a glass conference table. Charlie Bowie, the American counselor official from Oslo, stroked his beard compulsively. He was even ruddier than usual this morning, his eyes unfocused and bloodshot. Agent Norris leaned forward over the glass, as if he were begging some unseen master for a treat.
Lars Stenstrom walked briskly into the room and announced there was plentiful coffee and scones in a galley down the hall, promoting Bowie to bolt up and leave the room. Lars nodded at Elizabeth with a slight smile. Nasrin made eye contact with her immediately afterward. A brief smile started and faded on her lips and she looked away.
“We’ll start in a moment,” Lars said. “I have asked our lead digital investigator to give this morning’s presentation.”
A young woman with a thin ring sprouting from one nostril and a line of rings embedded across one ear entered the room. Her black hair was shaved into an undercut, the longer half in rooster tails, the shorter half revealing runic tattoos made fuzzy by the black bristles of her scalp. She turned on a projector and connected a laptop to it. The desktop of the computer had a screensaver with anime renderings of the cast from a popular cable-TV show about fantasy kingdoms and dragons.
Elizabeth looked out the wall window. To the west, container ships in the harbor vanished into a rolling curtain of white fog.
“Thank you Ingrid,” Lars said.
The young woman with the facial rings and the runic head symbols left, almost bumping into Bowie as he returned with an oversized cup of coffee.
Bowie turned in her direction and looked back, astonished.
“How are we going to manage to conduct this investigation without Goth girl?” Bowie said. “Bit of a cliché, isn’t she?”