by Anne Holt
“You’re drunk,” her brother said aggressively. “Very smart. What if the police turn up again? Have you thought of that? Have you thought that it’s actually likely the police will come back?”
“How did you get in?” Hermine slurred.
“The door was open. Come on.”
He grabbed her healthy left hand and escorted her into the living room. She accompanied him with reluctance.
“I’ve spoken to the police,” she said. “For hours on end. They were ever so nice. Sympathetic. Really very sympathetic.”
Carl-Christian installed her in an Italian designer chair, coffee-brown and uncomfortable. She made an effort to stand up, but her brother held her down, bending over her as he leaned on the brushed-metal armrests. Their faces were only a few centimeters apart. Her breath was rank from vomit and strong liquor, but he did not flinch.
“Hermine,” he said, his voice quavering slightly. “We’re in deep shit. Do you understand that? We’re in terrible, terrible trouble.”
Once again she tried to extricate herself. He grabbed her bandaged hand and squeezed tight.
“Ouch,” she yelled. “Let go!”
“Then you have to listen to me. Do you promise? Promise to sit still?”
She nodded almost imperceptibly. He let her go and sank to his knees.
“Were you interviewed?” he asked.
Hermine pulled expressive grimaces of pain.
“Were you interviewed?”
“What do you mean?” she whined. “I’ve talked to them. They came here. Last night. With a clergyman – the whole caboodle. Journalists. Outside, though. Crowds of journalists. In the end, I had to disconnect the doorbell. And the phone. But why are you so het up about that? Mother and Father are dead, and I think you should … I …”
Now she was genuinely sobbing. Fat tears mixed with make-up and bloodstains to form pale-pink streaks on her face.
“I don’t understand anything,” she slurred as she wiped snot with her sleeve. “I understand absolutely none of it. Mother and Father and … Preben!”
Her sobs got the better of her. She was shaking. Blood soaked though the paper bandage, and she held her hand out helplessly. Her brother put his arms around her and hugged her hard. For some considerable time.
“Hermine,” he finally said, into her ear. “This is really hellish. Dreadful. But we must …”
His voice broke into a falsetto, and he swallowed loudly to regain control. Stiffly, he rose to his feet and sat down opposite her on the settee, resting his arms on his knees and struggling to maintain eye contact, despite her inebriated state.
“We must discuss this,” he said, battling to keep calm. “Were you interviewed by the police? Or did they just come here to tell you about the dea— about what had happened?”
“I don’t really know. They were actually very sweet. Truly. Very … empathetic. They didn’t stay very long, though. Then they asked me if I wanted to have someone stay with me. If you … They said they had talked to you, and asked if I wanted you to come. Or anyone else. If anyone else should come.”
“Did they ask you anything in connection with what had happened?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Okay. We’ll keep it very simple. Did they ask you about anything other than whether you wanted to have somebody here?”
“I don’t remember! I don’t remember, Carl-Christian!”
Her brother held his face in his hands and rocked slowly from side to side.
“Good God,” he said in muffled tones. “Is it possible? Is it possible!”
He stood up abruptly and snatched the jacket he had slung on the settee.
“Don’t drink,” he said. “Cut out the drinking, okay? I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Make sure you’ve sobered up a bit by then.”
“I need to go to Accident & Emergency,” Hermine complained; her hand had begun to drip again.
“You can’t,” her brother said firmly. “You can’t see a doctor, in your condition. Your parents and your brother were murdered last night, and you’re wasted. It just doesn’t look good.”
“It just doesn’t look good,” she mimicked. “That’s the creed in this family. It doesn’t look good! Bloody hell, I need stitches!”
“You stay here. I’ll come back.”
He stomped toward the front door, and she tottered after him.
“It doesn’t look good,” she said again in a distorted voice. “This family isn’t concerned about anything except what looks good! I’m bloody sick of it all.”
“That’s all very well for you, then,” Carl-Christian said, carefully knotting his scarf. “There’s hardly any of it left. Of the family, I mean.”
“Great,” she screamed, so loudly that her brother was startled; this was not Hermine, that pleasant, biddable sister of his that nobody took very seriously. “I hated them anyway. I hate Father. And Mother, who has always simply groveled and smoothed things over and pretended that nothing was wrong. This whole family is a pretty shell around a reality so horrible it would never tolerate the light of day! I’m so …”
She was completely overwhelmed by floods of tears. Carl-Christian tried to put his arm, stiff and awkward, around her shoulder.
“It’s all too late now, anyway.”
Forcing herself to breathe more quietly, she straightened her back. They exchanged a long look that neither wanted to be the first to relinquish. Even Hermine, her brain befuddled by pills from a hiding place Carl-Christian knew nothing about, realized in a devastating moment that she loved her brother, the way her brother loved her – the way it was at all possible for members of the Stahlberg family to bother about one another – but nevertheless, despite this glimmer of something warm and true between them, they were both aware with sudden certainty: they did not trust each other.
They never had done, and she closed the door behind him.
Knut Sidensvans’s apartment was located right beside Carl Berners plass. Low brick apartment blocks hacked into the greenery of Ola Narr Park, where young children toddled around in snowsuits, towing sleds. Their mothers huddled in little groups, with one or two fathers loitering on their own, chain-smoking to keep warm. It was dinner time. None of the children wanted to go home. A little boy was screaming at the top of his voice as his mother tried to comfort him. Hanne Wilhelmsen took a deep breath. This was air she recognized: the cold mixed with boiled vegetables, tandoori and emissions from heavy vehicle traffic on Finnmarksgata. The number 20 bus rolled down toward the Tøyen Center.
“It was lovely to walk,” Silje Sørensen said, slightly surprised. “Good suggestion. It’s really quite nice here. Even with all the traffic.”
“Yes,” Hanne said. “It is nice here.”
She neglected to turn her face to Lille Tøyen and yet another brick apartment block, where she had once resided, in another life, at another time.
The fourth murder victim’s apartment was situated on the first floor, facing east. The locksmith was sitting on the top stair, looking extremely bored.
“At last,” he said grouchily, giving the papers that Hanne held out no more than a cursory glance.
It took him four minutes to open the door.
“The cylinder is still okay,” he said. “Will I change it anyway, so that you can have a new key?”
“Wait a minute,” Hanne said, stepping inside the hallway.
She found what she was looking for in a bright-red key cupboard and tried the key in the front door.
“Bingo,” she said. “We’ll use this one instead. Thanks. Bye.”
There were no furnishings in the hallway other than the key cupboard and a row of pegs, where a raincoat, an anorak, and a fake Burberry scarf were hanging.
The living room, on the other hand, was completely disorganized. The room might be around twenty-five square meters and had three south-facing windows. A huge cork pinboard was suspended between two of them. The other walls were covered in overfilled bookshelves
from floor to ceiling. In addition, stacks of newspapers and periodicals, books and magazines were spread out over the floor. On closer inspection, there did appear to be some sort of system in it all. The magazines were arranged in date order, and when Hanne devoted some time to one of the piles beside the little Argand burner in one corner, she realized there was also some kind of thematic connection amongst it all.
“Wide-ranging interests,” Silje said, holding up a highbrow literary periodical with one hand and something that looked like a textbook on low voltage with the other.
“Mmm,” Hanne said absent-mindedly as she studied the work area below the window.
A modern seventeen-inch flat screen towered beside a scanner, two enormous printers, and several stacks of blank sheets of paper. In addition, piles of various documents and something that might be special printouts were strewn across the extensive desk. The cork pinboard between the windows was completely cluttered with notes, newspaper cuttings, memos, and the occasional photograph. At first glance, none of this sparked Hanne’s interest. She skimmed an article about the salmon parasite Gyrodactylus and a list of email addresses.
“What did they actually say?” Hanne asked. “At the publishing house, I mean.”
“That he used to be some sort of textbook consultant. For electricity and electronics. At high-school level, that is, not for colleges. In recent years they had used him for other things as well, as a matter of fact. At present he was engaged on three different assignments. A few articles. One of them was to be included in a larger work about the history of the police force, by the way.”
“History of the police?”
“Yes. I didn’t get many details. Should I check that out more closely?”
Hanne was leafing carefully through a book about the outlaw Gjest Baardsen. Old and worn, it was diligently marked with notes protruding like loose yellow tongues from the pages.
“Sidensvans must really have deserved to be called a nerd,” she said, laying aside the book. “Despite his age. This computer system is state-of-the-art, as far as I can make out. Impressive that he’s taught himself that kind of thing. But he has obviously …”
Her gaze swept over the bookshelves and tall towers of knowledge that dominated the floor space.
“… still got a preference for the written word. On paper, so to speak.”
Hanne, almost shyly, tugged her hair down over her face.
“When I was little, I used to think that reference books smelled so lovely. We had loads of that sort of thing at home. There was something called The Family Book. A strange sort of collection of articles, in several tomes, about all kinds of peculiar things. I loved to browse through it. Mostly because of everything it contained, but maybe just as much because the books felt so good. On my fingers. In my hands. And they smelled – they had a scent, in fact. I liked that. Liked it a lot.”
Silje stood stock-still. She didn’t notice that her mouth was half open. A certain wariness characterized the situation, as if she was standing in a forest clearing and had caught sight of a timid bird.
“I sometimes think about that,” Hanne said into thin air. “That the only thing I ever brought from my childhood was that affinity for thick, oversized books. Nefis laughs at me, actually. I only read huge books. They smell the best. Do you know …?”
She took a deep breath and her lips formed a faint smile.
“It smells like a library in here.”
“I’m so sorry about your father, Hanne. I should have mentioned it before, but you’re so … I couldn’t seem to find an opportunity.”
“How did you know about it?”
Hanne’s voice was crisp and sharp again.
“Billy T. told me. My condolences.”
Hanne pulled out her wallet and her deft fingers withdrew a newspaper cutting, folded in half. She handed it to Silje.
“Here,” she said curtly, as if issuing a command. “Read this.”
It was a death announcement: “Our beloved William Wilhelmsen” had passed away, following a lengthy illness. The cross was decorated with the letters R.I.P.
“Rest in peace,” Silje said, taken aback. “Are you Catholic, Hanne?”
“Hah! My mother and father converted when I was about fifteen. For the sake of appearances. Neither of them was particularly religious; they were far too snobbish for that. They considered themselves thoroughly intellectual, even though I protested vehemently about such narrow-minded people having the right to call themselves any such thing. It was just far more stylish, you see, to embrace Catholicism rather than steadfast Lutheranism. My mother liked all the finery. All the beautiful buildings. The liturgy. They went to Rome twice a year. Stayed in fancy hotels and went to Midnight Mass, extremely tipsy after all the good wine they splashed out on. I suspect my mother was quite simply turned on by all the costumes. By the Pope and the red of the cardinals, if you understand what I mean. Father just wanted to be special. He always wanted that. To be special within a dreadfully restricted frame.”
She screwed up her eyes and demonstrated a couple of millimeters’ space between her finger and thumb.
“Catholicism was simply something they used to adorn themselves. To hell with that. Read on.”
“Now you walk in bliss with the Lord
And have found eternal rest.
You have overcome the trials of life
With prayer’s power and devotion’s sword …”
“Spare me,” Hanne said quickly. “That’s my sister’s work. She actually believes she can write. Good Lord …”
Her shoulder brushed against Silje’s as she leaned forward to point.
“Can you find me there?” she asked rhetorically. “Do you see my name anywhere?”
The list of the bereaved left behind by William Wilhelmsen, Ph.D., was extensive: a wife, son and daughter, daughter-in-law, and grandchildren. Three sisters and two brothers-in-law had been given space, as well as nieces and nephews. Even someone called “Gaute Nesby, devoted friend” was listed among the grieving relatives. The overly sentimental verse and endless list of family and friends seemed pompous. There was something repellently immodest about the text, about the entire format of the announcement.
“You’re not mentioned,” Silje said softly, without lifting her eyes from the newspaper clipping.
“Not good enough,” Hanne said. “I never have been. Do you know …”
She gave a forced laugh.
“I sat down and wrote my own special announcement. Something along these lines: ‘My father, William Wilhelmsen, who disowned me, finally died after forty-two years of shitty behavior toward his youngest daughter. Please send any flowers to the funeral home, preferably horrible blue carnations. As many as possible.’ I had put a stamp on the envelope. Fortunately, Nefis stopped me from sending it.”
“They wouldn’t have printed anything like that anyway!”
“No. But I would have made a fool of myself. So I gave up. Instead I walk around with this.”
She returned the announcement to her wallet.
“It’s a sort of membership card in reverse,” she said. “Proof that the family don’t want me. I don’t want them, either.”
Her smile never reached her eyes. She patted her pocket lightly and looked around, with a slight air of surprise, as if she didn’t quite know why she had ended up talking about her father’s death.
“There’s something here,” she said, carefully starting to pick up one of the many folders on the work table. “It’s exactly as if …”
There was something. Her movement stiffened.
“Look around,” she said, as she replaced the folder again.
“I’ve done that several times,” Silje said. “What should I look for?”
“Sidensvans clearly had a system to his belongings,” Hanne said, sotto voce, as if she did not want to disturb her own reasoning. “One pile there by the door is only magazines and periodicals. Over there you’ll find medical literature. And there …�
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A nerve was noticeable at an angle to the bridge of her nose.
“But even though it’s all arranged in some kind of order, the overall effect created – this whole room – gives an impression of disorder. Of chaos. Nothing is tidily stacked one on top of the other, there’s no symmetry to it all. No neat edges, in a manner of speaking. Agreed?”
“Yes, I suppose—”
Silje tried to look around with a fresh pair of eyes.
“But here,” Hanne said, holding her palm peremptorily over the work desk. “Here the documents are placed edge to edge, parallel and linear. Striking.”
Silje did not answer. Instead she approached more closely. Now, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Hanne, she nodded gently.
“You’re right, of course, but he may have … It’s possible he’s pernickety about everything he’s currently working on, but that it’s impossible to maintain that kind of order with everything – sort of thing? So that other things become … a bit messy?”
“Exactly,” Hanne said tartly. “You can do better than that, Silje. There’s a far more obvious explanation. These documents have been moved. And carefully put back again.”
“Moved? It’s less than twenty-four hours since he was here, Hanne. Of course something’s been moved. By Knut Sidensvans himself.”
Silje surreptitiously scrutinized Hanne. The Chief Inspector was markedly older now. Her dark hair had taken on a gray sheen at the temples, something to which Hanne had partly resigned herself. It did not suit her, and she really ought to have something done about it. The wrinkle from her nose to the corner of her mouth was deeply etched, despite the recent rounding out of her body – a middle-aged spread that made her trousers somewhat too tight to actually sit well. When Hanne suddenly turned to face her, Silje noticed that the only unchanged aspect was her eyes. Deep-blue, unusually large, and with a distinct black ring around each iris.