The Oslo Conspiracy

by Asle Skredderberget

  Sørensen nodded, his fingers drumming on the snuffbox.

  “Asgeir Henriksen. He became the very symbol of someone who cared. Someone who put his own life ahead of others. Someone who was killed while trying to prevent violence. The whole thing was so meaningless.”

  Milo thought about the weeks and months of newspaper articles. All the letters to the editor and comments. Some bitter. Some confrontational. Some tentatively conciliatory.

  There were those who maintained that immigration policy was to blame, with all the criminal gangs as a consequence. Others pointed to how young people on a downward path, especially boys, must be taken care of. That this was a growing problem even in the established and prosperous suburbs. Many had called for child protection services.

  “I remember the torchlight parades. What was the slogan again?”

  “There were several. ‘Turn your back on violence’ and ‘I care’ kept coming back. Some even tried ‘Crush violence.’ It was a pretty aggressive atmosphere for a while, and it didn’t get better when the suspects were not indicted and convicted, but walked away to their buddies and went on like before. We lacked technical evidence and witnesses, but we know that several of them were in the vicinity of the scene of the crime,” said Sørensen.

  Neither of them said anything for a few moments, until Sørensen sighed heavily and opened his mouth again.

  “The young boy who was killed … the one many thought was responsible for the teacher being killed, his name was Tollefsen. Tormod Tollefsen.”

  “Tollefsen? As in Ingrid Tollefsen? The dead woman in Rome?”

  Sørensen nodded and ran his hand over his shiny head.

  “Shot in the back. And I wasn’t able to get the one who did it. I still remember Ingrid sitting here. In this office, in the chair you’re sitting in, begging me to find the ones who killed her baby brother.”

  The experienced policeman swallowed a couple of times and stared out into space.

  “That’s what she called him. ‘My baby brother.’ Because of the age difference. She was thirteen years older than him. Just that … she was completely crushed. And the fact that they lost their mother so early…” he continued.

  “Her mother is not alive?”

  “She died right after Tormod was born. They were relatively old when they had him. She was in her forties, and there were complications. Blood clot. She never got to see her son.”

  Milo did not say anything. He did not know what he should say. Sørensen blew air out of his mouth. As if he was trying to get rid of his heavy thoughts. Without completely succeeding.

  “It’s really unbelievable how much bad luck some people can have. A family can lose both children. While, in another family, three can win the lottery the same year. Damn it, luck is not equally distributed in this life,” said Sørensen.

  “We’re not talking about accidents or bad luck here. But can there be a connection between the killings of the two siblings? It seems more like a gruesome coincidence,” said Milo.

  “I don’t know. He was shot in Kolbotn. She was strangled in Rome. I don’t know if there’s a connection, but it opens up a wound. And I need to find out.”

  “But where do I come into the picture?”

  “The father of the two, Sigurd Tollefsen, called me from Rome. He’s in the process of trying to bring home his second murdered child. He’s calm so far—although in a brokenhearted way—but has run into Italian bureaucracy. It turns out that the hotel room is still closed off, and the Rome police refuse to release the body until the Norwegian police have sent a detective. This is really a job for the police liaison stationed at the embassy, but he’s traveling and won’t be back until next week.” Sørensen looked at Milo and swallowed heavily.

  “I can’t let the guy sit there in limbo while I take a week to dig up an available man and an interpreter. Can you go down there?”

  “To Rome? Yes, of course. When?”

  “As soon as possible. Now. Will that work?”

  “You saved my life once. Of course it works.”

  Milo stood up and took the case folder from the desk.

  “Milo, I appreciate this. This is going to explode in the media, but I think we can manage to keep a lid on it a little longer. The only thing that has been in print so far is this item,” said Sørensen.

  He handed a newspaper to Milo. At the bottom in the corner there were six lines under the headline FOUND DEAD IN ROME. No name was mentioned.

  “Journalists don’t seem to realize that the real stories are hidden in these small news items,” said Sørensen, taking out his pack of cigarettes again.

  He rolled the chair over to the window and fired up a cigarette.

  “You haven’t thought about cutting down on the nicotine?” Milo asked.

  The chief inspector gave him a disillusioned look.

  “The point of tobacco, my friend, is to make time pass. It means I have something to do, while at the same time it shortens my life. That way time passes twice as fast.”

  4

  The gold card let him check in at the business counter and then go through security on fast track. Only ten minutes after he parked the car, he entered the lounge to kill time before departure. The woman who scrutinized his card and ticket gave him one of the smiles she was paid to put on, and Milo nodded back.

  He got himself a glass of beer and some snacks and settled down with his e-reader. On an Italian Web site he checked the latest news and weather report. October sun and seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit in Rome. Outside, the October wind was blowing the leaves from the trees and threatened overnight frost in Oslo.

  For a moment he considered sending a text message to Theresa saying that he was on his way to Rome. She was only a two-hour train ride away—in Bologna—and a few days together in Rome was not to be looked down upon. They had a good time when they were together, and the bond between them had only grown stronger after they had spent the whole summer together. At the same time, the distance was still a problem. For that reason they had decided that they were together when they were together—but not necessarily when they weren’t.

  A kind of relationship, in other words.

  But at the moment he was on his way to do a job, and he might risk making her sit around waiting. So he skipped the text message to her this time.

  Not much of what his father had said to him while he was growing up had stuck, but one of his sayings had.

  “It’s not about finding the right one, Emil. The time also has to be right. The right person, at the right time. It’s not easy, damn it. Most people end up with the wrong person at the right time. Others find the right person, but the time is never right,” Endre Thorkildsen had told his son.

  It surprised Milo to hear him say that. He hadn’t known that his father was capable of talking about anything other than the stock market and the brokerage he ran, but gradually it occurred to Milo that there was something more there. It was just so well hidden behind the façade.

  Where Theresa was concerned, Milo had no doubt that she was the right person. The girl, six years younger, whom he knew from all the summer vacations in Sardinia, had grown on him since their summer love affair a few years back. He felt it. He did not doubt the bond between them.

  He was less sure about whether the time was right.

  Milo set aside the e-reader and proceeded to browse in the sparse case folder while he thought through the conversation with Sørensen. Besides the dead body on the double bed, the pictures showed some clothing that had been draped over a suitcase, various toiletries and some medications on a bathroom shelf, and finally a passport, money and receipts in a small heap on the desk.

  He browsed through the report again, signed by Commissario Benedetti, for whom he had already left a message on his answering machine. He let him know that he was en route, but had no illusions that the Italian policeman would answer him before Monday. It was doubtful he worked on Saturdays.

  “Nessun segno di effrazione o vio
lenza sessuale,” it said in the letter that otherwise was characterized by bureaucratic Italian. No sign of break-in or rape, as Sørensen had said.

  Ingrid Tollefsen had been dead between six and eight hours before she was found by the cleaning woman.

  Milo made a mental note to speak with her before he returned to Norway. Sørensen would not have the opportunity to arrange an interpreter over the phone, and something told him that the woman would say as little as possible to authoritative Italian police officers whom she feared might get her in trouble with her employer or the tax authorities.

  He got up for a refill of both beer and snacks, and let his gaze sweep across the lounge. Normally it was full of men and women traveling on business who basically sat alone, fondling their cell phones and eating out of boredom. On Saturdays like this, on the other hand, it was almost empty apart from four or five solitary men who’d had to upset the family weekend to take a long-distance flight to some place in Asia or Latin America to be at a meeting on Monday morning.

  An American was sitting in a corner, trying to compensate for the poor connection by almost shouting into the phone.

  On his way back to his seat Milo heard his own phone ring, and the display revealed his father’s number.

  “Hi.”

  “Emil! There you are.”

  The voice sounded gentle. A little too gentle, typical for someone who was beating around the bush.

  “I’m at the airport. On my way to Rome.”

  “Italy again? Has something happened?”

  “No, just a short trip. Work,” Milo explained.

  “Okay, then I won’t ask any more.”

  As director of one of the country’s oldest brokerage firms, there were limits to how much he could talk about work with his son, the financial crimes investigator. And when the subject wasn’t work and stocks, the conversations had a tendency to bog down. Milo knew that his father never called to chat, even if they had gradually started seeing each other again after his mother’s death two years earlier.

  “What is it, Dad? Can you make it quick before I run to the gate?”

  “No, no. Nothing in particular.”

  “Of course there was something,” Milo answered impatiently.

  His father hesitated.

  “Well, I wanted to invite you to dinner tomorrow, but since you’re traveling…”

  “I’ll send you a message when I’m on my way home. We can do it then.”

  “Yes, that would be fine.”

  Milo had rarely heard his father sound so uncertain on the phone.

  “What is it, Dad?”

  “Perhaps we could decide on a day now, so that … so that…”

  “Are other people going to be at this dinner? Is that what you mean?”

  “Well, yes. There is one more.”

  “Who is it, then?”

  “Emil, this is a little touchy. A little hard to explain on the phone.”

  His father was the second person that day who’d had a “touchy” subject to talk about. He didn’t know if he liked where this was heading.

  “You don’t want to say who it is?” he pressed his father.

  “As I said, Emil, if we could say Friday, for example…”

  But Milo was not in the mood to placate his father. It occurred to him what was coming. And if his father’s future wife wasn’t able to adjust her schedule and show up for dinner on a half-day’s notice, it wasn’t his problem. He knew that his father had had several relationships since his mother’s hospitalization and suicide, but did not assume that the current one—no doubt with an attorney at Hilmersen Fuge—was entering such a serious phase that it was time to introduce her to his son. At the same time he noticed that he didn’t care as much as he would have six months ago.

  “I’ll call you when I’m on my way home, then I’ll come to dinner. It must be possible, damn it, for her to adjust her schedule if she’s going to meet me—your only son—for the first time,” Milo said while he took his luggage and headed for the gate.

  “Uh, how did you know?…”

  “I have to hang up, Dad. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Yes, Emil. Good. Have a safe trip, then.”

  * * *

  The flight had already started boarding when he got to the gate. He showed his boarding pass, and got yet another paid smile from an airline employee in return.

  He found his seat, 5C and, as usual before a flight, he recited an “Ave Maria” to himself.

  He had just made the sign of the cross from his forehead down to his chest and from shoulder to shoulder when his phone emitted a little beep. It was an e-mail from his cousin in Milan.

  From: Cavalli, Corrado

  Subject: FW: Regarding inheritance

  To: Cavalli, Milo

  Have you seen this message from New York?

  I think that you or I have to go. But it’s impossible for me in October or November. Can you go?

  CC

  Forwarded message:

  From: Patmunster, Oscar

  Subject: Regarding inheritance

  To: Cavalli, Corrado

  Dear Sir,

  As agreed on the phone, here is some more information which you can share with your family.

  On August 25 Ms. Brenda O’Quigly passed away at St. Joseph’s Hospital. I am aware that neither you nor the rest of your family have ever heard of Ms. O’Quigly, however, she knew about you. She was connected to your grandfather, Antonio Cavalli.

  I am the executor of Ms. O’Quigly’s estate, hence my efforts to get in touch with the Cavalli family.

  At this time, it will be necessary for a member of the Cavalli family to meet in person in New York for a signature and also for the handing over of some personal effects. The will is very specific on this point, and I am afraid it will be impossible to do this through an Italian attorney.

  Unfortunately, I am unable to go into detail about the will at this stage, but let me convey my opinion that it will prove to be of financial and personal value to the family.

  Please let me know at your convenience how we can proceed in this matter.

  Yours sincerely,

  Oscar Patmunster

  Partner

  Leary Patmunster Joyce

  Milo read quickly through the e-mails once more. He had never heard about a Miss Brenda O’Quigly in New York.

  It was obvious that Corrado did not have time in the next few months. Autumn in Milan was hectic for everyone in the fashion industry. Milo’s cousin had made it big on the vanity market, and made good money on rich parents who wanted to prep their daughters for the catwalk.

  This meant it would have to be Milo who made the trip to New York, and the thought did not bother him in the least. He liked autumn in New York, and it had been several years since he was there last.

  The plane was taxiing on the runway when he responded to Corrado.

  From: Cavalli, Milo

  Subject: Re: FW: Regarding inheritance

  To: Cavalli, Corrado

  I can go.

  Maybe next week.

  Now I’m heading to Rome for work.

  I’ll call you!

  M

  As the plane took off, he thought about the strange e-mail from the American attorney.

  Who was Brenda O’Quigly?

  And how did she know his grandfather?

  5

  In the taxi from the Fiumicino airport en route to the center of Rome his thoughts returned to his childhood trips to Rome with his mother.

  How she had loved that city!

  He remembered how she’d quoted from one of her favorite films by her favorite director, Federico Fellini. The scene in La Dolce Vita where the gossip columnist Marcello Rubini, as portrayed by Marcello Mastroianni, and the rich, world-weary Maddalena have run away from the party and drive around the city in her Cadillac, before they go home with a prostitute and borrow her bedroom to make love. Maddalena is tired of the city, but Marcello can’t get enough: “Personally, I
love Rome. It’s like a jungle. Damp and quiet. It’s easy to hide here,” he says.

  Milo could not count how many times while he was growing up he had come padding down from his room and found his mother stuck in front of the screen. Either while she was watching La Dolce Vita or another of Fellini’s films, Il Bidone or I Vitelloni. And he remembered how he dutifully sat down beside her and listened to his mother’s commentary.

  Personally, he could control his enthusiasm for La Dolce Vita.

  He did not miss the film. But he missed the moments with his mother.

  Every time they were in Rome, this quote came up.

  “This city is like a jungle, Milo. Damp and quiet. It’s easy to hide here,” she always said. And every time with such great seriousness that he wondered what she was hiding from.

  Now that she had hidden herself from the world forever, he regretted that he had never asked.

  The afternoon sun was hanging over Rome, spreading a warm light over the city. Milo leaned his head against the window, watched the buildings flying past and tried to remember the last time he was there with her. One memory slipped into another, and it was hard to keep all the trips separate, where they had wandered around the city between museums, churches, restaurants and shops. And occasionally an out-of-the-way bookstore or antiques store. His mother never got enough of the city, and Milo loved experiencing it with her.

  She often became thoughtful and could stand inside a church and whisper, “Non capisco questa grandiosità. I don’t understand this magnificence,” half to Milo, half to the sanctuary.

  And he remembered the visits and dinners with Uncle Luigi, who was not his real uncle, but a close friend of the family. Luigi had been a professor at the university in Rome, with antiquity as his area of specialization, and lived in what Milo remembered as an enormous apartment with a view of Villa Borghese.

  The rooms were filled with books, art and laughter. But mostly he remembered the smell of tobacco. Sweet, aromatic pipe tobacco. And Milo and his mother often stayed in the guest rooms and enjoyed Uncle Luigi’s boundless hospitality.

  But now they were gone.