by Thomas Enger
“I think he started with this one,” she says. “Used it to bang . . .”
Bjarne raises his hand to stop her.
“I haven’t examined it fully yet,” Sara continues. “But it would appear to have thirteen dents on it.”
Thirteen dents, Bjarne mutters to himself. The killer must have been very angry. And he thinks that this particular book is responsible for many deaths, but never quite like this.
The room is exactly as he had imagined. Small, oppressive, and cold. A bed neatly made up, anonymous yellow curtains, speckled lino on the floor, and soulless furniture. Withered flowers on the table. A TV magazine with a program circled in red, others crossed out. Red wool. Knitting needles, some big, some small. A shot glass, unused. A glass of water on the bedside table.
The place reminds Bjarne of a prison cell. And he realizes how much he dreads old age. Squashing his whole life into a room measuring three meters by three meters.
There is something oddly pleasant about the victim in the chair. She is sitting on a cushion; Bjarne can just make out a pattern of yellow and green flowers. In her lap lies the start of a sock. A small, red sock.
Bjarne leans toward her. Although he has prepared himself for the sight, he still feels a prickling sensation behind his forehead. From behind the smeared glasses, trails of congealed blood have spread across the wrinkled, eighty-three-year-old face like the branches of a tree. And where her pupils should have been, he can see something shiny; something that just about sticks out.
Two of Erna Pedersen’s own knitting needles.
“Did you see the marks on her throat?”
Bjarne leans closer, moves some hair out of the way with a pen he takes from his jacket pocket.
“You’re joking,” he says.
Sara raises one offended eyebrow.
“As there’s not much blood at the scene, her heart must have stopped beating before the killer forced the knitting needles into her eyes.”
“So he strangled her first,” Bjarne concludes.
Sara nods.
“But there are another couple of interesting things.”
Bjarne turns to her.
“We haven’t got a murder weapon,” Sara says.
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t force knitting needles through someone’s eyes just by hitting them with a book. The nasal bone gets in the way, as does the forehead. He must have used something else. Something heavier. Take a look at this.”
Bjarne follows Sara’s index finger, which stops at the victim’s brown, knitted cardigan. A fine layer of white powder has settled on her shoulders.
“I don’t know what it is yet, but I’m sure that the knitting needles dented whatever it was the killer used to bash them into her head.”
“Did they go right through her skull?”
“No, that requires more force,” she says, tapping her own head with her knuckles. “The skull is thick. And it gets thicker with age, especially in women. But it looks as if he tried.”
Bjarne pulls a face.
“Is there anything else I need to know?”
“Yes.”
She steps past him and goes over to the wall behind the chest of drawers. Points to a picture frame lying on the floor. The glass is smashed and the picture is unclear, but Bjarne can still make out a seemingly happy and contented family of four.
He asks who they are.
“Don’t know,” Sara replies. “But the odds are they’re the victim’s son or daughter and his or her family. I’m more interested in why the picture is on the floor and why the picture hook on the wall is bent.”
Bjarne looks up.
“If you take a look at the floor, you’ll see that it’s clean. You can almost see your own reflection in it.”
“So the picture was torn off the wall,” Bjarne concludes. “Possibly today.”
Sara nods.
“If I were you, I’d ask myself why.”
Chapter 4
It takes him only ten minutes to walk from Dælenenga Sports Park to Grünerhjemmet, the care home at the bottom of Markveien. It’s a redbrick building that blends in effortlessly with the rest of the architecture in Grünerløkka. Few people walking past it would know that many of the neighborhood’s most vulnerable residents live here. The exceptions are on May 17, Norway’s Constitution Day, when schoolchildren stand outside to sing the national anthem, “Ja, vi elsker dette landet,” or otherwise when an ambulance or hearse is called.
A small crowd has gathered outside the main entrance, a subspecies of Homo sapiens that Henning would recognize anywhere, any time. And it takes him only a moment before he spots her among the other journalists.
Nora.
The woman he once loved with every fiber of his being. The woman he failed to love like she should have been loved. The woman who was ill on the day his flat burned down and who will never forgive herself for asking Henning to look after Jonas that very night, even though it wasn’t his turn. The woman who finalized their divorce shortly after that fatal night when he needed her most.
To say that being around Nora since he returned to work has been awkward would be an understatement. Their shared past as parents and the fact that they work for rival newspapers is just for starters. Another complication is that she is now dating Iver Gundersen, Henning’s closest colleague at 123news.
Nora waves and slowly makes her way toward him; she stops a meter in front of him and says, “Hi.” Henning nods and smiles, sensing immediately how a protective bubble forms around them where the wind, the air, the care home—the whole world—cease to exist.
“How are you?” she asks.
Henning tilts his head toward his shoulder, first to one side, then the other.
“Not too bad,” he says.
Henning hasn’t seen Nora since the end of the Tore Pulli case, but she sent him an email a couple of days ago after reading an article he had written about how and why Pulli was killed. It wasn’t a long email, just two sentences, but it has been on his mind ever since.
Bloody good article, Henning. You’re still the best.
Hugs,
Nora
He should have replied and thanked her for her kind words, of course he should, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. What he definitely ought to have done was to thank her for saving his life as he lay unconscious in that grave, hovering between life and death just over one week ago. Nora had realized that something was wrong when she called at his flat and got no reply. She contacted Bjarne Brogeland, who took action so that Henning was eventually found and saved.
He hasn’t managed to thank her for that, either.
It doesn’t make things any less awkward that her voice is gentler than it used to be and that he can detect genuine concern.
“My head still hurts a bit, but I’m all right,” he adds. “How is Iver?”
Nora imitates Henning’s shrug.
“He says hi,” is all she says.
“Is he out of hospital yet?”
“Mm,” she says and nods. “Bored rigid on the sofa.”
Nora’s skin is still smooth. Her dark, shoulder-length hair falls in waves down her blue anorak, an anorak Henning has seen her wear before. He can even remember when. Between Gjendesheim and Memurubu, when they hiked Besseggen Ridge on a day that started as summer, but ended in full-blown winter. The wind gusting toward them now holds some of the same promise.
“So what’s happened here?” he asks.
Nora turns to the redbrick building. Again she shrugs her shoulders.
“We don’t know very much yet other than the victim is an old lady.”
Nearby a journalist bursts out laughing. Henning glares at him.
“No statements yet?”
Nora shakes her head.
“I imagine the
police will hold a press conference tomorrow morning,” she says with a sigh.
“Yes, I suppose they will.”
Press conferences, however, are open to everyone and tomorrow is too far away. So Henning takes out his mobile and texts Bjarne Brogeland asking him for a quick chat about the case. The reply comes in a couple of minutes later:
Rushed off my feet. Will call when I have two minutes.
Just as I thought, Henning thinks. In other words: no reason to hang around.
He looks about him. It’s getting late. The deadline for printed newspapers is imminent, which means that duty editors everywhere are now screaming for copy. But there is a limit to what field reporters can write tonight. The investigation has only just begun and no one knows the name of the victim or how she died, so it’s still possible to be the first reporter to break the story tomorrow. All he needs is a detail or two that no one else knows yet.
Henning uses his mobile to check out the online competition and sees that none of them is reporting anything other than the obvious. Nor is anyone going to let him into the care home this late in the evening and possibly not tomorrow, either. The residents and the investigation take priority. Standing here watching police officers come and go is a waste of time.
And that gives him an idea. What about the staff? And the visitors? How will they get out of the building tonight?
Henning catches Nora’s eye and he signals that he’s off.
But going home is the last thing on his mind.
Chapter 5
A care worker in a white uniform sits on a chair outside the television lounge picking his nails. He flicks away a bit of skin that lands on the floor. Then he jumps up as though the seat has suddenly gotten hot.
Bjarne Brogeland is standing in front of him.
“Ole Christian Sund?”
The man nods and rubs his neck with his right hand. Sund has a sparse, blond mustache on his acne-scarred face. His eyebrows meet in the middle. His thin arms stick out from the loose-fitting sleeves.
“How is your son?” Bjarne says, finding himself a chair and indicating to Sund to sit down again.
“I don’t know,” the care worker says, looking glum. “He’s with his mum now, but she’s not replying to my texts. But I’m sure he’s fine with her.”
“Yes, mums are great at that sort of thing,” Bjarne says, smiling sympathetically. “I presume you’ve been offered counseling?”
Bjarne takes out his notebook and pen.
“We have. But Martine, Ulrik’s mum, is a psychologist and no one knows Ulrik better than her, so—”
“I understand,” Bjarne says. “But we’ll want to talk to him as soon as possible. He might have seen something important.”
Sund nods and rakes a hand through his long, blond fringe.
“I’ve never seen him like that,” he whispers. “He seemed almost in a trance.”
“How do you mean?”
“He just sat there. Rocking back and forth. His eyes were all glazed and distant.”
Sund’s face takes on a sad, anxious expression.
“Did he say anything to you?”
“Not right away. But when I came back out from Erna Pedersen’s room, he muttered something about fractions.”
“Fractions?”
“Yes. He kept repeating it. Fractions, fractions, fractions.”
Bjarne notes down the word in capital letters.
“Now, he’s been very excited about his math homework recently, so it might have something to do with that. What do I know?”
“How old is he?”
“He’s nine.”
Bjarne nods.
“I won’t keep you for very much longer,” he says. “But do you have any idea who might have done this?”
Sund heaves a sigh.
“No.”
“Can you think of anyone who didn’t like her?”
Sund mulls it over.
“I don’t think so.”
“Have there been any disagreements here recently? Did someone get angry or upset with her?”
Again Sund racks his brains.
“Sometimes our residents get agitated and their discussions heated. But I really don’t think that anyone would hurt Erna Pedersen. She never made a fuss; she was quite frail and unwell. And if she hadn’t died like . . . like this, she would have died soon, anyway.”
Bjarne scratches his head with the pen. A female care worker walks past them. Sund takes out his mobile and checks for new messages. Then he turns it off and puts it away.
“Did you notice if anyone went to her room today?”
Sund shifts slightly on the chair.
“I was working mainly at the other end of the corridor. A lot of staff are off sick at the moment.”
Bjarne nods again.
“I can see from the visitors’ log that no one visited her today. Do you know what it was usually like? Did she have a lot of visitors?”
“You’re better off asking Daniel, Daniel Nielsen. He was her primary care worker. But, no, I don’t think they were queuing round the block, to be honest.”
Bjarne writes down Nielsen’s name and circles it.
“Are you aware of any relatives who might have visited her from time to time?”
“If they did, it can’t have been very often. I barely know what her son looks like.”
“So she has a son?”
Sund nods.
Bjarne writes Son’s family in broken photograph? on his notepad.
“The camera outside the main entrance,” he continues. “Do you happen to know if it records?”
Sund shakes his head.
“It’s only there so we can see who rings the bell outside regular visiting hours.”
“So people can come and go as they please?”
“They can.”
Bjarne nods again.
“Did something unusual happen here today? Anything out of the ordinary?”
Sund thinks about it.
“The volunteer service people were here in the afternoon to play and sing for the residents.”
“Go on?”
“They come once a fortnight.”
“I see. Are they popular?”
“Yes, very.”
“Did Erna Pedersen usually join in?”
“Yes, but I don’t think I saw her there today.”
Bjarne makes another note.
“How many people usually come from the volunteer service?”
“Five or six, I think.”
Bjarne has met members of the volunteer service before, people of all ages who help others in return for no money at all. They’re unlikely to be the type to force knitting needles into the head of an old lady, Bjarne thinks, but he still makes a note of the name of the service in capital letters with an arrow pointing to it.
“Okay,” he says, getting up. “I can imagine that you want to get home and check on your son. But please think about what you saw here today, especially if something strikes you as a little odd or unusual. Anything that might be of interest.”
“Will do,” Sund says, taking the card Bjarne hands him. Then he hurries toward the lift while switching on his mobile to check for new messages. It doesn’t even have time to beep before he shakes his head in despair.
Chapter 6
In the old days Henning used to go running along the River Aker late at night, though he would sometimes come across people he would rather not meet after dark. He would always jog straight past them and ignore their offers of all sorts of dubious merchandise. Even so, it was never a very pleasant experience.
A similar unease comes over him as he walks past Riverside, the café at the bottom of Markveien, to get around to the back of Grünerhjemmet. But there are no unsavory characters around tonight, only th
e river, which winds its way down to Oslo Fjord under a bridge.
It could have been a picture postcard of the city. There are old ruins and tall trees on the far side of the river. On warm summer days people sit in Riverside or on the grassy bank leading down to the water and let life and the river flow past. But the area around the mouth of the Aker has become a haven for drug dealers and their customers. Once upon a time such people would have hidden in the shadows because it was shameful both to sell and to buy drugs, but now everything is out in the open and no one seems to care. The police know what goes on, but don’t have the resources to do anything about it. And if one dealer is arrested, another will take his place the next day.
Henning follows the road around the care home, where bushes as lifeless as the residents inside have been planted along the walls. He knows how hard it is to get a place in a care home these days. You practically have to have one foot in the grave already. It means that many vulnerable people in Oslo and in the rest of Norway have to rely on self-sacrificing relatives or visits from care workers in their own homes.
Henning wanders around the car park while he waits for someone to emerge from the back entrance. For the first fifteen minutes nothing happens. He looks at his watch. Slowly 9 p.m. turns into 9:30. In his former life he might have lit a cigarette—or fourteen—while he waited, but he stopped smoking completely after the fire. There’s something about flames and embers. He can’t look at them without seeing his son’s eyes in all the red and orange.
The door opens and a woman comes out. She has brown hair and is wearing a beige coat.
“Excuse me,” Henning says, rushing toward her. She instinctively slows down.
“Do you work here?” he asks.
The woman’s expression immediately becomes guarded as she reluctantly replies, “Yes.” Henning knows that the burn scars on his face can make him look scary, especially in the dark, so he follows up his assertive opening with a smile that’s intended to be disarming. The woman walks off.
“Sorry, but you’ll have to talk to someone else,” she calls out.
“I—”
“I don’t talk to people like you.”