The Blind Goddess

by Anne Holt

  He rubbed his face vigorously, grinned, and shook his head.

  “Promise me you won’t say nasty things about my performance,” he begged.

  “I can assure you of that on my word of honour,” Hanne promised, raising her right hand to confirm it. “But you really weren’t that bad.

  “By the way,” she went on, changing the subject, “why did you tell that Dagbladet reporter about a possible third person still at liberty? It sounded as if we had someone specific in mind. At least, I assume he got it from you?”

  “Do you remember what you said when I was so shocked at the way you treated Lavik in the last interview before we arrested him?”

  She frowned in concentration.

  “Not really.”

  “You said that frightened people make mistakes. That was why you wanted to frighten Lavik. Now it’s my turn to play the bogeyman. It may be a shot in the dark, but on the other hand it may hit someone out there who’s scared. Very, very scared.”

  The bill arrived within seconds of Håkon’s discreet signal. They both reached for it, but Håkon was the quicker.

  “Out of the question,” Hanne protested. “I’ll pay—or at any rate let me pay half.”

  Håkon clutched the bill to his chest with a pleading expression.

  “Let me feel like a man just once today,” he begged.

  It wasn’t much to ask. He paid, and rounded it up with a three-kroner tip. The oily-haired waiter showed them out into the darkness with a smile, and hoped to see them again soon. His sincerity wasn’t very convincing.

  Weariness enveloped his brain like a tight black cowl, and his eyelids drooped whenever he stopped speaking for a few moments. He took out a small bottle of eyedrops from his jacket pocket, bent his head back, pushed his glasses to the end of his nose, and poured the drops liberally into his eyes. He’d soon used up the whole bottle; it had been new that morning.

  Håkon Sand rotated his head in an effort to loosen up his neck muscles, which felt as taut as harp strings. Twisting a bit too far, he felt a sudden spasm of cramp on the left-hand side which made him flinch.

  “Aaaah!” he yelled, massaging the painful area vigorously.

  Hanne looked at the clock for the umpteenth time. Five to midnight. It was impossible to know whether it was a good or bad sign that the decision was taking so long. The magistrate would have to be especially punctilious if he were going to send a lawyer to jail. On the other hand he would hardly be less careful with a decision to release. It was probably obvious that the judgement would go to appeal, whichever it was.

  She gave a yawn so enormous that her slim hand couldn’t cover her entire mouth, and as she leant back Håkon noticed that she had no amalgam in her molars.

  “What do you think of those white fillings?” he asked, and she stared at him in astonishment at the incongruity of the question.

  “White fillings? What do you mean?”

  “I can see that you haven’t got any amalgam in your teeth. I’ve been thinking of getting rid of mine, since I read an article about how much rubbish there is in the ‘silver’ ones, mercury and the like. I’ve read that people have even been made ill by them. But my dentist advises me against the new composites and says that amalgam is much stronger.”

  She bent towards him with her mouth wide open and he could see quite clearly that it was all perfectly white.

  “No cavities,” she said with a smile and a touch of pride. “Of course, I’m a bit too old to belong to the ‘no cavities’ generation, but we had well-water where I grew up. Lots of natural fluoride. Probably dangerous, but there were sixteen of us kids in the neighbourhood who grew up without ever having to visit the dentist.”

  Teeth. Something to talk about anyhow. Håkon went over to check the fax machine again. It was still on and working okay, just as it had been the last time he’d checked and the time before. The little green light stared up arrogantly at him, but to reassure himself he had to verify once more that there was paper in the feed tray. Of course there was. He could feel a yawn coming on, but he suppressed it by clenching his jaws. Tears came to his eyes. He picked up a well-thumbed pack of playing cards and cast an enquiring glance at Hanne. She shrugged her shoulders.

  “I don’t mind, but let’s play something different. Casino, for instance.”

  They finished two games before the fax emitted a promising trill. The green light had changed to yellow and a few seconds later the machine sucked in the top blank sheet of paper. It remained in the machine for a moment before its head emerged on the other side, neatly printed with a fax cover sheet from Oslo Magistrates Court.

  They both felt their pulses racing. An uncomfortable tingling crept up Håkon’s back, and he had to shake himself.

  “Shall we take it out page by page, or wait till the whole lot has arrived?” he asked with a wry grin.

  “Let’s go get ourselves a cup of coffee, then when we come back, it’ll all be there. It’s better than standing here waiting for it page by page.”

  They had the feeling they were absolutely alone as they left the room and walked along the corridor. Neither of them said anything. But the coffee in the anteroom had gone, so someone must have been in, because Hanne had put a fresh jug on less than an hour before. Håkon went into his office instead, opened the window, and brought in a plastic bag that had been hanging on a nail outside. He took out two half-litre bottles of orangeade.

  “The only fizzy drink that quenches nothing but your thirst,” he quoted sardonically.

  They clinked bottles in a gloomy toast. Håkon did nothing to suppress a loud and substantial belch, while Hanne gave a tiny burp. They returned to the incident room. Very slowly. There was a smell of polish, and the floor gleamed more than usual.

  When they came into the room the evil green eye had taken over again from its yellow counterpart. The machine had reverted to its somnolent hum, and the out-tray now contained several sheets of paper. Håkon picked them up with a hand trembling more from fatigue than tension and quickly perused the top final page. He sank down onto the small sofa and read aloud:

  “The defendant Jørgen Ulf Lavik will be remanded in custody until the Court or the prosecution service deems otherwise, though no later than Monday 6 December. Visits and correspondence will be prohibited for the duration of custody.”

  “Two weeks!”

  His tiredness was swept away on a rush of adrenaline.

  “Two weeks for Lavik!”

  He sprang up from the settee, staggered past the coffee table, and flung his arms round Hanne, scattering the papers.

  “Let go of me,” she laughed. “Two weeks is literally only half a victory; you asked for four.”

  “It’ll be pushing it, certainly, but we can work round the clock. And I swear”—he thumped his fist on the table before going on—“I’ll bet a month’s salary that we have more on that bastard before the fortnight’s out!”

  His childlike optimism and enthusiasm didn’t immediately rub off on Hanne. She gathered the papers together and put them in sequence again.

  “Let’s see what else the magistrate has to say.”

  On closer inspection the decision couldn’t even be described as half a victory. At most an eighth, perhaps.

  Christian Bloch-Hansen’s views on Karen Borg’s witness statement had found support, by and large. The Court shared his interpretation of Van der Kerch’s farewell letter as not in itself exempting her from her duty of confidentiality. The Dutchman’s intentions had to be subjected to fuller appraisal, an appraisal in which particular emphasis had to be given to the question of whether promulgation of the information would be to his advantage. There was some indication that this was not the case, since the statement actually incriminated him to a significant extent, and would thus harm his posthumous reputation. In the opinion of the Court the interview conducted by Karen Borg was too short in this respect. The Court therefore proposed to ignore the statement at present, since it might conflict with statutory tri
al procedures.

  Nevertheless, with some reservations, the Court found that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that a felony had been committed. But only with regard to the first charge of the indictment, the specified quantity of drugs that had been discovered in Frøstrup’s apartment. There was no reasonable cause, in the Court’s opinion, to suspect the defendant of anything more, in view of the inadmissibility of Karen Borg’s statement. In one simple phrase the magistrate had conceded that there were grounds for believing that the defendant might tamper with evidence. Two weeks’ remand in custody could not be regarded as disproportionate to the severity of the charges. Twenty-four grams of hard drugs was a substantial amount, with a street value of about two hundred thousand kroner. A fortnight behind bars, then, was the outcome.

  Roger Strømsjord would go free.

  “Oh, shit,” they exclaimed simultaneously.

  Roger was implicated solely on the strength of the statement from Han van der Kerch. As long as that was inadmissible, the Court had only the coded telephone numbers, which were inadequate evidence in themselves. He was to be released.

  The telephone rang. They both leapt up, as if the gentle burbling were a fire alarm.

  It was the magistrate, to check that the fax transmission had functioned properly.

  “I suppose I can expect an appeal from both sides,” he said in a weary voice, though Håkon thought he could detect a trace of humour in it.

  “Yes, I want to appeal against the release of Roger Strømsjord, anyway, and seek a stay of execution. It would be a catastrophe if he were let out tonight.”

  “You shall have a stay of execution,” the magistrate promised him. “Now we’ll all turn in, shall we?”

  That was one thing they could all agree on. It had been a long, long day. They put on their coats, locked the door carefully behind them, and left the half-empty bottles of orangeade standing in splendid isolation. The slogan was right: it had quenched nothing but their thirst.

  TUESDAY 24 NOVEMBER

  It was like waking up with a bad hangover. Hanne Wilhelmsen hadn’t been able to sleep when she got home. Despite hot milk and a shoulder massage. After only four hours of intermittent dozing she was jerked into to full consciousness by a wretched news programme on her clock radio. Lavik’s remand in custody was the first item. The commentator considered the hearing equivocal, and was extremely doubtful about the tenability of the police case. Of course, they didn’t know the reasons for the decision, and therefore spent several minutes speculating on why the car salesman had been released. The speculations were fairly wide of the mark.

  She stretched herself dispiritedly and forced herself up out of the warm bedclothes. She had to skip breakfast, because she’d promised Håkon she’d be at work by eight o’clock. It looked as if it was going to be yet another long day.

  In the shower she tried to concentrate on other things. She rested her forehead against the shiny tiles, and let the scalding water run down her back and turn it bright pink. She couldn’t get the case out of her mind. Her brain had gone into overdrive and was carrying her along with it. Right now she almost wished she could be the subject of an immediate transfer. Three months in the traffic police would be ideal. She might not be the type to run away from a difficult task, but this case was completely monopolising her. There was no peace, all the loose threads kept going round and round, weaving themselves into new solutions, new theories. Even if Cecilie didn’t complain, Hanne realised that she herself was at the moment neither good friend nor good lover. At dinner parties she would sit staring mutely at her glass and being politely formal. Sex had become routine, without much evidence of either passion or involvement.

  The water was so hot that her back was going numb. She straightened up and winced in agony when it scalded her breasts. As she adjusted the mixer control to escape being boiled alive, a thought suddenly struck her.

  The boot. Billy T.’s hunting trophy. It must obviously have a twin somewhere or other. Locating a specific size ten winter boot in Oslo at this time of year might seem like a hopeless exercise, even if the owner hadn’t dumped it. But the number of current owners couldn’t be so immensely great and it might just be worth a try. If they managed to get hold of the other boot it should bring them someone virtually guaranteed to be involved in all this. Then they would see how tough he was. Loyalty had never been a strong point among drug dealers.

  The boot. It had to be found.

  The day was just dawning. Even though the sun had not yet risen over the horizon, the luminosity behind Ekeberg Hill to the southeast of the city centre seemed to promise fine cold November weather. The temperature had fallen below freezing again. The local radio stations were broadcasting warnings to motorists and predicting delays and overcrowding on buses and trams. A few workers on their way to another day’s toil paused outside the Dagbladet offices to scan the pages of the newspaper displayed in the window.

  Once again his case was the main headline. Myhreng had made a covert record in his notebook that very morning of his twelfth front page in less than a year. A bit immature perhaps, but it was good to have an overview, he thought proudly. After all, his position was only temporary. Almost like a probationary period.

  The key was burning a hole in his pocket. Taking no chances, he’d had three more copies made and hidden them safely away. His key-cutting friend hadn’t been of much assistance in the end. Apparently it might be almost anything. Nothing bigger than a luggage deposit locker. Maybe a cupboard, but definitely not a full-size door. So it was a pretty vague thing to track down.

  He’d had no luck at the left-luggage lockers in the most obvious places. The key didn’t fit at the Central Station or either of the airports, nor in the big hotels. And since there hadn’t been a number on the key it wasn’t likely that it was for use in any public facility.

  Should he give it to Håkon Sand? The police were presumably under pressure now, since two weeks wasn’t much, and the way the courts were handling appeals suggested that they might not even get as long as that.

  There was a lot to be said for helping the police. They had resources that would make it far more effective for them to look for somewhere the damned key would fit. He also needed to build up some more goodwill. Definitely. He could do a lucrative deal. In fact, when he thought about it, it wasn’t exactly wise to carry something about with him that could be crucial evidence in a case of this significance. Murder and stuff. Was it a punishable offence? Withholding evidence? He wasn’t entirely sure.

  On the other hand, how to explain his possession of the key? The break-in at Lavik’s office was an offence in itself. If his editor got to hear of it, he could kiss his job good-bye. For the moment he couldn’t think of any alternative story that would hold water.

  The conclusion was obvious: he would have to hunt around on his own. If he succeeded in finding the cupboard or locker or whatever it might be, he would go to the police. If it contained anything of interest, that is. Then his dubious methods would probably be overlooked. Yes, the sensible thing was to keep the key to himself.

  He hitched up his trousers and went into the big grey building where his newspaper had its home.

  The broad expanse of the desk was completely covered in newspapers. Peter Strup had been at the office since half past six. He too had been woken by the news of the court ruling. He had bought seven different papers on the way to work, all of which had devoted sizeable headlines to the case. On the whole the articles had little to say, but they all took different angles. Klassekampen described the custody order as a victory for the rule of law, and had a leader on how reassuring it was that the courts occasionally demonstrated that they were not merely perpetuating class justice. Strange, he reflected grimly, how the same people who bring out their heavy artillery against the primitive need of a corrupt society for imprisonment as vengeance change their tune when the same system targets someone from society’s sunnier climes. The tabloids had more pictures than text, apart fro
m the huge headlines. Aftenposten had a sober report, really rather tame. The case certainly deserved a more adequate coverage than that—perhaps they were afraid of libel action. It all seemed a long way from a conviction, and it was obvious that Lavik would take cruel revenge if he were found not guilty.

  His old-fashioned fountain pen scratched across the paper as he took notes at lightning speed. It was always difficult to follow the legal arguments from newspaper articles. Journalists confused concepts and blundered around the legal landscape like free-range hens. Only Aftenposten and Klassekampen were competent enough to realise this was a court ruling that was being challenged, not a conviction subject to appeal.

  Finally he folded all the newspapers together, with pages hanging loose where he’d cut out the most significant bits. The whole batch went into the wastepaper basket. He clipped the cuttings to his handwritten notes and put them in a plastic folder in a locked drawer. He buzzed his secretary and instructed her to cancel his engagements for today and tomorrow. She was manifestly astonished, and began to counter with ifs and buts before restraining herself.

  “Very well then. Shall I arrange new dates?”

  “Yes, please do. Say that something unforeseen has cropped up. Now I have to make one or two important phone calls and I don’t want to be disturbed. Not by anyone.”

  He stood up and locked the door to the corridor. Then he took out a neat little mobile phone and went over to the window. After a couple of rings he was through.

  “Hello, Christian, it’s Peter here.”

  “Good morning.”

  His voice was sombre, the tone at variance with the words.

  “Well, it’s not exactly good for either of us. But I’d better congratulate you, if I’ve got it right from the newspapers. One discharged and the other in custody for half the length of time demanded could be seen as a favourable result.”