by Anne Holt
“They can take a walk too, the local police! The bloody area isn’t that big!”
It was unfair to take it out on Hanne, and he regretted it instantly. He tried to moderate his outburst with a weak smile and a helpless movement of his head.
Hanne replied soothingly that she’d already asked them to do that. There was still time, and thus still hope. A swift glance at the clock prompted her to ask whether he’d given notice of the delay.
“I asked for a postponement till three o’clock; I got till two. There’s an hour to go. I’ll get longer if I can promise that she’s coming. If not, the hearing will start at two.”
Far, far away a yellow figure was walking along by the ravenously snatching winter sea and feeding it with stones. The boxer flung itself again and again into the rough waves, quivering with cold as only dogs do and yet not giving up, impelled by its canine instincts to pursue every object that was thrown. It had never had a chill, but it was shivering violently now. Karen Borg stopped and took an old jumper out of her rucksack and put it on the dog to keep it warm. It looked ridiculous with pink mohair wrapped round its front legs and flopping under its thin belly, but at least it ceased its trembling.
She had come to the end of the headland, and was hunting about for the nice sheltered spot where she so often sought refuge on days like this but always had difficulty locating again. There it was. She sat down on an insulated groundsheet she’d brought with her and took out a thermos flask. The hot chocolate had a distinct flavour of many years of ingrained coffee, but it didn’t matter. She sat there for a long time, deep in thought, her ears filled with the noise of the sea and the wind whistling round the big rock. The dog lay at her feet looking like a pink poodle. For some reason she felt troubled. She was desperate to find peace out here, but it remained unattainable. That was unusual; it had always come willingly to meet her here before. Perhaps it had found someone else and deserted her.
The police didn’t find her. She didn’t get to Oslo that day. She didn’t even know she was wanted there.
It was doomed to fail. Without the slightest shred of new evidence, there was nothing more to put forward. This time Christian Bloch-Hansen took twenty minutes to persuade the Court that continued custody was a clearly unjustifiable and disproportionate measure. Mr. Lavik’s legal practice was obviously suffering significantly from his detention. He was losing thirty thousand kroner a week. Nor was it just himself who was adversely affected: he had two employees whose very jobs were threatened by his absence. His professional and social standing made the present circumstances even more stressful, and the overwhelming media attention had not exactly improved the situation. In the unlikely event of the Court’s continuing to believe there were reasonable grounds for suspicion of criminal behaviour, it should take into consideration the extreme burden posed in this instance by remand in custody. The police ought to have been able to produce more substantial evidence in a week, but they hadn’t. Lavik must be released before irrevocable damage was done to his reputation. His health was also at risk: the Court could see for itself the condition he was in.
The Court could indeed. He’d looked a sorry sight last time, and there was no sign of any recovery yet. You didn’t need to be a doctor to see that he was in a bad way. His clothes had drooped in unison with their owner, and the previously elegant young lawyer now looked like a tramp dragged in off the street after a grim Christmas lunch at a soup kitchen.
The Court was unanimous. The decision was dictated then and there. Håkon’s profound depression was lifted somewhat when the judge reiterated that there was still reasonable cause for suspicion. But his heart sank again when he heard him express his condemnation of the police in fairly unequivocal terms for their failure to follow matters up, referring in particular to the lamentable lack of clarification of Karen Borg’s statement.
The danger of destruction of evidence was also obvious, but unfortunately it was equally apparent to the magistrate that custody would indeed be a disproportionate measure given all the circumstances. The defendant was to be released, but would have to report to the police every Friday.
Report to the police! A lot of help that would be. Håkon appealed against the decision on the spot and asked for a stay of execution. That would at least give them one more day. A day was a day. Even if Rome wasn’t built in such a short period, there were many other things that had come to fruition on the basis of a few extra stolen hours.
Håkon could hardly believe his ears when the judge stated that he could not grant that request either. He tried to protest, but met with a sharp rebuttal. The police had had their opportunity, which they had singularly failed to take advantage of. Now they would have to manage without the Court’s help. Håkon responded aggressively that there was no point in appealing at all, and tore up the application in anger. The judge pretended not to notice, and brought the hearing to a close with a sardonic observation:
“With luck you might escape a claim for damages. If so, you can count yourselves extremely fortunate.”
Jørgen Ulf Lavik was released that same evening. He immediately seemed to straighten up and fill his suit, growing several centimetres and putting on some of his lost kilos. As he left police headquarters he laughed—for the first time in ten days.
Which is more than Hanne Wilhelmsen or Håkon Sand did. Or anyone else in the great curved building on Grønlandsleiret, for that matter.
It had gone well. It really had gone well. The nightmare was over. They hadn’t found anything. If they had, he’d still have been inside. But what was there to find? As fate would have it, only two days before his arrest he’d removed the key from beneath the filing cabinet and found a safer place for it. Perhaps the old man was right and the angels were on their side. Only the gods themselves could know why.
But there was one thing he didn’t entirely understand. When he’d selected Christian Bloch-Hansen as his lawyer, it was because he was the best. The guilty need the best; the innocent can get by with anybody. Bloch-Hansen had come up to expectations, and that was fine. He himself would hardly have thought of the breach of confidentiality angle in respect of Karen Borg. He’d done a splendid job as defence counsel, and had been perfectly correct and polite to him. But with no warmth or empathy or kindness. He had seemed indifferent, doing his job, doing it efficiently, but there had been something in his penetrating eyes that looked like a glint of animosity, even contempt. Did he believe him to be guilty? Was he refusing to believe in his convincing story, so convincing that he’d almost begun to believe it himself?
Lavik dismissed the thought. It wasn’t important anymore. He was a free man, and had no doubt now that the case against him would soon be dropped. He would ask Bloch-Hansen to make sure it was. A real blunder, that thousand-kroner note, but as far as he knew it was the only mistake he’d ever made. Never, never would he put himself in that position again. There was just one task left, but he’d had plenty of time to plan it. Several days. But it still needed some fine-tuning, and it had come as a real gift when Håkon Sand had attributed the lack of further elucidation of Karen Borg’s witness statement to her absence on holiday. The magistrate had been exasperated by the fact that the police had had problems contacting somebody in the next county, as if it were the other side of the world. Of course it wasn’t. He knew exactly where it was. Nine years ago they’d organised a trip for the student representatives on the faculty committee, of all political persuasions. He’d had a feeling at the time that the woman might have been a little in love with him, though the political gulf between them would have made any greater familiarity impossible. But there was talk of restrictions on student numbers, and they’d all set aside their political differences to make common cause against the planned admission reductions. Karen had offered to host the historic meeting. It had been more wine than politics, but as far as he remembered it had been an enjoyable weekend.
He would have to act fast, and it would be problematical getting rid of the troublesome m
osquitoes he knew would be buzzing around him for a long time to come. But he’d manage it. He had to. If he could dispose of Karen Borg, they’d never get him. She was the last hurdle between himself and ultimate freedom.
The dark-blue Volvo came to a halt in front of the garage, skidding slightly on the slippery drive but finding its way home like an old horse returning to its stable after a hard day’s work. Lavik bent over his pale wife behind the steering wheel, kissed her tenderly, and thanked her for her support.
“Everything will be fine now, darling,” he said.
It didn’t entirely seem as if she believed it.
Should he phone, or not? Should he go down there, or should he leave her alone? He wandered restlessly round his small apartment, which had the air of having for some time been a place he just passed through to get clean clothes and some sleep. Now there weren’t any clean clothes, and he couldn’t find sleep anywhere either.
Giddiness overcame him and he had to clutch at the bookcase to keep his balance. Luckily there was a dusty bottle of red wine at the back of the kitchen cupboard. Half an hour later it was empty.
The case was lost. Karen too, probably. There was no point in getting in touch with her. It was all over.
He felt dreadful, and broached a half-bottle of aquavit that had been in the fridge since the previous Christmas. The alcohol finally had the desired effect: he fell asleep. An evil and malicious sleep, with nightmares of being pursued by devilish gigantic lawyers, and a tiny little yellow figure calling to him from a cloud on the horizon. He tried to run towards her, but his legs were like lead and he got no closer. In the end she disappeared altogether: the yellow figure flew off, leaving him lying on the ground, a tiny little police attorney surrounded by cloaked vultures pecking out his eyes.
TUESDAY 1 DECEMBER
At last there was some kind of sense to all the fuss and glitter and gaudy plastic lights that were intended to transform the streets for Christmas—they were into December. The snow had returned, and the business community had eagerly taken note of the fact that the personal consumption of the people of Norway had increased a few percent during the course of the year. It raised expectations and inspired resplendent shop-window decorations. The lime trees on Karl Johans Gata, naked and self-conscious in their Christmas lights, stood in for their coniferous cousins. The solemn illumination ceremony for the massive spruce outside the university had taken place the day before yesterday. Today there was only a shabby Salvation Army officer enjoying the sight as he stood stamping his feet and smiling hopefully at the morning commuters hurrying past his collecting box without even a few seconds to spare for the tree in all its glory.
Jørgen Lavik knew he was being shadowed. Several times he stopped abruptly and looked back. It was impossible to work out who was following him. Everybody had the same blank gaze; only one or two gave him an extra inquisitive glance, as if they half recognised him and wondered where they’d seen him before. It was fortunate that the photographs in the press had been so out-of-date and of such poor quality that hardly anyone would have recognised him.
But he knew they were after him, which made things difficult, though at the same time it gave him a permanent alibi. He could turn the situation to his own advantage. He took several deep breaths and felt his mind clearing.
His visit to the office was brief. The receptionist nearly dislodged her dentures in her rapture at seeing him, and gave him a hug that smelt of lavender and old age. It was almost touching. After a couple of hours on the more urgent matters, he told her he was going to spend the remainder of the week at his cottage. He would be available by telephone, and took a number of case files, his computer, and a portable fax machine with him. He might drop in on Friday, since he had to report to the police then.
“So you can hold the fort, Caroline, as you have so ably over the last few days,” he said in a complimentary tone.
Her mouth formed itself into a pallid smile again and her delight at the praise brought roses to her cheeks. She bobbed at the knees flirtatiously, but refrained from turning it into a curtsy. Of course she would hold the fort, and he should have a good holiday. He deserved it!
He thought so too. But before he left he went into the toilet to use the mobile phone he’d grabbed from his colleague’s pigeonhole. He knew the number by heart.
“I’m out. You can relax.”
His whisper was scarcely audible against the embarrassing gurgle from the defective cistern.
“Don’t ring me, and especially not now,” the other man hissed, but without hanging up.
“It’s perfectly safe. You can relax,” he repeated, to no avail.
“It’s easy to say that!”
“Karen Borg is in her cottage at Ula. She won’t be there long. You’ll be quite safe. Only she can bring me down, and only I can bring you down. If I’m all right, you’re all right.”
He didn’t hear the older man’s protests; he had already hung up. Jørgen Ulf Lavik had a pee, washed his hands, and went back to his invisible stalkers.
He would soon have to have something done about his heart. The medication he’d been taking didn’t work anymore. Not very effectively, anyway. He’d twice felt the hand of death, like the frightening and near-fatal blow that had prostrated him less than three years ago. Systematic exercise and a fat-free diet had certainly helped up to now, but his condition over the last few weeks couldn’t be remedied by jogging or carrots.
They were onto him. In a way he’d been expecting it, ever since the snowball began to roll. It could only be a question of time. Even though the description in the Dagbladet of the presumed ringleader had been rather general, and could have fitted several hundred people, it was a bit too exact for the guys in Platou Gata. He’d been walking home from work one afternoon and suddenly they were standing there, as anonymous as the job they were doing, two identical men, the same height, the same clothes. They’d forced him into the car in a friendly, but very firm, manner. The drive lasted half an hour, and ended in front of his own house. He had denied everything. They hadn’t believed him. But they knew that he knew that it was in the interests of all of them that he should be in the clear. Which put his mind at rest to some extent. If it came out how the money was actually spent, they’d all be finished. Admittedly he was the only one who knew where it came from, but the others had accepted it—and used it. Without ever asking, without ever checking, without ever investigating anything. Which made their position extremely delicate.
The real headache was Lavik. Had he gone out of his mind? It was pretty obvious he intended to kill Karen Borg. As if that would solve anything! He would be the prime suspect. Immediately. Besides, who knew whether she’d told others, or written something down that hadn’t yet found its way into the hands of the police? Killing Karen Borg would solve nothing.
Killing Jørgen Lavik, on the other hand, would solve most things. The moment the thought was formed, it seemed his only recourse. The successful murder of Hans Olsen had effectively halted all problems in that branch of the syndicate. Lavik had just made matters worse and worse for both of them. He had to be stopped.
The idea didn’t frighten him. On the contrary, it had a calming effect. His pulse was beating steadily and evenly again, for the first time in days. His brain felt alert and he could feel his concentration improving.
The best thing would be to eliminate him before he had time to send Karen Borg to whatever heaven was reserved for lawyers. The murder of a young and beautiful, and in this respect innocent, female lawyer would have far too many repercussions. A desperate male lawyer on drugs charges wouldn’t die without causing a few ripples either, but still . . . One murder was better than two. But how to go about it?
Jørgen Lavik had talked about Ula. A cottage. That must mean he was thinking of going there. How he would evade the plainclothesmen who doubtless had him under constant observation, he had no idea. But that was Lavik’s problem. His own was to find Lavik, find him without being seen by thos
e same officers, and preferably before he got to Karen Borg. He didn’t need an alibi: he wasn’t in the police spotlight, nor would he be. If all went well.
It would take him less than an hour to find the precise address of Karen Borg’s cottage. He could ring her office, or perhaps the local council; they could check in the land register. But that was too risky. A few minutes later he’d made up his mind. As far as he could recall, there was only one way down to Ula, a little track off the coast road between Sandefjord and Larvik. He would simply lie in wait there.
Relieved at having come to a decision, he immersed himself in the day’s most pressing tasks. His hands were steady and his heart was beating regularly again. Perhaps he didn’t need any new medication after all.
It was a bit more than a summer cottage—a substantial red-painted old wooden house from the thirties, completely renovated, and even in the gloom of December you could appreciate the idyllic character of the location. It was quite well protected against the elements, and though there was some snow on the approach to it, the rocky ground behind was scoured clean by the incessant wind off the sea. A fir tree swayed obstinately just a few metres from the west wall. The wind had managed to bend the trunk but not to kill the tree. It stood leaning away from the shore, as if it were longing to join its family further inland but couldn’t tear itself loose. You could make out the contours of summer flowerbeds between the humps of snow on the lee side of the house. It was all neatly tended. It didn’t belong to Lavik, but to his senile and childless uncle. Jørgen had been his favourite nephew when last his uncle had been able to feel anything of that nature. He had turned up faithfully every summer when he was a boy, and they had gone fishing together, caulked boats, and eaten fried bacon and beans. Jørgen was the son he’d never had, and he would inherit the beautiful summer cottage when Alzheimer’s eventually, and probably in the not-so-distant future, met its only match—death.