by Anne Holt
“Yes. At least recently. When Vegard really started to get stuck and definitely couldn’t be called young and promising anymore. We’ve been soooo”—she held her thumb and her forefinger an eighth of an inch apart—“close to splitting up. Several times.”
“But you still wanted to have children?”
“Don’t most people?”
He didn’t answer. There was a sudden commotion outside on the stairs. Something heavy fell on the floor, and two angry voices bounced off the concrete walls. Adam thought they were speaking Urdu.
“Nice here in Grønland,” she said dryly. “Sometimes it can be a bit too lively. At least for those of us who can’t afford to buy an apartment in the new buildings.”
The voices out in the stairwell died down and then trailed off. Only the monotone drone of the city forced its way in through the dilapidated windows and filled the silence between them.
“If you could choose one,” Adam said finally, “one of Vegard’s enemies . . . someone who really had a reason to wish him ill, who would that be?”
“That’s impossible,” she answered without hesitation. “Vegard had offended so many people and threw his shit around so liberally that it would be impossible to pick out one person. And in any case . . .”
She picked again at the hole on the knee of her jeans. The skin underneath was winter-white against the indigo blue.
“Like I said, I’m not really sure if he could cause that much damage anymore. Before, he was hard-hitting and on target with his criticism. Recently it’s just been . . . shit, like I said.”
“But would it be possible,” Adam tried again, “to identify . . . one group, then . . . one group of people that has greater reason to feel they’ve been wronged? Tabloid journalists? TV celebrities? Politicians?”
“Crime writers!”
Finally, a broad and genuine smile. Her teeth were small and pearly white, with a slight gap between the upper front teeth. A dimple appeared on one of her cheeks, an oval shadow of forgotten laughter.
“What?”
“Some years ago, when all his antics still attracted attention, he wrote a parody of three of that year’s best sellers. Nonsense, really, but very funny. He got a taste for it. And in many ways it was his trademark for years. Haranguing crime writers, that is. Also in situations where it was completely unjustified or inappropriate. A kind of personal version of Cato’s ‘Moreover, I advise that Carthage must be destroyed.’” Again she made finger quotes in the air.
A car backfired outside the living room window. Adam heard a dog barking in the backyard. His back was sore, and his shoulders ached. His eyes were dry, and he rubbed them with his knuckles, like a tired child.
“What are we doing?” he asked himself. “What am I doing? Searching for ghosts and shadows. Getting nowhere. There’s no connection, no common features, nowhere to go. Not even an overgrown, invisible path. We’re flailing around in the dark, getting nowhere, without seeing anything except more new, impenetrable scrub. Fiona Helle was popular. Victoria Heinerback had political opponents, but no enemies. Vegard Krogh was a ridiculous Don Quixote who waged war with popular fiction authors in a world full of despots, fanaticism, and threatening catastrophe. What a . . .”
“I have to go,” he muttered. “It’s late.”
“So soon?” She seemed disappointed. “I mean . . . of course.”
She went to get his coat and came back before he had managed to struggle out of the deep sofa.
“I’m terribly sorry, on your behalf,” Adam said as he took his coat and put it on. “For what has happened, and for bothering you like this.”
Elsbeth Davidsen didn’t answer. She walked silently in front of him down the hall.
“Thank you for letting me come,” Adam said.
“It is I who should thank you,” said Elsbeth Davidsen seriously and held out her hand. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”
Adam felt her warmth, the dry, soft hand, and dropped it a second too late. Then he turned and left. The dog in the backyard had gotten company. The animals were making a din that followed him all the way to the car, which was parked a block away. Both side-view mirrors had been broken and a parting message from Oslo East had been scratched onto the curbside doors: Fuck you, you fucker.
At least it was spelled correctly.
Fourteen
If you don’t mind me saying, Johanne, you look damn great tonight. You really do. Cheers!”
Sigmund Berli lifted his glass of cognac. It didn’t seem to bother him that he was the only one drinking. A red flush spread around his eyes like a rash, and his smile was broad.
“Amazing what a good night’s sleep can do,” Adam said.
“More like eighteen hours,” Johanne said under her breath. “Don’t think I’ve slept that long since I was in my last year of school.”
She was standing behind Sigmund’s back, asking Adam silently, with gestures and facial expressions, why he had invited his colleague home with him on yet another weekday.
“Sigmund’s a grass widower at the moment,” Adam explained in a loud, cheerful voice. “And the man doesn’t have enough sense to eat unless the food is put on the table in front of him.”
“If only I got food like this every day,” Sigmund said and swallowed a burp. “I’ve never tasted such a good pizza. We normally have Grandiosa. Is it hard to make it? Do you think I could get the recipe for the wife?”
He grabbed the last piece as Adam started to clear the table.
“Would you rather have a beer?” Johanne asked in desperation, looking at the cognac bottle on the windowsill. “If you’re going to eat more, that is. Doesn’t it, well . . . go better?”
“Cognac goes with most things,” Sigmund said happily and launched into the last piece of pizza. “It’s really nice to be here. Thanks for asking.”
“You’re welcome,” Johanne said flatly. “Are you still hungry?”
“After this, I could only be hungry for life,” grinned the guest, washing down the pizza with the rest of the cognac.
“Dear God,” muttered Johanne and went to the bathroom.
Sigmund was right—the sleep had done her a world of good. The bags under her eyes were no longer so dark, even though they were more obvious than Johanne liked in the harsh light by the mirror. This morning she had taken the time to have a proper bath, wash her hair, and cut and polish her nails. Put on makeup. When she finally felt ready to collect Ragnhild, she had lain down and slept for another hour and a half. Her mother had demanded that she look after her grandchild again on the weekend. Johanne had shaken her head, but her mother’s smile showed that she wasn’t going to yield.
“What is it about mothers?” Johanne asked herself. “Will I be like that too? Will I be just as hopeless, project my feelings onto my daughters and annoy them, be equally good at reading their needs? She’s the only person I can give my baby to without feeling worried or ashamed. She makes me feel like a child again. That’s what I need, I need to have no responsibility, no demands every now and then. I don’t want to be like her. I need her. What is it about mothers?”
She let the cold water run over her hands for a long, long time.
More than anything, she wanted to go to bed. It was as if the previous night’s long sleep had reminded her body that it was possible to sleep, and now it was screaming for more. But it was only nine o’clock. She dried her hands thoroughly, put her glasses on, and reluctantly went back to the kitchen.
“Or what do you think, Johanne?”
Sigmund’s moon face smiled expectantly at her.
“About what?” she asked, trying to muster a smile.
“I was saying that surely it must be easier to develop a profile of the killer now. If we take all your theories seriously, I mean.”
“All my theories? I don’t have many theories.”
“Don’t be a pedant,” Adam said. “Sigmund’s right, isn’t he?”
Johanne picked up a bottle of mineral wat
er and drank. Then she screwed the lid back on, thought about it, smiled fleetingly and said, “We’ve certainly got a lot more to go on than before, I agree.”
“Come on, then!”
Sigmund pushed a pen and some paper in her direction. His eyes were bright, like an excited child. Johanne stared at the sheets of paper in irritation.
“Fiona Helle’s the problem,” she said slowly.
“Why?” asked Adam. “Isn’t she the only one who’s not a problem? We’ve got a murderer, a confession, and a perfect motive that underpins the murderer’s confession.”
“Exactly,” Johanne agreed and sat down on the empty bar stool. “And for that reason, she doesn’t fit in.”
She took three pieces of paper and laid them side by side on the counter. She wrote FH in felt-tip pen on the first page and pushed it to one side. Then she took the second and wrote VH in big letters and left it in front of her. She chewed the pen for a while before she scribbled VK on the last piece of paper and put it in line with the others.
“Three murders. Two unsolved.”
She was talking to herself. Biting the pen. Thinking. The men were quiet. Suddenly she wrote Tuesday, January 20, Friday, February 6, and Thursday, February 19, under the initials.
“Different days,” she murmured. “No pattern to the intervals.”
Adam’s mouth moved as he calculated the days.
“Seventeen days between the first and second murders,” he said. “And thirteen between the second and third. Thirty between the first and the last.”
“At least it’s a round number,” Sigmund tried.
Johanne moved the FH sheet to one side. Then pulled it back.
“Something’s not right,” she said. “There’s something that just doesn’t fit.”
“Can’t we try to base our discussion on the assumption that someone is behind it all?” Adam suggested impatiently and pushed the sheet over. “Imagine that Mats Bohus has been influenced by someone. The same person who’s manipulated someone to kill Victoria Heinerback and Vegard Krogh. Let’s—”
Johanne wrinkled her nose.
“But that’s completely crazy,” she said. “I don’t understand—”
“Let’s just try,” Adam insisted. “What does that conjure up? What sort of person could—”
“It has to be someone with an incredible insight into the human psyche,” she started. Again, she seemed to be talking to herself. “A psychiatrist or a psychologist. Maybe an experienced policeman. An insane priest? No . . .”
Her fingers drummed on the sheet with Fiona Helle’s initials. She bit her lip. Blinked and straightened her glasses.
“I’m afraid I just can’t,” she said in a whisper. “I can’t see what the connection is. Not unless . . . what if . . .”
She stood up abruptly. A file of notes lay on the shelf by the TV. She flicked eagerly through it as she came back across the floor and found the photo of Fiona Helle. When she sat back down, she put the picture directly above the sheet of paper with the victim’s initials on it.
“This case is actually completely clear-cut,” she said. “Fiona Helle let down her son. She can hardly be blamed for what happened in 1978, when Mats was born and her mother made a decision that would affect the fate of three generations. But I’m sure that I’m not the only one who has some kind of understanding of Mats Bohus’s extreme reaction to what happened. You can think what you like about some people’s strange desire to discover their biological origins, but . . .”
Her eyes did not leave the photograph. Johanne took off her glasses, picked up the photo, and studied it.
“It’s all about dreams and great expectations,” she said in a quiet voice. “Often, at least. When things go wrong and life is difficult, it must be tempting to think that there’s something else out there, your true self, your real life. A kind of comfort. A dream that can sometimes become an obsession. Mats Bohus has had a harder life than most. His mother’s final and absolute rejection must have been . . . crushing. This time she had everything to offer, but nothing to give. Mats had a motive for killing her. He killed her.”
Deep in thought, she put the photo on top of the sheet of paper and bound them together with a paper clip. She sat in silence as if the others were no longer there and stared at the photograph of the beautiful TV star with fascinating eyes, a straight nose, and a provocative, sensual mouth.
Sigmund stole a look at the bottle by the window. Adam nodded.
“What if,” Johanne began again; they could hear the enthusiasm in her voice. “What if we assume that it’s not three cases in a series?”
“Sorry?”
“Huh?” uttered Sigmund as he filled his glass.
“We should perhaps—” Adam started.
“Wait,” Johanne said sharply.
She placed the sheets in a triangle, with her hand over Fiona Helle’s face.
“This case has been solved,” she said. “A murder. An investigation. A suspect. The suspect has a motive. He confesses. The confession is confirmed by other facts in the case. Case closed.”
“I have no idea where you’re going,” Adam admitted. “Are we back to square one? Do you think it’s just coincidence and that we’re talking about three unconnected—”
“But what about the symbolism?” Sigmund interjected. “What about the lecture you heard thirteen years ago that—”
“Hang on a minute! Wait!”
Johanne stood up. She walked in circles around the floor. Every now and then she stopped by the window and looked aimlessly out at the street, as if she had no expectation of seeing anyone there.
“It’s the tongue,” she said. “The severed tongue is the key. The starting point.”
She turned toward the two men. Two bright circles were growing on her cheeks, touching her glasses, which were steamed up. Adam and Sigmund sat still, in deep concentration, as if they were spectators about to watch a dangerous stunt.
“We had it already on day one,” Johanne said, excited. “The very first day, when Fiona was found with her tongue cut off and all wrapped up. It was there. We said that it was so banal. Such simple, obvious symbolism that it could almost have been taken from a cheap book about Red Indians. You said it yourself, Adam, just the other day . . . you said that there must be countless examples of bodies with dismembered tongues throughout history. You were right. You’re absolutely right. Fiona Helle’s murder had nothing to do with the lecture I heard on that hot summer’s day in an auditorium in Quantico. It’s so”—she put her hands to her face and swayed slightly from side to side—“clear,” she said, half stifled, “so obvious. Jesus.”
Adam stared at her, bewildered.
“Don’t touch me,” Johanne warned. “Let me go on.”
Sigmund didn’t drink. He was staring, his moist pink lips slightly open. His eyes moved from Johanne to Adam and back. Jack, the King of America, had come in from the living room. Even the dog stood stock-still, with his mouth shut and a twitching nose.
“These three cases,” Johanne finally said and dropped her hands, “have a number of common features. But rather than looking for more, perhaps we should ask ourselves, what are the differences? What makes them different from each other? What makes the Fiona Helle case so different from the others?”
Adam hadn’t taken his eyes off her since she started to wander around the room. Only now did he dare reach out for the bottle of water. His hands were shaking slightly as he unscrewed the top.
“It’s been solved,” he quipped.
“Exactly!”
Johanne pointed at him with both hands.
“Exactly! It’s been solved!”
Jack wagged his tail, and it hit her legs when he came close. She stepped on his paw by accident as she hurried back to the counter. The dog howled.
“You found the answer in the Fiona Helle case,” she said, picking up the photograph and paying no attention to the dog. “You struggled, fumbled around, and were lost for a while. But the an
swer was there. The postmortem revealed details that led back to an old, sad story, which in turn led to Mats Bohus. To the murderer. Motive and opportunity. Everything was there, Adam. And it normally is. Murders are usually solved in this country.”
Sigmund grabbed his glass and took a drink.
“Hello, I’m here too,” he complained.
“But now take the other two cases,” Johanne continued and slid the photograph down to the end of the counter, before grasping the other two sheets marked with the big letters VH and VK. “Have you ever in all your working life come across cases so devoid of suspects? So chaotic and full of false leads and distractions? Trond Arnesen . . .”
She spat the name out over the counter.
“A boy. He certainly had things to hide, just like everyone else. But he obviously didn’t kill her. His alibi is airtight, even with a one-and-a-half hour interlude for a lovers’ tryst.”
“Rudolf Fjord is a name that still interests me,” objected Sigmund.
“Rudolf Fjord,” she sighed. “God, I’m sure he’s no angel, either. Angels don’t exist. So overall . . .”
Adam put his hand on hers; she was leaning against the counter, clutching a sheet of paper in each hand. He stroked the taut skin.
“In these two cases,” she said and pulled away, “you will never achieve anything, except upsetting people’s lives, standing on their toes with spiked shoes. As the police never give up, you will turn people’s lives upside down, in ever-increasing circles around the victims. And before you give up, before you finally admit that you will never find the murderer, you will have destroyed, derailed so many, so many lives . . .”
“Okay, calm down now, Johanne. Sit down. I assume you want us to understand what you’re trying to say, so you’ll have to take it slower around the corners.”
She forced herself to sit down and unsuccessfully tried to tuck her hair back behind her ears. It kept falling forward because her bangs were far too long.
“You need a drink,” Sigmund declared. “That’s what you need.”
“No thanks.”
“Wine would be better,” Adam said. “I’m definitely going to have a glass.”