by Anne Holt
She could wait.
Adam was not himself. Nothing was as usual. Though the major court case would not take place until sometime well into the new year, sooner or later some kind of normality would return to Adam’s work. It was too soon at present, only a week had elapsed. In a month perhaps, when summer was over and Norway was forced to regain its equilibrium somehow. No one could go on as things were, but for a month or so she could carry the child by herself.
The shrill sound of a phone ringing in the living room broke the silence.
Adam must not wake, not now, and she hurtled out of the bathroom.
It was her own mobile phone. She snatched it from the coffee table and collapsed on to the settee.
‘Hello!’
‘Hello, oh yes. Have I reached Johanne Vik?’
‘Yes. Sorry, I just... Yes, it’s me.’
‘This is Agnes Krogh. I don’t know if you remember me, but I—’
‘You’re Ellen’s mother! Of course I remember you.’
‘I’m sorry to phone so late, and on a Friday night at that. It’s just that I...’
The line crackled, and Johanne transferred the phone to her other hand, settling herself comfortably on the settee.
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘I’m awake, and on my own anyway.’
‘Thanks. I’m phoning just to see if you can meet me as soon as possible. I’d like to talk to you about something that’s not really suitable for a phone conversation.’
‘Yes, I see. Of course we can meet up.’
Johanne was about to express her condolences over Sander’s death when it sprang to mind that Agnes and Torbjørn had not set eyes on the boy in three years. Nevertheless she ought to express some kind of sympathy, but she could not think of anything appropriate to say. Fortunately Agnes forestalled her.
‘We live in Lillehammer now,’ she said. ‘Maybe you didn’t know that.’
‘Not really.’
‘When Torbjørn retired and we were no longer able to be part of Ellen and Sander’s lives, we sold the house and moved back here. Both of us come from here. Originally, I mean.’
‘I see. Of course.’
‘I’ve read about you, Johanne. In the newspapers and sometimes on the Internet. Torbjørn and I have decided that the best thing we can do is talk to you. We hate to...’
Again the crackling intervened, with a sound like howling wind.
‘I’m at the cottage,’ Agnes said, almost shouting, at the other end. ‘Wait a minute.’
Johanne pushed her hand underneath her belt. Her skin had become even tighter. She unbuttoned the waistband of her trousers and let her stomach bulge. It must have been more than three weeks ago. Midsummer Eve, it suddenly struck her. They had been at a dinner party in Asker at the home of one of Adam’s colleagues and they had to spend the night in a basement living room because their taxi had not turned up. Five weeks ago.
‘Hello,’ Agnes said. ‘The line’s not so good up here, but this should be OK. Now I’m standing outside on top of a ridge. Can you hear me?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you say to this coming Monday?’
‘Monday? Yes. That should be fine. Do you mean the morning, or what?’
‘It’s up to you. Since what I want to talk about is of...’
A gust of wind again snatched half her sentence away.
‘Hello,’ Johanne said. ‘Can you repeat that? I didn’t hear you.’
‘I’d like to talk to you about something extremely confidential. That’s why it would be really good if we could avoid meeting in a café. Could I be forward and ask if I could visit you at home? Or your office, of course, if you’re not on holiday? Or else... Good heavens, are you even in Norway just now? My goodness, here I am not even thinking about the fact that it’s the middle of summer and all these awful—’
‘That’s fine. I’m on holiday, but I’m in Oslo. Just come. Twelve o’clock, does that suit?’
‘Twelve is fine. Thanks very much.’
‘Can I ask what it’s about?’ Johanne said without really thinking. ‘Just a wee hint, you know?’
‘It’s about Sander,’ she heard at the other end. ‘We only got to know about his death three days ago. Jon phoned.’
Johanne thought she could hear hurried, uneven footsteps, as if Agnes Krogh was trying to find a less windy spot on some rather rough terrain. Her breath was laboured, and Johanne held the phone a centimetre or so from her ear to avoid the unpleasant rasping noise.
‘I see,’ she said hesitantly when it finally grew quiet. ‘Can you tell me any more?’
‘Not much,’ Agnes replied. ‘But I think Sander was mistreated by his father. Not think, actually. I’m fairly sure of my facts.’
*
‘Well, I’ll grant you one thing, at least,’ Police Prosecutor Tove Byfjord commented. ‘You’re tenacious, Henrik. Not a bad attribute in a policeman.’
It was almost midnight. The massive, curved and elongated colossus at Grønlandsleiret 44 where the Oslo Police Force kept house was still wide-awake. The office windows shone dully, and passers-by could see people coming and going as if on a busy morning. Police Constable Henrik Holme sat in his borrowed, near-empty office and felt his mobile phone vibrate on his thigh. He slipped his hand down into his pocket to switch it off as discreetly as possible.
‘Turn off that contraption,’ the Police Prosecutor said. ‘I’m speaking to you.’
He did as she instructed and dropped the phone into his bag.
‘You’ve accomplished a great deal,’ she said, trying to smother a yawn. ‘But then you’ve done most of it all wrong as well. The problem is that you watch too much Law & Order. What the hell were you doing up in Grorud at that teacher’s house? And at the grandmother’s? Couldn’t you just...’
She scratched her forehead as she shook her head gently. Her nails had been varnished red a few days before, and now half of it had flaked off. It made her look cheap. As soon as she fixed her eyes on him again, he changed his mind.
‘Idiot,’ she said, sounding discouraged.
‘But I’ve found out quite a lot,’ he said submissively.
She leaned back and placed her hands on the chair armrests. Her bright-red blouse stretched across her breasts, and through a gap between two buttons he spied an equally red bra. He gulped repeatedly.
‘My eyes are up here,’ she said, pointing at them with two straight fingers.
He lifted his gaze to a point on the wall just above her head and tried to fasten it there.
‘I’m forty-eight years old,’ she said with a smile he was unable to interpret. ‘Ten kilos overweight and, what’s more, I’m a lesbian. Find yourself someone more suitable.’
His damned Adam’s apple was dancing a cha-cha. Henrik Holme had laid hands on a woman only three times in his life, and in two of those cases it had gone no further than his hands. In the third instance the girl had been so drunk that he could do whatever he wanted, and what he wanted was very quickly over and done with. Tove Byfjord reminded him of the mother of one of his classmates in high school, dark and buxom and so single-minded that his imagination ran riot, then as now. He made an effort to think of fish au gratin and black pudding, both on the same plate. That helped. He felt sick.
‘When is the funeral?’
‘Funeral?’
‘Yes, they’ll have to get that poor boy into the ground soon!’
‘He’s lying in the hospital morgue, and as long as we don’t know whether a crime has been committed, surely we can’t release the body?’
Tove Byfjord’s chin dropped in a despondent grimace and she shook her head lugubriously.
‘So if it takes a few months to get to the bottom of this case, the boy should just lie there, in your opinion? Do you think we have a bloody fridge-room on loan up there, so that all the bodies in long-drawn-out cases can stay there for an eternity? Are you completely...are you—’
She released the air from her lungs and snorted li
ke a horse.
‘The autopsy’s been completed!’ she said at the top of her voice. ‘You’ve even got all the papers on it.’
‘Yes, that’s true.’
Henrik scraped his nails against his trousered thigh.
‘Make sure you get the formalities organized immediately,’ she spluttered, before straightening her back, touching her head and continuing: ‘No, as a matter of fact. Forget it. I’ll make the arrangements myself.’
Henrik Holme began to suspect where this was leading.
‘You must admit,’ he ventured, struggling to keep his voice steady. ‘You must admit it seems suspicious that Jon Mohr took Sander to the doctor’s every time one of these “Only trivial” accidents, which the boy did not want to talk about, cropped up.’
He held up his hands, repeatedly bringing his thumbs and forefingers together.
‘What’s that meant to be?’ she asked, with a reluctant smile.
‘Quotation marks, sort of.’
‘That looks like two bloody birds’ beaks. You have to do it like so.’
She used four fingers to draw inverted commas in the air.
‘No matter,’ Henrik Holme said, aware of perspiration pouring from his armpits. ‘I’ve actually discovered quite a lot. Unfortunately, the report from the accident scene is totally useless. The technician who came at three a.m. was dead tired. Besides, Jon Mohr had cleared everything away. The only thing the report establishes is that there were no traces of blood on the stepladder, but there were such traces on the parquet floor in the living room. Only just. Jon Mohr had been enthusiastic with the wash-cloth, something that in itself smacks of a guilty conscience, if you ask me.’
Drops of sweat were now running down his temples.
‘There were traces of blood on the torch as well,’ he continued. ‘The decisive question is whether Sander fell on to the torch and sustained a skull fracture, or whether the torch was used to hit him. With the same result.’
Tove Byfjord stared at him, stony-faced. Henrik chose to take this as encouragement.
‘Fingerprints belonging to both parents were found on the torch. The clearest ones were from Jon Mohr. I have a few plans for how this investigation should proceed.’
‘That’s quite unnecessary,’ the Police Prosecutor said, inhaling so deeply that the glimpse of blood-red bra gaped. ‘In fact, this case will be transferred to another officer.’
‘What?’
‘You must understand,’ she said softly, in a condescending tone.
She reminded him increasingly of his former classmate’s irresistible mother.
‘Be assured that I’m convinced,’ she went on. ‘I think you might be on to something. You’ve stumbled across a lot of interesting facts. This case is serious, Henrik, and I’m assigning it to a more experienced investigator. Although we’re toiling with the biggest case in the history of this police district, we won’t close our eyes to other serious cases. Let me have all the documents, please.’
‘But...’
‘Hand them over.’ Tove Byfjord had stood up and was holding out an open hand to him. Her skirt was tightly crumpled across her hips. He was aware of a faint whiff of perfume as she shook her hand impatiently and reiterated: ‘Let me have the case notes. Now.’
Henrik unwillingly opened the top drawer of the desk and produced the green folder.
‘Thanks,’ she said as she took it. ‘And the copy.’
‘I haven’t taken a copy.’
‘Of course you’ve taken a copy,’ she said irritably. ‘You know that a copy set should always be made. Hand it over.’
‘I haven’t taken a copy,’ he said in a loud voice. ‘I swear!’
She scrutinized him carefully. Trying not to blink, Henrik opened his eyes wide, without wavering a single millimetre from the sceptical dark-brown eyes beneath the fringe in which individual grey hairs looked wirier and stiffer than the rest.
‘You couldn’t even do that right,’ she said finally, sounding cross, as she turned on her heel and left.
Opening the second desk drawer, Henrik withdrew the copy set and stuffed it into his own rucksack. ‘Fuck you!’ he muttered, making up his mind to go home.
V
It was Monday and the calendar displayed August for the first time.
Johanne had spent the weekend gardening, something that had once again reminded her that they ought to move to a flat. The lawn was a reasonably level collection of moss and dandelions. The tulip bed facing the road looked beautiful for a week or two in spring. Now it was packed with plants and flowers she could not identify, but they certainly were not attractive. The gravel path leading from the road to the front door was so overgrown with weeds that she seriously considered making a unilateral decision to have asphalt laid.
All the same, it had felt good to be outdoors. Doing something physical. Being reminded that the world could not be brought to a standstill – just like the lupins that had seeded themselves outside the fence a few years earlier and now made happy and heedless inroads into the garden.
Johanne could not recall ever having had time off like this. No children, no work, and with Adam out of the house from eight in the morning till late at night. Not actually being on holiday, either, just dead time. There was a disagreeable uncertainty in being able to do whatever she wanted all the time. Johanne was not really used to choice. She constantly caught herself seated on the settee, staring into thin air, not quite knowing what to do with herself.
It was already ten to twelve, and she gazed at the still-warm buns. That was the only attractive thing about them. There must be something wrong with the yeast. Maybe it was out of date, she hadn’t checked. Anyway the buns were minuscule and hard, and they had been left in the oven a few minutes too long. Some of them were nearly black. If the Golf was in a good mood, she might just have time to nip down to the Shell service station in Maridalsveien and buy some. Gingerly she picked up a bun and sliced it in two. The inside was light enough, at least. Almost raw in the middle, she noticed now.
The doorbell rang.
‘Shit!’ Johanne whispered, hurriedly disposing of the buns in the bin before opening a cupboard, grabbing a packet of biscuits and pouring them out on a plate.
‘Coming,’ she shouted. ‘I’m just coming!’
Agnes Krogh was a few minutes early. With a solemn expression, she held out her hand when the door opened. Disregarding it, Johanne leaned forward to give the older woman a hug. They stood in an embrace that was a few seconds too long, and when Johanne withdrew, she could see Agnes struggling to hold back tears.
‘I know,’ Johanne said, taking her hand. ‘Come in.’
Agnes Krogh was the woman Ellen might have become. Her light hair had turned ash-blonde with age, but was still thick and shoulder-length. She weighed a few more kilos than in her younger days. It suited her, and made her face softer. It struck Johanne, when they sat at the dining table and Agnes Krogh flashed an apologetic smile, that her teeth must have been whitened. She was suntanned and had rosy cheeks. Agnes Krogh was a woman who had taken care of herself, but not by running for dear life.
‘I’m really sorry to disturb you,’ she said. ‘In the middle of the holidays and everything.’
‘You’re not disturbing me. On the contrary. It’s lovely to see you again.’
That was true. Johanne realized she was pleased to have a visitor, and that she was no longer vexed about the abortive baking attempt.
‘And the children?’ Agnes Krogh asked. ‘Are they doing well?’
‘Yes. They’re growing up fast. Right now they’re on holiday in France. With Isak.’
‘Both of them?’
‘Yes. Kristiane doesn’t really settle without her sister. Isak’s OK with that.’
‘You made a go of it, then.’
‘What?’
Pouring out coffee for them both, Johanne sat down and pushed the plate of biscuits towards her guest.
‘You made a go of the family. All this
modern stuff about yours, mine, and our children.’
‘Well, it took time. And then it might be an advantage that Isak never had any more children. Also, he’s very generous. That’s something he’s always been.’
‘Of course it’s not too late for him. Men can produce children for ages. It’s not so easy for us women.’
Johanne forced a smile as she lifted her coffee cup.
‘You wanted to talk about Sander?’
Agnes Krogh seemed ill at ease, as if dreading something; she had hoped it would take longer to come to the point. They had not seen each other for several years, and all at once she seemed unsure. Blinking repeatedly, she picked up a biscuit and sat staring at it, without taking a bite.
‘Yes,’ she said eventually. ‘Torbjørn thinks we ought to go to the police. As for me, I think that would be...disloyal, in a way. Even though Ellen won’t have anything to do with us any longer, she’s still our daughter. Our only child.’
Again she fell silent. She put the biscuit down on her own plate and drew her right hand to her chest.
‘I’ve been so devastated. First, when Ellen chose to marry Jon. I’ve never been able to understand what she saw in him. She could have had anyone she wanted. Anyone she wanted!’
The sudden outpouring caused Johanne to break a biscuit. She pushed the crumbs together with the edge of her hand as discreetly as she could.
‘Jon has a lot of good points,’ she said. ‘I think Ellen was captivated by his...’
Johanne had no idea what Ellen had seen in Jon. No one in their entire group of friends had understood their relationship. Apart from Adam, who thought it had to do with Jon’s decision-making abilities. Ellen was used to men always doing what she wanted. Instead, Jon took charge from day one.
‘Anyway, there was nothing I could do about it,’ Agnes said, when it seemed that the rest of Johanne’s response was not going to materialize. ‘Both Torbjørn and I did our best to get on with him. And things went fairly well. At least to begin with.’
‘But then?’