by Anne Holt
The sky lowered above the treetops as they began their ascent from the extensive car park at Skar. Rain had made the forest path muddy and grey, criss-crossed with irregular patches of puddles filled with dirty water. There was no wind, the temperature was seventeen degrees Celsius and the perpendicular rain fell soundlessly through the haze. The landscape looked like a pencil sketch. Her glasses steamed up and even Jack, the golden-brown mongrel, was grey with moisture by the time they had walked a hundred metres.
‘So they understood in the end,’ Henrik repeated, for what was probably the fifth time since they had met up. ‘And I’d thought the case would die a quiet death, when I was made to hand it over.’
‘Don’t underestimate the police,’ she said, releasing Jack from his leash. ‘I learned that myself a long time ago. Now at least we can settle down in the knowledge that the case is being properly investigated. Guilty or not guilty, it’s better for all parties if you and I are spared from rooting around by ourselves in this business. By the way, are you off-duty today as well?’
‘I’m finished! Yesterday I found out that I’ve got a job in Ålesund. Starting on Monday. Had a day off today – no point in working on summonses for speeding offenders that other people will have to interview.’
‘Congratulations. Permanent post?’
He laughed. ‘In this force? No. One year. But it’s a start.’
‘This summer has been your start,’ she corrected him. ‘You’ve learned quite a lot, I would think.’
‘Do you think there’ll be much to do there?’
‘Where?’
‘In Ålesund. I mean, it’s probably quite a peaceful part of the world, and if I see another traffic case, then...’
‘Idiot!’
She jabbed him with her elbow. He was so tall that she hit him just above his hip. He smiled broadly and put his arm round her shoulder for a brief second, before pulling it away again and touching his nose with the index finger on his left hand.
‘They must have had a breakthrough,’ he said quickly. ‘Since they felt they had grounds for an arrest. Something new. Something I hadn’t discovered.’
‘Regardless of what it was, they could have chosen a better time,’ Johanne said. ‘At his son’s funeral...’
She shook her head.
‘I don’t feel sorry for him,’ Henrik said. ‘If he killed his own child, then I don’t give a shit about where and how he gets arrested.’
His Adam’s apple was jiggling at the edge of his rain jacket.
‘Wonder what it is they’ve found.’
Johanne did not answer. Henrik’s legs were so long that she had to stride briskly to keep up with him. Sweat and condensation made her back sticky under her rucksack and rainwear, and she was already out of breath. Henrik paid no heed and was eventually walking so fast that she had to jog by his side.
‘Can we go a bit more slowly?’ she asked, when a steep rocky ascent levelled off and the forest path took a turn to the east.
In confusion, he looked back, before continuing with such small steps that Johanne laughed out loud. Once they had reached the dam where the Øyungen lake ran into the Skarselva river, she pointed to a rough wooden bench beside the water.
‘I can offer you coffee,’ she said. ‘Even though the weather could’ve been better.’
‘I forgot to bring anything,’ he said, nonplussed. ‘It’s not often that I...go for a walk, so to speak.’
‘Enough for two,’ she said, taking out coffee and a packet of biscuits.
They had encountered two mountain-bikers on the way up, when one had nearly knocked Jack over, before vanishing down into the distance in a flurry of venom and gall. A fisherman stood motionless on a promontory a hundred metres away. Apart from that, there was no one in sight. Jack scampered around at the water’s edge, making the squawking ducks swim off. The low-lying clouds had just begun to drift south, dragging a dwindling tail of mist.
‘Oslo is really at its best outside the city,’ Johanne said softly. ‘We have the biggest city park in the world.’
They remained seated there in silence for a while. It struck her that Henrik Holme was most at ease in peace and quiet. His facial features softened and his fingers stopped their never-ending dance between his coffee cup and the side of his nose.
‘You remind me a little of my daughter.’
‘Do I?’
‘Yes. And you’re not so leery of Jack now.’
‘No. I realize he’s friendly. But I’d never dare to clap him.’
‘Have you had a diagnosis?’
For a moment he was taken aback by the question. Not for long, though. He simply pulled a crooked smile and then fixed his gaze on a bird hovering only twenty metres away, unaffected by Jack whimpering and barking at the ducks he was determined to catch.
‘Not really. When I was young I was investigated for one thing and another. Tourette’s and Asperger’s and God-knows-what. It seemed that nothing quite fitted. Despite it all, I functioned too well, apparently. So the doctors said. They had all kinds of forms with boxes to tick, but I couldn’t be pigeonholed in any of them. My mother was dreadfully worried.’
Johanne used her coffee cup to conceal a smile.
‘My dad, on the other hand, thought I could just be left as I was. As long as I behaved properly. He was always preoccupied by one thing: be a nice boy. He was so pleased at something mentioned in one of the medical reports...’
Now his smile seemed rather bashful, but he did not blush.
‘“The patient has an extremely well-developed talent for empathy,”’ he quoted solemnly, before laughing it off. ‘I have these...tics, as you’ve probably noticed. And also a hell of a long list of phobias. Scared of all sorts of things. But I manage.’
‘You certainly do.’
‘Never have any girlfriends, but I get along.’
‘Of course you’ll get a girlfriend.’
‘No, I won’t. I’m terrified of girls.’
‘We’re sitting here, though, Henrik.’
His smile grew even broader, but he did not look her in the eye. They drank until their cups were empty and then crammed the biscuits and thermos flask back into the bag, which he now rather sheepishly offered to carry. She let him do that.
They followed the easterly, more overshadowed forest path on the return journey. Mostly they walked in silence. Sometimes they laughed at Jack, who had obviously taken it upon himself to catch some mice, as he leapt and bounded like a puppy into the heather with his nose trailing on the ground. Now and again Henrik posed a question about Kristiane. Johanne noticed that she enjoyed talking to him about her daughter, as his own pursuit of the most normal life possible had made him a fascinating fount of knowledge.
‘And for us, it’s been exactly the same as with your parents,’ she said as they approached the Golf. ‘I wasted years on end trying to find a diagnosis, while Isak just shrugged and said I should take it easy. Now it should also be admitted that she has quite a different level of function from you. Kristiane will never be able to live on her own, for instance. But she’s...a good girl.’
Henrik settled into the passenger seat. It was now twenty-five past seven, and the August twilight made it noticeably darker than when they had first set out. Johanne turned the key in the ignition.
Nothing happened.
She fiddled with the gears, held down the clutch and tried again. The engine gave a faint splutter before dying again.
‘Shit!’ she said, banging on the steering wheel with her fist. ‘Now we really must get shot of this damned car!’
‘Let me try.’
‘It’s certainly nothing to do with the driver.’
She tried again, with the same wretched result.
‘We can hitch-hike,’ he suggested.
‘Hitch-hike?’
They were both saturated. A pungent odour of wet dog stung their nostrils. Jack was already spread out on the rear seat, snoring. The windows were almost opaque with con
densation. Tetchily she wiped the front windscreen with her hand.
‘This is the end of the road,’ she said. ‘And it wasn’t exactly swarming with people out there in the woods.’
‘There are still a few cars parked here,’ he insisted. ‘Or we can take the bus. That’d work.’
He opened the door and stepped outside.
‘I’ll check the timetable,’ he said, dashing across to the bus stop between the two car parks.
Johanne fished out her mobile phone from her inside pocket. She tried Adam, without much prospect of getting hold of him. She was right. After a moment’s thought, she decided to call her mother, but was caught short when the phone rang. At last she had managed to transfer all her old contacts. As well as a few new ones.
‘Hi, Joachim,’ she said, lifting the phone to her ear.
‘Hi. You have to come with me.’
His voice was just a touch too loud.
‘Where to?’
‘Ellen just called. Completely hysterical. She got a message an hour and a half ago that Jon had been released, but he still hasn’t turned up at the house.’
‘Good lord,’ Johanne said in exasperation. ‘He’s probably at work then, as usual. That was where he was the last time he was brought in for interview.’
‘It was the police who drove him home!’
‘What do you mean?’
She could hear him swallow.
‘Well, he was taken into custody outside the church, as you know. When they had interviewed him at the police station and finished searching the house, they drove him back to Glads vei and dropped him at the end of the driveway. That was over an hour ago. But he’s not there!’
‘Has Ellen checked whether any of the cars are gone?’
‘That...that I don’t know. But Ellen was really upset, and I refuse... I refuse to go there by myself! I don’t want to go there at all, but she was screaming and moaning and... Can’t you please come with me?’
‘Then you’ll have to come and pick me up.’
‘Thanks! Thank you so much, I’ll be there in two minutes.’
‘No, you won’t. I’m in Maridalen with a broken-down car. At the car park beside Skar.’
‘I see...well... Fifteen minutes, then. I’m on my way! Twenty minutes. Don’t go anywhere!’
He disconnected the call without signing off. Johanne’s phone switched itself off. Dead battery, she realized in irritation as she saw Henrik running back towards the car. He dived inside again, wetter than ever.
‘The bus left five minutes ago,’ he said, crestfallen. ‘The next one’s not till twenty past eight. Nearly an hour till then. We’ll just have to wait.’
‘Joachim’s coming to pick us up.’
‘Joachim? Joachim who?’
Henrik Holme had told Johanne that he knew about the investigation into Jon Mohr. Only the peripheral and fairly vague insider-trading case, which might or might not be initiated against Jon, was what he had mentioned. Johanne, on the other hand, had not breathed a word about what she had found out and who she had talked to. She had not even mentioned Sander’s melancholy drawing, or whose bedroom it depicted.
‘Joachim Boyer,’ she said, shifting her seat back a little. ‘You’ll recognize him when you see him.’
*
Irritation was the very first thing Adam Stubo felt when he let himself into the house in Tåsen, slipped off his shoes and trudged upstairs to the apartment and into the bedroom. The sight of all the untidiness, the marks left by Jack’s muddy paws on the parquet and the overflowing laundry basket in the bedroom made him feel even more exhausted. After all, Johanne had nothing on earth to do with her time. Empty days and total freedom. He collapsed on to the bed. A shower followed by sleep was all he could contemplate, but on further reflection he was overcome by shame. He had not lifted a finger on the home front for a fortnight. In reality they should have been in the mountains, something they had not even discussed after they had been compelled to change all their plans. He had taken it for granted that Johanne had attended to the cancellations and suchlike, and he had not so much as offered a word of apology.
Or thanks.
The dirty clothes were spilling out from the basket. The bedclothes would benefit from a change, he knew that from the stuffy smell of sleep. When he stood up again and padded reluctantly out to the kitchen, he noticed that the washing-up from dinner the previous day, as well as that morning’s breakfast, was still piled up on the worktop.
He had not done a thing at home. For two whole weeks.
He stole a glance at the clock on the oven: 19.50. If he managed to stay awake until ten, he could get quite a lot done. With a strength of mind he would not have thought possible only five minutes earlier, he decided to tackle the bedroom first. He had no idea where Johanne was or when she would return. If he were lucky, he would have made such inroads into the housework by then that she wouldn’t raise an eyebrow when he told her he had to be back at work at nine the next morning.
Yet another Saturday spent away from home.
Before he pulled off the quilt covers and pillowcases, he would sort out the clothes in the laundry basket. The laundry was really Johanne’s province. For one reason or another, he always managed to overlook a coloured garment in the whites wash. As punishment, she forced him to wear the pink boxer shorts for which he was responsible.
Now he would be exceptionally careful.
He brought the basket out into the hallway between bedroom and bathroom and decanted the contents on to the floor. Some of the clothing must have been damp when it was dropped in, and the miserable pile in front of him smelled foul. A small rectangular blue-and-white box had wormed its way in among all the clothes, and he picked it up. The package design was feminine, with pink lettering on the blue-and-white background. Perhaps Johanne’s shaving kit had accidentally fallen into the basket. He decided to go to the bathroom and put the box in her drawer, but then was suddenly pulled up short.
‘Clearblue pregnancy test,’ it said.
The ensuing seconds gyrated like a time-warp. One thought began before another had finished, they bit one another’s tails and grew increasingly meaningless until he finally took a deep breath, cast his mind back to the trip to Gaupekollen and sank slowly to the floor with his back against the wall.
He opened the package. It contained two plastic sticks, though there was hardly room for both and the box was partly torn, he could see now. One of the test sticks was unused. The other had lost its blue cap, and on the display you could still just make out six tiny letters, a plus sign and the number three.
Adam sat in the midst of a pile of laundry, enveloped by dampness and dirty clothes, letting the idea sink in that he was going to be a father again. Once more his life would take a lurch, just like thirty-odd years ago when his firstborn was placed in his arms and he had known, with the great earnestness of callow youth, that everything was changed. Trine had been taken from him, she had died with her mother in an accident, and for a long time Adam had been lost in sorrow for them both. Johanne had come to him at a time when he had thought that nothing would ever be real and substantial again. Ragnhild had been a fresh start, proof that he had endured the unbearable for as long as life had unrelentingly demanded. Adam had learned that everything had an end, and everything had a beginning.
He rested his arms on his knees and laid his head on them; he was too bulky to sit like this, he felt constricted and could not breathe, he needed to lose weight and smarten up; he should take better care of himself so that he could live long enough to look after this new child – maybe it would be a boy, who could be called Vegard after his grandfather.
He realized he would prefer a daughter, and managed to resume normal breathing.
Adam would like a girl, and maybe this time she would be allowed to take the name Trine, a completely new beginning for something he had thought long gone.
*
They had searched everywhere.
Even though E
llen and Helga had assured them that Jon had not come in without them noticing, Joachim, Henrik and Johanne had searched through the massive house, room by room. They went up into the crawl space in the roof, they looked through the storerooms, they had combed the garden in every direction. Joachim had looked inside the garage as soon as they arrived, despite his indignation about Jack dirtying the BMW. The dog was stretched out in the back seat on a filthy blanket taken from Johanne’s ancient Golf. Joachim had ascertained that both cars were present and correct.
‘He should really be reported missing,’ Henrik said hesitantly, when there were no more places left to check.
Ellen had hardly recognized the policeman when he arrived, soaked to the skin and wearing civvies. Helga, on the other hand, wanted to throw him out on the spot. Johanne had assumed the command she had not been able to take on 22 July, and had brushed Helga aside with the instruction that they would all benefit from the presence of a well-disposed policeman. She was obviously the only one who regarded him as such, but he was allowed to stay.
‘Make a hot drink now,’ she told Helga. ‘Tea, hot chocolate – something like that. Sit yourselves down in the kitchen. I’ll check the garage and be back shortly. We should probably search all through the Grefsen area. He might have gone for a walk.’
‘In a dark suit and tie?’ the old woman blurted. ‘Without an umbrella or coat? In this weather?’
‘In the circumstances, I don’t think he’ll give a damn about his clothes,’ Johanne replied, crossing to the front door. ‘Make a hot drink. Henrik and I are both freezing. Ellen also looks as if she could do with something fortifying.’
She did not pass comment about Ellen stinking of booze and obviously having fortified herself for some time. Taking hold of the sodden rain jacket from the coat-stand by the door, she felt its weight and changed her mind. She was wet anyway, and she hung the jacket up again before stepping into her wellington boots. Outside, it was no longer raining quite so heavily, but a wind had whipped up. The temperature had dropped, but it must still be around twelve or thirteen degrees Celsius. She jogged across the flagstones, hunched up against the wind as she carefully trudged up the slate steps that were slick with moisture.