What Dark Clouds Hide

by Anne Holt

  Beside the double automatic gates was a door Joachim had peeped into when they arrived. She opened it and went inside, her hands fumbling first on one side of the door frame, then the other, in the semi-darkness. At last two fluorescent tubes on the ceiling flickered and then subsided recalcitrantly after a few seconds, bathing the garage in a harsh, bluish-white light.

  ‘Hello?’ Johanne said to the Mercedes parked nearest and the elegant Porsche by its side. ‘Anybody here?’

  No one answered. Johanne slowly skirted the enormous SUV. A boy’s bike threatened to fall from its wall-hooks when she happened upon it, and in the back corner she had to climb over a pile of four enormous winter tyres.

  ‘Jon,’ she said in an undertone, and came to a halt.

  ‘You can’t sit here,’ she said. ‘They’re worried about you. Ellen and your mother. Come on, let’s go inside.’

  Still he did not respond. Did not look at her, did not do anything. He was staring at the exhaust pipe on the Porsche, not moving a muscle apart from his heaving breath. Johanne stepped over a pair of skis that had fallen from brackets on the wall and went over to him.

  ‘Can I sit down beside you?’ she asked soothingly.

  Without receiving an answer, she arranged a wood-sack more comfortably on top of another one and sat down. She did not touch him.

  ‘What happened?’

  He coughed almost inaudibly and opened his mouth to draw breath. Exhaled, closed his mouth and shook his head weakly.

  ‘It won’t be long until the others coming looking for both of us,’ she said, taking off her glasses. ‘Then there’ll be a lot of fuss. Can’t you tell me what happened, before we go in? In peace and quiet, as it were.’

  She had pulled out an almost-dry corner of her shirt tail and polished her glasses while she spoke.

  ‘They think I’m mad,’ he said, his voice breaking.

  ‘Hardly,’ she said, putting her glasses on again.

  ‘Yes, they do. They must think I’m absolutely off my rocker.’

  He bit his thumb. Not the nail, but the actual thumb, on the hand on which he already sported a big grubby plaster. He smelled unsavoury and started to rock back and forth with short staccato movements.

  ‘They’ve charged me with possession of child pornography,’ he said in a monotone. ‘And sexual activity with children under the age of ten.’

  Johanne must have misheard.

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’ve linked my IP address with loads of shit. Sickening, repugnant filth. Chat-room pages where I’m supposed to have talked about...’

  He covered his face with his hands and gave a low, restrained wail. Johanne put her hand tentatively on his back. He leaned forward and brought his head right down to his knees, as if bracing himself for a plane crash.

  In a sense that might well be what he was doing, she thought.

  ‘And then it seems that I killed Sander, too,’ he sobbed. ‘They’ve thought that for a long time. Anyway, I know they’re working on an investigation of me for insider trading, as if I would have risked everything I have for a measly—’

  ‘Try to relax. Take a deep breath.’

  Johanne stooped to meet his head, still with one arm loosely cradling his narrow back.

  ‘Jon,’ she said, in the most determined tone of voice she could summon. ‘Sit up, please. Tell me everything one more time. The others will be here soon, and I have to get all this straight before—’

  ‘They think I’m crazy,’ he screeched, moving his back so abruptly that Johanne’s hand was slammed against the wall. ‘I’ve never, ever looked at child pornography, I didn’t kill my son, and I’ve certainly never fucking put my entire company at risk by getting involved in insider trading!’

  Johanne slid down on to her knees. She turned her back to the sports car, grabbed the lapels of Jon’s jacket, shook him and forced him to meet her eye.

  ‘Was it because of the child pornography that they arrested you outside the church?’

  He nodded almost imperceptibly. A white froth had appeared at the corners of his mouth, and his nose was running.

  ‘You said it was your IP address that had caught you out. Is that right?’

  A slack nod, as if his head was not properly attached to his skinny neck.

  ‘Maybe the laptop,’ he said dully. ‘The one that’s kept in the hallway.’

  ‘It’s not the computer that has the IP address,’ Johanne said. ‘It’s the router. But you do have a laptop, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s ruined. Everything’s ruined.’

  ‘In the hallway? On the desk in the hallway?’

  ‘Secretaire,’ Jon murmured. ‘It’s called a secretaire.’

  Johanne’s heart skipped a beat. Her ears were ringing, and the now so-familiar dizziness forced her to keep an even firmer grip on Jon’s jacket.

  She remembered at once. She remembered the reason for her own disquiet about something she had noticed in Glads vei on that fatal evening when Sander had died. Only now, exactly two weeks later, did a tiny detail strike her that had slipped her mind at the time and that she had since dismissed as unimportant.

  It was not.

  By God, it most certainly was not.

  Jon was on the point of collapse. Her hold of his jacket lapels grew even tighter as she shoved his inert body against the wall and gave him a shake.

  ‘What’s this you’re saying about insider trading?’ she said sharply. ‘Did they confront you with that as well?’

  ‘No. There’s something...it’s just something I know. Through a friend. Through a well-wisher, someone who...’

  Now he was crying openly.

  Johanne slowly let him go. Her breath was laboured, her mouth open and she stood with her back to the garage wall as she tried to gather her thoughts into some kind of methodical order. There was a coherent story here somewhere, a narrative that no one had yet spotted, but of which she could discern the bare outline. She heard someone approach outside the garage. Johanne screwed up her eyes as if in response to sudden pain, forcing herself to think quickly, think logically, join all the pieces that she already had to the ones Jon had just handed her.

  ‘Johanne!’

  Henrik was shouting. Someone rattled the garage door.

  ‘Jon,’ Johanne said in as calm a voice as she could muster. ‘You have to come in with me. I’ll sort this out to the best of my ability, but you have to come in with me. Come on.’

  ‘No one can sort this out,’ he sniffed. ‘They must think I’m off my head.’

  ‘You’re coming with me now,’ she barked, furious. ‘Jon! Pull yourself together!’

  It helped a little. He stood up unsteadily.

  ‘We’re coming!’ she yelled at the door. ‘Jon’s here, and everything’s okay.’

  She took his limp hand and led him like a child over the tyres and skis, past the sledge and an eight-year-old’s green bicycle balanced precariously on the wall. She did not let go of his hand, and he accompanied her apathetically, mumbling over and over again, ‘They must think I’m mad. They must think I’m mad. They must think I’m mad.’

  *

  At least Helga had followed the instruction to prepare a hot drink. A steaming jug of hot chocolate sat on the massive table in Ellen and Jon’s kitchen. There was a bowl of whipped cream beside it and a teapot wrapped in a multicoloured, cow-shaped tea-cosy. Six cups on plates of delicate porcelain were arrayed around these, together with a stemmed dish of small cakes and a bundle of napkins. There was nothing to criticize about the table setting. However, the guests in attendance were not so well turned out.

  Jon sat like a sack beside the window, still soaking wet. Both Helga and Ellen had tried to persuade him to change, but all he agreed on was to jettison his jacket and put on a sweater Ellen had fetched for him. The table was rectangular and Johanne had made sure she secured a seat at one end. Henrik, quickly occupying the chair on her left-hand side, poured hot chocolate into a cup, cradled it in both
hands and curled up, as if holding a miniature bonfire.

  Joachim stood in the doorway. ‘I’m going,’ he said.

  ‘No, you’re not,’ Johanne told him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sit down.’

  ‘No. I promised Ellen to help her find Jon. Jon’s here now.’

  He pointed.

  ‘Mission accomplished. I don’t have the energy to do anything else. I’m leaving.’

  ‘Sit down!’

  Johanne had started to stand up and indicated the chair nearest the door.

  ‘You’re not going to bloody decide what I’m doing,’ he said angrily, turning his back on her.

  ‘Sit down,’ Henrik Holme said crisply, in a loud voice that Johanne did not recognize. ‘Now!’

  Standing up, he withdrew his police ID from his back pocket. Joachim looked from him to Johanne and back again.

  ‘You don’t have any police authority here,’ he ventured.

  ‘Indeed I do. And now I’ll tell you for the very last time: Sit down!’

  The order was contagious. Ellen and Helga, until now flanking Jon, swiftly pulled out a chair each and sat down. Joachim was still hesitant.

  ‘If I don’t, then...?’

  He attempted a grin, and his eyes flew once more from Johanne to Henrik and back again. Neither returned his smile.

  ‘Five minutes,’ he said irascibly, withdrawing the chair nearest the door and sitting down on the edge of the seat.

  The dizziness had not lessened, and Johanne asked softly for tea. Henrik poured some and pushed the cup towards her. When she picked it up, she noticed her hand was shaking. The hot liquid burned her lips, a welcome distraction; she drank and felt the heat on her tongue, a scalding pain coursing along her gullet.

  ‘Jon was not arrested for Sander’s murder, as we all thought,’ she said.

  They all stared at her: Helga impassive, Joachim reluctantly curious. Ellen’s eyes were blank and unfocused, but at least she was listening.

  ‘Do you want to tell them yourself?’

  Johanne looked at Jon, who shook his head almost indiscernibly.

  ‘He is charged with possession of child pornography,’ she went on, without losing eye-contact with Helga. ‘And with sexual activity with children.’

  The old woman continued to sit impassively, but the colour drained from her face. It seemed as if she momentarily stopped breathing, before her lips puckered and her chest heaved and she succeeded in regaining self-control.

  ‘It’s a lie,’ she said. ‘That can’t be true.’

  ‘It’s a damnable lie,’ Ellen snivelled, slapping her hands on the table.

  ‘Yes,’ Johanne said, leaning across to Jon and touching his arm with her hand. ‘It’s a lie. Sit still, Ellen.’

  ‘Make up your mind, then!’

  Joachim was still perched on the edge of his chair, but now he leaned across the table.

  ‘Is he charged with child porno stuff, or is he not?’

  ‘He is charged with it, but the charge is mistaken,’ Johanne said, still with her hand placatingly on Jon’s black sweater sleeve. ‘You’ll have to help me here, Jon.’

  He gazed at her with an expression she had never seen in anyone other than Kristiane. Occasionally, when the world became all too incomprehensible, Kristiane acquired that trace of total bewilderment, before she withdrew mentally into a space where no one could reach her.

  ‘You must help me,’ she repeated softly. ‘Do you hear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So it was your IP address they had been alerted to?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Some kind of...computer program. International. Some kind...’

  The words would not come out. He smacked his lips and opened his mouth.

  The room went absolutely quiet.

  ‘Norwegian police, Interpol and Europol have a program to stop the spread of child pornography,’ Henrik said in an undertone. ‘Programs that capture IP addresses. After that, they have to ask the phone company for sight of—’

  Johanne raised her hand to ask him to stop, without taking her eyes off Jon.

  ‘When did they say this had taken place?’

  ‘That Friday. That Friday when all... Friday.’

  ‘The twenty-second of July?’

  He nodded, gulping.

  ‘At what time of day?’

  ‘The morning. Early...early afternoon.’

  ‘Where were you at that time?’

  ‘Here. At home. There was to be a dinner party here, you should—’

  He no longer seemed quite so confused. His eyes became more focused, it was as if she could see that the muscles in his eyes had contracted, he could see her more clearly now and his pupils shrank a little.

  Johanne straightened her spine and placed both hands flat on the table top.

  ‘I agree with you,’ she said into thin air. ‘The police must have thought you were totally mad if you killed Sander, got involved with insider trading and were messing about with illegal sex in your own home. After more than forty years as a law-abiding citizen, I mean. A cocktail of criminal activity like that is most unlikely. I don’t think for a minute you did all that.’

  ‘Insider trading,’ Helga repeated. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘That isn’t really a proper case as yet...’

  Henrik leaned towards Johanne and tried to whisper. It was so quiet in the room that everyone heard what he said.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘And if Joachim had possessed the patience to wait until the police decided what they were going to do about it, we would have been spared a lot of misery.’

  She fleetingly caught Joachim’s eye. He opened out his hands and looked at the ceiling.

  ‘Don’t mix me up in this! Now I’m leaving.’

  ‘No. You’re not. Do you know how many cases are dropped by the Finance Section in Oslo Police District?’

  He was on his feet. Henrik walked over to the door, closed it and stood there, a dripping wet, upright sentinel.

  ‘Loads,’ Johanne said despondently, when Joachim did not answer. ‘Far too many, actually. Difficult cases, these. If I’d been in your shoes, I’d have taken my chance on waiting. Hope for the best. Sit it out.’

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You’re really a good lad,’ she said sadly. ‘I like you. Liked you. You meant a lot to Sander. I think you were fond of him. He was definitely fond of you. But you’re also very fond of money, Joachim. You’d think you had enough, but money has the strange ability to...’

  She gave a sigh and began to massage her forehead.

  ‘If you get a lot, then it’s as if it’s not enough. Also, you’re fond of contacts. Rubbing people up the right way. Giving them advantages and attention. That’s what you live off, isn’t it, you folk in the PR trade? Networks? Extensive, beneficial networks? If it wasn’t for your incredible stupidity—’

  ‘What are you actually talking about?’ Ellen interrupted her.

  ‘Keep quiet,’ Helga spluttered.

  ‘You got scared, out of all proportion,’ Johanne said, gazing at Joachim almost in surprise. ‘Somehow or other you must have known the authorities had started to sniff around in some share transactions and...’

  ‘I told him that,’ Jon said hoarsely.

  ‘What the fuck!’ Joachim blurted.

  ‘When?’ Johanne asked.

  ‘Tuesday. The Tuesday prior to the twenty-second of July. We worked flat out all that week to get to the bottom of it. All week, all weekend and...’

  He looked round in astonishment, as if it had only now dawned on him where he was.

  ‘I remember that,’ Johanne said. ‘I couldn’t fathom why you insisted on working, when Sander had just died. You were both terrified, but for two different reasons. You...’

  Again she touched Jon’s arm.

  ‘... because you knew you were innocent and were afraid of losing the entire fi
rm on the basis of something you hadn’t done.’

  She raised her cup halfway to her mouth and nodded at Joachim.

  ‘And you, because you were scared of getting caught. Of all things in the whole wide world, that was what you were most afraid of: getting caught.’

  ‘For what? What would I get caught for? We don’t even know if the police have a case, and you said yourself that they drop a heap of these cases! What the fuck do you mean by sitting here alleging that I have...’

  ‘You,’ Jon said. ‘Was it you? Have you abused my trust, my—’

  ‘I need a drink,’ Ellen moaned. ‘I can’t stand this.’

  No one tried to stop her when she stood up, opened the cupboard and mixed a dollop of gin with a drop of tonic. No one said anything, either, until she resumed her seat, with Helga Mohr on one side, stern and rigid, and Jon on the other.

  ‘I wouldn’t have been able to allege anything at all,’ Johanne said, ‘if it hadn’t been for this completely incredible, idiotic effort of yours to direct police attention at Jon.’

  ‘What?’ Jon said.

  ‘Bullshit!’ countered Joachim.

  ‘Take it easy,’ Johanne said with a discouraged smile. ‘I’m not waiting for you to break down and confess. That sort of thing only happens in movies. I’ll just tell the others here...’

  Her hand swept around the table.

  ‘...how you were so desperately scared of getting caught for insider trading that you decided to let Jon be arrested for downloading child pornography.’

  ‘What?’ Jon repeated, and now the bewilderment had returned to his ashen face.

  ‘Do you really believe that the police,’ Johanne said, to all appearances completely indignant, before drinking a mouthful of tea and picking up the thread again, ‘do you really believe that the Norwegian police operate according to the theory: Once a villain, always a villain? Did you really think that if Jon was caught with this child pornography, then the police would automatically believe he was the person responsible for the insider trading? In many ways you’re a great guy, but honestly, you’re also an idiot. Fear can do so much to people.’