Blessed Are Those Who Thirst

by Anne Holt

  Possibly it was something in her tone of voice. Probably it was of some importance that she was decidedly his best detective. Or maybe it was her unusually tired facial expression, with obvious dark circles below her eyes and an unbecoming sharpness in her profile. Whatever it was, the superintendent stood for a moment, evidently uncertain.

  “Okay, then,” he said finally. “Off you go. But don’t make it a habit.”

  Infinitely relieved, she headed for the door. What she was going to do, she had no idea. She just had to get out.

  * * *

  One thing was just as good as another. It was impossible to visit a crime scene too many times. Anyhow, it would give her a sense of doing something specific.

  They bumped into each other in the doorway. She was fishing out the keys from the pocket of her leather jacket when he came barging out. Hanne Wilhelmsen had to take a step back to avoid falling over. The enormous man was equally jolted. He apologized profusely, at length, before recognizing her.

  The dentist was too old to blush. Moreover, his skin was coarse and unshaven, which would hardly allow any redness to show through. Nevertheless, Hanne Wilhelmsen noticed a slight twitch in his eyes as he hastily explained that he had been visiting his daughter’s apartment to collect something. He suddenly realized he was not carrying anything.

  “Unfortunately, it wasn’t there,” he said by way of excuse. “She must have been mistaken.”

  Detective Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen said nothing. The awkward silence was in her favor. He knew that, as he coughed abruptly, looking at his watch and adding that he was late for an important meeting.

  “Could you come for a brief interview with me at eight o’clock tomorrow morning?” she asked, without giving him the opportunity to slip past her.

  He considered for a fleeting moment.

  “Tomorrow morning? Um, that would be a bit difficult, I think. It’s so busy right now.”

  “It’s quite important. We’ll meet at eight o’clock, okay?”

  It was clear he felt extremely uneasy.

  “Well, all right, eight o’clock then. Perhaps a few minutes past?”

  “That’s absolutely fine.” She smiled. “A few minutes before or after won’t matter at all.”

  Then she let him by. She remained standing there, following him with her eyes until he was sitting in his car some distance away. She went upstairs to her old friend on the first floor, where she received another overwhelming welcome and the expected confirmation that a very pleasant man, the poor girl’s father, had been there and struck up a cozy conversation.

  Hanne Wilhelmsen did not listen carefully to what the old man was saying. Barely a quarter of an hour and half a cup of coffee later, she thanked him and left. Knitting her brow, she sat for a while astride the Harley without starting the engine. For one reason or another, the meeting with the father of the young girl who had been raped made her feel she was participating in some kind of race. A race she did not care for in the slightest.

  * * *

  It was unfortunate to be caught so obviously red-handed. He regretted having been so unprepared for his meeting with the policewoman. The danger of bumping into the police was obvious, but all the same, he had not taken it into consideration. It would also cost him an embarrassing interview tomorrow. Well, he would just have to tough it out.

  In the afternoon, he had been back to the apartment block, and now there was only one man on the fourth floor and a young woman on the second he had not quizzed. It did not matter, since the other neighbors were able to tell him that the man on the fourth floor had been abroad for two months, and the young woman had been staying at her parents’ the previous weekend.

  The old man was the only one who had told him anything specific. About a red car. A bright red foreign car that had been parked thirty meters away across the street from around eleven o’clock on Saturday evening until break of dawn on Sunday morning.

  Did the police know about the red car? Was it of any real interest? It might belong to anyone at all. It was highly unlikely an attacker would have his car parked in the vicinity of the crime scene while the attack was being executed. On the other hand, the heavily built dentist was far from inclined to assign rapists to the same category as other lawbreakers. His understanding of sexual offenders was along the lines of slavering, primitive creatures of inferior intelligence. Although he knew better, and had modified his opinion somewhat now that he was pursuing one himself, he could not—would not—preclude the possibility that the guy might be the owner of the red car.

  In any case, it was all he had. A red car. A sedan. Unknown type, unknown registration number.

  He sighed stoically and busied himself making some dinner for himself and his silent daughter.

  * * *

  It was nearing ten o’clock in the evening, and they were lying on the floor, having made love. They had two quilts underneath them, and over them a cool early summer breeze from the balcony door, which, audaciously enough, was left ajar. The curtains were drawn defensively, and they had kept as quiet as possible. From the other balcony doors they could hear distant noises: a married couple quarreling on the floor below and a noisy television film from the next-door neighbor. Hanne and Cecilie had been lying there since before the evening news.

  “Why are we lying here really?” Hanne giggled. “It’s a bit hard. I’ve got a pain in my tailbone.”

  “What a wimp! Look at me, I’ve got burns!”

  Cecilie bent her knee and drew it level with her face. It was true. She had a burn, quite a sizable one at that. They never learned. It had happened several times previously, one of them ending up with nasty marks on elbows or knees from friction against the carpet as soon as they landed outside the quilt beneath them.

  “Poor you,” Hanne said, kissing the sore knee. “Why do we keep lying here?”

  “Because it’s so fantastically comfortable,” her beloved explained, sitting up.

  “Are you going away?”

  “No, I just want one of the quilts. I’m freezing.”

  She grabbed hold of the top quilt and pulled. Which meant Hanne was rolled around onto her stomach. Kneeling, Cecilie kissed her exactly where her back divided.

  “Poor tailbone,” she said, snuggling down beside Hanne and spreading the quilt over them both. Hanne turned on her side, supporting her head with her elbow, and stroking a forefinger slowly across her partner’s right breast.

  “What would you do if someone raped me?” she asked suddenly.

  “Raped you? Why would anybody rape you? You’re not careless enough to get raped.”

  “Honestly, darling. You really must give that up. It has nothing to do with being careless when a girl gets raped.”

  “Oh, no? Why have none of our friends been raped, then? Why are there continual reports in the newspapers about girls raped in the most suspect places in the city, at the most peculiar times? If you’re careful, you won’t get raped.”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen was not ready for an argument, though her partner’s lack of insight irritated her. She felt much too happy to quarrel. She definitely did not want to. Instead she leaned forward, letting her tongue glide in wet circles around Cecilie’s areola, painstakingly, so as not to touch the actual nipple. Suddenly she stopped.

  “Seriously,” she insisted. “What would you do? How would you feel?”

  The other woman sat up slowly, supporting herself with her arms. She half turned to face her. A green light from the display on the gigantic stereo system made her features almost ethereal.

  “Now you look like the most beautiful ghost in the world,” Hanne said softly, laughing. “The world’s absolutely most beautiful ghost.”

  She snatched at a lock of her long pale blonde hair and curled it several times around her finger.

  “Please,” she asked once more. “Can’t you say what you would do?”

  Finally Cecilie realized she was serious. She straightened her back ever so slightly, as though it would he
lp her ability to think. Then she said, loud and clear, and with great seriousness: “I would kill the guy.”

  She stopped abruptly, considering for a further ten seconds.

  “Yep, I would most certainly murder him.”

  It was precisely the response Hanne wanted. She sat up too and kissed her partner tenderly.

  “Right answer.” She smiled. “Now we must sleep.”

  FRIDAY, JUNE 4

  Finn Håverstad rarely ventured into the east end of the city. His dental practice was situated in a villa in the Frogner district: enormous, old, and expensive of upkeep, so no one could afford to live there. The ground floor accommodated a firm of architects, one of the few that had managed to survive the lengthy financial crisis in the profession. On the first floor, three dentists had their exam rooms in bright, attractive premises flooded with sunshine and fresh air.

  His residence was situated in Volvat. Centrally located but at the same time rural, on a site measuring around half an acre. Although the dental practice had been extremely profitable during the last fifteen years, it began with the good fortune of receiving an advance on his inheritance that had placed him in a position to buy the property in 1978. His daughter had loved the house. He could walk to his work in twenty minutes—something, all the same, he never actually did.

  It smelled different on the other side of the city. Not exactly dirtier, perhaps not meaner either, but . . . it had a stronger smell. Exhaust fumes lay thicker, and the city had a more pungent odor, as though it had forgotten to put on deodorant in just this spot. Moreover, the level of noise here was far louder. He did not feel comfortable.

  It was typically Norwegian to situate police headquarters in the most deplorable district of the city. The state had probably bought the site for next to nothing. Parking provision was dreadful too. He drove his BMW gingerly into an empty gap at the foot of the long incline leading up to the actual building. He had to wait for ten minutes before there was a parking space. A youth slammed aggressively out of an opening in an old Amazon, grazing the corner of the wall on the bend as he turned out of the garage building. A heavily scraped yellow-and-black patch on the wall indicated the boy was not the first to do so. Paying due attention to the danger, the dentist eased his car into place and left it reluctantly when he saw he was already a quarter of an hour behind schedule.

  She didn’t mention he was eighteen minutes late. On the whole, she appeared cheerful and accommodating, in fact downright pleasant. He started to feel extremely insecure.

  “It won’t take long,” she said reassuringly. “Coffee? Or maybe tea?”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen fetched coffee for both of them and lit a cigarette for herself after his assurance it did not inconvenience him in the least.

  For a frighteningly long period of time, she remained sitting, blowing cigarette smoke into the room, following the exhalation with a lingering look and keeping totally silent. He moved restlessly in his chair, partly because he found it uncomfortable. In the end he could no longer endure the silence.

  “Is there anything in particular you wanted from me?” he said, feeling surprised at how submissive he sounded.

  The detective inspector suddenly stared at him, as though she hadn’t known until now that he was sitting there.

  “Oh, yes,” she replied, almost jauntily, “there is something in particular I wanted of you. First . . .”

  Looking at him with a quizzical expression, she stubbed out her cigarette and, obviously receiving the answer she was looking for when he gesticulated with one arm, immediately lit another.

  “I really ought to give it up,” she said confidingly. “I’ve a boss here who has smoked like this for thirty years. You should hear him cough! Shush!”

  Her posture stiffened as she tilted her head. Far down the corridor they could hear a rattling fit of coughing.

  “There you hear it,” she said triumphantly. “This stuff is really dangerous!”

  Gazing disapprovingly at the half-full pack of twenty, she fell into something of a reverie.

  “And so there are the two of us, then,” she said abruptly, so loudly he jumped in his seat. Noticing that he had begun to sweat, he stroked his upper lip as discreetly as possible with his index finger.

  “First the formalities,” she said indifferently, hammering down his name, address, and date of birth as quickly as he stated them. “Next I have to warn you about the following matters: you must tell the police the truth; it is a punishable offense to make a false declaration to the police; you are in fact a witness . . .”

  She smiled, and their eyes met again.

  “. . . and not the accused in a criminal case. They can actually lie as much as they want! Unfair, really, don’t you think?”

  The large head nodded up and down. At that very moment, he would have agreed with this woman about anything at all. She was scarier than she appeared. The first time he met her, the previous Monday, he had noticed in passing she was attractive. Quite tall and slim but with generous hips and full breasts. Now she seemed more like an Amazon. He stroked his finger under his nose once more, but it did not help. Digging out a freshly ironed pocket handkerchief, he wiped both his temples.

  “Are you feeling hot in here? I apologize. This building is completely unsuitable for the kind of temperatures we’re experiencing just now.”

  She didn’t make any move to open the window.

  “However,” she said instead, “you have no need to give evidence. You can refuse. But I don’t suppose you’ll do that?”

  He shook his head so vehemently he had a feeling the drops of sweat were splashing.

  “That’s fine,” she established. “We’ll make a start.”

  For fully half an hour, the detective inspector posed completely unthreatening questions. When he had arrived at his daughter’s apartment last Sunday. Where she had been sitting at that time, quite precisely. Whether she had been wearing any clothes. Whether there were any items there he might have disposed of. Whether he had noticed anything unusual apart from his daughter’s condition—smells, sounds, or anything of that nature. About how his daughter was now, reactions she had experienced in the days that followed. How he himself was feeling.

  Although it hurt him deeply to talk about the case, he began to feel relieved. His shoulders sank a little, and the room appeared somewhat less uncomfortable. He even drank some of the coffee while she took a break in the interview to write all of it down on the antiquated golf ball typewriter on her desk.

  “Not especially up to date, that there,” he said tentatively.

  Without pausing and without looking at him, she told him she was waiting her turn to be allocated her own computer. Perhaps next week. Maybe in a month’s time.

  Twenty minutes later she was finished and lit herself another cigarette.

  “What were you doing at Kristine’s neighbors’ yesterday?”

  It was inconceivable the question should catch him so completely unawares. He had known, of course, that it would come. In a flash he considered the consequences of lying. A fifty-year-old life on the mainly law-abiding side of society gained the upper hand.

  “I wanted to carry out some investigations of my own,” he admitted.

  There. Now he had said it. He had not lied. It felt good. He saw she realized he had weighed up whether or not to concoct a story.

  “Are you playing private detective, then?”

  It was not sarcastic. She had in effect changed character. Her facial expression softened, she turned her chair to face him and held eye contact with him for quite a spell, for the first time since his arrival.

  “Listen to me, Håverstad. I don’t know how you’re feeling, of course. But I can imagine. To some extent, at least. I have dealt with forty-two rape cases. No one gets used to them. None of them are alike. Apart from one thing—they are equally horrendous. Both for the victims and for the people who love them. I have seen it lots of times.”

  Now she stood up and opened the window.
She placed a small, ugly brown glass ashtray in the gap to prevent it from closing again.

  “I have often . . . Believe me! . . . It has often crossed my mind what my reaction would be if my . . .”

  She checked herself.

  “. . . if one of my nearest and dearest had been exposed to something like this. It can only be speculation, of course, as I am in the fortunate situation never to have experienced such a thing.”

  Her slender hand made a fist, punching three times on the desktop.

  “But I believe I would be bursting with thoughts of revenge. First I would truly make an effort to show kindness and consideration. A great deal of despair can be channeled into giving others care and support. You don’t need to tell me, though, you don’t succeed. I know that. Rape victims are difficult to reach. And then it’s easy to be consumed by thoughts of vengeance. Revenge . . .”

  Crossing her arms over her chest, she stared at a distant point above his head.

  “I think we underestimate our need for revenge. You should hear the lawyers! If you merely hint at revenge as an aspect of punishment, they come out with lectures on legal history, saying we left that behind many centuries ago. Revenge is not reckoned to be honorable enough here in the north. It’s demeaning, it’s contemptible, and perhaps most of all . . .”

  Biting her lip, she searched for a word.

  “. . . primitive! We regard it as primitive! A hugely mistaken concept, if you ask me. The need for revenge is deeply rooted in us. The frustration people feel when sex offenders receive six months in jail naturally can’t be mitigated by legal phrases about universal prevention and considerations of rehabilitation. People want revenge! A person who has behaved hellishly should have a hellish time himself. And that’s that.”

  Finn Håverstad had some idea where this odd detective inspector was going. He was still plagued by insecurity, but there was something in her sense of commitment, in her eyes, in the gestures she was making with her entire body to emphasize her points, that made him feel this woman would never do him any harm. This was her method of cautioning him against what he had already embarked upon. A warning, quite clearly, but a well-meaning and compassionate one.