by Anne Holt
‘Grandpa calls all women his little girl. It’s one of his bad habits. That’s what Granny says.’
‘Come here,’ Johanne whispered. ‘Come to Mum.’
Kristiane walked hesitantly across the floor.
‘She called to me,’ she said, settling down on the sofa between them. ‘She didn’t know my name, because of course she didn’t know me. She just called out “Come here” and then she smiled.’
‘And what happened next?’ said Johanne.
‘Adam,’ Kristiane said in a serious tone of voice. ‘You must weigh …’
She thought quickly.
‘About 230 per cent more than me.’
‘I think that’s exactly what I weigh,’ replied Adam, with an embarrassed glance in Johanne’s direction. ‘But I kind of wanted to keep that as my little secret.’
‘I weigh thirty-one kilos, Mum. So you can work it out.’
‘I’d rather hear what happened, sweetheart.’
‘The lady called me and I went back up the stairs. She had really warm hands. But I’d lost one of my slippers.’
‘Slippers?’ said Adam. ‘I thought you weren’t wearing any—’
‘Did the lady go back to fetch it?’ Johanne quickly interrupted.
‘Yes.’
‘And where were you in the meantime?’
‘Dam-di-rum-ram. Where’s Sulamit?’
‘Sulamit died, sweetheart. You know that.’
‘The lady was dead, too. Dam-di-rum-ram.’
Adam held her close, resting his cheek on the top of her head.
‘I’m so sorry I ran over Sulamit,’ he whispered. ‘But it was a long time ago.’
‘Dam-di-rum-ram.’
She had drawn her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs as she slowly rocked from side to side. She bumped into Johanne, paused for a moment, bumped into Adam. Over and over again.
‘Let’s get you to bed,’ Johanne said eventually.
‘Dam-di-rum-ram.’
‘Off we go.’
She got up and took her daughter’s hand. Kristiane happily went with her. Adam reached out to her, but she didn’t see him. He sat there listening to Johanne’s patient small talk and Kristiane’s strange chatter.
It struck him that realizing Johanne was right was almost worse than the fact that Kristiane had witnessed something traumatic. Overcome with fatigue, he sank back against the cushions.
He had believed what Johanne told him, but not what she thought it implied. Once upon a time he had cynically drawn her to him precisely because of her judgement. Because he needed it. He had drawn her into an investigation she really didn’t want to get involved in by forcing her to imagine every parent’s nightmare. Children were being kidnapped and murdered, and he was completely at a loss. It was Johanne’s unique experiences with the FBI and her sharp eye for human behaviour that solved the case and saved a little girl’s life. He had fallen in love with Johanne for many reasons, but whenever he thought back to the time after the dramatic search for the missing child, it was Johanne’s ability to combine intellect and intuition, rationality and emotion that had attracted him with a power he had never experienced before.
Johanne was the perfect blend of sense and sensibility.
But this time – so many difficult years later – he just hadn’t believed in her.
The feeling of shame made him close his eyes.
‘Now do you believe me?’
Her tone wasn’t aggressive. It wasn’t even reproachful. On the contrary, she sounded relieved. It made him feel even smaller.
‘I believed you all along,’ he mumbled. ‘I just thought that—’
‘Let’s forget it,’ said Johanne, sitting down beside him. ‘What do we do now?’
‘I don’t know. I have no idea. The best thing might be to wait. She talked to you on Monday, and to us just now. We should probably wait until she decides to tell us more.’
‘There’s no guarantee she ever will.’
‘No. But do you want to put her through an interview?’
She placed one hand on his thigh and picked up his wine glass with the other.
‘Not yet. Not unless it becomes absolutely necessary.’
‘Then we’re agreed.’
She felt a wave of tenderness for him that was unusual these days, a deep gratitude for the fact that his immediate instinct was to protect his stepdaughter, even though she might have vital information in an ongoing murder enquiry.
‘Thank you,’ she said simply.
‘Why are they here?’ Adam said, so quietly that she almost didn’t hear.
‘What?’
‘Why are they here?’ he repeated. ‘The 25’ers. Here. In Norway.’
She swirled the wine around the glass. The beat of Money, Money, Money thumped up through the floor from down below. For a moment she considered thumping back. If Kristiane didn’t fall asleep properly now, it was going to be a long night.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But of course, they could be in other places as well.’
‘No.’
He took the glass from her and had a sip.
‘Interpol has no information on similar cases anywhere else in Europe. In the US, however, the FBI is working on a case where—’
‘Six gay men have been murdered and it turns out there’s a connection between all of them,’ she finished off for him. ‘And that particular case is a hard nut to crack.’
He laughed.
‘Do you know everything that’s going on in that bloody country?’
‘America is not a bloody country. It’s a wonderful, wonderful country, the USA.’
His laughter grew louder, positively hearty. He pulled her close. She was smiling, too. It was a long time since she’d heard him laugh like that.
‘It could be just a coincidence, of course,’ she said.
When he didn’t reply, she added: ‘But I don’t believe that for a second.’
‘Why not?’ Adam asked. ‘If they’ve decided to … export their hatred, I suppose we’re as good a country to start in as any. In fact, if you think about it …’
He tried to get more comfortable.
‘… perhaps we’re better than any other country. We’ve got the most liberal laws in the world when it comes to gay rights, we’ve got—’
‘Along with several other countries,’ she broke in. ‘And a number of states in the US. So they’ve got no real reason to come here, in fact. I just don’t believe …’
Adam was shifting about so much that she sat up and undid his belt.
‘I love you however much you weigh,’ she said. ‘But it does look a little bit ridiculous when you start literally tightening your belt. Couldn’t you perhaps buy yourself some bigger clothes, sweetheart?’
She could have sworn he was blushing. But he left the belt hanging open.
‘I think they’re here for a very definite reason,’ she said.
‘Which is?’
‘If only we knew. But there’s something.’
‘Shit,’ said Adam, lumbering to his feet.
‘What are you going to do?’
He mumbled something she didn’t catch and headed towards the hallway. She could hear Super Trouper coming from below, and realized she was humming along. In order to get the enervating melody out of her head, she picked up a pen from the coffee table and took a newspaper out of the basket on the floor. She jotted down a few notes in the margin of the front page of Aftenposten. When she had finished she sat there brooding so intently that she didn’t even notice Adam until he flopped down beside her. He was wearing generous pyjama bottoms and a big American football shirt.
‘Look at this,’ she said, tapping the paper with her pen.
‘I can’t make head or tail of it,’ he said, wrinkling his nose at her incomprehensible scrawl.
‘The methods,’ she said succinctly.
‘Yes?’
‘Sophie Eklund was killed after someone sabotaged her car
. So there was an attempt to cover up a murder.’
‘Yes …’
‘Niclas Winter was written off as the victim of an overdose. Which he was – to be fair – but all the indications are that he was killed with curacit. In other words, another attempt to cover up a murder.’
‘How do you actually inject curacit into an adult, relatively healthy man?’ Adam muttered, still trying to decipher what she had written down. ‘I would have fought like the devil.’
‘The first thing that occurs to me is that he might have been fooled into thinking it was something else. Heroin, for example.’
‘Yes …’
‘Or he was taken by surprise. Curacit works incredibly fast. If you inject into the mouth where there are a lot of blood vessels, it’s only a matter of seconds before the effect kicks in.’
‘Into the mouth? But you can’t force someone to open wide so you can inject a little curacit, surely?’
‘I’m afraid we’ll never know the answer to that. He’s been cremated. But listen to me, Adam. Pay attention. The point is there was an attempt to cover up the next two murders, exactly like the ones I’ve just mentioned.’
She chewed her pen.
‘Runar Hansen, poor soul – nobody really bothered too much about him. Drug addicts who get beaten up and die as a result of their injuries don’t attract much attention these days. And as far as Hawre Ghani is concerned, he was thrown in the water and was virtually unrecognizable by the time they pulled him out. To be perfectly honest, I think his case would have ended up well down the pile at police headquarters if Silje Sørensen hadn’t … felt something for the boy.’
‘Where are you going with this, Johanne?’
‘I want my own wine. Can’t you go and get me a glass?’
He got up without a word.
Johanne stared at her scribbles. Six murders. Two covered up, two almost ignored, simply because the victims were right at the bottom of the scale of humanity in every way. She suddenly drew a thick ring around the last two names.
‘There you go,’ said Adam, handing her a half-full glass. ‘Not exactly the usual Friday night. Apart from the wine, I mean.’
‘What we can almost definitely say,’ said Johanne, taking the glass without looking up, ‘is that something unforeseen happened when Marianne Kleive was murdered. The killer was surprised by Kristiane. In other words, we can’t actually be certain whether this murder would also have been covered up. As an accident. An illness. Something. To make sure the alarm wasn’t sounded straight away, the murderer sent text messages from her mobile. That gave him a whole week.’
‘Does this just mean they don’t want to get caught, that they just want to buy themselves time, or that they want—?’
‘But let’s look at the Bishop,’ said Johanne, suddenly realizing that the page she was writing on had a picture of Eva Karin in the right-hand column.
She turned the old paper ninety degrees and drew a square around the small portrait on the front page.
‘There was no attempt to disguise this murder,’ she said, mostly to herself.
Adam was sensible enough to keep quiet.
‘Quite the reverse,’ she went on. ‘Stabbed out in the street. True, it happened on the only day of the year when you can be fairly sure nobody is out and about, but still … The intention was that she should be found quickly. The intention was that the murder of …’
She held her breath for so long that Adam wondered if something was wrong.
‘Of course!’ she said suddenly in a loud voice, turning to look at Adam. ‘Let’s assume that my theory is correct. The other murders are perceived as something else. The objective was quite simply …’
She stared at him as if she had only just noticed that he was sitting there.
‘… that they should die,’ she said in surprise. ‘The only objective was that they should die! Death itself was the goal!’
Adam thought it was fairly obvious that a person was murdered because someone wanted them dead, but he kept quiet.
‘They’re sinners,’ said Johanne, waxing almost enthusiastic. ‘And they must be punished for their sins! It doesn’t matter to The 25’ers whether the rest of us can see a link, or whether we even realize a crime lies behind their deaths. The most important thing is that they must die, and then that the murderers – God’s instruments, so to speak – are not subject to our worldly legislation.’
‘Yes,’ Adam ventured tentatively.
‘Only one of these victims is known to the public,’ Johanne went on. ‘Eva Karin Lysgaard. And she was the only one who was murdered in a way that positively cries out for attention. Why would that be, Adam?’
She knelt on the sofa and turned towards him. Her face was glowing. Her eyes were shining, her mouth half-open. She took his hand and squeezed it so hard it almost hurt.
‘Why, Adam?’
‘Because,’ he said. ‘Because …’
‘Because they want us to start digging into her life! The investigation into the murder of Eva Karin Lysgaard is an investigation they wanted to happen, Adam! The whole point was for us to turn her life upside down, just as all murder victims have their lives turned inside out in the hope that something will turn up!’
‘In the hope that something will turn up,’ he repeated quietly. ‘Hang on a minute.’
Johanne followed him with her eyes as he padded into the hallway. She was out of breath, and her palms prickled when he came back and handed her a photograph before sitting down again.
‘Who’s this?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know who she is,’ he said. ‘But this is a copy of a photograph that went astray.’
He told her about the room that had been Eva Karin’s sanctuary at night. About the photograph that had been there the day after the murder, but had disappeared when he went back a couple of days later. When he got to the part about Lukas scrambling across the roof in the January rain, he started to laugh. At the end he took back the photograph and laid it on his knee.
‘Lukas thought she might be his sister,’ he said. ‘But you can tell from both the quality of the picture and the clothes she’s wearing that it’s hardly likely it was taken around 1980. And her hairstyle isn’t exactly typical of the eighties either.’
‘So what do you think?’ said Johanne, without taking her eyes off the photograph.
‘I’ve been wondering whether she might be an unknown aunt rather than sister to Lukas. Eva Karin’s illegitimate sister. That would explain the fact that she looks a bit like Lukas.’
‘Does she? I think she looks like Lill Lindfors.’
Adam grinned. ‘You’re not the only one. Anyway, it won’t be long until we know who she is. Both the Bergen police and NCIS are working on it. If this woman is still alive, we’ll know who she is in a few days. If not sooner.’
‘And where will that lead?’
‘What? Finding out who she is?’
‘Yes. How can you be sure she’s got something to do with the case?’
‘I suppose I can’t be sure,’ Adam said hesitantly. ‘But you have to admit it’s weird that Erik Lysgaard put it away as soon as he had the chance.’
‘Have you asked him about it?’
‘No … It gives me the upper hand if he doesn’t even know I’ve discovered the photograph, and I want to keep it that way.’
In the apartment below the film had reached Knowing Me, Knowing You. The neighbours had turned down the volume at last, but the bass still vibrated through the floor. Johanne took back the photograph.
‘What an exciting face,’ she murmured. ‘Strong, somehow.’
Adam leaned forward and grabbed a handful of crisps. So far he’d managed to resist temptation.
‘Can you move those out of the way, please,’ he mumbled as he crunched away. ‘Crisps are the work of the devil.’
Instead of doing as he asked, she got up and started to walk around the room with the photograph in her hand.
‘Adam,’ she sa
id expressionlessly, almost absent-mindedly. ‘Eva Karin’s murder is different from the others in terms of the method. What else distinguishes this case from the rest?’
‘I … I don’t really know.’
‘There’s reason to believe that all the other victims were gay. Or at any rate that they had a direct link to homosexual or lesbian activities.’
Adam stopped chewing. The crisps suddenly felt like an unappetizing, sticky calorie bomb in his mouth. He picked up a used serviette from the table, spat the revolting, yellowish-brown mass into it and tried to screw it up. A little bit fell on the floor, and he bent down sheepishly to retrieve it.
Johanne took no notice whatsoever. She had stopped by the window. She stood with her back to him for a long time before turning around and pointing at the photograph.
‘Eva Karin is the only heterosexual,’ she said. ‘At least, she’s the only one who is apparently heterosexual.’
‘What do you mean by … ? What do you mean by “apparently”?’
‘This,’ said Johanne, holding the photograph up to face him. ‘This is neither Lukas’s nor Eva Karin’s sister. This is the Bishop’s lover.’
There was complete silence in the building. The film must have finished in the apartment below. The wind had dropped. The floor-boards didn’t even creak as she walked back to the sofa and carefully – as if she didn’t want to lose a complex chain of thought – sat down beside him.
‘It’s not possible,’ Adam said eventually. ‘We haven’t heard a single rumour. That kind of thing leads to gossip, Johanne. People talk about that kind of thing. It’s not possible for …’
He grabbed the photograph, a little more roughly than he had intended.
‘In that case, why does she look so much like Lukas?’
‘Pure coincidence. Besides which, both you and no doubt Lukas have studied this photograph so intently to try and find a clue that even the slightest resemblance would strike you. It happens. People look like one another sometimes. For example, you look a lot like—’
‘But if it hasn’t occurred to us that Eva Karin might have been living a double life, then how could The 25’ers know about it? If you’re right about this completely absurd … If you’re right about …’