by Anne Holt
Unfortunately, the girl had prevented him from killing the woman in the way he had originally intended, camouflaged as an accident. But it wasn’t the child’s fault. Fortunately, he had had the presence of mind to search through the woman’s pockets and her bag; he had found the ticket to Australia and taken her mobile phone. Then he had gone into her room, collected her luggage and paid the bill. The chaos in reception suited him perfectly; he virtually disappeared among the crowd of partying guests and drunks. He had hidden her suitcase right at the back of an unlocked storeroom full of rubbish, underneath a big cardboard box that was so dusty it couldn’t have been touched for years. He had to prevent her disappearance from being discovered immediately, and by sending a couple of short, nondescript texts over the next few days he had bought himself a decent interval. Every minute that elapsed between the murder and the start of an investigation reduced the chances of the case being solved.
‘Can I get you a pillow?’ he suddenly heard the flight attendant whisper.
Without opening his eyes he shook his head almost imperceptibly.
The child’s mother had been hysterical. First of all she had slapped him across the face, once the girl was safe. In the period between Christmas and New Year he had once stood just a few hundred metres from the white building where the family lived. A man had come out of a neighbouring property and stopped by the fence to chat with the two girls playing in the garden. The mother was standing at the window, watching them. She was frightened out of her wits, and seemed beside herself when she came out to fetch them inside.
A bit like Susan, he thought, although he didn’t allow himself to think about Susan very often. She was always anxious about Anthony, too.
It wasn’t the first time he had noticed how the people he observed had a horrible feeling they were being watched. They never saw him, of course, just as the mother of the pretty girl hadn’t seen him when he followed her to school in his neutral hire car, where he finally found confirmation that the child was different. He was too well trained ever to be seen. But she sensed his presence. It had taken Richard a little while to identify the girl’s father, but he had become uneasy the very first time. Richard had wanted to find out if the child behaved differently away from her mother, and had observed them together on three separate occasions. The man started looking over his shoulder at an early stage.
The man who lived on a hill high above the city in a twisted caricature of a family had reacted in much the same way. Felt persecuted. His lover had been completely hysterical, rushing around photographing tyre tracks on the Monday almost two weeks ago. Richard had been standing at a safe distance, watching the whole thing. Two dark-skinned lads had driven up in a big BMW. Pakistanis, he guessed. Oslo was crawling with them. They obviously had something to sort out between themselves, because they had driven into the little pull-in outside the gate of the house where the so-called family lived and stayed there for a good while, gesticulating violently and smoking countless cigarettes before they drove off.
The sodomite had sensed Richard’s presence, but hadn’t seen him. Just like the others.
They didn’t see him and, come to think of it, they didn’t sense his presence either.
What they sensed was the presence of the Lord, Richard Forrester thought. And even if that perverted travesty of a father had escaped on this occasion, his time would come.
Richard Forrester smiled and fell asleep.
*
The house looked as if it was lying at rest on the steep hillside. The windows were small and divided into four panes. The wooden building was tucked in between two similar but larger houses, and was a modest dwelling. Almost shy. A narrow opening led into a little back garden. A lady’s bike was propped up against a stone wall, and a collection of brightly coloured ceramic pots had been piled up in one corner for the winter. Stone steps led up to a small green door, beside which hung a porcelain nameplate. The name, and the meadow flowers surrounding it, had faded to pale blue in the wind and rain and sunshine over the years.
M. Brække, it said in ornate letters.
Adam Stubo hesitated. He stood on the stone steps with his back to the simple, wrought-iron fence and tried to think the whole thing through one more time.
He was about to deprive this woman of a secret she had kept for almost half a century, as far as he could tell. By placing his finger on the brass bell below the nameplate he would intrude upon a life that had been difficult enough already. The woman who lived in the little white house had made her choice and lived her whole life in the shadow of another’s marriage.
The female employee at Bergen police station who had recognized the woman in the photograph had briefed him during the drive from Flesland. Martine Brække was a tutor at Bergen’s cathedral school, unmarried and childless. She lived a quiet life, cut off from most things, but she was a respected teacher and also gave private piano lessons. She had once been a promising concert pianist herself, but at the age of nineteen she had been struck by a form of rheumatism which put an end to the brilliant career she had envisaged.
Fragile, tentative music could suddenly be heard from somewhere inside. Adam shook his head and listened to the piece being played on the piano. He didn’t recognize it. It was light, dancing, and it made him think of the spring.
He lifted his hand and rang the doorbell.
The music stopped.
When the door opened, he recognized her at once. She was still beautiful, but her eyes were red-rimmed and the area around her mouth was puffy from crying.
‘My name is Adam Stubo,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘I’m a police officer. I’m afraid I need to talk to you about Eva Karin Lysgaard.’
The fear in her eyes made him glance to the side, as if he could still change his mind and leave.
‘I’m alone,’ he said. ‘As you can see, I’m completely alone.’ She let him in.
*
‘I really don’t want to hear any more about that will, thank you,’ Kristen Faber’s secretary said to her husband as she was making sandwiches for lunch. ‘It has absolutely nothing to do with you.’
Bjarne was sitting at the kitchen table with the photocopy in his hand, peering short-sightedly at the small writing.
‘But you have to understand,’ he said crossly, which was unusual for him, ‘that this could actually mean the man has been conned out of a considerable inheritance!’
‘Niclas Winter is dead. There are no heirs. That’s what it said in the paper. A dead man can’t be conned out of anything. Except life, of course.’
She snorted decisively and placed a generous portion of salmon on top of the mountain of scrambled eggs.
‘So that’s the end of that. Lunchtime!’
‘No, Vera, that’s not the end of anything!’
He banged his fist down on the table.
‘This could involve a crime! I mean, it says here …’
He slapped his other hand down on that day’s copy of VG, which was lying open at a double-page article about some terrible gang from America that had killed six people out of blind hatred for homosexuals and lesbians. Bjarne Isaksen was shocked. Admittedly, he wasn’t too keen on the sordid things that kind of person got up to, but there had to be limits. You couldn’t just go around killing people in the name of God just because you weren’t a fan of their love lives.
‘It says here that Niclas Winter was murdered!’
Vera turned to him, put her hands on her hips and cleared her throat, as if bracing herself for what she intended to say.
‘That will has nothing to do with Niclas Winter’s death. I’ve read the article to you three times now, and there is no mention of money, an inheritance or a will. Those lunatics from America have just been killing indiscriminately, Bjarne! They can’t possibly have known anything about a document that was lying in a dusty old cupboard in Kristen Faber’s office!’
She was getting more and more angry as she went on.
‘I’ve never heard anyt
hing so stupid in my entire life,’ she said crossly, turning back to the worktop.
‘I’m going to call the police,’ Bjarne said obstinately. ‘I can call them without saying who I am, then I can suggest they get in touch with Faber and ask him about a will with Niclas Winter as the beneficiary. They have those information lines, where you can ring up without saying who you are. That’s what I’m going to do, Vera. And I’m going to do it now.’
Vera groaned theatrically and ran her slender hand over her hair.
‘You are not going to call the police. If anyone in this house is going to speak to the police, it’s me. At least I can explain how I …’
Another nervous adjustment of her well-groomed coiffure.
‘… have legal access to the will,’ she concluded.
‘Go on, then, do it!’ Bjarne said agitatedly. ‘Ring them!’
She banged the butter knife down on the worktop and fixed him with the sternest look she could muster, but he wasn’t giving in. He stared back like a stubborn little boy, refusing to back down.
‘Right then,’ she said, and went to fetch the telephone.
*
‘That was Adam Stubo,’ Lukas said, slightly surprised. He put the phone down on the coffee table. ‘He’s on his way over.’
‘Why? I thought you said he’d gone back to Oslo.’
At least his father had started talking again. A little bit.
‘Evidently he came back today.’
‘Why did he phone?’
‘He wanted to speak to you. In person.’
‘To me? Why?’
‘I … I don’t know. But he said it was important. He said he’d tried to call you. Have you unplugged the landline?’
Lukas bent down and peered behind his father’s armchair.
‘You mustn’t do that. It’s important that people can get hold of you.’
‘I have a right to peace and quiet.’
Lukas didn’t reply. A vague sense of unease made him start wandering around the room. Only now did he notice that the house hadn’t been cleaned since before Christmas. Apart from the fact that the pile of newspapers by the television was about a metre high, the place was tidy. His father kept things in order, but nothing else. When Lukas ran his finger over the smooth surface of the sideboard, it left a shiny streak. The nativity crib was still on display. The bulb inside the big glass box was broken, and the once atmospheric tableau was reduced to a gloomy memory of a Christmas he just wanted to forget. As he walked quickly around the corner and went over to the sofa in the L-shaped living room, the dust bunnies swirled silently across the floor. He stopped just outside his father’s field of vision and sniffed the air.
It smelled of old man. Old house. Not exactly unpleasant, but stuffy and stale.
Lukas decided to do some cleaning, and went into the hallway to fetch a bucket and detergent from the cupboard. As far as he recalled, the vacuum cleaner was in there as well. When he remembered that Adam Stubo was on his way, he changed his mind.
‘I think we could do with a bit of air in here,’ he said loudly, walking over to the living-room window.
He fought with the catch and cut his thumb when it finally opened.
‘Shit,’ he said, sticking his thumb in his mouth.
The fact that Adam Stubo was already back in Bergen could be a good sign. Obviously, the investigation had picked up speed. Lukas hadn’t heard any news bulletins or read the papers yet today, but Stubo had sounded optimistic on the phone.
There was a sweet, metallic taste on his tongue, and he examined his injured thumb. He was on his way to fetch a plaster from his mother’s bathroom cabinet when the doorbell rang.
With his thumb in his mouth he went to open the door.
*
‘Come in,’ Silje Sørensen said loudly, looking over towards the door.
Johanne pushed it open hesitantly and poked her head in.
‘Come in,’ the inspector repeated, waving at her. ‘I’m so glad you were able to come over. These stories in the papers are making me totally paranoid, and Adam thought you could give me an update. I daren’t even trust my own mobile.’
‘That’s probably the last thing you should trust,’ said Johanne, sitting down on the visitor’s chair. ‘Have you any idea who the leak is?’
‘No. The press knowing too much has always been a problem for us, but this is the worst example I can remember. Sometimes I wonder if the journalists are blackmailing someone. If they’ve got something on one of us, I mean.’
She gave a fleeting smile and placed a bottle of mineral water and a glass in front of Johanne.
‘You’re usually thirsty,’ she said. ‘Right, I’m curious. Adam said the case in Bergen seems to have taken a completely fresh turn.’
‘Well, I’m not …’
The telephone rang.
Silje hesitated for a moment, then made an apologetic gesture as she answered it.
‘Sørensen,’ she said quickly.
Someone had a lot to say. Johanne felt more and more bewildered. The inspector didn’t say much; she just stared at her from time to time, her gaze expressionless, almost preoccupied. Eventually, Johanne decided to go out into the corridor. The unpleasant experience of listening to a conversation not intended for her ears was making her sweaty. She was just getting up when Silje Sørensen shook her head violently and held up her hand.
‘Is she bringing it over here?’ she asked. ‘Now?’
There was a brief silence.
‘Good. Straight away, please. I’ll stay in my office until you get here.’
She hung up, a furrow of surprise appearing across the top of her straight, slender nose from her left eyebrow.
‘A will,’ she said thoughtfully.
‘What?’
‘A woman who is evidently the secretary at a legal practice here in the city called the information line to say that she’s sitting on a will that has Niclas Winter as the beneficiary, and that it could have some relevance to the investigation into his murder.’
‘I see … so …’
‘Fortunately the information was picked up relatively quickly, and one of my team has got hold of this woman. She’s on her way over with the will right now.’
‘But what … ? If the theory about The 25’ers is correct, what would a will have to do with anything?’
Silje shrugged her shoulders.
‘No idea. But it’s on its way here, so we can have a look at it. Now, what was it you were going to tell me? Adam made me really curious, I have to admit.’
Johanne opened the bottle and poured herself a drink. The carbon dioxide hissed gently, tickling her upper lip as she drank.
‘Eva Karin Lysgaard wasn’t just sympathetic towards gays,’ she said eventually, putting down the glass. ‘She was, it appears, a lesbian herself. Which strengthens our theory about The 25’ers.’
Judging from the expression on Silje Sørensen’s face, Johanne might as well have said that Jesus had come back to earth and sat down on the bed in Kristiane’s room.
*
Marcus Koll sat up in bed in confusion, mumbling something that neither Rolf nor little Marcus could make out.
‘Lazybones,’ Rolf grinned, placing a tray of coffee, juice and two slices of toast topped with ham and cheese on the bedside table. ‘It’s gone one o’clock!’
‘Why did you let me sleep so late?’
Marcus moved to avoid their hugs; he was sweaty, and smacked his lips to try to get rid of the sour taste of sleep.
‘I don’t think you got a wink of sleep last night,’ said Rolf. ‘So when you finally dropped off, I didn’t have the heart to wake you.’
‘We’ve been flying the helicopter,’ little Marcus said excitedly. ‘It’s so cool!’
‘In this weather?’ Marcus groaned. ‘It says in the instructions that the temperature is supposed to be above zero when you fly it. Otherwise the oil freezes.’
‘But we couldn’t wait until spring,’ Rolf smiled.
‘And it was brilliant. I had full control, Marcus.’
‘And me!’ said the boy. ‘I can fly it all by myself!’
‘At least when it’s up in the air,’ Rolf added. ‘Here you go: today’s tabloids. That’s a terrible story – the one about that gang who’ve been murdering people! We’ve been shopping, too. Lots of good food for this evening. You haven’t forgotten we’re having guests?’
Marcus didn’t remember anything about any guests. He reached for VG. The front page made him gasp out loud.
‘Are you ill, Dad? Is that why you slept so late?’
‘No, no. It’s just a bit of a cold. Thank you so much for breakfast. Maybe I can enjoy it and have a look at the papers, then I’ll come down in a little while?’
He didn’t even look at Rolf.
‘OK,’ said the boy, and headed off.
‘Is everything all right?’ asked Rolf. ‘Anything else you need?’
‘Everything’s fine. This is really kind of you both. I’ll be down in half an hour, OK?’
Rolf hesitated. Looked at him. Marcus forced himself to adopt an unconcerned expression and licked his finger demonstratively as he prepared to turn the page.
‘Enjoy,’ said Rolf as he left the room.
It didn’t sound as if he meant it.
*
‘I was really intending to speak to you alone,’ said Adam Stubo, looking from Erik to Lukas and back again. ‘To be perfectly honest, I’d be much happier with that arrangement.’
‘To be perfectly honest,’ Erik replied, ‘what makes you happy isn’t the most important thing right now.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Adam mumbled.
Erik had certainly perked up. In their earlier encounters his indifference had bordered on apathy. This time the scrawny widower had something aggressive, almost hostile about him. Adam hesitated. He had prepared himself for a conversation with a man in a completely different frame of mind from the one Erik was clearly in at the moment.