Death By Water

by Damhaug, Torkil

  It was dark outside. Liss took out the notebook.

  Mailin: We’ll take the track across Feren today. Shall I wax your skis, Liss?

  What if you’d found out what had happened before that Easter, Mailin? You would have hated me.

  She hunched up, felt that she would soon fall asleep. Out here she always felt dog tired in the evenings. Slept deeply and soundly, as though her restlessness spread on the wind and was sucked up by the trees, until all that remained in her body was a faint murmuring. She reached out a hand, turned down the paraffin lamp on the table; the two logs in the fireplace could just burn up. She abandoned the thought of washing and brushing her teeth and getting into bed. Sank down into sleep. Could sleep here all winter, was the last thought she was aware of, not emerge until spring. Stand down on the beach and see Mailin come rowing to shore. Her back to the land. Rowing and rowing. Turn round, Mailin, so I can see that it’s you. She turns. It isn’t Mailin. It’s Grandma, her father’s mother. Wearing a black dress, her red hair like a veil flowing down her back …

  Liss starts restlessly as she lies there. Someone has entered the room. She tries to wake up. What’s happened to my eyes? I can’t see properly. The old woman doesn’t move, stands in front of the fireplace staring at her. She’s wearing a sort of uniform, with a long green coat over it. A towel tied around her forehead, drenched in blood.

  What do you want? Where is Mailin?

  Her own shout awoke her. She saw the outlines of a face outside the living-room window. – You are not afraid, Liss, she murmured. – You’re never afraid any more. She got to her feet. The shape outside disappeared. She stumbled out into the kitchen. Had to pee. Put her hands into the bucket and rubbed her face hard with the icy water. Took the lamp out into the darkness. It was still snowing, harder now. On the veranda outside the living-room window she saw footprints. She shone the lamp on them. Boots, bigger than hers, from the door and over to the window, from there to the corner. She went back inside, put on the head lamp, threw on the enormous all-weather jacket she still hadn’t returned to its owner. From the corner she tracked the footprints over towards the outside toilet, where they disappeared into the trees beyond.

  It snowed for the rest of the night. She didn’t sleep. Locked the door. Lay with her eyes open in the dark. Placed an empty wine bottle next to the sofa. Didn’t know what she intended to do with it. Smash it, use it to stab with maybe. – I am not afraid, she repeated. – I am not afraid any more. Everything that’s happened to Mailin, I could stand it too.

  In the end she must have dropped off, because suddenly the grey light of dawn was outside. She got up, went outside to pee. No footprints on the veranda now. Snowed over. Should have taken a photo of them, she thought. But who would she show it to? Wouldn’t be talking to the police any more, she had decided.

  She made fires in the woodstove and the open fireplace. Boiled water, sprinkled in the coffee powder. Wrapped a blanket around herself, lit a cigarette, sat by the window and watched the day arrive. Nowhere she had to be. At the same time, a feeling that there was something she had to do before it was too late. She took out the notebook.

  Footprints in the snow. Winter boots. Several sizes bigger than mine.

  Dream: Mailin rowing towards land, turns, it isn’t Mailin. Grandma standing in the room. Wants to tell me something.

  She sucked the last drags from the cigarette, felt the burning deep down in her chest. Needed to eat. Eat and puke. Nothing suitable for that to eat here. Needed to inhale something that would make her strong, invincible, furious, if only for a half-hour. Didn’t have that here either.

  I’ll never leave here again.

  You can’t stay here, Liss.

  I don’t have anywhere else.

  You can’t hide yourself away. The world is wherever you are.

  She glanced over at the sofa where she’d spent the night. One of the cushions had fallen on to the floor. She picked it up, noticed as she did so that the zip fastener on the cover was half open. Inside was a sheet of paper. Scrunched up into a ball. She smoothed it out. A story from VG’s online edition dated 21 November 2003, but the printout was from 10 December 2008, the day before Mailin’s disappearance.

  Missing girl (19) found dead outside Bergen was the headline.

  15

  Thursday 1 January 2009

  IT WAS NOWHERE near crowded at Klimt that evening, but a couple of regulars were nursing beers at the bar, and at one table New Year was still being celebrated. Roar Horvath swapped a few pleasantries with the lads behind the bar; one of them he hadn’t seen since they played in the back four together for LSK juniors, but he’d gathered that Roar was working on the murder of the woman who was supposed to be on Taboo. Roar could only respond with his most ironic No comment, and in return got a pat on the shoulder and a Cheers anyway. Almost before he knew what was going on, the first beer had come and gone. Going out in Lillestrøm was a homecoming after all.

  Dan-Levi appeared in the doorway that led down to the toilets. At first Roar thought he’d had his dark hair cut, but then realised his old friend had tied it in a ponytail that hung down his back. Not exactly the latest style for men, but then Dan-Levi would never abandon his long tresses; he called them his freak flag, after one of his favourite songs.

  They sat in a corner where they could talk undisturbed. As usual Dan-Levi wanted to hear about Roar’s bachelor life. Roar admitted he had something going and hoped that would be enough to satisfy his friend’s curiosity. No such luck, as it turned out. Dan-Levi looked as though he’d hooked an enormous trout on the end of his fishing rod and started to reel it in.

  – Not a policewoman, is it? Then the outlook isn’t good.

  It was hardly a scientifically based conclusion, but it was smart and aimed at eliciting further hard facts.

  – Both yes and no, Roar conceded. – In a sense.

  He didn’t want to break with the joking way they’d always had with each other, and the openness it allowed them. This openness had been good for them both. Around the time of the divorce, Dan-Levi had always been there for him, inviting him out for an evening in town, or to go fishing up in the Østmarka forest. As well as something they both referred to as their annual hunting trip, though it was a few years now since the last time. Dan-Levi wasn’t completely hopeless with a fishing rod, but he would never make any kind of hunter. The best he’d managed that autumn when Roar got divorced was a couple of hares that turned out to be, on closer inspection, pet rabbits that some idiot of a farmer up in Nes had allowed to run about freely. It was a story Roar never tired of reminding his friend about. After a while he contented himself with just holding two slightly bent fingers up in the air to make his point. The gesture seemed to have no effect at all on Dan-Levi’s masculine pride. He’d even written a little sidebar about the episode for Romerikes Blad, in which he exaggerated his own clumsiness and claimed to have nearly hit one of the farmer’s cows into the bargain – but a big one, with horns almost the size of a moose.

  – In a sense what? he went on now with a journalist’s persistence. – She surely can’t both be a policewoman and not be a policewoman?

  Roar gave him a couple of clues, almost let slip the story about the Christmas party to which some of the forensic people, for reasons that had nothing to do with him, had been invited. He stressed that there was absolutely no question of a relationship. That this lady was too old for him, as well as too smart and too married.

  Dan-Levi smacked his lips in satisfaction. – Mother fixation, he suggested, but by now Roar had had enough and headed off to buy another round of beers.

  – Now what about Berger? he wanted to know when he returned. – Have you for once put your investigative talents to any useful purpose?

  Dan-Levi swigged at his beer, the froth settling on his moustache and his little goatee. – In a sense, as you like to put it. He waited until he saw his friend’s weary smile before continuing. – I spoke to a former elder of the Pentecost
al church, a friend of my dad’s. He knows the Frelsøi family well and has followed Berger’s career.

  He took another drink of beer, was in no rush.

  – And?

  – You want to hear what he said, or what he didn’t say?

  – Let’s have it.

  – Okay. Berger’s father was a pastor in the Pentecostal church.

  – As was your father.

  Dan-Levi made a face. – We’re talking about two very different kinds of father here. One who followed the New Testament on how to bring up children, and one who followed the Old. Whom you love also punish, und so weiter. Frelsøi senior was apparently the type who would have dragged his son up the nearest mountain without a moment’s hesitation and cut his throat if he thought God demanded such a sacrifice. The elder wouldn’t go into detail, but I gathered from him that the Bergersen Frelsøi family had been the subject of considerable concern in the community, and don’t forget this is the Pentecostal movement nineteen-fifty-something we’re talking about here.

  – Violence? Abuse?

  Dan-Levi considered the question. – My source won’t name any names, not even of those who are dead. Most of all them. If you approach the community as an investigator, you’re going to get the door slammed in your face. But that’s what it was like in those days. Everything should be sorted out internally, and nothing got done. It ended in the worst possible way, without anybody at all getting involved. It’s incredible what some people can do after a literal reading of the Bible. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. Und so weiter.

  Roar put his glass down on the table with a bang. – What you just said then, about eyes, is that what it says in the Bible?

  – Yes indeed. Matthew chapter 5, verses 29 and 30.

  Dan-Levi came from a family in which biblical texts weren’t followed to the letter. Roar had always liked being at his house; his parents were warm hearted and generous, and Dan-Levi’s father was much less strict than his own, who had arrived from Hungary an eighteen-year-old refugee with nothing more than two bare hands and a will of steel. But Dan-Levi had been obliged to learn the Bible by heart, and Roar suspected that he was putting the next generation through the same school.

  His mobile phone rang. He saw who it was and took the call on the pavement outside.

  – Take it easy, I’m not going to invite myself over to your place this evening.

  Roar had to laugh, surprised at how happy it made him to hear that voice with its crisp Australian accent. When he’d found himself sitting next to her at the Christmas party, he had at first assumed Jennifer Plåterud was American, but when he hinted as much, she was greatly offended and assured him that she was a good deal less American than he was.

  – Pity, I’d’ve enjoyed a visit, Roar responded now. – That’s to say, I’ve got Emily and I’m staying the night at my mother’s. Probably not a brilliant idea to meet there.

  Jennifer’s laughter was a touch strained, he thought. Maybe being introduced to his family in this way was a bit much, even in jest.

  – I’m calling from the office, she said.

  – Cripes, do you always work this late?

  – Often. There’s always plenty to do.

  Her capacity for work was dizzying. She was superior to him there as well, not that she made an issue of it.

  – I just got a call from Liss Bjerke.

  – What? You mean she called you?

  – It sounds as if she doesn’t want to have anything more to do with you, or anyone else from the station. I wasn’t able to find out why. She could well be in a state of shock, I imagine.

  Roar chose not to say anything about what had happened at the interview the day before.

  – What did she want?

  Jennifer hesitated. – She has information she’d rather give to me than any of you. She said she had more faith in someone who was a doctor.

  – What kind of information?

  – I believe it has something to do with a document she’s found. She wouldn’t say over the phone. We agreed that she would come out here early tomorrow morning. Naturally I did all I could to persuade her to go to you, but she refuses.

  Viken was always stressing that those he worked with could call him at any time; he was always available. It had struck Roar how little he knew about him. Viken didn’t wear a ring, and never spoke about a family. In fact he never spoke about himself at all.

  As he punched in the number to inform him of what Jennifer had told him, Roar felt like a bright young lad rushing home with important news.

  The detective chief inspector said: – Why did she call you?

  – Who, Plåterud? Roar could hear how stupid his own question sounded.

  – Why did she ring you? Viken repeated.

  Roar looked around. The main street in Lillestrøm was deserted. – Don’t know.

  He moved quickly on to what he’d found out about Berger’s background, thinking it would appeal to Viken’s taste for the psychological.

  At the other end the DCI listened in silence. Then he said: – We’d better bring him in. I’ll take care of it.

  – By the way, I’ve been in touch with the Montreal Community Police Department this evening, he added.

  Roar had offered to handle the job of tracing Mailin Bjerke’s father, but Viken was determined to do it himself.

  – They still haven’t found him?

  It sounded as if the inspector was sipping away at something or other. Probably coffee, because as Roar knew, he was a teetotaller.

  – It appears that he’s away travelling, but no one knows where or for how long. They’ve been to his home on the outskirts of Montreal several times, talked with neighbours and friends.

  – An artist, isn’t he? Roar grinned. – Meaning he comes and goes as he pleases.

  Viken let the observation pass.

  – They’ve sent out an internal be-on-the-lookout, he said. – It’s up to us if they make it public. We’ll wait, for the time being.

  – Almost worse than being a journalist, Dan-Levi sighed as Roar returned to the table. – Always on the job.

  – How do you know it was a work call?

  Dan-Levi thought about it. – It could of course have been the lady, he suggested. – The doctor lady.

  Roar glanced over his shoulder. – If this gets out, Dan, I wouldn’t think twice about committing murder. Not for one second.

  – Ooops, his friend said teasingly. – And here was me thinking of going home and doing a feature on people who left Lillestrøm and now live la dolce vita in the capital. I guess it’ll have to be something on the Beckhams instead. Imagine this scenario: David decides to end his career as a right-winger for LSK. He sends wicked Vicky on ahead to check out the night life in the city of Lillestrøm.

  Roar declined to be distracted. He repeated his threat, illustrating with a sweep of the finger where the throat would be cut. – Halal.

  Dan-Levi raised both arms and bowed his neck.

  – Do you watch Taboo? he asked abruptly.

  Roar had to confess that he did. – Particularly now that it’s work related.

  – Viewing figures are bound to reach a million on Tuesday, said Dan-Levi. – Did you see what it said in VG yesterday about the last programme Berger’s going to make?

  Roar had hardly had time to open a newspaper the last few days.

  – The headline was Death in the studio. The hype is insane. They all expect him to top everything else he’s ever done before.

  Roar wrinkled his nose. – Didn’t think you Pentecostals sat around on your sofas entertaining yourself with blasphemy, pure and simple.

  – That’s precisely the point, Dan-Levi exclaimed. – If Berger had been a simple atheist, he’d be ignored. But the guy stands there and insists that he believes in a God.

  – You mean Baal-something-or-othe
r?

  – Beelzebub. Atheism doesn’t provoke anyone, but a celebrity who openly admits to worshipping the lord of the flies, the God of the Philistines, he’ll get all the Christian condemnation he could wish for.

  – Smart bastard, murmured Roar.

  16

  LISS LET HERSELF into the house in Lang Street. Imagined what Mailin did when she came home. Put her boots on the rack in the hallway, wandered into the kitchen, a glance at the washing-up piled and waiting in the sink. They took it in turn to keep the kitchen tidy, Viljam had told her. If it was Mailin’s day, she’d get going straight away. She’d always be sure to get the dull stuff out of the way before it got out of control. Afterwards perhaps she’d sit down at the kitchen table. Did she listen for the sound of a door opening? Did she long to hear the sound of his voice from the hallway?

  After doing the washing-up, Liss had a smoke out on the steps in the cold winter evening before snuggling up in a corner of the sofa with a blanket over her. She looked out; in the dark she could just about make out the patch of garden with the barbecue and tool shed. She’d put the notebook on the table; now she picked it up.

  What I know about what happened to you:

  10 December. 16.45: you leave the house. To the post office, then on to Morr Water. 20.09: text to Viljam.

  11 December. Time?: leave the cabin. 15.48: text to Liss. 16.10: text to Viljam. 17.00: appointment with JH. 17.04: park the car in Welhavens Street. 17.30: text to Berger. 18.11: text to Viljam. 19.00: appointment with Berger. 19.03: call Berger, no answer. 19.05: text to Berger: you’ve been held up (according to Berger you never turned up). 20.30: due to be at Channel Six, you didn’t show up.