by Geir Tangen
He made a dramatic pause. Slurped down a little coffee before he continued.
“In there, I found you in poor condition, to put it mildly, and well on your way to shouting out all the secrets of the world to the assembled Norwegian tabloid press. I thought it was best to rescue you from the situation, and dragged you out of the place and back here. At first I intended to leave you in the stairwell, but when you fell over and hit your head on the flagstones, I realized that you probably needed help and supervision. So I got you in and tossed you down on the couch.”
“And then you discovered all this,” said Viljar, pointing toward the coffee table. The table was overflowing with papers that no one other than Viljar should have seen.
Henrik nodded thoughtfully and stroked his thin gray hair back. “Then I discovered this,” he confirmed.
Viljar shook his head and looked down at the floor. Avoided Thomsen’s gaze. He knew that Thomsen was as tight as a coarse-meshed fishing net when it came to keeping secrets, so there was little doubt that this would end in tabloid saturation coverage.
“So … What thoughts do you have?” Viljar mumbled, and if it hadn’t been for the already oppressive silence in the room, Henrik probably wouldn’t even have heard the question.
“I think you have a serious problem, and that you’ve behaved like an idiot. What’s lying on the table here is not only flammable material, it’s self-igniting, damn it.”
Viljar nodded, but didn’t say anything. All the clippings and notes he had saved from the Jonas case four years ago were not meant for eyes other than his own. Especially not the letter Jonas had written to him.
“How you’ve managed to keep this hidden from the editors and the general public for so long, I don’t know, but there’s little doubt that it will go off like a grenade in your hands.”
Viljar had a good enough understanding of people that he could see that deep down, Thomsen was delighted by the situation.
“My journalistic career is over regardless. I don’t care about that, to put it bluntly. I can’t go on after what happened yesterday, and I think it’s time that the truth comes out where my involvement with the Jonas case is concerned.”
Henrik Thomsen squinted and looked at the wreck sitting in front of him. “That’s where you’re mistaken, Gudmundsson. Only you and I know anything about this for the time being, and now it’s high time we scratch each other’s backs here.”
Viljar raised his eyes. What is it that hagfish wants now?
“You need to keep this hidden. I have my secrets too, which you, without knowing it, started to get dangerously close to the day before yesterday. Hans Indbjo and I have arranged things so that we can take some well-paid time off now and then. A concert in Stavanger, a festival in Denmark, a cultural evening in Stord. Overtime pay and comp time afterwards.”
Henrik Thomsen scratched himself absentmindedly in the bristly beard that tickled him in the folds of skin under his chin.
“You see, we have a couple of young helpers who are more than willing to accept the task of taking some pictures, describing a concert, or making a few expert recordings. All for five hundred kroner and a free ticket to something they like. It’s win-win, don’t you think?
“We can help each other out of a jam here, Viljar. If you keep your mouth shut about my fake music review from Stavanger, I’ll keep quiet about what’s on the table here. No one needs to find out that I take such liberties now and then at the newspaper, and no one ever needs to know what really led to everything going to hell in the Jonas case four years ago.”
Viljar shook his head. This must be bullshit! He had little faith that this was how it fit together. It was enough now. Enough lies. Enough secrets. Enough creeping anxiety. It had to stop here. Henrik Thomsen sighed. He squeezed his fingers around the bridge of his nose. Massaged his head behind the ear. Viljar was certainly not the only one with a headache in this room.
“Besides,” he said, “I have a little ace up my sleeve. You see, I think I’ve discovered something where the case of the serial killer is concerned. Something that can lead the police a step closer to a solution. If you promise to keep your mouth shut, I’ll share it with you. If not, I don’t care that they’re on the wrong track in the investigation.”
Henrik had tossed out the line, and Viljar bit on it.
“What the heck, Henrik! If you know something, you have to say it. This concerns Ranveig, after all.”
The words did not appear to have any effect on Henrik Thomsen.
He shrugged his shoulders indifferently.
Viljar was skeptical, but he could not let the chance get away. He had no real interest in telling Øveraas that Thomsen took liberties in his job, and that he probably leaked like a sieve to that nitwit in Radio 102. Seeing it that way, Viljar had nothing at all to lose by entering into an agreement with Thomsen.
He looked at the mountain of flesh awhile before he sighed in resignation.
“Fine, Henrik. I have everything to gain by following you in this. What have you discovered that the police wouldn’t have seen already? You may think so yourself, but you’re not really that ingenious.”
“Fine, Viljar. Try to connect that sluggish brain of yours, and follow along with what I have to say. Don’t interrupt me before I’m done. Okay?”
Viljar did not reply. Simply nodded curtly to his colleague, and fired up the little stub that was left of the butt in the ashtray.
“The killing of Ranveig. I’ve understood that she was hung for display in the living room in a completely white nightgown. What makes me wonder is that no one at the media house appears to see the obvious reference in having her hang that way. The police detectives don’t appear to be noticeably interested in the manner in which she was hanging either. They’re just digging away at her relationship to you, and if anyone may have had revenge motives against her.”
“Her relationship to me?” Viljar squinted at the beast in the armchair with newly won interest.
“Well, forget about that. They’re on a wild-goose chase, the whole lot of them. The question is, why don’t they see the connection to the movie?”
Viljar leaned forward on the couch. Felt that the headache threatened to crawl out of his temples. He really had no idea what Thomsen was babbling about. “Movie?… What movie?”
Thomsen looked at Viljar in amazement a brief moment, before he leaned forward, found the cell phone on the table, and searched for the film trailer for Fallen Angels, a Varg Veum production from a few years earlier.
Varg Veum as played by Trond Espen Seim unfolded on the little screen in front of Viljar, and in small clips he sensed the outlines of what he understood must be a connection. The white gowns. The hanging women. The killer had copied a horror scenario from one of the most widely seen movies in Norway, and no one appeared to see the connection. No one, it should be noted, other than the numbskull Henrik Thomsen.
Haugesund Public Library
Saturday morning, October 18, 2014
Haugesund Public Library. Old and venerable and baked into the landscape on the upper side of magnificent Our Savior’s Church right in central Haugesund. Viljar still felt the headache from the drunken bump pressing down on him, and he was nervous about going in. Stopped outside the main entrance and indulged in the third cigarette of the day. Noticed that people glowered at him on their way into the library. Wondered a moment about which smelled worse, the smoke or the sweaty clothes he’d slept in. Probably it was the combination that made people react with a frown.
Right then, the door opened behind him, and a tall, ungainly fellow barely stuck his head out the doorway. “Listen, smoking is actually prohibited here by the entry, could you go down to the parking lot, do you think?”
“Hi, Øystein!”
The head behind the door stuck a little farther out. More inquisitively now. “Oh, hi … Is that you, Viljar? Didn’t recognize you in passing. Do you mind?”
The voice was neither friendly nor inquisitive. Th
ere are people who have that character trait. They ask but commandeer at one and the same time. In the same sentence.
Viljar did not respond, but instead flipped the half-smoked cigarette in an arc over the dry bushes and down onto the asphalt. He turned around and followed Øystein into the building.
“Nice that you’re here, Øystein.”
Viljar cleared his throat before he continued.
“Do you remember that evening we ended up at Bestastuå after we met Henrik Thomsen down at the pier?”
Øystein Vindheim looked at Viljar a moment before he nodded cautiously. “Hmmmm … That wasn’t that long ago. What amazes me is that you remember it! You were drinking with both fists!”
Viljar waved him away. He had enough drunken anxiety already and didn’t need to be reminded of previous liquor-soaked evenings too. “I talked with Henrik Thomsen about something today. If he’d taken any pictures of us in the course of the evening at Bestastuå. He hadn’t. Did you?”
Øystein Vindheim raised his eyebrows high over the edge of his glasses. “Did I take pictures? I went home after ten minutes, Viljar. I don’t care for that mountain of flesh, and had zero interest in spending a free evening with that idiot.”
“So you left?”
“Ha-ha … That’s what I thought. You don’t remember a thing. You even followed me up the steps after I’d called for a taxi. Although I guess you stopped halfway when you ran into some ladies you knew, if I remember correctly.”
Viljar could vaguely recall an episode where he was standing on the stairs with Øystein, but they were flimsy fragments of a memory that had never taken hold. He let it be, and instead proceeded to the real reason for his visit to the library.
“Oh well, it’s not the first time Thomsen’s made things up. But that wasn’t why I came. You see, I need a little help with something, and I suspect you’re the right man to ask.”
Viljar stopped by the counter and waited until Øystein had made his way around carts and bookshelves and was securely behind the desk. He looked up at Viljar and gave him a smile.
“I see. If it has to do with books, then I’m sure I can help you, but it’s a question of whether I want to.”
Viljar pasted on a smile and looked stiffly back at his buddy. “What the hell…?”
Viljar stared at him uncomprehendingly. Øystein Vindheim had always been friendliness itself. They were buddies. Where did this sudden animosity come from?
“Just today I don’t know how much time I care to spend on Haugesund News. I have a bone to pick with the reporter who wrote about us yesterday. She misquoted me, and now she’s so arrogant that she doesn’t bother to answer when I call her. You don’t exactly stand out as serious in the daylight, Viljar.”
Viljar stood there without a word. He got a distant expression, which Øystein evidently made note of.
“What is it? Did I say something wrong, or what? You must take a little criticism when you—”
The librarian got no further before a fist pounded on the counter in front of him. A stack of returned books threatened to topple, but reconsidered at the last moment. Now it was Vindheim’s turn to open his eyes wide.
“The reporter who interviewed you was killed last night, Øystein. I am reasonably certain that she would have picked up the phone and apologized for the misquotes if it wasn’t for the fact that she was hanging from a noose.”
“Oh, good Lord, Viljar. Was it Ranveig who—?”
“Yes!”
Viljar cut him off and covered his face with his hand. Struggled energetically with himself so that he wouldn’t lose his composure. Øystein’s face had lost all color. His customary smile vanished in a second, and the man clung to the library counter with white knuckles.
“Sorry if I was a little abrupt. I actually need help.”
Øystein was as if frozen solid for several seconds before he snapped back to life . “Of course, of course … Anything at all … I’m truly sorry. It must have been too awful.…”
He tried in a slightly awkward way to pat his friend on the shoulder. Viljar gently removed the hand.
“It actually concerns this case. I’ve got a tip that indicates that the killer uses books or movies as models for his murders.”
“Books…? You mean like a copycat?”
Viljar looked up at the tall librarian. He hadn’t used the word himself, but it was absolutely precise. Copycat … Someone who copies what others have done. Or in this case, if he was to take Henrik Thomsen’s word, what others have written.
“Ranveig was hanging by a noose in the living room dressed in a white nightgown. Does that say anything to you?”
Viljar knew the answer, but wanted Vindheim to confirm it. Øystein looked at him in dismay. He wouldn’t have been the person he was if he hadn’t reacted to the details. This was not information the police had released to the media.
Øystein shook his head, then stopped a moment before he nodded. Viljar could see that it had not taken Øystein more than ten seconds or so to come to the same conclusion he and Henrik had. The similarity was striking. Nonetheless, it had been over twenty-four hours without the police having seen the connection. At least that he knew of …
“Yes … You’re thinking of Gunnar Staalesen. Fallen Angels. There the victims are hung up after they’ve been killed. All in white garments.” Øystein nodded in confirmation of his own conclusion.
“So we obviously have the first murder too.”
Viljar stared at Øystein without saying anything. The starter cables in his head were a bit sluggish this morning. It took time to get the right connections made. His inquisitive expression made the librarian continue where he’d left off.
“Yes, I mentioned it to Ranveig Børve too.… The first killing with the woman who fell out of the high-rise. Somewhat the same there too.” Finally Viljar’s brain connected. He understood that this was important. In other words, Ranveig had known about this connection already on Thursday.
“In what way? Is that killing also taken from a book or a movie?”
He did not answer. Simply turned around and went over to the bookshelves to the right of the reception counter. Accustomed fingers quickly made their way to a book on the shelf. He handed it to Viljar. Unni Lindell. Man of Darkness. Viljar turned it over and realized from what was on the back cover that it was a bull’s-eye.
“The novel starts with a woman being thrown from the balcony of her own high-rise apartment. I thought about it at once when I read about the killing in the newspaper, but I thought it was a coincidence.”
“You thought that, but didn’t say anything about it to the police?”
“Ha-ha … I understand your reaction, but all murders that are committed in Norway have many similar features with some crime novel or other. Authors do research, you see. But, this is completely sick.…”
Øystein Vindheim stood and looked straight ahead. His hands hung limply by his side. Looked like he was hanging to dry on a rack.
Viljar summarized the facts about the second murder. The car salesman who’d been shot in the head from a distance on the steps outside his own residence. Vindheim shook his head. There wasn’t anything from that murder he immediately recognized from the literature. Viljar was about to give up when Øystein asked him to wait a moment.
Two minutes later, he had fetched the two other librarians who were at work this Saturday. He outlined the sequence of events and asked them if they recalled having read anything like that recently.
The discussion went back and forth before one of the three, a short, dark, bubbly lady, spoke the triggering words that made Viljar rise up from his seat.
“Can it be Jo Nesbø? Wasn’t it in one of his books that a slimy lawyer or something like that was shot on his steps with a single shot from a long distance? The murderer had been lying in wait all night. He used a kind of old rifle from the Second World War.…”
Øystein lit up. “Of course! There we have it. It’s from the first book in the Os
lo trilogy about Harry Hole. The one about the old front fighter. What was it called again? Nemesis? No … The one that came before…”
“The Redbreast?” The clever dark lady struck again.
“Yes! The Redbreast. Thanks, Ruth. It’s a shot in the dark, but it may be that’s the one we’re searching for.”
He went over to the bookshelves again and took it out.
“Seem to recall that the murder came quite late in the book. Not right at the end, but in any case more than halfway.” Øystein handed Viljar the copy. Viljar thanked him curtly. Took the books under his arm and made his way toward the door. The alarm started to beep infernally at the same moment. Øystein ran over and turned off the mechanism.
“Library card?”
“I don’t have one,” Viljar mumbled, looking uneasily down at the floor. It was a little embarrassing to admit to his friend how unfamiliar he actually was with the library.
“Then damn it, it’s high time! Come here,” Øystein ordered him, and set about preparing Viljar Ravn Gudmundsson’s library card.
Outside, Viljar stopped a moment and let his gaze travel down the central core of the City of Herring. In the parking lot for Europark, he caught sight of a figure he’d been together with barely an hour ago. Henrik Thomsen was on his way toward his car with a man Viljar recognized.
Viljar had interviewed the man once several years ago in connection with a theft. Inheritance, something or other. He couldn’t remember his name, but the guy was a known face in town. Henrik opened the trunk of his car so that the man could set down the large case he was carrying.
Viljar stood there in his own thoughts and watched the car as it passed the library. The county musician who was sitting in the passenger seat was not to be mistaken. He had played in the North Rogaland Symphony Orchestra since Viljar was a teenager.
Typical Thomsen. Only high culture is good enough.