by Geir Tangen
If Viljar had been wide awake, perhaps he would have been more on his guard. Maybe … Before he could open his mouth, the person in the doorway was inside. With violent force, the figure struck his head against the wall beside the door. A second later, his brain was disconnected from all physical pain.
Four years earlier …
Torvastad, Karmøy
Late Sunday morning, August 29, 2010
Doubt held Jonas back. He knew he should go, or even better run, now when he had the chance, but he was unable to tear himself away from the house.
“Hurry up, Jonas! We don’t have all fucking morning. Your dad can get here at any moment.” Fredric was shifting from one foot to the other alongside him.
“He never gets here until after church coffee is finished, you know that.”
“There isn’t anyone who hasn’t heard the rumors, Jonas. He’s going to drive home as soon as someone or other talks with him on the church steps.”
Jonas hesitated. He knew that Fredric was right, but the house that he had hated more than anything on earth suddenly seemed so much safer. It was as if it were leaning toward him, whispering that in here nothing could go wrong.
He clung to the bag he had packed. Looked at the letter he had written to his sister and mother. He had asked for forgiveness. Asked them to treasure the good memories. Asked them to remember all the nice things there were before the congregation swallowed them up with its doomsday prophecies, before the fear of sin took over and removed every trace of human warmth.
He had even asked them to take care of his father. Try to get him to understand. He knew deep down that it would be of no use. That his own son chose sin and damnation, before His safe and protective embrace, would not be forgiven.
There was no way out other than to run away. When his father came home from church, it would be with the assuredness of what had gone on behind his back. Jonas stood there on the yard in front of the old house after the last bag had been thrown into the back of Fredric’s car. He had a desire to pray to God, but at the same time felt that there had to be a limit to hypocrisy, so he let that be.
The stunt with TV 2 the day before had bought him the time he needed. He had promised them an exclusive interview on Sunday evening in exchange for their withholding any information that might reveal his identity. “I need time to prepare the family,” he’d said. And they fell for it.
This evening, there would be hell to pay when they found out they’d been fooled. They would probably question his credibility, but there he’d received unexpected help in the morning hours. A young man from Surnadal had contacted Norwegian Radio and told about his experiences when as a sixteen-year-old and an elected representative in the party, he’d been seduced by the current Minister of Transport and Communications. True enough, at that time Eliassen was only county leader, but still. The story confirmed who Eliassen was, and what skeletons were hanging in his closet.
Now it was about getting away before his father found out about it in town. Probably he already knew, and Fredric might well be right that he was already on his way home.
“Damn it, Jonas! We have to split!”
The motor was running and he waited impatiently for his friend. Jonas stood as if frozen, looking at the house. He didn’t react to Fredric’s exhortation. Only when Fredric put his hand on his shoulder did he seem to come back to life.
“What are you up to, Jonas? We have to get out of here. They’ll be here at any moment.”
“Ine … Little Ine. She’ll be all alone in here, Fredric. Alone with Dad. She only has me, and the little that’s left of Mom. She’ll be so lonely.”
Jonas struggled with the tears. The concern for his little sister had always been the glue that held him to his childhood home.
“She’ll manage, Jonas. You, on the other hand, are through if he gets hold of you, you know that. You have to come now. Please!”
Jonas looked over at his lover, almost surprised. Like the living dead, he let himself be led to a seat in the car. Fredric jumped in and stepped on the gas so the gravel sprayed higher than the foundation of the house. He barely managed to clear the gate on the driveway when the car skidded.
They hadn’t gone more than a hundred meters before what mustn’t happen, happened. His father’s black Opel Corsa turned onto the same gravel road and was headed right toward them. There wasn’t room for two cars if you didn’t make use of the field alongside. Fredric braked suddenly and hit the steering wheel.
“Damn it! Damn it!”
He screamed for all he was worth. Now there was no way around it. They had to face André Ferkingstad’s anger. They saw the door on the driver’s side open, and Jonas’s father get out. He stood there a moment by the car with clenched fists along his sides before he slowly started moving toward them.
Time slowed down. The seconds had a whole eternity of broken dreams in them. They sat paralyzed, waiting for the unavoidable. His father’s figure grew with each step. There was no doubt. He knew. His face was stone, his gaze implacable. A crow screeched and flapped past, but otherwise it was quiet. Nonetheless, Fredric barely heard the words that Jonas whispered to him. An almost soundless hissing. An exhalation.
“Drive, Fredric.”
“What?” Fredric couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Drive!”
Jonas said it considerably louder now. “Drive! Drive! Drive! Go to the left. There’s room on the ground alongside. Just drive!”
Fredric reacted immediately. Pressed the gas to the floor and released the clutch. Sped past his father and over on the left side of the car ahead. They could hear Jonas’s father screaming, and what was probably a blow with a fist against the trunk as they passed him at high speed.
It was only when they came alongside the Opel, and the wheels grabbed hold of the grass on the ground, that they realized the catastrophe. The back door of his father’s car was open, and right ahead of them stood a little girl, screaming. Neither of them had time to react. They heard the blow only when the car struck her and sent her in an arc against the windshield. She hit it with a thud, continued over the roof, and landed in a twisted position behind the car before Fredric could step on the brake pedal. The car skidded across the ground before it stopped. The silence was total for a few seconds. Then came the screams. Jonas’s mother was out of the car and running toward the unmoving figure on the ground. The blood formed a pool under her. His father roared as he ran. Not at the girl, but at them.
Fredric put the car in gear and accelerated. Jonas sat quite calmly beside him. Didn’t protest. Didn’t scream. No tears could convey the despair he felt. As the car rushed out on the road again, they could see in the rearview mirror that his father finally stopped. He waved his fists and shouted something they couldn’t hear. Jonas paid no notice to what his friend was doing. He sat with a stiff gaze and stared into space. All color had vanished from his face, and without warning, he threw up over his shirt and lap.
Fredric wiped away tears and moaned while he drove faster and faster on the road toward the Karmsund Bridge. A woman who was about to cross the road at Bø Middle School leaped back in terror. Fredric didn’t notice her. There was no way back. Nothing they did could help Ine. Nothing could help them.
Djupaskar, Haugesund
Saturday night, October 18, 2014
Olav Scheldrup Hansen felt unbelievably tired. Almost borderline apathetic. He had to realize that he and the whole investigation team had been made fools of. They totally fell for it. The simplest diversion trick in history. Not a single one of them had even thought this might be trickery. They’d walked into the trap and jumped into their cars as soon as there was gunfire up at the high-rises. The way was clear for the killer after that maneuver. One shot in the head from close range in the doorway. The Nigerian didn’t know what hit him before his brain was disconnected for good.
There was little blood, which showed that his heart stopped beating the moment the bullet penetrated the brain mas
s.
This death is on my shoulders, he thought.
What irritated him most of all was that he was right. He had pointed out one of the most likely victims. He had also foreseen that killing Johan Gundersen would entail such a great risk for the murderer that he would choose someone else. All this added up, but they’d let themselves be deceived, and right now there was little doubt that most of the decisions made that evening were incorrect assessments.
One man posted at the high-rises would have been enough. Police in the apartments instead of on the outside would have fooled the killer into striking against a victim with police protection. Evacuation of potential victims would have saved a human life. All this could have been done on his orders, but he chose blue lights, deterrents, and stress theory. Thought that the police presence would stress the killer into committing fatal errors. Errors he hadn’t made. Two shots in a stairwell, and presto!… The whole police corps was put out of play.
It was embarrassing and degrading, but Scheldrup Hansen refused to do as Lotte had. He would stand in the storm. Not chicken out with his tail between his legs as soon as things got a little hot. Did she really think she could take a leading role in a team and then run away from the responsibility when they committed an error? The captain stays with the ship, but Lotte Skeisvoll had shown what she was made of when she was the first man in the lifeboat this evening.
That part about stressing the killer had produced some results, and they had a number of pieces of information about him. He was observed on the bicycle by two witnesses, and the nearest neighbor to the house in Djupaskar actually saw the killing from his living room window. Thus the killer had been observed for the first time. Not just once, but three times! He was incautious and took chances. In addition, they now knew a number of other things that could be of use in the investigation. Two solid footprints in the moist sand outside the Nigerian’s house gave them shoe size, and after a little searching probably also type of shoe. They could establish approximate height and weight based on the witness accounts.
Both were very useful pieces of information that narrowed down the list of suspects considerably. As he understood it, there could not be more than five or six persons left among those who’d been at the media building when the third email was sent, and who in addition matched the killer’s shoe size, height, and weight.
There should be cause to demand DNA samples of the rest who are in the searchlights, thought Scheldrup Hansen. He looked at the chaos around him. Inspected the curiosity-seekers who stood in large numbers outside the police barricades. Most of them were on their way home after a night of drinking at the Inner Pier. Their voices buzzed, but it was low-pitched. They talked to each other as if they were afraid of disturbing the dead.
While he stood there letting his thoughts wander, he became aware of a man standing just behind the crowd of people. A man in a black jacket with a bicycle. The thought struck the investigator at once.
Can it be him? It’s a laughable crime cliché, of course, that the offender returns to the scene of the crime, but everything about this case was like a copy of a crime plot by a rejected, used-up author. Olav turned calmly around toward one of the crime scene investigators and asked if he’d taken pictures of those who stood outside the barricades watching. The CSI looked up at him and furrowed his bushy eyebrows. A comic awning of hair settled over the bridge of his nose.
“No. Should I?”
“Yes, but do it discreetly. Don’t let them realize that you’re taking a picture of them. Make sure to include that guy with the bicycle who’s standing at the back, ten meters away from the others, to the right. We have a witness description that resembles him.”
The bushy eyebrows settled down again where most people have them. The Kripos investigator placed his hand on the arm of the CSI and barely managed to stop him from turning around toward where the man was standing.
“Don’t!”
The CSI nodded curtly to Olav. A little later, he was strolling around behind the crowd of people snapping pictures, apparently of footprints that were close by the barricades. He didn’t go to where the bicyclist was standing, but Olav assumed that he used the telephoto lens, sweeping the camera toward the other side while he changed sitting position.
A few minutes later, the CSI was back. He pointed toward the area where the footprints had supposedly been, and gestured with his arms while he showed the digital screen on the camera to Olav. The series of pictures showed clear and sharp pictures of everyone who was standing by the barricades. Also of the cyclist, Olav noted contentedly.
The face of the person in question was completely hidden under the hood, but there was something about the figure itself that seemed familiar. If it was the way he moved, how he was standing, or something else, he couldn’t say for sure. There was no doubt anyway. He had met the person in question in another context, but where?
Olav Scheldrup Hansen moved cautiously in the direction of the man, but was not even close to getting there before the man got on his bicycle and hurried around the crossing to Karmsundsgata. He disappeared in the direction of Flotmyr. The investigator called one of the patrols to pick him up, but ten minutes later, the man was still at large. Olav Scheldrup Hansen cursed out loud.
“Damn it! Is it possible?”
He struck his fist on the siding of the house. The hell if I’m going to tell this to Lotte Skeisvoll. She’ll strangle me, thought the Kripos investigator.
Haugesund Police Station
Sunday morning, October 19, 2014
Less than a week ago, everything was in shining order at the police station. No one suspected danger. A peaceful Sunday drive in secure surroundings. Then came a semitrailer at full speed out of a hairpin curve. Police Chief Arnstein Guldbrandsen cleared his throat slightly before he sighed, shook his head, and handed the doctor’s certificate back to Lotte Skeisvoll.
“You’re my best detective, Lotte. I can’t really do without you. But you make it terribly difficult for me by proceeding in the manner you have in this case. That slip of paper saves your hide and prevents me from suspending you, but both you and I know that what happened last night was actually unforgivable. You don’t leave the scene of a crime like that.”
“I had a medical emergency, Arnstein.…” Lotte didn’t let herself undermine her own doctor’s certificate. That was the only thing that meant she still had a justified hope of having a job to come back to.
The police chief sighed again. “Great … I understand that you’re sticking to the official version. That’s all well and good. I can hide behind it too when I let you continue, but you should know that everyone, and by that I mean everyone involved, is going to understand that this is bullshit.”
“I can’t act based on what people think. I was sick and needed immediate medical care. If someone believes otherwise, so be it. Rumors, assumptions, and backbiting are not something either you or I can base decisions on.”
The corner of Arnstein Guldbrandsen’s mouth quivered a little, and he looked at Lotte over the top of his glasses. “If you weren’t so damned capable, Lotte.”
He sent her out of the office and gave Olav Scheldrup Hansen word to update Lotte on the developments in the case.
* * *
Lotte exhaled once she was safely out of Guldbrandsen’s office. It hadn’t been a sure thing that he would accept either the explanation or the doctor’s certificate. He surely knew that Lotte could get a doctor at the hospital to cough up a medical certificate for anything, considering that she’d been there to take care of her sister.
The hours after she left the crime scene the night before were a haze for Lotte. Anne had gradually woken up, and all the tests turned out to be fine. They’d had some brief conversations during the night, but Lotte struggled to remember what had been said. The shame blocked her from being able to capture the essence of what they’d talked about. Lotte fell asleep in the chair around three o’clock and didn’t wake up until with trembling hands and puppy-
dog eyes Anne was sitting on the edge of the bed getting dressed in the rags she wore out on the street.
Nothing stops an addict faced with abstinence. Gone were the tears, the regret and despair. Gone were all the promises that she would get sober and back on her feet. Gone was the need to have Lotte around. Now there was only one thing that could heal her, and that wasn’t found at the hospital.
The night’s small glimpses of golden moments were gone. From the radio in the waiting room she could hear the well-known lines from Johnny Cash like an omen through the corridors as she walked:
The needle tears a hole—the old familiar sting …
Haugesund Police Station
Late Sunday morning, October 19, 2014
Olav Scheldrup Hansen had never felt small. His ego occupied a bit too much of his body weight for that. Nonetheless, it was just that feeling that crept under his skin as he trotted behind Knut Veldetun’s back. The man was truly abnormal. He looked almost strange. Like a Florentine Renaissance sculpture. Despite his size, the man’s movements seemed almost feline. Olav caught himself missing his vanished youth as he studied the man who was now unnecessarily holding the door open for him, as if he himself were missing both arms.
“Have you tried all channels for getting hold of Gudmundsson, Knut? What did they say at the media house?”
The young policeman glanced quickly over his shoulder before he answered. “He’s taken four weeks of sick leave and isn’t at work.”
They got into one of the police cars outside the station. Olav was glad the handsome policeman didn’t prefer hoofing it, but he couldn’t help thinking that the whole thing was a bit comical. The big constable almost didn’t have room for his legs when he got in on the driver’s side. He looked just as misplaced behind the steering wheel as the massive Bubba Smith did in his role as Moses Hightower in the first Police Academy movie.