by Anne Holt
“Farthest North,” he said chattily, mostly to himself. “From 1897. Lovely little book. Very handsome copy. It is actually …”
He dried up. The book he held in his hand was number eight in a numbered special edition of 100 books. The shop assistant was well acquainted with this series, but had never seen any examples. When he found the dedication, he squinted at Daniel, before he looked down again and read: “To Hjalmar Johansen, with sincere thanks for courageously joining the expedition. Fridtjof Nansen.”
Daniel stared at the book, as if he had only just discovered it and didn’t quite understand to whom it belonged.
“Let me see the other one,” the shop assistant said brusquely, almost snatching the book underneath.
“The Road Leads On,” he said harshly. “Knut Hamsun, 1933. Beautiful specimen. Let’s see what sort of inscription you’ve come up with here, then!”
Although the shop assistant seemed rather angry for some reason – his nostrils vibrated slightly and a mauve patch had begun to spread under each eye – his hands were soft, almost loving, as he handled the book.
“Herr Imperial Commissioner Josef Terboven; accept this book, with thanks and hope for help in the future. Nørholm, January 1941. Knut Hamsun.”
Daniel smiled timidly.
“Are you aware what you have done?” the shop assistant bellowed, brandishing the book in the air, as if he were thinking of slapping Daniel with it.
“Done?”
“You’ve ruined an absolutely magnificent first edition with these scribblings of yours! And where did you get these books, in point of fact? Eh?”
“I have … It was my grandfather who …”
Daniel was sweating. The odor of dust and books made him want to sneeze, but he did not dare, and he had to sniff loudly instead.
“Amateur!” the man barked. “Hamsun would have written a greeting like that in German! He spoke excellent German, and in January 1941 he had just been to see Terboven to ask for—”
All of a sudden, he fell silent. He opened the book again and held the dedication up to his eyes while tilting the page in the light from the ceiling lamp. Daniel felt the perspiration streaming from his armpits, and his nose tickled unbearably. He sneezed loudly, several times over. His nose was running, and he wiped it with the sleeve of his sweater. The shop assistant slammed the Hamsun book shut, picked up Farthest North, and scrutinized it also for several minutes. His voice was totally different when he finally exclaimed: “These books are worth a small fortune, young man. Please wait for a moment, and I’ll fetch some of the necessary paperwork.”
Daniel could barely breathe. He rooted around in his rucksack to find his asthma medication. He must have left his inhaler at home, and he found it increasingly difficult to draw breath. The man was taking a long time. Daniel wanted to leave, he needed air. The dust was coating his mouth and throat, making it completely impossible to inhale in anything other than short gasps. However, the shop assistant had taken Grandfather’s books with him. Daniel needed to get them back and he forced out a hoarse: “Hello! I must … have … my books … back.”
Only when two uniformed police officers came into sight in the doorway did Daniel understand why it was all taking so much time. The shop assistant stepped forward at last from the inner recesses and handed the books over to one of the policemen.
“There have to be limits,” he said indignantly as Daniel was led out to the waiting patrol car. “I’m not so easily fooled, you know!”
53
“There you are!”
Annmari Skar sat on her own in the canteen. A Christmas tree that might well have been from last year was leaning sadly over the chair opposite. Someone had amused himself by filling the decorative baskets at the top with condoms. Others had gone to the bother of drawing faces with Tippex on the red baubles; one of them looked remarkably like the Police Chief.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”
Silje Sørensen brushed spruce branches and needles off the chair and sat immediately opposite the Police Prosecutor.
“You simply won’t believe what I’ve got to tell you. I can’t find Billy T., but this is so important that—”
“Not another one,” Annmari Skar sighed in dismay.
“Another one?”
“Forget it. For the moment. What’s it about?”
Wiping her mouth, she pushed the rest of the unappetizing omelet away and grimaced into her cup.
“This coffee is bad enough when it’s freshly made. At this time—”
“Sindre Sand is really up shit creek,” Silje Sørensen broke in. “I’ve just done an interview with him, in the old way, that is – I just can’t wait for … It takes so long with these printouts and … He’s lied about …”
She took a breath and chuckled.
“So,” she began over again. “I have interviewed Sindre Sand. That earlier statement of his leaks like a sieve.”
“I see.”
Annmari Skar gave herself a neck massage.
“There’s a hole in his alibi! Like a barn door. It’s totally absurd that we haven’t discovered it before now. I have …”
She thrust the interview sheet at the Police Prosecutor. One minute later the interest shown by her opposite number had increased considerably.
“Had he near enough forgotten that he left the NRK studios for more than half an hour?”
“He claims a maximum of twenty minutes. Others say about an hour. As you see, they had a break in the filming. He jumped on to his Vespa to buy some cigarettes at the gas station in Suhms gate. There he apparently met an old pal from his schooldays who—”
“Whose name he doesn’t remember, of course,” Annmari said, smiling faintly. “We’ve heard this story a few times, haven’t we?”
“The first name, then. Lars. Or Petter. ‘Or something like that,’ according to him.”
Silje laughed uproariously and added: “He said it was so embarrassing not to remember his name that he didn’t like to ask. They were in parallel classes at elementary school. We’ll check it out, of course, but that takes time. I thought first we could get some useful information from the CCTV footage at the gas station, but that only shows Sindre entering at twenty to eleven and leaving again two minutes later. This alleged friend of his must have been standing outside that area. However that may be, all the same …”
“… Sindre Sand has a barn door in his alibi.”
Annmari Skar swept her dark hair behind her ears. Silje noticed for the first time that the dour Police Prosecutor was pretty. There was a touch of something un-Norwegian about her: big brown eyes and Latin coloring. Silje cocked her head and continued hesitantly: “Though it does seem excessively cold-blooded to buy cigarettes before you go to kill a guy, and then head back to a TV recording nonetheless …”
“The person who murdered Brede Ziegler may well have been cold-blooded,” Annmari Skar said pointedly. “But you’ve got more here!”
Her eyebrows rose slightly as she browsed the interview report. Silje observed a scar above Annmari’s eye: it gave her brow an unfortunate tilt that made her look anxious rather than actually surprised.
“This is really good, Silje,” she said gravely.
Silje Sørensen beamed. It had been Hanne Wilhelmsen who had whispered in her ear that it might be worth taking a closer look at Sindre Sand.
“Not that I think he’s actually done it,” she had said with a shrug on Friday evening. “But I’ve read his interview notes a few times. And it stinks. Far too much of a smart-ass. Far too cocksure. If you’ve got time at the weekend, and don’t mind working for nothing, then check that guy out. While we’re waiting for Tussi, anyway. Good police work is keeping all possibilities open. Remember that, Silje!”
Silje had nothing against unpaid work. After a half-hearted attempt to get hold of Billy T. on Saturday morning, she had got cracking without his say-so. After two days of investigating on her own, which had mainly consisted of phoning peo
ple they had already spoken to, her conscience was far less troublesome. Billy T. would only have stopped her. If for no other reason, then out of consideration for the overtime budget. Silje could not care less about budgets. The nausea was no longer bothering her. On the contrary, she had felt on top of the world on Sunday evening when she had written a special report of five pages, with nine appendices, neatly printed out and placed in a green folder with a meticulously handwritten list of contents. She had run her hand gently over the green paper and laughed out loud. Silje Sørensen liked being in the police. She enjoyed it hugely and fell into a deep sleep when she finally got home and stumbled into bed beside her increasingly anxious husband. Fortunately he did not realize that she had set the alarm for four o’clock.
Sindre Sand had not only lied about his movements on the evening of Sunday December 5. The man at the gas station might well exist. It was precisely such things that witnesses had a sorry tendency to forget. Fair enough. In itself.
What was worse for the young man was that he had been observed in Brede Ziegler’s company on Saturday evening.
“A number of places!”
Annmari Skar smacked her hand on her forehead.
“How did this get past us? How the hell did we manage to overlook this?”
“Don’t you remember what Hanne Wilhelmsen said when we—”
Annmari peered at Silje in displeasure.
“Hanne says so many things,” she said crossly. “You should be careful with that lady, Silje. She’s not all good, in fact.”
“But she is good.”
Annmari did not answer.
“Honestly,” Silje said in an unusually loud voice. “Don’t you see that you’re being manipulated by Billy T.? What has Hanne Wilhelmsen actually done to you?”
“Forget it.”
“No! I’m pissed off with everybody going around treating Hanne as if she had … AIDS or something. I’m not so stupid that I don’t understand that she and Billy T. have some kind of unfinished business, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the rest of us!”
“Everybody falls for Hanne Wilhelmsen,” Annmari Skar said. “Everybody gets a little …”
She hesitated. Suddenly her face opened out into an unfamiliar smile.
“Everybody quite simply falls a bit in love with her.”
“In love!”
Silje felt hot and cold in turn, and began to rise from her seat.
“Yes, in love,” Annmari said obstinately. “Hanne Wilhelmsen is outstandingly clever. From a purely police point of view, I mean. Maybe the best. What’s more, she has a special flair for impressing the youngest members of the force. They feel privileged, flattered even. It’s as if the queen herself had—”
“I’ll tell you one thing, Prosecutor Skar!”
Silje had stood up to her full height now, and leaned across the table as she used the heels of her hands to support herself.
“I’m a happily married and, into the bargain, pregnant woman. I love my husband and feel nothing, and I emphasize nothing …”
The table reverberated as she smacked it. The glass bauble that looked like the Police Chief wobbled in terror, and a canteen employee, about to lift a tray with used coffee cups, suddenly stopped in his tracks.
“You are totally … You are …”
She straightened her back. All of a sudden she felt exhausted. Nausea coursed through her body and she swallowed audibly.
“… old,” she added. “You are quite simply too old, Annmari.”
“I’m not forty yet.”
They both turned to the cleaning operative, as if at a secret signal. He stood, open-mouthed, with the tray in his hands. Annmari burst out laughing. She laughed loudly, and then louder, for a long time. Silje stared in consternation at her and seemed uncertain whether or not to sit down again. Her back was aching, and she sank back on to the chair.
“Sorry,” Annmari said in the end. “But you don’t know Billy T. the way I do. He was so shattered when Hanne left. Totally destroyed. Did you know, for instance, that she was to be best woman at his wedding, but didn’t get in touch with him at all? He waited an incredibly long time. The day before he was to marry, he asked his sister instead.”
Silje shook her head slowly and held up her hands, as if reluctant to hear any more.
“You are right,” Annmari repeated. “It’s none of our business. But it’s more difficult for me than it is for you. Okay? Fine. And what was it she said, in fact?”
“Said? Who?”
“Hanne. You started this ball rolling by saying she was the one who—”
“Oh yes. Yes. She said that we had stared at Sunday the fifth until we went blind. That we should have been more scrupulous about Saturday and Friday and Thursday … About the week, and weeks, prior to the murder. We weren’t. Not until Hanne came back. That’s why we didn’t get this information before now.”
She pointed at the closed folder.
“I considered applying for a blue form tonight. But then I decided to take a perhaps slightly original approach.”
Embarrassed, she looked away, as if she had been guilty of gross neglect of duty.
“I phoned Sindre Sand this morning at five o’clock and asked him to come for interview.”
“You did what?”
“Is that forbidden?”
“No.”
Annmari Skar fiddled with her coffee cup.
“So he came then,” Silje went on lightly. “And there we sat. He did not admit to seeing Brede on Saturday evening until I had laid it on thick. It’s a bit hazy as to where and why, but … He has lied about Vilde as well, and I had to—”
“Listen,” Annmari Skar said, looking at her watch. “Now I really must go. But I promise I’ll … Where is he now?”
“Round the back. I thought you could write me a blue form and then—”
“I’ll tell you something,” Annmari said, leaning over the table.
The cleaner had taken his tray and disappeared. Silje and Annmari were on their own in the huge canteen. From the kitchen they could hear distant sounds of a dishwasher and utensils being returned to their places.
“At the moment our back office is looking like an overheated waiting room for various witnesses in this Ziegler case.”
“What do you mean?”
Annmari took out a list from her jacket pocket and read out: “Claudio Gagliostro: Criminal Procedure Act, section 233, cf. section twenty-nine. Plus 257, alternatively 317.”
She glanced up from the paper, producing a pair of reading glasses from her handbag as she explained.
“Attempted homicide and theft, alternatively handling stolen goods. Vilde Veierland Ziegler: Road Traffic Act, section twenty-one, cf. section twenty-two, cf. section thirty-one. Driving under the influence, in other words. Tussi Gruer Helmersen: section …”
Slapping down on the table the list of the people arrested that day, she rolled her eyes.
“That lady, in any case, is off her rocker. Your friend … Sorry, Hanne … She just shakes her head and says, to be on the safe side, we should go through her apartment, but that the old hag is probably just trying to make herself seem interesting. In the meantime, she’s sitting round the back on a fairly contrived charge, but what the hell are we going to do when—”
“Are all these people in custody? What on earth has happened? Sindre Sand, Claudio, Vilde, and—”
“And that Tussi-character of theirs. I’ve got a headache at the thought of tomorrow. We can hardly present them all for jailing at the same time, of course. It—”
“But you’ll hold Sindre?”
“Yes. I’ll hold Sindre. At least in the meantime.”
“You’re a peach,” Silje said, picking up the documents. “I’ll put a set of copies on your desk. Bye!”
She dashed off, not noticing that her hair was sprinkled with spruce needles. It was five o’clock on Monday afternoon and she would have to phone Tom to tell him she would not be home for dinner. No
t today, either.
54
“No, I fucking won’t! I want my shoes!”
One of Hairy Mary’s colleagues curled her bare toes on the concrete floor, as if clinging on for dear life. The mink coat from Fretex, the Salvation Army’s second-hand outlet, was covered in bald patches. She had already been given the brown carrier bag containing her personal belongings. In her case, this held three packets of condoms and a small photo album. An officer was trying to eject her forcibly from the custody-suite reception.
“Shoes,” she roared, hanging on stubbornly. “I want my shoes!”
A man was hunched over the red guard-rail, throwing up.
“Fucking pig,” the Custody Sergeant spluttered.
It seemed the staff were losing control. Hanne Wilhelmsen touched her ears and leaned over the counter.
“Is there nobody who can give this woman a pair of shoes? She’s going to freeze to death!”
She knew the Duty Sergeant as a level-headed man. Now he threw his clipboard on the floor and raged, “This is not a branch of the Salvation Army, Chief Inspector! That woman had no shoes on when she came here, and she’s not getting any shoes now that she’s leaving. Understood?”
He bellowed at the officer who still had hold of the fur-clad hooker.
“Get that bloody old bag out of here! And you …” He took a breath and directed his index finger straight at Hanne Wilhelmsen, as if thinking of shooting her: “Please don’t poke your nose into my business! This is not a damn custody suite any more, it’s hell’s waiting room on the devil’s day off!”
The eruption helped. He ran his hand over his bald pate and muttered something inaudible, before dropping his voice and adding, in a discouraged tone: “Hanne, can’t you calm down that prisoner of yours in number seven? She’s causing a riot in there.”
Hanne decided it was more important to stay on good terms with the Duty Sergeant than to find shoes for a frozen prostitute. When the massive iron door between reception and the custody suite opened, she was assailed by noise and smells. A sweaty young custody officer, obviously on the verge of tears, squeezed past Hanne as if he had spotted the opportunity to flee at last.