Hanne Wilhelmsen - 01 - The Blind Goddess

by Anne Holt

  “I can’t see a damned thing,” he said, trying to rub off the mist that kept coating the inside of the windscreen as fast as he wiped it dry.

  Hanne adjusted the heater control, but with no discernible effect.

  “Typical public service tat,” she muttered, making a mental note of the number of the vehicle so that she could avoid it next time she had to take a trip in the rain.

  “I found only one Roger in the motor trade in Sagene, so we won’t have to hunt far, anyway,” she said, in an attempt to console him.

  The car veered up onto the pavement, and Hanne was flung against the door, bruising her elbow on the window handle.

  “Hey—are you trying to kill me?” she cried, before she realised they’d arrived.

  Billy T. pulled up beside a grey concrete wall displaying a prominent “no parking” sign. He switched off the engine and sat with his hands in his lap.

  “What are we actually going to do?”

  “Just take a look. Get him a bit worried.”

  “Am I a cop or a robber?”

  “Customer, Billy, you’re a customer. Unless and until I say something different.”

  “What are we looking for?”

  “Whatever there is. Anything of interest considered.”

  She got out and locked the door rather unnecessarily; Billy T. just slammed his shut without further ado.

  “No one will nick that old wreck,” he said, turning up his collar to protect himself against the rain gusting straight at them round the corner of the building.

  “Sagene Car Sales.” In English. She guessed the name even though some of the neon letters had evidently been out of action for a long time. In the crepuscular half-light she could only see “Sa ene Ca S les.”

  “International business, that’s for sure!”

  A bell rang somewhere out the back as they went in the door. There was a smell of old Volvo Amazons, a suffocating perfume emanating from the largest selection of so-called air-purifiers that Hanne had ever seen. Four cardboard Christmas trees, fifty to sixty centimetres high, stood side by side on a five-metre-long counter. The trees were decorated with smaller trees on glittering threads and luscious comic-strip women inset with the same thread. An army of plastic tortoises exuding Magic Tree fragrance encircled the trunks of the trees like little Christmas presents, doing their bit to ensure that the air in the vicinity of the cash register was the purest in the whole city. Their heads were mounted on springs, and they were all nodding a welcome in the draught from the door.

  The rest of the place was filled with every conceivable object connected with four-wheeled vehicles. There were exhaust systems and petrol caps, nylon leopard-skin seat covers, furry dice, and spark plugs. Between the shelf units, where there was no room for any kind of rack, hung old calendar pin-ups of seminude women. Their breasts took up three-quarters of the picture and the actual calendar dates were relegated to a superfluous narrow band at the foot.

  A man emerged from the back rooms a few moments after the bell had rung. Hanne had to dig her fingernails into her palm to stop herself from giggling.

  The guy looked an absolute stereotype. He was short and stocky, scarcely more than five foot six. He was wearing brown terylene trousers with a sewn-in crease. The seam had come undone at the knee to present a really comical sight, a long sausage of a seam that vanished into a thin loose thread over the knees and then recommenced higher up. The trousers must have dated back to the seventies; that was the last time she’d seen a sewn-in crease.

  The shirt was what at school she would have called spotty, light blue with polka dots, and the tie, also light blue, was evidently chosen to complement it. On top of all this magnificence he was wearing a black-and-white check suit jacket, missing a button—which didn’t matter, since it was much too tight to fasten anyway. His hair reminded her of a hedgehog.

  “Can I help you, can I help you?” he asked in a loud and affable voice, looking with some misgiving at the figure with the earring. Hanne’s presence must have allayed his qualms, because his face lit up as he turned to her and repeated his greeting.

  “Yes, we’d like to look at some secondhand cars,” Hanne said, rather hesitantly, glancing over the little man’s shoulder through a door with a glass panel that hadn’t been cleaned for at least a couple of years. She guessed it probably led to a showroom.

  “Secondhand cars, well, you’ve certainly come to the right place,” the man said with a smile, even more amicable now, as if he’d thought at first that all they wanted was a spark plug and now saw the chance of a more significant sale.

  “Follow me, madam, sir! Just follow me!”

  He led them out through the filthy door, and Billy T. noticed a similar door adjacent to it, opening into some kind of office.

  The smell of oil was refreshing after all the Christmas trees; the proper smell of real cars. It was obviously a business with no aspiration to be a specialised dealership: there were Ladas, Peugeots, Opels, and several four- or five-year-old Mercedes in apparently good condition.

  “Look around and take your pick! May I ask what sort of price you had in mind?”

  He smiled hopefully and glanced towards the nearest Mercedes.

  “Three or four thousand kroner,” Billy T. muttered, and the man puckered his wet lips uncertainly.

  “He’s joking,” Hanne reassured him. “We’ve got about seventy thousand. But we don’t have a fixed limit.

  “My parents might chip in too,” she whispered confidentially into his ear.

  The car salesman’s face brightened and he took her by the arm.

  “Then you ought to cast your eyes over this Opel Kadett,” he said.

  It looked in pretty good condition.

  “Nineteen eighty-seven, only forty thousand kilometres on the clock, guaranteed, and only one owner. Well maintained. I can give you a keen price. A very keen price.”

  “Lovely car.” Hanne nodded, giving her putative husband a meaningful glance. He took the hint and asked the chequered man if he could use the toilet.

  “Just through there, just through there,” he replied in a benevolent tone, and Hanne began to wonder whether he had some kind of speech defect that made him repeat everything. A sort of sophisticated stammer, perhaps. Billy T. went off.

  “Nervous stomach,” she explained. “He’s got an interview for a new job later this afternoon. This is the fourth time, poor man.”

  The salesman expressed his sympathy, and persuaded her to sit inside the car. It certainly was a nice model.

  “I’m not familiar with this make,” she said. “Would you mind sitting in it with me and going over the controls?”

  “No trouble at all. No trouble at all.” He turned on the ignition and demonstrated all the finer points.

  “Beautiful motor,” he said emphatically. “Well maintained. Between you and me, the previous owner was a bit of a skinflint, but that means he looked after it all right.”

  He stroked the newly polished dashboard, flashed the lights, adjusted the seat-back, switched on the radio, put in a cassette of Rod Stewart, and spent an inordinately long time fastening the seat belt round Hanne.

  She turned towards him. “And the price?”

  None of the cars had price labels on, which she found peculiar.

  “The price… Yes, the price…”

  He smacked his lips and sucked the air in through his teeth for a moment before giving her a smile she presumed was meant to seem friendly and confidence-inspiring.

  “You’ve got seventy thousand and nice parents. For you I could say seventy-five. That includes the radio and new winter tyres.”

  They’d been sitting there for more than five minutes now, and she was beginning to wish Billy T. would return. There was a limit to how long she could haggle over a car without suddenly finding that she’d bought it. Another three minutes passed before he tapped on the window.

  “We’d better go. We’ve got to fetch the kids,” he said.

  �
��No, I’ll fetch them, you’ve got your interview,” she corrected him.

  “I’ll ring you about this car,” she promised the man in Terylene, who could barely conceal his disappointment at losing what he’d thought was going to be an easy sale. He recovered himself and gave her his card. It was as tasteless as its owner, dark blue artificial silk with his name on in gold, “Roger Strømsjord, Man. Dir.” Pretentious title.

  “I own the place,” he explained with a modest shrug of his shoulders. “Don’t take too long making up your mind! I have a fast turnover with cars like these. Very popular. Very popular, I have to say.”

  Rounding the corner, this time with the wind behind them, they returned to their own car and collapsed in shrieks of laughter.

  When Hanne had dried her tears, she asked, “Did you find anything?”

  He leant forward at an angle to fish out a notebook from his back pocket, and slapped it into her palm.

  “The only thing there of any interest at all. It was in his windcheater pocket.”

  Hanne was no longer laughing.

  “You idiot, Billy! That’s not what we learnt at police college. And it’s bloody stupid if it does have something important in it and we can’t use it in evidence. Unlawful seizure! How will you explain that?”

  “Oh, leave off. This little book isn’t going to put anyone behind bars. But it might help you along the way. Perhaps. I don’t know what’s in it, I only had a brief glance. Phone numbers. Be a bit grateful, please.”

  Curiosity had dispelled her anger. She began looking through it. Naturally enough it smelt of Magic Tree. And it did indeed contain masses of telephone numbers, the majority entered after a name, in alphabetical order for the first five or six pages and then absolutely random. The ones at the end had no names, a few had initials, most of them just small incomprehensible signs.

  Hanne was taken aback. Some of the numbers started with figures that didn’t exist as first digits in Oslo, and there were no area codes given. Turning the pages, she came to a halt at four initials.

  “H. v. d. K.,” she exclaimed. “Han van der Kerch! But I don’t recognise the number….”

  “Check in the phone book,” said Billy T., but snatched it from the parcel shelf before Hanne could get to it. “What’s Van der Kerch under, Van or Kerch?”

  “No idea, try both.”

  He found it under Kerch. It was quite different from the one in the notebook. Hanne was disappointed, but thought there was something about the two numbers that she couldn’t quite perceive. Some relationship, almost, even though they were completely different. It took her thirty seconds to work it out.

  “Got it! The phone book number is the notebook number minus the next number in sequence, including negative numbers but ignoring the minus!”

  Billy T. didn’t get it.

  “What the hell are you on about?”

  “Haven’t you ever played those party games with numerals? You’re given a sequence of numbers, and you have to work out the pattern and supply the last one. A kind of IQ test, some would call it, but I think it’s more of a party trick myself. Look: the number in the notebook is 93 24 35. So 9 minus 3 equals 6; 3 minus 2 is 1; 2 minus 4 is minus 2, but forget about the minus; 4 minus 3 is 1; and 3 minus 5 is minus 2. From 5 take away the first figure, 9, and that makes minus 4. The number in the phone book must be 61 21 24.”

  “That’s right!”

  He was really impressed.

  “Where on earth did you learn how to do that?”

  “Huh, I once contemplated studying maths. Numbers are fascinating. This can’t just be chance. Look up Lavik’s number.”

  She used the same method, with complete success. The number was in code on page eight of the notebook. Billy T. started the car with as triumphant a roar as it was possible to get out of a tired Opel Corsa and sped off into the grey afternoon.

  “Either Jørgen Lavik buys lots of secondhand cars, or this is the most promising lead we’ve got so far,” said Hanne with new confidence.

  “You’re a genius, Hanne,” said Billy T., grinning from ear to ear. “A bloody genius!”

  They drove for a while in silence.

  “I actually quite fancied that Kadett,” Hanne murmured wistfully as they juddered into the garage beneath police headquarters.

  THURSDAY 12 NOVEMBER

  Jørgen Ulf Lavik was just as confident as last time. Håkon Sand felt ill-at-ease in his baggy corduroy trousers and a five-year-old sweater adorned with a threadbare, crumpled crocodile that hadn’t adapted well to life in the washing machine. The lawyer’s suit starkly negated any suggestion that he was a miser.

  “Why is he here?” Lavik asked, turning to Hanne Wilhelmsen with a nod towards Håkon. “I thought it was the real police officers who did the donkey work.”

  Both of them felt offended. Which was presumably the intention.

  “So what’s my status today then?” he went on, without waiting for an explanation of Håkon’s presence. “Am I a suspect, or still just a ‘witness’?”

  “You’re a witness,” Hanne replied curtly.

  “May I enquire what I’m supposed to be a witness to? This is the second time I’ve been asked here. I’m well-disposed towards the police, as you know, but I’m afraid I’ll have to decline further meetings of this nature if you don’t soon come up with something more specific to question me about.”

  Hanne stared at him for several seconds, and he had to avert his gaze—which he turned disdainfully on Håkon.

  “What’s the make of your car, Lavik?”

  The man didn’t even need to think about it.

  “As if you didn’t know! The police saw me meet my client the other night! A 1991 Volvo. My wife has an old Toyota.”

  “Were they bought new or secondhand?”

  “The Volvo was bought new. Standard estate model. The Toyota was bought a year old, as far as I recall. Maybe eighteen months.”

  He still seemed very sure of himself.

  “I presume you bought the Volvo from the main dealership,” said Hanne.

  That was correct. And the Toyota had been bought privately through a colleague.

  The window was only about a centimetre ajar; at intervals the gale raging outside made a long plaintive whistle, almost like a faint howl, as it blew across the metal sill and into the room. In its way it was quite soothing.

  “Do you know a guy who sells cars up in Sagene?”

  She regretted it the moment she’d spoken. She should have been more circumspect, should have laid a more sophisticated trap. This wasn’t a trap at all. What a novice! Was she losing her grip? Had her head injury affected the cunning she had been so proud of? The gaffe made her bite her nail. The lawyer had the time he needed to collect his thoughts—in fact, he considered at length, obviously more than was strictly necessary.

  “I don’t normally reveal my clients’ names, but since you ask—I have a long-term client called Roger who runs a small car firm, and it may well be in Sagene. I’ve never been there myself. I’d rather not say any more. Discretion, you know. You have to be discreet in this business, otherwise you don’t keep your customers.”

  He crossed his legs and clasped his hands round his knee. Victory was his. They all knew it.

  “Funny that he keeps your telephone number in code,” Hanne tried, but in vain.

  Jørgen Lavik switched his smile back on.

  “If you only knew how paranoid some people are, it wouldn’t surprise you in the least. I once had a client who insisted on going over my office with a bug detector every time he came for a consultation. I was helping him with a tenancy agreement. A tenancy agreement!”

  His laughter was loud and boisterous, but not infectious. Hanne had no further questions. She had taken no notes. She had to admit defeat. Lavik was free to go. As he was putting his coat on she stood up quickly and thrust her face right up to his.

  “I know that you’ve got a lot of irons in the fire, Lavik. And you know that I know. You�
��re enough of a lawyer to realise that we in the police know much more than we ever use. But I promise you one thing: I’ll be watching you. We still have our sources, information already gathered, and facts we haven’t revealed. Han van der Kerch is in our custody. You’re aware that he’s not saying much at the moment. But he has a lawyer he’s talked to, a lawyer of a totally different ethical calibre from your wretched hole-in-the-corner activities. You haven’t a clue how much she’s heard, nor the faintest idea of what she’s told us. That’s what you’ve got to live with. So keep looking over your shoulder, Lavik, I’m out to get you.”

  His face had turned crimson, but deathly pale around his nose. He had not retreated even slightly from Hanne, but his eyes seemed to have sunk into their sockets as he hissed:

  “Those are threats, Constable. Those are threats. I shall submit a formal complaint. Today!”

  “I’m not a constable, Lavik. I’m a detective inspector. And this detective inspector is going to haunt you like a shadow till you break. So complain away.”

  He looked almost as if he was going to spit at her, but he brought himself rigidly under control and left the office without a word. The door slammed behind him. The bang reverberated through the walls for several seconds afterwards. Håkon’s jaw dropped and he was stunned into silence.

  “You look mongoloid with that expression!”

  He pulled himself together and closed his mouth with a snap.

  “What was the point of that? Do you want to put Karen’s life in danger? He will file a complaint, you know!”

  “Let him.”

  Despite her serious error of judgement, she seemed pleased with herself.

  “I’ve given him a severe fright, Håkon. And frightened people make mistakes. It wouldn’t surprise me if your friend Karen were to get yet another criminal lawyer among her suitors. If so, that would be a major blunder on his part.”

  “But what if they do something to her?”

  “Karen Borg won’t be harmed. They’re not that stupid.”

  For a brief instant she felt a cold tingle of doubt, but dismissed it equally fast. She rubbed her temple and drank the remains of her coffee. From the top drawer of the desk she took out a handkerchief and a resealable polythene bag, and picked up the coffee cup Lavik had drunk from very carefully by its handle.