by Thomas Enger
Yngve was sitting in his car in the parking lot, where he could watch Knut’s apartment while keeping an eye on whoever entered and left the building. It was a little after one in the morning, and the lights were still on in Knut’s apartment – a flicker that changed in intensity and colour. Knut, it seemed, was watching TV.
Åse used to call them wallflowers – people who never spoke unless spoken to, who always preferred to stay in the background, so that no one would notice them or engage them in conversation. Knut, Yngve thought, was a wallflower, a man it was hard to get close to, simply because he never volunteered a ’hi’ or a ’how-are-you’, or did anything whatsoever to make your acquaintance. Even in his own taxi, Knut never engaged in small talk. He was the kind of guy who’d let you go first in a queue, even if it wasn’t your turn.
Knut had lived in Fredheim all his life. He’d never been involved in any kind of trouble. No criminal record, no financial problems, nothing. As far as Yngve knew, Knut had never even had a girlfriend until he hooked up with Susanne Tollefsen a little over a year ago. How that could have happened in the first place, was a mystery for another day.
As the murders in Fredheim had occurred late at night, Yngve had decided, after conferring with Therese Kyrkjebø and Vibeke Hanstveit, that he should observe Knut’s night-time behaviour – see what he got up to. Yngve didn’t sleep much anyway, so it really was no bother. It was too late at night for them to get the right permissions to check Knut’s whereabouts when Børre Halvorsen had been killed, but Ulf, the homeless man who’d discovered the body, did say that he had seen a taxi nearby right before. That didn’t mean it was Knut’s, but at this point in the investigation, Yngve really didn’t want to take any chances on anything. There had been three murders in Fredheim on his watch. That was three too many.
He had brought a book, some slices of bread with brown cheese and enough coffee to sustain an entire regiment through the night. Every time he turned a page of the book, he lifted his gaze towards Knut’s apartment and the entrance to the building.
No change.
He had put on lots of layers, as he didn’t want to leave the car running. It had been a while since he’d staked someone out like this. He hadn’t missed it. It didn’t take long for his back to start aching. Good thing the book was brilliant. It was a story about the death of a young boy in the North of England, a mystery no one had been able to solve for fifteen years until a well-respected podcast reporter had taken it upon himself to get to the bottom of it all. Only as Yngve held it in his hands did he realise that it was the last book Åse had given him.
He was forty-three pages in when the door to the building opened. Knut came out. Yngve tossed the book aside and slid down in his seat. Susanne Tollefsen’s boyfriend was wearing his taxi jacket. He got into his car, which was parked some fifty yards away from Yngve’s.
As Knut drove past him, Yngve sat up, waited ten seconds then started his own engine. Knut hadn’t lit up his sign, so he wasn’t going to work.
Yngve followed him, keeping his distance. Knut was on his way to the town centre. He drove across the main street and over the bridge to the other side. He signalled, then turned into the petrol station, which was open twenty-four hours, but he didn’t stop at any of the pumps. He just parked and went inside the shop.
Yngve drove on a few hundred yards before making a U-turn. When he got back to the petrol station, Knut was coming out with a half-eaten hot dog in one hand, and a bottle of Coca-Cola in the other. He got back in his car. Yngve waited for him at a bus stop, then followed him back the same way he had come.
Knut, as it seemed, had been hungry.
Yngve exhaled.
For a good ten minutes he’d actually thought he might be on the heels of a killer who was about to strike again. It took Yngve a while to regain his normal heart rhythm.
At 2.14 a.m. Knut turned off his lights. Yngve sat back to read again. The chances of Knut moving again were slim, but Yngve stayed there till morning.
He was just about to close his eyes for moment, when he heard her voice from the backseat. She wanted to know how he was doing. His first instinct was to say ‘terrible’, because that’s how he’d felt for so long, but it wasn’t true. The fact was, he’d felt more alive in the last couple of days than he could remember. It made him feel guilty.
Don’t be, she said.
‘Well, I do anyway,’ Yngve answered.
Now that she was there again, with him, he wanted her to tell him as much as possible about how things were where she was, if she met other people, or if it was all just quiet. He wanted to know whether it was warm or cold, dark or bright. If it was possible to feel anything at all – anger, joy, sorrow, pain. She didn’t want to say anything, though. All he could see in the mirror were her tired, beautiful eyes and that shiny, hairless head of hers.
All of a sudden an intense wave of fatigue hit him. It was like he couldn’t even sit up straight anymore. Like the muscles in his body suddenly just caved in.
Tomorrow you can rest, she said.
‘What was that?’ he asked.
She said that it would all be over tomorrow.
‘How do you know?’
She couldn’t tell him. She just knew.
70
That night I dreamt about Mari. I went into a room full of people, and there she was, listening to some authors blabbering about their books. She didn’t see me at first. I just stood there watching her, until she lifted her head and our eyes suddenly locked.
Her whole face lit up. She seemed surprised to see me, but all the happier for it. She was seated in the middle of a row, so she couldn’t get up to meet me. I could see that she wanted to, though. She blushed as she turned back to watch what was happening on stage, but I could tell she really wasn’t paying attention.
As soon as the talk was over, she got up and came to meet me. We hugged briefly. For some reason we didn’t want anyone to know we were a couple, so we didn’t kiss. I did put her hand to my chest, though, because I wanted her to know how fast and hard my heart was beating. That made her hug me again – it was as if she couldn’t help herself. It was a tighter hug this time, and it lasted longer than hugs normally do between friends.
I snuck a hand under her hair and cupped it round her neck, so I could feel her warmth. Through her soft skin I could just feel her pulse, a rhythm that was picking up pace. When I gently pushed her away from me, I noticed all of a sudden that she couldn’t breathe. It was as if something was stuck in her throat. As I looked around for help, she became more and more desperate. She tried to say something, but no words came out.
That’s when I woke up. I sat up straight and gasped for air myself for a few moments, still able to feel the rhythm of her heart in my body. Upstairs, the old wooden clock chimed seven times. It was time to get up and go to school.
I got dressed and went outside to see if the paint was dry and if the letters that formed the word MURDERER were still visible. They were, so I quickly gave the door another coat. It might even need a third, but at least the neighbours wouldn’t see the letters unless they got up close.
The thought of going back to school, of actually sitting there, trying to learn something again, had been the furthest thing from my mind the last few days. But when I got there that morning, it was as if nothing had changed. People were standing in groups, talking, smoking, laughing. There wasn’t even a photograph or a shrine or something on the staircase where Johannes had been killed. No flowers or messages. Everything was normal. Life went on, and so, apparently, did our classes.
In the first break, I got Oskar to come with me to the music room. ‘Why do you want to go there?’ he asked.
‘I just need to see it,’ I explained. It was silly, but I thought the room would speak to me somehow, that I would be able to feel Mari’s presence, or maybe even hear her voice or something.
When we got to the door to the room, a sudden wave of uneasiness swept through my body. I had to steel myself a
s I grabbed hold of the handle and pushed the door open. Inside several desks and chairs were piled on top of each other. The piano stood against one of the walls. There were music stands. Drums, guitar cases. A double bass. There was a picture of Beethoven on the wall as well. A shiver went down my spine. This was where my Mari had drawn her last breath. This was where someone had killed her.
I looked around and wondered where, precisely, she had died. Where she and Johannes had sat when she’d interviewed him. If he’d tried to flirt with her, and if she’d let him. If anyone saw. But no, I couldn’t get her to speak to me. It really had been a silly thought.
I left the room and made my way to the school newspaper room, Oskar following behind. When we got there, we found a man sitting at one of the desks.
‘Can I help you?’ he said.
I didn’t know what to say at first. Then I explained who I was.
‘Ah yes.’
He pointed to the whiteboard. 4/16 was written at the top, with lots of keywords underneath. My name was up there. I assumed I was looking at the contents of the paper’s next edition.
‘You’re the football player.’
‘Sometimes, yeah.’
There were only four desks in the room, pushed together in the centre, with low screens between them.
‘I’m the editor of the school newspaper,’ he said. ‘Kjell-Ola Trulsen.’
He stood up and put out his hand. I shook it. He looked like he’d been desperately saving up for a beard, but could only afford a few tufts of hair. He was wearing a red-and-white checked shirt that looked as if it hadn’t been washed in a decade or two. He reeked of smoke and old coffee.
‘What can I do for you?’
‘Do you know if Mari had delivered the text of the article she was writing about me?’ I asked.
Kjell-Ola shook his head. ‘I’m not an editor per se,’ he said. ‘They only needed someone to take charge during the meetings and unlock the doors and stuff.’
I nodded.
‘But there are going to be some changes now,’ Kjell-Ola said and pointed to the board again. ‘To the next edition, I mean.’ He seemed genuinely upset. ‘I’m not looking forward to writing the editorial, I can tell you that much. It’ll be more of an obituary. I’ve never done one of those before.’
I went over to the window at the far end of the room. The one the killer was supposed to have climbed through to get out onto the roof. I opened it and stuck my head out, feeling a cold breeze on my face. It made me realise how warm I was. I looked down at the entrance to the school. I wondered where Børre Halvorsen had been standing when he saw Tobias – if he just happened to be passing, or if he had planned to graffiti a wall or two in the school grounds.
I turned to Oskar. ‘When you talked to Børre that evening, was his friend with him? The guy with the red hair?’
‘He was, yes.’
‘Do you know him?’
‘No, but I know who he is. Everybody just calls him Vic, but I think his real name is Victor. Ramsfjell, I think, is his surname. Why do you ask?’
I looked out of the window again. Børre’s murder was as much of a mystery as Mari’s and Johannes’. But if Børre was killed because he knew something, maybe his friend did too?
71
NOW
‘This sounds like the moment you decided to try and find Victor Ramsfjell.’
‘Yes,’ I say, nodding.
‘How did you go about doing that?’
‘I knew he was my brother’s age, so I figured they went to the same school. So I just went there at the end of the day and looked for him.’
‘That would be Fredly Junior High, is that correct?’
‘That’s correct, yes.’
‘And did you find him?’
‘I did, yes. I managed to get hold of him just as he was about to leave.’
‘How did he react when he learned that you wanted to talk to him?’
‘At first I think he was scared.’
‘Scared?’
‘Well, yes. At that point most people still believed I’d killed his best friend. But he agreed to talk to me, but he didn’t want to do it there, in front of everyone, so I just cycled along beside him.’
‘And what did he tell you?’
‘Nothing new, really. Certainly not then. He hadn’t been with Børre the evening Mari and Johannes were killed. He said he didn’t know anything about what went on.’
‘But he did? He did know something, didn’t he?’ Ms Håkonsen discreetly dabs at the corners of her mouth.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘He knew something important. He just wasn’t aware of it at the time.’
72
THEN
‘Thanks for coming in.’
Yngve extended his hand for Knut to shake. The taxi driver was wearing his uniform – a white, unironed shirt under a dark-blue jacket. His trousers were dark blue too. His hair was brown, but short and unkempt – as if he’d been sitting with his head out the car window all the way to the precinct.
‘What’s this about, officer?’ It was the same question he’d nervously asked when Yngve had called him and asked him to come to the station.
‘We just want to clarify a few things. Please come with me.’ Yngve showed Knut into his office. ‘How’s Tobias today?’
‘He’s alright, I guess,’ Knut said. ‘I’m seeing them later.’
He offered Knut a seat, then said: ‘At ten forty-nine p.m. on Monday night you entered the school by the main door, but you didn’t come out the same way. What happened?’
Yngve hadn’t known for sure that Knut was the one they’d been looking for, but as he sat down and looked back at him with a guilty frown on his face, all of Yngve’s doubts were gone.
‘I…’
Knut seemed to be searching for the right words. ’I … was looking for someone.’
‘Who were you looking for, Knut?’
He looked at the desk in front of him for a while, seemingly worried about the direction the conversation was headed. When he spoke, his voice was like a whisper. ‘Mari.’
‘What was that?’
‘I was looking for Mari.’
Yngve stared at Knut for a few moments, at first in disbelief.
Knut continued, his voice a bit more firm. ‘She’d booked a fare with the company. I responded to the call.’ Knut didn’t look at Yngve as he spoke. ‘At first I was just waiting for her outside, but the meter was running, and she didn’t come out. She hadn’t left a number either, so I went inside to see if I could find her.’
‘Her phone wasn’t working,’ Yngve said, trying to gather his thoughts at the same time. ‘So how could she even book a fare?’
‘You can do that online these days as well,’ Knut explained. ‘Just leave your name and allow the computer to share its location with the application, and you’re all set. You have to put in your credit card details on your profile, though, before you book anything, so we don’t—’
‘Alright, OK,’ Yngve interrupted. ’I get it. So you went inside to look for her, but you didn’t come out the same way. Why was that, Knut?’
‘I couldn’t find her.’
‘Really.’
‘Yes, really. And I knew the clock was ticking; it was getting closer to eleven, when the doors would be closing – I even heard that ding-dong thing as soon as I went in too, so I just did a quick search around for her. When I got to the other side of the school, I just went out that way. Alone.’
‘And where on the other side would that be, precisely?’
‘I was quite lucky, actually. I didn’t think Tic-Tac’s door would be open. But it was, so I just used it. I’m glad I could, because otherwise I think I might have triggered the alarm.’
‘How come you knew about Tic-Tac’s door?’
Knut snorted. ’Doesn’t everybody? The door was there when I went to Fredheim High as well, twenty years ago. It’s probably been there since the whole thing was constructed.’
Yngve nod
ded and made a note on the pad before him.
‘When you did your quick search for Mari, did you look for her on the second floor?’
‘I went up there, yes. Briefly. I couldn’t see her, so I went back down again and decided to see if I could find her in another section of the school.’
‘Did you see anyone else while you were doing that?’
Knut shook his head.
‘What did you do after you left the school?’
‘I hurried back to my car and waited a little while. Then I left.’
Yngve cursed under his lips. The CCTV cameras were only facing the school entrance, not the surrounding areas.
‘How long is “a little while”?’ he asked.
‘A good ten minutes or so. I figured Mari had got a ride home with someone else without cancelling my call. I didn’t want her to have to pay for it, so I just deleted the booking.’
Yngve sighed heavily. Therese had spoken to the taxi company before they’d brought Knut in. They could confirm that Knut had been on duty on the night of the school murders, but they didn’t have any records of him completing any fares between 11.00 and 12.16. Now they knew why.
‘What I’m dying to know, Knut, is why the hell you didn’t come forward with this information before I dragged you in here. You were on the school premises literally minutes before two teenagers were murdered. You didn’t think we’d need to talk to you?’
A line of sweat had formed on Knut’s upper lip. ’I was only there for a couple of minutes,’ he said tentatively. ‘Five maybe. I didn’t see anything. Didn’t hear anything, either. I figured you wouldn’t be bothered with my statement.’
‘You figured wrong.’
‘Well, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought it would be a waste of your time.’
‘You could have saved us a lot of time. And trouble.’
Yngve thought about his sleepless night in the car and wanted to swear at the man in front of him, but he managed to hold back. ‘God knows how many hours we’ve been working trying to figure out who that person was on the surveillance tapes.’