A Grave for Two

by Anne Holt

His voice was gentler when he opened the glove compartment, flung the business card inside and snapped it shut.

  ‘Why do you think you were the one to receive that message?’

  Silence.

  ‘And not me or someone else on the paper?’

  Still silence.

  ‘Let’s say this isn’t a bizarre joke,’ Lars went on. ‘Let’s say there’s actually something in what’s claimed in this message. Then it’s a bit strange, isn’t it, that the person in question chose you rather than anyone else? From the start-off, so to speak? How many stories have you had published with your own by-line? Three? Four?’

  ‘Three of my own. And one with Andreas.’

  ‘Precisely. You reek of new beginner, and you work at the most powerful sports desk in the country. What conclusion do you draw from that?’

  He hit the brakes as a jogger suddenly darted into view five metres in front of the vehicle.

  ‘Jogging in this weather,’ Lars muttered. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I’d have chosen a treadmill myself, yes.’

  ‘Imbecile.’

  ‘That it had an ulterior motive,’ Carl Ole said quickly. ‘He wanted me to … make a fool of myself.’

  ‘Exactly. He or she, whoever sent this message, wanted to cause a rumpus. Didn’t want days and weeks of checking and slogging and undue secrecy behind closed doors from us sports guys.’

  ‘He wanted immediate action,’ Carl Ole murmured, obviously embarrassed. ‘But … why would he want that?’

  ‘No idea. And with that dilettante behaviour of yours, it could be pretty difficult to find out.’

  Carl Ole did not understand. On the one hand, he realized the blunder he had made. Of course he should have shown Lars the message or one of the others who had turned up at the sports desk at first light on Saturday morning. It had just been too tempting to give it a miss. The sensation of rousing the entire press conference out of its reverential atmosphere had gone to his head.

  Crazy, he knew, but why it should be so completely destructive was harder to comprehend. After all, he hadn’t said much. Just ignited a spark, so to speak, speculation about what information DG might have that no one else knew.

  A ping made him take out his mobile again.

  ‘Stop,’ he said sharply.

  The car stopped. In the middle of the road.

  ‘Look,’ Carl said, handing over the phone.

  Lars read aloud: Haakon Holm-Vegge was on drugs. Don’t give up. More info to follow.

  Then he reread it another couple of times before thrusting the phone into his own pocket.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ he said. ‘I’m taking over.’

  Neither of them uttered a word for the remainder of the drive.

  THE WALL

  No. No!

  He wasn’t sure whether he thought it or yelled it. The only thing he was focused on was the wall, the wall facing him, the one without the bed and the water hole that wasn’t made of brick.

  The room mustn’t get any smaller.

  It was already too small, too stifling; it shrank threateningly and had become a coffin he had to escape from. Or die.

  His food had just come. He paid hardly any attention to it, didn’t even pick it up. The man out there didn’t wait long. After a few seconds he had pushed the bread roll in through the rectangular hole in the door and let it fall on to the floor before he slammed the hatch shut and locked it.

  The mechanism was triggered. The low, rumbling noise sounded distant and yet uncomfortably close at one and the same time.

  No. No. No.

  It was impossible to breathe. The air felt like water, thick and suffocating; he gasped for oxygen. He stood with his back to the wall and stretched his legs out to the floor as far as he could. He spread his arms out with his palms on the boards he knew were made of plaster, since he had already torn off a lot of it. Although it hadn’t helped in the least, the rough planks below were solid and impossible to break loose. His fingers were sore with splinters, several of which were becoming infected.

  He pressed against it.

  The machine won.

  The wall moved another ten centimetres.

  The cell was killing him.

  THE LIST

  The summary was far longer than Hege had anticipated.

  The support set-up alone filled a whole page. After all, the physiotherapists treated her constantly. As a rule Knut Nilssen, the best and oldest of them all. The two others had also had the opportunity to get close to her on a host of occasions. The same applied to Stian Bach, at least prior to the incident in Italy, and later the assistant doctor, Vibeke Stenshaug. The wax technicians, seventeen of them in total, were often in close proximity and moreover they had an enormous bus full of chemicals.

  It was impossible to sleep after Selma Falck had left her just after midnight the day before yesterday. The footprints on the lawn had really terrified her. Yesterday morning, long before daybreak, and while Maggi was preparing an early breakfast in the kitchen, she had gone outside to examine them more closely. They were gone. The temperature was fluctuating, and alternating frost and thaw had transformed Oslo into a skating rink.

  Hege yearned for snow. For real snow, the natural snow that made it worthwhile living up here on the heights where it was only a matter of fastening on your skis and zooming out into the woods.

  Last night too she’d had difficulty sleeping. She hadn’t been training as much as usual. Twice yesterday journalists had turned up on the street, but none of them had taken the liberty of ringing the doorbell. Or planting footprints around the house.

  Since she was under suspension, she couldn’t go to the team headquarters. The exercise studio in the basement was at least as good, but she was tired, unfocused and lacked motivation for anything other than a stint of running on the treadmill.

  Yesterday evening she had finally embarked on the list Selma Falck had requested. When she woke two hours after bedtime from a nightmare she could not remember, she had surfed haphazardly on her phone.

  Haakon was dead.

  Going back to sleep was out of the question. The newspapers could not say much more than that it appeared to be an accident during training. Normally Hege would have phoned someone. She could rouse Hedda Bruun at least. Previously. Before the allegations. But not now. People she usually associated with had vanished from the scene in less than a week. Without a sound, and lacking specific facts, they had disappeared, almost as they had when her mother had died and everyone became remarkably silent every time Hege approached.

  To pass the night, she had completed the list. Only to appreciate that it was worthless.

  ‘Why is that?’ Selma Falck asked.

  The lawyer had arrived unannounced. She seemed restless and distracted, but looked a lot better than she had on Thursday. Her agitation could be connected to Haakon’s death, Hege thought, and she had offered Selma her condolences at the door. A number of online newspapers had emphasized that Selma Falck, the dead skier’s godmother, had been present at the Cross-Country Skiing Federation’s press conference.

  ‘Because it can’t be exhaustive,’ Hege answered with tears in her eyes as she suppressed a yawn. ‘I’ve just really been fooling myself, thinking that I had everything under control. That the Federation had everything under control. The fact is …’

  She pushed the list, which ran to two pages, towards the settee on the other side of the polished concrete table, where Selma was seated.

  The two pages still lay on the table. Selma Falck hadn’t even glanced at them. She sat twirling her wedding ring that appeared too large. In every sense. It was slack, Hege noticed, and also seemed unfashionably broad.

  ‘As far as the medical side is concerned, until the episode with Hedda I’d thought we were completely secure. Now it appears this was wrong. Food and suchlike? Beverages?’

  Around her wrist she had an elastic band. She gathered up all her hair and fashioned a ponytail with deft, practised
motions.

  ‘I’ve really always thought they had things under control. Every single one of us, and of course, the Federation. But on reflection, it’s easy for anyone to sabotage us. After all, we sometimes eat in restaurants. We buy food. Even if we have our own cooks with us at the major championships, we’re not exactly kept in prison. If anyone really wanted to do us harm, it stands to reason that it’s incredibly simple to sabotage us. Through our food. Through what we drink. Our medicines. I can see that now. So I’m actually left with just one single question.’

  She clammed up, waiting for a sign that the other woman was paying attention.

  ‘Who would be interested in harming you?’ Selma said. ‘That’s what you’re wondering.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you come up with an answer?’

  Selma pulled the two sheets of paper towards her and held them outstretched as she squinted at them.

  ‘No,’ Hege said. ‘I can’t fathom it. I’ve no enemies.’

  ‘Everyone has enemies.’

  ‘Not me.’

  Selma’s smile was impossible to read. It was slightly lopsided and did not reach all the way to her eyes. Maybe she was making fun of her. Maybe it was just that she was as discouraged as Hege herself. She resembled someone Hege could not bring to mind. There was something about those dark, almost black, eyes and the mouth with the unusually wide Cupid’s bow, as if she had been born with a harelip that a true artist had put heart and soul into repairing. Her dark hair was coloured, in Hege’s opinion – Selma Falck must be at least fifty years old.

  She reminded her of someone.

  Someone on TV.

  ‘Racism,’ Selma said in a loud voice. ‘We have to go there, Hege.’

  ‘I’m not a target for racism.’

  It came as an automatic response. And it was almost true. Hege Chin Morell had lived in Norway for all of the twenty-four years she had spent on this earth, apart from the first six months. Her Asian facial features had never been a problem. Not at nursery. Not at school, at least no more than one or two casual remarks her parents had prepared her to tolerate. She was far from the only adoptive child in the neighbourhood and school catchment area, and she had toddled through her very first ski lessons in the company of a boy from Ethiopia and a tiny little girl born in Colombia.

  ‘Not at all,’ she added firmly.

  Selma stared at her. Cocked her head. Her eyes narrowed.

  ‘We live in tough times,’ she said. ‘I keep up with it on the internet, Hege. I keep myself up to date, despite my age.’

  That smile again. Crooked, maybe ironic. Or possibly merely distant and distracted; her physical restlessness was tangible. Her left leg was trembling, and it appeared that Selma might be bothered with eczema. She kept scratching, her elbows, her knees and sometimes even her face.

  ‘I don’t pay any attention to those keyboard trolls,’ Hege said.

  ‘Smart move.’

  ‘I don’t experience any other racism.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You must be feeling very sad.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘About Haakon. Maybe it would be better to talk about this another time?’

  At last Selma sat still. She exhaled loudly, slowly, and clasped her hands on her lap. Her eyes were turned to the side, as if contemplating something or other.

  ‘I read the online newspapers just before you arrived,’ Hege said.

  Selma did not react.

  ‘It said that a journalist came out with a question about Haakon and drugs. At the press conference. Where you were.’

  Now Selma at least looked up, but she had started to scratch her left elbow again. Beneath her sweater, it looked as if a lively ferret was playing a game of hide and seek.

  ‘It also mentioned that on the internet,’ Hege said by way of explanation. ‘That you were there, I mean.’

  Selma nodded, still silent.

  ‘What was that about, actually?’

  ‘I don’t know. The journalist was interrupted.’

  ‘Haakon didn’t take drugs. That’s a certainty, at least. He was one of the most gutsy when it came to demanding severe action against drugs in sport. His post-mortem will show that he was clean.’

  ‘Yes. If he hasn’t been sabotaged, you know. Like you. Maybe the entire national team has been subjected to a colossal sabotage operation.’

  Hege stood up.

  ‘Come here.’

  Selma looked at her with raised eyebrows and did not stand up.

  ‘Come here,’ Hege commanded, so loudly that the kitchen door gave a soft, long sigh and slid open.

  Maggi’s sad figure appeared.

  ‘Everything’s fine.’ Hege waved her away and headed towards a door at the far end of the living room, behind the bleak, enormous hole where a fire should have blazed.

  She registered that Selma was following in her wake.

  ‘This is Dad’s home office,’ Hege said, opening the door and stepping inside.

  Selma was still following her.

  The room was spacious and square, with a huge desk in the middle of the floor. A dead iMac was placed in front of a black leather office chair. The desk surface was tidy, almost bare, and there was a faint smell of aftershave and furniture oil.

  ‘That’s Mum and me,’ Hege said.

  She was pointing at a picture. It was hanging on a wall covered in photographs, old and new, black-and-white and colour, big, small and many sizes in between. This one hung in the centre and was largest of all.

  ‘I was eight,’ Hege went on. ‘That was three years before Mum died.’

  A girl with dark hair and slanted eyes narrowed with laughter. Crooked, pearl-white smile; one of the big front teeth had still not emerged, the other still had a ragged edge. The woman was around forty, and just as fair as the youngster was dark. She had her arm around her daughter and her forehead tilted towards the girl’s hair.

  The mother was smiling.

  ‘It was Dad who taught me how to win,’ Hege said. ‘But it was Mum who taught me how to lose. Dad taught me to ski. Mum taught me everything else. I ski for Dad. I try to be a good person for my Mum’s sake.’

  Suddenly she caught hold of Selma’s hand. It was cold and slightly clammy.

  ‘I haven’t taken drugs,’ she said in a soft, urgent voice. ‘And it’s bloody awful that so many people believe I did. I can’t sleep, all my routines have been broken, my whole life has been turned upside down, and Dad is in the depths of despair. My career as a skier shouldn’t be over for years yet. All the same … all the same …’

  She let Selma go. Covered her face with both hands.

  ‘All the same, that’s not why it’s important for me to be exonerated,’ she said, her voice almost non-existent behind her hands. ‘Totally exonerated. I can probably manage without skiing. It’s not as if we’re hard up exactly …’

  Her hands fell and she looked around the room.

  ‘… and I did well at senior high school. I can continue my education. Do something conventional. But you see …’

  ‘Your mother would have been so sad.’

  Selma’s voice was different now. Her eyes were moist, as if on the verge of crying, but Hege had read somewhere that she couldn’t shed tears.

  ‘Yes, Mum would have been absolutely devastated.’

  ‘She would have known that you haven’t done anything wrong, Hege. She would have had confidence in you. Mothers are like that. Most mothers, anyway.’

  ‘Yes, but all the same. It’s important for me to be cleared. For many reasons, not least for Dad, but most of all for Mum’s sake.’

  A movement outside the window made them both wheel around.

  Out there, in what remained of the grey afternoon light, under an apple tree only five metres from the house stood a roe deer. It was looking straight at them, with its ears pricked. Its jaws were working from side to side, rhythmic and incessant.

  ‘Dad leaves out carrots,’ Hege whispered
. ‘And then they eat the half-frozen windfall fruits.’

  They stood there, motionless, for several minutes.

  ‘I believe in you,’ Selma said softly and slowly.

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘The problem is that I’m completely at a loss. I’ve no idea what your father thinks I can do for you.’

  The roe deer outside froze. Its jaw movements stopped abruptly. Its ears flicked from side to side before the hind took long leaps in flight from whatever had scared her. In the distance they could hear three harsh barks and a car parking.

  ‘Are you unwell?’ Hege asked. ‘Is that why you can’t help me?’

  ‘No. Unwell? Not at all.’

  A door slammed on the other side of the house.

  ‘Come on,’ Hege said. ‘Dad’s home.’

  Selma walked towards the door. Stopped and bent towards another photograph. Three young men, teenage boys in a colour photograph, faded to pastel by the passing of years. The boy in the middle was Jan Morell. He had a wide, self-assured smile and had turned up the earflaps on a knitted ski helmet that had then been in the bright colours of the Norwegian flag, but in the picture had turned to pale-pink and baby-blue.

  ‘That’s Dad and his pals,’ Hege said. ‘Come on.’

  ‘Arnulf Selhus, isn’t it? The Finance Director of the NCCSF?’

  ‘Yes, they were best friends.’

  ‘Were?’

  ‘Were. We have to go now.’

  ‘What about the third man?’

  Selma leaned closer to the picture.

  ‘That’s Uncle Klaus. He and Dad still see each other, from time to time. We have to go now, Selma.’

  Hege was quickly out the door. Judging by the sounds from the kitchen, her father was already there. He could enter the living room at any time, and he didn’t like anyone going into his office. Even Maggi had to give him warning twenty-four hours in advance if she intended going in there to clean.

  ‘Klaus? But isn’t that Morten Karlshaug? The photographer?’

  ‘Yes. Klaus is his nickname. Come on.’

  Hege had just managed to close the door to her father’s office and move all the way to the fireplace when her father entered the living room. She gave him a lame smile and hoped Selma didn’t notice how relieved she was that he hadn’t come in seconds earlier.