by Anne Holt
She grabbed the bottle of sugar-free cola, snatched her coat from the peg in the hallway as she went past, and dashed for the door.
Fortunately she hadn’t taken off her high-heeled boots.
THE PRISONER
It was time to set him free.
It wouldn’t be easy, thought the man with the silver-grey hair. The actual abduction had gone surprisingly well. Inside the underground car park, there had been no CCTV cameras. It had been easy for him to disable the one mounted on the massive garage doors by cutting a cable ridiculously far down on the wall. His victim had been lost in his own thoughts as he strolled towards his car and hadn’t noticed a thing until he woke in the cell.
The greatest problem had been that he was heavy.
At least fourteen stone. Maybe a bit less now, since it seemed that he didn’t have much of an appetite. It was difficult to say, really: the view was restricted into the cell through the little hatch on the door.
The guy was tall and stout, at any rate.
Since he needed to be completely unconscious during the journey, it was no use depending on the scumbag’s own strength. He had to be knocked to the ground.
Not quite literally, of course. When he had picked the man up, he had used chloroform on a cloth. Like in a film from the fifties. Easy to procure, easy to use. And particularly effective, as he had discovered.
He had become giddy himself from the smell.
Now he would use GHB. Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid.
While the chloroform had been stored in a jar in the basement from the time when he had tried to suppress his uneasiness, anxiety and loneliness through an interest in entomology, the GHB was a bit more difficult to get hold of. But not as difficult as he had feared. The police were absolutely right.
There was a lot of GHB going the rounds.
A hosepipe was attached to the tap above the utility sink and led across the wall, fastened with staples all the way to the hole. It was exactly large enough, and snug enough to hold the end of the hose in its grip. He had turned on the tap once he had rolled the unconscious man on to the bunk ten days ago. Only a trickle. All he had now needed to do was to exchange the hosepipe for a different spout, a five-litre petrol can that now contained two litres of water. The GHB was still in the bottle he had put down on the sink yesterday. It had been tricky to calculate how much he should use, and he still wasn’t entirely sure. An addict’s dose was about the size of a screw cap. Two or three grams. The problem was getting the liquid into the prisoner. A dose sufficient to knock him out, but at the same time not large enough to kill him.
The man with the mop of silver hair hesitated.
He had been concerned for a few days now. Worried, and with the occasional hint of genuine anxiety. His excitement, the euphoric self-assurance he had started to get accustomed to, had evaporated.
Selma Falck was not included in the scenario. Nothing had been quite right since she had entered the picture.
It hadn’t been intended that anyone else would put an oar in. It should all have been straightforward, the way he had planned everything so carefully, and the way he had been so certain in advance that it would proceed. Nothing should be investigated. There shouldn’t be anything to uncover. No nosy lawyers should start poking around in anything whatsoever.
It dawned on him that it was very quiet in there.
There was usually a terrible racket each time he approached. Wailing and weeping and gnashing of teeth. He had never answered any of the screams. Just opened the hatch, tossed in something edible, assured himself that the trickling water was still accessible to the prisoner, and then fired up the motor that pushed the wall in and made the room smaller.
He had never spoken a word in all the time he was down here.
‘Go away,’ he said suddenly, in a low growl, and gave himself a slap on the ear. ‘No. No. No.’
The guy in there was still very quiet. He must sleep from time to time, but he always made such a hullabaloo. It could be the stairs, the creaking stairs, or the sound of his footsteps on the bare concrete that woke him up. Every time.
Except for now.
He had an idea.
Forcing the GHB into him through the water hole was such a waste. After all, it would run continuously, and in the worst-case scenario the prisoner wouldn’t ingest any of it. Or maybe only enough for a pleasant high.
He shook his head.
A hole in the plan. A hole in the head.
He smacked himself on the forehead.
‘Idiot,’ he snarled resolutely.
Single-minded, he moved towards the sink. Turned off the water supply.
He would have to make the guy in there thirsty. Totally crazy and mad with thirst. Then he would come and offer him a glass through the hatch in the door. A carefully measured dose, not too diluted. Just a little glass of water, so that it was certain that he would pour it all down his throat. It would taste odd, but he would have no other option.
Satisfied with his decision, he put down the can.
He ascended the stairs and bolted the door behind him at the top.
In twenty-four hours the man in the impregnable cell would be dying of thirst. Then he himself would return and get ready to set him free.
After all, there was no intention for anyone to die.
THE NICKNAME
‘In any case, this ointment is the final proof,’ Jan Morell said sharply as he opened the elegant, illuminated drinks cabinet, beautifully integrated into the wall unit.
‘Of what?’ Selma asked, as she stood gazing out of the enormous window on the top floor of the Fornebuporten building.
‘That we’re dealing with a case of pure sabotage. A tube of Trofodermin was left in Hege’s sponge bag. It wasn’t placed in there by her. Ergo someone else must have done it. It can’t have been for any other reason than to compromise her.’
‘Stupid, then …’
Out on the fjord she spotted the lights of a cargo ship en route to Oslo harbour. The weather was still clear and cold. Since she could not afford to buy winter tyres for the Amazon, and also felt it would be sensible to stay away from the Poker Turk and his garage for as long as she could, she had taken a taxi out to MCV’s premises in the fabulous building beside the Telenor Arena.
She was keeping tabs now and would soon have to ask for payment of expenses.
‘Stupid, then,’ she repeated, ‘that Hege has no idea when it was put there. That we can’t confine ourselves to Lillehammer and the weekend before she came across it, since she can’t remember the last time she delved right down to the bottom of the bag. Stupid too that your proof has also gone right down the toilet. Quite literally. And that the tube has been burned to oblivion.’
‘What was I to do?’ he said in a voice that was far too high-pitched. ‘That fucking tube could have destroyed everything! Even though I know that Hege never tells a lie, we can see now, clear as crystal, that many other people do believe she’s a liar!’
‘And Sølve Bang knows about the tube, then?’
‘Yes. Because of that … muttonhead who keeps our house clean.’
He poured a solid swig of whisky into an engraved crystal glass.
‘It’s past eight o’clock,’ he muttered. ‘There’s some Pepsi Max in the fridge over there.’
He used his glass as a pointer.
‘No, thanks,’ she said. ‘And now he’s been in touch with you, is that right?’
‘Yes. He threatened me, Selma. He actually threatened me.’
‘I would take that with complete composure.’
She still stood by the window. She felt old. Her body felt heavy and lethargic and unfamiliar. Tired, she thought. Fed up.
Still quite scared, she noted, and gave a smile.
‘With complete composure?’ Jan Morell repeated scornfully. ‘Composure? You don’t know what that man’s capable of.’
‘No. I don’t. I actually find it more difficult working out what his role is in all this. Admitted
ly, he has one or two duties to perform in the organization, but how he can just …’
She placed her hand on her neck and massaged it slowly before letting go, crossing over to the fridge, opening it up and taking out a bottle of cola after all.
‘At that press conference,’ she said. ‘Or rather that little ceremony to honour Haakon’s memory. On Saturday up there in Holmenkollen. A journalist suddenly raised the question of whether a drugs test would be conducted post-mortem. Everyone was totally taken aback. Sølve simply …’
As she opened the bottle, it erupted with fizz.
‘… leapt up on the rostrum. As if he were the host or something. Why did he do that? Why is he allowed to do that?’
Jan Morell sat down on one of the dark leather chairs in the seating area by the window.
‘To tell the truth, I don’t really know,’ he said, surprisingly sub-missive. ‘I’ve wondered the same thing myself. For years. I …’
He had ice cubes in his whisky. They rattled noisily as he drank. He rolled the liquid in his mouth before swallowing, and then went on: ‘In actual fact, Sølve cuts a pretty ridiculous figure. He’s a peacock. But charming. Bright bastard. Knowledgeable and good on TV. He’s taken part in some debates on behalf of the Federation, in connection with these …’
The ice clinked even louder as he waved his glass distractedly.
‘… this hassle from DG. About accountancy shambles and systems failures and all that jazz. He’s capable. A bit short-tempered, perhaps, but he knows an amazing amount. He just shouldn’t take a drink. At least not so much. In the course of a whole night there’s no limit to what he can bring himself to boast about. Not that I’ve ever spent a whole night drinking with Sølve Bang, but he apparently starts screeching about becoming the Minister of Culture around two in the morning. Always. Now that the government is wearing green socks to keep in with the left wingers, it wouldn’t surprise me if he joined the party just to show ready and willing.’
His laughter was dry and humourless.
‘If anyone’s still standing by the time the sun comes up, they get to hear that he’s going to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.’
‘Maybe he will. What did he threaten you with?’
‘To make it public. Go to the press.’
‘About what exactly? After all, he has no proof?’
‘No. I think I eventually persuaded him to realize that. So I threatened him back, of course. With a juicy lawsuit. It made some kind of impression, I think, since he’s afraid for his money. And obviously too smart to come out with allegations of tubes of banned creams hidden in Hege’s bathroom without having any evidence for it other than a hint from a Polish home help. But it’s …’
He raised his eyes and looked at her.
‘Sit down,’ he said.
‘I prefer to stand.’
A ship sounded its horn as it passed a marker buoy. It was now ten to nine and the traffic around the iconic building in Fornebu had eased off. The vast construction sites between MCV’s offices and the sea lay deserted and dark. Jan’s secretary had left before Selma had arrived. The entire building had gone to sleep.
‘Where do we stand, Selma.’
It lacked a question mark. His voice sounded resigned and low. The way he sat there, slumped in the chair, with his tie loosened and his jacket open, he looked as if he had woken after a drinking binge.
Selma sat down.
‘Yes, where do we stand.’
‘Not a single millimetre closer to an explanation of what has happened, I’m afraid.’
‘Maybe not. But we have a good deal of information. We have to start putting our facts in order.’
Leaning forward in the chair, Selma sat with her elbow leaning on her knee. She tried to catch his eye, but it was trained on something on the dark horizon to the south-west.
‘Have you anything as archaic as a flipchart in this hi-tech palace?’ she queried.
He looked as if she had asked for a weaving loom.
‘A flipchart?’ he repeated. ‘Er … no. But we have … do you want something to write on?’
‘Yes. Something big. A board, maybe? A whiteboard?’
‘No. But we have this.’
He got up stiffly.
‘I played tennis yesterday,’ he mumbled as he rubbed his thigh. ‘Just had to fill my mind with something else for a couple of hours. And arrived home to hell on earth. Look at this.’
In the middle of the pale unit that stretched along the entire inner wall of the office was a cupboard. Almost two metres wide and one metre high, Selma estimated. Jan picked up a remote control. The double doors slid to either side with a humming sound. An enormous flat screen appeared. One more touch of the keypad and a glass surface lit up in an attractive shade of egg-white.
‘You can use this,’ Jan told Selma, handing her a little metal rod. ‘Use this as you would a marker pen.’
Selma tentatively wrote Hege on the left of the screen.
‘My goodness. I’ve never seen one of these before.’
‘There’s a button in the middle of the pen. It lets you change colour.’
Haakon, Selma wrote on the other side of the screen, and drew a blue circle around both names.
‘Sit down, Jan.’
He turned his chair to face the electronic board. Replenished his whisky glass and sat down obediently.
‘The biggest change since last Thursday is obvious,’ she began firmly. ‘There’s been another doping case. We really can’t ignore that. But what is actually the similarity between Hege and Haakon?’
Such a deep frown appeared on Jan’s forehead it looked as if his eyebrows had merged.
‘They are the two best cross-country skiers in the world,’ he said tersely. ‘They are both Norwegian, they would both have won more medals if they went to PyeongChang. They are both in their twenties, they were both already good as juniors. Shall I go on?’
Selma drew a line between the two circled names.
‘No, thanks. Two cross-country skiers. Damn good ones. Norwegian. Medal candidates at the Winter Olympics. Of course, it could be that someone is out to attack them for that very reason. Either as individuals or as representatives of Norway.’
NORWAY, she wrote in big, red letters at the top of the screen.
‘But anyway, you can scarcely think of two such different people as Hege and Haakon,’ she said. ‘Haakon was the leading light of the men. Outspoken. Politically engaged, at least in the politics of sport. He has taken a forceful and distinct stand against doping. On more than one occasion, he has criticized the Norwegian Skiing Federation, the Norwegian Confederation of Sports, the International Ski Federation and the International Olympic Committee. For everything from nepotism to stupid technical requirements, via economic foul-ups. Haakon was a man of strong opinions. With a family. A partner and child. Open with the public to an almost comic extent, such as when for example he chose to publish his training diary in detail.’
The metal pen soundlessly drew three lines down from Haakon’s circle.
The public, she wrote in blue.
‘Hege is Haakon’s total opposite. Unassuming, almost mysterious. Little involvement in events beyond sports activities.’
‘If you had any idea what both she and I do for UNICEF and Médecins Sans Frontières then …’
‘Exactly. We’re left without any idea. We see it so seldom. Hege is a quiet, almost taciturn young woman. Lives with you. Her father. A widower. Almost certainly has had a boyfriend or two, that’s none of my business, but nothing serious. Hege can seem …’
Selma restrained herself. In distraction, she nibbled the metal stick.
‘You’ll break it.’
‘Sorry. To outsiders, Hege can seem a bit … immature?’
Jan Morell did not bat an eyelid. He had put his glass down on the floor and, elbows leaning on the armrests, he pushed the fingertips of both hands together to form a tent.
‘Immature,’ Selma reiterated,
nodding. ‘From the outside, she seems immature. Following the conversations I’ve had with her, I see that this might be wrong. Quite the opposite, in fact, she gives the impression of being thoughtful, but all the same there’s something …’
She smacked her lips, searching for the word she was after.
‘… naïve about Hege. I think for example that she’s very bad at the art of lying. Before I met her for the first time, at your house on Thursday evening, I was far from convinced of her innocence. I am now. At least from a moral standpoint, I’m pretty sure that your daughter is a young woman who sticks to the truth. There still remains the possibility that she ingested Clostebol through some accident she knows nothing about. But with the discovery of the tube of Trofodermin in her luggage, I agree with you: someone has done this to her. She’s most certainly not lying. I don’t think she’s capable of it.’
‘As opposed to you and me,’ Jan said, barely audibly.
‘True enough. The ability to lie when necessary is an adult’s painful duty and burden.’
She smiled at him, almost teasing. He still did not bat an eyelid.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked brusquely. ‘What’s the point of all this?’
‘What if we’re not dealing with one case?’
‘What?’
‘What if Haakon and Hege have both been the victims of sabotage, but by different perpetrators? And therefore for different reasons? Quite apart from the fact that they both move incredibly fast on skis, they have lived very different lives.’
The metal pen drew an angry zigzag between the two names on the board.
‘Everything isn’t always connected to everything else,’ Selma said. ‘Not all the time.’
‘To tell the truth, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard.’
Jan bent down to pick up the glass. Raising it to his mouth, he hesitated for a second, shook his head and drank it down.
‘Wait a minute now,’ Selma said.
‘No,’ Jan Morell retorted as he got to his feet.
He grabbed the remote control from the wall unit. Pressed a button. The screen suddenly turned white again.
‘But listen to me,’ Selma insisted. ‘Listen to me now.’