A Grave for Two

by Anne Holt

  ‘I just need a word or two with Arnulf. If possible.’

  ‘Do you know each other?’

  ‘Not really. You see …’

  Selma flashed a broad smile, tilted her head and added vaguely: ‘Norway’s such a small country.’

  ‘He’s busy.’

  ‘OK. Where is he?’

  Benedicte Selhus hesitated. Her eyes fluttered slightly, and she tucked her pale-blonde, streaked hair behind her ear before pushing her hand back under her armpit.

  ‘Quiet, boys!’ she yelled in the direction of the staircase before turning back to Selma. ‘He’s really busy. Couldn’t you just phone him? Maybe tomorrow?’

  ‘It’s a bit urgent, and I’d prefer to speak to him face to face.’

  ‘Is there something … wrong?’

  Her wide eyes grew even wider, and Selma thought she could detect a touch of anxiety in them unwarranted by the friendly, even if obviously surprising, request.

  ‘Not at all. It must be cold for you to stand there. Couldn’t I come in for a minute?’

  Benedicte looked over both shoulders. As if to gain some time, or to assure herself that no one else was there.

  ‘Well, it’s actually really inconvenient right now. Storm Teodor isn’t feeling too well … my son, that is. Ours. He’s only three and his temperature shot up this afternoon. Can’t you wait till tomorrow? Just phone Arnulf, won’t you, and then you can arrange to meet.’

  She forced a smile. It looked more like she had a sudden stomach cramp.

  ‘You look incredibly like Olivia,’ she added, very unexpectedly. ‘Her in Law and Order SVU. Olivia Benson.’

  ‘Mariska Hargitay,’ Selma mumbled.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The actress. Mariska Hargitay. It’s really very important for me to speak to Arnulf.’

  ‘Phone tomorrow, then. That’ll have to do. Have a nice evening.’

  The door was shut. If not exactly slammed, it was impossible to read the situation as anything other than that Selma was far from welcome. For a few seconds she hovered on the little stone staircase as she digested their conversation.

  Things weren’t going well in the brown-stained, seventies house in Stølsveien.

  Of course it could simply be because of a feverish three-year-old.

  Or it could be about something else entirely.

  She walked to the road. Turned around. A face vanished quickly from the window at the eastern edge of the house. The hinges squealed when Selma opened the gate and stepped out. She closed it behind her and plodded westwards.

  After ten metres, she stopped. The neighbouring garden to the Selhus family was sheltered by a cedar hedge, but it was not so dense that Selma couldn’t easily manage to squeeze through it. She jogged towards the low fence that separated the properties. Clambered over and ran with her back stooped to the corner of the brown house where Arnulf Selhus lived.

  She knew these prefabricated houses well. In their time they had been built by Moelven, and came in modules measuring three times eight metres that were erected according to how large you wanted the finished building to be. Selma’s parents had built one like this themselves, when she was seven and had to be hodman for her father when he built the foundations. The most striking thing about this model was the un-Norwegian, dark shutters on either side of all the windows. On the outside they were covered by grooved wooden panels. Inside, a hinged wooden board could be opened and closed at various distances from the window frame.

  A simple, mechanical ventilation system, used both summer and winter, as Selma recollected.

  The basement level was in darkness. The living room on the ground floor was easy to locate, since it had larger windows. Selma tiptoed as quietly as she could up the slope where the foundations disappeared into the earth, towards what she had calculated must be the kitchen window.

  The ventilation was open. She heard voices. Crouching down, she turned her better ear to them. Her right ear.

  ‘… not now. It’s just not possible.’

  Arnulf Selhus might well have been busy, but he was at least at home. Once again, Selma felt that welcome excitement, the intoxication of success, of having gambled and won.

  ‘You could just tell me what it is, Arnulf!’

  Benedicte’s voice was softer than when they had met at the door. Appealing, like a little child’s plea for help.

  ‘No. You’re not to think about this.’

  ‘I don’t recognize you, darling.’

  Scraping noises, like a chair leg on the floor. Footsteps, perhaps, and silence.

  A grown man crying.

  Selma stood upright. Dreadfully slowly, to avoid scratching against the wall panel. She was bold enough to let one eye peer inside.

  Arnulf Selhus sat on a bar stool, leaning across a kitchen worktop, with his head buried in his arms. Benedicte was caressing his back, trying to get him to lift his face. Her lips were moving, but she was talking in such hushed tones that Selma couldn’t make out what she was saying.

  But she could hear the weeping, and she saw his back shaking. She saw that Arnulf Selhus was more broken-hearted than she had ever seen any man outside a courtroom.

  Slowly and silently, she drew back from the kitchen window. Four metres away from the house she broke into a run. Across the lawn. She leapt over the neighbour’s fence and squeezed through the cedar hedge. Out into Stølsveien. Stopped, clenched her fists.

  ‘Yes,’ she said under her breath, pumping her arms in triumph. ‘Yes. Yes. Yes!’

  The dogs had not alerted their owners by as much as a whimper.

  Of the three men in an old photograph, all of them, within an extremely limited period of time, had suffered some kind of serious setback.

  Nearly forty years later, and one had even been killed.

  It was time to head for Vettakollen.

  THE SHOWDOWN

  ‘Do you hear what he’s saying? Do you hear?’

  ‘Not when you speak over him all the time.’

  Jan Morell could be bad-tempered and obstinate. Furious, brusque and hostile. But Selma had never seen him like this. ‘Off his rocker’ was the phrase that came to her as she watched him pace back and forth across his own living room floor. Completely off his rocker.

  Usually his robust figure exuded strength and authority. He was ten kilos heavier and five centimetres shorter than desirable, but compensated as a rule with his puffed-out chest, his steady gaze and acceptable placement on Kapital’s annual list of Norway’s richest individuals. Taken together, this gave him the self-confidence and peace of mind he needed in order to be how both he and everyone else regarded him: a powerful, competent and vigorous businessman.

  Now his hair was sticking out in every direction. He loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top shirt buttons so recklessly that one of them sprang loose and fell on the floor.

  ‘Of course, this is the responsibility of both the athletes and the Cross-Country Skiing Federation,’ Sølve Bang pontificated from an iPad on which the evening news programme was streamed. ‘And I have a distinct feeling that the Federation isn’t taking this case at all seriously enough. They seem totally incapable of action.’

  ‘Well, he’s right as far as that’s concerned,’ Selma said. ‘Do they do anything at all up in that ice palace of theirs? Other than “follow the procedures”? Which, strictly speaking, consists of sitting quiet as mice and waiting to hear what other agencies decide?’

  ‘No,’ Jan said, his face now red as a beetroot. ‘But he’s throwing petrol on the fire! And if he’d contented himself by criticizing the Federation, then I wouldn’t say too much. But he’s flinging both Hege and Haakon to the wolves! Listen! Just listen to him.’

  ‘Shh!’

  ‘The rules are crystal clear,’ Sølve Bang said calmly. ‘Every athlete has an independent, objective responsibility to remain clean in accordance with WADA’s guidelines. If they don’t, no mercy is shown. That’s how it is, and that’s how it has to be if we’re
to have the slightest chance of combatting this odious practice. As far as Hege Morell is concerned, she is rightfully suspended while the case is considered, but we haven’t heard a cheep from the NCCSF about regretting the incident. Nothing about distancing themselves from Hege Morell’s use of banned substances.’

  ‘Use of banned substances!’ Jan shrieked as he tossed his tie aside. ‘It’s really unclear whether she has “used” banned substances at this present time.’

  The quote marks were drawn with both arms, wildly gesticulating in what threatened to turn into an attack of apoplexy.

  ‘Sit down,’ Selma said in a friendly voice. ‘I’ve got a lot to tell you.’

  Jan Morell had almost thrown himself upon her when she had appeared in Vettakollen at the back of eight p.m. He had run off at the mouth as she removed her outdoor clothes. Dragged her into the living room and literally pushed her down on to the settee before pressing ‘play’ on the iPad. Roaring so loudly that she had been forced to cover her ears.

  ‘The worrying aspects here are on a number of levels,’ Sølve’s radio-friendly voice continued. ‘The management of this crisis that has occurred is one of them. However, the important thing is that we take a closer look at how the situation has arisen at all. It should not be possible for our two best skiers to take drugs of any kind without the Federation knowing about it. Either they have known what Morell and Holm-Vegge have been up to, and if that is true, then the whole organization ought to be shut down…’

  He paused for effect. What he was saying was so extraordinary that neither his fellow participants nor the presenter seized the opportunity to speak.

  ‘…Or,’ Sølve Bang continued just as calmly as before, ‘the situation is that they haven’t known. In that case, the scandal is equally great. For then, once and for all, they will have shown their incompetence, their lack of control and their total inability to create systems that produce clean, honest sports. And not least to implement these systems in a manner that prevents scandals such as the one we are now facing.’

  Jan’s expensive suit was crumpled. He stood in the middle of the room, with his arms lifted slightly from his sides and his palms showing, His usually so well groomed, combed back hair-style was bedraggled and he had acquired a forelock. It didn’t suit him at all, especially since it revealed a bald patch on the crown of his head.

  ‘Now I think we should calm down a bit here,’ said a voice Selma recognized as Lars Winther’s. ‘I agree with Bang that there’s a lot to indicate serious deficiencies in the NCCSF. And his presentation of the objective rules are correct, as far as I understand them. All the same, I believe that this case has so many elements to it that we should take some time to get to the bottom of what has really happened before we rush to any final judgment. About the Federation, but especially about the two athletes involved. Their cases have a number of differences, and there’s reason to believe that …’

  ‘Differences?’ Sølve interrupted. ‘What differences? They’re both elite athletes. They’ve both used Clostebol, a banned substance. They’re both Norwegian. I call that two virtually concurrent, composite cases.’

  ‘What should happen now, then?’ the presenter asked.

  ‘Norway should withdraw from the World Championships this season,’ Sølve Bang said, slightly more agitated now. ‘The FIS, the international ski federation, should immediately appoint an independent committee to investigate this. Norway’s Cross-Country Skiing Federation should be gone through with a fine tooth comb, on every level. As far as finance, doping, and administration are concerned. Everything.’

  ‘That would surely mean we won’t have a cross-country team in PyeongChang?’

  ‘In the worst-case scenario, yes. But if we are to save this sport at all, this most Norwegian of all cultural expressions, we must take up the evil by the roots. Without delay.’

  Jan stopped the player.

  ‘He’s not fucking real,’ he said, sitting down heavily on the settee directly opposite Selma. ‘I’ve regarded him as a friend. A close acquaintance, at least. Then he first makes a grubby blackmail attempt, and then he throws Hege in front of a bus on national radio.’

  ‘He’s feathering his own nest,’ Selma told him.

  Jan was not listening. He sat slumped on the settee, trying without success to tidy his hair. The bags under his eyes were bigger than before, and his mouth had stiffened into a half-severe, half-despairing, grimace.

  ‘Are you listening?’ Selma asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sølve’s feathering his own nest. He’s trying to wriggle out of a contract. For the book.’

  ‘What book?’

  ‘The history book. About cross-country skiing in Norway.’

  ‘Oh, that.’

  Jan sank back on the settee.

  ‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’

  ‘He’s going after my girl,’ Jan said softly. ‘That slimeball will …’

  ‘I’ll take care of Sølve.’

  At last he looked up.

  ‘Take care of?’

  ‘Yes. He has a clause in his contract that means he’ll win big if Statoil withdraws as the Federation’s sponsor. If they break with them and find it damaging to be associated with them. More specifically, he’ll avoid repaying three point eight million kroner.’

  Jan looked at her in confusion. Finally he left his hair in peace and sat up straight on the settee.

  ‘Will he be rewarded if they withdraw? How …’

  ‘No. He’ll just avoid having to deliver the manuscript, however, and keep the advance he’s already been paid. All of it.’

  ‘How …’

  Selma sighed and caught his eye.

  ‘I don’t know much about books, because I don’t read many. But I know a lot about contracts. And I’ve read up on what is called artistic licence. When an author is going to write a commissioned work, you never have any guarantee that the book will be as the customer wants it to be. That the person who has purchased the author’s work will also receive it when it’s finished, in other words. It therefore sounds reasonable that a customer who’s loaded, in this case Statoil, lets the author keep the fee even if the company isn’t satisfied with the end result. Or if they no longer wish to be associated with the contents of the book, which in this case is the actual dilemma.’

  ‘I’d never have gone along with that.’

  ‘No. But then it’s not MCV that has commissioned the work either.’

  ‘How can you know that the contract has such a clause?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that. Just trust what I’m saying, Jan.’

  ‘But … if Sølve Bang receives the money whether it’s published or not, why is he bothering then to …’

  Again he collapsed back on to the settee, clutching his hand to his head.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You’re tired,’ Selma said, smiling. ‘To be blunt, I don’t think there is any book.’

  ‘It’s to be published before the Winter Olympics. In less than two months.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t think it exists. At the very least, it’s far from finished, I suspect. From what I’ve discovered, it’s been postponed several times, though I don’t know why as yet. But I can imagine the reason. Sølve Bang is notorious for having writer’s block.’

  Jan looked apathetically at her.

  ‘He publishes one book each decade,’ Selma went on. ‘Approximately. They’re usually well received, and sell well. Abroad too. But very few people can live for ten years on one book. Between publications Sølve Bang often lives from hand to mouth.’

  ‘He lives in Frogner. In a massive apartment!’

  ‘Yes, massive and dreary. That’s not the point. The point is that he has to pay back three point eight million kroner if he doesn’t deliver that damn manuscript. The contract is clear on that. If he doesn’t complete it within the deadline, the money has to be repaid. But if this scandal is allowed to grow, then Norwegian cross-country ski
ing won’t be something that Statoil will want to be associated with. Identified with. Neither here at home nor overseas. Then they won’t want any manuscript, none at all. Sølve will be pretty well off the hook and gets to keep most of the money. Which has probably all been spent, anyway.’

  Jan still seemed as if he couldn’t quite grasp what she was talking about. Selma stood up. She crossed to his side of the polished concrete coffee table, crouched down and placed her hand over his.

  ‘Let me take care of Sølve Bang.’

  He looked at her without answering, but didn’t pull his hand away.

  ‘It really was Morten Karlshaug they found,’ she said quietly. ‘Dead in the forest. Killed, in all probability. And I must ask you something in connection with that.’

  ‘I saw that,’ he mumbled, rubbing his face with his other hand. ‘Fucking sad. Ask away.’

  ‘There was no unfinished business between you?’

  ‘Me and Klaus? No. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Wait a minute. But between you and Arnulf Selhus there’s been some kind of … falling out?’

  Now he no longer wanted her near. He got to his feet, strode over to the drinks cabinet and poured some whisky into a tumbler.

  ‘I can’t fathom what this has to do with your assignment,’ he said brusquely. ‘And the relationship between Arnulf and me is none of your business.’

  He drank half the contents of the glass, poured in more and crossed to the empty fireplace. Leaning his elbow on the mantel-piece, he took another gulp.

  Selma approached the drinks cabinet. She opened it and took out the decanter. The golden liquid twinkled behind the richly embossed glass.

  ‘I’ve never tasted alcohol,’ she said softly.

  ‘Why not, actually?’

  ‘I just never started. Trained too much. Wanted to go too far. Later I discovered I needed to be in control. Of myself. More than most people, in fact.’

  Jan smiled for the first time since Selma had arrived.

  ‘You’re right there. Combining compulsive gambling with alcohol would be catastrophic.’