I Will Miss You Tomorrow

by Heine Bakkeid

  ‘Still on active duty,’ he replies, smiling for the first time. ‘Challenging assignments, just like the good old days. Need to feel the adrenalin pumping, you know, even though working out is a bit of a tougher grind these days. The years come creeping up on us all.’

  ‘Why are you here, Gunnar?’

  A hint of a smile crosses Gunnar Ore’s face before the straight line returns: ‘OK, then, I’ll tell you, Thorkild. I got a phone call from a certain local police chief, Bjørkang, a few days ago. He wanted to know what I could tell him about one of my former minions in Internal Affairs, Thorkild Aske to be more specific, who of all things had announced his arrival in the hospitable north where he intended to search for a drowned man out at a lighthouse. I told the police chief in question that Thorkild Aske was a name I had hoped never to hear again. That this shameful individual who had chosen to betray all his friends in the force, as well as our reputation, me personally and everything we stand for, should turn up in a police investigation of all things, was really the very last thing I had expected.’

  I can see his jaw muscles working as he speaks through gritted teeth. Gunnar Ore homes in on me: ‘Have you any idea how bloody awkward it was to have to sit there defending a fucking DUI in my own team? Driving under the influence of drugs, involuntary manslaughter! How do you think that reflected on me, on us, on the rest of your team? Have you ever considered that?’

  ‘Manipulation and information,’ I comment after an uncomfortable hiatus with all three of us simply looking at one another and not saying a word.

  ‘What the hell did you just say?’ Gunnar Ore draws his chair closer. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘You wanted to know how to interrogate a lead interrogator. Well, all interrogation, when push comes to shove, is a question of two things: manipulation and information. Even when you interrogate someone who himself has experience and knowledge of the methods. The most important aspect is nevertheless what you put aside before you step inside the interview room.’

  ‘And that is?’ Martin Sverdrup lets his ballpoint pen dance between his fingers, as if here for a course on interpersonal police communications. Gunnar Ore, on the other hand, remains motionless, staring at me. He is so close that I am aware of the smell of aftershave and strawberry-flavour chewing gum.

  ‘Yourself. The lead interrogator steps into the room as a blank sheet of paper, water in an aquarium, with no prejudices, no anger, rage or any other distracting factors. What you want is to make the subject aware of his or her own personal responsibility for the situation they find themselves in, while you check whether the conditions for criminal liability have been met. And then you have to build some sort of trust.’

  ‘A kind of whore, in other words.’ Gunnar Ore spits out the words, digging his fingers into the armrest before clenching his fist.

  ‘If you like,’ I answer, unruffled. ‘Then the game commences: manipulation and information. Deception is an excellent place to start when dealing with someone who is already skilled in the game. Combine fact and fiction, create the impression that you know more than you actually do, confuse, make the interview subject uncertain.’

  ‘Not the KREATIV technique, then?’ Gunnar Ore has that half-smile on his face again.

  ‘Ugh, no,’ I answer, shaking my head. ‘Not for these people, no. In these instances you need to resort to desperate measures. Psychological manipulation techniques exclusively, if you ask me. My suggestion would be to begin the session by probing into the subject’s intimate zone, and to appear threatening. They probably won’t anticipate that.’

  ‘Like this?’ Gunnar Ore pulls the chair a few centimetres closer to me, so close that our faces are almost touching.

  ‘Brilliant. If I were you, I would now perhaps consider running a few rounds of the good cop/bad cop routine, with carrot and stick as incentives.’ I nod at Sverdrup. ‘You have manpower enough for that.’

  ‘Nah,’ Gunnar Ore says gruffly. ‘What else do you suggest?’

  ‘Ego pressure? A well-aimed attack on the subject’s self-esteem in order to persuade him to justify himself and his actions by talking and explaining. The Reid Manoeuvre or lie detection is a dubious route to take, but worth a shot, especially in combination with one or more of the methods I’ve mentioned.’

  ‘Is that all?’ Gunnar Ore is whispering now, still between gritted teeth.

  ‘No,’ I continue calmly. ‘You also have Verschärfte Vernehmung.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gunnar says, nodding gravely. ‘Now we’re speaking the same language.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Sverdrup asks inquisitively.

  ‘Advanced interrogation. The kind used by the Gestapo during the war, and by and large the same methods the Americans use today. Isn’t that funny?’

  ‘What else?’ Now Gunnar Ore is drumming his fingers impatiently on the chair back. ‘Is that all? Do you have any more tricks up your sleeve?’

  ‘More? Well, you mustn’t forget the administration of psychoactive drugs. But by then we’ve gone some distance into the realm of advanced interrogation techniques.’

  ‘Rumour has it you do a good job of administering them to yourself these days.’ I can hear the teeth grinding in his upper and lower jaws.

  ‘But,’ I plough on without paying any attention to him, ‘there’s always a possibility that the subject suffers from some form of personality disturbance, and then the rules of the game change very fast.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ Martin Sverdrup is now clicking the ballpoint pen.

  ‘Follow this closely,’ Gunnar Ore says. ‘He knows this inside out. He’s on home territory now.’

  ‘About seven per cent of the world’s population suffer from psychopathy in some form or other. Half of all inmates in American prisons fall into this category and they in turn are behind eighty per cent of all violent crimes. Human beings without empathy, lacking personal insight, chronic liars with no remorse or impulse control.’

  ‘Do you know what, Martin?’ Gunnar Ore turns to face Sverdrup. ‘In fact, we had someone like that in our section at one time. A real creep of a guy.’ Then he turns back to me. ‘There we have it, then. The psychopath, yes indeed.’

  ‘What do you do then?’ Sverdrup asks in a valiant effort to assume control of the conversation. Falling silent again, Gunnar Ore stares straight into my eyes as I press on: ‘Well, it would be a total waste of time to attempt to make a psychopath acknowledge any kind of responsibility or remorse. They are unable to appreciate the physical, emotional or mental pain they inflict on others. Their behaviour is exclusively dictated by a narcissistic need to satisfy their own egos. The successful interrogation of a psychopath is only achieved when the interviewer is aware of this and makes no attempt to appeal to the person’s sympathy, conscience or social attachments.’

  ‘Here comes the entertaining part,’ Gunnar Ore comments. ‘Listen and learn.’

  I nod, aware of where Gunnar wants to go with this conversation, but I can’t come up with a way of stopping him. So I simply continue, steeling myself for what is to come: ‘The lead interrogator should really pretend to be slightly impressed by the originality, ingenuity and strength the interview subject has shown in his exploits with questions such as – How did you manage to murder someone by that method? So many? For such a long time without being caught? And so on and so forth. In other words, you will only obtain a confession as long as the psychopath himself feels that it fulfils one or more of his own egotistic demands.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Sverdrup asks.

  ‘Thorkild interviewed a number of these maniacs when he was in the States with this doctor of his. Dr Ohlenborg, wasn’t that his name? Several of them were … policemen?’

  This is where Gunnar Ore has been steering the conversation from the very beginning. The place where he can encapsulate everything I am and have been, in this all- consuming truth that I am supposed to carry round my neck like a millstone for the rest of my life. This final proof of my treachery ag
ainst him personally, against our team and against the whole of our police tribe. The stigma that shows what I will be like, now and for always, one of the type both of us once hated and despised more than anything else. ‘So-called cops gone bad,’ Gunnar Ore goes on. ‘Police officers who change sides, who kill, rob, rape and destroy everything in their path.’

  ‘Something like that, yes.’

  ‘Just like you, isn’t that right?’

  ‘Go to hell, Gunnar!’

  Gunnar Ore leaps up from his chair, snatches it up and hurls it across the floor before he grabs me by the throat and hauls me to my feet. ‘Why can’t you just go and die in a ditch?’ he growls, before punching me right in the face with his free fist, making me lurch backwards, into the wall on the opposite side of the desk, and collapse on the floor.

  ‘But what the …’ I hear the superintendent yell. I lift my head and see him using both hands to hold Gunnar by the arm, as if making a heroic effort to restrain a raging bull.

  ‘That one was for the team.’ Gunnar presses his fists together before tearing himself free from Martin Sverdrup’s grip. He takes a couple of paces forward and kicks me in the stomach. The blow is so powerful that I throw up just as a stab of pain shoots through my diaphragm. A mixture of water, coffee and fresh blood trickles down my shirt collar and on to the floor. ‘And that one’s from me.’

  ‘Bloody hell, man!’ Martin Sverdrup grabs Gunnar’s chest from behind. His ribcage is so broad that his arms only just reach round it. All the same, he manages by some remarkable feat to haul Gunnar back over to the table, where he sits down heavily in one of the chairs. Martin marches off to retrieve the chair that Gunnar has tossed aside and returns it to its rightful place before approaching me. ‘Are you OK?’ he asks, tentatively.

  ‘Fine,’ I say, launching a splodge of blood at the floor between us. ‘No sweat. I’m fine.’ I spit again and rest my head on the wall. Gunnar is seated at the table, his face buried in his hands, glowering at us through his fingers.

  The superintendent takes a couple of steps towards Gunnar, raising his finger like a sword in front of him. ‘Listen,’ he begins, trembling with indignation. Suddenly he is speaking in pure northern dialect: ‘I don’t know what the two of you have going here, but this is absolutely unacceptable. I intend to—’

  ‘Get out,’ Gunnar Ore whispers, his eyes glaring up through his fingertips at the superintendent, who stands frozen to the spot for a moment, with one finger held high in the air, as if to check the wind direction in the room. ‘I want to talk to him on my own.’

  ‘No, damn it, I’m the one who—’

  ‘Out,’ he says. This time with a darker undertone, a vibration in his voice that forces Martin Sverdrup to hesitate and take a step back.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I tell him, struggling unsuccessfully to get to my feet.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ the superintendent murmurs just as his colleague, the one who had gone out to fetch some coffee, finally puts his head round the door. He is about to say something, but Sverdrup forestalls him: ‘Let’s go, Steinar,’ he says. ‘These two lunatics need the room to themselves for a while.’

  I wriggle on to my stomach, spitting more blood, before crawling across the floor to reach the chair beside the one Gunnar is using.

  I catch hold of it and haul myself up. ‘Well,’ I say, coughing as I finally settle on the chair, finding some semblance of a seated position that I can live with. ‘What are we going to talk about now, boss?’

  CHAPTER 30

  ‘You look fucking awful, Thorkild,’ Gunnar Ore remarks as the door closes and the other two men leave the room.

  ‘Why are you here?’ I ask him.

  ‘I could ask you the same thing.’ Gunnar sprawls in the chair, rubbing the knuckles of one hand.

  ‘Was it Ann-Mari who sent you?’

  My ex-wife, Ann-Mari, and Gunnar got together while I was in America. It meant nothing to me. The divorce was already done and dusted and our marriage had been over for many years before we ultimately formalised the break-up.

  ‘She doesn’t know you’re out.’

  ‘Yes, she does,’ I tell him before snatching one of the sheets of paper from the bundle of documents still lying on the table. I fold it and use it to wipe the blood from my face. ‘She’s started sending me more cuttings about children in the post. Got one just before I came north, of a boy and a girl in a clothing advert. You’ll have to get her to pack that in.’

  ‘But, bloody hell,’ Gunnar says, once again covering his face with his fingers. ‘She’s just worn out these days,’ he goes on. ‘We’ve been trying for children for such a long time now, and—’

  ‘Why not adopt?’

  ‘Eh? Don’t you think I’ve—’

  ‘For God’s sake, Gunnar.’ I throw the blood-spattered sheet of paper down on the table that divides us. ‘You know she can’t have children, don’t you?’

  ‘What?’ Gunnar Ore, fists clenched, is standing up again, but changes his mind halfway and flops back down on the seat. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ he whispers, wearily.

  ‘The doctors discovered these cysts in her ovaries. Nearly fifteen years ago. That’s why she sends me the cuttings, to show what I deprived her of when she was still able, since I was the one who didn’t want children. For fuck’s sake, man,’ I say, spitting, while Gunnar Ore goes on sitting on the chair in front of me, as if rooted to the spot. ‘They had to remove everything for fear it would develop into cancer. Ovaries, uterus and lymph nodes, the whole shooting match, to prevent any spread. What do you think the scar on her stomach is?’

  ‘She stabbed herself,’ Gunnar suddenly whispers without meeting my eye. ‘Down there, with a pair of scissors, the night after I came home and told her about you and that young girl in the car crash at Sandnes. A DUI, high on drugs, responsible for the death in a road accident of the girlfriend of the policeman whose conduct he’s come to the city to investigate? Can you imagine the media circus all that might have led to if we hadn’t acted fast enough?’ Shaking his head, Gunnar slams his palms on the table again. ‘All the work we had to do to keep the bloodhounds away from your shit. Both in our unit and at Stavanger Police Headquarters. It’s almost a shame to have to say so, but it might have been better if you’d both—’

  There is a knock at the door and immediately afterwards the police officer sticks his head round, bringing two steaming mugs of coffee. ‘Er, here’s that coffee,’ he tells Gunnar, diffidently, as I sit up straight and take my mug.

  ‘Not for me, thanks,’ Gunnar replies, using his thumbs to rub his knuckles. ‘Water, please.’

  ‘We don’t have bottled water, only water from the tap—’

  ‘Same fucking thing, pal. A big glass, cold water. You get it.’

  The man nods. ‘Two seconds.’

  ‘One – two!’ Gunnar spurs him on without glancing up from his knuckles. The policeman’s gaze lands on my face before shifting to Gunnar’s knuckles. Then he turns on his heel and leaves.

  ‘Do they really believe I’m involved in the disappearance of the local police chief and his sergeant?’ I ask, blowing on my coffee.

  ‘Of course not,’ Gunnar answers. ‘Actually, what the fuck do I know? I’m just passing through. I’m running a course for army officers up here next week. I just had to drop in to see if it really was you.’ He laughs. ‘And here you are, large as life.’

  ‘And you too,’ I reply. ‘It’s almost so cosy that we should have brought out the cocoa.’

  The policeman returns with water and ice cubes in a tall jug that he sets down on the table. Gunnar takes a large swig before replacing his glass and rising from his chair. ‘And by the way,’ he says, pointing a rapier finger at my face, ‘don’t phone, OK?’

  ‘That’s a promise.’

  Turning to go, he stops right beside the policeman standing to attention with his hands straight at his sides, as he stares at the table and the bloodstained papers extracted from his document folde
r. Gunnar turns to face me again. ‘What’s more, don’t text, or call Ann-Mari either, don’t visit my office in Grønland, don’t send a postcard when you’re on holiday, no emails, no Facebook messages, no embarrassing hellos from the other side of the street. Zilch. And keep away from our workmates in Bergen. Crawl back inside that car wreck, disappear down into the showers again; I don’t give a flying fuck. Just vanish. You no longer exist, Thorkild Aske, is that understood?’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘And another thing: vamoose from here as well. Out of this case, however things might turn out. You’ve no business here.’

  ‘Soon,’ I answer.

  ‘Not soon. Now!’

  ‘Goodbye, Gunnar.’

  ‘Go to hell!’

  Gunnar disappears through the door and two seconds later Sverdrup appears again, peering inside the room like a whipped dog. As soon as he has ascertained that the coast is clear, he slips inside and closes the door behind him. Both men resume their seats, and the policeman produces a fresh sheet of paper from the pile. He lifts it carefully over the scrunched, blood-spattered paper in the middle of the table, grabs his pen and starts to write. ‘OK,’ Sverdrup says, joining his hands tentatively in a reverent gesture intended to demonstrate calm and diligence. ‘Well, that’s over at last,’ he comments, drumming his fingertips together. ‘Let’s take it all from the very beginning. In your own words.’