A Man
Nothing helped.
Nothing would ever help. They had offered to stay with him, of course. As if they were what he needed. As if life would be bearable again for one moment if strangers sat with him, in her armchair, the shabby, yellow armchair at an angle in front of the TV, a half-finished piece of knitting in a basket beside it.
They had asked if he had someone.
Once upon a time he had someone. A few hours ago he had Eva Karin. All his life he had had Eva Karin, and now he had no one.
Your son, they reminded him. They asked about his son. Did he want to tell his son or should they take care of things? That was how she put it, the woman who sat down on Eva Karin’s chair. Take care of things. As if it was a thing. As if there was anything else to take care of.
He felt no pain.
Pain was something that hurt. Pain hurt. All he could feel was the absence of existence. An empty space that made him look at his own hands as if they belonged to someone else. He clenched his right hand so tightly that the nails dug into his palm. There was no pain anywhere, no existence, just a huge, colourless nothingness where Eva Karin no longer existed. Even God had abandoned him, he realized now.
Time had stopped.
*
Her watch had stopped. She shook her wrist crossly and realized she was much later than she wanted to be. She had to get the children inside and in their best clothes without Kristiane playing up.
She went over to the window.
In the courtyard in front of the house, behind the fence on Hauges Vei, Ragnhild and Kristiane had scraped together enough rime frost to build the smallest snowman in the world. It was no more than ten centimetres high, but even from the second floor Johanne could see that it had been kitted out with a yellow oak-leaf hat and a mouth of tiny pebbles.
Johanne folded her arms and leaned on the window frame. As usual Ragnhild was directing operations and taking care of the construction. Kristiane was standing up straight, completely motionless. Although Johanne couldn’t make out the words, she could hear Ragnhild chattering away as if addressing the most spellbound audience in the world.
Perhaps she was.
Johanne smiled as Ragnhild suddenly got up from her small work of art and began to sing with great enthusiasm. Now Johanne could hear her voice inside the apartment. Å leva det er å elska rang out over the neighbourhood. Wherever had she learned that particular hymn? At any rate, it had most likely been Kristiane’s idea to sing it once the snowman was complete.
A figure caught Johanne’s attention. It looked like a man, and she wasn’t sure where he had come from. Nor did it seem as if he was sure where he was going. For some reason this made her uneasy. Of course, there were youngsters in the area who turned up out of nowhere from time to time, but if she saw adults walking the streets they were always heading somewhere with a purpose. She recognized most of them after living for so many years in this little side road.
The man was strolling along with his hands in his pockets. His hat was pulled down over his eyes and his tightly knotted scarf obscured the lower half of his face. But there was something about the way he walked that told her he wasn’t all that young.
Johanne shook her right arm again. Her watch still wasn’t working. It must be the battery. They were probably running late. She was about to turn away from the window when the man stopped by the bins.
By their bins.
Johanne felt the fear racing inside her, as always when she didn’t have full control over Kristiane. For a moment she stood there, not knowing whether she should run downstairs or stay where she was and see what happened. Without making a conscious decision, she stayed where she was.
Perhaps he called out to them.
At any rate, both girls looked at him, and Ragnhild’s gestures indicated that she was talking to him. He made some reply and waved her over. Neither of the girls went towards him. Instead, Ragnhild took a step back.
Johanne ran.
She raced through the apartment, out of the living room, along the hallway, out through the extension that had become the girls’ playroom, she ran, half-stumbled down the stairs and hurtled out into the cold wearing neither shoes nor slippers.
‘Kristiane!’ she shouted, trying to inject a calm, everyday tone into her voice. ‘Ragnhild! Are you there?’
As she came around the corner of the house she saw them.
Ragnhild was once again crouching down in front of the little snowman. Kristiane had spotted a bird or a plane. She was gazing up at the sky and without taking any notice of her mother she stuck out her tongue to catch the feather-light flakes that had begun to fall.
There was no sign of the man.
‘Mummy,’ Ragnhild said sternly. ‘You are not allowed outside in your stocking feet!’
Johanne looked down at her feet.
‘Goodness me,’ she said with a smile. ‘What a silly mummy you have!’
Ragnhild laughed and pointed at her with a toy spade.
Kristiane carried on catching snowflakes.
‘Who was that man?’ Johanne asked casually.
‘What man?’
Ragnhild licked the snot trickling from her nose.
‘The man who was talking to you. The man who—’
‘Don’t know him,’ said Ragnhild. ‘Look what a brilliant snowman we’ve made! And without any snow!’
‘It’s lovely. But now it’s time to come in. We’re going to a Christmas party, remember. What did he ask you?’
‘Dam-di-rum-ram,’ said Kristiane, smiling up at the sky.
‘Nothing,’ said Ragnhild. ‘Are we going to a party? Is Daddy coming?’
‘No, he’s in Bergen, isn’t he? But that man must have said something. I mean, I saw him—’
‘He just asked if we’d had a nice Christmas,’ said Ragnhild. ‘Aren’t your feet cold, Mummy?’
‘Yes, they are. Come along, both of you. Time to go inside.’
Amazingly, Kristiane started to walk. Johanne took Ragnhild by the hand and followed her.
‘And what did you tell him?’
‘I said it was absolutely the best Christmas ever – with bells on!’
‘Did he want … did he try to get you to go over to him?’
They reached the gravel path and walked along by the building towards the stairs. Kristiane was talking to herself, but seemed happy and contented.
‘Yeees …’
Ragnhild was taking her time.
‘But we know we mustn’t go up to strangers. Or go off with them or anything like that.’
‘Quite right. Good girl.’
Johanne’s toes felt as if they were about to drop off with the cold. She pulled a face as she left the gravel and put her foot on the ice-cold stone staircase.
‘He asked if I’d got any nice Christmas presents,’ Kristiane said suddenly as she opened the outside door, which had blown shut behind Johanne. ‘Just me, not Ragnhild.’
‘Oh? And how do you know he was only asking you?’
‘Because he said so. He said—’
All three of them stopped. Kristiane had that strange look on her face, as if it were turned inward, as if she were searching an archive inside her head.
‘What are you doing out here, girls? Did you have a nice Christmas? And what about you, Kristiane, did you get anything nice?’
Her voice was expressionless, and was followed by complete silence.
‘I see,’ said Johanne, forcing a smile. ‘That was nice of him. And now we need to put on our best clothes as quickly as we can. We’re going to see Grandma and Grandpa, Kristiane. Daddy will soon be here to pick us up.’
Ragnhild immediately sat down and started whining.
‘Why does Kristiane get to have her daddy when I can’t have mine?’
‘Your daddy has to work, I told you that. And you always have a lovely time when we go to see Kristiane’s grandma and grandad.’
‘Don’t want to. Don’t want to!’
The child pulled back and started to slide down the stairs head first, her arms stretched out in front of her as if she were swimming. Johanne grabbed her arm and pulled her up, slightly more firmly than she had intended. Ragnhild let out a howl.
The only explanation Johanne could cope with was that Kristiane must have remembered wrongly.
‘I want my own daddy!’ Ragnhild screamed, trying to twist free of her mother’s grasp. ‘Daddy! My daddy! Not Kristiane’s stupid daddy!’
‘We do not say that kind of thing in our family,’ Johanne hissed, nudging Kristiane in through the door while dragging the little one behind her. ‘Do you understand?’
Ragnhild immediately stopped crying, stunned by her mother’s fury. She started laughing instead.
But Johanne had only one thought in her head: Kristiane never, ever remembered wrongly.
*
‘We all make mistakes. Don’t get so cross about it.’
Marcus Koll Junior smiled at his son, who was studying the instructions.
‘Come over here and we can work it out together.’
The boy sulked for a little while, but eventually stomped over and threw the little booklet on the coffee table. The helicopter was still on the dining table, only half-completed.
‘Rolf promised to help me,’ the boy said, pushing out his lower lip.
‘You know what Rolf’s clients can be like.’
‘They’re rich, stupid and they have ugly dogs.’
His father tried to hide a smile.
‘Yes, well. When an English bulldog decides that her puppies are coming out on Christmas Day, then out they have to come. Ugly or not.’
‘Rolf says that bulldogs have been totally overbred. That they can’t even feed properly. Shouldn’t be allowed. Animal cruelty.’
‘I couldn’t agree more. Now, let’s have a look at this!’
He picked up the booklet and leafed through it as he walked over to the imposing dining table. He had had the instructions translated by an authorized technical translator in order to make it easier for the boy to build the helicopter. The model in front of him was so big that he now regretted his purchase. Even if the boy had an unusual talent for mechanics, this was a little over the top. The man in the shop in Boston had stressed that the toy wasn’t suitable for children under the age of sixteen, not least because it weighed almost a kilo and would constitute a risk to anyone around it the moment it rose in the air.
‘Hm,’ said his father, scratching his stubble. ‘I don’t really get it.’
‘It’s the rotor blades that are the problem,’ said the boy. ‘Look here, Dad!’
The eager fingers tried to put the blades together, but something wasn’t right. The boy soon gave up and put down the pieces with a groan. His father ruffled his hair.
‘A bit more patience, little Marcus. Patience! That’s what you should have got for Christmas.’
‘I’ve told you, don’t call me that. And I’m not doing anything wrong, there’s something the matter with the instructions.’
Marcus Koll pulled out a chair, sat down and took his glasses out of his breast pocket. The boy sat down beside him, keen to help. The blonde, curly hair tickled Marcus’s face as his son leaned over the manual. A faint smell of soap and ginger biscuits made him smile, and he had to stop himself from hugging the boy, holding him close, feeling the glorious warmth of the son he had managed to have in spite of everything and everyone.
‘You’re the best thing in my life,’ he said slowly.
‘Yeah, yeah. What does this mean? Insert the longest batten through the unhooked ring at the bottom of rotor blade four. I mean, there is only one batten! So why does it say the longest? And where’s the stupid ring?’
The December sun filled the room with a calm, white light. Outside it was cold and clear. The trees were completely covered with crystals of rime frost, as if they had been sprayed for Christmas. Through the white branches beyond the window he could see the Oslo fjord far below, grey-blue and still, with no sign of life. The crackling of the open fire blended with the snores of two English setters, curled up together in a big basket by the door. The smell of turkey was beginning to drift in from the kitchen, a tradition Rolf had insisted on when he eventually allowed himself to be persuaded to move in five years ago.
Marcus Koll Junior lived his life in a cliché, and he loved it.
When his father died nine years ago, just before Marcus Junior turned thirty-five, he had at first refused to accept his inheritance. Georg Koll had given his son nothing but a good name. That name was his grandfather’s, and it had enabled him to pretend that his father didn’t exist when he was a boy and couldn’t understand why Daddy couldn’t come and see him at the weekend now and again. When he was just twelve years old he began to realize that his mother didn’t even receive the maintenance to which she was entitled for him and his two younger siblings. When he turned fifteen he resolved never again to speak to the man responsible for his existence. His father had wasted his opportunity. That was the year Marcus received 100 kroner in a card on his birthday, sent through the post and with five words in handwriting he knew wasn’t his father’s. He became a grown man when he put the money in the envelope and sent the whole lot back.
Severing all contact was surprisingly easy. They saw each other so rarely that the two or three visits per year were easy to avoid. Emotionally, he had chosen a different father: Marcus Koll Senior. When he was able to grasp the fact that his real father simply didn’t want to be a father and would never change, he felt relieved. Liberated. Free to move on to something better.
And he didn’t want his inheritance. Which was considerable.
Georg Koll had made a lot of money in property in the sixties and seventies. The majority of his fortune had been moved to other, much safer arenas in plenty of time before the crash in the housing market during the last financial crisis of the twentieth century. When it came to looking after his money he more than made up for his great inadequacies as a father and provider. Unlike others, he had used the yuppie era to secure his investments rather than risking them for short-term gain.
When Georg Koll died he left behind a medium-sized cruise-ship company, six centrally located and extremely well-maintained properties, plus a skilfully compiled share portfolio which had provided the majority of his very respectable income for the past five years. Death had obviously surprised him. He was only fifty-eight years old, slim and apparently fit when he had a massive heart attack on his way home from the office one day in late August. Since he hadn’t remarried, and no will was found, his entire estate went to Marcus Koll, his sister Anine and his younger brother Mathias.
Marcus wanted no part of it.
When he was fifteen years old he had returned his father’s blood money, and when he was twenty he had received a reply. His father had heard that his son was a homosexual. Marcus had glanced through the letter and realized all too quickly what his father wanted. For one thing, he expressly dissociated himself from Marcus’s lifestyle, which was a not uncommon attitude in 1984. What was worse was that his father, who had never been well in with any God, went on to paint a picture of Marcus’s future along the lines of the blackest descriptions of Sodom and Gomorrah. He also reminded him of a new and dangerous plague from America, which affected only homosexual men. It led to an agonizing death, complete with boils, like the Black Death itself. Of course, Georg Koll didn’t believe this was a punishment from any higher power. No, this was Nature herself taking revenge. This fatal disease was a manifestation of natural selection; in a couple of generations people like him would have been eradicated. Unless he changed his ways. Life as a homosexual meant a life without a family, without security, without ties, obligations and the happiness that came with being a good member of society and someone who made a real contribution. Until his son realized this and could guarantee that he had seen the error of his ways, he was disinherited.
Since the obligatory bequest to his own children was a mere bagatelle in comparison to Georg Koll’s entire fortune, there was a reality behind this threat. It made no difference whatsoever to Marcus. He burned the letter and tried to forget the whole thing. And when the estate was divided up fifteen years later, in 1999, it turned out that his father, convinced of his own immortality, had omitted to make a will.
Marcus stuck stubbornly to his guns. He still wanted nothing to do with his father’s money.
He gave in only when his grandfather, who never mentioned Georg either, managed to convince Marcus that he was the only one of the three siblings capable of managing the family fortune in a professional way. His brother was a teacher, his sister an assistant in a bookshop. Marcus himself was an economist, and when both siblings insisted that the best thing would be to set up a new company with the combined assets of their father’s estate, with all three of them as joint owners and Marcus as director and administrator, he allowed himself to be persuaded.
‘Just look at it as a bloody good joke,’ Mathias had said with a grin. ‘The bastard did Mum and us out of money all his life, and now we can live very well on the proceeds he worked so hard to keep from us.’
It was ironic, Marcus had gradually come to accept. A splendid irony.
‘Dad,’ little Marcus said impatiently. ‘What does that say? What does it mean?’
His father smiled absently and dragged his gaze away from the ridge, the fjord and the white sky. He was feeling hungry.
‘Right,’ he said, fixing a tiny screw in place. ‘There, that’s the rotor finished. Then we do this … Do you want to do it?’
The boy nodded, and slotted in the four blades.
‘We did it, Dad! We did it! Can we go outside and fly it? Can we do it now?’
He picked up the remote control in one hand and the finished helicopter in the other, tentatively, as if he didn’t quite trust it not to fall apart.
‘It’s too cold. Much too cold. As I said yesterday, it could be weeks before we can take it outside.’
‘But Dad …’
‘You promised, Marcus. You promised not to go on about it. Why don’t you ring Rolf instead and ask if he’s coming home for our special lunch?’
The boy hesitated for a moment before putting everything down without a word. Suddenly he brightened up with a smile.
‘Granny and the others are here!’ he shouted, running out of the room.
The door slammed behind him. The sound rang in Marcus’s ears until once again only the faint snoring of the oblivious dogs and the crackling of the fire filled the enormous room. Marcus’s gaze rested on the fire, then swept around the room.
He really did live in a cliché.
The house in Åsen.
It was large, but set back from the road so that only the top floor was visible to passers-by. When he bought the house he had decided to remove the ridiculous wooden panelling on the outside, along with the turf roof and the portico in front of the garage, which bore the legend Home Sweet Home, roughly carved and with a dragon’s head at either end. Just when he was about to tackle the panelling, Rolf had entered his and young Marcus’s lives. Rolf had laughed until he cried when he saw the house in all its glory for the first time, and he refused to move in unless Marcus promised to keep the more eccentric and what one might call rustic elements.
‘We’re an extended family with a twist,’ Rolf would laugh.
A little bit richer than most, Marcus thought, but he said nothing.
Rolf wasn’t thinking about the money. He was thinking about their family life, with little Marcus and a wide circle of aunts and uncles and cousins, his grandmother and friends who came and went and were almost always at the house in Åsen; he was thinking about the dogs and the annual hunting trip in the autumn with friends, old friends, boys Marcus had grown up with and never lost contact with. Rolf always laughed so heartily at the happy, ordinary, trivial life they led.
Rolf was always so happy.
Everything had turned out the way Marcus had hoped.
He had even managed to use his father’s money for something good. His father had consigned him to oblivion and regarded him as a lost soul. By condemning his son’s future, Georg Koll had paradoxically given him a new one. The first, wild years lay behind him, and Marcus had managed to avoid the disease that had brutally taken so many of those he knew, in pain and embarrassment and often loneliness. He was deeply grateful for this, and when he burned the letter from his father he resolved that Georg Koll would be wrong. Utterly and emphatically wrong. Marcus would be what his father had never been: a man.
‘Dad!’
The boy came running into the room, his arms flung wide.
‘They’re all coming! Rolf said the bulldog had three puppies and everything was fine and he’s on his way home and he’s looking forward to—’
‘Good, good.’ Marcus laughed and got up to accompany the boy into the hallway. He could hear several cars in the courtyard; the guests were arriving.
He stopped in the doorway for a moment and looked around.
The doubt which had tormented and nagged him for several weeks had finally gone. He had a sharp instinct, and had made a fortune by following it. In the early summer of 2007 he had spent weeks fighting a strong urge to sell up and get out of the stock market. He had sat up night after night with analyses and reports, but the only sign he could see that something was wrong was the stagnation of the US property market. When the first downgrading of bonds linked to the unsafe sub-prime loans came later that summer, he made his decision overnight. Over a period of three months he cashed in more than a billion in US shares at a significant profit. A few months later he would wake in the middle of the night out of sheer relief. His fortune remained in the bank until interest rates began to fall.
Marcus Koll was now buying properties at a time when everything was cheap. When he sold them in a few years, the profit would be formidable.
He had to protect himself and his family. He had a right to do so. It was his duty.
Georg Koll had reached out from beyond the grave to try to destroy Marcus’s life once again, and he simply could not be allowed to do that.
*
‘May I?’
Adam Stubo nodded in the direction of a yellow armchair in front of the television. Erik Lysgaard showed no sign of reacting. He just sat there in a matching chair in a darker colour, staring straight ahead, his hands resting in his lap.
Only then did Adam notice the knitting and the long, almost invisible grey hairs stuck to the antimacassar on the back of the armchair. He pulled out a dining chair and sat on that instead.
He was breathing heavily. A slight hangover had been plaguing him since he got up at half past five, and he was thirsty. The flight from Gardermoen to Bergen had been anything but pleasant. True, the plane was almost empty, since there weren’t many people desperate to get from Oslo to Bergen at 7.25 on Christmas morning, but the turbulence had been a problem and he had had far too little sleep.
‘This is not a formal interview,’ he said, unable to come up with anything better. ‘We can do that later, down at the police station. When you’re …’
When you’re feeling better, he was about to say before he stopped himself.
The room was light and pleasant. It was neither modern nor old-fashioned. Some of the furniture was clearly well used, like the two wing-backed armchairs in front of the TV. The dining room also looked as if it had been furnished with items that had been inherited. The sofa, however, around the corner in the L-shaped living room, was deep and cream-coloured, with bright cushions. Adam had seen exactly the same one in a Bohus brochure that Kristiane absolutely insisted on reading in bed. Along one wall were bookshelves built around the window, full of titles indicating that the Lysgaards had a wide range of interests and a good knowledge of languages. A large volume with Cyrillic letters on the cover lay on the small table between the armchairs. The pictures hanging on the walls were so close together that it was difficult to get an impression of each individual work. The only one that immediately caught his attention was a copy of Henrik Sørensen’s Kristus, a blonde Messiah figure with his arms open wide. Actually, perhaps it wasn’t a copy. It looked genuine, and could be one of the artist’s many sketches for the original, which was in Lillestrøm Church.
The most striking item was a large Nativity crib on the sideboard. It had to be more than a metre wide and perhaps half a metre deep and tall. It was contained in a box with a glass front, like a tableau. The baby Jesus lay on a bed of straw among angels and little shepherds, sheep and the three wise men. A bulb shone inside the simple stable, so cleverly hidden that it looked as if Jesus had a halo.
‘It’s from Salzburg,’ said Erik Lysgaard, so unexpectedly that Adam jumped.
Then he fell silent again.
‘I didn’t mean to stare,’ said Adam, venturing a smile. ‘But it really is quite … enchanting.’
The widower looked up for the first time.
‘That’s what Eva Karin says. Enchanting, that’s what she always says about that crib.’
He made a small snorting sound as if he were trying to stop himself from crying. Adam edged his chair a little closer.
‘During the next few days,’ he said quietly, pausing to think for a moment. ‘During the next few days many people will tell you they know how you’re feeling. But very few actually do. Even if most people of our age …’
Adam had to be ten years younger than Erik Lysgaard.
‘… have experienced the loss of someone close, it’s completely different when a crime is involved. Not only has the person been snatched away all of a sudden, but you’re left with so many questions. A crime of this kind …’
I have no idea what kind of crime this is, he thought as he kept talking. Strictly speaking, nothing had been established so far.
‘… is a violation of far more people than the victim. It can squeeze the strength out of anyone. It’s—’
‘Excuse me.’
Erik’s son Lukas Lysgaard opened his mouth for the first time since he had shown Adam into the living room. He seemed tired and looked as if he had been crying, but was quite composed. So far he had stood in silence by the far window looking out over the garden. Now he frowned and moved a little closer.
‘I don’t really think my father needs consolation. Not from you, anyway, with respect. We would prefer to be alone. When we agreed to this interview …’
He quickly corrected himself.
‘… to this conversation, which is not an interview, it was, of course, because we would like to help the police as much as we can. Given the circumstances. As you know I am willing to be interviewed by the police as soon as you wish, but when it comes to my father …’
Erik Lysgaard straightened up noticeably in his armchair. He stretched his back, blinked hard and raised his chin.
‘What is it you want to know?’ he asked, looking Adam straight in the eye.
Idiot, Adam thought about himself.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Of course I should have left you both in peace. It’s just that … For once we haven’t got the media hot on our heels. For once it’s possible to get a little ahead of the pack out there.’
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder as if there were already a horde of journalists on the front step.
‘But I should have known better. I’ll leave you alone today. Of course.’
He stood up and took his coat from the back of one of the dining chairs. Erik Lysgaard looked at him in surprise, his mouth half-open and a furrow in his forehead, just above the thick glasses with their heavy, black frames.
‘Haven’t you got any questions?’ he asked, his tone gentle.
‘Yes. Countless questions. But as I said, they can wait. Could I possibly use your bathroom before I leave?’
He directed this request to Lukas.
‘Along the hallway. Second on the left,’ he mumbled.
Adam nodded briefly to Erik Lysgaard and headed for the door. Halfway across the room he turned back.
Hesitated.
‘Just one thing,’ he said, scratching his cheek. ‘Could I ask why Bishop Lysgaard was out on her own at eleven o’clock on Christmas Eve?’
An odd silence filled the room.
Lukas looked at his father, but there wasn’t really any kind of enquiry in his eyes. Just a wary, expressionless look, as if he either knew the answer or thought the question was of no interest. Erik Lysgaard, however, placed his hands on the arms of the chair, leaned back and took a deep breath before looking Adam in the eye once more.
‘That’s nothing to do with you.’
‘What?’ Somewhat inappropriately, Adam started to laugh. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said that’s nothing to do with you.’
‘Right. Well, I think we’ll have to …’
Silence fell once more.
‘We can talk about this later,’ he added eventually, raising a hand in Erik’s direction as he left the room.
The surprising and absurd answer had made him forget for a moment how much he needed the bathroom. As he closed the door behind him he could feel that it was urgent.
Along the hallway, second on the right.
He mumbled to himself, placed his hand on the knob and opened the door.
A bedroom. Not large, maybe ten square metres. Rectangular, with the window on the short wall facing the door. Under the window stood a neatly made single bed with lilac bed linen. On the pillow lay a folded item of clothing. A nightdress, Adam assumed, inhaling deeply through his nose.
Definitely not a guest room.
The sweet smell of sleep mingled with a faint, almost imperceptible perfume.
It wasn’t possible to open the door fully, it bumped against a cupboard on the other side.
He ought to close the door and find the toilet.
There was no desk in the little room, just a fairly large bedside table with a pile of books and a lamp beneath a shelf containing four framed family portraits. He recognized Erik and Lukas straight away, plus an old black-and-white photograph which presumably showed the little family many years ago, when Lukas was small, on a boat in the summer.
On the wall between the cupboard and the bed there was a painting in strong shades of red, and a number of clothes hung on the back of a wooden chair at the foot of the bed. The curtains were thick, dark, and closed.
That was it.
‘Excuse me! Not in there!’
Adam stepped back into the hallway. Lukas Lysgaard came quickly towards him, hands spread wide. ‘What are you doing? Snooping around the house? Who gave you permission to … ?’
‘Along the hallway, second on the right, you said! I just wanted to—’
‘Second on the left. Here!’
Lukas pointed crossly at the door opposite.
‘Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to—’
‘Could you get a move on, please? I’d like to be alone with my father.’
Lukas Lysgaard must be around thirty-five. A man with an ordinary appearance and unusually broad shoulders. His hair was dark with deep waves, and his eyes were presumably blue. It was difficult to tell; they were narrow and hidden behind glasses reflecting the glow of the ceiling light.
‘My mother had problems sleeping sometimes,’ he said as Adam opened the correct door. ‘When that happened she liked to read. She didn’t want to disturb my father, so …’ He nodded towards the small bedroom.
‘I understand,’ said Adam, smiling before he went into the toilet. He took his time.
He would give a great deal to have another look in that bedroom. It annoyed him that he hadn’t been more alert. Noticed more. For example, he couldn’t remember what kind of clothes had been hanging over the chair: dressy clothes for Christmas Eve, or ordinary everyday clothes. Nor had he noticed the titles of the books on the bedside table. There was no reason to assume that anyone in this family had anything whatsoever to do with the murder of a wife and mother who was obviously loved. But Adam Stubo knew better than most that the solution to a murder was usually to be found with the victim. It could be something the family knew nothing about. Or it could be a detail, something neither the victim nor anyone else had picked up.
But it could be important all the same.
At any rate, one thing was certain, he thought as he zipped up his trousers and flushed the toilet. Eva Karin Lysgaard must have had serious problems when it came to sleeping if she sought refuge in that little bedroom every time she had a bad night. A better explanation was that husband and wife slept in separate rooms.
He washed his hands, dried them thoroughly and went back into the hallway.
Lukas Lysgaard was waiting for him. Without a word he opened the front door.
‘No doubt you’ll be in touch,’ he said, without offering his hand.
‘Of course.’
Adam pulled on his coat and stepped into the small porch. He was about to say Merry Christmas, but stopped himself just in time.