Street Boy
The problem was that so many people had started to complain about the bad air. Quite frankly, there was a horrible smell. The receptionist had his hands full moving guests around as they came back from their allocated rooms and announced that they were uninhabitable. The strange thing was that it wasn’t just one particular area of the hotel. On the contrary, the complaints were coming from one room here, another there, and in the end he had run out of patience. Given the number of rooms that could no longer be used, the hotel was seriously overbooked.
The Hotel Continental in Oslo was a proud establishment that most definitely did not tolerate an unpleasant smell in its rooms.
Fritiof Hansen, the operations manager, had been trying to track down the problem for more than fifty minutes. He had begun with the first room that had been rejected by an irate Frenchman threatening to move to the Grand. A disgusting, sweetish smell assailed his nostrils as he opened the door. There was nothing to explain the stench as far as Fritiof Hansen could see. The bathroom was freshly cleaned. All the drawers were empty, apart from the obligatory copy of the New Testament and brochures about Oslo’s nightlife and the entertainment available. He did find a dirty cotton-wool ball under the bed, and, rather embarrassingly, a used condom behind one of the legs. But nothing that smelled. Nor were there any places in the room where the smell was stronger, as far as he could tell. And as soon as he stepped into the corridor, he was surrounded once more by the scent of luxury and carpet cleaner. In the room next door, all was as it should be. When he opened a door further along the corridor, the stench was there again.
It just didn’t make any sense.
He was now standing down in the foyer, legs apart and hands behind his back as he stuck his nose in the air and sniffed. Admittedly, Fritiof Hansen was a man of sixty-three with a reduced sense of smell after smoking twenty cigarettes a day for forty years. But he had stopped smoking three years ago, and his senses of taste and smell had both improved.
‘Edvard,’ he said, holding out his hand to a bellboy who was staggering past with a bag under his arm and a suitcase in each hand. ‘Is there a funny smell just here?’
‘No,’ gasped Edvard without stopping. ‘But it stinks down in the cellar!’
‘Right …’
Fritiof Hansen clicked his heels like a soldier before brushing an imaginary speck of dust from his uniform. It was green, freshly ironed and with razor-sharp creases. His black shoes had been polished until they shone. His identity card with its magnetic strip dangled from an extendable cord clipped to his belt; combined with the carefully chosen code 1111, it gave him access to every room in the building. When he set off, his bearing was erect and military.
The cellar of the Continental was a confusing labyrinth, but not to Fritiof Hansen. For more than sixteen years he had taken care of small details and major issues at the hotel. When he was given the title of operations manager the previous year, he realized it was just a way of recognizing his loyalty. He wasn’t really the manager of anything. Before he got the job at the Continental, he had packed paper clips in a protected workshop in Groruddalen. He proved himself to be unusually handy, and became a kind of informal caretaker there, until his boss had recommended him for a job at the Continental. Fritiof Hansen had turned up for the interview freshly shaven, wearing neat overalls and carrying his toolbox. He got the job, and since then he hadn’t missed a single day’s work.
He didn’t like the cellar.
The complex machinery down here was maintained by a team of specialists. Fritiof Hansen might occasionally change a light bulb or fix a door that had got stuck, but the hotel used external companies for renovations and maintenance. And for the air-conditioning system. The module that collected fresh air from outside was located on the roof and in its own area on the top floor. The plant itself was in the cellar. Over the years it had been augmented in a way that made it into two independent appliances. During the latest phase of modernization it had been recommended that the whole thing be renewed, but this proved too expensive, so a compromise was reached between the hotel and the suppliers: a new, smaller plant was installed to ease the load on the old one. Fritiof Hansen could hear the low, monotone hum before he reached the inner corridor where the locked doors to the machine room were located.
As he walked down the stairs, he wrinkled his nose. It didn’t smell quite the same as the polluted rooms, but here, too, a strange, sweetish smell found its way into his nostrils, combined with damp and dust and the distinctive mustiness of old buildings.
Fritiof Hansen didn’t believe in ghosts. He believed in his brother and in Arbeiderpartiet and the hotel management, who had promised him a job here for as long as he could stand on his own two legs. Over the years he had also begun to believe in himself. Ghosts were invisible. Anything you couldn’t see didn’t exist. And yet he always felt that strange sense of unease as he set off down the long, dark corridors lined with doors leading to rooms which concealed things he recognized, but often didn’t understand.
At the point where the corridor bore to the left, the smell grew stronger. He was getting close to the air-conditioning plants which were in two rooms next door to each other. With each step he took, the unpleasant feeling grew. Perhaps he should go and fetch someone. Edvard was a good lad who was always ready to stop for a chat when he had time.
But Edvard was just a bellboy. Fritiof Hansen was operations manager, with a badge on his chest and the code for every room in the entire building. This was his job, and the receptionist had told him he had an hour to sort out what was going on before the management called in professional help.
As if he wasn’t a professional.
Despite the fact that most things in the cellar were old, the door was locked with a modern card reader. He swiped his card and keyed in the code as steadily as he could.
He opened the door.
The stench hit him with such force that he took a couple of steps backwards. He cupped his hands over his nose before hesitantly moving forward.
He stopped in the doorway of the dark room. His free hand groped for the light switch. When he found it he was almost dazzled by the fluorescent tube which suddenly drenched the room in an unpleasant blue light.
Four metres away, half-hidden behind some kind of machinery that could have been for just about anything, he could see a pair of legs from the knees down. It was difficult to tell whether they belonged to a woman or a man.
Fritiof Hansen had a set evening ritual. Every weekday at 9.35 p.m. he watched CSI on TVNorge. A beer, a small packet of crisps and Crime Scene Investigation before bed. He liked both the Miami and New York versions, but it was Gil Grissom in the original version from Las Vegas who was Fritiof Hansen’s favourite. But Grissom was about to be replaced by that black guy, and Fritiof wasn’t at all sure if he’d bother watching it any more.
Grissom was the best.
Gil Grissom wouldn’t like it if an operations manager at a respectable hotel walked into a crime scene, destroying a whole lot of microscopic evidence that might be there. Fritiof Hansen was quite convinced this was a crime scene. At any rate, the person over by the wall was definitely dead. He remembered an episode where Grissom had established the time of death by studying the development of fly larvae on a pig’s carcass. It had been bad enough on television.
‘Dead as a doornail,’ he muttered, mainly to convince himself. ‘It stinks of death in here.’
Slowly he moved back and closed the door. He checked the lock had clicked into place and set off towards the stairs. Before he got around the corner where the corridor led off at an angle of ninety degrees, he had broken into a run.
*
‘I was actually thinking about letting him go. But then we found the hash. I needed to interview him properly, and then it struck me that …’
DC Knut Bork handed over a report to Silje Sørensen as they walked across the blue zone in the police station. She stopped as she glanced through the document.
On closer investigation, Martin Setre had turned out to be fifteen years and eleven months old. He had spent the first part of his life with his biological parents. He was already perceived as an unlucky child during his time at nursery. Broken bones. Bruises. Admittedly, he was clumsy at nursery too, but most of his injuries were sustained at home. There was the suggestion of ADHD when a pre-school teacher asked for the boy to be checked out. Before this process could begin, the family had moved. Martin started school in a small community in Østfold. After only six months he was admitted to hospital with stomach pains, which no one could get to the bottom of. During the spring term in his first year the family moved again, after one of the teachers called round unannounced and found the boy locked in a bike shed, his clothing completely inadequate. The teacher informed the authorities, but before the case reached the top of the pile, the family had moved yet again. Martin’s life continued in this way until he was admitted to Ullevål Hospital at the age of eleven with a fractured skull. Fortunately, they had managed to save his life, but actually giving him any kind of life proved more difficult. Since then the boy had been in and out of various institutions and foster homes. The last time he had run away was at Christmas, from a residential youth care unit where he had been placed by the court.
The case against his parents was dropped due to lack of evidence.
‘Ffksk,’ mumbled Silje, looking up again.
‘What?’
‘For fuck’s sake,’ she clarified.
‘You could say that,’ agreed Knut Bork, leading her to an interview room. ‘He’s in here.’
He took out a key and inserted it in the lock.
‘We’re not really allowed to lock him in,’ he said, his voice subdued. ‘At least not without supervision. But this kid would have been long gone if I’d left the door open for one second. He tried to do a runner three times while we were bringing him in from the unit.’
‘Has he been there since last Monday?’
‘Yes, under supervision. He hasn’t been alone for more than five minutes.’
The door opened.
Martin Setre didn’t even look up. He was rocking back and forth on a chair, one foot on the table. The dark boot lay in a small lake of melted snow. The back of the chair was rhythmically hitting the wall, and had already started to leave a mark.
‘Pack that in,’ said Knut Bork. ‘Right now. This is DI Silje Sørensen. She wants to talk to you.’
The boy still didn’t look up. His fingers were playing with a snuff tin, but it didn’t look as if he had anything under his lip. However, the herpes infection was considerably worse.
‘Hi,’ said Silje, moving so that she was opposite him. ‘You can say hello to me if you like.’
She sat down.
‘I understand,’ she said, and started to laugh.
This time the boy did look up, but without meeting her eyes.
‘What the fuck are you laughing at?’
‘Not at you. At Knut here.’
She nodded in the direction of her younger colleague, who raised his eyebrows as high as he could before adopting the same indifferent expression once again. He had turned the chair around and was leaning over the back with his arms folded, a thin investigation file dangling from one hand.
‘You see,’ said Silje, ‘when he showed me your papers we made a bet. I bet 100 kronor that you would be rocking back and forward on the chair, fiddling with a snuff tin, and that you’d refuse to speak. Then I bet another hundred that you wouldn’t look me in the eye for the first quarter of an hour. It looks as though I’m going to be rich. That’s why I’m laughing.’
She laughed again.
The boy took his foot off the table, let the legs of the chair crash to the floor and stared her straight in the eye.
‘It hasn’t been quarter of an hour yet,’ he said. ‘You lost.’
‘Only partly. It’s 1-1 between Knut and me. What the score will be between you and me remains to be seen.’
A faint knock on the door made the boy glance in that direction.
‘Come in,’ Knut Bork called loudly, and the door opened.
A woman in her thirties blundered in, heavily overweight and panting, with layers of flapping clothes.
‘Sorry I’m a few minutes late,’ she said. ‘Busy day. I’m Andrea Solli, the social worker.’
She addressed her last remark to Martin and held out her hand. He responded hesitantly with a limp handshake. He didn’t get up.
‘Well, that’s the formalities out of the way,’ said Andrea Solli, sitting down on the remaining chair.
The boy closed his eyes and pretended to yawn. Andrea Solli was Number 62 in the series of social workers, experts, solicitors and lay judges who had played some part in Martin’s life. The very first one had got him to talk. He had told her everything, concluding with an account of how his father had smashed his head against a toilet until he no longer knew whether he was alive or not.
She had said she believed him, and that everything would be all right.
Nothing had ever been all right, and a long time ago he had stopped believing a single word they said.
‘So you were brought in three days ago,’ said Silje Sørensen. ‘For possession of three and a half grams of hash, it says here. To be perfectly honest, I’m not remotely interested in that. Nor am I particularly interested in your career as a prostitute. Except for …’
Knut Bork handed her a document from his file.
‘… this. It’s a report from when you were brought in on 21 November last year.’
‘What? Are you going to start poking around in ancient history?’
Martin squirmed on his chair.
‘It’s six weeks ago, Martin. The police don’t really regard that as ancient history. But actually, it’s not you I’m interested in this time.’
The boy was leaning forward, batting the snuff tin between his hands across the surface of the desk like an ice-hockey puck.
‘It’s Hawre. Hawre Ghani. You know him, don’t you?’
The puck was travelling faster between his hands.
‘Come on, Martin. You were brought in together. It’s clear from the report that you knew one another. I just want—’
‘Haven’t seen Hawre for ages,’ the boy said sullenly.
‘Don’t know anything about Hawre,’ Martin muttered.
‘Were you friends?’
The boy pulled a face.
‘Does that mean yes or no?’
‘It’s not exactly easy to make friends when you live like I do. I mean, you never get to live in the same place for longer than a few weeks!’
‘You’re the one who takes off,’ the social worker interrupted. ‘I realize it’s very difficult for you, but it’s not easy to create—’
‘You can sort all that out later,’ Silje broke in. ‘I’m asking you again, Martin. Did you know Hawre well?’
He carried on playing table hockey without answering.
‘You’re blushing. Were you together?’
‘What?’
The sore in his nose had started to bleed. A thin trickle of red zigzagged down the crusty yellow scab covering the area between his left nostril and his upper lip.
‘Me and … Hawre? He isn’t even gay, not really. He just needs the money!’
‘But you are?’
‘What?’
‘Gay.’
‘You’ve no fucking right to ask me that.’
A siren started howling in the courtyard at the back. Two magpies were sitting on the window ledge outside, staring at them with coal-black eyes and taking no notice of the noise.
Martin’s eyes narrowed, and his hands finally stopped moving.
‘But since you ask, the answer is yes. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’
Defiance shone from every inch of his tense body, and this time he was the one holding her gaze.
‘I couldn’t agree more,’ said Silje.
If the boy had been ten kilos heavier, and if the sore on his face had healed, he might have been quite good-looking. Unfortunately his teeth were bad, which was rare for Norwegian children in 2009. When he spoke she could see a grey film of tartar, which still didn’t hide a couple of botched fillings in his front teeth. But his eyes were large and blue, and the long eyelashes curled upwards like a small child’s.
‘Can’t you get rid of them?’ he said.
‘Who?’
Martin pointed at the woman and Knut Bork.
‘I’m quite happy to leave,’ said Bork. ‘But the social worker has to stay. We’re not allowed to question you unless somebody from social services is present.’
Without any further discussion he got to his feet. He placed the file next to the report in front of Silje Sørensen, and pushed his chair under the table.
‘Ring me when you’ve finished,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in my office.’
As the door closed behind him, Martin stared nastily at Andrea Solli.
‘I don’t need any help from social services,’ he said. ‘You can go as well.’
Silje got in first.
‘Out of the question,’ she said firmly. ‘Forget it. Tell me about you and Hawre instead.’
Martin had started to lick the sore. The blood from his nose turned pink as it mixed with his saliva, and suddenly a piece of the scab came away.
‘Fuck,’ he yelled, grabbing at his mouth.
Blood was pouring down his face, and Andrea Solli dug out a bundle of Kleenex from her capacious handbag. Martin took three and pressed them against the sore.
‘Me and Hawre weren’t together,’ he said, sounding agitated and revealing that his voice hadn’t completely broken yet. ‘We were just mates.’
‘Mates usually have some idea where their mates are,’ said Silje.
The boy didn’t reply. His eyes were wet, but Silje didn’t know if it was because of the turn the conversation had taken or his sore lip. She wasn’t sure how to proceed. To gain time she opened a half-litre bottle of mineral water and poured three glasses without asking if anyone would like some.
‘Hawre’s dead,’ she said.
At that moment the magpies took off from the window ledge, shouting hoarsely as they disappeared into the darkness over the city. It had stopped snowing at last. It was quarter past four in the afternoon. From the corridor they could hear the rapid footsteps of people hurrying to get home.
‘That’s what I thought,’ whispered Martin.
He dropped the blood-stained tissues on the floor, put his arms on the table and hid his face.
‘That’s what I thought,’ he sobbed again.
‘When did you last see him, Martin?’
Silje Sørensen really wanted to put her arms around him. Hold him. Comfort him, as if there were any way of comforting a boy who wasn’t even sixteen years old and had lost any chance of a decent life long ago.
‘When did you last see him?’ she repeated.
‘I don’t remember,’ he wept.
‘This is really important, Martin. Hawre was murdered.’
The sobs broke off. ‘Murdered?’
His voice sounded half-suffocated as he lay slumped over the table.
‘Yes. And that’s why it’s really, really important that you try to remember.’
‘Do you think I murdered Hawre?’
He wasn’t even angry. Or accusing. Martin Setre simply took it for granted that everybody assumed he was guilty of everything.
‘No, absolutely not. I don’t believe for one moment that you murdered your friend.’
‘Good,’ he snivelled, slowly sitting up.
Andrea Solli pointed at the Kleenex. He didn’t touch them.
‘Because I wouldn’t do that!’
‘Can you try to remember when you last saw him? We can start from 21 November. When you were brought in together. It was a Friday. Can you remember anything about that day?’
He nodded, almost imperceptibly.
‘You were taken into care and driven to the residential unit, it says here. Hawre, on the other hand, managed to do a runner during the journey. Did you see him after that?’
‘Yes …’
He really looked as if he was thinking hard. A deep furrow appeared at the top of his nose.
‘I cleared off the following day. We met up … on the Sunday. And on …’
For the first time he picked up the glass of mineral water.
‘Can I have a Coke instead?’ he mumbled.
‘Of course. Here.’
Silje passed him a bottle. He opened it and drank, not bothering with a glass. A grimace of pain passed over his face as the neck of the bottle caught the sore, which was still bleeding.
‘We met on the Sunday. I’m quite sure about that, because …’
He suddenly stopped speaking.
‘Because … ?’ said Silje.
‘I’m not saying.’
‘You have to understand that—’
‘I’m not saying anything about that night, OK? It’s not important, anyway, because I saw Hawre the following day.’
‘Right,’ said Silje, bringing up the calendar on her mobile. ‘So that would be … Monday 24 November?’
‘I don’t know what the fucking date was, but it was the Monday after we were brought in. We were going to …’
Finally he picked up a tissue and dabbed cautiously at his mouth. Tears still lingered on his eyelashes. He was no longer crying, but his whole body seemed more exhausted than ever, if that were possible.
‘We were just going to pick up a couple of blokes, turn a couple of tricks. Then we were going to go and see a film. We needed the money.’
Silje Sørensen had a pen and paper in front of her. So far she hadn’t written a single word. Now she cautiously picked up the pen, but didn’t touch the paper.
‘What film were you going to see?’ she asked, adding quickly: ‘Just so I can check the date.’
‘Man of War.’
She smiled.
‘Come on, Martin. Man of War had its premiere just before Christmas.’
‘OK, OK. I don’t remember. It’s true. I don’t fucking remember what we were going to see, because we never went in the end.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘We decided to … we … we needed some cash. We went down to the central station.’
He caught her eye again, as if seeking confirmation that she understood what he meant. She gave a slight nod, which he interpreted as a yes.
‘There were loads of people there. It was packed.’
‘What time of day was this?’
‘Dunno – afternoon, maybe. Not very late, anyway. We were going to go to the pictures later. We hung out where we usually hang out …’
‘And where’s that?’
‘By the entrance from Jernbanetorget.’
‘And then?’
‘Nobody came.’
‘Nobody? But you said it was—’
‘Nobody we were looking for. Nobody who …’
He was playing with the snuff tin again. She noticed that his fingers were unusually long and slender, almost feminine.
‘So we decided to go Oslo City, the shopping centre. But just when we got outside some guy came up and started talking to us in English. Well, American really. I’m not sure. American, I think.’
‘I see. And what did he want?’
‘The usual,’ Martin said defiantly. ‘But he couldn’t like just say it straight out. He didn’t sort of use the normal … He was creepy. There was something about him.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t really know. But I didn’t want to go with him. He was …’
The pause grew so long that Silje asked a question: ‘Do you remember what he looked like?’
‘Old. Expensive clothes. Quite fat.’
‘What do you mean by old?’
‘At least forty. Disgusting. Asking and digging, kind of. I don’t like old men. Twenty-five is OK. Not much older, anyway. But Hawre needed the money more than me, so he went off with this guy.’ He stared at the Coke bottle. ‘He was wearing the kind of clothes that show how rich you are. Know what I mean?’
Silje knew exactly what he meant. She was the wealthiest DI in the country, having inherited a fortune when she turned eighteen. It didn’t really make any difference to her. When she applied to the police training academy she deliberately moved downmarket. But now she was so used to it that she bought her clothes at H&M. But she knew just what he meant, and nodded.
‘And then?’
He looked up. His eyes frightened her; his despair over his friend’s death had turned into sheer apathy. He shrugged his shoulders and mumbled something she couldn’t catch.
‘What?’
‘I don’t remember much more about that day.’
‘But you haven’t seen Hawre since then.’
His tongue couldn’t stay away from the sore. Instead of answering, he shook his head.
The preliminary post-mortem report showed that Hawre Ghani probably died between the 18th and 25th of November. Martin Setre had seen Hawre on 24 November when he went off with an unknown sex client.
‘You have to help me,’ said Silje.
He remained silent.
‘I need a drawing of the man Hawre went with,’ she said. ‘Can you help me with that?’
‘OK,’ he said eventually. ‘If I can have something to eat first.’
‘Of course you can. What would you like?’
For the first time she saw the hint of a smile on his damaged face.
‘Steak and onions and loads of fried potatoes,’ he said. ‘I’m starving.’
*
Adam Stubo tried to drown out the rumbling of his stomach by coughing. Only an hour ago he had eaten an apple and a banana, but his belly already felt empty. On New Year’s Eve he had stepped on the bathroom scales for the first time in two years. The number shining up at him from the display had three figures, and it frightened him. Since there was no space for exercise in his packed agenda, he needed to cut down on food. He had secretly joined an Internet diet club, which immediately and mercilessly informed him that his daily intake was over 4,000 calories. Getting it down to 1,800 was sheer hell.
He still had three chocolate bars in the drawer of his desk. He opened it and looked at the striped wrappers. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if he had half a piece. Admittedly, he had looked up the number of calories in chocolate on the Internet calculator the other day, and had resolved never to touch the bloody stuff again. But he was so hungry that he wasn’t thinking clearly.
The telephone rang.
‘Adam Stubo,’ he said more pleasantly than usual, deeply grateful for the interruption.
‘It’s Sigmund.’
Sigmund Berli had been Adam’s friend and closest colleague for almost ten years. He was far from the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he worked hard and was totally loyal. Sigmund voted for Fremskrittspartiet, supported Vålerenga and ate ready meals seven days a week since splitting up with his wife about a year ago. What little free time he had he devoted to his two sons, whom he adored. Sigmund Berli was Adam’s anchor in the sea of humanity, and he was grateful for precisely that. With increasing frequency he would find himself sitting through a dinner with Johanne’s friends and colleagues from the university without saying a word. Telling them anything about how real life was lived in this country was usually pointless. He preferred Sigmund Berli and his broad generalizations; at least they were based on a life lived among ordinary people.
‘We’ve found a bloody great pile of poison-pen letters,’ said Sigmund.
‘Are you still in Bergen?’
‘Yes. In a safe in the Bishop’s office.’
‘You’re in a safe in the Bishop’s office?’
‘Ha bloody ha. The letters. There was a safe in her office that we only found out about a few days ago. The secretary had a code, but it turned out to be wrong. So we got somebody from the firm who supplied the safe to come out and look at it. And there was a pile of shit in there, if I can put it that way.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘Guess.’
‘No games, Sigmund.’
‘The usual homophobic crap.’ Adam could clearly hear that Sigmund was smiling at the other end of the phone. ‘What else?’
‘Are we talking about e-mails?’ Adam asked. ‘Or ordinary letters? Anonymous?’
‘A bit of both. Most are print-outs of e-mails, and the majority are anonymous, but there’s the odd one that uses their full name. It’s mostly complete garbage, Adam. Filth, no more and no less. And do you know what I’ve never understood?’
Quite a lot, Adam thought.
‘Why anyone gets so worked up about what people do in bed. My boy’s ice-hockey trainer is gay. Terrific bloke. Tough and masculine with the lads, but incredibly nice. Comes to every training session, unlike that idiot they had before, even though he had a wife and four kids. Some of the other parents started complaining when this bloke came out in the paper, but you should have seen old Sigmund go!’
His laughter crackled down the phone.
‘I showed them what was what, and no mistake! You can’t compare an ordinary gay bloke with a bloody paedophile. He’s a friend for life now. We’ve had a beer together a few times, and he’s sound. Fantastic on the ice, too. Used to be in the national junior team until it all got too much. Bunch of homophobes, that’s what they are.’
Adam listened with mounting surprise. His eyes were still fixed on the striped chocolate bars.
‘What are you doing with the letters?’ he said absently.
Sigmund was munching on something.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Just had to get something inside me. They have top-notch cinnamon buns here in Bergen.’
The drawer containing the chocolate bars slammed shut before Sigmund continued.
‘We’ve got one of the IT guys working on her computer. Looking for the addresses and so on. And, of course, the letters will be examined as well. I wonder why she saved them all? Nothing was ever reported.’
‘Most people in the public eye get that kind of thing all the time. At least if they have controversial opinions. Not many make a fuss about it. After all, it can just make things worse. Johanne’s working on a project that—’
‘And how is my favourite girl?’ Sigmund interrupted.
Adam’s colleague had been steadfastly in love with Johanne for several years, and that clearly hadn’t changed. It normally blossomed only in the form of sheer delight every time he saw or spoke to her. After a few drinks he might come out with clumsy compliments and the odd unwelcome fumble. On one occasion Johanne had slapped him hard across the face when he had grabbed her breast after getting roaring drunk on his hosts’ cognac. For some bizarre reason she still seemed to like him, somehow.
‘Fine,’ said Adam. ‘Call round some time.’
‘Great! What about this weekend? That would fit in really well—’
‘Ring me when you’ve got something new,’ Adam broke in. ‘Got to go. Bye.’
Just as he was about to end the call he heard Sigmund’s electronically distorted voice: ‘Hang on! Don’t go.’
Adam put the phone to his ear again.
‘What is it?’
‘I just wanted to say that not all the letters are about gay stuff.’
‘No?’
‘Some are about abortion.’
‘Abortion?’
‘Yes, the Bishop was pretty fanatical about it, you know.’
‘But what are they writing? And more to the point, who’s writing?’
Sigmund had finally finished eating.
‘It’s all a bit of a mixture. Anyway, those letters aren’t as aggressive. More kind of bitter. There’s one from a woman who wishes she’d never been born. Her mother was raped, and because she was so young at the time, she didn’t dare say anything until it was too late. Everything went wrong for the kid from the day she was born.’
‘Hm. A person who complains to the Bishop about the fact that she actually exists?’
‘Yep.’
‘But what did she actually want?’
‘She wanted to try to convince the Bishop that abortion can be justified. Something along those lines. I don’t really know. A lot of the letters are from total nut jobs, Adam. I agree with you – I don’t think we should take too much notice of them. But since we haven’t got much else to go on, we need to have a closer look at them. Are you coming up here soon?’
Adam clamped the phone between his head and shoulder. Opened the drawer, grabbed one of the chocolate bars and tore off the wrapper.
‘Not until next week, probably. But we’ll talk before then. Bye.’
He put down the phone and broke the bar into four pieces. Slowly he began to eat. He let every piece lie on his tongue for ages, sucking rather than chewing. When he had finished one piece, he picked up the next. It took him five minutes to enjoy every last bit, and he finished off by licking his fingers clean.
His mood improved. His blood sugar rose and he felt clear-headed. When he realized a few seconds later that he had just consumed 216 empty calories he was so upset that he grabbed his coat and switched off the light. It was Wednesday 7 January, and seven days on starvation rations was enough for this time.
He would allow himself a decent dinner, anyway.