Sense and Sensibility

FOLDER FOUND this morning. Had been borrowed by Special Needs teacher and put back in the wrong place. Sorry to have bothered you Live Smith

Johanne read the text twice, not knowing whether to feel relieved or angry. On the one hand it was obviously a good thing that Kristiane’s file had been found. On the other, it frightened her that the school had such inadequate routines when it came to handling sensitive material. As she locked the door of her office behind her it struck her that she ought to be delighted. If Kristiane’s file really had simply been put in the wrong place, it ought to ease her anxiety that someone was watching her daughter.

She pushed her mobile into her bag and crept out of the building without being seen. It was only two o’clock and she couldn’t concentrate on anything but trying to get hold of Adam. She still hadn’t heard a thing, and he wasn’t answering his phone.

She had lost count of how many times she had tried to call him.

*

Kristen Faber’s secretary decided to ring through an order just to be on the safe side. Laksen’s Delicatessen in Bjølsen was the best place for calves’ liver, and her husband set great store by a good liver casserole for Sunday lunch. It had to be calves’ liver, otherwise the flavour was too strong. They might still have dried stockfish, too, even if the season was over. Fish on Saturday and beef on Sunday, she thought contentedly. The phone rang just as she was about to pick it up. She grabbed it quickly and reeled off the usual formula: ‘Mr Faber’s office, how may I help you?’

‘Hello, sweetheart!’

‘Hello yourself,’ she said amiably. ‘I was just about to ring Laksen’s to order some stockfish and calves’ liver, so we can have a lovely weekend.’

‘Fantastic,’ her husband said on the other end of the phone. ‘I’m looking forward to it. Is Mr Faber there?’

‘Kristen? You want to speak to Kristen?’

She couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d suddenly appeared in front of her. Her husband had never set foot in the office, nor had he ever met Kristen Faber. The office was her domain. Since her husband’s sight began to deteriorate and he took early retirement, he had suggested a couple of times that he might take a stroll down to the city centre to see what she got up to during the day. Out of the question, she said. Home was home, work was work. Admittedly, she enjoyed telling him what she’d been doing, and they laughed together at the documents she sometimes took the liberty of showing him, but she didn’t want any link between her husband and her rude, self-righteous boss.

‘What for?’

‘Well, it’s … There’s something not quite right about that will you brought home yesterday.’

‘Not quite right? What do you mean by that?’

She had read it aloud to him last night. He could still read, but the tunnel vision meant that he asked her to read to him more and more often these days. It was quite nice, actually. After the evening news she would read him bits and pieces from the newspaper, with pauses for major and minor discussions on the day’s events.

‘There’s something …’

Kristen Faber burst in through the door leading to the lobby.

‘I need something to eat,’ he puffed. ‘The lunch break will be over in half an hour, and I’ve got to sort out some documents. A baguette or something, OK?’

The secretary nodded, keeping her hand over the mouthpiece.

‘I’ll nip out right away,’ she said.

As soon as his office door closed, she went back to her conversation.

‘There’s absolutely no need to speak to Kristen, darling.’

‘But I have to—’

‘Look, we’ll talk about this when I get home, all right? I’m up to my eyes in work today. We’ll have a chat this afternoon.’

She hung up without waiting for an answer.

As she pulled on her coat as quickly as possible, she felt a pang of guilt for once. Perhaps taking confidential papers home wasn’t entirely legal. She had never really looked at it that way; after all, she had unrestricted access to all the papers here, and her husband could almost be regarded as a part of her after all these years.

However, it probably wasn’t quite the right thing to do, she thought, picking up her bag before dashing off to Hansen’s bread shop. At any rate, she didn’t want any contact whatsoever between her husband and Kristen Faber.

Bjarne had a habit of letting his tongue run away with him.

*

‘Have you been running, sweetheart? You’re all sweaty!’

Johanne hugged her daughter, who flung her arms around her and didn’t want to let go.

‘All the way from Tåsensenteret,’ she said. ‘And I had a really good week at Dad’s. Did you manage OK without me?’

‘I did,’ nodded Johanne, kissing the top of her head. ‘And how are you?’

The last remark was directed at Isak. He had put Kristiane’s bag down on the hall floor and was standing with his hands in his pockets. He looked tired. His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, and he looked as if he couldn’t decide whether to stay around or leave straight away.

‘Not too bad,’ he said hesitantly.

‘Do you want to come in for a while?’

‘Thanks, but …’

He took his hands out of his pockets and gave Kristiane a hug. ‘Could you pop up and see Ragnhild, chicken? I just want a word with Mum. Love you. Thanks for coming.’

Kristiane smiled, picked up her bag and dragged it up the steep staircase.

‘I’m going out on the mountains at the weekend,’ said Isak. ‘Is it OK if I hang on to Jack?’

‘Of course.’

The yellow mongrel sat down on the steps and shook his head.

‘What is it?’ asked Johanne. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘No, but …’

He took a deep breath and started again.

‘I really don’t want to worry you, but …’

Johanne took his hand. It was ice cold.

‘Is it something to do with Kristiane?’ she asked sharply.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Well … not really. She’s had a really good time. It’s just that …’

He shifted his body weight from his right to his left foot, and leaned against the opposite side of the door frame.

‘It’s so cold with the door open,’ Johanne said. ‘Come inside. Stay there, Jack. Stay.’

Both the dog and Isak did as they were told. He leaned against the wall, and Johanne sat down on the stairs opposite him.

‘What is it?’ she said anxiously. ‘Tell me.’

‘I think …’

He broke off again.

‘Tell me,’ Johanne whispered.

‘I’ve had a strange feeling that somebody is watching me. Or rather … that someone is watching …’

He looked like a little boy, standing there. His jacket was too big for him and he couldn’t stand still. His gaze flickered here and there before he looked her in the eye. She was just waiting for him to start scraping one foot on the floor.

‘You’re not going anywhere,’ she said calmly, getting up.

He took his hands out of his pockets again and spread them helplessly.

‘I can’t really explain it,’ he said in a subdued voice. ‘It’s so kind of—’

‘You’re staying here,’ she said, letting Jack in and locking the door.

She pushed the handle to double-check that the lock had clicked into place.

‘You need to speak to Adam.’

‘Johanne,’ he said, reaching out to grab her arm. ‘Does that mean I’m right? Do you know something that—?’

‘It means exactly what I say,’ she said, without trying to free herself from his grasp. ‘You need to tell Adam about this, because he wouldn’t believe me.’

He let go, and she turned and led the way up the stairs.

Not that I’ve ever given him the chance, she thought, and decided to try calling him for the sixth time in three hours.

He was probably furious.

She was so frightened she was having difficulty walking in a straight line.

*

The man in the dark-coloured hire car had had no difficulty finding his way. It was actually just a matter of following the same road all the way from Oslo to Malmö, then taking a right turn across the sound to Denmark.

Even though it got dark at such an ungodly hour in this country, and in spite of the fact that the snow had been coming down thick and fast ever since Christmas, it was easy to maintain a good speed. Not too fast, of course; a couple of kilometres over the speed limit aroused the least suspicion. The traffic had been heavy coming out of Oslo, even at three o’clock, but as soon as he had travelled a few kilometres along the E6, it eased off. The map showed that he was essentially following the coastline, so he assumed that Friday afternoons brought traffic chaos on this particular road in the spring and summer. Evidently, the sea wasn’t quite so appealing at minus eight and in a howling gale.

He was approaching Svinesund, and the time was ten to five.

He would drive to Copenhagen and leave the car with Avis on Kampmannsgade. Then he would walk a few blocks before asking a taxi driver to take him to a decent hotel on the outskirts of the city centre. He was too late to catch the last flight to London anyway. He had got rid of the dark clothes. It had taken him more than two hours to cut them into strips, which he divided into small piles and stuffed in the pockets of the capacious red anorak. It made him look fatter, which was good. In the space of just over an hour he had got rid of a bundle here and a bundle there in the public rubbish bins he passed on his stroll through Oslo.

He had had to leave at short notice.

He didn’t speak much Norwegian, just enough to send simple text messages. However, a passing glance at the newspaper stand next to the small reception desk this morning had made him realize there was no time to lose. Not that he rushed anything, but the instructions were clear.

No doubt the others were also on their way out of the country. He didn’t know how they were travelling, but purely to pass the time in the evenings he had come up with a number of alternative routes. Only in his head, of course; there wasn’t a single scrap of paper with his handwriting on it in Norway. Apart from the distorted signatures when he had used the Visa cards, which were actually genuine but issued under false names. The cold weather in Norway had been a blessing. He had made sure he signed only when he was wearing his outdoor clothes, so that it didn’t seem odd when he kept the tight pigskin gloves on.

For example, the individual or individuals who had been in Bergen should drive to Stavanger, in his opinion, and fly from there directly to Amsterdam. But it wasn’t his business to speculate on the travel plans of others, any more than it was his business to know who they were.

He operated alone, but knew he was not alone.

He was trained to lay a false trail and hide his own. He avoided surveillance cameras as far as possible. On the odd occasion when he had no choice but to pass through an area covered by cameras, he made a point of altering his gait, pushing his lips out slightly, flaring his nostrils. And looking down.

In addition, his appearance was perfectly ordinary.

It was as if he had never been in Norway.

The Svinesund Bridge lay ahead of him. There was no barrier, no checkpoint. There was a customs post on the other side of the road where a truck was just being checked over, but no one asked him for any documentation. When he passed the imaginary line separating Norway and Sweden in the middle of the high bridge, he couldn’t help smiling.

Naive Scandinavians. Stupid, naive Europeans. One reason why he had been allocated this task was because he had studied Scandinavian languages during his military training, but he had never actually been here before. Nor was he tempted to make a return visit.

He drove on for about fifteen minutes, then turned off at a suitable point. The road was narrow with very little traffic, and it wasn’t long before he spotted a small forest track leading off to the right. Slowly, he drove a hundred metres or so in among the fir trees, then stopped and switched off the engine. The snow was deep in spite of the dense forest, and only the day-old tyre tracks left by a tractor made it possible for him to drive here.

He got out of the car.

It was cold, but there was barely a breath of wind.

He drank in the clear, pure air and smiled. When he looked up he could see stars, and part of the waning moon between two gently swaying treetops.

He closed his eyes and leaned his upper arms on the car roof, then rested his head on his joined hands.

‘Dear Lord,’ he whispered, ‘thank you for all your blessings.’

The familiar warmth rose in his body like a feeling of intoxication as he whispered his prayer.

‘Thank you for giving me the strength to follow your word, dear Lord. Thank you for giving me the energy and courage to fulfil your commands. Thank you for allowing me to be a tool in the battle against the darkness of Satan. Thank you for giving me the ability to distinguish right from wrong, good from evil, true from false. Thank you for punishing me when I deserve it, and for rewarding me when I have earned it. Thank you for …’

He hesitated, then clasped his hands even more tightly and closed his eyes once more, his words sincere.

‘Thank you for allowing me to spare that beautiful young girl, that innocent angel. Thank you, O Lord, for enabling me to recognize the presence of Jesus. For everything is yours, and purity is the goal. Amen.’

Slowly he turned his face up to the sky. The strength that poured through him made him shudder; it was almost as if he had become weightless. A bird took off from a snow-laden branch hanging over the track, screeching eerily as it disappeared into the dark sky. The man stretched, breathed in the fresh smell of cold and fir needles, and fished a small red clover leaf in enamelled metal out of his pocket. He pushed his hands in a pair of gloves he had found in the underground station at the National Theatre, and rubbed the emblem thoroughly before drawing back his arm and hurling it in among the trees. As he got back in the car he felt happy.

He had to reverse the hundred metres back to the main road, but it wasn’t a problem. Fifteen minutes later he was back on the E6, heading towards Gothenburg. In two days he would be back in the States, and there wouldn’t be a single clue that he had ever been in Norway.

He was absolutely sure of that.

*

‘This is the best clue we have.’

Adam leaned back on the sofa and held the picture of Kristiane’s saviour up in front of him.

‘But that’s worth having.’

Johanne shuffled closer to him. He smelled of a long working day, and she pressed her nose against his arm and inhaled deeply.

‘Thank you for not being so cross any more,’ she mumbled.

He didn’t reply.

‘Or are you?’ She smiled and looked up at him.

‘No, no. I suppose I’m just … disappointed. Mostly disappointed.’

‘Now you sound as if you’re telling a child off.’

‘I expect that’s what I am doing, in a way.’

She sat up abruptly.

‘OK, Adam, that’s enough! I’ve said I’m sorry. I should have come to you first. It’s just that you … you’re so bloody … sceptical all the time! I knew you’d have doubts about my entire theory and I—’

‘Stop,’ he interrupted, waving his hand vehemently. ‘What’s done is done.’

‘And in any case, contacting Silje Sørensen turned out to be a lucky break.’

She forced an encouraging smile in the hope of evoking a smile in return.

It didn’t happen. Adam scratched his scalp with both hands and sighed wearily. Then he picked up the picture of the bald man in the dark clothes once again.

He examined it for a long time, then suddenly said: ‘You know, I have a good relationship with Isak. I’m perfectly happy for him to be here. However, I can’t accept the fact that you’re using him as a shield to protect yourself from me, that he’s sitting here waiting when I get home after working in another city for several days, when we haven’t spoken to one another for more than thirty hours, and we have a great deal that is … unresolved, to put it mildly. It must never, ever happen again.’

‘But you wouldn’t have believed me! I’ve had this horrible feeling ever since 19 December, and I haven’t dared say anything, either to you or to Isak! The conversation I had with Kristiane last Monday when I realized she was a key witness was so vague, with so little in terms of … concrete information that I … When Isak told me he also had the feeling that … You wouldn’t have believed me, Adam!’

‘It isn’t a question of believing or not believing, Johanne. Of course I have no problem believing that you – and subsequently Isak – had a feeling someone was watching Kristiane. Or that you believe she saw something significant with regard to the person or persons who murdered Marianne Kleive. But just because you have that kind of feeling, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s actually happened. Particularly when neither of you can come up with anything more concrete than “a feeling”.’

He was sitting up straight and drew quotation marks with his fingers on her cheeks.

‘The file was missing, and the man by the—’

‘The file is back, you said so yourself. It was just carelessness.’

‘But—’

‘OK, let’s just drop this, shall we? I’ve asked a patrol car to drive past a couple of times a day, just to be on the safe side. Beyond that, there’s not much we can do if you don’t want us to subject Kristiane to a formal interview, with the stress that would mean for her. So can we forget it? At least for the moment. Please?’

His hand grasped the wine glass.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I can’t do that. I realize you’re hurt. I realize I should have come to you with all this right from the start. But listen, Adam, I’ve been thinking about—’

‘No,’ he broke in harshly. ‘Listen to me! If Kristiane really did witness something to do with the murder of Marianne Kleive, then why the hell didn’t they just kill her?’

His last few words were so loud that they both gave a start, then instinctively sat still as they listened for signs that Kristiane might have woken up. The only thing they could hear was the sound of Mamma Mia on DVD coming from the apartment below. For the tenth time since Christmas – or so it seemed to Johanne.

‘Because they believe,’ she said. ‘Because they believe in God.’

‘What?’

‘Or Allah.’

‘Because they believe – so what?’

He seemed more interested now. Or perhaps just confused.

‘Because they believe, they don’t kill blindly,’ Johanne said. ‘They believe with a sincerity which is probably alien to most people. They’re fanatical, but they have a deep faith. Taking the lives of adults who in their view are sinners who must be punished with death in accordance with a God-given imperative is something completely different from killing an innocent child.’

She spoke very slowly, as if these thoughts were new to her, and she therefore had to choose her words with the greatest care.

Adam’s expression was no longer so dismissive when he asked: ‘But these people, these groups, are they really … are they really religious? Aren’t they just lost souls using God and Allah as some kind of … pretext?’

‘No,’ said Johanne, shaking her head. ‘Never underestimate the power of faith. And in some ways my theory is made more credible because …’

She lifted her feet on to the sofa and grabbed hold of one of them, as if she were cold.

‘… because Kristiane did actually see something. The man who murdered Marianne Kleive presumably realized straight away that Kristiane isn’t like everyone else. If the man who saved her from the tram really is the murderer, at least that incident proved to him that she’s … different. And if there’s one thing that’s more striking about my daughter than anything else, it’s …’

The tears almost spilled over as she looked at Adam.

‘Her innocence,’ she said. ‘She is innocence personified. One of God’s little angels.’

‘The lady helped me,’ Kristiane said quietly from the doorway.

Adam stiffened. Johanne turned her head slowly and looked at her daughter.

‘Did she?’ she whispered.

‘Albertine was asleep,’ said Kristiane. ‘And I wanted to find you, Mum.’

Adam hardly dared breathe.

‘I had to hide from all the people, because I didn’t want to go to bed without you. And then suddenly I came to a door that was open. There were some stairs. I went down the stairs, because I thought you might have been there, and at least there was nobody else around. It was so quiet when I got to the bottom. It was really a cellar, and it wasn’t at all posh. And then the lady was standing at the top of the stairs. “Hello,” said the lady.’

Kristiane was wearing new pyjamas. They were too big and the sleeves came down over her hands. She started tugging at them.

‘I think I’d better go to sleep,’ she said.

‘What did you do when the lady said hello?’ Johanne asked with a smile.

‘I think I’d better go to sleep. Dam-di-rum-ram.’

‘Come over here and be my little girl.’ Adam turned to her at last and gave her a little wave.

‘I’m Daddy’s girl,’ she said. ‘And actually, I’m not a girl any more. I’m a young woman. That’s what Daddy says.’

‘You can be my girl and Daddy’s girl,’ Adam said with a laugh. ‘You always will be. However old you are. Haven’t you heard Grandpa calling Mum his little girl?’

‘Grandpa calls all women his little girl. It’s one of his bad habits. That’s what Granny says.’

‘Come here,’ Johanne whispered. ‘Come to Mum.’

Kristiane walked hesitantly across the floor.

‘She called to me,’ she said, settling down on the sofa between them. ‘She didn’t know my name, because of course she didn’t know me. She just called out “Come here” and then she smiled.’

‘And what happened next?’ said Johanne.

‘Adam,’ Kristiane said in a serious tone of voice. ‘You must weigh …’

She thought quickly.

‘About 230 per cent more than me.’

‘I think that’s exactly what I weigh,’ replied Adam, with an embarrassed glance in Johanne’s direction. ‘But I kind of wanted to keep that as my little secret.’

‘I weigh thirty-one kilos, Mum. So you can work it out.’

‘I’d rather hear what happened, sweetheart.’

‘The lady called me and I went back up the stairs. She had really warm hands. But I’d lost one of my slippers.’

‘Slippers?’ said Adam. ‘I thought you weren’t wearing any—’

‘Did the lady go back to fetch it?’ Johanne quickly interrupted.

‘Yes.’

‘And where were you in the meantime?’

‘Dam-di-rum-ram. Where’s Sulamit?’

‘Sulamit died, sweetheart. You know that.’

‘The lady was dead, too. Dam-di-rum-ram.’

Adam held her close, resting his cheek on the top of her head.

‘I’m so sorry I ran over Sulamit,’ he whispered. ‘But it was a long time ago.’

‘Dam-di-rum-ram.’

She had drawn her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs as she slowly rocked from side to side. She bumped into Johanne, paused for a moment, bumped into Adam. Over and over again.

‘Let’s get you to bed,’ Johanne said eventually.

‘Dam-di-rum-ram.’

‘Off we go.’

She got up and took her daughter’s hand. Kristiane happily went with her. Adam reached out to her, but she didn’t see him. He sat there listening to Johanne’s patient small talk and Kristiane’s strange chatter.

It struck him that realizing Johanne was right was almost worse than the fact that Kristiane had witnessed something traumatic. Overcome with fatigue, he sank back against the cushions.

He had believed what Johanne told him, but not what she thought it implied. Once upon a time he had cynically drawn her to him precisely because of her judgement. Because he needed it. He had drawn her into an investigation she really didn’t want to get involved in by forcing her to imagine every parent’s nightmare. Children were being kidnapped and murdered, and he was completely at a loss. It was Johanne’s unique experiences with the FBI and her sharp eye for human behaviour that solved the case and saved a little girl’s life. He had fallen in love with Johanne for many reasons, but whenever he thought back to the time after the dramatic search for the missing child, it was Johanne’s ability to combine intellect and intuition, rationality and emotion that had attracted him with a power he had never experienced before.

Johanne was the perfect blend of sense and sensibility.

But this time – so many difficult years later – he just hadn’t believed in her.

The feeling of shame made him close his eyes.

‘Now do you believe me?’

Her tone wasn’t aggressive. It wasn’t even reproachful. On the contrary, she sounded relieved. It made him feel even smaller.

‘I believed you all along,’ he mumbled. ‘I just thought that—’

‘Let’s forget it,’ said Johanne, sitting down beside him. ‘What do we do now?’

‘I don’t know. I have no idea. The best thing might be to wait. She talked to you on Monday, and to us just now. We should probably wait until she decides to tell us more.’

‘There’s no guarantee she ever will.’

‘No. But do you want to put her through an interview?’

She placed one hand on his thigh and picked up his wine glass with the other.

‘Not yet. Not unless it becomes absolutely necessary.’

‘Then we’re agreed.’

She felt a wave of tenderness for him that was unusual these days, a deep gratitude for the fact that his immediate instinct was to protect his stepdaughter, even though she might have vital information in an ongoing murder enquiry.

‘Thank you,’ she said simply.

‘Why are they here?’ Adam said, so quietly that she almost didn’t hear.

‘What?’

‘Why are they here?’ he repeated. ‘The 25’ers. Here. In Norway.’

She swirled the wine around the glass. The beat of Money, Money, Money thumped up through the floor from down below. For a moment she considered thumping back. If Kristiane didn’t fall asleep properly now, it was going to be a long night.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But of course, they could be in other places as well.’

‘No.’

He took the glass from her and had a sip.

‘Interpol has no information on similar cases anywhere else in Europe. In the US, however, the FBI is working on a case where—’

‘Six gay men have been murdered and it turns out there’s a connection between all of them,’ she finished off for him. ‘And that particular case is a hard nut to crack.’

He laughed.

‘Do you know everything that’s going on in that bloody country?’

‘America is not a bloody country. It’s a wonderful, wonderful country, the USA.’

His laughter grew louder, positively hearty. He pulled her close. She was smiling, too. It was a long time since she’d heard him laugh like that.

‘It could be just a coincidence, of course,’ she said.

When he didn’t reply, she added: ‘But I don’t believe that for a second.’

‘Why not?’ Adam asked. ‘If they’ve decided to … export their hatred, I suppose we’re as good a country to start in as any. In fact, if you think about it …’

He tried to get more comfortable.

‘… perhaps we’re better than any other country. We’ve got the most liberal laws in the world when it comes to gay rights, we’ve got—’

‘Along with several other countries,’ she broke in. ‘And a number of states in the US. So they’ve got no real reason to come here, in fact. I just don’t believe …’

Adam was shifting about so much that she sat up and undid his belt.

‘I love you however much you weigh,’ she said. ‘But it does look a little bit ridiculous when you start literally tightening your belt. Couldn’t you perhaps buy yourself some bigger clothes, sweetheart?’

She could have sworn he was blushing. But he left the belt hanging open.

‘I think they’re here for a very definite reason,’ she said.

‘Which is?’

‘If only we knew. But there’s something.’

‘Shit,’ said Adam, lumbering to his feet.

‘What are you going to do?’

He mumbled something she didn’t catch and headed towards the hallway. She could hear Super Trouper coming from below, and realized she was humming along. In order to get the enervating melody out of her head, she picked up a pen from the coffee table and took a newspaper out of the basket on the floor. She jotted down a few notes in the margin of the front page of Aftenposten. When she had finished she sat there brooding so intently that she didn’t even notice Adam until he flopped down beside her. He was wearing generous pyjama bottoms and a big American football shirt.

‘Look at this,’ she said, tapping the paper with her pen.

‘I can’t make head or tail of it,’ he said, wrinkling his nose at her incomprehensible scrawl.

‘The methods,’ she said succinctly.

‘Yes?’

‘Sophie Eklund was killed after someone sabotaged her car. So there was an attempt to cover up a murder.’

‘Yes …’

‘Niclas Winter was written off as the victim of an overdose. Which he was – to be fair – but all the indications are that he was killed with curacit. In other words, another attempt to cover up a murder.’

‘How do you actually inject curacit into an adult, relatively healthy man?’ Adam muttered, still trying to decipher what she had written down. ‘I would have fought like the devil.’

‘The first thing that occurs to me is that he might have been fooled into thinking it was something else. Heroin, for example.’

‘Yes …’

‘Or he was taken by surprise. Curacit works incredibly fast. If you inject into the mouth where there are a lot of blood vessels, it’s only a matter of seconds before the effect kicks in.’

‘Into the mouth? But you can’t force someone to open wide so you can inject a little curacit, surely?’

‘I’m afraid we’ll never know the answer to that. He’s been cremated. But listen to me, Adam. Pay attention. The point is there was an attempt to cover up the next two murders, exactly like the ones I’ve just mentioned.’

She chewed her pen.

‘Runar Hansen, poor soul – nobody really bothered too much about him. Drug addicts who get beaten up and die as a result of their injuries don’t attract much attention these days. And as far as Hawre Ghani is concerned, he was thrown in the water and was virtually unrecognizable by the time they pulled him out. To be perfectly honest, I think his case would have ended up well down the pile at police headquarters if Silje Sørensen hadn’t … felt something for the boy.’

‘Where are you going with this, Johanne?’

‘I want my own wine. Can’t you go and get me a glass?’

He got up without a word.

Johanne stared at her scribbles. Six murders. Two covered up, two almost ignored, simply because the victims were right at the bottom of the scale of humanity in every way. She suddenly drew a thick ring around the last two names.

‘There you go,’ said Adam, handing her a half-full glass. ‘Not exactly the usual Friday night. Apart from the wine, I mean.’

‘What we can almost definitely say,’ said Johanne, taking the glass without looking up, ‘is that something unforeseen happened when Marianne Kleive was murdered. The killer was surprised by Kristiane. In other words, we can’t actually be certain whether this murder would also have been covered up. As an accident. An illness. Something. To make sure the alarm wasn’t sounded straight away, the murderer sent text messages from her mobile. That gave him a whole week.’

‘Does this just mean they don’t want to get caught, that they just want to buy themselves time, or that they want—?’

‘But let’s look at the Bishop,’ said Johanne, suddenly realizing that the page she was writing on had a picture of Eva Karin in the right-hand column.

She turned the old paper ninety degrees and drew a square around the small portrait on the front page.

‘There was no attempt to disguise this murder,’ she said, mostly to herself.

Adam was sensible enough to keep quiet.

‘Quite the reverse,’ she went on. ‘Stabbed out in the street. True, it happened on the only day of the year when you can be fairly sure nobody is out and about, but still … The intention was that she should be found quickly. The intention was that the murder of …’

She held her breath for so long that Adam wondered if something was wrong.

‘Of course!’ she said suddenly in a loud voice, turning to look at Adam. ‘Let’s assume that my theory is correct. The other murders are perceived as something else. The objective was quite simply …’

She stared at him as if she had only just noticed that he was sitting there.

‘… that they should die,’ she said in surprise. ‘The only objective was that they should die! Death itself was the goal!’

Adam thought it was fairly obvious that a person was murdered because someone wanted them dead, but he kept quiet.

‘They’re sinners,’ said Johanne, waxing almost enthusiastic. ‘And they must be punished for their sins! It doesn’t matter to The 25’ers whether the rest of us can see a link, or whether we even realize a crime lies behind their deaths. The most important thing is that they must die, and then that the murderers – God’s instruments, so to speak – are not subject to our worldly legislation.’

‘Yes,’ Adam ventured tentatively.

‘Only one of these victims is known to the public,’ Johanne went on. ‘Eva Karin Lysgaard. And she was the only one who was murdered in a way that positively cries out for attention. Why would that be, Adam?’

She knelt on the sofa and turned towards him. Her face was glowing. Her eyes were shining, her mouth half-open. She took his hand and squeezed it so hard it almost hurt.

‘Why, Adam?’

‘Because,’ he said. ‘Because …’

‘Because they want us to start digging into her life! The investigation into the murder of Eva Karin Lysgaard is an investigation they wanted to happen, Adam! The whole point was for us to turn her life upside down, just as all murder victims have their lives turned inside out in the hope that something will turn up!’

‘In the hope that something will turn up,’ he repeated quietly. ‘Hang on a minute.’

Johanne followed him with her eyes as he padded into the hallway. She was out of breath, and her palms prickled when he came back and handed her a photograph before sitting down again.

‘Who’s this?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know who she is,’ he said. ‘But this is a copy of a photograph that went astray.’

He told her about the room that had been Eva Karin’s sanctuary at night. About the photograph that had been there the day after the murder, but had disappeared when he went back a couple of days later. When he got to the part about Lukas scrambling across the roof in the January rain, he started to laugh. At the end he took back the photograph and laid it on his knee.

‘Lukas thought she might be his sister,’ he said. ‘But you can tell from both the quality of the picture and the clothes she’s wearing that it’s hardly likely it was taken around 1980. And her hairstyle isn’t exactly typical of the eighties either.’

‘So what do you think?’ said Johanne, without taking her eyes off the photograph.

‘I’ve been wondering whether she might be an unknown aunt rather than sister to Lukas. Eva Karin’s illegitimate sister. That would explain the fact that she looks a bit like Lukas.’

‘Does she? I think she looks like Lill Lindfors.’

Adam grinned. ‘You’re not the only one. Anyway, it won’t be long until we know who she is. Both the Bergen police and NCIS are working on it. If this woman is still alive, we’ll know who she is in a few days. If not sooner.’

‘And where will that lead?’

‘What? Finding out who she is?’

‘Yes. How can you be sure she’s got something to do with the case?’

‘I suppose I can’t be sure,’ Adam said hesitantly. ‘But you have to admit it’s weird that Erik Lysgaard put it away as soon as he had the chance.’

‘Have you asked him about it?’

‘No … It gives me the upper hand if he doesn’t even know I’ve discovered the photograph, and I want to keep it that way.’

In the apartment below the film had reached Knowing Me, Knowing You. The neighbours had turned down the volume at last, but the bass still vibrated through the floor. Johanne took back the photograph.

‘What an exciting face,’ she murmured. ‘Strong, somehow.’

Adam leaned forward and grabbed a handful of crisps. So far he’d managed to resist temptation.

‘Can you move those out of the way, please,’ he mumbled as he crunched away. ‘Crisps are the work of the devil.’

Instead of doing as he asked, she got up and started to walk around the room with the photograph in her hand.

‘Adam,’ she said expressionlessly, almost absent-mindedly. ‘Eva Karin’s murder is different from the others in terms of the method. What else distinguishes this case from the rest?’

‘I … I don’t really know.’

‘There’s reason to believe that all the other victims were gay. Or at any rate that they had a direct link to homosexual or lesbian activities.’

Adam stopped chewing. The crisps suddenly felt like an unappetizing, sticky calorie bomb in his mouth. He picked up a used serviette from the table, spat the revolting, yellowish-brown mass into it and tried to screw it up. A little bit fell on the floor, and he bent down sheepishly to retrieve it.

Johanne took no notice whatsoever. She had stopped by the window. She stood with her back to him for a long time before turning around and pointing at the photograph.

‘Eva Karin is the only heterosexual,’ she said. ‘At least, she’s the only one who is apparently heterosexual.’

‘What do you mean by … ? What do you mean by “apparently”?’

‘This,’ said Johanne, holding the photograph up to face him. ‘This is neither Lukas’s nor Eva Karin’s sister. This is the Bishop’s lover.’

There was complete silence in the building. The film must have finished in the apartment below. The wind had dropped. The floor-boards didn’t even creak as she walked back to the sofa and carefully – as if she didn’t want to lose a complex chain of thought – sat down beside him.

‘It’s not possible,’ Adam said eventually. ‘We haven’t heard a single rumour. That kind of thing leads to gossip, Johanne. People talk about that kind of thing. It’s not possible for …’

He grabbed the photograph, a little more roughly than he had intended.

‘In that case, why does she look so much like Lukas?’

‘Pure coincidence. Besides which, both you and no doubt Lukas have studied this photograph so intently to try and find a clue that even the slightest resemblance would strike you. It happens. People look like one another sometimes. For example, you look a lot like—’

‘But if it hasn’t occurred to us that Eva Karin might have been living a double life, then how could The 25’ers know about it? If you’re right about this completely absurd … If you’re right about …’

He swallowed and ran his fingers through his hair in an uncertain, resigned gesture.

‘Nobody knew about it! How can The 25’ers have known about a … a lesbian lover …’

He spat out the words as if they had a bitter taste.

‘… when nobody else knew?’

‘Somebody knew. One person knew.’

‘Who?’

‘Erik Lysgaard. Her husband. He must have known. You don’t live together for forty years without knowing that sort of thing. They must have had … some kind of agreement.’

‘And then he would have … told … he would have … if he had any idea that …’

It almost seemed as if the big man was about to burst into tears. Johanne still hadn’t noticed a thing.

‘He must have told someone,’ she said. ‘Not The 25’ers, obviously, but someone close to them. That’s why they wanted this case investigated, Adam. They wanted us to discover Eva Karin’s … sin. And that’s what we’ve just done.’

Adam put his hands to his face. His breath was coming in short gasps. Johanne had never noticed it before, but his wedding ring was digging so deep into his finger that he probably wouldn’t be able to get it off.

‘You have to find this woman,’ she whispered, moving so close to him that her lips brushed his ear. ‘And then you have to get Erik to tell you the name of the person to whom he revealed this great secret.’

‘The first part will be easy,’ he said from behind his hands, his voice muffled. ‘I think the second part will be impossible.’

‘But you have to try,’ said Johanne. ‘At least you have to make an attempt to talk to Erik Lysgaard.’

*

The Bishop’s widower was sitting in his usual old armchair staring blankly out into the living room, which was almost in darkness. Only a lamp next to the TV and a candle on the coffee table cast a soft, yellow glow over the room. Lukas was sitting in his mother’s armchair. It was as if he could feel the warmth of her on his back, the contours of the mother he missed with an intensity he couldn’t possibly have imagined before she died.

‘So at least we know the reason,’ he said quietly. ‘Mum died because she took a stand. She died for her generosity, Dad. For her faith in Jesus.’

Erik still didn’t answer. He had barely said a word since his son had arrived three hours ago, and he had refused to eat any of the food Lukas had brought with him. A cup of tea was all he had managed to get down, and that had taken some persuasion.

He had, however, agreed to read the newspaper. In a way that was a sign of life, Lukas thought.

‘Why hasn’t anybody contacted me?’ his father said, so unexpectedly that Lukas spilt a little of his own tea. ‘I don’t think I should have to read about this in the paper.’

‘They rang me. I had Inspector Stubo on the phone this morning, from Flesland. He had to go back to Oslo, and I didn’t think it was a good idea for them to send somebody else to talk to you. You’ve kind of … got used to him. I knew you wouldn’t be listening to the radio or watching TV, and you don’t answer the phone either, so I thought it was best if I came myself. I came as soon as I could, Dad.’

Erik gave him a long, lingering look. His eyes were red-rimmed, and from the corners of his mouth a deep, dark furrow ran down either side of his chin. His nose was narrower now, and seemed bigger. In the flickering candlelight he looked half-dead.

‘You don’t sound very well,’ he said. ‘You sound as if you’ve got a cold.’

‘Yes.’ Lukas smiled wearily. ‘I’m not on top form. But it’s good to know this, Dad. To know there was a particular reason why she was murdered. We should be proud of the fact that she …’

His father gasped. Snorted, snivelled audibly and covered his eyes with the back of his hand.

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he said in a loud voice.

‘But Dad, things will be easier now. Stubo thinks this is a major breakthrough, and they’re almost bound to clear up the case. It’ll be easier for both of us to move on when we know what—’

‘Did you hear me? Did you hear what I said?’

His father was trying to shout, but his voice wouldn’t hold.

‘I don’t want to talk about this! Not now. Not ever!’

Lukas took a deep breath and was about to say something, but changed his mind. There was nothing more to say.

Sooner or later his father would reach a turning point in his grief. Lukas was sure of it. Just as he himself had felt a strange sense of relief when Stubo rang while they were getting William dressed, in time his father would also find comfort in the knowledge that Eva Karin had died for something she believed in.

There was no longer any point in going on at his father about the photograph.

When Astrid told him late last night that she had given the photograph to Adam Stubo, he had yelled, ranted and sworn at her. In the middle of his outburst he had hurled a glass vase on to the kitchen floor. It exploded into a thousand pieces, and only when he saw her terrified expression and realized she was afraid he was going to attack her did he manage to calm down.

It didn’t matter so much any more.

His mother’s murder would be cleared up, and it evidently had nothing to do with a missing sister. Adam Stubo had promised him over the phone that the photo would be returned as soon as they had made copies, and had said it was probably less central to the murder than he had first thought. The body would be released and the funeral could take place in just five days.

That would help all of them.

His father, too, he thought. It was more important for his father than for any of them to be able to draw a line under this before too much longer.

When all this was over, Lukas could look for his sister in peace. Whatever Astrid thought. At any rate, there was no need to bother his father about why the photograph had been moved from his mother’s room and hidden in the attic.

He still had a sore throat. The tea tasted bitter, and he put down the cup.

His father was asleep. At least it looked that way: his eyes were closed, and his scrawny chest was moving up and down with a slow, even rhythm.

Lukas decided to stay. He closed his eyes, pulled his mother’s old tartan blanket over him and fell asleep.