Long Day’s Journey into Night
When the telephone rang it was as if someone were tugging at him. Adam grunted, turned over and tried to get whoever was holding his calf to let go. He kicked out at thin air, pulled the covers over him and groaned again. The sound of the mobile grew louder, and Johanne put the pillow over her head.
‘It’s yours,’ she said sleepily. ‘Answer the bloody thing. Or switch it off.’
Adam sat up abruptly and tried to work out where he was.
He fumbled around on the bedside table in confusion. His old mobile had turned out to be beyond repair, and he wasn’t used to the ringtone of the new one.
‘Hello,’ he mumbled, and noticed that the glowing numbers on the clock were showing 05:24.
‘Good morning, it’s Sigmund! Were you asleep? Have you read VG yet?’
‘Of course I haven’t read the bloody paper, it’s the middle of the night.’
‘Do you know what’s in it?’
‘Of course I don’t,’ Adam growled. ‘But I assume you’re intending to tell me.’
‘Go away,’ Johanne groaned.
Adam swung his legs around and rubbed his face with one hand to wake himself up.
‘Hang on,’ he said, pushing his feet into a pair of dark blue slippers.
Johanne and Adam had sat up until three. When they finally stopped discussing the case, they decided to wind down with an old episode of NYPD Blue. Detective series always made him sleepy.
Now he was practically unconscious.
He stumbled into the bathroom and the stream of urine splashed against the bowl of the toilet as he held the phone up to his ear and said: ‘Right, I’m listening now.’
‘Are you pissing? Are you pissing while you’re talking to me?’
‘What’s going on with VG?’
‘They’ve got every single bloody name. Of the victims.’
Adam closed his eyes and swore, silently and with feeling.
‘I can’t get my head round this at all,’ said Sigmund. ‘But all hell has broken loose here, as you can imagine! There are journalists everywhere, Adam! They’re calling me and everybody else non-stop, and—’
‘Nobody’s called me.’
‘They will!’
Adam shambled into the kitchen, trying not to make a noise as he picked up the kettle with one hand.
‘I realize we’re in deep shit when it comes to leaks,’ he said with a yawn. ‘But did you really have to wake me before half past five on a Saturday morning to tell me?’
‘That’s not the main reason why I’m calling. I’m calling because …’
The cafetière was full of coffee grounds. As he rinsed it out under the tap, the water made such a noise splashing against the glass that he couldn’t really hear what Sigmund was saying.
‘I didn’t quite get that,’ he muttered, the telephone clamped between his shoulder and ear. He pushed the measuring spoon down into the coffee tin.
‘We’ve found the woman in the photo,’ said Sigmund.
It was as if the very aroma of the coffee suddenly made Adam feel wide awake.
‘What did you say?’
‘The Bergen police have found the woman in your photograph. It probably doesn’t mean as much as you’d like to think, but you’ve been so keen to—’
‘How did they find her?’ Adam interrupted him. ‘In such a short time?’
‘Somebody who works there actually recognized her! Here we are with our databases and our international collaboration and Lord knows what else, and it’s actually the old methods that—’
‘Who knows about this?’ said Adam.
‘That we’ve found her, for fuck’s sake!’
‘A couple of people in Bergen, I presume. And me. And now you.’
‘Let’s keep it that way,’ Adam said decisively. ‘For God’s sake don’t let anybody at headquarters know! And nobody with NCIS either. Ring your man in Bergen and tell him to keep his mouth shut!’
‘It’s a woman, actually. You’ve got so many preconceptions that I—’
‘I couldn’t give a toss about that! I just don’t want this to end up in the paper, OK?’
The water was boiling; Adam measured out four spoonfuls of coffee, hesitated, then chucked in a fifth. He poured in the hot water and headed back towards the bathroom.
‘So who is she?’ he asked.
‘Her name is …’
Adam could hear papers rustling.
‘Martine Brække,’ said Sigmund. ‘Her name is Martine Brække, and she’s alive. Lives in Bergen.’
Adam stopped in the middle of the living room. The almost empty wine bottle from the previous night was still on the table. The newspaper with Johanne’s scribbles was lying on the floor, the bowl of crisps tipped over beside it.
‘How old is she?’ he asked, feeling his pulse rate increase.
‘I don’t know,’ said Sigmund. ‘Oh yes, there it is! Born in 1947, it says here. She lives in—’
‘Sixty-two this year. Johanne was right. Johanne might be bloody well right!’
‘About what?’
‘I have to go to Bergen,’ said Adam. ‘Are you coming?’
‘Now? Today?’
‘As soon as possible. Come and pick me up, Sigmund. Straight away. We have to go to Bergen.’
He rang off before Sigmund had time to reply.
Adam managed to shower, get dressed and drink a pitch-black cup of coffee without waking either Johanne or the children. When Sigmund’s car obediently drove along Hauges Vei and parked outside the apartment block half an hour later, Adam was waiting by the gate.
It was Saturday 17 January, and he was standing there with no luggage.
*
The man who had saved a girl from being hit by a tram on Stortingsgaten in Oslo twenty-nine days earlier was drinking expensive mineral water from a long-stemmed glass and wondering if his suitcase had made it on to the plane. He had been late arriving. Now he was sitting on board British Airways flight BA 0117 from Heathrow to JFK in New York, one of only three passengers in first class. The other two were already well into their third glass of champagne, but he politely refused when the flight attendant offered him more water.
He was enjoying the generous amount of space he had, and the calm atmosphere in the front section of the plane. The curtain separating them from the other passengers transformed the racket from behind into a low murmur, which combined with the even hum of the engines to make him sleepy.
On this final section of the journey home he was travelling under his own name. The high-level security measures within US air travel and border controls following 9/11 made entering the country under false papers a risky business. Since he hadn’t booked in advance, and everything but first class was sold out, he had had to pay out more than $7,000 for a single ticket to the United States. It couldn’t be helped. He was going home now. He had to go home, and he was travelling under his real name: Richard Anthony Forrester.
During the two months he had spent in Norway, he hadn’t called the United States once. The National Security Agency monitored all electronic traffic in and out of the country, and it was unnecessary to take such a risk. The instructions were clear from the start. If he needed to contact the organization for some unexpected reason, he could ring an emergency number in Switzerland. He hadn’t needed to.
However, during Richard A. Forrester’s stay in Norway, there had been a considerable amount of lively activity on his laptop. It was in Britain, being looked after by a short, stocky man with chalk-white teeth and a dark, close crewcut, who was visiting various rural communities presenting a new holiday offer from Forrester Travel. The company belonged to Richard. He had set it up two years after his wife and young son had been killed by a drunk driver, who had left the scene of the accident and killed himself in another crash four kilometres down the road.
As far as it was possible to check in practical terms, Richard A. Forrester had been in England since 15 November. It was only a safety measure, of course; no one would ever ask.
He lowered the back of his seat and covered himself with the soft blanket. It was only nine o’clock in the morning, but he hadn’t slept much the previous night. It felt good to close his eyes.
When Susan and little Anthony died, his life had ended.
He had tried to follow them to heaven in a suicide attempt. It achieved nothing, apart from the fact that he could no longer count himself a US Marine. They had no use for suicidal soldiers, and Richard had to face the future without work as well as without his wife and child. All he had was a small pension, a suitcase full of clothes, and an insurance payout which he didn’t really want from the accident.
‘Can I get you anything else?’ asked the attractive flight attendant. She leaned across the empty seat beside him and smiled. ‘Coffee? Tea? Something to eat?’
He returned her smile and shook his head.
In the three months after the accident he had more or less become a tramp, usually drunk and constantly possessed by a blind, white-hot rage. One night he had quite rightly been thrown out of a bar in Dallas. He lay semi-conscious on the ground in some back street until a man appeared out of nowhere and offered him a meeting with God. Since Richard wasn’t due to meet anyone else, he allowed himself to be helped up and led to a little chapel just two blocks away.
He met the Lord that night, just as the stranger had promised.
Richard Forrester ran a hand over his hair. It was nice to let it grow again, but he still had only a few millimetres of stubble covering his scalp. He was blessed with thick hair with no sign of bald patches yet, and he always kept it short. However, when he shaved his head his appearance changed considerably.
He settled down more comfortably, turned off the light above his head and pulled down the blind.
The God he had met in Dallas that November night in 2002 was completely different from the one he knew from home. His parents were Methodists, as were most people in the neighbourhood of the small town where he grew up. As a child Richard had thought of his religion as a kind of social participation in a closed community more than as a personal relationship with God. There was a service every Sunday, and the odd church bazaar. There was the football team and the Mothers’ Union, barbecues and Christmas parties. Richard had mainly grown up with a pleasant God who made little impression on him.
When the stranger took Richard along to the chapel, he met the omnipotent God. He had a revelation that night. God came to him with a violence that made him think he was going to die at first, but eventually he passed into a state of peace and total surrender. That night in the chapel was Richard Forrester’s catharsis. By the time the new day dawned, he was reborn.
His life as a soldier for his country, as a married man and a father, was over.
His life as a soldier of God had begun.
He never touched alcohol again.
Richard Forrester listened to the low hum of the engines, and saw the pretty girl in his mind’s eye.
She had seen him. When the woman who was going to die went down into the cellar on her own, it provided him with a chance he just had to take. When the child appeared he was in despair for a moment, because of what he knew he must do.
Then he realized that this was a pure and honest child.
Just like Anthony, who had been born prematurely and with brain damage, which would have prevented him from ever maturing mentally. The girl was the same kind of child. Richard had understood that after just a few seconds.
He allowed her to run away, up the cellar steps.
In order to be completely sure, he had kept an eye on her. After he had saved her from being hit by the tram, it was easy to get one of the agitated observers dressed in his party clothes to tell him who she was. Richard had simply stood there on the opposite side of the street until the mother had carried the child inside. A man who was busy entertaining the constant stream of smokers with a dramatic eyewitness account had willingly given Richard the mother’s name when he said he wanted to send her some flowers. He had found the address on the Internet.
Unfortunately, the girl had prevented him from killing the woman in the way he had originally intended, camouflaged as an accident. But it wasn’t the child’s fault. Fortunately, he had had the presence of mind to search through the woman’s pockets and her bag; he had found the ticket to Australia and taken her mobile phone. Then he had gone into her room, collected her luggage and paid the bill. The chaos in reception suited him perfectly; he virtually disappeared among the crowd of partying guests and drunks. He had hidden her suitcase right at the back of an unlocked storeroom full of rubbish, underneath a big cardboard box that was so dusty it couldn’t have been touched for years. He had to prevent her disappearance from being discovered immediately, and by sending a couple of short, nondescript texts over the next few days he had bought himself a decent interval. Every minute that elapsed between the murder and the start of an investigation reduced the chances of the case being solved.
‘Can I get you a pillow?’ he suddenly heard the flight attendant whisper.
Without opening his eyes he shook his head almost imperceptibly.
The child’s mother had been hysterical. First of all she had slapped him across the face, once the girl was safe. In the period between Christmas and New Year he had once stood just a few hundred metres from the white building where the family lived. A man had come out of a neighbouring property and stopped by the fence to chat with the two girls playing in the garden. The mother was standing at the window, watching them. She was frightened out of her wits, and seemed beside herself when she came out to fetch them inside.
A bit like Susan, he thought, although he didn’t allow himself to think about Susan very often. She was always anxious about Anthony, too.
It wasn’t the first time he had noticed how the people he observed had a horrible feeling they were being watched. They never saw him, of course, just as the mother of the pretty girl hadn’t seen him when he followed her to school in his neutral hire car, where he finally found confirmation that the child was different. He was too well trained ever to be seen. But she sensed his presence. It had taken Richard a little while to identify the girl’s father, but he had become uneasy the very first time. Richard had wanted to find out if the child behaved differently away from her mother, and had observed them together on three separate occasions. The man started looking over his shoulder at an early stage.
The man who lived on a hill high above the city in a twisted caricature of a family had reacted in much the same way. Felt persecuted. His lover had been completely hysterical, rushing around photographing tyre tracks on the Monday almost two weeks ago. Richard had been standing at a safe distance, watching the whole thing. Two dark-skinned lads had driven up in a big BMW. Pakistanis, he guessed. Oslo was crawling with them. They obviously had something to sort out between themselves, because they had driven into the little pull-in outside the gate of the house where the so-called family lived and stayed there for a good while, gesticulating violently and smoking countless cigarettes before they drove off.
The sodomite had sensed Richard’s presence, but hadn’t seen him. Just like the others.
They didn’t see him and, come to think of it, they didn’t sense his presence either.
What they sensed was the presence of the Lord, Richard Forrester thought. And even if that perverted travesty of a father had escaped on this occasion, his time would come.
Richard Forrester smiled and fell asleep.
*
The house looked as if it was lying at rest on the steep hillside. The windows were small and divided into four panes. The wooden building was tucked in between two similar but larger houses, and was a modest dwelling. Almost shy. A narrow opening led into a little back garden. A lady’s bike was propped up against a stone wall, and a collection of brightly coloured ceramic pots had been piled up in one corner for the winter. Stone steps led up to a small green door, beside which hung a porcelain nameplate. The name, and the meadow flowers surrounding it, had faded to pale blue in the wind and rain and sunshine over the years.
M. Brække, it said in ornate letters.
Adam Stubo hesitated. He stood on the stone steps with his back to the simple, wrought-iron fence and tried to think the whole thing through one more time.
He was about to deprive this woman of a secret she had kept for almost half a century, as far as he could tell. By placing his finger on the brass bell below the nameplate he would intrude upon a life that had been difficult enough already. The woman who lived in the little white house had made her choice and lived her whole life in the shadow of another’s marriage.
The female employee at Bergen police station who had recognized the woman in the photograph had briefed him during the drive from Flesland. Martine Brække was a tutor at Bergen’s cathedral school, unmarried and childless. She lived a quiet life, cut off from most things, but she was a respected teacher and also gave private piano lessons. She had once been a promising concert pianist herself, but at the age of nineteen she had been struck by a form of rheumatism which put an end to the brilliant career she had envisaged.
Fragile, tentative music could suddenly be heard from somewhere inside. Adam shook his head and listened to the piece being played on the piano. He didn’t recognize it. It was light, dancing, and it made him think of the spring.
He lifted his hand and rang the doorbell.
The music stopped.
When the door opened, he recognized her at once. She was still beautiful, but her eyes were red-rimmed and the area around her mouth was puffy from crying.
‘My name is Adam Stubo,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘I’m a police officer. I’m afraid I need to talk to you about Eva Karin Lysgaard.’
The fear in her eyes made him glance to the side, as if he could still change his mind and leave.
‘I’m alone,’ he said. ‘As you can see, I’m completely alone.’ She let him in.
*
‘I really don’t want to hear any more about that will, thank you,’ Kristen Faber’s secretary said to her husband as she was making sandwiches for lunch. ‘It has absolutely nothing to do with you.’
Bjarne was sitting at the kitchen table with the photocopy in his hand, peering short-sightedly at the small writing.
‘But you have to understand,’ he said crossly, which was unusual for him, ‘that this could actually mean the man has been conned out of a considerable inheritance!’
‘Niclas Winter is dead. There are no heirs. That’s what it said in the paper. A dead man can’t be conned out of anything. Except life, of course.’
She snorted decisively and placed a generous portion of salmon on top of the mountain of scrambled eggs.
‘So that’s the end of that. Lunchtime!’
‘No, Vera, that’s not the end of anything!’
He banged his fist down on the table.
‘This could involve a crime! I mean, it says here …’
He slapped his other hand down on that day’s copy of VG, which was lying open at a double-page article about some terrible gang from America that had killed six people out of blind hatred for homosexuals and lesbians. Bjarne Isaksen was shocked. Admittedly, he wasn’t too keen on the sordid things that kind of person got up to, but there had to be limits. You couldn’t just go around killing people in the name of God just because you weren’t a fan of their love lives.
‘It says here that Niclas Winter was murdered!’
Vera turned to him, put her hands on her hips and cleared her throat, as if bracing herself for what she intended to say.
‘That will has nothing to do with Niclas Winter’s death. I’ve read the article to you three times now, and there is no mention of money, an inheritance or a will. Those lunatics from America have just been killing indiscriminately, Bjarne! They can’t possibly have known anything about a document that was lying in a dusty old cupboard in Kristen Faber’s office!’
She was getting more and more angry as she went on.
‘I’ve never heard anything so stupid in my entire life,’ she said crossly, turning back to the worktop.
‘I’m going to call the police,’ Bjarne said obstinately. ‘I can call them without saying who I am, then I can suggest they get in touch with Faber and ask him about a will with Niclas Winter as the beneficiary. They have those information lines, where you can ring up without saying who you are. That’s what I’m going to do, Vera. And I’m going to do it now.’
Vera groaned theatrically and ran her slender hand over her hair.
‘You are not going to call the police. If anyone in this house is going to speak to the police, it’s me. At least I can explain how I …’
Another nervous adjustment of her well-groomed coiffure.
‘… have legal access to the will,’ she concluded.
‘Go on, then, do it!’ Bjarne said agitatedly. ‘Ring them!’
She banged the butter knife down on the worktop and fixed him with the sternest look she could muster, but he wasn’t giving in. He stared back like a stubborn little boy, refusing to back down.
‘Right then,’ she said, and went to fetch the telephone.
*
‘That was Adam Stubo,’ Lukas said, slightly surprised. He put the phone down on the coffee table. ‘He’s on his way over.’
‘Why? I thought you said he’d gone back to Oslo.’
At least his father had started talking again. A little bit.
‘Evidently he came back today.’
‘Why did he phone?’
‘He wanted to speak to you. In person.’
‘To me? Why?’
‘I … I don’t know. But he said it was important. He said he’d tried to call you. Have you unplugged the landline?’
Lukas bent down and peered behind his father’s armchair.
‘You mustn’t do that. It’s important that people can get hold of you.’
‘I have a right to peace and quiet.’
Lukas didn’t reply. A vague sense of unease made him start wandering around the room. Only now did he notice that the house hadn’t been cleaned since before Christmas. Apart from the fact that the pile of newspapers by the television was about a metre high, the place was tidy. His father kept things in order, but nothing else. When Lukas ran his finger over the smooth surface of the sideboard, it left a shiny streak. The nativity crib was still on display. The bulb inside the big glass box was broken, and the once atmospheric tableau was reduced to a gloomy memory of a Christmas he just wanted to forget. As he walked quickly around the corner and went over to the sofa in the L-shaped living room, the dust bunnies swirled silently across the floor. He stopped just outside his father’s field of vision and sniffed the air.
It smelled of old man. Old house. Not exactly unpleasant, but stuffy and stale.
Lukas decided to do some cleaning, and went into the hallway to fetch a bucket and detergent from the cupboard. As far as he recalled, the vacuum cleaner was in there as well. When he remembered that Adam Stubo was on his way, he changed his mind.
‘I think we could do with a bit of air in here,’ he said loudly, walking over to the living-room window.
He fought with the catch and cut his thumb when it finally opened.
‘Shit,’ he said, sticking his thumb in his mouth.
The fact that Adam Stubo was already back in Bergen could be a good sign. Obviously, the investigation had picked up speed. Lukas hadn’t heard any news bulletins or read the papers yet today, but Stubo had sounded optimistic on the phone.
There was a sweet, metallic taste on his tongue, and he examined his injured thumb. He was on his way to fetch a plaster from his mother’s bathroom cabinet when the doorbell rang.
With his thumb in his mouth he went to open the door.
*
‘Come in,’ Silje Sørensen said loudly, looking over towards the door.
Johanne pushed it open hesitantly and poked her head in.
‘Come in,’ the inspector repeated, waving at her. ‘I’m so glad you were able to come over. These stories in the papers are making me totally paranoid, and Adam thought you could give me an update. I daren’t even trust my own mobile.’
‘That’s probably the last thing you should trust,’ said Johanne, sitting down on the visitor’s chair. ‘Have you any idea who the leak is?’
‘No. The press knowing too much has always been a problem for us, but this is the worst example I can remember. Sometimes I wonder if the journalists are blackmailing someone. If they’ve got something on one of us, I mean.’
She gave a fleeting smile and placed a bottle of mineral water and a glass in front of Johanne.
‘You’re usually thirsty,’ she said. ‘Right, I’m curious. Adam said the case in Bergen seems to have taken a completely fresh turn.’
‘Well, I’m not …’
The telephone rang.
Silje hesitated for a moment, then made an apologetic gesture as she answered it.
‘Sørensen,’ she said quickly.
Someone had a lot to say. Johanne felt more and more bewildered. The inspector didn’t say much; she just stared at her from time to time, her gaze expressionless, almost preoccupied. Eventually, Johanne decided to go out into the corridor. The unpleasant experience of listening to a conversation not intended for her ears was making her sweaty. She was just getting up when Silje Sørensen shook her head violently and held up her hand.
‘Is she bringing it over here?’ she asked. ‘Now?’
There was a brief silence.
‘Good. Straight away, please. I’ll stay in my office until you get here.’
She hung up, a furrow of surprise appearing across the top of her straight, slender nose from her left eyebrow.
‘A will,’ she said thoughtfully.
‘What?’
‘A woman who is evidently the secretary at a legal practice here in the city called the information line to say that she’s sitting on a will that has Niclas Winter as the beneficiary, and that it could have some relevance to the investigation into his murder.’
‘I see … so …’
‘Fortunately the information was picked up relatively quickly, and one of my team has got hold of this woman. She’s on her way over with the will right now.’
‘But what … ? If the theory about The 25’ers is correct, what would a will have to do with anything?’
Silje shrugged her shoulders.
‘No idea. But it’s on its way here, so we can have a look at it. Now, what was it you were going to tell me? Adam made me really curious, I have to admit.’
Johanne opened the bottle and poured herself a drink. The carbon dioxide hissed gently, tickling her upper lip as she drank.
‘Eva Karin Lysgaard wasn’t just sympathetic towards gays,’ she said eventually, putting down the glass. ‘She was, it appears, a lesbian herself. Which strengthens our theory about The 25’ers.’
Judging from the expression on Silje Sørensen’s face, Johanne might as well have said that Jesus had come back to earth and sat down on the bed in Kristiane’s room.
*
Marcus Koll sat up in bed in confusion, mumbling something that neither Rolf nor little Marcus could make out.
‘Lazybones,’ Rolf grinned, placing a tray of coffee, juice and two slices of toast topped with ham and cheese on the bedside table. ‘It’s gone one o’clock!’
‘Why did you let me sleep so late?’
Marcus moved to avoid their hugs; he was sweaty, and smacked his lips to try to get rid of the sour taste of sleep.
‘I don’t think you got a wink of sleep last night,’ said Rolf. ‘So when you finally dropped off, I didn’t have the heart to wake you.’
‘We’ve been flying the helicopter,’ little Marcus said excitedly. ‘It’s so cool!’
‘In this weather?’ Marcus groaned. ‘It says in the instructions that the temperature is supposed to be above zero when you fly it. Otherwise the oil freezes.’
‘But we couldn’t wait until spring,’ Rolf smiled. ‘And it was brilliant. I had full control, Marcus.’
‘And me!’ said the boy. ‘I can fly it all by myself!’
‘At least when it’s up in the air,’ Rolf added. ‘Here you go: today’s tabloids. That’s a terrible story – the one about that gang who’ve been murdering people! We’ve been shopping, too. Lots of good food for this evening. You haven’t forgotten we’re having guests?’
Marcus didn’t remember anything about any guests. He reached for VG. The front page made him gasp out loud.
‘Are you ill, Dad? Is that why you slept so late?’
‘No, no. It’s just a bit of a cold. Thank you so much for breakfast. Maybe I can enjoy it and have a look at the papers, then I’ll come down in a little while?’
He didn’t even look at Rolf.
‘OK,’ said the boy, and headed off.
‘Is everything all right?’ asked Rolf. ‘Anything else you need?’
‘Everything’s fine. This is really kind of you both. I’ll be down in half an hour, OK?’
Rolf hesitated. Looked at him. Marcus forced himself to adopt an unconcerned expression and licked his finger demonstratively as he prepared to turn the page.
‘Enjoy,’ said Rolf as he left the room.
It didn’t sound as if he meant it.
*
‘I was really intending to speak to you alone,’ said Adam Stubo, looking from Erik to Lukas and back again. ‘To be perfectly honest, I’d be much happier with that arrangement.’
‘To be perfectly honest,’ Erik replied, ‘what makes you happy isn’t the most important thing right now.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ Adam mumbled.
Erik had certainly perked up. In their earlier encounters his indifference had bordered on apathy. This time the scrawny widower had something aggressive, almost hostile about him. Adam hesitated. He had prepared himself for a conversation with a man in a completely different frame of mind from the one Erik was clearly in at the moment.
‘I’m rather tired,’ said Erik. ‘Tired of you constantly turning up here with nothing to tell us. From what Lukas tells me, there has been a breakthrough in the investigation, in which case I would have thought you might have better things to do than coming out here yet again. If you’re going to start on about where my wife was going so late at night, then …’
It was as if he had suddenly used up all his reserves of energy. He literally collapsed; his shoulders slumped and his head drooped down towards his flat, bony chest.
‘I’m not going to say anything I haven’t said already. Just so we’re clear.’
‘There’s no need,’ Adam said calmly. ‘I know where Eva Karin was going.’
Erik slowly lifted his head. His eyes had lost their colour. The whites had taken on a bluish tinge, and it was as if all the tears had washed away the blue from the irises. Adam had never seen an emptier gaze. He had no idea what he was going to say.
‘Lukas,’ Erik said, his voice steady. ‘I would like you to leave now.’
*
At last time could begin to move again, thought Martine Brække as she struck a match.
The portrait of Eva Karin, which normally stood in the bedroom where no one ever saw it, had been moved into the living room. It had been the police officer’s suggestion. He had asked her if she had a photograph. She had fetched it without a word, and the big man had held it in his hands. For a long time. He almost seemed to be on the point of bursting into tears.
She held the match to the wick of the tall white candle. The flame was pale, almost invisible, and she went and switched off the main light. She stood for a moment before picking up a little red poinsettia and placing it next to the photograph in the window. The glitter on the leaves sparkled in the candlelight.
Eva Karin was smiling at her.
Martine moved a chair over to the window and sat down.
A great sense of relief came over her. It was as if she had finally, after all these years, received a kind of acknowledgement. Until now she had borne her grief over Eva Karin’s death all alone, in the same way as she had borne her life with Eva Karin for almost fifty years all alone. When Erik turned up the day after the murder, she had let him in. She had regretted it immediately. He had come for company. He wanted to grieve with the only other person who knew Eva Karin as she really was, but she had quickly realized they had nothing in common. They had shared Eva Karin, but she was indifferent to him now, and had sent him away without shedding a tear.
The big police officer had been another matter.
He treated her with respect – admiration almost – as he walked around the small living room talking to her quietly, occasionally stopping at some item he found fascinating. The only thing he really wanted to ask her about, and the reason for his visit, was whether she had ever told anyone else about her relationship with Eva Karin Lysgaard.
Of course she hadn’t. That was the promise she had once made, that sunny day in May 1962 when Eva Karin promised never to leave her again – with the proviso that their love be a secret, a secret only the two of them knew.
Martine would never break a promise.
The policeman believed her.
When he told her that the funeral was to be held on Wednesday and she replied that she didn’t want to go, he had offered to call in when the ceremony was over. To tell her about it. To be with her.
She had said no, but it was a kind thought.
Martine moved her chair closer to the window and ran her finger gently over Eva Karin’s mouth. The glass felt cold against her fingertips. Eva Karin’s skin had always been so soft, so unbelievably soft and sensitive.
They would do all they could to keep the story out of the public eye, Adam Stubo had said. As far as the investigation was concerned, there was probably nothing to be gained by publicizing details of this kind, he added, although of course he couldn’t guarantee anything.
As she sat here by her own window looking out over the city beyond the portrait of the only love of her life, she felt as if it wasn’t really important. Naturally, it would be best for Erik if their secret was never revealed. And for Lukas, too. It struck her that as far as she was concerned, it didn’t matter at all. She was surprised. She straightened her back and took a deep breath.
She felt no shame.
She had loved Eva Karin in the purest way.
Her, and her alone.
Slowly she got up and blew out the candle.
She picked up the photograph.
Martine was almost sixty-two years old. Her life as it had been up to this point was over. And yet there could be more waiting for her – a whole new life as a wise old woman.
She smiled at the thought.
Wise, old and free.
Martine was free at last, and she put the photograph back on the bedside table. Adam Stubo had told her about his own grief when he found his wife and child dead after a terrible accident, an accident for which he felt he was to blame. His voice shook as he quietly explained how life had begun to go round in circles, a constantly rotating dance of pain from which he could see no escape.
She closed the bedroom door.
Time could begin to move again, and she said a quiet prayer for the kind police officer who had made her realize that it was never, ever too late to start afresh.
*
DC Knut Bork shook hands with Johanne before passing a document over to Silje Sørensen.
‘There you go,’ he said. ‘I haven’t had time to look at it yet.’
Silje opened a drawer and took out a pair of reading glasses.
‘According to the woman who brought it in, we’re talking about a considerable amount of money here,’ Bork went on. ‘Apparently, the testator died a long time ago, and Niclas Winter hasn’t seen any of the inheritance to which he’s entitled under the terms of this will.’
‘May I see?’ Johanne asked tentatively.
‘We need a lawyer,’ said Silje without looking up. ‘This is sensational, to put it mildly.’
‘I’m a lawyer.’
Both Knut Bork and his boss looked at her in amazement.
‘I’m a lawyer,’ Johanne repeated. ‘Although I did my doctorate in criminology, I have a law degree. I don’t remember much about inheritance law, but if you’ve got a statute book I’m sure we can work out the general gist.’
‘You never cease to impress me,’ said Silje Sørensen. She passed her the will, then went over to the shelf by the window and picked up the thick red statute book. ‘But if you know as much as I do about this particular testator, then I’m sure you’ll agree that we’re going to need a whole heap of lawyers.’
Johanne glanced through the first page, then turned to the last.
‘No,’ she said. ‘The name rings a bell, but I don’t know who it is. However, what I can see is that this will becomes invalid in …’
She looked up.
‘In three months,’ she said. ‘In three months it won’t be worth the paper it’s written on. I think so, anyway.’
‘Bloody hell,’ said Silje, putting her hands on her hips. ‘Now I don’t understand anything. Not a bloody thing.’
*
Richard Forrester realized another meal must be on the way. The aroma of hot food had woken him. Perfect. Even though he was still a little befuddled after his deep sleep, he was hungry. The menu, which the attendant had thoughtfully left on the empty seat next to him rather than waking him up, looked appealing. He studied it carefully and decided on duck with orange sauce, wild rice and salad. When the fair-haired woman leaned over to take the menu, he asked for fresh asparagus as his starter.
He held up his hand to refuse the white wine she was offering.
‘Water, please.’
When he opened the little blind, an intense light poured in through the window. It was half past twelve, Norwegian time. He half stood up to look down at the Atlantic, but the view below was made flat and uninteresting by dirty white cloud cover like an endless carpet. Only another plane, away to the south and heading in the opposite direction, broke the monotonous whiteness. The light bothered him, and he pulled the blind halfway down again.
He felt a blessed sense of peace.
It was always like that after a mission.
He hated those who were perverted with an intensity that had led him back to life, when he was hell-bent on drinking himself to death. He had come across a few of them in the military, cowardly curs who tried to hide the fact they did unmentionable things to each other, while somehow imagining they were good enough to defend their country. Back then – before he was saved – he had contented himself with reporting their activities. Three cases had disappeared into the bureaucratic machinery of the military, but he didn’t lose any sleep over them. He had at least inflicted on them the unpleasant experience of coming under scrutiny. The fourth sodomite did not escape. He received a dishonourable discharge. Admittedly, the reason was that he had approached a young private, who threatened to sue the entire US Marine Corps, but Richard Forrester’s report on immoral pornography had certainly not done any harm.
The aroma of food was getting stronger.
He dug the Bible out of his shoulder bag.
It was soft and shabby, with countless small notes in the margins on the thin paper. Here and there the text was marked with a yellow highlighter. In certain places the words were so unclear they were difficult to read, but it didn’t matter. Richard Forrester knew his Bible, and he knew the most important passages off by heart.
When he was twelve years old, one of them had tried it on with him.
He closed his eyes, allowing his hand to rest on the book.
Life since his redemption had convinced him that Susan and Anthony had died for a reason. They had to be taken home to God, so that the Lord could reach him. With a wife and child he was deaf to His call. Richard had to be tested before he could become a worthy servant in the struggle for what was right.
When the man who had picked him up in that Dallas back street introduced him to Jacob a few months later, Richard was ready. Jacob was called only Jacob, nothing more, and Richard had never met anyone else in The 25’ers. As far as he knew, there could be several individuals like him on board this plane, and he caught himself stealing a glance at the woman across the aisle.
In fact, he had had to wait a couple more years before he was told the name of the organization, and its significance. At first he was furious when he realized he was working with Muslims in a common cause. Jacob had tried to convince him that this collaboration was right and necessary. They had common goals, and the Muslims had experience vital to the organization. This argument cut no ice with Richard. Nor did it help when he learned that The 25’ers received significant financial support from Muslim extremist groups. Richard Forrester knew they were practically self-financing, and couldn’t grasp the idea that they were accepting money from terrorists. By that time he had killed two people in God’s name, but he could never countenance taking innocent lives. He had been just as shocked as everyone else when two planes hit the World Trade Center, and he hated Muslims almost as vehemently as he hated sodomites. He had only conceded when he was woken one night by the intense presence of God, and was given an order by the Lord Himself.
After each mission a considerable sum of money was paid into his bank account. This was supposed to cover travel and accommodation, and was reported to the tax authorities as such. In the beginning he felt slightly uncomfortable. The generous payments made him feel like a contract killer.
Quickly, he put the Bible on his knee.
The flight attendant folded down his table and served the starter.
He got paid, he thought as he watched her quick, practised hands. But that wasn’t why he killed.
Richard Forrester killed because the Lord commanded him to do so. The money was necessary only to carry out the missions he was given. Like now, when it was impossible to get home quickly enough unless he travelled first class.
Occasionally, he wondered where the money came from. It had kept him awake for a while during the odd night, but his trust in God was infinite. He quickly got over the slightly unpleasant feeling in his stomach when he realized with surprise from time to time how much was in his bank account.
‘Thanks,’ he said as the flight attendant refilled his glass.
He started to eat, and decided to think about something completely different.
*
‘You need to think carefully, Erik. This is absolutely crucial.’
Adam had chosen to sit in Eva Karin’s armchair this time. A faint scent lingered in the yellowish-brown upholstery, a half-erased memory of a woman who no longer existed. The fabric was soft, and a few fine strands of dark grey hair had stuck to the antimacassar. Adam had never called the widower by his first name before, but in view of the circumstances it seemed inappropriate to use a more formal form of address. Almost disrespectful, he thought, as he tried to get the man to look up.
‘Eva Karin believed she had Jesus’s blessing,’ Erik wept. ‘I’ve never really been able to come to terms with the idea that this was right, but—’
‘You have to listen to me, Erik,’ said Adam, leaning towards the other man. ‘I have no desire, no need and no right to sit in judgement on the life you and Eva Karin shared. I don’t even need to know anything about it. My job is to find out who killed her. Which means I have to ask you once again: who else knew about this … relationship, apart from you, Martine and Eva Karin?’
Erik suddenly got to his feet. He clutched at his head and swayed.
Adam was halfway out of his chair to help him when Erik kicked out at him, making him lean back.
‘Don’t touch me! It couldn’t be right! She wouldn’t listen. I allowed myself to be persuaded that time, it was so …’
It was thirty-two years since Adam Stubo started at the Police College, as the Training Academy was called in those days. In all those years he had seen and heard most things – experiences he thought he would never get over. His personal tragedy had almost broken him – and yet in many ways telling other parents that their child had been killed, that a husband or wife had been murdered, or parents mown down by a police car during a car chase was far worse. His own suffering was manageable, in spite of everything. Faced with other people’s grief, Adam all too often felt completely helpless. However, over the years he had come up with a kind of strategy when he encountered bottomless despair, a method that made it possible for him to do the job he had to do.
But he wasn’t up to this.
Over half an hour ago he had told Erik Lysgaard that he knew. He had tried to explain why he had come. Over and over again he had interrupted the widower’s long, disjointed story of a life built on a secret so big that he had never really had room for it. It was Eva Karin’s secret, Eva Karin’s decision.
Erik Lysgaard was yelling at the top of his voice. He stood there in the middle of the floor wearing clothes that were too big and not very clean, bellowing out accusations. Against God. Against Eva Karin. Against Martine.
But most of all against himself.
‘How could I believe in that?’ he wailed, gasping for breath. ‘How could I … ? I didn’t want to be like them … not like that teacher, Berstad, not like … You have to understand that …’
Suddenly he fell silent. He took two steps towards Adam’s armchair. His greasy, grey hair was sticking out in all directions and his lips were blood-red. Moist. His eyes were sunken and his chin trembled.
‘Berstad killed himself,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘In the spring of 1962. Eva Karin and I were in the third form. I couldn’t be like him. I couldn’t live like him!’
Heavy, viscous drops of saliva spurted out of his mouth; some trickled down his chin, but he took no notice.
‘I’d seen the looks. I’d heard the ugly words, it was like … like being lashed with a whip!’
He had foam all around his mouth. Adam held his breath. Erik looked like a troll, scrawny and bent, and he was gasping for breath.
‘We came to an agreement,’ he panted. ‘We agreed to get married. Neither of us could live with the shame, with our parents’ shame, with … I was fond of Eva Karin. She gradually became my life. My … sister. She was fond of me, too. She loved me, she said, as recently as the evening when she … While I chose to live … alone, for ever, she wanted to keep Martine. That was the agreement. Martine and Eva Karin.’
Slowly he went back to his armchair. Sat down. Wept silently without hiding his face in his hands.
‘There had to be a punishment,’ he said. ‘There had to be a punishment eventually.’
‘Who did you tell?’
‘I’m the one who has to bear the punishment,’ Erik whispered. ‘I’m the one who is living in hell. All the time, every day. Every night, every second.’
‘I have to know who you told, Erik.’
‘Here.’
Erik’s outstretched hand was holding a book with a worn leather cover. It had been lying on the coffee table when Adam came in, shabby and stained and without a title. Adam hesitated, but took it when Erik insisted.
‘Take it! Take it! It’s my diary. If you read the last twenty pages, you’ll understand. You’ll find what you want to know in there. Read it all, in fact. Try to understand.’
‘But I can’t, I mean I can’t just—’
‘I’d like you to leave now. Take the diary and go.’
Adam just stood there with the book in his hand, the book containing all of Erik Lysgaard’s thoughts. He had no idea what to do, and still hadn’t come to terms with the chaotic impressions crowding in on him after the grieving widower’s outburst. Just as he was about to ask if there was anything he could do for him, he finally understood: there was nothing anyone in the whole world could do for Erik Lysgaard.
He tucked Erik’s life under his arm and slipped silently out of the house on Nubbebakken for the very last time.
*
Rolf had crept along the landing as quietly as possible. Perhaps Marcus had fallen asleep again, it was so quiet in there. With all the sleepless nights he had suffered, it would be fantastic if he could get some rest. Rolf slowly pushed down the door handle. Too late he remembered the hinges squeaked, and he pulled a face at the harsh sound as the door opened.
Marcus was awake. He was sitting up in bed staring into space, the newspapers in a neat pile beside him. The food was untouched, the glass still full of orange juice.
‘Weren’t you hungry?’ asked Rolf, surprised.
‘No. I have to talk to you.’
‘Talk away!’ Rolf smiled and sat down on the bed. ‘What is it, my love?’
‘I want you to send little Marcus away. To my mother or to a friend. It doesn’t matter which, but when he’s safe and sound I would like you to come back here. I have to talk to you. Alone. Without anyone else in the house.’
‘Good heavens,’ said Rolf, with a strained smile. ‘What’s wrong, Marcus? Are you ill? Is it something serious?’
‘Please do as I ask. And I would very much appreciate it if you could do it straight away. Please.’
His voice was so different. Not hard, exactly, thought Rolf, but mechanical, as if it wasn’t actually Marcus who was talking.
‘Please,’ Marcus said again, more loudly this time. ‘Please get my son out of the house and come back.’
Rolf got up hesitantly. For a moment he considered protesting, but when he saw the unfamiliar look in Marcus’s eyes, he headed for the door.
‘I’ll try Mathias or Johan,’ he said, keeping his tone as casual as possible. ‘A school friend will be easier than driving him all the way to your mother’s.’
‘Good,’ said Marcus Koll Junior. ‘And come back as soon as you can.’
*
‘Georg Koll knew my father,’ said Silje Sørensen. ‘They were business acquaintances. Even though I only met him a couple of times when I was a child, it was enough to realize the man was a real shit. My parents didn’t like him either. But you know how it is. In those circles.’
She looked at the others and shrugged her shoulders apologetically.
Neither Johanne nor Knut Bork had any idea what it was like to move in the circles of the wealthy. They exchanged a quick glance before Johanne once again immersed herself in the document the solicitor’s secretary had brought in.
‘As far as I can see, this is a completely valid will,’ she said. ‘Unless a new will was made at a later date, then …’
She gave a little shake of her head and held up the papers.
‘… this is the one that applies.’
‘But Georg Koll died years ago,’ Silje said in bewilderment. ‘His children inherited everything! The children from his marriage, that is. I had no idea Georg had another son. That is what it says, isn’t it?’
Johanne nodded.
‘My son Niclas Winter,’ she quoted.
‘Nobody must have known about him,’ said Silje. ‘I remember my father laughing up his sleeve when the inheritance was due to be paid out, because Georg lost touch with all his children after he left his wife when they were little. He really was a complete bastard, that man. His ex-wife and kids lived in poverty in Vålerenga, while Georg lived in luxury. It’s Marcus Koll Junior, the eldest son, who runs the whole company now. I think they reorganized slightly, but …’
She turned to the computer.
‘Let’s google Georg,’ she murmured, staring expectantly at the screen. ‘Bingo. He died … on 18 August 1999.’
‘Almost exactly four months after this was drawn up,’ said Johanne, growing increasingly thoughtful. ‘So it’s hardly likely that he would have made a new will after that. I think our friend Niclas Winter was done out of his inheritance, simple as that!’
‘But you can’t just disinherit children born within a marriage in this country, surely?’ Knut Bork exclaimed.
‘If the estate is big enough …’
Johanne leafed through the thick red book.
‘The legitimate share to the children is one million kroner,’ she said, searching for inheritance law. ‘How many siblings does this Marcus Koll have?’
‘Two,’ said Silje. ‘A sister and a brother, if I remember rightly.’
‘According to this will,’ Johanne said, ‘the three of them should have received a million each, and Niclas should have inherited the rest.’
Silje gave a long drawn-out, shrill whistle.
‘We’re talking big money here,’ she said. ‘But surely there has to be…’
Knut Bork leapt up and grabbed the document.
‘Surely there has to be a statute of limitation,’ he said agitatedly, as if it were his own fortune they were discussing. ‘I mean, Niclas couldn’t just turn up after all these years and start demanding …’
He broke off and adopted a posture that made him look like a keen lecturer.
‘Why the hell did I let that woman go?’ he said. ‘She mentioned something about Niclas Winter ringing around various solicitors more or less at random. He said his mother had just died, and she had told him on her deathbed that there was an important document addressed to him held by a legal practice in Oslo. It would secure his future. Perhaps he didn’t …’
They looked at each other. Johanne had found the section on inheritance law, and was sitting with her hand between the pages.
‘There’s a lot that needs checking, of course,’ she said hesitantly. ‘But at the moment it looks as if he didn’t know about the will.’
‘Why did his mother keep the fact that he was going to be rolling in money a secret from him? Shouldn’t she have made sure that … ?’
‘Perhaps she didn’t want him to find out his father’s identity until after her death,’ said Silje. ‘There’s so much we don’t know. There’s no point in speculating any further, really.’
‘But we do know something,’ Johanne interjected. ‘There have been a couple of articles in Dagens Næringsliv about Niclas Winter since he died. His installations have shot up in price, at a time when sales of modern art are virtually non-existent. It said in the paper that he had no heirs, and that he was … fatherless. His mother was an only child, and his maternal grandparents are dead.’
‘So we can draw the conclusion that Niclas had no idea who his father was, or that he was the rightful heir,’ said Knut Bork, perching on the windowsill with one foot on Johanne’s chair.
‘Not at the time, anyway,’ she said. ‘In which case the statute of limitation doesn’t run out until …’
The thin paper rustled faintly as she turned the pages.
‘Paragraph 70,’ she said vaguely. ‘He’s got six months. From when he finds out about the will, I mean. But I agree with you, Knut. As far as I know there is a definite statute of limitation … I think it’s …’
The rest disappeared in an unintelligible mumble as she read. Knut waggled his foot impatiently, and leaned forwards to try and see the book for himself.
‘Paragraph 75,’ Johanne suddenly said loudly, following the text with her finger: ‘The right to claim an inheritance lapses when the heir does not validate such a claim within ten years of the death of the testator. That’s what I thought.’
‘Fifteenth of April this year,’ said Silje. ‘That’s when the statute of limitation would run out.’
The computer’s screen saver suddenly burst into a silent firework display. Johanne stared at the red magnetic ring around Saturday 17 January. It had an almost hypnotic effect on her. In two days it would be the nineteenth once more, and she felt the hairs on her arms stand on end. Knut put his feet on the floor and stood up.
‘But could Niclas come along and claim everything his siblings have owned for almost ten years?’ he exclaimed. ‘Isn’t that bloody unjust, actually?’
Johanne was lost in thought.
‘Why did he fall out with the children?’ she said quietly, staring blankly into space.
‘Georg Koll?’
‘Yes.’
‘As I said, he was an absolute shit most of the time. And I’m sure there was something about Marcus – he didn’t like the fact that Marcus was gay. The other two children sided with their brother. Marcus Koll was probably one of the first who really … Well, he was the first person I knew who was openly gay. There was quite a bit of talk about it. In those circles. You know.’
Knut still knew very little about those circles, and Johanne looked as if she had barely heard what the inspector had said.
‘Niclas was gay as well,’ she said expressionlessly.
‘Georg can’t possibly have known that.’
‘In the case in the US there’s a link between …’
Her eyes suddenly focused.
‘So these two men are brothers,’ she said, so quietly that Knut had difficulty hearing her. ‘Half-brothers. In a similar case in the US it turned out there was a remarkable link between the victims. Could … ?’
She looked from one to the other.
‘Could Marcus Koll be the next victim?’
Her eyes slid from Knut to the calendar.
‘The nineteenth of January is the day after tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Could it be … ?’
‘Do you believe in your own theory?’ Knut broke in irritably. ‘Or have you already dropped it? If The 25’ers really are behind these murders, I’m sure they’ll have made sure they got their people out of the country long ago! VG gave away virtually everything we know, and the perpetrators must be idiots if they … For fuck’s sake, NCIS has been in constant contact with the FBI for the last twenty-four hours! The Americans might be bowing and scraping and thanking us for putting all our resources into the investigation, and sending people over tomorrow to help us, but they’re making no effort to hide the fact that they think the perpetrators are on their way home!’
Johanne slammed the statute book shut with a dull thud.
‘If we really do believe they intend to go on murdering people,’ Knut said harshly, ‘then we ought to do what they suggest in this rag …’
He waved the newspaper around.
‘… and warn every gay man and woman about next Monday. And the twenty-fourth. And the twenty-seventh. There’ll be total—’
‘It can’t do any harm to send a patrol car,’ Silje said reprovingly. ‘An unmarked car. With plain-clothes officers. Nothing to attract attention. Marcus Koll ought to be informed about the fact that—’
‘He ought to be informed about as little as possible,’ Johanne interrupted. ‘Or at least he shouldn’t be told anything whatsoever about this will. I think he should be confronted with that particular piece of information under different circumstances and by different people, not during a visit by a couple of plain-clothes officers. We don’t even know if he’s aware he has a brother.’
‘We’ll send someone round anyway,’ Silje said firmly. ‘They’re not going to say anything about the will, because so far we’re the only ones who know about it. They can … express a general concern for homosexuals with a public profile. Everyone knows about this case now. It should be fine.’
She smiled and stood up, signalling that the meeting was over.
Johanne remained seated, lost in her own thoughts, until Knut Bork had left the room and Silje was standing with her hand on the light switch.
‘Are you thinking of staying here?’ she asked. ‘If so, it could get a bit lonely.’
*
Marcus Koll was all alone in the big house on Holmenkollen, apart from the dogs who were fast asleep in their basket next to the open fire. He had showered and put on clean clothes. Since he didn’t know how long Rolf was going to be away, he had used the electric shaver instead of bothering with foam and a razor. When he was ready he had spent a few minutes in his study before sitting down in one of the soft, wing-backed armchairs in front of the picture window that looked out over the city and the fjord.
He was waiting.
He felt calm. Relieved, somehow. A faint tingling in his body reminded him more of being in love than of the sorrow he felt, and he breathed deeply through his nose.
It was the view he had fallen for once upon a time.
The garden sloped gently down towards the two tall pine trees by the fence right at the bottom. The other trees along the boundary provided privacy from the neighbouring house down below, but in no way detracted from the glorious panoramic view. Living up here was like living well outside the city, and it was this feeling of isolation combined with the view that had made him buy the house.
‘Are you sitting here in the dark?’ said a voice from behind him.
One by one the lamps in the living room were switched on.
‘Marcus?’ Rolf came and stood in front of him, a slightly puzzled expression on his face. ‘You’re ready. But it’s only half-past two, and—’
‘Come and sit down, please.’
‘I can’t make you out at all today, Marcus. I hope this won’t take long, because we’ve got a lot to do. Marcus has decided to sleep over at Johan’s, so that’s—’
‘Good. Sit down. Please.’
Rolf sat down in the matching armchair a metre away. They were half-facing the view, half-facing each other.
‘What is it?’
‘Do you remember that hard drive you found?’ asked Marcus, coughing.
‘What?’
‘Do you remember finding a hard drive in the Maserati?’
‘Yes. You said … I can’t remember what you said, but … what about it?’
‘It wasn’t broken. I took it out of my computer so nobody would be able to see which websites I’d been surfing that night. If anyone happened to check, I mean.’
Rolf was perched on the edge of the chair, his mouth half-open. Marcus was leaning back with his feet on a matching footstool, both arms resting on the soft upholstery.
‘Porn,’ Rolf said with an uncertain smile, taking a guess. ‘Did you …? Have you downloaded something illegal that—?’
‘No. I’d read an article in Dagbladet. It was quite harmless, in fact, but I wanted to be on the safe side. Absolutely on the safe side.’ He snorted, a mixture of laughter and tears, then looked at Rolf and said: ‘Could you possibly sit back a bit?’
‘I’ll sit how I want! What’s the matter with you, Marcus? Your voice sounds strange and you’re behaving … oddly! Sitting here in your suit and tie early on a Saturday afternoon, talking about illegal surfing … in Dagbladet! How the hell can it be illegal to—?’
Marcus got up abruptly. Rolf closed his mouth with an audible little click as his teeth banged together.
‘I’m begging you,’ said Marcus, running both hands over his head in an impotent gesture. ‘I’m begging you to listen to what I have to say. Without interrupting. This is difficult enough, and at least I’ve found a way to begin now. Let me get through this.’
‘Of course,’ said Rolf. ‘What’s … ? Of course. Carry on. Tell me.’
Marcus stared at the armchair for a few seconds, then sat down again.
‘I came across a story about an artist called Niclas Winter. He was dead. The suggestion was that it was due to an overdose.’
‘Niclas Winter,’ said Rolf, clearly puzzled. ‘He was one of the victims of—’
‘Yes. He was one of the people murdered by the American hate group that VG has been writing about over the past few days. He was also my brother. Half-brother. My father’s son.’
Rolf slowly got to his feet.
‘Sit down,’ said Marcus. ‘Please sit down!’
Rolf did as he asked, but once again he perched on the very edge of his seat, one hand on the armrest as if ready to leap up if necessary.
‘I didn’t know about him,’ said Marcus. ‘Not until last October. He came to see me. It was a shock, of course, but mostly I was pleased. A brother. Just like that. Out of the blue.’
Outside the sky was growing dark. In the west the sun had left a narrow strip of orange behind. In half an hour that, too, would be gone.
‘I wasn’t pleased for very long. He told me he was the rightful heir to everything. The whole lot.’
He took a quick, deep breath. There wasn’t a sound.
‘What do you mean the whole lot?’ Rolf dared to whisper.
‘All this,’ said Marcus, with a sweeping gesture around the room. ‘Everything that is mine. Ours. The entire estate left by his father and mine.’
Rolf started to laugh. A dry, peculiar laugh.
‘But surely he can’t just turn up and claim that he’s a long-lost son who—’
‘A will,’ Marcus broke in. ‘There was a will. Admittedly, he hadn’t managed to get hold of it at that point, but his mother had told him such a document existed. All he had to do was find it. I thought he was a thoroughly unpleasant individual, and I didn’t really believe him either, so I threw him out. He was furious, and swore he would have his revenge when he found the will. He seemed almost …’
Marcus covered his eyes with his right hand.
‘Crazy,’ he murmured. ‘He seemed crazy. I decided to forget about him, but after just a few hours I started to worry.’
He took his hand away and looked at Rolf.
‘Niclas Winter was not unlike my father,’ he said hoarsely. ‘There was something about his appearance that made me check out his story. Just to be on the safe side.’
‘And how did you do that?’
Rolf was still sitting in exactly the same position.
‘By asking my mother.’
‘Elsa? How the hell would she be able to—?’
Marcus held up his hand and shook his head.
‘As soon as I told her I’d been visited by a man who not only insisted he was my brother, but also thought he had a claim on Georg’s entire estate, she broke down completely. When I eventually got her to talk, she told me she had seen my father five days before he died. She had gone to see him to beg for … to ask for money on behalf of Anine. My sister had split up with her partner, and she didn’t want to lose her little apartment in Grünerløkka. She couldn’t afford to keep it on the money she earns from working in a bookshop.’
‘I think you should stop now,’ said Rolf, swallowing audibly. ‘You look like a living corpse, Marcus. You ought to go and lie down, you ought to—’
‘I ought to finish telling my story!’
He banged the arm of the chair with his clenched fists. The dull thud made Rolf sink back in his own chair.
‘And you are going to listen!’ Marcus hissed.
Rolf nodded quickly.
‘Georg threw my mother out,’ said Marcus, taking a deep breath.
Keep calm, he thought. Tell your story and do what you have to do.
‘But he did manage to tell her that he had made a will in favour of … the bastard, as my mother refers to him. She had known about him all along. My father had no relationship with him either. He just wanted to punish us. Punish my mother, I assume.’
One of the setters stood up in its basket. The wicker creaked and the dog gave a long drawn-out yawn before padding over to Marcus and laying its head on his knee.
‘When I realized the man was telling the truth, I didn’t know which way to turn.’
He placed his hand on the soft head.
Rolf was breathing with his mouth open. A wheezing noise was coming from his throat, as if he were about to have an asthma attack.
‘I’ll cut a long story short,’ said Marcus, pushing the dog away.
Slowly, as if he were an old man, he got up from his chair. He took a step forward and stopped, half-facing away from Rolf. The dog sat down beside him, as if both of them were looking for the same thing out there in the darkness.
‘Three days later I was in the US,’ said Marcus. His voice had acquired a metallic quality. ‘It was business as usual, but I didn’t feel too good. I got drunk one night with one of the directors of Lehman Brothers, who had just lost his job. I’d intended to …’
The pause lasted for a long time.
‘Forget it. The point is that I told him the story. He had a solution.’
An even longer pause.
The dog whimpered, and the very tip of his tail swept across the floor.
To the south the flashing light of a plane moved slowly across the sky.
‘What kind of … ?’ Rolf had to clear his throat. ‘What kind of solution?’ he said.
‘A contract killer,’ said Marcus.
‘A contract killer.’
‘Yes. A contract killer. As I said, I was drunk.’
‘And the following day you laughed it off, of course.’
The dog looked up at his owner and whimpered again, before getting up and ambling back to his basket.
‘Marcus. Answer me. The next day you both had hangovers and laughed about it, the way you laugh at a joke. Didn’t you? Didn’t you, Marcus?’
Marcus didn’t answer. He just stood there, shoulders slumped, arms hanging by his side, in his suit and tie and a state of total apathy.
‘I set a monster free,’ he whispered tonelessly. ‘I couldn’t have known I was setting a monster free.’
Rolf finally made his leap and grabbed Marcus by the arm.
‘What are you telling me?’ he roared, squeezing hard.
Marcus ignored both the pain in his arm and Rolf’s violent outburst.
‘Tell me you didn’t order a fucking murder, Marcus!’
‘He was going to take everything away from me. Niclas Winter was going to steal everything I deserved. Everything. Anine’s money. And Mathias’s. Ours. Everything that will go to little Marcus one day.’
His voice was nothing more than a monotone now, as if every word were being recorded individually on tape, to be edited into sentences at a later stage. Rolf raised his other hand, clenching his fist until the knuckles turned white. He was taller than Marcus. Stronger. Considerably fitter.
‘If you’re standing here telling me that you paid a contract killer, then I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you Marcus, I swear it! Tell me you’re lying!’
‘Two. Million. Dollars. For two million dollars, my problem would disappear. I paid. The man from Lehman Brothers organized the rest. The whole thing was so … impersonal. A transfer to the Cayman Islands, and neither the money nor the … order had anything to do with me any longer.’
Suddenly Rolf let go of his arm.
‘That night,’ Marcus went on, not even noticing that the dogs had started circling around them, yelping and whimpering, ‘I got the confirmation I needed. A great deal is being written about The 25’ers at the moment, and doubtless quite a lot of it is unreliable. But the serious web pages gave me the confirmation I needed.’
‘Of what?’ Rolf sobbed, backing away slowly, as if he no longer wanted or dared to stand next to Marcus any longer. ‘Confirmation of what?’
‘The 25’ers commit murder for payment. Just like the Ku Klux Klan and The Order and …’
He gasped for breath.
‘They earn money by killing people they would like to eliminate anyway,’ he whispered. ‘I was the one who brought them here. My contact – or whoever he contacted – must have found out that the person I wanted killed was gay, and passed the job on to The 25’ers. So simple. So … clinical. I’m the one who has financed the murders of six Norwegians. I didn’t even know that Niclas Winter … my brother … was gay too. I set a monster free. I …’
He staggered backwards as the huge window exploded. A freezing cold wind rushed into the room. Shards of glass lay everywhere like fragments of ice. The dogs were howling. Rolf stood there with the heavy floor lamp in his hand, ready to strike again.
‘You killed someone for this?’ he yelled. ‘You decided to buy a murderer? For a fucking Nazi place in Holmenkollen? For expensive cars and a bloody wine cellar? You’ve turned into one of them, Marcus! You’ve turned into a fucking capitalist!’
With a roar he braced himself, lifted the two-metre tall lamp with six kilos of lead in its base and smashed it into the next window with all his strength.
‘We would have managed without all this! I’m a vet, for fuck’s sake! You’re well educated! Things could have been just as good without …’
He was on the way to the next window when the doorbell rang.
He stood there, frozen to the spot.
It rang again.
Marcus heard nothing. He had sunk down into the armchair, among pieces of glass and broken lampshade. The dogs were running around barking. One of them had a badly cut paw, leaving a trail of blood across the floor as the terrified animal disappeared into the hallway.
‘I set a monster free,’ Marcus whispered, closing his eyes.
He registered voices from the hallway, but he didn’t hear what they were saying.
‘A monster,’ he whispered again, then stood up and walked across the room.
‘It’s the police,’ Rolf sobbed from the doorway. ‘Marcus! The police are here.’
But Marcus was no longer there. He had gone into his study and sat down on his calfskin-covered desk chair behind the desk made of polished silver birch. The door was closed but not locked. When he heard Rolf call out again, he opened the top drawer, where he had placed the pistol from the gun cupboard in readiness.
He removed the safety catch and placed the barrel to his temple.
‘Tell them the whole story,’ he said, even though no one could hear him. ‘And take good care of our son.’
The last thing Marcus Koll Junior heard was Rolf’s scream and just a fraction of the short, sharp report.
*
A short man accompanied by a fat African-American came towards Richard Forrester as he approached passport control at John F. Kennedy International Airport. The queue looked endless, and for a brief moment it occurred to him that they were perhaps going to offer him special privileges as a first-class passenger, allowing him to go ahead of all the other travellers. He smiled encouragingly as the smaller of the two men looked at him and asked: ‘Richard Forrester?’
‘Yes?’
The man took out an ID card, which was very easy to recognize. He began to speak. Richard’s voice disappeared. There was a rushing sound in his ears, and he felt so hot. Too hot. He tugged at his tie, he couldn’t get his breath.
‘… the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in …’
Richard Forrester closed his eyes and listened to the drone of the Miranda warning that seemed to be coming from somewhere far, far away. Something had gone wrong, and for the life of him he couldn’t work out what it was. There wasn’t a trace of him anywhere. No prints. No photos. He had only been in England, on a business trip relating to his small but well-run travel company.
‘Do you understand?’
He opened his eyes. It was the fat man who had asked. His voice was rough and deep, and he glared at Richard as he repeated: ‘Do you understand?’
‘No,’ said Richard Forrester, holding out his hands as the smaller man requested. ‘I don’t understand a thing.’
*
‘Adam,’ Johanne said quietly, moving close to his sleeping body. ‘Wasn’t there anything we could have done to prevent that suicide?’
‘No,’ he mumbled, turning over. ‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know.’
The time was 2.35 in the morning on Sunday 18 January 2009. Adam licked his lips and half sat up to have a drink of water.
‘I can’t sleep,’ Johanne whispered.
‘I’ve noticed,’ he smiled. ‘But it has been rather an eventful day, after all.’
‘I’m so glad you caught the last flight home.’
‘Me too.’
She kissed him on the cheek and wriggled into the crook of his arm. The worn old leather-bound diary was still lying on Adam’s bedside table. He had shown it to her, but hadn’t let her read any of it. No one else knew of its existence. The highly personal contents had affected him deeply. Religious musings, philosophical observations. Accounts of everyday life. The story of how a homosexual man had created a child with a lesbian woman, about the happiness and the pain of it, the shame. All in small, ornate handwriting that seemed almost feminine. As soon as Adam had landed at Gardermoen he had decided to write a report on the key elements relating to the murder of Eva Karin Lysgaard, and to make it look as if Erik had told him everything. No one else would ever see the diary.
‘I’m sure he’s not going to convert after this,’ Adam said quietly.
As early as their second meeting, Lukas had mentioned Erik’s fascination with Catholicism. The young man had actually smiled when he talked about his parents’ trip to Boston the previous autumn. Eva Karin was a delegate attending a world ecumenical congress, and Erik had visited the city’s Catholic churches. What neither Eva Karin nor Lukas knew was that he had gone to confession. He had a theological background, and could pass for a Catholic if he so wished. His conversation with the priest in the confessional was reproduced in detail in the brown leather-bound diary. It had been Erik’s very first confidential discussion about the great lie of his life that was so difficult to bear.
‘Do you think it’s the priest? Is he something to do with The 25’ers?’
Johanne was whispering, even though she had let the children stay over with her parents. They had looked after them while she was with Silje Sørensen, and both children had flatly refused to come home when she eventually turned up to collect them, puffing and panting.
‘Who knows? The priest or someone connected with him. Catholics have a certain … tradition when it comes to taking the law into their own hands, you could say. At any rate, it’s clear Erik never spoke to anyone else about this, and I think it’s out of the question that Eva Karin would have had another confidante apart from Martine. I’ve met Martine. Eva Karin didn’t need anyone else, believe me. A really lovely woman. Very wise. Warm.’
He smiled in the darkness.
‘Anyway, the Americans will clear things up now. It turns out the FBI had quite a lot of information already. They just needed this … key. We’ve given them so much information they think they’ll probably be able to blow the entire organization apart. Back here the investigation is firing on all cylinders. We’ll be mapping the movements of all American citizens over the past few months. We can combine and compare information from all six murders now we know they’re linked. We’ll be—’
‘The picture,’ Johanne interrupted him. ‘The artist’s sketch, that was what led to the breakthrough. For the Americans and for us. Silje told me it took the FBI only nine hours to establish the identity of one of the perpetrators. The driving licence register combined with information about travel between Europe and the States over the past few months was enough to identify the man. That drawing solved the entire case.’
‘True. It’s quite frightening to think how surveillance actually works. This will be grist to the mill for those who want to see more of that kind of thing.’
Adam kissed the top of her head.
‘The picture was important,’ he went on. ‘You’re right there. But it was mostly down to you, sweetheart.’
They both fell silent.
‘Adam … ?’
‘Yes.’
‘If they do destroy The 25’ers, sooner or later a new organization will emerge that stands for the same thing. Thinks the same way. Does the same kind of thing.’
‘Yes. I’m sure you’re right.’
‘Here in Norway, too?’
‘In some ways that’s in our hands, I suppose.’
The silence went on for so long that Adam’s breathing fell into a slower, deeper rhythm.
‘Adam … ?’
‘I think we should get some sleep now, sweetheart.’
‘Have you never believed in God?’
She could hear that he was smiling.
‘No.’
‘Why not? Not even when Elisabeth and Trine died and—’
He carefully moved his arm and gently pushed her away.
‘I really would like to go to sleep now. And you should do the same.’
The bed bounced as he turned on to his side with his back to her. She shuffled after him, feeling his body like a big, warm wall against her own nakedness. It took him less than a minute to get back to sleep.
‘Adam,’ she whispered, as quietly as she could. ‘Sometimes I believe in God. A little bit, anyway.’