Blessed Are Those Who Thirst: A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel (15 page)

“I’ve checked the FK numbers in the blood. They weren’t absolutely clear in all places, but if we arrive at the following interpretation . . .”

Withdrawing a sheet of card, he held it up.

“. . . and this is the most likely interpretation, then they are all numbers belonging to women.”

The room fell silent.

“They are all between twenty-three and twenty-nine years of age. None of them arrived in Norway accompanied. None had relatives here previously. And furthermore . . .”

They knew what he was about to say. The superintendent felt the sweat running down his temples. The head of CID was snorting like a bulldog in the heat. Hanne Wilhelmsen wanted most of all to leave.

“They have all disappeared.”

After a lengthy pause that none of them found strange, the superintendent spoke up again.

“Might the body be one of these four?”

“It’s too early to say. But naturally that’s what we’re working on.”

“Erik, have you made any progress in the search for the blood?”

The constable stood up, unlike his more experienced colleague Arnt.

“I’ve phoned all the slaughterhouses,” he said, swallowing nervously. “Twenty-four places. Blood can be bought by anyone at all. Mostly cow’s blood. The majority of sales require provisional advance notice. The market has all but disappeared. Nobody makes their own black pudding anymore, it seems. No one has reported anything unusual. That is to say, no high-volume sales.”

“Very well,” the superintendent responded. “Do more work on the case, all the same.”

Relieved, Erik Henriksen plopped himself back down on the chair.

“The boss of the Immigration Directorate,” Hanne Wilhelmsen mumbled.

“What did you say?”

“The boss of the Immigration Directorate,” she repeated, louder this time. “I heard an interview with him on the radio not so long ago. He said the authorities ‘lose’ fifteen hundred asylum seekers every year.”

“Lose?”

“Yes, they go away, it seems. Most of them are expulsion cases, apparently, something they know about already. The Directorate of Immigration thinks they run away without telling anyone. To Sweden, perhaps, or farther south in Europe. Some of them quite simply return home. At least that’s what the boss of the Immigration Directorate thought.”

“Does nobody look for them?” Erik asked, regretting his question immediately. That the immigration authorities should spend time looking for missing foreigners when they had their hands full throwing the remaining ones out of the country was such an absurd thought that the most experienced officers in the room would have laughed out loud, had it not been for present circumstances. And the heat. And the fact that they knew they had almost exactly five days left to get to the bottom of the mystery. If they didn’t want to have to investigate, next Saturday night, yet another pool of blood somewhere with a new FK number drawn in all the crimson mess.

Five days was what they had. It would be best to get to work.

*   *   *

Kristine Håverstad felt she was approaching an abyss. Nine days had passed. Nine days and eight nights. She had not spoken to anyone. There had of course been the odd exchange of words with her father, but it still seemed that they were circling around each other. Deep inside, each of them knew full well the other wanted to talk, but how they might begin, how they would continue, for that matter, they had no idea. They could not manage to break in
or out of what bound them closely together and at the same time made it so impossible for them to communicate. There was one victory she could record. The Valium had gone down the toilet. Alcohol had taken its place. Her father had watched her with a look of concern, but without any protest, as his stock of red wine dwindled and she asked him to please buy some more. The next day, two cases of wine had been sitting in the kitchen larder.

Her friends had telephoned, expressing anxiety. She hadn’t been to the lecture theater for a week, her first absence in four years. She managed to pull herself together then, speaking in a lighthearted tone, complaining about a bad case of influenza and reassuring them, no, she didn’t need them to visit, they would only become infected themselves. There was nothing more to say about it. She could not bear the thought of the attention that would be her fate. The memory was all too fresh of the veterinary student who had returned to the lecture theater two years earlier after a few days’ absence. The girl had told her closest friends she had been raped by a medical student after a fairly lively party. A short time later, it was common knowledge. The case was dropped by the police, and the veterinary student had drifted about like a dried flower ever since. At that time, Kristine had felt very sorry for the girl. She had grumbled about it with her friends and given a wide berth to the accused bigmouth from Bærum. They had never, however, taken the initiative with the victim. On the contrary, there seemed to be something tacky about her, something unreasonable and irrational. They believed her, of course, at least the girls did, but she moved around bewildered, somehow, with something about her, something that made it best to keep away from her.

Kristine Håverstad did not want to be like her.

Worst of all was seeing her father. The strong, strapping man who had always been there, always the first person she had run to when the world got too tough. The feeling of guilt about all the times she hadn’t turned to him, when something was fantastic
and there was something to be celebrated, came surging out from nooks and crannies deep inside. She had never considered what kind of burden it must have been for him to be alone with her. The knowledge that she was responsible, when all was said and done, for preventing him from hooking up with a new woman had always been there. But she felt this was justified: she had been a small child and had to be shown consideration. She did not want a new mother. It had not dawned on her until she was an adult herself that he might have needed a new wife. She was deeply ashamed.

The worst thing was not the feeling of being destroyed. The worst thing was the feeling that her father was.

She had gone to see the social worker. The woman had looked like a social worker and acted like a social worker but had obviously thought of herself as a psychiatrist. It was useless. If it hadn’t been for Kristine Håverstad knowing how important it was not to give up immediately, she would have quit by now. But she would give it a chance.

First of all she was going to take a trip to their summer cottage. She did not take much with her. She would be gone for only a few days. Max. She could buy food at the local grocery store.

Her father had appeared almost happy when she told him yesterday evening. He had given her a generous sum of money, encouraging her to stay there for a while. He had a great deal to do at work anyway, he said, helping himself to another portion of supper. He had lost weight in the past week. She saw that his clothes were hanging slightly more loosely. Moreover, his face looked different: not exactly thinner, but the features were sharper now, the lines deeper. She too had lost three kilos. Those were three kilos she didn’t have to lose.

Almost in an effort to please her father, she decided to make the journey, although she didn’t really want to. Her boss had been quite annoyed when she called to say that her illness was lingering, and she would not be able to come back to work for another few days.
Her job as a relief worker with the Blue Cross was neither well paid nor particularly exciting, and she couldn’t quite explain why she had stayed for more than a year. She liked the alcoholics, that might be why. They were the most grateful people in the world.

Central Station was crowded with people. She had to stand in a queue for nearly twenty minutes before the number on the LCD screen matched the number on her ticket. She received what she asked for, paid, and sauntered out into the actual passenger hall. There were still ten minutes to wait before her train would leave.

Crossing the terminal, she entered the Narvesen kiosk. The tabloid newspapers had virtually identical front pages—a woman’s body found in a secluded garden. She read that the police were devoting all the resources they had. She could imagine that. At least they weren’t working on her case. That same morning she had phoned Linda Løvstad, her victim support counsel, to hear if there was any news. The attorney had been apologetic—there was nothing to report. But she promised to let her know.

Picking up a copy of
Arbeiderbladet,
Kristine Håverstad placed the correct amount of money on the counter and headed for the platform. She skimmed the newspaper as she walked and almost tripped over a discarded hot dog wrapper. To avoid that happening again, she folded her paper and tucked it into her own bag.

That was when she saw him. Shocked and completely paralyzed, she remained standing there for a few seconds without moving a muscle. It was him. The rapist. Large as life, strolling around Oslo Central Station on a hot Monday in June. He didn’t look at her, just walked, talking to the man accompanying him. He was evidently saying something amusing, as the other man leaned his head back and laughed out loud.

A violent trembling began around her knees, creeping up over her thighs, and making it difficult for Kristine Håverstad to reach a bench, where she collapsed with her back to the rapist. But
it wasn’t simply being confronted with his actual existence that shocked her.

What was more appalling was that she now knew where to get hold of him.

*   *   *

At almost exactly the same time, Kristine’s father was in his daughter’s apartment, looking out the window. The apartment block directly opposite was not renovated like hers. Large flakes of plaster had fallen off the façade, and there were two broken windows. Nevertheless, all the apartments appeared to be inhabited, and several of them looked attractive, at least from this distance. There was no movement to be detected anywhere. Most were probably at work. At one of the windows, on the second floor diagonally opposite, to the left of where he was sitting, he could make out a shadow that looked like a man. Judging by the distance between the window ledge and his face, it appeared he was sitting in a deep chair. The man must have a perfect view down to Kristine’s apartment.

Finn Håverstad stood up quickly and rushed out of the apartment. He closed the door with the main lock and the two extra security locks he had installed so ineffectually. When he emerged into the street, he hastily worked out which doorbell belonged to the apartment he had just been staring into. The doorbell did not have a nameplate, but he took a chance. The second floor on the left. The third doorbell from the bottom on the left of the two rows. There was no reply, but after a few seconds he could hear a buzz indicating that someone had pressed the door-release button. The characteristic electronic noise was clearly audible, and he tentatively attempted to push the entrance door open. It yielded easily.

The stairway was at least as dilapidated as the façade of the block suggested, but it smelled freshly of green soap. The heavily built man ascended determinedly to the second floor. The front
door was blue, with a rectangle of frosted glass from doorknob level. Above the doorbell hung a little card, attached using a thumbtack with a red plastic head. E. That was what it said. E. Nothing more. He rang the bell.

There was a terrible racket inside. Then it went quiet. Håverstad tried again, followed by another explosion of sound. Suddenly the door opened. A man stood inside. It was difficult to estimate his age, as he had that peculiar, practically sexless appearance of a true eccentric. Nondescript face, neither ugly nor handsome. Hardly any beard growth. Pale, with smooth, blemish-free skin. Despite the weather, he was wearing a traditional sweater. It didn’t seem to bother him in the least.

“E,” he said, stretching out a cold hand. “My name is E. What do you want?”

Håverstad was so surprised by this apparition he could barely explain his errand. There wasn’t much to explain in any case.

“Eh . . .” he began. “I’d just like to talk to you about something.”

“About what?”

He was definitely not unfriendly, only reserved.

“I’m wondering whether you keep an eye on what’s going on here in the neighborhood,” Håverstad said, suitably vague.

It was clearly a shrewd move. A contented expression appeared at the corners of the man’s mouth.

“Come in,” he said, with something resembling a slight smile.

He stepped aside, and Håverstad crossed the threshold. The apartment was spotless. It appeared virtually uninhabited and contained very little to indicate it was indeed a home. There was a massive TV screen in one corner, with a single chair in front. There was no settee in the living room and no table. At the window, which had no curtains either, was the chair where Håverstad assumed the man had been sitting when he caught a glimpse of him from his daughter’s apartment. It was a well-worn green winged armchair, surrounded by several cardboard
boxes of the kind he recognized from his own files. Brown archive boxes made of stiff cardboard, lined up around the chair, like erect square soldiers defending their green citadel. On top of the chair, on the seat, lay a clipboard with a pen attached.

“This is where I live,” E said. “It was better where I was living before. But then my mother died, and I had to move.”

At the memory, a sad expression crossed his featureless face.

“What have you got in those boxes there?” Håverstad inquired. “Are you collecting something?”

E stared at him suspiciously.

“Yes, that’s what I do, in fact,” he said, without making any move to elaborate on the contents of the twenty to twenty-five cardboard boxes.

Håverstad had to approach the problem from a different angle.

“You probably don’t miss much, do you?” he said, showing interest, as he headed toward the window.

Although the glass showed signs of age, it was just as clean as the rest of the living quarters. There was a faint lemon scent.

“You’ve got a comfortable seat here,” he went on without looking at the man, who had snatched up the clipboard and was now standing hugging it close, as though it was worth its weight in gold. Which perhaps it was.