Fear Not (31 page)

The music came to an end. The priest stepped up to the pulpit, directly in front of the central aisle, which resembled an oversized bar stool that might fall over at any moment.

The two men in front of Petter started a whispered conversation.

At first he was annoyed. It wasn’t right to talk during a sermon. Well, maybe ‘sermon’ wasn’t the right word, but any rate it was rude not to keep quiet while the priest was talking.

‘… found several works of art … no children or siblings …’

Petter Just could hear fragments of the conversation. Although he didn’t really want to, he found himself concentrating on them.

‘… in his studio … no heirs …’

The priest indicated that the congregation should stand. The two men were so absorbed that they didn’t react until everyone else was on their feet. They kept quiet for a little while, then started whispering to each other again.

‘… lots of smaller installations … sketches … a final masterpiece … nobody knew that …’

The bastards were ruining the entire service. Petter leaned forward.

‘Shut up, for God’s sake!’ he hissed. ‘Show a little respect!’

Both men turned to look at him in surprise. One was in his fifties with thinning hair, narrow glasses and a moustache. The other was somewhat younger.

‘Sorry,’ said the older man, and both of them smiled as they turned to face the front.

He must have given them a real fright, because they didn’t say another word for the rest of the ceremony. It didn’t last much longer anyway. No one spoke, apart from the priest. Not like when Lasse died in a car accident two years ago; he had been one of three little boys racketing around in Godlia in the eighties. His funeral had been held in the large chapel next door, and there still wasn’t room for everyone who wanted to attend. There had been eight eulogies, and even a live band playing ‘Imagine’. A sea of flowers and an ocean of tears.

Nobody here was crying, and there was just one wreath on the coffin.

The thought brought tears to his eyes.

He should have got in touch with Niclas long ago. If it hadn’t been for the aspect of their relationship that he really wanted to forget, the aspect that had never really been his thing, he would have kept up the friendship.

Suddenly he didn’t want to be there any more. Just before the final note died away, he got up. He pushed the old, short-sighted man out of the way and yanked open the heavy wooden door.

It had started snowing again.

He started to run, without really knowing what he was racing towards.

Or from.

*

‘Changing the subject,’ said Sigmund Berli, before kicking off his shoes and putting his feet up on the little table between the two armchairs in Adam’s hotel room. ‘I’ve got myself a girlfriend.’

Adam held his nose, pulled a face and stabbed his index finger several times in the direction of his colleague’s feet.

‘Congratulations,’ he said, laughing behind his clenched fist, ‘but your socks stink to high heaven. Take them away! Put your shoes back on!’

Sigmund leaned forward as far as he could towards his own feet. Sniffed hard and wrinkled his nose slightly.

‘They’re all right,’ he said, settling down again. ‘I haven’t had any complaints from my girlfriend, anyway.’

‘Who is she?’ asked Adam, moving over to the bed, as far from Sigmund as possible. ‘And how long has this been going on?’

‘Herdis,’ Sigmund said eagerly. ‘She’s … Herdis is … Guess! Guess what her job is!’

‘No idea,’ Adam said impatiently. ‘Are you actually going to offer me a drink or what?’

Sigmund fished a plastic bottle of whisky out of his inside pocket. He picked up one of the glasses Adam had fetched from the bathroom and poured a generous measure before handing it to his friend.

‘Thanks.’

Sigmund poured himself a drink.

‘Herdis,’ Sigmund repeated contentedly, as if just speaking her name was a pleasure. ‘Herdis Vatne is a professor of astrophysics.’

‘Hmff … !’ Adam sprayed whisky all over himself and the bed. ‘What did you say? What the hell did you say?’

Sigmund straightened up, a suspicious look in his eyes.

‘I suppose you thought I couldn’t pull an academic? The trouble with you, Adam, is that you’re always so bloody prejudiced. You defend those Negroes to the death. Despite the fact that they’re over-represented in virtually all the crime statistics we have, you’re always going on about how difficult things are for them, and—’

‘Pack it in,’ said Adam. ‘And don’t use that word.’

‘That’s a form of prejudice, too, you know! Always thinking the best of people just because they belong to a particular group! You never think the best of anyone else. You’re sceptical about every white person we pick up, but if their skin’s just a little bit darker than ours, you start pointing out how decent they probably are, and how—’

‘Pack it in! I mean it!’ Adam suddenly sat up straight on the bed.

Sigmund hesitated, then added sullenly: ‘And you don’t believe for a moment that I’ve got a girlfriend who works at the university. You think it’s funny. That’s definitely what I call having preconceived ideas. And it’s actually quite hurtful, to be perfectly honest.’

‘Sorry,’ said Adam. ‘I apologize, Sigmund. Of course I’m very happy for you. Have you … ?’ He pointed to Sigmund’s mobile phone. ‘Have you got a picture of her?’

‘You bet!’

Sigmund fiddled with his phone and eventually found what he was looking for, then held it out to Adam with a broad grin.

‘Not bad, eh? Beautiful as well as clever. Almost like Johanne.’

Adam took the phone and examined the picture. A fair-haired woman in her forties was looking back at him with a big smile. Her teeth were white and even, her nose upturned slightly in an attractive way. She must be quite slim, because even on the little display screen he could see deep laughter lines, with a furrow running from the corners of her mouth down to her chin on either side. Her eyes were blue and she was wearing just a little bit too much eye make-up.

She looked like just about any competent Norwegian woman in her forties.

‘Not bad at all,’ he mumbled, handing back the phone.

‘I was going to tell you on Saturday, before Johanne suddenly went off to bed. But then I decided to wait, because yesterday Herdis was meeting my boys for the first time. Well, it wasn’t really the first time, because her son plays hockey with Snorre. They’ve been good friends for ages. But I had to see how things went when we kind of … met up privately. All of us. I mean, I can’t have a girlfriend who doesn’t like my boys. And vice versa.’

‘So I gather it went well?’

‘Couldn’t have gone better. We went to the cinema, then back to her place for a meal afterwards. You should see her apartment! Stylish and spacious. In Frogner. I almost feel like a stranger in that part of town. But it’s lovely there, I have to admit.’

He sipped contentedly at his whisky and leaned back in his armchair.

‘Love is a beautiful thing,’ he announced solemnly.

‘Indeed it is.’

They sat in silence for a while as they worked their way through about half of their generous drinks. Adam could feel the tiredness creeping up on him as he lay there on the bed, three pillows providing a soft support for his back and neck. He closed his eyes, then gave a start as he almost dropped his glass.

‘What do you think about our woman?’ said Sigmund.

‘What woman? Herdis?’

‘Idiot. Eva Karin Lysgaard.’

Adam didn’t reply. The two of them had spent the day trying to impose some kind of system on the vast amount of documents relating to the case. Nineteen days had passed since the Bishop was stabbed to death, and basically the Bergen police were no closer to a solution. You couldn’t actually blame them, thought Adam. He was just as much at a loss. So far they and Sigmund had worked well together, with no friction. To begin with Adam had taken responsibility for interviewing the witnesses who were most central to the case, while Sigmund had acted as a link between Kripos and Hordaland police district. This was a role he fulfilled admirably. It was difficult to find a more jovial soul than Sigmund Berli. He was a strong all-rounder who could usually sort out any potential conflict before things turned serious. For the last week they had both worked in a slightly different capacity, evaluating the material gathered so far. The Bergen police were responsible for all aspects of the investigation and coordination. They operated entirely independently, while Adam and Sigmund tried to gain an overview of all the information that came pouring in.

‘I think we’ve made a mistake,’ Adam said suddenly. ‘The opposite of the mistake we usually make.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’ve been looking at too wide an area.’

‘Rule Number One, Adam: keep all doors open at all times!’

‘I know,’ said Adam with a grimace. ‘But listen …’

He picked up a notepad and pen from the bedside table.

‘With regard to this theory about a madman, one of those ticking bombs that everybody is talking about all the time—’

‘An asylum seeker,’ Sigmund chipped in, and was about to expand on this theme when a crushing glance from Adam made him hold up his hands in a placatory gesture.

‘If that were the case, we would have found him long ago,’ said Adam. ‘That type of murder is carried out by psychotic individuals who happily roam the streets after doing the deed, spattered with blood and tormented by inner demons until we find them a few hours later. It’s been three weeks now, and we’ve seen no sign of any maniac. No one is missing from the psychiatric clinics, nothing suspicious has been discovered at the centres for asylum seekers, and I think it’s actually …’

He tapped the pad with his pen.

‘… out of the question that we’re looking for that kind of murderer.’

‘I should imagine that’s exactly what the Bergen police are thinking.’

‘Yes. But they’re still keeping the door open.’

Sigmund nodded.

‘That door should just be closed,’ said Adam. ‘Along with several other doors that are just creating draughts and chaos with all their possibilities. These poison-pen letters, for example. Have you ever been involved in a case where the murderer was one of the people who’d sent that sort of thing?’

‘Well,’ Sigmund said hesitantly. ‘In the Anna Lindh case the murderer was unhappy about—’

‘The Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs was murdered by a madman,’ Adam interrupted. ‘In every practical respect, if not in the legal sense. A misfit with a psychiatric background who suddenly caught sight of a focus for his hatred. He was arrested two weeks later, and he left so many clues that—’

‘That you and I would have picked him up in less than twenty-four hours,’ Sigmund smiled.

Adam grinned back.

‘They’ve been really unlucky, the Swedes, in several really, really serious cases …’

Once again they fell silent. From the room next door came the sound of a running shower and a toilet being flushed.

‘I think that’s a blind alley, too,’ said Adam. ‘Just like this abortion business the papers are making so much of at the moment. It’s the anti-abortion lobby that sometimes commits murders in support of their point of view. In the US, anyway. Not the pro-abortionists. That’s just too far-fetched.’

‘So what are you thinking, then? You’ve gone through virtually every possibility we’ve got! What the hell are you sitting there pondering?’

‘Where was she going?’ said Adam, staring blankly into space. ‘We have to find out where she was going when she was murdered.’

Sigmund emptied his glass and stared at it briefly before resolutely opening the plastic bottle of Famous Grouse and pouring himself another decent measure.

‘Take it easy,’ said Adam. ‘We’ve got to make an early start.’

Sigmund ignored his warning.

‘The problem is, of course, that we can’t ask Eva Karin Lysgaard,’ he said. ‘And her husband is still flatly refusing to say anything about where she was heading. Our colleagues here have told him he has a duty to answer, and have even threatened him with a formal interrogation. With the consequences that could have—’

‘They’ll never subject Erik Lysgaard to a formal interrogation. It would be pointless. He has suffered enough – and is still suffering. We’ll have to come up with something else.’

‘Like what?’

Adam emptied his glass and shook his head when Sigmund lifted the bottle to offer him a top-up.

‘Door-to-door enquiries,’ Adam said tersely.

‘Where? All over Bergen?’

‘No. We need to …’ He opened the drawer of the bedside table and took out a map of the town. ‘We need to concentrate on a limited area somewhere around here,’ he said, drawing a circle with his index finger as he held the map up to show his colleague.

‘But that’s half of bloody Bergen,’ Sigmund said wearily.

‘No. It’s the eastern part of the centre. The north-eastern part.’

Sigmund took the map.

‘You know what, Adam? This is the stupidest suggestion you’ve ever come up with. It’s been made absolutely crystal-clear in the media that there’s a great deal of uncertainty about why the Bishop was out walking on Christmas Eve. If anyone out there knew where she was going, they would have contacted the police long ago. Unless, of course, they have something to hide, in which case there’s still no bloody point in going around knocking on doors.’

He threw the map on the bed and took a large swig from his glass.

‘Besides,’ he went on, ‘she might just have gone out for a walk. In which case we wouldn’t be any closer to finding an answer.’

Adam’s face took on the glassy expression Sigmund knew so well.

‘Any more bright ideas?’ he said, sipping his whisky. ‘Ideas I can shoot down right now?’

‘The photo,’ said Adam firmly, before glancing at his watch.

‘The photo. Right. What photo?’

‘It’s half past eleven. I need to get some sleep.’

‘Which photo are you talking about?’

Sigmund showed no sign of heading off to his own room. On the contrary, he settled himself more comfortably in the armchair and rested his legs on the bed.

‘The one that disappeared,’ said Adam. ‘I told you about the photograph that was in the “spare room” …’