Authors: Anne Holt
‘I’m just going to the loo,’ said Johanne. ‘I really do need a drink.’
‘Here,’ said Silje, passing her a bottle of mineral water from the cupboard behind her. ‘I can understand how you feel. You put two and two together more quickly than we did. This is all to do with—’
‘There’s a murder missing for 27 November,’ said Johanne. She was getting hotter and hotter. She couldn’t get the bottle open.
‘This could all be coincidence,’ she went on, her voice almost breaking.
‘You don’t believe that. And you’re wrong. There isn’t a murder missing for 27 November. Last Tuesday, when my colleague and I spotted a clear connection between the three cases I’m working on at the moment …’
She quickly leaned across the desk, waving her fingers at the bottle. Johanne passed it to her and Silje opened it with one quick movement. She passed it back and went on.
‘It’s tricky when one inspector is responsible for three murder investigations. I actually had four, but I passed one over to a colleague. I hadn’t done very much work on that particular case before I handed it over. It’s to do with suspected sabotage on a car. It came off the road in Maridalen, and since nobody sticks to the speed limit on what is an extremely dangerous stretch of road, the driver died. At first the case was treated as an ordinary road traffic accident. Then it turned out that someone might have … tampered with the brakes. I knew this before, of course, but what I didn’t know was that the victim, a Swedish woman by the name of Sophie Eklund, lived with Katie Rasmussen.’
Johanne needed a few seconds. She had already drunk half the mineral water.
‘The MP,’ she said eventually. ‘The spokesman on homosexual issues for Arbeiderpartiet.’
‘I think she prefers “spokeswoman”.’
‘Do you think … was the sabotage aimed at her? Was … was her partner murdered by mistake?’
‘I don’t know, and I have no opinion on that. I’m just telling you that your absurd theory seems a little too close to the mark for me to sit here and dismiss it.’
‘It could be someone else, of course,’ said Johanne. ‘Another organization. Or a copycat. Or—’
‘Listen to me,’ said the inspector. ‘I want you to listen very carefully.’
She rested her elbows on the desk and interlaced her fingers.
‘You have a good reputation, Johanne. A lot of people in this building are aware of the work you’ve done for NCIS, without taking any credit for it. I noticed you in particular when NCIS solved the case of those murdered children a few years ago. It’s no secret around here that it was your input that saved the life of at least one girl who had been kidnapped.’
Johanne stared at her, her face expressionless. She couldn’t work out where the inspector was going with this.
‘But people also say you can be quite …’
She straightened her back and her eyes narrowed before she found a word she liked.
‘… reluctant,’ she said. ‘Do you know what they call you inside NCIS?’
Johanne put the bottle to her mouth and took a drink. A long drink.
‘The reluctant detective.’
Silje’s laugh was big, warm and infectious.
Johanne smiled and put the top back on the bottle.
‘I didn’t know that,’ she said candidly. ‘Adam never mentioned it.’
‘Perhaps he doesn’t know. Anyway, my point is that you’re sitting here, living proof that your nickname is well-earned. First of all you come out with a theory that’s like something out of an American B-movie, then you try to distance yourself from the whole idea when I tell you there could be something in it. So it’s hardly surprising that—’
Loud voices out in the corridor. A male voice bellowed, then a woman screamed, followed by the sound of running footsteps. Johanne looked in horror at the closed door.
‘Someone trying to do a runner,’ Silje said calmly. ‘Unlikely to succeed.’
‘Shouldn’t we help? Or—’
‘You and me? I don’t think so!’
Someone must have caught the would-be runaway and rendered them harmless, because suddenly everything went quiet. Johanne was fiddling with the cuffs of her sweater when she caught sight of a calendar just behind Silje. There was a red magnetic ring around Thursday 15 January.
‘Irrespective of my theory,’ she said slowly, ‘the fact is that during November and December we have six murders with … some kind of homosexual link, I think we could call it. 19, 24 and 27 November. The same dates in December. And today is 15 January.’
Johanne kept her eyes fixed on the red ring. When she blinked it had etched itself firmly on her mind’s eye as a green O.
‘Yes,’ said Silje Sørensen. ‘In four days it will be 19 January. We may not have much time.’
The thought hadn’t struck Johanne until now. It gave her goose-flesh on her arms, and she pulled down her sleeves.
‘Do you have anything to go on? Anything at all? From what Adam says it sounds as if they’re not really getting anywhere over in Bergen.’
Silje Sørensen pushed out her lower lip and shook her head slightly, as if she didn’t really know whether what she was searching for could really be called a clue. She opened three drawers before she found the right one and took out a pile of drawings. The drawer slammed shut as she stood up. She went to the empty noticeboard.
‘We’ve got this,’ she said. ‘Sketches of the man who was trying to buy sex from Hawre Ghani when he was last seen alive.’
She fixed the images to the board with bright red drawing pins. Johanne stood up and waited until all four sheets were in place: a full-length picture, a full-face portrait, a profile and a peculiar drawing of something that looked like a pin with an emblem on it.
‘Is everything all right?’
Silje’s voice sounded as if it was coming from a long way off.
‘Johanne!’
Someone grabbed hold of her arm. Her head felt so light that she thought it might come loose and float up to the ceiling like a helium balloon unless she pulled herself together.
‘Sit down! For God’s sake sit down!’
‘No. I want to stand here.’
Even her own voice sounded distant.
‘Have you … ? Do you know who this man is, Johanne?’
‘Who did these?’
‘Our usual artist, his name is—’
‘No, that’s not what I mean. Which witness helped to produce these sketches?’
‘A boy. Homeless. A prostitute. Do you know the man in the drawings?’
She was still holding Johanne’s arm. Her grip tightened.
‘I slapped this man across the face,’ said Johanne.
‘What?’
‘Either your witness is playing games, or he’s the most observant person in the world. I’ll never forget this man. He …’
The blood had returned to her head. Her brain felt clearer than for a long time. A remarkable sense of calm came over her, as if she had finally decided what she wanted and what she believed in.
‘He saved my daughter’s life,’ she said. ‘He saved Kristiane from being hit by a tram, and I slapped him across the face by way of thanks.’
*
Kristen Faber’s secretary had finally found the time to open the drawer in her boss’s desk. There had been no need to call a locksmith or a carpenter, of course. All it took was a little skilful poking at the lock with an ornamental penknife that she kept on her own desk. Click went the drawer and it was open.
And there was the envelope. Large and brown, with Niclas Winter’s name written on it just above his ID number. The envelope had an old-fashioned wax seal and, as an additional security measure, someone had scrawled an illegible signature diagonally across the flap where the envelope was stuck down.
When Kristen Faber took over the practice from old Skrøder, there had been a lot to deal with. Ulrik Skrøder had been completely senile for the last six months before his son finally managed to have the poor old soul declared incapable of managing his affairs, and the firm could be sold. At least that was what everyone said. Kristen Faber’s secretary, having taken on the task of going through all the papers and following up every case where the time limit had elapsed or was about to do so, had the impression that Skrøder must have been confused for many years. There was no order to anything, and it took her months to sort out the worst of it.
When everything was finally finished, Kristen realized he had paid too much for the practice. The ongoing cases were far fewer in
number than he had been led to believe, and most of the clients turned out to be around the same age as their solicitor. They simply died, one after the other, ancient and advanced in years, with their affairs in pristine order and with absolutely no need of the assistance of a solicitor. Eighteen months later Kristen managed to get back half the money he had paid out.
The secretary could well understand his frustration at having bought a pig in a poke. However, she couldn’t help reminding him from time to time about all the sealed envelopes in a heavy oak cupboard in the archives. Some of them looked positively antique, and Skrøder’s son had maintained that they could be extremely valuable. They had been handed over for safe keeping by some of the city’s oldest and wealthiest families, he told them. His father had always said that the oak cupboard containing these documents provided proof of his good judgement. Every envelope was sealed, with the name of the owner of the contents neatly written on the front, and when he was in deep despair at having bought a portfolio that offered him little profit Kristen Faber had restricted himself to opening a dozen or so.
He found shares in companies that no longer existed, marriage settlements between couples long dead, a wad of banknotes that was no longer legal tender, and the outline of a novel by an unknown author, which, after reading just ten pages, he realized was completely worthless. After that he had closed the cupboard, decided to forget his crippling losses and build up the practice himself.
Since then the cupboard had just stood there.
The secretary had opened it for the first time in almost nine years when young Niclas Winter rang. He seemed frustrated and was quite rude when he asked if they might possibly have an envelope with his name on it in their archives. As she had little to do, and curious by nature, she had gone to have a look. And there it was. On closer inspection it looked newer than the rest.
Now she was holding the envelope up to the light.
It was impossible to see what was inside. Nor had Niclas Winter said anything about the contents as he showered her with noisy kisses over the phone before Christmas, when she rang to tell him she had found it.
The temptation to break the seal was almost too much for her. She
placed the palm of her hand on the thick paper. It was usually possible to steam open envelopes like this, but the seal presented a problem.
With a small sigh she placed the envelope on Kristen Faber’s desk and went back to her own office.
She would at least make sure she was there when he opened it.
*
‘We can’t go public on this,’ said Silje Sørensen, covering the image of the mystery man with the palm of her hand. ‘Not yet, anyway. If we publish the picture it will lose a significant amount of its value. Everybody will form their own opinions. People will start calling in with sightings, and experience suggests that we’ll be completely stuffed before that approach turns up anything useful. Now, however …’
She contemplated the picture for a few more seconds before going back to her seat.
‘Now we have an ace up our sleeve. We’ve got something nobody knows about.’
Johanne nodded. When she had managed to pull herself together after recognizing the man in the sketch, they had gone through the case point by point one more time. She was halfway through a second bottle of mineral water, trying to suppress a belch.
‘And you’re absolutely certain?’
It was at least the third time Silje had asked.
‘I’m absolutely certain that the man in that drawing looks amazingly like the man who saved Kristiane, yes. It’s as if he’d posed for the picture. But as I said, I can’t guarantee that it’s actually the same man. The point is …’
Air forced its way up her oesophagus and she belched.
‘Sorry,’ she said, her hand to her mouth. ‘The point is that there are starting to be so many links here that it just can’t be a matter of pure coincidence. Placing the man who was the last person Hawre Ghani was seen with at the location where Marianne Kleive was murdered has to be a breakthrough, surely. In both cases, I might add.’
‘We could find you a job here.’ Silje smiled, then a new furrow appeared between her fine eyebrows and she said: ‘And since you’re firing on all cylinders, perhaps you can explain this emblem?’ She pointed at the drawing. ‘It’s really foxed us.’
‘I should think that was exactly the intention,’ said Johanne. ‘We’ve moved on from false beards and dyed hair. Have you seen Hitchcock’s
Strangers on a Train
?’
The furrow deepened.
‘The one with the two strangers who meet on a train,’ Johanne reminded Silje. ‘Both of them want another person dead. One of them suggests they should swap murders, so that they can create watertight alibis. The murderer will have no motive whatsoever, and as we know the motive is one of the very first things the police try to establish.’
For the second time in just a few hours the thought of Wencke Bencke passed through her mind. She pushed it aside and tried to smile.
‘I … I don’t really watch that kind of thing,’ said Silje.
‘You should. Anyway – the emblem is there because it has nothing at all to do with the matter. Look at what else he’s wearing: dark, neutral clothes without a single distinguishing mark. Anyone who’s even vaguely observant will fix on that bright red logo. Which means you expend enormous amounts of energy on—’
‘But where did he get it from?’
‘Anywhere. And it could be anything at all. Something he found somewhere. If our assumptions are correct, this is a highly professional killer. His hair, for example. Is he bald, or has he shaved his head? I would assume the latter.’
‘It’s as if you’ve read this,’ said Silje, waving the sketch artist’s accompanying notes. ‘Martin Setre wasn’t sure.’
‘But he did think about it? I didn’t. I assume this man …’