The Final Murder (46 page)

been shocked by the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib, but only enough for a few photographs to make the front pages of newspapers in Norway. The historical expansion of the European

Union to the east didn’t cause much of a stir either in the small rich country on the periphery of the Continent. People were

more interested in the prolonged transport strike, which had resulted in empty shelves in shops and fights over toilet paper and nappies. Rosenborg won match after match in the football league and the revised national budget was passed without any political drama. If you looked carefully, you could still sometimes find the odd article about the unsolved murders of Vibeke

Heinerback, Vegard Krogh and the biathlete Havard Stefansen.

But not often. Nothing had been written about the cases for a fortnight now.

A woman was sitting on a bench by the Aker River, reading the paper.

Johanne Vik had also used the spring to try to forget. She was well trained in the art. As the weeks and months passed and

nothing more happened, it became impossible to keep the children in hiding. The house in Haugesvei had been under police

observation, but that too seemed unnecessary after a while, certainly to those responsible for the Oslo Police’s already strained

budget. Patrol cars no longer included Haugesvei on their nightly rounds.

And no one had tried to set fire to the box-shaped, white semidetached where the Vik-Stubo family lived with their children

and a dog and friendly neighbours.

She had just started to sleep again too. She had found a daily rhythm. She went for walks.

The pram was standing beside her. The baby was asleep, covered by a light cotton blanket. Johanne glanced up at the sky

every now and then; it looked as if the good weather might be coming to an end.

She enjoyed sitting like this. She came here every day. She

bought the papers at the petrol station on Maridalsveien. Before she reached the bench under the willow tree, where the river took a swing between Sandaker and Bjolsen, the baby was asleep and she had an hour to herself.

Another woman walked towards her, down the path. She was

probably in her mid-forties. Her hair was curling in the light breeze and she had sunglasses on.

‘Johanne is so bloody predictable,’ the woman thought to herself.

‘Has she learnt nothing? She sits here every day, unless it’s raining. She doesn’t seem to be frightened any more. The children are at home again. It annoys me that I overestimated her.’

‘Hallo,’ the woman said as she walked up to Johanne. ‘It is

Johanne Vik, isn’t it?’

Johanne stared at her. Wencke Bencke smiled when the other

woman put her arm over the pram, her fingers splayed over the crocheted blanket.

‘I’ve met your husband on a couple of occasions,’ said the

author. ‘Is it OK if I sit down?’

Johanne didn’t answer. She didn’t move.

‘Wencke Bencke, pleased to meet you. We’ve got mutual

acquaintances, in fact. In addition to your husband, that is.’

She sat down. Her upper arm brushed Johanne’s arm as she

made herself comfortable, sitting confidently with her legs

crossed. She bounced her upper foot.

‘Terrible thing,’ she said, and shook her head. ‘All those

celebrity murders. I was a witness in one of the cases. Perhaps you remember. It looks as if the poor victims are forgotten already, sadly’

She nodded at the pile of papers between them.

‘That’s the way it goes. As long as there are no real suspects, the papers run out of things to write. And with those cases …’

She nodded at the papers again. Johanne sat poker-straight and paralysed, at the far end of the bench.

‘… they seem to have come to a dead end. The police, I mean.

Strange. Apparently there’s no leads. They simply have nothing to go on.’

Johanne Vik had finally managed to pull herself together. She tried to get to her feet while clinging on to the pram and picking up a bag full of baby stuff.

‘Wait,’ Wencke Bencke said in a friendly voice, and gripped her arm. ‘Can’t you stay for a while? Just a few minutes. We have so much in common. There’s so much I’d like to tell you.’

‘Is it curiosity that keeps her sitting here,’ she wondered. ‘Or won’t her legs carry her?’

Johanne sat still, with the bag on her lap and her arm protecting her daughter.

Wencke Bencke sat up straight on the bench and turned her

head towards the younger woman.

‘Have you ever suspected anyone other than me?’ she asked,

still friendly.

‘She’s not answering. She has no idea what to say. She’s not curious any more. She’s frightened. Why doesn’t she shout? What would she shout?’

‘I received this letter.’

Wencke Bencke pulled out a folded sheet from her back

pocket. She unfolded it and flattened it over her knee.

‘Notification of compulsory disclosure,’ she explained. ‘From the court. As prescribed by law, there’s also information about how to proceed if I want to complain about your husband sticking his nose in my business.’

She held the letter up for a moment. Then she shook her head and put it back in her pocket.

‘But I can’t be bothered to. In fact, it suits me very well that I’ve already been cleared, in the event of any later accusations.

The job’s done, you might say’

Her laughter was dark. She tried to tuck her hair behind her ear.

‘The Stockholm trip must have puzzled you,’ she said before

getting the letter out of her pocket again.

She took it in her right hand and scrunched it up. Then she

stood up and barred the way for the pram.

‘Lovely little girl,’ she said, and bent down over Ragnhild.

‘She’ll have a cleft in her chin.’

‘Get away. Get away Wencke Bencke took a step back.

‘I’m not going to harm her,’ she smiled. ‘I’m not going to harm anyone!’

‘I have to go,’ Johanne Vik said, and struggled with the brakes on the pram. ‘I don’t want to talk to you.’

‘Of course. I won’t force you. I certainly didn’t intend to distress you so. I just wanted to talk. About our shared interests and mutual…’

The brakes had got stuck. Johanne pulled the pram down the

path. The rubber wheels screeched on the asphalt. Ragnhild

woke up and started to howl. Wencke Bencke smiled and took off her sunglasses. Her eyes were lightly made up. They looked

bigger and darker.

‘She’ll never go away,’ thought Johanne. ‘She’ll never disappear.

Not until she dies. Not until I manage to …’

‘I’ve finished the book, by the way,’ Wencke Bencke said, as she sauntered along behind the pram. ‘It’s good. I’ll send you a copy when it’s printed.’

Johanne stopped suddenly and opened her mouth to scream.

‘Of course,’ Wencke Bencke said, and lifted her hands, as if to stop her. ‘You don’t need to give me your address. I know perfectly well where you live.’

Then she gave a slight nod, turned her back and walked away

down the path, in the opposite direction.

The End.

Postscript

This book opens with a quote by Walter Benjamin. The quote

was used in Lars Fr. H. Svendsen’s book, Kjedsomhetens filosofi (Universitetsforlaget 1999), which has been a great source of inspiration and help in writing The Final Murder.

On page 171, there is a quote from an unnamed source: ‘And

you’re dying so slowly that you think you’re alive’. I am obliged to say that this is taken from the title poem in a collection of poems by Bertrand Besigye (Gyldendal 1993).

I would like to thank Alexander Elguren for his irrepressible enthusiasm and Randi Krogsveen for her invaluable help.

This book is for you, Tine, as all my books are.

Oslo, 18 June 2004

Anne Holt