The Final Murder (9 page)

‘Excuse me,’ he whispered to irritated faces as he made his way towards his goal. ‘Excuse me, I just…’

At last he was out in the hall. It was empty. He carefully closed the double doors and sighed.

Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to come. He had had a

reason for coming, thinking that the memorial service would give him a better picture of Vibeke Heinerback. She was obviously not the person he had taken her to be. She was more. Even though he never for a moment imagined that the pictures of public figures drawn with broad strokes in the press were in any way genuine, real or exhaustive, his visit to the scene of the crime two days ago had made a deeper impression on him than he was prepared to

admit. Earlier on, while he was rummaging around looking for a clean, white shirt, he had hoped that the people close to Vibeke Heinerback might give more of themselves and say more about

her at an impulsive memorial service, held so soon after the young woman’s death. But even now, twenty minutes into the service, he realized that he should have known better. This was a day for praise. For good thoughts and happy memories, a shared grief across party-political divides.

Adam stood with his back to the reception rooms and wondered where he would find his coat. The former party leader’s speech, with frequent pauses and a cough here and there, filtered through the wood of the solid doors as a muffled murmur.

Then he heard another voice to his left, through a door that was ajar to what might be the kitchen. The sibilant, urgent

whispers of a woman who sounded like she actually wanted to

shout, but felt that it might be inappropriate, given the occasion.

Adam was about to make his presence known, when he

heard:

‘Don’t you worry about that.’

A man’s voice, deep and aggressive.

The sound of a glass being banged down on a table, followed

by what was obviously a sniff from the woman. Then she said

something. Adam could only make out a few individual words that meant nothing to him. He took a couple of cautious steps towards the half-open door.

‘Be careful,’ he heard the woman say. ‘You had better watch it now, Rudolf.’

She came out in to the hall so suddenly that Adam had to step back.

‘Jesus,’ he said, and smiled. ‘You really gave me a fright. Adam Stubo.’

The woman let a man out after her, closed the door with care, took Adam’s hand and returned his smile. She was smaller than he’d imagined, almost strikingly petite. She had a slim waist, something she emphasized with a tight, fitted black skirt that stopped just below the knee. The grey silk blouse had ruffles at the neck and down the front. She reminded him of a miniature Margaret Thatcher. Her nose was big and hooked and her chin

was pointed. Her eyes were worthy of the iron lady. Icy blue and sharp, though her face was relaxed and welcoming.

‘Kari Mundal,’ she said quietly. ‘Pleasure. You are very welcome here, despite the occasion. Perhaps you’ve already met

Rudolf Fjord?’

The man was twice her height and half as old. He was obviously less practised at hiding his feelings. His hand was sweaty

when he held it out, his eyes darted here and there for a few moments, before he finally managed to pull himself together and smile. At the same time he nodded, half bowed, as if he realized that his handshake was not particularly impressive.

‘Were you looking for something?’ Kari Mundal asked. ‘The

toilet? Just down there.’ She pointed. ‘When the service is over,’

she added, ‘there will be a bite to eat. Of course, we hadn’t expected so many people. But a little something is better than nothing. Vibeke was such

She smoothed her hair.

Kari Mundal was as close as you could get to the icon of a good old-fashioned housewife; she had stayed at home with her four daughters and three sons, and her husband was the first to admit that his stamina on the political front was entirely due to his loyal wife.

‘Everyone should have a Kari at home,’ he often said in interviews, blissfully unaffected by the complaints of younger women.

‘A Kari at home is better than ten in the workplace.’

Kari Mundal had looked after the house and children and

ironed his shirts for more than forty years. She was happy to appear in magazines and on Saturday night TV, and since her husband had retired from politics she had become a sort of national

mascot, a politically incorrect, friendly and sharp little granny.

‘Were you looking for the toilet?’ she asked and pointed again.

‘Yes,’ Adam replied. ‘Sorry to have to miss some of your husband’s speech …’

‘When you have to go, you have to go,’ interrupted Kari

Mundal. ‘Rudolf, shall we go in?’

Rudolf Fjord bowed again, stiff and obviously ill at ease. He followed behind the older woman, who opened the door to the

reception room. It closed silently behind them.

Adam was alone.

The voice on the other side of the door sounded as if it was giving a service now. Adam wondered whether the gathering

would soon start to sing. Vibeke Heinerback’s body would not be released for a funeral for a long time, so in a sense there was nothing odd about holding a memorial service, but it struck him for the first time since he arrived that there was something vaguely distasteful about holding it here, in a private house, a sudden, but

obviously well-planned event.

When he looked into the room where Rudolf Fjord and Kari

Mundal had been having their whispered contretemps, his suspicion was confirmed. The kitchen was massive, as if it had been

planned with occasions like this in mind. Silver platters of sandwiches, finger food and elegant hors d’oeuvres stood lined up on

the worktops and table, between bowls full of colourful salads.

Cases of mineral water were stacked against the wall. On the windowsill, which was at least half a metre deep and two metres long,

the hostess had lined up bottles of red and white wine. Some had already been opened.

Adam carefully lifted the clingfilm on one of the trays and

stuffed three bits of chicken in his mouth.

Then he left the kitchen again.

He noticed a wardrobe at the end of the hall. As he chewed

whilst trying to find his coat among all the other coats, jackets, hats and scarves, it struck him that Mrs Mundal had not even asked who he was and why he was there. It wasn’t likely that she knew him from before. Adam had only ever had one interview in the national media. The following day he had promised himself and his superiors that it would never happen again.

He eventually found his coat. He went out.

An argument, he mused, as the raw sea air hit him.

Arguing on a day like today. Little Mrs Mundal and Rudolf

Fjord, second in charge of the party and, according to the papers, Vibeke Heinerback’s obvious successor as party leader. The disagreement was obviously important, as they had not been present during Kjell Mundal’s speech in the main room.

A gust of wind made his coat tails flap against his legs. Adam looked up at the sky and then ran with heavy steps over the gravel.

Of course it didn’t have to mean anything.

When he got to the car, he heard the helicopters. There were two of them, one over a hill to the east, the other low over the water a few hundred metres from the shore. He also now saw that the small boat down by the jetty was a police boat. He counted five uniformed men along the road, all armed.

The gathering indoors was safe.

To the extent that anyone was, he thought and got into the car.

He spat out some parsley and had to reverse fifty metres before it was possible to turn.

The physical pain was not the worst thing. She was used to it. Her body had been ravaged by multiple sclerosis for more than twenty years now. Even though she was only sixty-seven, she knew that she was nearing the end. Nothing worked any more. Her bedsores leaked and were painful. Yvonne Knutsen’s body was a shell

round what could barely be called a life. She lay flat in a bed in a bland room in an institution that she had never liked. Grief drained what remained of her life force.

Bernt was wonderful. He came every day with little Fiorella.

Stayed with her for a long time, even though Yvonne was constantly falling asleep. Her medicine was stronger now.

She wanted to die. But God refused to come and get her.

The worst thing about just lying like this was time. Time grew when you weren’t able to do anything. It went in circles, in loops, in great big arcs, before returning back to where it started. She didn’t want this any more. Her time on this earth should be over, it should have been over long ago, and her grief made the fact that her body was clinging on to life even more unbearable.

Fiona had been a good daughter. Naturally they had argued,

like every mother and daughter. Their relationship had been cool now and then, but was it reasonable to expect anything else? It never took more than a few weeks before everything was the

same as before. Fiona was kind. Yvonne’s friends had always said so, in the days when she could still make and serve coffee, or even a meal on a good day.

‘You’re lucky, Yvonne.’

Fiona had never let her down.

They shared a secret, the two of them.

Just as time warped beyond recognition when it had no meaning, so secrets could grow to be so enormous that they were invisible. To begin with it had been like a thorn between them. But as there was no turning back, they had managed to agree with surprising ease.

We’ll forget this.

Yvonne Knutsen could still hear her own voice back then, firm and maternal with an edge of determined protection:

‘We will forget this.’

And they had forgotten.

Now Fiona was dead and loneliness gave the secret new life. It haunted her, particularly at night, when she thought she could see a shadow by the window, a silent figure seeking revenge that had now found reason to plague her, now when she had no one to help her forget.

If only God would let her follow Fiona.

‘Dear God,’ she whispered into the room.

But her heart went on beating stubbornly in her emaciated

chest.

Daylight was disappearing fast. It was four o’clock in the afternoon of Monday the 9th of February. A thirty-seven-year old man

was about to climb a crane without permission. It was yellow and over twenty metres high, towering above a confusion of construction materials and machinery. He was only a few metres from the

ground and he could already feel the cold wind blasting through his clothes. His gloves were too thin. His friend had warned him.

The metal felt like ice. But he had not dared to choose anything warmer, it was after all better to have more control over your fingers.

He wasn’t going fast enough. His friend was already halfway

up. But he was younger and well trained.

Vegard Krogh tried to be positive.

He didn’t really have the energy for this sort of thing any more.

He was reluctantly approaching forty and had never received the recognition and publicity he deserved. He thought his writing was accessible, and the literary sarcasm was of a high quality. The critics all agreed, but Vegard Krogh’s work was seldom given more

than a passing comment in the local paper from his home town.

Vegard Krogh had a distinct voice, a critic once said, an original and ironic pen. He was described as a talent. But since then he had not only got older, he had also become an author of some note. He knew it: he had important things to tell. His talent had blossomed, he should be established by now, a force to be reckoned with. A review of his third novel from Morgenbladet hung on the notice board at home. Not particularly impressive, just two columns, worn and yellow after several years in the kitchen, but the phrase ‘strong, vital and at times technically brilliant’ was written there.

The readers, however, had totally let him down.

Don’t think. Climb.

He should have worn overalls. There was a gap between the

waistband of his trousers and his sweater. The cold cut into his back like icicles. He tried to stuff his woollen vest into his trousers with one hand. It helped for a few seconds.

He would just have to manage. He didn’t know where he got

the energy. Without thinking about the cold, without worrying about his increasing height above the ground, without thinking about how dangerous the project was that he was now determined to carry through, he simply concentrated on lifting one leg after the other. Lifting one hand up a step while the other clung to the metal. Again and again. Keeping pace. Iron will.

He was up.

The wind was so strong that he could feel the crane swaying.

He looked down. Closed his eyes.

‘Don’t look down,’ his friend shouted. ‘Don’t look down yet, Vegard! Look at me!’

His eyelids were stuck to his irises.

He wanted to look but didn’t dare. A violent wave of nausea

washed over him.

‘You’ve done this before,’ he heard his friend’s voice saying, much closer now. ‘It’ll be fine, just wait.’

A hand gripped his lower arm. A firm grip.

‘It’s exactly the same as this summer,’ the voice said. ‘The only difference is the weather.’

And the fact that it was illegal, thought Vegard Krogh, and tried not to look back.

His job at the left-wing paper, Klassekampen had been a dead end. He had stayed there too long. Maybe because he was, after all, allowed to write what he wanted. Klassekampen was important.

It took sides. Papers should take sides, politically and on principle.

And Vegard Krogh was allowed to rant as much as he liked. As long as his aggression was targeted in the right direction, as the editor put it. As Klassekampen and the young Vegard Krogh had more or less the same views on Norwegian cultural life, the paper fully supported his vitriolic, well-written reviews, angry analyses and highly libellous remarks. He carried on for several years, until he was exhausted and finally had to admit that practically no one read Klassekampen.