In a nutshell, Erik Lossius had met his match.
Yes, indeed, because he thought of her as a man, one that did not pretend she wanted anything different from him: to fuck the other person’s brains out. And in a way they did just that. At any rate they began to meet in bare apartments, being moved out of or into, at least once a month and always there was a distinct risk of being found out. They were quick, efficient and their rituals were fixed and without variation. Nevertheless, Erik Lossius looked forward to these assignations like a child to Christmas – that is, with unfeigned, uncomplicated joy which was only increased by the certainty that everything would be the same, that their expectations would be fulfilled. They lived parallel lives, had parallel realities and that seemed to suit him as much as it suited her. And so they continued to meet, interrupted only by the birth – which fortunately was accomplished with a Caesarean section – some fairly long holidays and an innocent STD whose source he was neither able to nor attempted to trace. And now ten years had passed, and in front of Erik Lossius, sitting on a cardboard box in a half-emptied flat in Torshov, a tall, shaven-headed man with a lawnmower voice was asking if he had known Birte Becker.
Erik Lossius gulped.
The man had introduced himself as Harry Hole, an inspector in Crime Squad, but looked more like one of his removal men than an inspector of anything. The police officers Erik had spoken to after he had reported Camilla’s disappearance were from the Missing Persons Unit. However, when this one had shown his ID, Erik’s first thought had been that he had news of Camilla. And – since the officer in front of him hadn’t rung but tracked him down to here – he feared it was bad news. Accordingly, he had sent his removal crew out and asked the inspector to take a seat while he found a cigarette and tried to prepare himself for what was to come.
‘Well?’ said the inspector.
‘Birte Becker?’ Erik Lossius repeated, trying to light his cigarette and think fast. He didn’t manage either. Christ, he couldn’t even think slowly.
‘I appreciate that you have to compose yourself,’ the inspector said, taking out his own packet of cigarettes. ‘Take your time.’
Erik watched the inspector light up a Camel and leaned over when he held the lighter out to Erik.
‘Thanks,’ Erik mumbled, sucking so hard that the tobacco crackled. The smoke filled his lungs, and it was as if the nicotine were being injected into his bloodstream, clearing all the obstructions. He had always thought this would happen sooner or later; that the police would somehow discover a link between him and Birte and come asking questions. But at that time he had only worried about how he would keep it hidden from Camilla. Now everything was different. From right now, in fact. Because up until this moment he hadn’t realised that the police might think there was a connection between the two disappearances.
‘Birte’s husband, Filip Becker, found a notebook in which Birte had entered a kind of easy decipherable code,’ the policeman said. ‘There were telephone numbers, dates and tiny messages. Leaving little doubt that Birte had regular contact with other men.’
‘Men?’ Erik let slip.
‘If it’s any consolation, Becker thought you were the one she met most often. At a huge variety of addresses, I’m led to believe,’ Harry added.
Erik, adrift in a boat watching a tidal wave growing on the horizon, didn’t answer.
‘So Becker found your address, took his son’s toy gun along with him – a very authentic-looking imitation of a Glock 21 – and went to Tveita to wait for you to come home. He wanted to see the fear in your eyes, he said. Threaten you to make you tell whatever you knew so that he could pass your name on to us. He followed the car into the garage, but it turned out your wife was driving.’
‘And he . . . he . . .’
‘Told her everything, yes.’
Erik rose from the cardboard box and walked over to the window. The flat had a view of Torshov Park and an Oslo bathed in wan morning sun. He didn’t like the old apartment blocks with views. They meant stairs. The better the view, the more stairs there were and the more exclusive the apartments, which meant heavier, more expensive goods, higher payouts for damage and more days with his men off sick. But that was the way it was when you exposed yourself to the risks of maintaining fixed low rates; you always won the competition for the worst jobs. Over time there is a price to pay with all risks. Erik took a deep breath and heard the policeman scuffing his feet on the wood floor. And he knew. This detective would not be worn down by any delaying tactics. This was one damage report he would not be throwing in the bin. Birte Olsen, now Becker, was going to be the first customer he would suffer a loss on.
‘Then he told me he’d been having an affair with Birte Becker for ten years,’ Harry said. ‘And that when they met and had sex for the first time she’d been pregnant with her husband.’
‘You’re pregnant with a girl or a boy,’ Rakel corrected, patting down the pillow so that she could see him better. ‘Or by her husband.’
‘Mm,’ Harry said, levering himself up on his arm, stretching across her and grabbing the cigarette packet on the bedside table. ‘Not more than eighty percent of the time.’
‘What?’
‘They said on the radio that somewhere between fifteen and twenty per cent of all children in Scandinavia have a different father from the one they think.’ He shook a cigarette out of the packet and held it up against the afternoon light seeping in under the blind. ‘Share one?’
Rakel nodded without speaking. She didn’t smoke, but this was something they had always done after making love: shared this one cigarette. The first time Rakel had asked to taste his cigarette, she had said it was because she wanted to feel the same as he did, to be as poisoned and stimulated as he was, to get as close to him as she could. And he had thought of all the girl junkies he had met who had had their first fix for the same idiotic reason, and refused. But she had persuaded him and eventually it had become a ritual. After they had made love slowly, lingering over it, the cigarette was like an extension of their lovemaking. At other times it was like smoking a peace pipe after a fight.
‘But he had an alibi for the whole of the evening Birte went missing,’ Harry said. ‘A boys’ night in Tveita that started at six and lasted all night. At least ten witnesses, admittedly wasted for the most part, but no one had been allowed to go home before six in the morning.’
‘Why keep it a secret that Vetlesen wasn’t the Snowman?’
‘As long as the real Snowman thinks we think we’ve got the killer he’ll lie low, hopefully, and won’t commit any more murders. And he won’t be so wary if he thinks the hunt has been called off. In the meantime we can quietly work our way closer at our leisure . . .’
‘Do I hear irony there?’
‘Maybe,’ Harry said, passing her the cigarette.
‘You don’t quite believe that then?’
‘I think our superiors have many reasons for concealing the fact that Vetlesen wasn’t our man. The Chief Superintendent and Hagen held the press conference at the time when they were congratulating themselves on solving the case . . .’
Rakel sighed. ‘And yet still I do occasionally miss Police HQ.’
‘Mm.’
Rakel studied the cigarette. ‘Have you ever been unfaithful, Harry?’
‘Define unfaithful.’
‘Having sex with someone other than your partner.’
‘Yes.’
‘While you were with me, I mean.’
‘You know I can’t be absolutely certain.’
‘OK, sober then.’
‘No, never.’
‘So what does that make you think of me? Being here now?’
‘Is this a trick question?’
‘I mean it seriously, Harry.’
‘I know. I just don’t know if I feel like answering it.’
‘Then you can’t have any more of the cigarette.’
‘Mm. Alright. I think you believe you want me, but you wish you wanted him.’
The words hung over them as if imprinted in the darkness.
‘You’re so bloody . . . detached,’ Rakel erupted, handing Harry the cigarette and crossing her arms.
‘Perhaps we shouldn’t talk about it?’ Harry suggested.
‘But I have to talk about it! Don’t you see? Otherwise I’ll go out of my mind. My God, I’m already out of my mind, being here, now . . .’ She pulled the duvet up to her chin.
Harry turned and slid over to her. Already before he had touched her she had closed her eyes, tipped back her head and from between her parted lips he could hear her breathing accelerate. And he thought: how does she do it? From shame to sexual abandon in a flash? How can she be so . . . detached?
‘Do you think . . .’ he said, seeing her open her eyes and stare at the ceiling in surprise and frustration at the caresses that hadn’t materialised, ‘a bad conscience makes us wanton? That we’re unfaithful not in spite of the shame but because of it?’
She blinked a couple of times.
‘There’s something in that,’ she said at length. ‘But it’s not everything. Not this time.’
‘This time?’
‘Yes.’
‘I asked you once and at that time you said –’
‘I was lying,’ she said. ‘I’ve been unfaithful before.’
‘Mm.’
They lay in silence listening to the distant drone of the afternoon rush hour in Pilestredet. She had come to him straight from work; he knew Rakel and Oleg’s routines, and knew she would have to go soon.
‘Do you know what I hate about you?’ she said finally, giving his ear a tweak. ‘You’re so bloody proud and stubborn you can’t even ask if it was to you.’
‘Well,’ Harry said, taking the half-smoked cigarette and admiring her naked body as she jumped out of bed, ‘why would I want to know?’
‘For the same reason Birte’s husband did. To reveal the lie. To have the truth out in the open.’
‘Do you think the truth will make Filip Becker any less unhappy?’
She pulled the sweater over her head, a tight-fitting black one in coarse wool that lay straight over her soft skin. It occurred to Harry that if he was jealous of anything, it was the sweater.
‘Do you know what, herr Hole? For someone whose job it is to uncover unpleasant truths you certainly enjoy living a lie.’
‘OK,’ Harry said, stubbing the cigarette in the ashtray. ‘Out with it then.’
‘It was in Moscow while I was with Fjodor. There was a Norwegian attaché at the embassy I had trained with. We fell head over heels in love.’
‘And?’
‘He was also in a relationship. As we were about to finish with our respective partners she got in first and told him she was pregnant. And since by and large I have good taste as far as men go . . .’ Pulling on her boots, she screwed up her top lip. ‘I had of course chosen someone who would not desert his responsibilities. He applied for a transfer back to Oslo, and we never saw each other again. And Fjodor and I got married.’
‘And straight afterwards you became pregnant?’
‘Yes.’ She buttoned up her coat and looked down at him. ‘Now and then I’ve wondered whether it was to get over him. And whether Oleg was a product not of love but of love-sickness. Do you think he was?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ Harry said. ‘I just know he’s one great product.’
She smiled down at him in gratitude and stooped to give him a kiss on the forehead. ‘We’ll never see each again, Hole.’
‘Of course not,’ he said, sitting up in bed and staring at the bare wall until he heard the heavy door on to the street close behind her with a dull thud. Then he walked into the kitchen, turned on the tap and took down a glass from the top cupboard. While waiting for the water to run cold his gaze fell on the calendar with the picture of Oleg and Rakel in the sky-blue dress and then onto the floor. There were two wet boot prints on the lino. They must have been Rakel’s.
He donned his coat and boots, was about to leave, then turned, fetched his Smith & Wesson service revolver from the top of the wardrobe and stuffed it in his coat pocket.
The lovemaking was still in his body like a quiver of well-being, a mild intoxication. He had reached the street door when a sound, a click, made him spin round and peer into the yard where the darkness was denser than in the street. He was intending to go on his way, and would have done. Had it not been for the prints. The boot prints on the lino. So he went into the yard. The yellow lights from the windows above him bounced off the remnants of snow that still lay where the sun could not quite reach. It stood by the entrance to the cellar storerooms. A crooked figure with its head at an angle, pebbles for eyes and a gravel grin laughing at him. Silent laughter reverberated between the brick walls and blended into a hysterical shriek he recognised as his own as he grabbed the snow shovel beside the cellar steps and swung it in violent fury. The sharp metal edge of the shovel struck below the head, lifting it off the body and sending the wet snow flying against the wall. The next hefty swipe sliced the snowman’s torso into two and the third scattered the remains across the black tarmac in the middle of the yard. Harry stood there gasping for breath when he heard another click behind him. Like the sound of a revolver being cocked. In one smooth movement he swirled round, dropped the shovel and drew the black revolver.
Muhammad and Salma stood by the wooden fence, underneath the old birch, mutely staring at their neighbour with big, frightened children’s eyes. In their hands they were holding dry branches. The branches looked as if they might have been elegant arms for a snowman had Salma not snapped hers in two, out of sheer terror.
‘Our . . . s-snowman,’ Muhammad stammered.
Harry returned the revolver to his coat pocket and closed his eyes. Cursing himself, he swallowed and instructed his brain to let go of the gunstock. Then he opened his eyes again. Tears were welling under Salma’s brown irises.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll help you to make another one.’
‘I want to go home,’ Salma whispered in a thick voice.