And she thought that though it wasn’t the first time she’d heard him say her name, it felt as if it was the first time she’d heard
anyone
say it.
‘So you had to carry on jumping. Because boys measure themselves against their fathers and daughters against their mothers.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘All sons believe that one day they’ll turn into their father, don’t you think? That’s why they’re so disillusioned when their father’s weaknesses are revealed; they see their own failings, their own future defeats waiting for them. And sometimes the shock is so devastating that it makes them give up before they’ve even started.’
‘Was it like that for you?’
Martha shrugged. ‘My mother should never have stayed married to my father. But she chose to conform. I hurled it at her once when we argued about something she wouldn’t let me to do, I don’t even remember what it was. I screamed that it was unfair to deny me happiness just because she denied it to herself. I’ve never regretted saying anything that much in my whole life and I’ll never forget her wounded look when she replied: ‘Because I risk losing the one thing which brings me most happiness. You.’
Stig nodded and looked out of the basement window. ‘Sometimes we’re wrong when we think that we know the truth about our parents. Perhaps they weren’t weak. Perhaps something happened to give you the wrong impression. What if they were strong? What if they were willing to leave behind a disgraced name, allow themselves to be stripped of all honour, take the blame, to save the ones they loved? And if they were that strong, perhaps you’re strong, too.’
The trembling in his voice was almost imperceptible. Almost. Martha waited until he turned his gaze on her again before she asked:
‘So what did he do?’
‘Who?’
‘Your father.’
She saw his Adam’s apple slide up and down. Saw him blink more quickly. Press his lips together. She saw that he wanted to. Saw him watch the take-off point come closer. He could break the fall by throwing himself to the side.
‘He signed a suicide note before they shot him,’ Stig said. ‘To save my mother and me.’
Martha felt dizzy while he continued to speak. She might have pushed him over the edge, but she was going down with him. And now there was no way back to the point where she could erase what she had learned. Deep down, had she known what she was doing all along? Had she wanted this wild floating, this free fall?
Stig and his mother had been to a wrestling tournament in Lillehammer that weekend. His father would normally have gone with them, but had said that he needed to say at home, that he had something important to do. Stig had won in his weight class and when they came home, had run to his father’s study to tell him. His father had been sitting with his back to him and his head resting on the desk. At first Stig thought his father had fallen asleep while working. Then he saw the gun.
‘I had only seen that gun once before. My father used to write his diary in his study, a diary bound in black leather with yellow pages. When I was little he used to say it was his confession. I used to think that to go to confession was just another word for writing, right up until I was eleven and my RS teacher told me that to confess is to tell someone your sins. When I came home from school that day, I crept into his study and found the desk key – I knew where he kept it. I wanted to know what my father’s sins were. I unlocked . . .’
Martha took a breath as if she were the one telling the story.
‘But the diary wasn’t there. Instead I found an old-fashioned, black pistol. I locked the drawer, returned the key and sneaked out. And I felt ashamed. I had tried to spy on my own father, to expose him. I never told anyone and I never tried to find out where he kept his diary again. But when I stood behind my father in his study that weekend, it came back to me. It was my punishment for what I had done. I put my hand on his neck to wake him up. It wasn’t just that he wasn’t warm, it was the chill, a kind of hard, marble-cold death exuded from his body. And I knew that it was my fault. Then I saw the letter . . .’
Martha looked at the vein on his neck while he told her that he had read it. Seen his mother stand in the doorway. He told her how at first he was going to tear up the letter, pretend that it never existed. But he hadn’t been able to do it. And when the police came, he had given it to them. And he could tell from looking at them that they wanted to shred it, too. The vein bulged as if he was an inexperienced singer. Or someone who isn’t used to talking very much.
His mother had started taking the antidepressants her doctor prescribed. Then other pills on her own initiative. But like she used to say, nothing worked better or faster than alcohol. So she had started drinking. Vodka for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He had tried to take care of her, get her off the pills and booze. In order to do that he had had to quit wrestling and other after-school activities. His teachers had come to their door, rung the doorbell and asked why he, who used to get such fine grades, was skiving and he had thrown them out. His mother had deteriorated, becoming increasingly unbalanced and eventually suicidal. He was sixteen years old when he discovered a syringe among the pills while clearing up his mother’s bedroom. He had known what it was. Or at least what it was for. He had plunged it into his own thigh and it had made everything better. The next day he had gone down to Plata and bought his first wrap. Six months later he had sold everything in the house that could easily be converted into cash and robbed his defenceless mother blind. He didn’t care about anything, least of all himself, but he needed money to keep the pain at bay. Since he was under eighteen and couldn’t be sent to adult prison, he had started paying for his habit by confessing to minor robberies and burglaries with which older criminals were charged. When he turned eighteen and such offers dried up and the pressure, the constant pressure to get money only grew worse, he had agreed to take the fall for two murders in return for being supplied with drugs while he was in prison.
‘And now you’ve served your sentence?’ she said.
He nodded. ‘
I
certainly have.’
She slipped off the chest freezer and went up to him. She wasn’t thinking, it was too late for that. She reached out her hand and touched the vein in his neck. He looked at her with big, black pupils that almost filled the iris. Then she put her arms around his waist and he put his arms around her shoulders, like two dancers who couldn’t decide which of them should lead. They stood like this for a while, then he pulled her close. He was burning up, he must have a fever. Or did she? She closed her eyes, felt his nose and lips against her hair.
‘Let’s go upstairs,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve got something for you.’
They went back to the kitchen. It had stopped raining outside. He took something from the pocket of his jacket which was hanging over the kitchen chair.
‘These are for you.’
The earrings were so beautiful they initially left her speechless.
‘Don’t you like them?’
‘They’re gorgeous, Stig. But how did you . . . Did you steal them?’
He looked gravely at her without replying.
‘I’m sorry, Stig.’ Her thoughts were muddled and tears welled up in her eyes. ‘I know you’re not using any more, but I can see that the earrings used to belong to someone—’
‘She’s no longer alive,’ Stig interrupted her. ‘And something that beautiful should be worn by someone who is.’
Martha blinked in confusion. Then the penny dropped. ‘They belonged . . . they were . . .’ She looked up at him, half blinded by tears. ‘Your mother’s.’
She closed her eyes, felt his breath on her face. His hand on her cheek, throat, neck. Her own free hand which she placed on his side, wanting to push him away. Pull him closer. She knew they had long since kissed in their imagination. Hundreds of times, at least, since the first time they met. But it was different when their lips finally touched and an electric shock went through her. She kept her eyes closed, felt his lips, so soft, his hands gliding across the small of her back, his stubble, his smell and his taste. She wanted it, wanted all of it. But the touch also awakened her, tore her out of the lovely dream she had allowed herself to get lost in because there had been no consequences. Not until now.
‘I can’t,’ she whispered in a trembling voice. ‘I’ve got to go now, Stig.’
He released her and she quickly turned away. She opened the front door, but paused before she left.
‘It was my fault, Stig. We can never meet again like this. Do you understand? Never.’
She closed the door behind her before she could hear his reply. The sun had forced its way through the layer of clouds and the steam rose from the glittering, black tarmac. She stepped out into the humid heat.
Through his binoculars Markus saw the woman hurry into the garage, start the old Golf they had arrived in and reverse out, still with the hood down. She drove so fast that he couldn’t focus on her properly, but it looked as if she was crying.
Then he aimed the binoculars at the kitchen window again. Zoomed in. The man was standing there watching her. His hands were clenched, his jaw was tight and the veins bulged at his temples as if he was in pain. And the next moment Markus knew why. The son stretched out his arms, opened his hands and pressed them against the inside of the windowpane. Something gleamed in the sunlight. Earrings. They stuck to each palm and two thin streams of blood trickled down to his wrists.
24
THE OFFICE WAS
in twilight. Someone had turned off all the lights when they left, probably thinking they were the last ones there, and Simon had let it stay that way, the summer evenings were still light enough. Besides, he had a new keyboard with illuminated keys, so he hadn’t even needed to turn on his reading lamp. Their floor of the office building alone consumed 250,000 kWh per year. If they could bring it down to 200,000, they would apparently save enough money to run two extra emergency vehicles.
He navigated his way around the Howell Clinic’s website. The pictures from the eye clinic were nothing like most other American private hospitals, which resembled five-star hotels with smiling patients, ecstatic testimonies and surgeons who looked like film stars and airline pilots. This clinic displayed only a few photographs and sober information about staff qualifications, results, articles published in reputable journals and Nobel Prize nominations. And most important of all: the percentage of successful operations for the procedure Else needed. The figure was well above fifty – but not as high as he had hoped. On the other hand, it was low enough for him to believe it. There were no prices listed on the website. But he hadn’t forgotten what it was. It was high enough for him to believe it.
He sensed movement in the darkness. It was Kari.
‘I tried calling you at home. Your wife said you were here.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why are you working so late?’
Simon shrugged. ‘When you can’t go home with good news, sometimes you put off going home for as long as you can.’
‘What do you mean?’
Simon ignored her. ‘What do you want?’
‘I did as you said, turned over every stone, looked for every possible and impossible connection between the Iversen murder and the triple homicide. And I can’t find a single thing.’
‘You realise, of course, that that doesn’t rule out that there
is
a connection,’ Simon said and moved to another page on the website.
Kari pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘Well, if there is, then I certainly can’t find it. And I’ve had a very good look. And I’ve been thinking—’
‘We like thinking.’
‘Perhaps it’s this simple: the burglar spotted two opportunities – the Iversen house and a location with drugs and money. And he had learned from his first robbery that you should always make people give you the code to their safe before you kill them.’
Simon looked up from his computer. ‘A robber, who has already shot two people, squanders half a kilo of Superboy with a street value of half a million kroner to kill his third victim?’
‘Bjørnstad thought it was gang-related, a way to send a message to the competition.’
‘Gangs can send messages without spending half a million on postage, Officer Adel.’
Kari threw back her head and sighed. ‘Agnete Iversen definitely isn’t mixed up with drug dealing and the likes of Kalle Farrisen, I think we can be sure of that.’
‘But there
is
a connection,’ Simon insisted. ‘What I don’t understand is that now when we’ve uncovered what he’s trying to hide, namely that there
is
a connection, we still can’t identify what that connection is. If the connection really is that obscure, why go to all the trouble of hiding that it’s the same killer?’
‘Perhaps the cover-up isn’t designed to confuse us,’ Kari yawned.
She closed her mouth immediately when she saw Simon stare at her with wide eyes.
‘Of course. You’re right.’
‘Am I?’
Simon got up. Then he sat down again. He slammed the desk with the palm of his hand. ‘He’s not worried that the police might work out his identity. This is about someone else.’
‘He’s scared that someone else will come after him?’
‘Yes. Or perhaps he doesn’t want to alert them to his presence. But at the same time . . .’ Simon cupped his chin with his hand and swore under his breath.
‘At the same time what . . .?’
‘It’s more complicated than that. Because he’s not hiding altogether. Killing Kalle in that manner
is
sending someone a message.’ Simon kicked off irritably and the chair tilted back. They sat, not saying a word while the darkness grew denser around them without them noticing. Simon was the first to break the silence. ‘I’ve been thinking that Kalle’s life was ended in the same way as some of his customers. Respiratory failure following an overdose. As if the killer is some kind of avenging angel. Does that ring any bells?’
Kari shook her head. ‘Only that Agnete Iversen probably wasn’t executed according to the same logic; as far as I know she never shot anyone in the chest.’