‘An interesting theory,’ Iversen said, shrugging. ‘I’ve told you everything I know. Is there anything else?’
‘Yes. I want to meet the Twin.’
Iversen heaved a sigh. ‘I’ve just told you I don’t know any Twin.’
Simon seemed to nod quietly to himself. ‘Do you know something? We heard that so often at the Serious Fraud Squad that people started doubting if the Twin even existed, they thought he was just a myth.’
‘It sounds to me as if he might just be that, Kefas.’
Simon rose. ‘It’s all good with me. But myths don’t control the drugs and sex trafficking market in an entire city, year in, year out, Iversen. Myths don’t liquidate pregnant women at the request of their business partners.’ He leaned forward, planted both palms on the desk and exhaled so that Iversen got a taste of his old man’s breath. ‘Men don’t get so terrified that they’re willing to dive off a cliff because of a myth. I know he exists.’
Simon pushed himself up to standing and headed for the door while he waved his mobile phone. ‘I’m calling a press conference the moment I get into the lift, so perhaps now is a good time for that father–son chat.’
‘Wait!’
Simon stopped in front of the door without turning round.
‘I’ll . . . I’ll see what I can do.’
Simon took out his card and put it on top of the glass display cabinet with the Coca-Cola skyscraper.
‘You and he have until six o’clock.’
‘Inside Staten?’ Simon repeated as they went down in the lift. ‘Lofthus attacked Franck in his own office?’
Kari nodded. ‘That’s all I know for now. What did Iversen say?’
Simon shrugged. ‘Nothing. Not surprisingly, he insisted on speaking to his lawyer first. We’ll have to talk to him tomorrow.’
Arild Franck sat on the edge of the bed waiting to be taken into surgery. He was dressed in one of the hospital’s pale blue gowns and had an ID bracelet around his wrist. He had felt no pain for the first hour, but it was starting to hurt now and that measly little injection the anaesthetist had given him was doing no good at all. He had been promised a proper injection which they claimed would numb his entire arm right before the operation. A surgeon specialising in hands had stopped by and told him in detail what microsurgery was capable of these days, that the severed finger had arrived at the hospital, that the cut was nice and clean, and that once the finger was reunited with its rightful owner, the nerves would surely reattach so he would be able to use his finger for both ‘this and that’ in a few months. His attempt at humour was probably well intended, but Franck wasn’t in a joking mood. So he had interrupted the surgeon and asked how long he would need to reattach the finger and when he could return to work. And when the surgeon had said that the operation itself would take several hours, Franck had – to the surgeon’s amazement – looked at the clock and sworn softly, but audibly.
The door opened and Franck lifted his head. He hoped it was the anaesthetist because it wasn’t just his finger that was throbbing furiously now, it was his head and all of his body.
But it wasn’t anyone in white or green, it was a tall, slim man in a grey suit.
‘Pontius?’ Franck said.
‘Hello, Arild. I just wanted to see how you were doing.’
Franck narrowed one eye. As if it made it easier for him to work out the real reason for the Commissioner’s visit. Parr sat down on the bed beside him. Nodded towards his bandaged hand.
‘Does it hurt?’
‘It’ll be fine. Tell me you’re looking for him?’
The Commissioner shrugged. ‘Lofthus has vanished into thin air. But we’ll find him. Have you any idea what he wanted?’
‘Wanted?’ Franck snorted. ‘Who knows what he wants? He’s clearly on some sort of deranged crusade here.’
‘Quite,’ Parr said. ‘So the real question is when and where he will strike next. Did he give you any indication?’
‘Indication?’ Franck groaned and bent his elbow gently. ‘Like what?’
‘You must have talked about something.’
‘He talked. I was gagged. He wanted to know who the mole was.’
‘Yes, I saw.’
‘You
saw
?’
‘From the papers in your office. Or at least those that weren’t covered in blood.’
‘
You
were in my office?’
‘This is a top-priority case, Arild. The man is a serial killer. It’s bad enough that the press is after us, but now the politicians are starting to interfere as well. From now on I’m going to be hands-on.’
Franck shrugged his shoulders. ‘OK.’
‘I have a question—’
‘I’m about to go into surgery and it hurts like hell, Pontius. Can’t it wait?’
‘No. Sonny Lofthus was interviewed in connection with the murder of Kjersti Morsand, but denied any involvement. Did anyone tell him that her husband was our prime suspect before we found Lofthus’s hair at the crime scene? Or that we had evidence to suggest Yngve Morsand killed her?’
‘How would I know? What do you mean?’
‘Oh, I was just wondering.’ Parr put his hand on Franck’s shoulder and Franck felt the pain shoot down to his hand. ‘You just concentrate on your surgery.’
‘Thank you, but there isn’t really a lot to think about.’
‘No,’ Parr said, taking off his rectangular glasses. ‘I don’t suppose there is.’ He started polishing them with an absent-minded expression. ‘All you do is lie there while someone else does all the work.’
‘Yes,’ Franck said.
‘While someone else puts you back together. Makes you whole again.’
Franck gulped.
‘So,’ Parr said, putting his glasses back on. ‘Did you tell him who the mole was?’
‘You mean, did I tell him it was his own father?
Ab Lofthus, he confessed
. If I had written that down on a piece of paper, that boy would have cut off my head.’
‘What did you tell him, Arild?’
‘Nothing! What could I have told him?’
‘That’s exactly what I’ve been wondering. I’ve been wondering what made the boy so sure that you had information that he was willing to break into your prison to get hold of it.’
‘The boy’s insane, Pontius. Sooner or later every drug addict turns psychotic, you know that. The mole? Dear God, that story disappeared along with Ab Lofthus.’
‘So what did you tell him?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He only severed one of your fingers. Everyone else was killed. You were spared, you must have given him something. Don’t forget I know you, Arild.’
The door opened and two smiling hospital workers dressed in green entered. ‘Ready to roll?’ one of them smiled.
Parr straightened his glasses. ‘You haven’t got the guts, Arild.’
Simon walked down the street, bowing his head against the sea air that was sweeping in from the fjord, passing over Aker Brygge and Munkedamsveien before it was narrowed by the buildings and then accelerated up Ruseløkkveien. He stopped outside the church which had been squeezed in between two apartment blocks. St Paul’s Church was more modest than its namesakes in other capitals. A Catholic Church in a Protestant country. It was facing the wrong way, westerly, and had just a hint of a church tower at the front. Only three steps led to the entrance. But it was always open. He knew that because he had been here before, late one evening in the middle of a crisis, and had hesitated before walking up those three steps. It had been right after he had lost everything, before he had found his salvation in Else.
Simon climbed the steps, pushed down the copper handle, opened the heavy door and entered. He wanted to close the door quickly behind him, but the stiff springs resisted. Had they been just as stiff that time? He didn’t remember, he had been too drunk. He let go of the door which shut behind him, one centimetre at a time. But he remembered the smell. Foreign. Exotic. An atmosphere of spirituality. Magic and mysticism, fortune-teller and travelling circus. Else liked Catholicism, not so much the ethics as the aesthetics, and had explained to him how everything in the church building, even the most basic elements such as bricks, mortar and stained-glass windows, was endowed with a religious symbolism that bordered on the comical. And yet this simple symbolism possessed a gravitas, a subtext, a historical context and the faith of so many thinking people that it was impossible to dismiss. The narrow, whitewashed and plainly decorated room containing rows of pews that led up to a single altar with Jesus hanging on the cross. A symbol of victory in defeat. Up against the wall on the left-hand side, halfway towards the altar, was the confessional box. It had two compartments, one had a black curtain in front of the opening, like a photo booth. When he came here that night, he hadn’t known which of the two cubicles was intended for the confessing sinner before his alcohol-clouded brain had deduced that if the priest shouldn’t be able to see the sinners, the priest must be in the photo booth. So he had staggered inside the curtainless cubicle and started talking to the perforated wooden board separating them. Confessed his sins. In an unnecessarily loud voice. Simultaneously hoping and dreading that there was someone on the other side, or that someone, anyone, would hear him and do the necessary. Offer him forgiveness. Or condemn him. Anything but this suffocating vacuum where he was alone with himself and his mistakes. Nothing had happened. And the next morning he had woken up without the usual headache – which was strange – and realised that life would continue as if nothing had happened, that ultimately no one cared. It was the last time he had set foot inside a church.
Martha Lian was standing near the altar with a brusquely gesticulating woman in an elegant suit and the type of short hairstyle which some older women think makes them look younger. The woman was pointing and explaining, and Simon caught words such as ‘flowers’, ‘ceremony’, ‘Anders’ and ‘guests’. He had almost reached them when Martha Lian turned to face him. The first thing that struck him was how different she looked since the last time. How empty. Alone. And how miserable.
‘Hi,’ she said in a dull voice.
The other woman stopped talking.
‘I’m sorry for intruding,’ Simon said. ‘At the Ila Centre, they said I would find you here. I hope I’m not interrupting something important.’
‘Oh no, it’s—’
‘Yes, we’re actually planning my son and Martha’s wedding right now. So if it could wait, Mr . . .?’
‘Kefas,’ Simon said. ‘And, no, it can’t wait. I’m a police officer.’
The woman looked at Martha with raised eyebrows. ‘That’s exactly what I mean when I say that you’re living in a world that’s all too real, darling.’
‘Which you’ll be spared from having to take part in, Mrs . . .?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Miss Lian and I will discuss this in private. Duty of confidentiality, and all that.’
The woman marched off on hard heels, and Simon and Martha sat down on the front pew.
‘You were seen driving off in a car with Sonny Lofthus,’ Simon said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘He wanted to learn to drive,’ Martha said. ‘I took him to a car park where we could practise.’
‘He’s wanted all over Norway now.’
‘I saw it on TV.’
‘Did he say or did you see him do anything that could suggest where he might be now? And I want you to think about this very carefully before you reply.’
Martha looked as if she thought very carefully indeed before she shook her head.
‘No? Anything about his plans for the future?’
‘He wanted to learn to drive.’
Simon sighed and smoothed his hair. ‘You understand that you risk being charged as an accessory if you help him or hide information from us?’
‘Why would I do that?’
Simon looked at her without saying anything. She was getting married shortly. So why did she look so unhappy?
‘OK, OK,’ he said and got up.
She stayed where she was and looked down at her lap.
‘Just one thing,’ she said.
‘Yes?’
‘Do you think he’s the crazed killer everyone says he is?’
Simon shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘No,’ he said.
‘No?’
‘He’s not crazy. He’s punishing people. He’s on a kind of vendetta.’
‘What is he trying to avenge?’
‘I think it’s about his father who was a police officer; after he died, people said he was corrupt.’
‘You say he punishes people . . .’ She lowered her voice. ‘Does he punish justly?’
Simon shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But he makes allowances.’
‘Allowances?’
‘He confronted the assistant prison governor in his office. That was audacious and it would have been much easier for him and a lot less risky if he had sought Franck out at his home.’
‘But?’
‘But it would have brought Franck’s wife and child into the firing line.’
‘Innocent bystanders. He doesn’t want the innocent to get hurt.’
Simon nodded slowly. He saw something happen in her eyes. A spark. A hope. Was it really that simple? Was she in love? Simon straightened his back. Looked up at the altarpiece which showed the Saviour on the cross. Closed his eyes. Opened them again. To hell with it. To hell with it all.
‘Do you know what his father, Ab, used to say?’ he said, hoisting up his trousers. ‘He said that the age of mercy is over and that the day of judgement has arrived. But as the Messiah is running late, we have to do his job for him. He alone can punish them, Martha. Oslo Police is corrupt, they’re protecting the crooks. I think Sonny is doing this because he feels he owes it to his father, that this is what his father died for. Justice. The kind of justice which is above the law.’
He watched the older woman by the confessional box where she was discussing something with a priest in a low voice.
‘And what about you?’ Martha said.
‘Me? I am the law. So I have to catch Sonny. That’s just the way it is.’
‘And that woman, Agnete Iversen, what crime did she commit?’
‘I can’t tell you anything about her.’
‘I read that her jewellery was stolen.’
‘Did you?’
‘Did that include a pair of pearl earrings?’
‘I don’t know. Is it important?’
She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It isn’t. I was trying to think of anything that might help you.’