Smoke Screen

by Jorn Lier Horst

  Blix struggled to find anything to say.

  ‘I just thought it was odd that she was living with you one day, and had suddenly moved out the next,’ he answered finally.

  ‘I thought so too,’ Merete said. ‘But she’s still got a bit of teenager in her. She’s miffed that I didn’t invite her to come with us, so she probably wanted to demonstrate that by being a bit dramatic. And I can understand it, but I’ve said that she can come to visit, and that I would like to chip in and help her pay for the tickets and such, even though she probably has more money than I do at the moment.’

  Blix nodded. ‘What are you planning on doing over there?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. Travel around. Think about what I want to do with the rest of my life. Take a course or two. Start painting or become a yoga instructor – no clue, really. Jan-Egil will have to work a lot, so I’ll have quite a lot of free time.’

  ‘When do you leave?’

  ‘In eleven days.’

  Blix didn’t know what to add to that, other than: ‘Have a good trip. I’ll take care of Iselin.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She sounded happy. ‘Say hi to her, from me. Tell her to come over for dinner with us before we leave. Maybe you would both like to come? Next Sunday works?’

  Blix thought about it.

  ‘Thank you for the invitation,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think that would be a good idea.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He couldn’t tell her the truth, that he still found it harrowing to see her with another man. Merete had always been careful and avoided being too affectionate while Blix was there, but he had noticed them anyway, a shared look, or a gentle hand on the other one’s arm. It had always jolted him, like a stab in the heart.

  ‘I’ll tell Iselin to call you, so you can organise something. I have to get back to work.’

  He hung up and sighed heavily. Looked out of the window and avoided meeting the gaze of the driver in the rear-view mirror.

  The young police officer sitting in the passenger seat received an update. He read it, typed out a quick response and turned round to inform Blix.

  ‘The cadaver dogs are ready.’

  ‘The search dogs,’ Blix corrected him. ‘That’s good.’

  He had used the specially trained sniffer dogs before, but not for a case as old as this one. The search had been under way for about half an hour when Blix and the other officer arrived. There were three dogs in all. The dog handlers were equipped with searchlights, although it looked as if they had enough natural light for the time being. Several floodlights had been set up as well, all connected to the electricity supply at the cabin.

  ‘Have any of them detected anything yet?’ Blix enquired.

  ‘Nothing so far,’ the head of the dog section replied, showing Blix a map of the search area, divided into segments.

  Blix was pleased that he had the forethought to put some extra layers on. He walked around by himself mostly, but he was connected to the search teams by radio, and was never far enough away that he couldn’t still see them. The occasional clamour of barking dogs would pierce through the silence, obscuring the sound of his feet as they trampled the forest floor. The twigs that snapped beneath him, the moss that sighed under his weight.

  He scanned the ground for areas where it might be possible to dig at least half a metre into the ground. But that looked like it could be almost anywhere. The sense of unease grew with every step he took. Ruth-Kristine might have been in here, somewhere. Patricia might be buried somewhere close by.

  Had she been murdered by her own mother?

  Blix knew all too well that desperate people could carry out grotesque, inhumane deeds. There were plenty of examples of parents who had killed their own children without having any well-thought out reasons for doing so. And Ruth-Kristine was a peculiar woman. Suicidal one moment, furious the next, and after Patricia had disappeared, she, too, had disappeared into a spiral of drugs, cigarettes and alcohol.

  He had just started to deliberate whether he should get back into the car, when the radio crackled:

  ‘Possible discovery,’ the voice reported.

  Blix responded immediately. ‘Where?’

  Blix made his way over as the voice started to give him directions.

  ‘Under a massive, felled tree. Looks as if it came down a long time ago,’ the voice added.

  The man on the other end guiding him, it wasn’t long before Blix saw the crowd of people and dogs ahead. The light from one of the torches penetrated the incipient darkness that had started to settle between the tree trunks.

  Blix was met by a uniformed officer, holding a dog back on a tight lead.

  ‘It picked up the scent immediately,’ he said, pointing to the upturned tree.

  A gaping hole had been exposed where the roots were ripped out of the ground. Blix took a few steps closer and let his own torch wander across the mouth of the opening, which was about two metres long and a metre wide.

  He bent down and felt the forest floor. It was hard, cold, but not impossible to dig into. A feeling coursed through his entire body. She was here.

  Blix turned around and asked for a shovel. In the light provided by the surrounding torches, he swept away the top layer of moss and heather. Then he pressed down with the tip of the shovel, not too hard. He felt his way into the ground, carefully, starting about halfway into the centre of the opening. With every shovel full of soil that he cast aside, he grew warmer, angrier, and more and more anxious about the sight he was about to be met with.

  The hole widened. Something was starting to peek through the surface. The corner of a black plastic sheet.

  Blix let go of the shovel, knelt down and started using his hands.

  A black plastic bag. It had a gash in it from where the shovel had broken through. A light piece of cloth was poking out.

  Someone took a photo.

  ‘Help me, please,’ Blix requested.

  One of the officers knelt beside him. Together they eased the plastic bag out of the ground and laid it down gently beside the hole. Blix prised it open to reveal the twisted bundle inside. It was tangled up in a weather-beaten bedsheet, as if the cloth had been used as a shroud. Beneath the thin fabric, Blix could feel what he knew to be the knuckles of a small child’s hand.

  60

  The train to the airport drifted silently through the Romeriks Tunnel. The utter darkness had a mesmerising effect on Emma. It was as if she had forgotten how to blink. The pitch-black inside the tunnel blurred everything within. The walls streamed past. The occasional light would come into view, but even with the rhythmic precision of the train, her eyes never really registered them. The yellow glow only sent her deeper into the trance.

  Emma had made her mind up the moment she got up that morning. She would follow Kasper home.

  She had thought that the sleeping pill would make her groggy, but she felt well rested. She had called and talked to Irene, realising then that the only thing she really could do was return to Denmark with Kasper’s parents. Not only because she felt that she owed them that respect, but because she knew that her conscience would plague her if she didn’t. Although, on the other hand, she now felt like she had failed Anita, and her job. She had slept through most of the day, and hadn’t sent in anything new. And now she was leaving. She hung on to the excuse that it was the weekend, all the while aware that neither Anita nor Henrik Wollan would be taking any time off, not now that people were so desperate for information.

  The train lurched momentarily, jerking Emma out of her daze. Her eyes settled on her own reflection in the window, and she was repelled by the paleness of her face. As if there were no life left in it.

  The air pressure in the carriage adjusted as the train left the tunnel. The lights of Lillestrøm Station temporarily replaced the darkness before the half-light of the evening returned, obscuring everything other than the contours of the fields and the trees on the other side of town.

  Emma was dreading the time she
would be spending with Kasper’s family in Århus. Surrounded by their grief and pain, all while they tried to be good hosts. She didn’t like spending that much time in other people’s company, or at least, she didn’t tend to stay the night in other people’s homes. Her discomfort grew as she approached the airport. She thought that Kasper’s family might not actually want her to visit. She was a stranger. She and Kasper hadn’t been together that long. They probably knew that she wasn’t particularly keen to go with them either. It was like volunteering to perform in a play, a tragedy, where everyone had to take a role they would rather not have.

  She pushed the thought out of her mind, and instead, ended up thinking of Blix. He had promised to keep her updated on any developments following the interview with Sophus Ahlander, but she hadn’t heard anything.

  The train pulled into Oslo Gardermoen Airport, only nineteen minutes after leaving Oslo Central Station.

  Emma had been to Copenhagen several times. It was a comfortable journey. This time, she would be on a smaller plane, heading down to Billund, somewhere in central Denmark.

  Picking up the suitcase that she had hastily packed earlier that day, she towed Kasper’s suitcase behind her, struggled through the ticket barrier on the platform and joined the queue trailing up the escalators towards check-in. Through the flurry of people, she spotted a large man with a grey-and-white beard waving at her from under one of the notice boards.

  Jakob Bjerringbo let go of the luggage trolley he had been holding and approached Emma with a warm, welcoming smile. Emma set her suitcases aside and accepted his embrace.

  ‘It’s so great that you’re coming back with us,’ he said in his deep, baritone voice, letting go of her and holding her at arm’s length, looking at her properly. Then he noticed the suitcase at Emma’s feet. His ordinarily jovial, open and friendly face dropped.

  ‘Is that…?’ He pointed to the black suitcase to Emma’s right.

  ‘Yes, it’s Kasper’s.’

  Jakob stood there, staring at it as if he had x-ray vision, as if he could see an entire life unfolding behind the hard plastic.

  ‘Let me take that for you,’ he said at last, forcing himself to smile again. Emma thanked him.

  They walked over to Asta, who had deep bags under her eyes and looked like she had very recently been crying. She, too, opened her arms and pulled Emma in close, although in a much briefer, cooler hug.

  ‘How long will you be staying?’ Jakob asked. ‘We’ve planned a memorial service for Sunday. The funeral won’t be until later next week.’

  ‘It depends,’ Emma answered hesitantly.

  ‘On work,’ Asta said. It sounded like an accusation.

  ‘Yes,’ Emma replied. ‘That too.’

  Jakob looked over at his wife, before reassuring Emma: ‘We understand.’

  He picked her suitcase up and added: ‘Let’s get you checked in.’

  They walked over to the SAS desks. Everything that had been left unsaid now lingered in the air around them, so much so that Emma felt the urge to ask how everything had gone at the hospital earlier that day, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  She wondered how Kasper’s coffin would be loaded onto the plane, and whether there was anything they would have to do when they landed, but she didn’t ask about that either. A funeral home would most likely take care of the logistics.

  They made their way through security, and were meandering through the duty-free shops, towards Gate E6, when Emma received a text. The message was from a number she had contacted recently. It took her a few seconds to realise that it belonged to Mustafa, the manager of the housing association where Ruth-Kristine lived.

  Hello. Found the name. Jette Djurholm’s husband is called Jens-Christian Kvist. They didn’t leave a forwarding address for their post, but I did find an old mobile number. Think it’s Norwegian. Maybe he still uses it?

  Mustafa had included the eight-digit number. Emma replied and thanked him for his help, before saving Kvist’s name and number into her phone. She wondered if she should try to contact him then and there, but figured it could wait until tomorrow. Tonight was for Kasper. And his family.

  61

  The forensics team from the local police station had taken over the site, which was nestled in behind the trees. They had carefully unwound the sheet, revealing the small bones within, and the remains of body tissue that had not yet decomposed. A clump of hair had gathered beneath the skull.

  Blix could not remember the last time he had felt so empty. To stand above this scene, an incomplete childhood, to take it all in, filled him with a grief so intense that, at first, he could neither say nor do anything. He had just stood there, staring down at the small child who someone had decided would not be allowed to carry on living. Who had lay there, under just a few centimetres of soil, for so many years.

  A part of him had been relieved that the investigation that had haunted him for so long was finally over. Until those emotions had transformed into rage.

  When Blix finally got back home, it was already half past eleven. He went straight into the bathroom and scrubbed his hands clean. Not just to remove all the dirt that was lodged under his fingernails, but to cleanse himself of the feeling of inadequacy. He knew they had done everything they possibly could at the time, ten years ago, but he couldn’t escape the fact that Patricia had still been alive for several days after she was kidnapped. If they had only managed to do even more during those first few hours, those first few days, she could have survived. It was something he was going to have to learn to live with.

  ‘Dad?’ Iselin called from the living room.

  Blix had completely forgotten that she was living with him. When he reached the living room, she looked up, meeting him with a brief smile. The TV was on behind her, a programme about how various families survived in Alaska. Blix had no idea when his daughter had become interested in that kind of thing.

  ‘Hi, darling,’ he said, realising for the first time just how sombre he sounded.

  ‘How’s it going?’ his daughter asked from the sofa.

  ‘Oh, it’s…’ Blix replied heavily. ‘It…’

  He took his phone from his pocket and left it on the kitchen table, next to where the newspapers and letters from the last week had started to pile up. Blix wasn’t even sure what day of the week it was.

  He pulled his jacket off and started tidying up. Iselin was still watching him.

  ‘So it’s that bad,’ she said.

  Blix made no attempt to hide how he was feeling. He didn’t see the point in keeping it to himself either, so he sat down and told Iselin what had happened.

  ‘Poor little thing,’ she said when he was done. ‘What did her father say?’

  ‘I haven’t told him yet.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We have to be absolutely certain first.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course.’

  On the screen, one of the programme’s participants was having some trouble with a snowmobile – they had managed to get trapped in an icy river.

  ‘And how are things with you, darling?’

  Iselin glanced at him quickly, before looking down and staring at something on the floor.

  ‘I tried calling you,’ she said. ‘Earlier.’

  He felt a wave of guilt for having not answered.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I was busy.’

  ‘I get it.’

  ‘Was it something important?’

  ‘Not anymore,’ she smiled, shaking her head.

  Blix smiled back. ‘I have to leave for Denmark tomorrow,’ he said.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I just need to question someone who has moved there. We’re looking at the case in a whole new light now, and she may have information she didn’t quite grasp the gravity of at the time.’

  ‘Can I go with you?’

  Blix smiled and shook his head. ‘It won’t be a fun trip, darling,’ he said. ‘And I’ll be home before dinner.’

&nb
sp; She nodded, but he could tell that she was disappointed.

  ‘Are you hungry? Want me to get you anything?’

  ‘No, but thanks.’

  Blix had stood up and was on his way to the fridge when Iselin spoke up:

  ‘I’ve been wondering if I should apply for police college.’

  Blix stopped and turned back to face her.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it for a while,’ she continued. ‘I think it looks … interesting.’

  Interesting, Blix thought. After the day he had just had.

  ‘I think the work would suit me.’

  Blix didn’t know what to say. The years he had spent in the police force had shaped him, made him who he was today. They had destroyed his marriage, had even stolen a few years from his relationship with Iselin. And Gard Fosse, his best friend from police college, was now a person Blix could no longer spend time with without feeling uncomfortable.

  He thought about all he had seen, all he had experienced. Everything he was going to have to face, come to terms with, in the years to come. With Iselin in training as well, and then out in active service, he would always be worrying about how she was dealing with the dangers she would inevitably be exposed to, the fates she would eventually meet. His entire body was urging him to steer her away from the track she was heading towards, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, not when he could see the sparkle in her eye, the expectation that grew in the charged seconds that ticked by as she awaited his answer.

  62

  Emma woke up early, in what had once been Kasper’s childhood bed. It wasn’t even half past seven yet. It was still dark outside.