Smoke Screen

by Jorn Lier Horst

  Jette shook her head. Mumbled something about having been in shock, about not being able to think rationally.

  ‘And although Christer, my ex, was certain that I had something to do with it, we were basically in the clear,’ Ruth-Kristine continued. ‘We weren’t the ones who had kidnapped my daughter. And the police had come and questioned us too, but we played our roles well. We were good. Convincing.’

  She took a breath.

  ‘I told Jette that she had to move back to Denmark with my daughter the second things calmed down. Jens-Christian would stay on in Norway, so it wouldn’t look too suspicious. Everything was working out fine, or so I thought, anyway.’

  Ruth-Kristine looked at Jette.

  ‘You two needed some time apart. To have some space to grieve, individually. Gain a little perspective.’

  Jette didn’t reply.

  ‘But what happened to the dead child?’ Emma couldn’t help herself.

  Ruth-Kristine turned towards her, a vexed expression spreading across her face, as if she had completely forgotten that Emma was in the room.

  ‘I buried her.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Somewhere nice.’

  Emma wished she could take some notes or record everything that was being said, but something told her she was going to remember it all word-for-word. The question was whether she would get the opportunity to tell anyone else.

  ‘So…’ Caroline halted. She had an unfathomable look on her face. ‘So I’m … My name isn’t Caroline?’

  Ruth-Kristine shook her head. ‘Your name is Patricia. And I’m your real mother. Me.’

  Emma tried to compare the face of the girl in front of her with the photo of Patricia she had seen so many times in various news articles. There was a certain likeness. But it was also proof that Ruth-Kristine was right. A child’s face could change a lot in a short amount of time.

  Caroline – Patricia – blinked rapidly, looking around at them all, one by one. She stared at the woman she had thought was her mother for the past ten years, but Jette would not return her gaze. She continued to look at the floor.

  ‘So … who’s my real dad?’

  ‘The guy I told you about,’ Ruth-Kristine said. ‘Christer, my ex. I … He doesn’t know about any of this, and things kind of took a turn for him after everything happened. He…’ Ruth-Kristine stopped herself.

  Patricia was pulling at a loose thread on her jeans, twisting it around and around and around. A tear trickled down her left cheek. She let it fall.

  ‘You mentioned a deal,’ she said. ‘A deal you made with my parents?’

  Ruth-Kristine sucked a deep breath in through her nose and let it out through her mouth, slowly.

  ‘Yes, and that’s why we are here.’

  74

  26th December 2018

  Ruth-Kristine was drenched in sweat. She was cold. But it was the anger that was making her clench her teeth together.

  When she was finally able to drive off the ferry, three and quarter hours after it had departed from Larvik, the cars in the queue in front of her would not get out of the way fast enough. She had to get to Horsens. To Engtoften 9. The address that, over the last few days, had become the target of her rage.

  It was late by the time she arrived, but a light was still on in one of the windows. Ruth-Kristine parked outside and turned off the engine. For the first time, the thought suddenly struck her that Patricia might be in there right now, that she might even be the one to open the door. How would she react? How would she, her real mother, react?

  Idiot, Ruth-Kristine said to herself. Patricia has no idea. You’re just a stranger to her, like anyone else. Besides, she would probably be in bed by now.

  There was a car parked outside. A Volkswagen, one of the fancy models, so they definitely had enough money. That couldn’t be the problem.

  She rang the doorbell.

  Think, if Patricia were to open the door, she repeated to herself. Christ. But it was Jette who stood in the doorway, whose eyes opened wide, who at first could not utter a single word. Neither could Ruth-Kristine, for the first few seconds. Until she asked:

  ‘Where is that useless excuse of a husband of yours?’

  Jette still couldn’t bring herself to say anything.

  ‘He should have called me three days ago,’ Ruth-Kristine carried on. ‘And he should have met me in Oslo too, as he usually does. Where is he?’

  The words came out as if she was firing them from a machine gun. She could hear it herself. A moment later, Jens-Christian appeared in the doorway behind Jette.

  ‘Ruth Kristine?’ he asked in amazement. ‘What are you doing here?’

  She snorted. Right, like he had no idea what was going on.

  ‘When you don’t get in touch, I have to.’

  ‘Get in touch?’ he asked, moving around Jette. She shifted, made some room for him. ‘We agreed that we wouldn’t have any more contact with each other after last year. That was the deal. Ten years.’

  An uneasiness swept over Ruth-Kristine. Ten years. That might have been said. But back then, at that time, ten years had felt so far away, so far into the future. Anyway, she couldn’t remember agreeing to that.

  Jens-Christian looked around, checking that none of their neighbours were watching, before carrying on: ‘We agreed that we would pay you a set sum every year. For ten years,’ he repeated in a lower voice. ‘The final payment was last year. When we last met, we agreed that we’d settled our debt to you. Don’t you remember?’

  Ruth-Kristine thought back. She really didn’t remember.

  ‘We met at the lake, at Sognsvann.’

  A hazy memory drifted back to her. They had always carried out the handover like a top-secret operation, something Jens-Christian had picked up in the military. The Sognsvann lake had been one of their usual meeting places. She remembered it, but not that it would be the last time. But maybe he was right?

  ‘The time before last, we said that the final amount would be a little higher than usual, seeing as we hadn’t considered regular inflation or anything.’

  Ruth-Kristine felt even more uncertain. She remembered buying Svein-Erik a particularly expensive Christmas present last year. Shouldn’t have done that. It was money she could have spent on other things. And now she was broke.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘That no longer applies.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I gave you my daughter, and I should be paid for that. Where is she? Is she here? Patri—’

  Jens-Christian took a rapid step towards her and clasped his hand hard over her mouth. The move took her by surprise. It was useless to put up a fight. She already knew how strong his grasp was.

  ‘Get a grip of yourself,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m not letting go until you’ve calmed down. Do you hear me?’

  She struggled a little before finally giving up. It was getting hard to breathe.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Jens-Christian said as he released her. ‘You’ve lost it.’

  Ruth-Kristine caught her breath again and tried to compose herself.

  ‘Look at you, withdrawal symptoms and all,’ Jens-Christian spat.

  Jette was stood beside him, a worried expression plastered across her face. She looked around, checking for neighbours this time. Ruth-Kristine couldn’t care less.

  ‘I want to see her,’ she said.

  ‘That’s not happening. And that was part of the deal too.’

  ‘I want to see her,’ Ruth-Kristine repeated. ‘I want to see that she’s okay. See that she’s alive.’

  ‘Of course she’s fine,’ Jette said. ‘And of course she’s alive.’

  ‘You’ve lost a child once before,’ Ruth-Kristine said. ‘You could do it again. You took my daughter from me.’

  She was crying now, overwhelmed by an emotion that startled her. She had thought about her daughter occasionally over the years, but never with such longing as she did at that moment. Christer was right. The psychologists were right. She was not fi
t to be a mother. But now, now she knew that she wanted to be. That she should be. That she should have been this entire time. She was sure she would have managed it. Gone to rehab. She could have stopped drinking. Got a job.

  ‘You have to leave now,’ Jens-Christian said. ‘Before Caroline wakes up.’

  Caroline.

  ‘That’s not her name.’

  ‘Yes,’ Jens-Christian said sternly. ‘It is.’

  ‘And what will you do if I refuse to leave? Call the police? That would be an interesting conversation: Hi, Jens-Christian Kvist here. Our child drowned ten years ago, so we stole another one and came back to Denmark, but now the child’s mother is here, asking for more money. Oof.’

  Spit flew out of her mouth as she spoke.

  ‘I want to see her,’ Ruth-Kristine repeated once more. ‘And then I want more money. I’m not leaving until I’ve got both.’

  That seemed to stop them.

  Jette looked at her husband, who looked as if he were deep in thought.

  ‘You can’t see her when you’re like this.’

  Ruth-Kristine was about to protest, but he had a point. If she were allowed to see or meet Patricia again, she couldn’t behave like such a strung-out wreck.

  ‘We can do this one last time,’ Jens-Christian said with a deep sigh. ‘I can come to Oslo, like always. With money. But only if we agree that it’s definitely the very last time. We can’t have you coming to our home like this. I can’t live in fear of that. I don’t want Caro— … I don’t want her to open the door one day, and there you are.’

  Ruth-Kristine thought it through. She had come to Denmark with no other plan than to return with her money. For a few moments, while Jens-Christian explained the details of the old deal, she had thought she would have to go home without a single penny. But now she saw an opportunity to make a tidy sum in another way. In a few days.

  ‘But I still want to see her,’ she said.

  Jens-Christian sighed and shook his head, but he didn’t object this time, something Ruth-Kristine interpreted as a sign that he was giving in.

  ‘Fine,’ he said at last. ‘We’re planning on spending the New Year’s weekend in Oslo anyway, all three of us. Caroline complains every year that we don’t do anything special for New Year’s Eve. We can spend the day together, in Oslo.’

  He looked at Jette, who nodded.

  ‘But I can’t risk you making a scene, so if you want to meet her, then it has to be somewhere public, and you have to be sober. All that … shit you’ve got in your body, get rid of it. Do you understand what I’m saying? Those are the conditions. Take it or leave it.’

  Ruth-Kristine considered it. It was odd, how things could change so quickly. In the space of one evening, having had no desire to see Patricia whatsoever, to now, feeling as if it were the most important thing in her life.

  ‘I can do that,’ she said eventually.

  ‘Good. Then let’s meet in the square between the harbour and Oslo City Hall at midnight, for the fireworks. I’ll contact you in the usual way closer to the time, to organise a meeting place.’

  75

  Ruth-Kristine stared at Caroline. Patricia.

  ‘I’m guessing no one told you about a trip to Oslo for New Year’s?’

  Patricia glanced at Jette quickly, before shaking her head.

  ‘Dad had to work,’ she said.

  Ruth-Kristine nodded slowly. ‘I suppose he did. In a way. Have you been following the news, over the last few days?’

  Patricia shook her head again.

  ‘So you haven’t heard about the explosions in Oslo?’

  ‘Oh, that. Of course I have.’

  ‘Right, so you know that five people died that night, at the harbour?’

  Patricia shrugged.

  ‘One of them was my best friend,’ Ruth-Kristine said.

  Patricia still didn’t seem to be that affected by what Ruth-Kristine was telling her.

  ‘And one of them was my boyfriend,’ Emma said, clearing her throat.

  Ruth-Kristine turned sharply to face her.

  ‘His name was Kasper,’ she continued, attempting to gain a bit of sympathy, to open the dialogue between them. ‘His parents live in Århus. That’s where I’ve driven from this morning. They’re probably wondering why I haven’t come back yet.’

  Ruth-Kristine didn’t say anything.

  Britt got up from the couch and walked towards the kitchen.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Ruth-Kristine challenged, failing to hide the suspicion in her voice.

  ‘The toilet,’ Britt answered. ‘I’ve heard this story before, so…’

  She edged past the coffee table and towards the door. Emma watched Britt cross the room and disappear into the hallway, closing the door behind her.

  ‘I’ve been wondering about something.’ Emma turned her head back to Ruth-Kristine. ‘Why was Nina Ballangrud, your friend, waiting in the square that night in the first place, instead of you?’

  ‘I couldn’t go,’ Ruth-Kristine answered. ‘I had … I was having a rough time with the withdrawal symptoms over Christmas. I tried,’ she insisted. ‘I tried so hard to get clean. But the day before New Year’s Eve, I caved.’

  She looked down at her feet.

  ‘I knew that if Jens-Christian saw me while I was still on something or with withdrawal symptoms as severe as those were, I wouldn’t get my money, and I wouldn’t get to see Patricia. So I asked Nina to go instead. Just to show up, to get the money. And then come back.’

  Ruth-Kristine stopped for a moment, before continuing.

  ‘I told her she would get a cut. She was even more hard up than I was, so I loaned her my bank card. I had enough money on it to get her into town, maybe back again.’

  ‘But how did you think that would work?’ Emma couldn’t help herself. ‘Jens-Christian would see that it wasn’t you. Did you think he would just give Nina the money like that, no questions asked?’

  Ruth-Kristine paused before answering:

  ‘I told Nina everything. Everything I’ve just said. So that meant there were several people who knew the truth about Patricia and Caroline. We thought that Nina could explain that to him. How dangerous things could get. Meet him by the rubbish bin and force him to give her the money.’

  There was a brief moment in which Ruth-Kristine looked as if she were ashamed of what she had done.

  ‘But what about Patricia?’ Emma pointed to her. ‘Was Nina meant to just tell her everything as well?’

  ‘That was the last resort,’ Ruth-Kristine explained. ‘If Jens-Christian wouldn’t hand it over. Nina would threaten to tell Patricia. When we were going through the plan initially, we didn’t really expect Nina to be able to get that much across over the sound of all the fireworks, but Nina wasn’t scared to do it if she had to.’

  Ruth-Kristine sighed heavily.

  ‘But, of course, Jens-Christian didn’t have Patricia with him, did he?’ she continued. ‘So she never had to. No, instead, he had devised a plan to get rid of me.’

  ‘So, after New Year’s Eve, you realised you had survived an attempted murder?’

  Ruth-Kristine nodded. ‘I realised that there was a man here in Denmark who wasn’t interested in wasting any more of his money on the past. A man who wanted to get rid of his biggest problem, once and for all.’

  76

  Lone Cramer had activated the blue lights and notified her colleagues in the Horsens police department. She had also called headquarters in Copenhagen and asked to be sent any information they had on Jens-Christian Kvist.

  Blix told her all he could remember. Kvist had a background in the military, and he had led several international mine-clearing operations. When Patricia disappeared, he had been given a civilian job as a researcher and chemical engineer for a firearms manufacturer.

  ‘So he knows how to make a bomb?’ Cramer asked.

  ‘It’s not out of the realms of possibility,’ Blix replied.

  Blix thought back to the lock
on Ruth-Kristine’s front door, how it had been melted away. Of the traces of explosives found in Kvist’s hotel room in Oslo. But he still couldn’t work out what role Jette Djurholm’s husband could possibly have in the kidnapping.

  ‘We focussed on his wife at the time,’ he told Lone Cramer. ‘She and Ruth-Kristine were close friends. The possibility that her husband could have been involved wasn’t something we considered.’

  ‘But in what way could he be involved?’ Lone Cramer asked. ‘What connection is there between his role in this and in Patricia’s disappearance? What’s he doing setting off bombs in Oslo?’

  ‘The bomb was meant for Ruth-Kristine,’ Blix replied.

  ‘But there were two bombs,’ Lone Cramer reminded him.

  Blix searched for a reasonable explanation. One bomb was far more powerful than the other. The second was far weaker than the first. Maybe he made the second bomb first, but wasn’t sure if it would be powerful enough.

  He offered the theory to Lone Cramer.

  ‘He must have miscalculated the force for that first one,’ he concluded. ‘It probably wasn’t meant to kill anyone other than Ruth-Kristine Smeplass.’

  ‘What was the point of the other bomb then?’ Cramer wondered.

  Blix turned in his seat to face her. ‘To mislead us,’ he suggested. ‘Make us believe that the first bomb had nothing to do with Ruth-Kristine.’

  ‘Make you think it was an act of terrorism.’

  Blix nodded. ‘And he succeeded. So much so that pretty much all of our resources have been tied up in investigating the possibility that it was a terror attack.’

  The phone in his lap started ringing. He didn’t recognise the number, but answered anyway.

  ‘Stefan Molt calling.’

  Blix took a second to place the name. Molt was an investigator in Kripos’ specialist investigation department for sexual offences. Now wasn’t the best time, but Blix let him talk.

  ‘I’ve looked at the picture you sent us,’ Molt continued. ‘It’s an official school photo, but you know that already. These kinds of pictures are often taken at the start of the school year, but I would estimate that the girl is around eight years old. Her braces indicate that she’s a few years into school already. Otherwise she would be too young for orthodontics. Some schools take new class photos every year. The name of the photographer is usually included somewhere on the photo, but not on this one.’