Smoke Screen

by Jorn Lier Horst

  She turned to Patricia. Stretched a hand towards her, encouraging her to stand up. Patricia hesitated, looked at Jette for a second. Jette shook her head and placed a determined hand on her daughter’s arm. Patricia took a moment, as if she were thinking it through, before she tore herself free.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Kvist asked.

  Patricia got up and watched Ruth-Kristine as she walked past. Grabbed Emma’s outstretched hand and stood beside her.

  ‘This girl has been your daughter for almost ten years,’ Emma said. ‘Look at her.’

  It took a while, but Kvist shifted his eyes from Emma to Patricia.

  ‘Have you not loved her as your own daughter? Don’t you love her?’

  Kvist didn’t answer, just lowered his gaze. He mumbled something, but Emma didn’t catch it. In the corner of her eye, she could see Britt fumbling with something in her trouser pocket. Saw as she moved her hand to rest on her thigh.

  ‘What did you say?’ Emma asked, trying to get through to Kvist.

  ‘I said no.’

  He pushed his chin forwards and resumed eye contact. ‘It was never the same. She could never be Caroline. Not really. She was just a constant reminder of what I had lost.’

  Kvist only looked at Emma as he spoke. Emma could feel Patricia’s grip around her hand tighten, could feel the girl’s whole body begin to shake beside her.

  Kvist turned to his wife. ‘You’re absolutely right. For once. This family is a joke. To think, all the hours I’ve wasted trying to convince myself that everything was fine, that we were doing the right thing back then.’

  He turned to Ruth-Kristine.

  ‘Did you think we would just carry on with our lives like nothing happened? You thought we would just forget?’

  ‘It must have been hard…’ Emma started.

  ‘It’s been hell!’

  ‘But this…’ Emma gestured to the hand grenade, ‘…this doesn’t solve anything.’

  Kvist paused.

  ‘The pain would be over,’ he said. ‘We wouldn’t have to feel anything, anymore.’

  ‘You’re probably right, but it’s not up to you to decide that for the rest of us,’ Emma argued. ‘We’re all in pain too … Christ. But I want to be the one to decide how to deal with that, myself.’

  She looked around the room, as if to see if she had any support. Her eyes landed at Britt, whose hand slid from her thigh to the sofa. Kvist noticed the movement too.

  ‘What have you got there?’ he asked abruptly, removing his finger from the ring and back onto the pin.

  He crossed the room in a few short steps, leering over Britt, who was pushing herself deeper into the cushions of the sofa. She had a phone in her hand, the display turned on. She yelled into it:

  ‘He’s got a grenade!’

  Kvist forced the phone out of her hand. He studied the screen in disbelief. Even at a distance, Emma recognised the three numbers – 112. The police. The call had been connected for over fifteen minutes.

  Kvist glared unblinking at Britt, who seemed to be anticipating his fury. Emma looked at the grenade. This was her chance. Now, while Kvist was distracted with the phone, with Britt.

  But she was too slow.

  Kvist hung up and approached the window.

  81

  A heavy silence settled inside the incident commander’s van.

  ‘Call her back,’ ordered the tall man next to Lone Cramer.

  The man sat at the control panel carried out a few procedures, initiating a new phone call. The rhythmic ringing filled the cramped space in the back of the van. They stood there, waiting for someone to pick up.

  No one did.

  Blix looked up at one of the many monitors displaying live images of each side of the house. He noticed a curtain flutter. The brief glimpse of a face peeking out.

  ‘Kvist,’ Blix said, snapping his fingers and pointing. The others had noticed it too.

  ‘He’s seen us. He’ll try and barricade himself in.’

  The call ended. The silence returned.

  ‘Try again,’ the incident commander said. ‘He will have to answer sooner or later.’

  ‘But we can’t provoke him either,’ Blix commented. The incident commander and several of the other people in the van turned to him.

  ‘It’s important that he thinks he’s the one in control here,’ Blix added. ‘So he doesn’t do anything reckless.’

  ‘We have done this before,’ the commander pointed out.

  Blix held up his hands. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘But…’

  He searched for the right way to explain.

  ‘Most of the evidence suggests that he is responsible for a number of murders in Oslo, so I would say that it’s quite likely that he thinks he has nothing to lose. And the fact that we’re here now too, will probably exacerbate it.’

  The incident commander considered Blix for a few seconds before turning to face his colleagues.

  ‘What else do we know about him?’

  ‘He used to be in the military,’ one of them started. ‘Most likely suffered severe trauma during the time he served carrying out international mine-clearing operations. We’re building a psychological profile of him as we speak.’

  The incident commander gestured towards the house.

  ‘We don’t have time to wait for a profile,’ he started. ‘I want everything we’ve got on him. Now!’

  ‘He’s forty-two years old,’ Lone Cramer said. ‘Has a brother in prison for a charge related to violent crime. He’s the son of a plumber. Mother died when he was sixteen. Suicide.’

  ‘He has regular appointments with a therapist,’ contributed the officer who had been working on the psychological profile. ‘For the last eight or nine years. We don’t have access to the therapist’s case files or notes, but I would imagine that he was referred because of his time in the military. It can’t have been an easy job, mine removal in Afghanistan. It must have taken a toll on his nerves, that kind of high-pressure operation.’

  ‘Or it could have something to do with the fact that he may have lost his daughter ten years ago.’ It was Blix who contributed this time. ‘And that he’s had to live with the fact that he kidnapped a child, and as a result, has had to put on this façade for the outside world, all this time,’ he continued.

  The incident commander turned to face him directly now. ‘Explain.’

  Blix spent the next minute telling him what he had uncovered in Norway the day before, and how the discovery of the body might be connected to the current event.

  ‘Right,’ the incident commander said finally. ‘Keep calling that number. We have to get him to talk. And then we get the snipers in position.’

  It rang four times. Five. On the sixth ring, it stopped. Someone picked up. The audio recording system started automatically.

  ‘Hello,’ the man said as he leant towards the microphone. ‘My name is John-Mikael Rasmussen. Is this Jens-Christian Kvist I’m talking to?’

  No answer, just fumbling, crackling, at the other end.

  ‘Don’t come any closer.’ His voice was cold. Void of emotion.

  ‘We won’t,’ Rasmussen rushed to answer. ‘Not if you don’t want us to.’

  Kvist didn’t answer, but he didn’t hang up either. Blix kept his eye on the incident commander. Observed as he took over, tried to establish a dialogue.

  ‘How many people are in there with you?’

  ‘It’s too late now anyway.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Kvist didn’t answer, just repeated, ‘Don’t come any closer.’

  He hung up.

  82

  Kvist chucked the phone aside, pulled the ring on the grenade and tossed the pin away from him, so that it sailed along the floor and collided with the fire guard.

  ‘Right then, how are you going to do this?’

  The question was directed at Ruth-Kristine. Emma stared at the grenade in his hand. His fingers were pressed down on the trigger mechanism. She fe
lt paralysed.

  Ruth-Kristine looked as if she were figuring out what to do next. Britt pulled one of the cushions from the sofa and held it up in front of her. Jette was desperately trying to pull Patricia back to her, urgently trying to hold on to her, protect her, but Patricia stayed where she was, next to Emma.

  ‘How am I going to do this?’ Ruth-Kristine repeated his question, looking Kvist in the eye. There was a calmness in her voice. A determination.

  ‘As fast as I can,’ she said, aiming the gun at him. A tear ran down her cheek.

  She pulled the trigger.

  The bullet hit Kvist in the centre of his chest. The impact made him stumble backwards, knocking over the lamp behind him. Patricia threw a hand over her mouth and stifled a scream. The scruffy grey cat shot out from under the table and into the kitchen. Kvist covered the wound with one hand as blood flowed between his fingers. He looked down at the grenade, like he was making sure that he still had control of it.

  He sank to his knees.

  Jette approached him. Britt stood up. Everyone was watching him. The distant, glassy look in his eye. His breath, growing faster and faster. The life draining out of him with every second. His grip around the grenade, getting weaker.

  Emma wanted to run at him, to try and wrestle the grenade out of his hand, but she felt a steadfast hand holding her back. Ruth-Kristine braced herself. As she did, the grenade slipped out of Kvist’s hand and thumped against the parquet flooring, slowly rolling away.

  Emma wrenched Patricia down to the ground and flipped the coffee table onto its side. She pressed her to the floor and was about to follow suit. They only had a matter of seconds. Tenths of a second. Before she, too, ducked behind the table, she caught a glimpse of Ruth-Kristine, throwing herself onto the grenade. Emma let out an involuntary shout, before she threw herself down and waited for the explosion.

  83

  The force from the explosion shattered the windows. The ground shook. Fragments of glass burst out of the frames. The pressure wave reached Blix and Cramer outside. They crouched down, crossing their arms in front of their faces, protecting themselves from the debris flying through the air.

  Blix’s first thought was for Emma. Emma and Patricia. God, there was no way they could have survived.

  He tore towards the house. The walls were still standing. The windows were gone. He heard the shouting begin around him, he saw the officers advancing with their weapons, raised in front of them.

  Blix shouted into the house: ‘Emma!’

  No answer. He held on to one of the empty window frames and heaved himself up and into a bedroom. The Danish police were yelling commands to each other somewhere behind him. Blix carried on, further into the house. Parts of the ceiling had come down. Furniture and most of the Djurholm’s belongings had been flung to the ground. Dust was still swirling through the air, like a dense fog.

  Blix rubbed his eyes. Could smell something on fire. Something charred. But there was another smell, too. Like metal, or blood. He shoved a chair aside and shouted again, preparing himself for the worst.

  One of the walls was on fire. Orange-and-blue flames surged upwards, quickly filling the room with smoke. Blix continued through the house, suddenly noticing a small movement. It was a foot, shifting under several layers of wood and torn plasterboard.

  He could hear something now too. Breathing, moaning, from one or more people. Groans, someone who was hurt.

  The sound of police officers making their way into the room from the other side, through a broken patio door on the opposite side of the house. Someone shouted for a fire extinguisher.

  There was a crater in the floor. An opening through which Blix could see down into the basement.

  He walked around it, stepping over a severed leg, other human remains. A sound behind him made him spin round. Behind an overturned coffee table was a child. She had sat up, her face was coated with soot and ash. Some of it had been washed away by fresh tears that were running down her cheeks.

  Blix had no doubt of who it was. He recognised her from the photo that Christer Storm Isaksen had received.

  He lifted her up and carried her towards the patio. Stepped over a few cushions – some completely torn apart, some intact. The feathers were still cascading to the ground around them.

  A paramedic approached them. Blix passed the girl over and returned to the living room.

  The fire was now tearing through the wall. He could feel the heat. The wind channelling in from outside had only galvanised it. A police officer was in the process of emptying a fire extinguisher over the flames, putting out the worst of them.

  Blix coughed, bent down to move aside the remnants of a chair, lifted away what was left of the rug. A twisted metal bar that had once been a lamp. The TV had tipped over. The doors of the china cabinet were destroyed, the contents pulverised.

  ‘We’ve got another one, they’re alive,’ one of paramedics yelled.

  Blix turned, needing to see for himself if it was Emma, but saw instantly that it was Britt Smeplass. She moaned as she was helped to her feet. She spluttered a few times. Several people were in the process of pulling the garden hose into the house. Hot steam filled the room.

  Blix had to get out, get some fresh air. He staggered out into the garden and felt a strange combination of grief and victory. And despair. Grief, from the fact that yet more lives had been lost. Victory, in knowing that the case was finally over. Despair, as he thought of Emma.

  He pictured her. Her light hair. The sparkle in her eyes, that perceptive gaze. Her sharp tongue. The tough mask. She had experienced her fair share of evil throughout her life. Yet, despite that, she had grown up to become a person whom Blix appreciated immensely.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Lone Cramer asked behind him.

  Blix turned round to meet his Danish colleague.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied.

  And then he saw her.

  Two paramedics were supporting Emma as she climbed out of the ruins of the house. She was bleeding from a gash on her forehead, and she had a few other minor wounds to her face. Her hair was a sooty mess. She was limping, but stopped and looked up. She locked eyes with him, a confused expression on her face, as if she had never seen him before. Then she squinted against the daylight and sent him a faint, sad smile.

  EPILOGUE

  Five months later

  It had been a long time since Christer Storm Isaksen had bothered to shave. When he tapped the razor against the porcelain sink for the last time and looked up to meet his reflection in the mirror, his face showed the slightest trace of a smile. He just about recognised himself.

  He rinsed his face. He had nicked the skin on his neck slightly so that a few, small red spots had appeared, but it didn’t matter.

  The clothes he had prepared the night before were draped neatly across his chair. He had ironed the white shirt and set a new crease into the dark-blue trousers that he hadn’t worn for several years.

  He was happy. Excited. Nervous too, he had to admit. What if she didn’t like him? What if she was anxious herself, about meeting yet another murderer? What if she was completely devastated after all that Ruth-Kristine had put her through earlier that year, after all she had found out?

  Christer knew that he was going to have trouble holding back the tears, even if the girl sat in front of him wasn’t really someone he knew, and even if the child-welfare representative was there too. But it would be Patricia. His Patricia, regardless of whether she had been living under a different identity for well over ten years. But she would, fundamentally, be the same. At least that was what he told himself.

  Ruth-Kristine had actually sacrificed herself for her. Threw herself onto the grenade and made sure that Jens-Christian Kvist couldn’t take everyone else with him.

  Christer looked at the clock on the wall. Twenty-three minutes left until she arrived. He pulled on his shirt, socks and trousers. Took a deep breath and thought of Patricia, of what her life would be like in the year
s ahead. He would be out in four months. He was her biological father, but she had lived in Denmark for her entire life. That’s where all her friends were. Her handball team. She’d had another mother for all those years too, who was now in prison, just like he was. Christer had no idea whether Patricia would keep in contact with Jette Djurholm, or how that would pan out, but either way, it was all about what Patricia wanted.

  Her visit today had only been organised because Patricia had requested it herself. Christer wondered what she would ask him. Why had he become a killer? No, she probably knew that, if she had been allowed to read about the case. Would she ask if he remembered any of the sixteen months he had spent as a single parent, when it had just been the two of them, him and her?

  It was a time he had thought he remembered everything about. Those first few days after her birth, the first weeks, all the clothes that she grew out of far too quickly, her first words, her new teeth, her first steps, but the details had become increasingly fuzzy. These days he wasn’t sure if she had started walking when she was thirteen or fourteen months old. When did she call him ‘Dad’ for the first time?

  Maybe that’s what she would call him today?

  His own thoughts made him shake his head. Don’t expect too much. She must still be traumatised, and that would likely be the case for several more years, perhaps for the rest of her life. But he hoped that they would slowly be able to find a way to live together. Nothing would make him happier.

  He paced back and forth inside the little cell. Glanced up at the clock. Checked to see how he looked. Tied his shoelaces, pulled up his socks, straightened his shirt. Then glanced at the clock again. Seventeen minutes. It was seventeen minutes the last time he checked too.

  He wished he had something to give her. A gift, something she wanted, something she could appreciate and hold on to between now and when he would be allowed out. But he had nothing.