by Karin Fossum
"Do you watch what goes on out on the road?" he asked.
"You're from the police?"
"Yes. You have a good view if you open the curtains."
"I never do that. Unless it's overcast."
"Have you noticed any strange cars around here, or motorcycles?"
"Could be. Police cars, for instance."
"Anyone on foot?"
"Hikers. They head up to Kollen, come hell or high water, to collect pebbles. Or they go and stare at that rotten tarn, which, by the way, is full of sheep carcasses. To each his own."
"Did you know Annie Holland?"
"I know her father from my days at the garage. He delivered cars, when there were any."
"You were in charge?"
He pulled up the comforter and nodded. "He had two girls. Blonde hair, pretty."
"Annie Holland is dead."
"I know that. I do read the paper, just like anybody else."
He gestured towards the floor where a thick stack of papers was stuffed under the bedside table, along with something else, something gaudier, on glossy paper.
"A man was out in the courtyard here yesterday evening, talking to Raymond. Did you see him?"
"I heard them mumbling out there. Raymond may not be so quick-witted," he said sharply, "but he has no idea what malice is. Do you understand? He's so good-natured that you can lead him by a piece of string. But he does what he's told."
Raymond nodded eagerly and scratched his stomach.
Sejer looked into the colourless eyes. "I know that," he said. "So you heard them talking? You weren't tempted to pull the curtain aside a bit?"
"No."
"You aren't very curious, are you, Låke?"
"That's right, I'm not. We keep our eyes to ourselves, not on others."
"What if I told you that there's a tiny chance that the man in the courtyard is mixed up in the murder of the Holland girl – would you then realise how serious this is?"
"Even then. I didn't look outside, I was busy with the newspaper."
Sejer looked around the small room and shuddered. It didn't smell good, his kidneys probably didn't function properly. The room needed to be cleaned, the window should have been opened, and the old man should have a piping hot bath. He went out to get some fresh air, drawing in several deep breaths. Raymond trotted after him and stood with his arms crossed as Sejer got into his car.
"Have you got your car fixed, Raymond?"
"Papa says I need a new battery. But I can't afford it right now. Costs over 400 kroner. I don't drive on the roads," he said quickly. "At least almost never."
"That's good. Go on back inside, you'll catch cold."
"Yes," he said, and shivered. "And I gave my jacket away."
"That wasn't so smart, was it?" Sejer said.
"I felt like I had to," he said sadly. "She was lying there with nothing on."
"What did you say?"
Sejer looked at him in astonishment. The jacket on the body belonged to Raymond!
"Did you spread it over her?"
"She wasn't wearing any clothes at all," he said, kicking at the ground with his slipper.
He had imagined that she was cold and that someone should cover her up. The light-coloured hairs might be rabbit hair. He ate sweets. Sejer stared into his eyes, the eyes of a child, as pure as spring water. But he had muscles, as heavy as Christmas hams. Involuntarily he shook his head.
"That was a kind thought," Sejer said. "Did you talk to each other?"
Raymond looked at him in surprise, and the angelic eyes shifted away a bit, as if he might have caught the scent of a trap.
"You said she was dead!"
Afterwards, when Sejer was gone, Raymond slipped out and peeked into the garage. Caesar was lying in a far corner under an old jumper, and he was still breathing.
Skarre finished going over the reports with a No. 5 Microball pen sticking out of the shoulder-strap on his shirt. He smiled with satisfaction, humming a few verses of "Jesus on the Line". Life was good, and a murder case was more exhilarating than armed robbery. It would soon be summer. And there stood his boss, waving a Krone ice cream bar at him. He put the papers quickly aside and took it.
"The anorak that was spread over the body belongs to Raymond," Sejer said.
Skarre was so startled that his ice cream slid sideways.
"But I believe him when he says that he put it there on his way back, after he took Ragnhild home. He spread it over her nicely because she was naked. I rang up Irene Album, and Ragnhild insists that it wasn't there when they went past the tarn. But... it's his jacket. We'll have to keep an eye on him. I told him that unfortunately he couldn't have it back right away, and he was so disappointed that I promised to give him an old one, one that I never wear. Find anything exciting?" he asked.
Skarre tore the rest of the paper wrapper off his ice cream bar. "I've run checks on all of the landlord's neighbours. They seem decent people for the most part, but a lot of speeding tickets have been given on that street."
Sejer licked strawberry ice cream from his upper lip.
"Out of 21 households, eight people have had one or more speeding tickets. That's way above the average."
"They have a long commute to work," Sejer said. "They work in the city, or at Fornebu Airport. There aren't any jobs in Lundeby."
"Precisely. But still. A respectable bunch with lots of speeders on the roads, all the same. But I found something else. Have a look at this." He leafed through the statements and pointed.
"Knut Jensvoll, 8 Gneisveien. Annie's handball coach. He served time for rape. Did 18 months, at Ullersmo."
Sejer bent down to look. "He may have managed to keep that quiet. Better watch what you say when we're out there."
Skarre nodded and licked his ice cream. "Maybe we should bring in the whole team. Perhaps he's tried something on some of the girls. How did you get on? Did you bring back all the details of the suspicious car?"
Sejer sighed and pulled the drawings from his inside pocket.
"Ragnhild says the ski-box was blue. And Raymond's drawing is pretty funny. But what's more interesting is a hiker who was in Raymond's courtyard yesterday evening and seems to have tried to convince Raymond that the car was red."
He placed the drawing in front of him on the table.
Skarre's eyes grew big. "What? Could he describe..."
"Something in between," Sejer said laconically. "Wearing a cap. I didn't dare push him too hard, he gets so upset."
"I call that fast work."
"I call it bold, more than anything else," Sejer said. "But now we're talking about someone who knows who Raymond is. He was seen. He wanted to find out what Raymond saw. So we have to focus on the car. He must be very close to us, for God's sake."
"But to go to Raymond's house, that's pretty reckless. Do you think anyone else might have seen him?"
"I went to every house nearby. No one saw him. But if he came by way of Kollen, then the Låke house is the first one, and there's not much of a view of the courtyard from the farm below."
"What about the old man?"
"He says he heard them outside, and wasn't tempted to look out of his window."
They ate their ice creams in silence.
"Shall we forget about Halvor? And the motorcycle?"
"Absolutely not."
"When do we bring him in?"
"Tonight."
"Why wait?"
"It's quieter at night. You know, I talked to Ragnhild's mother while the girl was scribbling her crystal-clear evidence on the paper. Sølvi isn't Holland's daughter. And the biological father lost his visitation rights, apparently because of drunkenness and violence."
"Sølvi is 21, isn't she?"
"She is now. But evidently there have been years of painful conflicts."
"What are you getting at?"
"In a sense he lost his child. Now his ex-wife, with whom he has a strained relationship, is going through the same thing. Maybe he wanted revenge.
It's just a thought."
Skarre gave a low whistle. "Who is he?"
"That's what you're going to find out as soon as you're done with your ice cream. Then come over to my office. We'll leave the moment you locate him."
He left. Skarre punched in the Hollands' phone number and licked his ice cream as he waited.
"I don't want to talk about Axel," Mrs Holland said. "He just about destroyed us, and after all these years we're finally rid of him. If I hadn't taken him to court, he would have destroyed Sølvi."
"I'm only asking you for his name and address. This is just routine, Mrs Holland, there are thousands of things we have to check up on."
"He's never had anything to do with Annie. Thank God!"
"Please give me his name, Mrs Holland."
Finally she gave in. "Axel Bjørk."
"Do you have any other information?"
"I have it all. I have his social security number and his address. Provided he hasn't moved. I wish he would move. He lives too close, only an hour away by car."
She was getting more and more agitated.
Skarre took notes, and thanked her. Then he switched on his computer and did a search for "Bjørk, Axel", thinking how paper-thin personal privacy had become, nothing but a transparent cloth that it was impossible to hide behind. He found the man with no trouble and began reading.
"God damn it all!" he exclaimed with a swift, apologetic glance up at the ceiling. He clicked on "Please Print" and leaned back in his chair. He picked up the page, read it again, and crossed the corridor to Sejer's office. The chief inspector was standing in front of the mirror with one of his shirt sleeves rolled up. He scratched his elbow and grimaced.
"I've run out of ointment," he said.
"I've got him. He's got a record, of course."
Skarre sat down and put the sheet of paper on the blotting pad.
"Well, let's have look. Bjørk, Axel, born 1948—"
"Police officer," said Skarre quietly.
Sejer didn't react. He read slowly through the report.
"Former officer. All right, but perhaps you'd rather stay here?"
"Of course not. But it is a little sensitive."
"We're no better than anyone else, now are we, Skarre? We'll have to hear the man's side of the story. You can count on it being different from Mrs Holland's version. So, we're going to have to take a trip to Oslo. He obviously does shift work, so there's a chance that we'll find him at home."
"Number 4 Sognsveien, that's in the Adamstuen district. The big red apartment building near the trolley stop."
"Do you know Oslo well?" Sejer asked, surprised.
"I drove a taxi there for two years."
"Is there anything you haven't done?"
"I've never done any skydiving."
CHAPTER 6
Skarre demonstrated his knowledge from his cab-driving days by directing Sejer to the shortest route, along Skøyen, left on Halvdan Svartes Gaten, past Vigeland Park, up Kirkeveien, and down Ullevålsveien. They parked illegally outside a beauty salon and found the name Bjørk on the third floor of a block of flats. They rang the bell and waited. No answer. A woman came out of a door further down the hall, clattering a rubbish bin and a long-handled broom.
"He went to the shop," she said. "Or at least he left with some empty bottles in a shopping bag. He shops at Rundingen, right next door."
They thanked her and went back outside. Got into their car and settled down to wait. Rundingen was a little grocery shop with pink-and-yellow sale signs in the windows, making it hard to see inside. People came and went, mostly women. Not until Skarre had smoked a cigarette with the window open and his arm hanging out did a man come out alone, wearing a thick checked lumberjack shirt and trainers. Through the open window they could hear a clinking sound from his bag. He was very tall and muscular, but he lost a good deal of his height by walking with his head bent, his fierce gaze fixed on the pavement. He didn't notice their car.
"Definitely looks like he could be a former colleague. Wait until he goes around the corner, then get out and see if he goes into the building."
Skarre waited, opened the door, and dashed around the corner. Then they waited two or three minutes before going back upstairs.
Bjørk's face in the half-open doorway was a study of muscles, nerves and ticks that made his dark face shift from one expression to another in seconds. First the open, neutral face that wasn't expecting anyone, sparked with curiosity. Then sizing up Skarre's uniform, a swift sweep through his memory to explain this uniformed person at his own door. The recollection of the newspaper story about the body at the tarn – and then the connection and what they must be thinking. The last expression, which stuck, was a bitter smile.
"Well," he said, opening the door wide. "If you hadn't turned up, I wouldn't have a particularly high opinion of modern detective work. Come on in. Is this the master and his apprentice?"
They ignored his remark and followed him down the short corridor. The smell of alcohol was unmistakable.
Bjørk's apartment was a tidy little place with a spacious living room and sleeping alcove and a small kitchen facing the street. The furniture didn't match, as if it had been collected from several different places. On the wall above an old desk hung a picture of a little girl, about eight years old. Her hair was darker, but her features hadn't changed much over the years. It was Sølvi. Attached to one corner of the frame was a red bow.
They caught sight of a German shepherd, lying perfectly still in a corner, staring at them with watchful eyes. It hadn't moved or barked when they came into the room.
"What have you done with that dog?" Sejer said. "Something I obviously haven't managed to do with mine. He charges at people as soon as they set a foot in the door and carries on so they can hear him all the way down on the ground floor. And I live on the 13th."
"If that's the case, you're too attached to him," he said curtly. "You shouldn't treat a dog as if it's the only thing you have in the world. But maybe it is?"
He studied Sejer with narrowed eyes, aware that the rest of the conversation wasn't going to proceed in as friendly a tone. His hair was cut short, but unwashed and greasy, and he hadn't shaved in a while. A dark shadow covered the lower part of his face.
"So," he said after a moment, "you want to know whether I knew Annie, right?" He wriggled the words out of his mouth like a fishbone.
"She's been here several times, with Sølvi. No reason to hide that. Then Ada found out and put a halt to any kind of visiting. Sølvi actually liked coming here. I don't know what Ada has done to her, but it looks a lot like brainwashing. Now she's not interested any more. She's let Holland take over."
He rubbed his jaw and when they didn't say anything, he continued.
"Maybe you were thinking that I killed Annie to take revenge? Let me assure you I didn't. I have nothing against Eddie Holland, and I wouldn't want even my worst enemy to lose a child. I don't have the energy left to fight, but I admit that the thought did cross my mind, of course, that now she knows what it's like, that prudish old hag, what it's like to lose a child. Now she knows what it feels like, goddammit. But now my chances of contacting Sølvi are even slimmer. Ada will keep close tabs on her. And I would never put myself in that situation."
