Dead Joker

by Anne Holt

  On the first day of September, Aftenposten’s Chief Editor would receive an envelope in the post. It would contain a video recording and five photographs of Evald Bromo and a twelve-year-old girl, still three years shy of her confirmation. The email had not included any demands. No threats. No exit routes of the type, “If you don’t give me this, then …” Just a plain statement of fact. Short and sweet. This will happen. September the first.

  Evald Bromo got to his feet, stiff with cold. He put on his jacket again and tied his scarf.

  There was nothing he could do.

  He could only wait. He had six months left.

  5

  Oslo Police Station had changed its name. At one stage during an endless series of reorganizations, the massive, sprawling gray building at Grønlandsleiret 44 had been renamed Oslo Police District Headquarters. No one really understood why. District police forces were merged with urban police forces and all the good-natured rural officers were made accountable to police chiefs with law degrees and gold braiding on their shoulders. After the merger, police stations were no longer to be found in Norway. Instead there were district headquarters.

  The change of name had not had any visible effect. Oslo Police District HQ seemed just as uncomfortable with its surroundings as Oslo Police Station had always been. On its eastern side stood the old Oslo Prison, formerly a national institution for long-term prisoners and now downgraded to a mere county jail, on account of changing circumstances and a lack of financial resources. Grønland Church loomed on its western flank, defiantly and patiently awaiting visitors in an area of the city where half the residents were Muslim and the other half had barely seen the inside of a house of prayer since they were christened. The optimism that had infused the rest of Old Oslo and seen house prices double in the space of a year had never reached the hill on which the Police District HQ was located, with Åkebergveien tucked in behind it.

  “A station is and will always be a station,” Hanne Wilhelmsen said emphatically, slinging a case folder into a corner. “Since I began in the police force, this place has been reorganized a zillion times. Don’t touch those!”

  She made a lunge for the man who, having leaned over her, had already nabbed four chocolate bananas from a blue enamel bowl on the desk.

  The man helped himself to three more.

  “Billy T.!” Hanne said furiously, slapping him so hard on the backside of his tight jeans that it sounded like an explosion. “Leave them alone, I said! Anyway, you’re starting to get really fat! Gross!”

  “Comfort padding.” Billy T. grinned, giving himself a smack on the belly before sitting down in the visitor’s chair. “I’m getting so much good food these days.”

  “Which quite simply means you’re getting real food,” Hanne said tartly. “Instead of all the junk you’ve lived on for as long as I’ve known you. I’ve loads to do, as a matter of fact.”

  She cast an encouraging glance in the direction of the door he had just slammed behind him.

  “Fine.” Billy T. beamed, picking up the Dagbladet newspaper that lay on a shelf under an overflowing ashtray. “I’ll wait. Bloody hell, you’ve started to smoke again!”

  “Not at all,” Hanne said. “Having a cigarette now and again certainly doesn’t mean that I smoke.”

  “Now and again,” Billy T. mumbled, already immersing himself in an article about new motorbikes coming out that spring. “That means once in a while. Are those butts there a whole year’s worth, eh?”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen did not answer.

  The man who sat reading a newspaper while discreetly picking his nose on the opposite side of her desk looked larger than ever. Billy T. had measured six foot seven in his stocking feet since he was eighteen. He had never been slim. He would soon turn forty and in the past six months must have put on twenty kilos. It looked as though the extra weight had also done something to his height. Even when seated, it was as if his shape had no actual beginning or end. He filled the room with something Hanne could not quite figure out.

  Hanne leafed through a well-thumbed textbook on criminal law, pretending to read while she stole secret glances at Billy T. through her fringe. She ought to get a haircut. He ought to go on a diet.

  Hanne Wilhelmsen had long ago given up trying to work out her relationship with Billy T. He was definitely her best pal. Over the years, they had fallen into a modus vivendi like that of a symbiotic old married couple, using a bickering, sarcastic tone that vanished in an instant if one realized the other was being serious. Hanne caught herself wondering how close they really were. In recent months she had started to question whether she was capable of being close to anyone. Apart from for brief, transitory moments.

  Something had happened between Hanne and Billy T. late one Thursday evening five months earlier. When she closed her eyes, she saw him lurching into her apartment, drunk as a sailor. The entire block must have heard him when he roared in delight that he was going to marry the mother of his soon-to-be fifth son. As he had never lived with any of the mothers of his first four boys, this called for a celebration. Cecilie, Hanne’s live-in partner of almost twenty years, had welcomed Billy T. with coffee strong as dynamite, gentle admonitions and heartfelt congratulations. Hanne, on the other hand, had fallen silent, feeling both wounded and aggrieved; emotions that had still not quite dissipated. The realization of what was really bothering her hurt far more than the actual prospect of losing someone she thought she would have to herself for the rest of her life.

  “Have you thought about your speech?” Billy T. asked suddenly.

  “Speech?”

  “The wedding. The speech. Have you thought about it?”

  There were still almost three months to go. Hanne Wilhelmsen was to be best woman but did not even know if she could face going.

  “Look at this,” she said instead, throwing a folder containing Polaroid pictures across the desk. “Warning: graphic violence.”

  Billy T. threw the newspaper on the floor and opened the file. He pulled a grimace Hanne could not recall seeing before. Billy T. had grown older. His eyes were more deep-set than ever, and the laughter lines below them could be maliciously likened to dark bags. His shaved head was no longer a statement; he could just as easily have lost his hair. Even his teeth, visible when his lips contracted in disgust at the photos, bore signs that Billy T. would turn forty that summer. Hanne let her eyes slide from his face down to her own hands. The winter-dry skin was not improved by the hand cream she plastered on three times a day. Fine lines on the back of her hand reminded her she was only eighteen months younger than Billy T.

  “Fucking hell,” Billy T. said, banging the folder shut. “I heard about the case at the morning meeting, but that there …”

  “Nasty,” Hanne sighed. “He may have done it himself.”

  “Hardly,” Billy T. said, kneading his face. “No one’s going to get me to believe that Chief Public Prosecutor Halvorsrud has gone berserk with a samurai sword and attacked his own wife. No fucking way.”

  “Hasty conclusion, if I may say so.”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen scratched her neck irritably. Billy T. was the eighth police officer in the past few hours who, without a scrap of prior knowledge, had nonetheless come to a definite conclusion about the case.

  “Obviously he could have done it,” she said flatly. “Equally, he may well be telling the truth when he says he was threatened with a gun and therefore sat completely paralyzed while his wife was massacred by a madman. Who knows?”

  She wanted to add: and who cares? Another sign that she was ready to move on. The worst thing was that she had no idea where to. Or why everything, in some vague, undefined way, was in flux. Something had entered her life that meant she could no longer muster the required energy. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that she could not be bothered. She had become quieter than before. Grumpier, without really wanting to be. Cecilie had begun to scrutinize her when she thought she would not notice. Hanne could not even take the trouble
to ask what she was staring at.

  There were four brisk knocks at the door.

  “Come in!” Billy T. thundered, breaking into a broad smile when a policewoman with a huge stomach waddled into the cramped office. “My wife-to-be and my new son!”

  He pulled his colleague onto his knee.

  “Have you ever seen a more beautiful sight, Hanne?”

  Without waiting for a reply, he rubbed his face against the policewoman’s bump and embarked on an incomprehensible mumbled dialogue with the child inside.

  “It’s a GIRL,” the heavily pregnant woman mouthed to Hanne without making a sound. “A GIRL!”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen began to laugh involuntarily.

  “A girl, Billy T.! Are you going to be daddy to a girl at last? Poor, unfortunate baby girl!”

  “This guy only makes boys,” Billy T. said, tapping her smock with his finger. “And this, my friends, this here is my son. The fifth in a row. Sure as shooting.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen made an effort to disregard Billy T.. Police Sergeant Tone-Marit Steen made a wholehearted attempt to tear herself away. Neither of them succeeded.

  “Billy T.!”

  He pulled a face and scowled at Hanne. “Bloody hell, you’re so bad-tempered these days! Do you have PMS morning, noon and night, or what? Get a grip of yourself, woman!”

  His grimace transformed into a smile directed at Tone-Marit as he wriggled out of the chair and made himself scarce.

  “What was it he was actually after?” Hanne asked, spreading her hands demonstratively.

  “Haven’t a clue,” Tone-Marit said, sitting down with a groan she tried to conceal. “But I’ve got something for you. That guy who was supposed to have beheaded Halvorsrud’s wife—”

  “Ståle Salvesen,” Hanne said briskly. “What about him?”

  “Well, the man the Public Prosecutor insists—”

  “I know who you’re referring to.” Hanne interrupted her in an irate voice. “What have you found out?”

  “Dead.”

  “Dead?”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen was aware that no one had caught Ståle Salvesen since she had initiated a search for him the night before. He was on a piece of paper in front of her.

  Age: 52 years. Marital status: Separated. Employment: In receipt of disability benefit. One grown-up son. Address: Vogts gate 14. Income: 32,000 kroner in 1997. No capital. No other relative apart from his son, living in the USA.

  Two patrols had been to Torshov to look for Ståle Salvesen at three o’clock in the morning. As he was not at home and his apartment was in fact unlocked, they had paid an unofficial visit inside. Cheerless place, but tidy. Bed made. No Salvesen. Out-of-date milk in the fridge. The compressed information had materialized in a special report attached to the printout from the data register.

  “What do you mean by ‘dead’?” Hanne said, her tone needlessly sharp; the previous night’s information that Salvesen could not be found had given her a secret hope that Sigurd Halvorsrud had actually told the truth.

  “Suicide. He jumped into the sea last Monday.”

  “Jumped into the sea?” Hanne Wilhelmsen felt an urge to laugh. She had no idea why.

  “It was a … Oops!” Tone-Marit touched her stomach and held her breath.

  “Just practice contractions,” she gasped after a while. “A hiker saw a man throw himself off Staure Bridge just before eleven o’clock on Monday night. The police found Salvesen’s old Honda nearby. Unlocked, with the key in the ignition. There was a suicide note on the dashboard. Straightforward stuff, four lines saying that he couldn’t stand it any more, etcetera, etcetera.”

  “And the body?”

  “Not found yet. The currents are unpredictable in that spot, so it could take some time. Salvesen may well have died in the fall. The drop would have been over twenty meters.”

  A fire alarm wailed.

  “Nooo!” Hanne Wilhelmsen screamed. “I’m bloody fed up with these false alarms! Bloody fed up!”

  “You’re fed up most of the time,” Tone-Marit said calmly, getting to her feet. “Anyway, there might well be a fire.”

  In the doorway, she turned to gaze at her superior officer. For a second it looked as though she was about to say something more. Then she shook her head almost imperceptibly, and walked off.

  6

  “This doesn’t look too good,” Hanne Wilhelmsen said in an undertone, pouring more coffee into the handleless mug in front of Chief Public Prosecutor Sigurd Halvorsrud. “You can see that, can’t you?”

  Halvorsrud had spruced himself up considerably. He was freshly showered and smooth-shaven, and he was even wearing a tie, despite his temporary domicile being an uncomfortable remand cell. He nodded wordlessly.

  “My client agrees to being held on remand for one week. By which time this misunderstanding should have been cleared up.”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen raised her eyebrows. “Honestly, Karen—”

  An indistinct expression in Karen Borg’s eyes made Hanne shift in her chair. “Miss Borg,” she corrected herself. “Take a close look at this.”

  Hanne placed a sheet of paper with a handwritten list of bullet points in front of Halvorsrud’s lawyer. She tapped her forefinger against each point in turn, itemizing the reasons the police had for remanding Halvorsrud in custody for significantly longer than a week.

  “He was present at the crime scene when—”

  “He was the one who called the police.”

  “Could I be allowed to continue without interruption?”

  “Sorry. Go ahead.”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen took out a cigarette. Halvorsrud had driven her to go through three cigarettes during the formalities so far, and at that particular moment Hanne could not care less that Karen had developed a talent for sanctimoniousness since becoming the mother of two children.

  “Halvorsrud was in fact on the spot when the murder was committed. His fingerprints are all over the place. On the sword, beside the body … Everywhere.”

  “But he lives—”

  “Miss Borg,” Hanne said, clearly and emphatically, as she got to her feet.

  She stood by the window of the office she had recently been assigned. The room did not feel like her own. She did not belong there. It contained hardly a single personal item. The view was not the one she was used to. The trees lining the avenue leading out from the old main entrance of the prison were still bare. A football rolled slowly along the gravel path, though there was not a child in sight.

  “I suggest,” Hanne Wilhelmsen began afresh, out of habit sending a smoke ring up to the ceiling, “that I be allowed to complete my exposition. Then you can have your say. Without interruptions.”

  She wheeled around to face the other two. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” Karen Borg said, flashing a smile as she touched her client’s arm. “Of course.”

  “In addition to what I’ve just mentioned, there’s the fact that Halvorsrud invokes a … an invalid alibi, so to speak. He claims that it was a certain Ståle Salvesen who abused and murdered his wife. Ståle Salvesen, however, died on Monday.”

  “What?” The Public Prosecutor launched himself forward, banging his elbows on the surface of the desk.

  “Ståle Salvesen’s not dead! Definitely not! He was at my house … He killed my wife last night! I saw it with my own eyes. I can—”

  He rubbed his tender arm and looked at Karen Borg as if expecting his lawyer to vouch for his story. Help was not forthcoming. Karen Borg twiddled an unostentatious diamond ring and cocked her head as if she had misheard what Hanne had said.

  “Ståle Salvesen took his own life on Monday night. At least everything indicates that. Eye witnesses, his car parked just beside the bridge he jumped from, a suicide note.”

  “But no body,” Karen Borg said slowly.

  Hanne looked up. “No. Not yet. It will turn up. Sooner or later.”

  “Perhaps he’s not dead,” Karen Borg said. />
  “You’re quite right, of course,” Hanne said calmly. “But in the meantime there’s not a solitary speck of evidence that your client is telling the truth. In other words …” She stubbed out her cigarette with a pang of conscience. It was her sixth that day. She should not have started again. Definitely not. “… one week is not enough time. But if you’ll accept two, I’ll work my butt off in the next fortnight.”

  “Fine,” Halvorsrud said firmly, without reference to his attorney. “I relinquish my right to appear at a preliminary hearing. Two weeks. Okay.”

  “With a ban on letters and visits,” Hanne Wilhelmsen added quickly.

  Karen Borg nodded. “And with the minimum possible press coverage,” she said. “I notice the newspapers haven’t picked up the story as yet.”

  “Dream on,” Hanne muttered, before continuing. “I’ll try to find a mattress for you, Halvorsrud. We’ll have another, far more comprehensive interview tomorrow, if that’s acceptable …”

  Karen Borg tucked her hair behind her ear in a compliant gesture. An officer was summoned over the intercom and when he had closed the door behind himself and Halvorsrud, Karen Borg remained where she was.

  “I haven’t seen you for ages,” she said.

  Hanne smiled briefly and began to save some non-existent item on her computer. “Too much to do. Both Cecilie and me. And what about you? How are the children doing?”

  “Fine. And you?”

  “Okay.”

  “Håkon says something’s bothering you.”

  “Håkon says a lot of strange things.”

  “And a lot of sensible things too. He notices things. You and I both know that.”

  Six months earlier, Håkon had finally become a public prosecutor. The nomination had come late, later than for most police lawyers, who were promoted as a matter of routine. Sooner or later. It was just a question of being patient. Year after year. Case after case. The vast majority found themselves better paid and less onerous jobs in the space of two or three years. Håkon Sand had held out, eventually earning a kind of respect, if not exactly admiration, from those in the higher echelons of the prosecution service. Not least for his work with Hanne Wilhelmsen and Billy T., who had both protested vehemently at losing their most police-friendly lawyer. However, Håkon Sand could not endure any more. He had shuffled green folders and walked the linoleum corridors of Grønlandsleiret 44 for nine years before finally being able to stow his family photographs and a beautiful bronze statuette of the Goddess of Justice into a cardboard box and move to C. J. Hambros plass 2B. As the crow flies, it was barely one and a half kilometers away, but he had disappeared without trace. Now and again, he phoned for a chat, most recently only a couple of days earlier. He had suggested lunch. Hanne had not had time. She never had time.