Dead Joker

by Anne Holt

  Hanne Wilhelmsen nodded again. “Did he say anything at all about money? About you having to pay anything?”

  “No … not really. It was just as if I understood that, you see. No …” Mustafa Özdemir looked dejectedly from one to the other. “It would be better if I could tell you exactly what the man said. But it’s so long ago, you know. I don’t remember exactly, but I realized afterward that if I could pay him some money, then my case would disappear. Dismitted. No … dismissed, I mean.”

  Özdemir scratched his neck.

  “My wife, she asked me what it was about, you see. She didn’t like the man’s voice. She gave me a terrible row when I told her he might be able to help us.”

  “But did you make any arrangement?” Karianne Holbeck asked; this was the first time she had spoken in the entire interview. “Did you get a number to phone?”

  “No, he said he’d call me.”

  “Did he do that?” Hanne Wilhelmsen asked him.

  “Yes. He phoned two days later. In the evening again. He probably knew the shop was open late. My wife and I, you know, we’re nearly always in the shop. My daughter too. You know Sophia, Hanna. She’s qualified in business studies, you know.”

  A soft expression crossed his face when he talked about his daughter. Hanne knew Mustafa had only one child, a daughter aged twenty. Why Sophia was an only child, she had no idea, but the young woman was all the more loved and unfortunately also quite overprotected by her parents. Hanne knew the girl wanted to study medicine, but her father had said she had to wait until she was twenty-five. Sophia attended evening classes to take the science subjects she needed to begin medical studies. Her father met her faithfully outside Bjørknes private high school three times a week in order to see her safely home.

  “What did he say then?”

  “Not very much. The same as the first time. But now I was very strong and clear. Out of the question, I said. He was … polite? Didn’t get angry or anything. He just said goodbye. Since then, I haven’t heard anything. Then …”

  He smiled broadly and his even, white teeth came into sight underneath his moustache.

  “Then I had a good lawyer, you see. He sorted it all out and everything was fine.”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen closed her eyes. “I’d like to ask you a big favor, Mustafa. If you don’t want to … If you think it’s disagreeable or anything, just say so. You’re in no way compelled to say yes.”

  She opened her eyes suddenly and stared at the man in the shoddy check jacket.

  “For my Hanna, I’ll do anything at all!”

  “Well,” Hanne said. “This isn’t exactly for me, but for the police. Can we have your permission to ask Telenor for a printout of all incoming calls to your phone on the days in question? I’m not entirely sure whether it’s possible, from a purely technical point of view, but in any case we need your permission.”

  Mustafa Özdemir hesitated for barely a second, then gave a sudden burst of laughter.

  “That’s fine,” he said. “I don’t have anything to hide, you know.”

  “Then you write this down,” Hanne said, speaking to Karianne as she got to her feet. “And write out an authority we can show to Telenor into the bargain.”

  She held out her hand to Mustafa Özdemir, who sprang out of his seat and clasped both hands around hers.

  “Thanks for getting in touch,” Hanne Wilhelmsen said.

  “You must come to me soon,” he answered earnestly. “Bring that beautiful friend of yours with you, and you’ll get the excellent tomatoes my wife has been growing in our bath!”

  “And thank you very much,” Hanne said to Karianne Holbeck as she was about to leave the room. “It’s so good of you to take care of the paperwork!”

  “A modicum of thanks helps a little, at least,” Karianne whispered under her breath and nodded as the door closed. “But not much.”

  And then she started to write.

  46

  At first Hanne Wilhelmsen thought she had run into Billy T.. The man was massive, and when he used one arm to lift her up off her knees again, while gathering the papers she had dropped with the other, he employed a strength she thought she recognized. However, when she raised her eyes, she saw she was mistaken.

  “Sorry,” the man said unhappily, reluctant to let her go.

  “It was my fault.” Hanne tried to brush him aside. “Long time no see.”

  He smiled as he slapped a business card on top of the papers she had at last managed to collect into a bundle. “Iver K. Feirand, Chief Inspector.”

  “Congratulations,” she said deferentially. “I should have said that to you ages ago.”

  “It was only two months ago.”

  Iver Feirand was a newly appointed chief inspector with responsibility for sexual assaults on children, one of the foremost experts in the country. At the beginning of the eighties, after the eyes of the Ministry of Justice, the prosecution authorities and the police had been opened to the fact that sexual abuse of children was not simply a foreign phenomenon, several investigators had been allowed to specialize in that area. They themselves were of the opinion that there ought to be three times as many of them, but a few was at least better than none at all. Over the years, Iver Feirand had served at Interpol in Lyon and Scotland Yard in London and had also followed an advanced course with the American FBI. He shared Hanne’s fascination for everything the United States had to offer.

  “What’ve you been up to?” He smiled and held out his hands, ready to carry her papers. Hanne shook her head.

  “The Halvorsrud murder. Plus a ton of other cases.” She glanced eloquently at the five thick folders she was carrying.

  “Bloody hell, what a case,” he said, accompanying her along the corridor. “When are you going to break the guy?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t even know if he did it.”

  Iver Feirand gave a loud and hearty laugh. “You never know for sure whether anyone has done anything!”

  “Strictly speaking, that should always be our attitude until sentence is passed. Don’t you agree?”

  He shrugged, and at once became serious. “The problem for us is exactly the opposite,” he said, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets. “The people we arrest are so guilty it’s spilling out of them. But it’s so rare for us to achieve a conviction. But you …”

  He stopped and placed his hand on her shoulder. Unwillingly, she slowed down and turned to face him.

  “I hear rumors that you’re going to sell your bike,” he said doubtfully, scratching his forehead. “Is that true?”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  Hanne could not for the life of her think whether she had mentioned her plans to get rid of her Harley to anyone other than Cecilie.

  “Not sure. But is it true?”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  “Why?”

  Hanne sighed and set off again. “I’d prefer to keep that to myself.”

  “Is there anything wrong with it?”

  “No.”

  “What do you want for it?”

  They had reached Hanne’s office door. Iver Feirand, legs straddled, blocked her path.

  “I don’t know,” Hanne said resignedly. “I haven’t even decided to sell it yet.”

  That was not true. She knew the motorbike had to go. She had tried not to think about it; she still had not made up her mind why it was so important for her to be quit of it.

  “How many times has it been painted?” Iver Feirand asked. “I mean, it wasn’t actually pink when you bought it, was it?

  “Oh yes. I ordered it specially from the factory.”

  “Listen …”

  He scratched his throat.

  “If you’re going to sell it, you must let me know. I’m really damn interested, if the price is right. My old woman’ll be annoyed, of course, but now it’s my turn in this life. So I’d like to get it repainted. Give me a call, would you?”

  He took his leave of her by putting t
wo fingers to his forehead, before jogging back to the blue zone. Hanne remained there for a few more seconds, watching him go. He looked so like Billy T. from the back, though Iver Feirand’s backside was much more attractive.

  “A hundred and twenty thousand perhaps,” she murmured. “At least.”

  47

  A young boy of around twelve stood on his own in front of the congregation, wearing a white, ankle-length gown that seemed too big for him. His hands were folded neatly over his middle. Perhaps he had received strict instructions to stand like that, but the constant twiddling of his thumbs could indicate the boy was simply nervous and did not quite know where to put his pale fingers. A shock of blond, curly hair wreathed his head like a halo, and his high-pitched, angelic voice crept along the bare walls of pale terracotta.

  The boy sang two verses of the Norwegian psalm “Å leva det er å elska” (To Live is to Love) and the funeral service was over.

  Billy T. opened his eyes.

  He had been sitting in an uncomfortable position and now hurried out of the church ahead of the rest of the packed congregation.

  Everyone was there. The Director of Public Prosecutions, tall, slim and obviously just as ill at ease on the hard pews as Billy T., was seated in the second row. At least six renowned lawyers had chosen to pay Doris Flo Halvorsrud their last respects, as far as Billy T. could count. In addition, there was a huge throng of public prosecutors, from the Økokrim police department as well as the appeal courts. None of them were in a hurry to step out into the center aisle; they sat stretching their backs and craning their necks in an effort to be seen. Both by Halvorsrud himself, who was sitting in the front row and was clearly struggling to free himself from his daughter, and by the rest of the congregation.

  Only the police tried to be discreet.

  At the end of the two front pews sat four police officers, dressed in dark civilian clothes. A trained eye would have identified them as soon as they arrived. They appeared self-conscious in their suits; their constant shoulder shrugging and repeated snatching at their trouser legs implied that they were used to more practical attire. The four men kept their eyes fixed unwaveringly on Sigurd Halvorsrud for an hour and a half. While everyone else tried to avoid staring – it was difficult, since most people were intensely curious about how Halvorsrud would look after more than three weeks in custody – the police officers sat unabashedly gazing at the funeral’s real central character.

  “This is a strange demonstration,” Billy T. said tersely to Karen Borg as she approached him on the gravel path outside the church, greeting him with an affable nod of the head.

  “Demonstration?” she repeated in a monotone, glancing up at the church steps, where Halvorsrud was the object of whispered but nonetheless heartfelt condolences from a gathering of the prosecuting authorities, in a manner of speaking. “What do you mean by that?”

  “O. J. Simpson,” Billy T. continued. “White Americans thought he was guilty. Black Americans refused to believe it.”

  “Okay,” Karen Borg replied, uninterested.

  “Can’t you see it? The police believe Halvorsrud is guilty. The prosecution authorities can’t believe it. No, damn it; not one of their own. Lawyers versus police officers. The same old story.”

  He tugged at his earlobe, where the usual inverted cross had been swapped for a little diamond stud in honor of the occasion.

  “Quite provocative,” he went on. “On the other hand, it’s almost touching to see that even you lawyers can stand together now and again. Normally you’re at each other’s throats.”

  He took the measure of Karen Borg, from head to toe, as if he had only just seen her, and gave a low whistle. She was wearing a simply cut charcoal suit with a black, collarless blouse. She was carrying her coat over her arm; a chink in the cloud cover had suddenly given the sun some warmth as people began to stream out of the church.

  “You look stunning,” Billy T. said, stroking the sleeve of her jacket.

  “You too,” she answered, smiling subtly. “I’m pleased to see you’ve got the sense to take off that awful devil’s cross at times like this.”

  “It’s not a cross.” Billy T. sighed resignedly. “It’s a stylized representation of Thor’s hammer! I’m so tired of—”

  He restrained himself. The Director of Public Prosecutions passed them with a slow nod and the merest hint of a reticent smile at Karen Borg. He was flanked on either side by two men dressed in dark clothing. They resembled bodyguards in the way they stayed one step behind their boss, continually keeping in time. However, since one was extremely overweight and the other barely five foot seven, it was more likely that the Director would have to fend for himself if anything unforeseen or threatening occurred.

  “O. J. Simpson was guilty,” Karen Borg said.

  “What?”

  “He killed his ex-wife and her lover. Obviously.”

  She began walking to the parking lot. Billy T. followed with shuffling steps across the gravel.

  “That’s not what he says!” He gave a perfunctory laugh. “The man was freed eventually, if I might dare to remind the lady of such an inconsequential fact.”

  Karen Borg wheeled around suddenly. “Have you decided on a name?”

  Canting his head to one side, Billy T. squinted at the shifting clouds, which had obscured the sun once more.

  “No. The baby’s going to remain nameless if we don’t get our act together. Tone-Marit goes for all these modern ones – Julie, Amalie, Matilde, names like that. I want something decent and traditional. Ragnhild or Ingeborg. Something along those lines.”

  “How’s O. J. Simpson getting on now, do you think?” Karen opened the driver’s door of her ancient blue Audi.

  “Bloody terrible, by all accounts,” Billy T. replied.

  “Exactly. Because everyone really knows that he did it. It’s different with Halvorsrud. Since the prosecution authorities …” Karen Borg nodded in the direction of the dark-suited men clambering into their cars in the crowded parking lot. The muffled reports from the car doors as they slammed around them sounded like a halting, truncated funeral march. “… since these people obviously believe in Halvorsrud’s innocence, this doesn’t have anything to do with social opposites. Black America didn’t believe in O. J. Simpson’s innocence. Poor, black America did. Or I should say, they didn’t give a toss whether he was guilty. Their point was that the man was above guilt or innocence. He became a victim of white power. They couldn’t convict him. It would have been like convicting themselves. So don’t come here drawing hopeless comparisons. Halvorsrud is innocent. He has quite simply not done what you’re accusing him of.”

  “Heavens, that was quite a flare-up,” Billy T. said, running his hand over his skull.

  Karen Borg had been standing for so long with the car door held open, and had raised her voice so much, that people were beginning to look in their direction. Now she stepped into the car and closed the door. Billy T. knocked on the window with his knuckles. He saw her sigh resignedly before she wound the window halfway down.

  “You’re wrong,” he said, resting his arms on the car roof. “Your rather lightweight analysis of the O. J. Simpson case is probably okay. But if you can’t see that the cases have some things in common, then you’ve got lost in the detail of your own defense.”

  Karen Borg began to wind up the window again with agitated gestures.

  “Wait!” Billy T. barked, grabbing the edge of the glass. “Don’t you see it’s all a matter of identification? If Halvorsrud is guilty, then it’s a setback for every member of the prosecution authorities. That’s why they’re all here. They want to show solidarity, that they can’t believe one of their own, someone from their own social class, with the same background, the same education, financially well off, with a wife and children and an impressive home … That would be too much. Halvorsrud’s possible guilt would strike at every single one of them. They’re asking themselves: ‘Could I have done this?’ The answer is obviousl
y no, and so they take the most dangerous course of action in the world as far as we who have to enforce the law and distinguish truth from untruth are concerned: they identify with the bad guy.”

  He slapped the roof with the palm of his hand.

  “Don’t you see that, Karen?”

  She looked at him for some time.

  “For a while I thought that you attached some credence to his explanation,” she said finally. “I certainly let myself be fooled that was the situation. So did Halvorsrud. I seem to recall a tirade about you being his only friend and a lot of stuff along those lines. Stupid of us both, of course. Believing that sort of thing, I mean.”

  She turned the key in the ignition.

  Shaking his head, Billy T. leaned away from the vehicle. Karen struggled to find first gear, and the engine produced a grinding noise before it died. She made a fresh attempt to start the car, but obviously did not have the clutch depressed. The car jumped forward two meters and the engine stalled.

  “Will I take over?” Billy T. mouthed with his face only ten centimeters from the windscreen.

  She did not even glance in his direction. At the third attempt she managed to start the car and rolled slowly out to the road without even asking Billy T. if he needed a lift.

  He turned heel and crossed to the lower car park, normally reserved for vehicles belonging to the disabled. The police vehicle was waiting there. Halvorsrud was already ensconced in the back seat. Billy T. could hear Thea Halvorsrud sobbing inconsolably from the church steps, while her two clumsy brothers and almost hysterical aunt tried in vain to comfort her.

  48

  When he closed his eyes, it was not his wife’s coffin he saw, but that was what he wanted to remember. He had not wanted it to be brown. No one had asked him, but for some reason he had thought that it would be white. Shiny white, with a simple wreath of red roses on the lid. When he’d caught sight of the brown wood overloaded with multicolored flowers that completely obliterated the wreath from himself and the children, he was filled with an impotent rage. At the end of the funeral service, the coffin looked black, and he wanted to remember it all differently.