by Anne Holt
“There was a bang, and then the guy in front flew out and hauled the other guy from his car without as much as a hello! I bet ya a hundred that the Volvo’ll win.”
“Who is the owner of the Volvo?” Hanne asked without showing much interest but at least standing up and moving over to the window where Billy T. was now positioned, in brilliant good humor.
“The guy with the lighter coat. The tall one.”
“I’m not betting against him,” Hanne said, as the man in question dealt a perfect right hook to the Toyota owner, who stumbled backward, losing his footing and falling to the ground.
“Self-defense, pure and simple,” Billy T. roared. “It was the Toyota who started it!”
As the man struck down was attempting to clamber back to his feet, two uniformed police officers came running. With no caps or jackets, they had probably seen the incident from some window or other as well.
“Typical Torvald,” Billy T. commented irritably. “Spoiling everything.”
He remained standing for a minute to see how things turned out, but of course the two combatants stopped fighting as soon as they clapped eyes on the pair in uniform. They obviously smoothed it over and were surprisingly quickly absorbed in completing an insurance claim form.
“Life offers pleasures large and small,” Billy T. said as he sat down to face his boss. “Though it hasn’t decided to give us particularly much in the way of pleasures in this foster home case.”
“Oh?”
“Forensic traces: millions. Usable: zilch.”
An enormous fist covered the cigarette packet lying on Hanne Wilhelmsen’s desk.
“I’ve told you that you need to stop that,” he interrupted himself. “You’re killing yourself, darling.”
“You know, I get enough of that at home. I can’t bear having the same song and dance here too,” she retorted with an unexpected note of irritation in her voice.
Billy T. was not so easily frightened off.
“Cecilie’s the chick to tell you. She knows what’s good for her girlfriend. A physician and all that.”
Her expression darkening, Hanne Wilhelmsen swiftly rose to her feet and closed the half-open door to the corridor beyond. Billy T. made use of the opportunity to crumple the packet in his hand, with at least ten cigarettes inside, and throw the whole lot in the wastepaper bin.
“So. One packet fewer coffin nails,” he declared in satisfaction.
She became angrier than he had anticipated.
“Listen here, Billy T. You’re my friend. You put up with a lot from your friends. But I demand one thing: respect. Both for my insistence that I don’t want talk about my private life when others can overhear, and for my belongings. Nag me if you like about my smoking, I know you do that with the best of intentions. But leave my bloody things alone! ”
Furious, she leaned over the wastepaper basket and fished out the crumpled pack of cigarettes from among the paper and apple cores. A couple of the cigarettes had survived, although they were bent. Lighting one, she took several deep puffs.
“So. Where were we?”
Billy T. lowered his hands, left flailing in midair after his outburst.
“Apologies, apologies, Hanne. I really didn’t mean to—”
“Okay,” she truncated his remarks with a faint smile. “Forensic evidence.”
“Loads,” Billy T. mumbled, shamefaced and still taken aback by her violent reaction. “Fingerprints all over the shop, except where we want them. On the knife. It’s entirely lacking in traces of the person who used it. A pretty ordinary knife. Bought at Ikea, of all places. That’s the one place in the whole world where it’s totally impossible to find out anything about who purchased such an item. They sell millions of knives. As far as the footprints are concerned . . .”
He shifted position in his seat.
“. . . they’re unclear and of minimal value. You saw for yourself what it was like out there. But they’re carrying out further work on checking them. Probably it’ll turn out that they all originate from the children and adults at the home. In other words—”
Hanne interrupted him again. “In other words we’re facing the most enjoyable and classical of all police work!”
She leaned forward, smiling. Billy T. did likewise, and with their faces only twenty centimeters apart, they chorused, “Tactical investigation!”
They laughed, and Hanne pushed a small bundle of typed papers toward him.
“This is the list of all the children and staff at the home. Maren Kalsvik compiled it.”
“Then we have to take it for what it’s worth, then, since she’s also one of those under most suspicion.”
“They all are,” said Hanne curtly. “But look here.”
The list contained a short CV of all the staff members. The youngest was Christian, who was twenty. The eldest was someone called Synnøve Danielsen, who had been there since the home opened in 1967. Like Christian, she had no professional qualifications, but in contrast to him, oceans of experience. Moreover, three of the staff were social workers, two were male nurses, three child welfare officers, one a kindergarten teacher, and one an auto mechanic. The final person on the list, Terje Welby, was a high school teacher with qualifications in history, education, and literature.
Spring Sunshine Foster Home was run by the Salvation Army, but the operational budget was predominantly met by the public purse. They had been allocated eleven and a half posts, filled by the fourteen members of staff, some part time.
“There are thirteen now,” Billy T. commented laconically. “Who has taken over the director’s post?”
“As far as I understand, it’s Terje Welby, who is the assistant director, at least on paper. But he put his back out during the fire drill and was signed off sick today. Maren’s probably running the show now.”
“Hmm. Convenient.”
“How so?”
“That sick leave.”
“We’ll have to check that out.”
“That should be very simple. It’ll be harder to find some motives among this lot here.”
“There are always motives. The problem is just to find the person who has the strong enough motive. Besides, it could have been someone from outside, it could have been one of the children. Doesn’t sound plausible, but we can’t rule anything out. Have the children been interviewed?”
“Barely. It seems completely unlikely to me. The person on night duty had been on his rounds when he found the body, and he ought to have training to know whether children are really sleeping or just playacting. He swears they were all sleeping like logs. You would have to be a bit of a devil to have murdered your foster-carer and then fallen into a deep dreamless sleep.”
He rubbed his hands over his face.
“No, the only possibility is of course the one who disappeared. He’s a hard nut, apparently. Brand-new, only been there for three weeks. Bloody strange and difficult too.”
Hanne Wilhelmsen leafed through the papers.
“A twelve-year-old? A twelve-year-old would hardly be able to stab with such force that the knife goes right through skin and bone to pierce the heart of a well-built woman!”
She stubbed out her cigarette determinedly in a tasteless brown glass ashtray.
“Well, he’s said to be big, you know,” Billy T. insisted. “Really abnormally large.”
“In any case, it’s a bad opening move to concentrate our efforts on a twelve-year-old boy. Leave that open for the moment.”
Then she added, “Though it’s imperative we find him, of course. For many reasons. He may have seen something. But in the meantime we need to rummage around in these people’s private lives as thoroughly as possible. Look for everything. Expenditure, lovers, sexual inclinations, . . .”
A slight blush spread beneath the dark blue eyes, and she lit the last serviceable cigarette in order to deflect attention.
“. . . family quarrels. Everything. What’s more, we need to investigate the victim’s life and lifes
tyle. Get things started.”
“In that case I’ll go for another visit to the home and see if there are any alternative routes for our murderer to arrive or leave,” Billy T. said as he stood up.
It was half past two. Hanne Wilhelmsen paused for a moment’s thought, calculating that she could be home by five.
“I’m coming too,” she declared, scurrying after him across the blue linoleum in the corridor on the way to the elevator.
“You’re not fucking suited to be a chief inspector, Hanne.” He guffawed. “There’s far too much curiosity in that skull of yours!”
“What a mouth you’ve got,” she answered with mock severity.
As the massive metal doors guarding the entrance floodgates of Oslo Police Station closed hostilely behind them, she gripped his arm for a second and he came to a halt.
“You need to know one thing. You should be glad I can get so angry at you.”
Then she marched on. He didn’t understand a thing but was really keen to believe her.
• • •
All the children had returned now, and two identical boys of eight or nine years opened the door, staring in alarm at the tall bearded man.
“Hi there, boys, I’m Billy T. I’m a policeman. Are there any grown-ups here?”
The two boys seemed somewhat reassured as they withdrew, whispering. Billy T. and Hanne Wilhelmsen followed them. The last time they had visited, they had been struck by the silence. Now it seemed all the youngsters were exerting themselves to recover lost ground.
An almost adult boy was sitting in the middle of the floor tinkering with a bicycle. By his side sat a little sparrow of a lad, looking elated every time he was allowed to hold a tool. The older boy was talking to the younger one in a low, friendly voice, almost lost in the shouts from a fourteen-year-old who was running about triumphantly waving a bra with his outstretched arm and a hot-tempered girl chasing after him.
“Anita thinks she’s got boobs!”
“Throw it here, Glenn! Here!”
The two eight-year-olds jumped around him, before one clambered up on an enormous worktable, waving his arms and continuing to yell, “Glenn, Glenn! Here!”
“Anita thinks she’s got boobs,” Glenn repeated, so tall that even if he had stopped now, the two-year-elder girl would not have been able to reach the embarrassing garment she so desperately wanted to retrieve and that he was now waving with his arm extended while standing on tiptoe.
“Jeanette, help me,” Anita said plaintively.
“Give over, Glenn,” was the only help she received from a plump young girl sitting totally unconcerned at the table, drawing. “Roy-Morgan! Don’t step on my drawing!”
She reached out a clenched fist, causing the boy to cry out in pain and start to cry.
“Good heavens, children! Glenn, give over with that. Let Anita have her bra back. At once! And you!”
The eight-year-old who was standing on one leg up on the table, rubbing his other leg, leaped down to the floor before Maren Kalsvik managed to say anything further.
Then she caught sight of the two visitors in the doorway.
“Oh, sorry,” she said in confusion. “I didn’t know there was anybody here!”
“Anybody here?”
Billy T. grinned so broadly his teeth shone through his bushy beard.
“You’ve got a house full, so you have, woman!”
The two boys had continued fiddling with the bike on the floor directly in front of them.
“I’ve told you before, Raymond,” Maren said with a resigned hand gesture. “You can do that down in the basement. This is not a workshop!”
“It’s so cold down there,” he protested.
She gave up, and the boy looked up at her in surprise.
“Is it okay, then, or . . .” he asked, taken aback.
Shrugging her shoulders, she redirected her attention to the two police officers. The last thirty-six hours had taken their toll. She had pulled her hair back with a simple rubber band rather than braiding it. Several strands had loosened, and together with the sunken shoulders and her baggy clothes, it gave her an almost slovenly look. Her eyes were still red-rimmed.
“Did you not get the lists?”
“Oh, yes,” Hanne Wilhelmsen responded. “Thanks very much. They’re a great help.”
A brief nod in the direction of the children indicated to Maren Kalsvik that the police officers wanted to talk to her in a different location.
“We can go in here,” she said, opening the door to a bright, attractive room with four beanbags, a sofa, and two armchairs in front of a twenty-eight-inch television in the left-hand corner beside the outer wall. The two women each sat in an armchair while Billy T. plumped down on a beanbag. He ended up almost flat on the floor, but Maren Kalsvik did not seem to notice.
“The guy who was on night duty, is he here now?” Hanne Wilhelmsen was speaking.
“No, he’s on sick leave.”
“Him too? Is there an epidemic here, or what?” Billy T. grumbled from his position near the floor.
“Terje hurt his back during the fire drill. Slipped disc, or something like that. He seemed fine when we finished, but the pains started during the course of the evening, he says. As far as Eirik is concerned, he’s just about in shock. It can’t have been very pleasant, finding her. He was totally unhinged when he phoned. At first I thought someone was playing a joke on me, and in fact I was about to put down the phone when I realized it was deadly serious. He was completely hysterical.”
“Do you know where he was sitting?”
“Sitting?”
“Yes, was it not in this room that he was sitting for most of the evening?”
“Oh, I see, yes.”
Running her hand through her hair was obviously a bad habit of hers.
“No, I’m not sure about that. But all the adults usually sit in one of the armchairs.”
She looked at Billy T., blinking.
“He probably sat in this chair. It’s the one nearest the TV. It’s not usually on very loud.”
Struggling to his feet, Billy T. stepped over to the door and swung it open.
“Do you keep the door open when you’re sitting here?”
“There isn’t any rule about it. But I usually do, at least. In case any of the children should call out. Or come down. Kenneth has walked in his sleep now and again.”
“But you can’t see out into the living room from that position!”
Maren Kalsvik turned around to face the policeman.
“That’s not really necessary. The most important thing is to hear the children. They know that we usually sit here in the evenings. Some of us also sleep here, in fact, although there’s a bed on the upper floor. The outside door always has to be kept locked.”
“Does it sometimes happen that it’s not?”
“Of course it might well happ—”
The little mechanic’s assistant came in, crying, and hesitated for a moment before rushing past Billy T. in the doorway and catapulting himself onto Maren’s lap.
“Glenn says that I killed Agnes,” he sobbed.
“Kenneth, it’s okay,” she said into his ear. “What nonsense. There’s nobody who thinks you killed Agnes. You were so fond of her. And you are so kind.”
“But he says I did it. And he says the police have come to get me.”
He was in floods of tears and gasped for breath as he clung to the woman. She tentatively held the little arms around her neck and loosened their grip in order to make eye contact.
“Dear little Kenneth. He’s only teasing you. You know that Glenn loves to tease. You mustn’t take it seriously. Ask that man there if they’ve come to get you. He’s the policeman.”
The boy seemed to shrink smaller and smaller. He had retained a premature appearance, with large, slightly protruding eyes and a narrow, almost pinched face ending in a sharp chin. Now he was looking at Billy T., frightened out of his wits, while convulsively clutching Maren Kalsvik�
�s hand.
The officer hunkered down in front of the boy, smiling. “Kenneth. Is that your name?”
The boy nodded imperceptibly.
“My name’s Billy T. Sometimes people call me Billy Coffee.”
There was a glimmer in the tear-stained eyes.
“See, you’ve got a sense of humor too.” He grinned and rumpled the boy’s hair gently. “I’ll tell you one thing, Kenneth. We don’t think any of the children can have done this. And the thing we are one hundred percent, totally and completely, sure of, is that you haven’t done anything wrong at all. Here . . .”
He extended his fist and took hold of the tiny child’s hand that now had released Maren’s.
“I’ll shake your hand on one thing: you’re not going to be taken away by any policemen. Because we know you haven’t done anything wrong. I can see it in you. A handsome, honest guy. And I’ve had loads of training in seeing these things.”
Now Kenneth was smiling, if not entirely convincingly.
“Quite sure?”
“Quite sure.” Billy T. crossed his heart.
“Can you tell that to Glenn?” the boy whispered.
“Of course.”
He stood up and discovered that Raymond, the bicycle repairer, was standing at the door, leaning on the doorframe with his arms crossed. They stared into each other’s eyes for a fleeting moment, and then the boy started to speak, in a muted, almost monotonous voice. “Of course it’s not Kenneth. It’s no’ me either. But I wouldn’t be so sure that it can’t be one of us. That Olav was a foulmouthed character. He’s nearly as strong as a grown-up. And he’s the most violent kid I’ve ever come across. What’s more, he told me he was going to kill Agnes.”
Silence descended, even the children in the other room were standing behind the boy in the doorway to hear the exchange. Hanne Wilhelmsen felt a strong impulse to put an end to it all by taking the boy to another room without spectators, but Billy T., realizing what she was about to say, made a dismissive gesture.
“He said that a few times. When we were going to bed, for instance. I didn’t bother to answer, the new ones are always so angry about everything and everybody.”
Now he was smiling for the first time. Beneath his wispy hair and scarred face, he was actually good-looking, with even, white teeth and dark eyes.
