by Anne Holt
“And how long is that going to take, Hanne?”
She stood up, but noticing an irritated gleam in his eye, sat down again.
“The best-case scenario, a day and a half. The worst-case scenario, one week.”
“What?”
Now she had impressed him and felt her mood lift a couple of notches.
“If I get a nibble on a little hook I’ve cast out, then most of it will be concluded by the weekend.”
Now the superintendent treated her to a real smile.
“Yes, yes, okay then,” he said. “Then at least you’ll have proved what we already know. You’re good at investigating !”
He indicated that she could go, and Hanne offered up a silent prayer as she closed the door carefully behind her.
I just hope I haven’t been too much of a bigmouth saying that . . .
• • •
An hour later, Agnes Vestavik’s surviving marriage partner arrived in the police station at Grønlandsleiret 44 at nine o’clock on the dot. He was just as formally dressed as on his previous visit, but the past demanding week had cost him a couple of kilos in weight. This time Billy T. had more sympathy for the man, something he admitted to himself with a certain irritation.
However, the figure facing him would have forced the most hardened cynic to display a touch of sympathy. The man’s hands were trembling, and his eyes had taken on a permanent red tinge, from the soft skin surrounding them all the way into the whites of his eyeballs. His skin was pale and clammy, and Billy T. persuaded himself the pores on his face had not been as prominent at their first meeting.
“How’s it going, Vestavik?” he asked in such a friendly tone that the man stared at him in surprise. “Are things terribly difficult?”
“Yes. It’s worst at night. During the day, there’s such a lot to do. The boys are at home again; the eldest has taken a couple of weeks off from folk high school to help out with Amanda. Although my mother-in-law’s fantastic, it’s not really so easy . . . You know, mothers-in-law . . .”
Billy T. had never in his life needed to relate to a mother-in-law but nevertheless nodded in agreement. They were probably hardly any better than their daughters when things went awry.
“So now you’d prefer her to leave, is that it?”
The man nodded, grateful for all this unexpected understanding.
“Well,” Billy T. said, “that can be quickly achieved.”
Leaning to the left, he pulled open a drawer and fished out a large transparent plastic bag. Inside was a kitchen knife with a wooden handle that he placed before Odd Vestavik, who instinctively recoiled in his chair.
“It’s been washed. There’s no blood on it,” Billy T. reassured him.
The other man stretched a slim hand toward the bag, but stopped in midmovement, looking quizzically at Billy T.
“It’s okay,” the police officer nodded. “Just have a closer look at it.”
The man scrutinized the object for a long time. Quite an unnecessarily long time. Billy T. shuddered. Here sat this poor man having to examine a knife that had been stabbed right into his wife’s back. And that also had perhaps chopped up countless slices of meat for school sandwiches prior to that, at home in a cozy kitchen at the heart of a friendly nuclear family.
“Is it yours?”
“I can’t swear that this one is ours,” the man said quietly without taking his eye off the knife. “But we had one exactly like it. Absolutely identical, as far as I remember.”
“Try to find some particular mark,” Billy T. encouraged him. “On the handle, for instance. It’s made of wood and might have some special characteristic. There are a couple of nicks there.”
In order to be helpful, he leaned forward and pointed at the lower part of the handle.
“There, you see. It looks as if someone has whittled it.”
The man gazed at the nick for a while before shaking his head sluggishly.
“No, I can’t say I remember that.”
Now he appeared almost embarrassed.
“But I wasn’t in the kitchen drawers all that often. We were slightly . . . slightly old-fashioned in that way.”
“I don’t like cooking either,” Billy T. consoled him. “I do it only because I have to. But you did at least have a knife like this?”
“Yes. It would have been easier if I could see some of the other knives. Then I would be able to be really certain.”
He looked questioningly at the policeman. Billy T. took the opportunity to make and retain eye contact.
“The other knives are gone,” he said softly.
The man did not bat an eyelid but did raise his eyebrows into an almost imperceptible expression of bafflement.
“We suspect the murderer took them with him.”
“Took them with him?”
Now his astonishment was more obvious.
“What on earth would he want them for?”
“That will have to remain a secret between the killer and the police. At least in the meantime.”
Billy T. returned the plastic-encased knife to the drawer and stood up.
“I’m really sorry you had to make another trip to the station,” he said, holding out his hand. “I hope this is the last time we have to inconvenience you.”
“Oh, it was nothing,” the man replied, rising to his feet as well.
He seemed stiff and looked far older than his almost fifty years. Disconsolately, he shook the proffered hand.
“Will you be able to work it out?” he asked in a pessimistic tone of voice.
“Yes, you can certainly be sure of that. Quite sure.”
As Mr. Vestavik’s back disappeared along the corridor, Billy T. experienced one of the welcome moments when it was a joy to be a police officer. A real joy. The next time he spoke to this man would be to tell him they knew who had murdered his wife. He was one hundred percent sure of that.
“Ninety, anyway,” he muttered, correcting himself.
• • •
Hanne Wilhelmsen had not entirely recovered from that morning’s mild reprimand, but she was trying not to take it out on Tone-Marit and Erik. The three of them were leaning over the railings, peering down into the foyer, where a TV team was on its way through the massive metal doors, laden with an enormous amount of equipment. A man was standing arguing with one of the boys on duty at the counter, and Hanne assumed it was the usual dispute about whether the state broadcaster, NRK, could park in a disability bay directly outside the door, or had to find a vacant legal space much farther away. The police officer won, of course, and the TV man disappeared out the door, shaking his head, to move the vehicle.
“The guys on duty here think they own the place,” Hanne remarked.
Tone-Marit appeared about to defend her colleagues but let it go.
“Well, folks,” Hanne said, changing the subject with feigned cheerfulness. “We’ve lots to do. I want you, Erik, to haul in all the employees again. Fresh interviews. The most important thing is to bring in this Eirik what’s his name, the one who found the body. I want that done immediately. He’s still on sick leave, so you should be able to do that today.”
“Do you want to interview him yourself?”
She was on the verge of saying yes but quickly changed her mind, smiling at the red-haired police officer.
“No, you do it. But I’ll jot down some really imperative points we need to clear up. I’m relying on you to make a good job of it.”
Tone-Marit was instructed to apply herself to summoning the others and informed that all the interviews must take place before the weekend, meaning they had a day and a half to get them done. The two young people exchanged meaningful looks, but before they could protest, Hanne added, “You sort it out as best you can. If there’s too much to do, we can draft in a couple of trainees. But I’m confident you’ll be able to manage it.”
Billy T. came galumphing across the gallery.
“Hi! Hanne!”
She turned to face him.
&nb
sp; “Maren Kalsvik phoned to speak to you. She said she had an appointment to come here today at twelve o’clock. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“It’s fairly chaotic up there at the foster home just now. She asked if she could come tomorrow instead. Is that okay?”
It certainly was not. On the other hand, it was not at all surprising that work was making demands of the new boss since people were dropping dead like flies around her.
“Well, okay, but you’ll have to speak to her. I’ve other plans for tomorrow morning.”
He ruminated for a moment and then nodded his assent.
“I can phone and make a new appointment,” he suggested obligingly.
Then they all went their separate ways.
• • •
Eirik Vassbunn was easy to contact as he was lying asleep at home. Erik Henriksen had let the phone ring twelve times before a lethargic voice said hello. Since he was taking sedatives, the police officer had authorized payment for a taxi to convey him to Grønlandsleiret 44.
Now Erik Henriksen was wondering whether the man was in any fit state to undertake an interview. He had not been anywhere near a razor for several days, and his face was grimy. His body smelled rank, and the odor filled the small room so rapidly that Erik Henriksen considered opening the window.
“I look awful,” the man acknowledged, snuffling slightly. “And I stink. But you said it was urgent.”
He reached for a paper cup of water the police officer had set in front of him.
“My mouth gets terribly dry from these medicines,” he mumbled, drinking the entire contents at once.
The officer poured some more.
“Are you okay? I mean, will you manage to talk to me?”
The man lifted his arm and made a crawling motion. Then he bowed his head.
“I’ll be fine. Might as well get it over with.”
Eirik Vassbunn had worked at the Spring Sunshine Foster Home for only a year. By then he had four years of first-line service behind him, something that was a mystery to the police officer, but he dutifully recorded it with two hesitant fingers on the computer keyboard without revealing his lack of knowledge. Vassbunn was a qualified social worker, unmarried, with a daughter age seven from an earlier relationship. He had no criminal record but thought he had once been issued a speeding ticket sometime ago. He had been born in 1966 and had always lived in Oslo. He did not know any of the staff at the foster home prior to commencing work there. Apart from Maren Kalsvik, whom he had at least known vaguely, since they had attended the same college. He had left before her, so they were in different years and had not had much contact.
Thereafter they meticulously began to chart the events of the evening when Agnes Vestavik was killed.
“Were you on duty by yourself?”
“Yes, there’s always only one person on night duty. Sleeping over. We have to be in the house, of course, but we have our own room where we can sleep.”
“When did the children go to bed?”
“The youngest, that is to say the twins and Kenneth, are supposed to be in bed by half past eight. Jeanette and Glenn go to bed about ten, while Anita and Raymond should in principle be asleep by eleven when it’s a school night, but Raymond in particular is allowed quite a bit of leeway.”
“But what about that particular evening?”
The man thought carefully and drank another cup of water.
“I think they all went to bed fairly early. They were worn out, because of the fire drill, and they had been roaming about because it was a day off school. Besides, Raymond wasn’t feeling very well, I seem to recall. I would think they were all sleeping before half past ten. Perhaps even ten o’clock.”
“When did they go to their rooms?”
“Well, the little ones are accompanied and tucked in. As far as the older ones are concerned, I didn’t actually see them after . . .”
He halted, and an expression, almost an anguished look, crossed his face.
“Agnes arrived about ten o’clock, I think it was, and by then it had been awhile since I had said good night to the last one. Whether Raymond was actually sleeping at that point, I can’t honestly know for sure.”
“He says at least that he didn’t hear Agnes come,” the police officer informed him. “So he may have been. Sleeping, I mean. Were you sleeping?”
“No, I was sitting watching TV. As a matter of fact, I’d read some newspapers and so forth, and played some solitaire, as far as I can remember.”
“Where were you sitting?”
The man seemed somewhat confused and frowned.
“In the TV room, of course.”
“But whereabouts?”
“In a chair. A chair!”
Erik Henriksen placed a blank sheet of paper and pen in front of his almost namesake.
“Draw it for me.”
Vassbunn fumbled with the pen but nevertheless succeeded in drawing a rough plan of the TV room at the foster home, with doors and windows more or less exactly pinpointed. Then he added chairs, the sofa, the table, and the actual television set, scattering a few circles at random around the “floor” to complete the picture.
“The beanbags,” he explained. “And I was sitting there.” He placed a cross on the armchair that had its back to the door.
“Oh, yes,” the police officer commented, examining the sketch more closely. “Was the living room door open?”
“The dayroom,” the other man corrected, slurring all his consonants. “We call it the dayroom. It was open.”
“Are you quite sure?”
“At least it was open when Agnes turned up, and after that I wasn’t out of the room until I did my rounds. At that point it was definitely open.”
The police officer indicated they should pause while he caught up with writing his report. It took half an hour to hammer down three-quarters of a page. When he had finished, the witness was sitting sleeping.
This was something Henriksen had never experienced before. He was taken aback, feeling it was almost impolite to wake the man. On the other hand, they really needed to make progress. He sat there indecisively watching Eirik Vassbunn for a while. He was fast asleep, with his head on his chest and his mouth gaping. The police officer began to wonder what medicine the man was actually ingesting.
Finally he leaned across the desktop to shake the other man’s arm.
“Vassbunn! You have to wake up!”
The man woke with a start and wiped some spittle from his unshaven chin.
“Sorry! It’s these medicines. And then I can’t sleep a wink at night!”
“It’s okay,” the police officer reassured him, as something suddenly struck him. “What kind of medicines are you taking?”
“Just Valium.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m suffering from shock, of course!”
Now, for the first time, he seemed annoyed and dismissive.
“You’ve no idea what it looked like. Agnes with a huge knife sticking out her back, open, staring eyes, and . . . It was dreadful.”
Naturally, Erik Henriksen could have told him he had seen the woman, both sitting in her chair and when she was placed in a cadaver bag addressed to the National Hospital, but he let it drop. Instead he brought out an ashtray and pointed to the Petterøe’s tobacco packet jutting from the man’s breast pocket.
“You’re welcome to have a puff.”
His hands were trembling so much it took an age for him to roll a cigarette, but he seemed grateful enough.
“Is it only now, since that experience, you’ve been on this kind of medication?”
Bingo. The man dropped the papers and tobacco, shaking even more.
“What do you mean?”
“Take it easy. We won’t say anything to anybody, of course. But I’d like to know if you were taking Valium that evening. Is it something you take all the time?”
By now he had succeeded in composing himself sufficiently that it appeared he wou
ld be capable of producing something resembling a cigarette. He took his time answering, and inhaled deeply, clearing his throat before saying, “I have some trouble with my nerves, you know. A bit shaky. Don’t entirely know what it comes from. But I manage fine. I use only a tiny dose, really.”
His comment did not seem particularly convincing. Erik Henriksen waited to receive a reply to the question he had posed.
“Yes, it is. I had probably taken a pill or two that evening. Had argued with my ex-partner. The mother of my daughter. I was actually supposed to have her over the winter holiday, but then—”
“One or two?” the officer interrupted. “Did you take one or two tablets?”
“Two,” the man mumbled.
“So you may in fact have fallen asleep in the chair?”
“But I wasn’t even tired, for crying out loud! I needed to play some solitaire as well before I had any chance of sleeping!”
“But mightn’t that be because you had already slept? Dozed off? Perhaps without actually remembering you had?”
The man did not respond. There was no reason to do so. They both remained silent, and the police officer spent the next quarter of an hour manhandling the computer keyboard again. This time the witness did not nod off.
“Well then,” Erik Henriksen said so suddenly that Vassbunn flinched in his seat, “what happened when you found Agnes then?”
The witness’s eyes almost glazed over, as though looking inward at himself.
“I became totally hysterical,” he said calmly. “Absolutely hysterical.”
“But what did you do?”
“Can you roll cigarettes?”
The police officer smiled crookedly, shrugging his shoulders.
“Probably better than that there,” he said, pointing to the unfortunate trumpet-shaped object stubbed out in the ashtray. “Would you be kind enough to do one?”
Vassbunn shoved the pack of tobacco across to the policeman, who managed in an impressively short time to produce an entirely acceptable roll-up.
“I really didn’t know what to do. I was already upset about Olav, who had vanished, and then Agnes was sitting there dead as a d— Dead. Right there and then I felt it must be all my fault, and I was terrified. Then I phoned Maren.”
“Maren?”
