by Gard Sveen
“She’s the first thing I think about every day when I get up, and the last thing I think about before I go to bed.”
Her face was barely visible in the faint glow from the streetlights outside the living room windows.
“You must never believe anything else about me.”
“I don’t.”
“Kristiane would have liked you. You’re a good person. Do you know that, Tommy?”
He closed his eyes and thought that was the nicest thing anyone had said to him in as long as he could remember.
He studied her body as she stood up. She pulled her hair back and smiled at him in a way that filled him with an inexplicable calm.
She went up to the bookcase. The feeling of calm was replaced by a spike of anxiety.
“You looked so good together,” she said suddenly. She must have been talking about the picture of him and Hege. God knows why he had left that there.
Oh well, he thought. Maybe we did. Then he remembered the missing photograph of his mother. There was a sudden awakening. What was he getting mixed up in?
“I think it’s best that you leave now.”
Elisabeth set down the photograph of him and Hege. She pretended to frown.
“Oh well.”
She brushed past him, into the bathroom.
He went into the living room and picked up his phone off the coffee table. There was a text from Susanne. It must have come during the night. He wondered why he hadn’t heard it: Kristiane was going to the terraced apartments on Nedre Skøyen Vei. More tomorrow.
He was still staring at the message when Elisabeth came out of the bathroom.
“Call a taxi for me. That’s the least you can do.”
“Maybe.”
Elisabeth stood in the entry with her coat on. Bergmann leaned against the door frame into the living room, a lit cigarette in his hand. She had quickly applied two or three brushes of mascara and a little lipstick. It was quarter to six in the morning, God only knew why she’d gone to the trouble.
She stroked the sleeve of her coat a few times. Then she stepped toward him, took the cigarette out of his hand, gave it a couple of puffs, and handed it back to him.
“Come here,” she said.
She kissed him quickly on the mouth, then put her head against his chest. He heard a car brake outside the bedroom window, the low-frequency sound of a diesel engine.
“It was like Kristiane was sent from heaven, Tommy. She saved Per-Erik. I’m sure I sound crazy, but I truly felt that way. Can you understand that?”
“Yes.”
“So it is possible to become a better person. He did anyway.”
Bergmann pushed the thought of himself away; he should have been lying on his therapist’s couch, not standing here with his arms around a witness.
He pushed her away.
“I’ve seen you before somewhere. Before Kristiane was killed. I won’t have any peace until I find out where it was.”
“I have to go,” she said.
“Where were you hospitalized after Kristiane was killed?”
“Frensby.”
He felt a stab in his stomach. That was where his mother had worked.
“Before that,” he said.
“I’ve been hospitalized several times. My father . . . he . . . I can’t bear this now.”
He must have seen her there many years ago. Sometime when he was with his mother at work.
“Can I see you again? Before Christmas?”
“I can’t do that,” he said. “You understand that.”
“I . . .” she began. They looked at each other for a long time. Her eyes appeared to fill with tears, but somehow she pushed back the sorrow.
“. . . nothing.”
She opened the door, stood there uncertainly a few seconds, then closed it again.
This was what you came for, thought Bergmann. He took a final drag on his cigarette. She came over and put her arms around his waist.
“I thought I was going to take this with me to the grave,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“I think she was in love with him.”
“Who?”
She closed her eyes.
“Kristiane. He can be unbelievably manipulative, and he has the same magnetic quality that his father does. I almost didn’t make it out of that relationship with him, Tommy. Once Morten has his hold on you, he doesn’t let you go.”
“What do you mean? That she was in love with Morten Høgda?”
She shook her head.
“Alex is just like him.”
Bergmann took a step back.
“What are you trying to say?” he said.
Elisabeth took a breath, then held the air in a long time before she exhaled through her nose.
“I think Kristiane was head over heels in love with Alexander. Alex.”
He slowly shook his head.
“With her brother?”
“Half-brother. Yes.”
Elisabeth closed her eyes.
“Oh God,” she said. “May she forgive me, my child.”
He waited.
“I think he used her,” she said so quietly that he barely heard it.
“What do you mean?”
“I found strands of her hair in his bed. You’ve seen her hair yourself. It was unmistakable.”
He heard the voice of Anders Rask in his head.
“She changed that summer. She broke up with her boyfriend and—”
Someone lit a fire in her.
His head filled with Rask’s voice. His wild gaze. The energy that ebbed out of him after he’d tried to convince Bergmann that Kristiane had changed that summer.
“Did Alexander also have Anders Rask in school?” he asked.
She had a desperate look on her face, as if she were reliving Kristiane’s death all over again.
“Don’t tell this to anyone, Tommy.”
“I can’t promise you that. This turns everything on its head, Elisabeth, do you understand that?”
She followed him into the bedroom.
“But answer me one thing: Did Alex have Rask in school?”
“Yes.”
His phone rang. The taxi driver asked whether anyone was coming out soon, the meter was running.
“And promise me,” he said. “You must tell me if you still have anything to do with Morten Høgda.”
She shook her head.
“You have to promise me.”
“I promise.”
He squeezed her hand.
“Call me,” she whispered. “Can you promise me that?”
“What is it you’re not telling me?”
She shook her head.
“You’re protecting someone.”
“Who?”
“Who have you told about this? The thing with Alexander and Kristiane?”
“No one.”
“She really was going to Skøyen that Saturday, Elisabeth.”
She put her hands over her face.
“Who lived in Skøyen?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“Was it Morten Høgda? Did you ever tell him about all this? Or Per-Erik?”
“No,” she said. “No.”
She crumpled to her knees and hid her face in her hands.
“Not Morten,” she whispered. “It can’t be Morten.”
For a moment he considered calling an ambulance. It seemed as though all the life had drained out of her, as if she’d given up. He crouched down beside her, held her wrists, felt the scars from the kitchen knife.
“I have to talk to Alex. You understand that. He works at the hospital in Tromsø?”
“Yes,” she said into his shirtfront.
“Go home now,” he said. “I’ll call you this evening.”
“Do you promise?”
He nodded.
When he saw the taxi disappear behind the KIWI store, he was quite sure that he had just made an enormous mistake.
He had spoken with th
e investigators up at Toten the night before. In Furuberget’s house the crime scene investigators had found two different pairs of shoeprints that didn’t belong to either of the people who lived there. But they didn’t belong to Rask and Jensrud either, who were both wearing running shoes when they escaped from Ringvoll.
Arne Furuberget had been visited by two people when he was killed.
Bergmann was quite certain that the letter to Rask was written by a woman—regardless of what Kripo’s analysis might show.
So they weren’t searching for Rask and Jensrud.
They were searching for a man.
And a woman.
PART FOUR
DECEMBER 2004
49
Susanne Bech waved to Mathea and tried to forget that the little girl had only slept a few hours the night before. Mathea seemed half-drunk with exhaustion as she stood leaning against the window. It was five past seven, and for once they’d been the first to arrive at daycare, even showing up a minute or two before the director.
She took the subway to Oslo Central Station and wandered around aimlessly for a while, the way she imagined that Kristiane had done that Saturday in late November 1988. The departure hall was a swarm of morning commuters. She walked against the flow, down toward the old East Line hall, which was now connected with the new station. The big Christmas tree reminded her that Christmas Eve was getting closer by the day. It would be nice, just her and Mathea—did they really need more than each other?
She pretended that she was Kristiane, walking through East Line hall, now renovated into a shopping center, past all the stores and out the doors, where she was last seen. She stood in the middle of the square, the way she thought Kristiane had done, in the December darkness. Straight ahead of her was Karl Johans Gate, decorated with green wreaths and shiny Christmas lights that gave badly needed light to the city.
She had changed her mind, she thought. Kristiane stood here just like this. She took the train from Nordstrand because she didn’t want her teammates to see her. And because she was actually going through the city. To Skøyen, where she ran into Bjørn-Åge Flaten. She stood just like this. And changed her mind when she got off at Oslo Central Station. This was not where she was going. After that she went back into the East Line hall and took the next train to Skøyen.
Susanne turned around sharply and did exactly what she thought Kristiane had done.
She saw herself as Kristiane as the train from Ski glided in on platform 9. Her hands trembled for a moment as she sank down in one of the vacant seats and the train disappeared into the tunnel under the city. She opened the bag where she had her notepad and a printout of a brochure about the Nedre Skøyen Vei condominium association. I have to believe him, she thought, closing her eyes.
She woke up suddenly when the train stopped at the National Theater station. She had goose bumps on her arms; she’d had a dream during the short trip in the tunnel. Mathea had been standing in the window at daycare waving, just like this morning. An ominous shadow had slipped up behind her. But it wasn’t someone who worked at the daycare. It was impossible to see the face. Just a shadow behind Mathea. A hand on her shoulder.
As she got out of the train at Skøyen station, Susanne shook her head. She simply hadn’t gotten enough sleep, and the visit to Lovisenberg had further drained her of energy. That’s all it is, she thought, starting down the stairs from the station.
Halfway down she stopped. She let the other passengers go past. Then she turned around slowly, as though expecting the person from the dream to be standing right behind her on the dark stairs.
Without a face, with a hand on Mathea’s shoulder.
She exhaled deeply.
“No one,” she said. “No one.”
She continued down the stairs and stopped on the sidewalk. She peered over at the railroad underpass where Flaten had seen Kristiane that Saturday evening. She took a few tentative steps toward the bridge until she was standing beneath it. The traffic was almost constant, but she barely noticed it. It was as if they were standing before her now: Kristiane in her blue Millet bubble jacket and the young junkie Bjørn-Åge Flaten.
“Who were you going to see, Kristiane?” said Susanne.
She started to walk up toward Amalienborg following the same path Bjorn said they’d taken. She felt as though Kristiane was walking beside her. As if she could put her arm around the young girl and say, I’ll find him, I promise I’m going to find him.
Suddenly, the feeling came over her again. The faceless person she’d dreamed about on the train. She slowed her pace. At last she stopped completely.
Take me, she thought. Take me. But let Mathea live.
50
Fredrik Reuter looked at the clock with an affectedly purposeful expression. Then he aimed his index finger at Bergmann. “I assume you have control of your lady.”
Bergmann shrugged. It was five past eight in the morning, and Susanne was nowhere to be seen. He’d tried calling her, but only got her voice mail.
“I don’t know where she is. We’ll just have to start without her.”
Svein Finneland sat across from him with a strange look on his face. Bergmann had seen his expression change just when Reuter uttered the words your lady.
Oh well, he thought. So you’re jealous because I’m her boss. Be my guest. Or are you afraid that she’s been sleeping with some other guy?
“Oh well,” said Finneland in a way that made Bergmann think he’d been reading his thoughts. He straightened up. “Then it will be the five of us. You can update your lady later today, Bergmann. Whenever she might see fit to show up.”
Halgeir Sørvaag caught Bergmann’s gaze. He had a slight, wily smile in the corner of his mouth, and Bergmann imagined he was thinking about what Susanne looked like with no clothes on, lying in his bed in the place of his lifeless wife.
Kripo psychologist Rune Flatanger sat with his eyes glued to the letter Bergmann had received in his mailbox the day before. It looked like he was mouthing the words “hell open.”
“I got a cryptic text message from Susanne last night,” said Bergmann. “Something to the effect that Kristiane was going to Skøyen.” He shook his head. Just as long as she hadn’t talked to Bjørn-Åge Flaten again. He’d probably wanted money from her; for all Bergmann knew, she might have paid him out of her own pocket.
“Last night?” Finneland’s face darkened.
Bergmann nodded.
“Shall we begin?” said Reuter. He was going to the police chief’s meeting in an hour, and Bergmann knew that Reuter had his eyes on her job.
“So,” said Finneland. “As I understand it, we have an enhanced picture from the surveillance camera on Cort Adelers Gate.”
He took a folder that lay in front of Reuter, opened it, and passed out three copies of the photographs across the table. Bergmann got up from his chair and eagerly seized one. It took a few seconds for his brain to connect the face in the photograph to a man he’d recently met. But it didn’t necessarily mean anything that he had been at Porte des Senses the same night that the Lithuanian girl was killed. Or was he fooling himself? He needed time to think and chose not to say anything just then.
“And,” said Finneland, pausing for effect, “Anders Rask and Øystein Jensrud stopped for gas at the YX station in Oppdal last night, with a credit card belonging to Rask’s lady.” Again the prosecutor looked at Bergmann.
You could use a good punch in the mouth, thought Bergmann, giving him a crooked smile.
“That particular bit of news won’t be released, so keep your mouth shut about it,” said Reuter.
“What about getting the night shift at YX to keep their mouths shut?” said Sørvaag, savoring the words a little.
“We’ll have to trust our Lord to arrange that,” said Reuter. “Besides, YX is unstaffed. It was the credit card that triggered the alarm.”
“Fools,” said Bergmann. He didn’t quite know if he meant Rask and Jensrud or Reuter and Sørvaag.
“That’s just the start of it,” said Finneland. “It’s crucial that they not know that we know where they are.”
He set out new photographs that clearly showed the license plate on the car. Now that the police knew what car the men were driving, it was only a matter of time before they were caught. One picture showed Jensrud as they were filling up. Rask was turned away from the camera. It looked like he was smoking a cigarette. If he’d been a little smarter, he would have stayed in the car. But he probably knew that the card would be monitored. The female guard at Ringvoll could have given them cash, but then they would have had to pay at the register. Rask probably knew that they were as good as lost.
If I could just talk to you now, Bergmann thought, studying Rask in the photograph. This Yngvar fellow Jon-Olav Farberg was talking about—did he really exist? Was that who Rask was on his way to see? And what about Alexander Thorstensen? Could Rask be on his way to Tromsø? That was a wild thought, but not entirely out of the realm of possibility. Rask knew that Kristiane had fallen in love with someone she shouldn’t have: Alexander, her own half-brother.
“Let them keep driving,” he said.
Finneland took off his reading glasses.
“I must not have heard you correctly.”
“Let Rask and Jensrud drive for a while. Follow them, but don’t arrest them, do you understand?”
Finneland shook his head.
“It’s not up to me, but I’ve got to say that must be the dumbest thing I’ve heard this year.”
“They’re headed north. That makes no sense if they don’t have a specific destination in mind, do you understand? Someone on the outside has been writing letters to Rask.” Bergmann held up the copy of the letter he’d found in Rask’s room at Ringvoll. “Maybe they’re going to meet the person in question?” He kept quiet about the rest. He would not allow these clowns to destroy this case.
Finneland shook his head.
“You’ll have to convince Kripo, they’re running point on Rask and Jensrud.”
Flatanger yawned loudly, as though trying to impress upon them that this was one of the least interesting conversations he’d ever had in his life.
“To be honest I think Rask only cares about getting away. The problem is that he doesn’t have anywhere to go. What is of real interest here is the letter to you, Tommy. Didn’t you get it yesterday?”
