The Thirst

by Jo Nesbo

  Anders Wyller gave her a wry smile. ‘You’re saying Constable Berntsen has a lot to teach me?’

  Bratt raised an eyebrow. Young, self-assured, fearless. All good, but she hoped to God that he wasn’t another Harry Hole wannabe.

  Truls Berntsen pressed the doorbell with his thumb and heard it ring inside the flat, noted that he ought to stop biting his nails, and let go.

  When he had gone to see Mikael and asked to be transferred to Crime Squad, Mikael had asked why. And Truls had given an honest answer: he wanted to sit a bit higher up the food chain, but without having to wear himself out making an effort. Any other police chief would have thrown Truls out on his ear, but this one couldn’t. They had too much dirt on each other. When they were young they were connected by something approaching friendship, then a sort of symbiotic relationship, like a suckerfish and a shark. But now they were bound together by their sins and a mutual assurance of silence. That meant Truls Berntsen didn’t even have to try to pretend when he presented his request.

  But he had started to wonder how sensible that request had been. Crime Squad had two categories of job: detectives and analysts. And when the head of Crime Squad, Gunnar Hagen, had told Truls he could choose for himself what he wanted to be, Truls had realised that he was hardly going to be expected to shoulder much responsibility. Which in and of itself suited him fine. But he had to admit that it had stung when Detective Inspector Katrine Bratt had shown him round the unit, all the time addressing him as ‘Constable’, and taking extra care to explain to him how the coffee machine worked.

  The door opened. Three young girls were standing there looking at him with horrified expressions on their faces. They had evidently heard what had happened.

  ‘Police,’ he said, holding up his ID. ‘I’ve got some questions. Did you hear anything between—’

  ‘—questions we wondered if you could help us with,’ a voice said behind him. The new guy. Wyller. Truls saw some of the horror fall away from the girls’ faces, and they almost brightened up.

  ‘Of course,’ the one who had opened the door said. ‘Do you know who … who did … it?’

  ‘Obviously we can’t say anything about that,’ Truls said.

  ‘But what we can say,’ Wyller said, ‘is that there are no grounds for you to be scared. Am I right in thinking that you’re students sharing this flat?’

  ‘Yes,’ they replied in chorus, as if they all wanted to be first.

  ‘May we come in?’ Wyller said, with a smile as white as Mikael Bellman’s, Truls noted.

  The girls led them into the living room, and two of them began quickly clearing beer bottles and glasses from the table and left the room.

  ‘We had a bit of a party here last night,’ the door-opener said sheepishly. ‘It’s terrible.’

  Truls wasn’t sure if she meant the fact that their neighbour had been murdered, or that they had been having a party when it happened.

  ‘Did you hear anything last night between ten o’clock and midnight?’ Truls asked.

  The girl shook her head.

  ‘Did Else—’

  ‘Elise,’ Wyller corrected as he pulled out a notepad and pen. It occurred to Truls that perhaps he ought to have done the same.

  Truls cleared his throat. ‘Did your neighbour have a boyfriend, someone who used to spend much time here?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the girl said.

  ‘Thanks, that’s all,’ Truls said, turning towards the door as the other two girls came back.

  ‘Perhaps we should hear what you have to say as well,’ Wyller said. ‘Your friend says she didn’t hear anything yesterday, and that she isn’t aware of anyone Elise Hermansen saw regularly, or even recently. Do either of you have anything to add to that?’

  The two girls looked at each other before turning towards him and shaking their blonde heads at the same time. Truls could see the way all their attention was focused on the young detective. It didn’t bother him, he’d had a lot of training in being overlooked. He was used to that little pang in his chest, like the time in high school in Manglerud when Ulla finally looked at him, but only to ask if he knew where Mikael was. And – seeing as this was before the days of mobile phones – if he could give Mikael a message. On one occasion Truls replied that that might be difficult seeing as Mikael had gone camping with a girlfriend. Not that the bit about camping was true, but because just for once he wanted to see the same pain, his own pain, reflected in her eyes.

  ‘When did you last see Elise?’ Wyller asked.

  The three girls looked at each other again. ‘We didn’t see her, but …’

  One of them giggled, then clapped her hand to her mouth when she realised how inappropriate that was. The girl who had opened the door to them cleared her throat. ‘Enrique rang this morning and said he and Alfa stopped for a pee down in the archway on their way home.’

  ‘They’re, like, really stupid,’ the tallest of them said.

  ‘They were just a bit drunk,’ the third one said. She giggled again.

  The girl who had opened the door shot the other two a pull-yourselves-together look. ‘Whatever. A woman walked in while they were standing there, and they called to say sorry in case their behaviour made us look bad.’

  ‘Which was pretty considerate of them,’ Wyller said. ‘And they think this woman was …?’

  ‘They know. They read online that ‘a woman in her thirties’ had been murdered, and saw the picture of the front of our building, so they googled and found a photo of her in one of the online papers.’

  Truls grunted. He hated journalists. Fucking scavengers, the lot of them. He went over to the window and looked down at the street. And there they were, on the other side of the police cordon, with the long lenses of their cameras that made Truls think of vultures’ beaks when they held them in front of their faces in the hope of getting a glimpse of the body when it was carried out. Beside the waiting ambulance stood a guy in a Rasta hat with green, yellow and red stripes, talking to his white-clad colleagues. Bjørn Holm, from the Criminal Forensics Unit. He nodded to his people, then disappeared back inside the building again. There was something hunched, huddled about Holm’s posture, as if he had stomach ache, and Truls wondered if it had anything to do with the rumours that the fish-eyed, moon-faced bumpkin had recently been dumped by Katrine Bratt. Good. Someone else could experience what it felt like to be ripped to shreds. Wyller’s high-pitched voice buzzed in the background: ‘So their names are Enrique and …?’

  ‘No, no!’ The girls laughed. ‘Henrik. And Alf.’

  Truls caught Wyller’s eye and nodded towards the door.

  ‘Thanks a lot, girls, that’s all,’ Wyller said. ‘By the way, I’d better get some phone numbers.’

  The girls looked at him with a mixture of fear and delight.

  ‘For Henrik and Alf,’ he added with a wry smile.

  Katrine was standing in the bedroom behind the forensics medical officer, who was crouched by the bed. Elise Hermansen was lying on her back on top of the duvet. But the blood on her blouse was distributed in a way that showed she had been standing upright when the blood gushed out. She had probably been standing in front of the mirror in the hallway, where the rug was so drenched in blood that it had stuck to the parquet floor underneath. The trail of blood between the hall and the bedroom, and its limited quantity, indicated that her heart had probably stopped beating out in the hallway. Based on body temperature and rigor mortis, the forensics officer had estimated the time of death at between 2300 hours and one o’clock in the morning, and that the cause of death was probably loss of blood after her carotid artery was punctured by one or more of the incisions on the side of her throat, just above the left shoulder.

  Her trousers and knickers were pulled down to her ankles.

  ‘I’ve scraped and cut her nails, but I can’t see any traces of skin with the naked eye,’ the forensics officer said.

  ‘When did you lot start doing Forensics’ work for them?’ Katri
ne asked.

  ‘When Bjørn told us to,’ she replied. ‘He asked so nicely.’

  ‘Really? Any other injuries?’

  ‘She’s got a scratch on her lower left arm, and a splinter of wood on the inside of her left middle finger.’

  ‘Any signs of sexual assault?’

  ‘No visible sign of violence to the genitals, but there’s this …’ She held a magnifying glass above the body’s stomach. Katrine looked through it and saw a thin, shiny line. ‘Could be saliva, her own or someone else’s, but it looks more like precum or semen.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ Katrine said.

  ‘Let’s hope she was sexually assaulted?’ Bjørn Holm had walked in and was standing behind her.

  ‘If she was, all the evidence suggests that it happened post-mortem,’ Katrine said without turning round. ‘So she was already gone by then. And I’d really like some semen.’

  ‘I was joking,’ Bjørn said quietly in his amiable Toten dialect.

  Katrine closed her eyes. Of course he knew that semen was the ultimate ‘open sesame’ in a case like this. And of course he was only joking, trying to lighten the weird, wounded atmosphere that had existed between them in the three months that had passed since she had moved out. She was trying, too. She just couldn’t quite manage it.

  The forensics officer looked up at them. ‘I’m done here,’ she said, adjusting her hijab.

  ‘The ambulance is here – I’ll get my people to take the body down,’ Bjørn said. ‘Thanks for your help, Zahra.’

  The forensics officer nodded and hurried out, as if she had also noticed the strained atmosphere.

  ‘Well?’ Katrine said, forcing herself to look at Bjørn. Forcing herself to ignore the sombre look in his eyes that was more sad than pleading.

  ‘There’s not much to say,’ he said, scratching the bushy red beard that stuck out below his Rasta hat.

  Katrine waited, hoping that they were still talking about the murder.

  ‘She doesn’t seem to have been particularly bothered about housework. We’ve found hairs from a whole load of people – mainly men – and it’s hardly likely that they were all here last night.’

  ‘She was a lawyer,’ Katrine said. ‘A single woman with a demanding job like that might not prioritise cleaning as highly as you.’

  He smiled briefly without responding. And Katrine recognised the pang of the guilty conscience he always managed to give her. Obviously they had never argued about cleaning, Bjørn had always been too quick to deal with the washing-up, sweeping the steps, putting the clothes in the machine, cleaning the bath and airing the sheets, without any reproach or discussion. Like everything else. Not one single damn argument during the whole year they had lived together, he always wriggled out of them. And whenever she let him down or just couldn’t be bothered, he was there, attentive, sacrificial, inexhaustible, like some fucking irritating robot who made her feel more like a pea-brained princess the higher he built her pedestal.

  ‘How do you know that the hairs come from men?’ she sighed.

  ‘A single woman with a demanding job …’ Bjørn said without looking at her.

  Katrine folded her arms. ‘What are you trying to say, Bjørn?’

  ‘What?’ His pale face flushed lightly and his eyes bulged more than usual.

  ‘That I’m easy? OK, if you really want to know, I—’

  ‘No!’ Bjørn held his hands up as if to defend himself. ‘I didn’t mean it like that. It was just a bad joke.’

  Katrine knew she ought to feel pity. And she did, to an extent. Just not the sort of pity that makes you want to give someone a hug. This particular type of pity was more like derision, the sort of derision that made her want to slap him, humiliate him. And that was why she had walked out on him – because she didn’t want to see Bjørn Holm, a perfectly good man, humiliated. Katrine Bratt took a deep breath.

  ‘So, men?’

  ‘Most of the hairs are short,’ Bjørn said. ‘We’ll have to wait and see if the analysis confirms that. We’ve certainly got enough DNA to keep the National Forensic Lab busy for a while.’

  ‘OK,’ Katrine said, turning back towards the body. ‘Any ideas about what he could have stabbed her with? Or hacked, seeing as there’s a whole load of incisions close together.’

  ‘It’s not very easy to see, but they form a pattern,’ he said. ‘Two patterns, in fact.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Bjørn went over to the body and pointed towards the woman’s neck, beneath her short blonde hair. ‘Do you see that the incisions form two small, overlapping ovals, one here – and one here?’

  Katrine tilted her head. ‘Now that you mention it …’

  ‘Like bite marks.’

  ‘Oh, fuck,’ Katrine blurted out. ‘An animal?’

  ‘Who knows? But imagine a fold of skin being pulled out and pressed together when upper and lower jaws meet. That would leave a mark like this …’ Bjørn pulled a piece of semi-transparent paper from his pocket and Katrine instantly recognised it as the wrapper of the packed lunch he took to work each day. ‘Looks like it matches the bite of someone from Toten, anyway.’

  ‘Human teeth can’t have done that to her neck.’

  ‘Agreed. But the pattern is human.’

  Katrine moistened her lips. ‘There are people who file their teeth to make them sharper.’

  ‘If it was teeth, we may find saliva around the wounds. Either way, if they were standing on the rug in the hallway when he bit her, the bite marks indicate that he was standing behind her, and that he’s taller than her.’

  ‘The forensics officer didn’t find anything under her nails, so I reckon he was holding her tight,’ Katrine said. ‘A strong man of average or above average height, with the teeth of a predator.’

  They stood in silence, looking at the body. Like a young couple in an art gallery contemplating opinions with which to impress other people, Katrine thought. The only difference was that Bjørn never tried to impress people. She was the one who did that.

  Katrine heard steps in the hall. ‘No more people in here now!’ she called.

  ‘Just wanted to let you know there were only people at home in two of the flats, and none of them saw or heard anything.’ Wyller’s high-pitched voice. ‘But I’ve just spoken to two lads who saw Elise Hermansen when she came home. They say she was alone.’

  ‘And these lads are …?’

  ‘No criminal record, and they had a taxi receipt to prove that they left here just after 11.30. They said she walked in on them while they were urinating in the archway. Shall I bring them in for questioning?’

  ‘It wasn’t them, but yes.’

  ‘OK.’

  Wyller’s steps receded.

  ‘She returned home alone and there are no signs of a break-in,’ Bjørn said. ‘Do you think she let him in voluntarily?’

  ‘Not unless she knew him well.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Elise was a lawyer, she knew the risks, and that security chain on the door looks pretty new. I think she was a careful young woman.’ Katrine crouched down beside the body. Looked at the splinter of wood sticking out of Elise’s middle finger. And the scratch on her lower arm.

  ‘A lawyer,’ Bjørn said. ‘Where?’

  ‘Hollumsen & Skiri. They were the ones who called the police when she didn’t show up at a hearing and wasn’t answering her phone. It’s not exactly unusual for lawyers to be the victims of attacks.’

  ‘Do you think …?’

  ‘No, like I said, I don’t think she let anyone in. But …’ Katrine frowned. ‘Do you agree that this splinter looks pinkish white?’

  Bjørn leaned over her. ‘White, certainly.’

  ‘Pinkish white,’ Katrine said, standing up. ‘Come with me.’

  They went out into the hall, where Katrine opened the door and pointed at the splintered door frame outside. ‘Pinkish white.’

  ‘If you say so,’ Bjørn said.

  ‘Don’t you see it?’ she
asked incredulously.

  ‘Research has shown that women usually see more nuances of colour than men.’

  ‘You do see this, though?’ Katrine asked, holding up the security chain that was hanging down the inside of the door.

  Bjørn leaned closer. His scent came as a shock to her. Maybe it was just discomfort at the sudden intimacy.

  ‘Scraped skin,’ he said.

  ‘The scratch on her lower arm. Do you see?’

  He nodded slowly. ‘She scratched herself on the security chain, so it must have been on. So he wasn’t trying to push past her, she was fighting to get out.’

  ‘We don’t usually use security chains in Norway, we rely on locks, that’s the general rule. And if she did let him in, if this strong man was someone she knew, for instance …’

  ‘… she wouldn’t have fiddled about putting the chain back on after she’d opened the door to let him in. Because she would have felt safe. Ergo …’

  ‘Ergo,’ she took over, ‘he was already in the flat when she got home.’

  ‘Without her knowing,’ he said.

  ‘That’s why she put the security chain on, she thought anything dangerous was outside.’ Katrine shuddered. This was what the expression ‘horrified delight’ was for. The feeling a homicide detective gets when they suddenly see and understand.

  ‘Harry would have been pleased with you now,’ Bjørn said. And laughed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re blushing.’

  I’m so fucked up, Katrine thought.

  3

  THURSDAY AFTERNOON

  KATRINE HAD TROUBLE concentrating during the press conference, where they gave a brief account of the victim’s identity, age, where and when she was found, but that was about it. The first press conferences immediately after a murder were almost always a matter of saying as little as possible and simply going through the motions, in the name of modern, open democracy.

  Alongside her sat the head of Crime Squad, Gunnar Hagen. The flashlights reflected off the shiny bald patch above his ring of dark hair as he read out the short sentences they had composed together. Katrine was happy to let Hagen do the talking. Not that she didn’t like the spotlight, but that could come later. At the moment she was so new to the role of lead detective that it felt reassuring to let Hagen deal with the talking until she learned the right way to say things, and watch as an accomplished senior police officer used body language and tone of voice rather than actual content to convince the general public that the police were in control.