by Anne Holt
The storeroom was no more than twenty metres square. It was rectangular, with shelves from floor to ceiling along one of the long walls. They were full of cardboard boxes, suitcases and multi coloured storage boxes from IKEA. Everything was carefully labelled. It was Mary who had systemised it all. Letters were not her strong point, whereas she always saw sense in numbers and logic. As she generally got confused by the alphabet, things were stored according to importance. The boxes of tinned food, jams and dry foodstuffs were by the door – in case of a nuclear war. Then came the winter clothes, packed away in boxes with big ventilation holes. Little Ida’s baby clothes were in a pink box with a teddy bear drawn on the top that smelt of lavender when Mary opened the lid and fingered the soft textiles.
‘Mary’s wee girl, eh. My little princess.’
She was whispering now. The smell of Ida’s outgrown clothes made her feel safe. She shuffled across the floor and stopped by the far wall, where Nefis’ skis were secured beside Ida’s sledge.
DUVAY FOR GESTS.
She took down the large box and opened the lid. The duvet was rolled up and tied with two red cords. Mary stuck it under her arm, put the lid back on the box and pushed back in place. Then she shuffled back to the door.
‘There now,’ she said, relieved. ‘Now we can go back up to the shelter of our warm nest.’
She was about to lock the door when she thought she heard a noise.
A rush of adrenalin made her hold her breath.
Nothing.
There it was again. A muffled bang or thump. In the distance, but she could hear it clearly now. Mary dropped the duvet and folded her hands in fright.
‘In the name of Our Father . . . Baby Jesus . . .’ she gabbled.
There it was again.
Tucked far away at the back of Mary’s mind were the remnants of the life she had led for nearly fifty-five years before her luck had turned and all was bright and rosy. As a skinny, ugly waif, she had survived against the odds because she was smart. The young, sharp-tongued Mary had coped with the Oslo streets that she walked in the sixties because she was canny. The old whore, Hairymary, had endured a life of humiliation and drugs for one reason, and one reason alone: she would not be broken.
Now she was so frightened that she thought her heart would come undone at the seams. The room was spinning. More than anything, she just wanted to sit down and let the Ghost get her, let the Devil take her, just as she, deep in her heart, believed she deserved.
‘No way. Not yet.’
She swallowed and gritted her teeth. Then she heard the noise again.
It sounded like someone was trying to knock on a door but couldn’t quite manage it. It was weak, with no rhythm, and there was nothing aggressive about it.
Mary picked the duvet up from the cement floor.
‘Just when I’d found happiness,’ she said to herself. ‘No one’s going to come here and frighten the life out of an old bag like me.’
She started to walk back to the stairs.
Thump. Thumpthump.
Mary was certain now. The noise was coming from a door just by where she was standing. It was painted red, unlike all the other standard white doors. A cardboard label was stuck on with faded tape at about head height. It was torn and the writing was almost illegible. At least for Mary.
She thought she could hear a voice, but it was very weak and maybe it was only her imagination.
Strangely enough, she wasn’t frightened any more. An angry defiance had banished her fear. This was her house and her cellar. She had chosen this isolated life in Krusesgate so she could keep her old demons at bay, and neither the living nor the dead was going to take that away from her.
Not now, not ever again.
‘Hello,’ she said loudly and knocked on the door with her thin, bony hand. ‘Hey, is there anyone in there?’
Silence. Then she heard something thumping back, and was so surprised that she took a step back.
The voice sounded like it came from miles away. It was impossible to make out the words.
‘Fancy that,’ Mary muttered. She scratched her chin, then put her ear to the door. ‘Got to be the strangest door in town.’
‘Unlock it,’ she shouted through the door. ‘Just turn the lock, that’s all!’
The thumping continued.
Mary peered at the lock. You needed a key to open it, like all the other storerooms. There would be a latch on the inside, so you didn’t get locked in. Or lock anyone else in.
The door had to be secured in some way. Mary no longer doubted that there was someone in there. From the recesses of her memory came an experience that she had tried to leave behind in the outside world, a world that she never missed or wanted to be part of ever again.
Being a street prostitute wasn’t just about being a whore. It was worse when you were off the streets. Mary closed her eyes to fend off images of bunkers and storerooms, dirty mattresses in alleys and woodsheds, quick blowjobs in dirty cars that stank of tobacco, greasy food and old pigs.
Mary didn’t keep count of all the times she had been raped. As she gradually sank lower and lower down the ranks of girls, she was forced from her corner. Punters were taken from her; she was spat on by the imported girls, those bloody Russians, mocked by young boys and abandoned by her peers. They died like flies around her, one by one, and by 1999, Hairymary was the living dead. She took the tricks that no one else wanted, not even the Lithuanian girls who had ruined the market by accepting fifty kroner for a fuck without a condom.
Hairymary remembered a cellar. She remembered a man.
‘I bloody well don’t want to remember anything,’ she screamed, and hammered on the red door. ‘I’ll get you out, love. Just you wait, Mary’ll help you!’
She shuffled back to her own storeroom, opened the door and grabbed the well-equipped tool box that Nefis was constantly adding new tools to, which no one knew how to use.
‘I’m coming,’ Mary shouted, pulling the tool box up to the red door. ‘I’m coming, love!’
Mary Olsen was skin and bones. But she was strong. And now she was furious as well. First she hacked at the door frame with a chisel and threw the broken woodwork on to the floor. Then she grabbed a hammer and swung it at the latch, as if she was settling accounts with her past.
It broke, but the door was still locked.
‘Damn,’ Mary snarled. She blew her nose on her fingers, then wiped them on her flowery skirt. ‘Something stronger’s needed here.’
She emptied the toolbox. The sound of metal clattering on the cement floor was deafening. When all was quiet again, she could hear a faint echo from the knocking on the inside of the door.
‘I’m coming,’ Mary said and took hold of a huge crowbar that had been lying at the bottom of the box.
With incredible strength, she forced the claw in behind the lock. She used a hammer to win a few extra millimetres’ leverage. Then she stood with her back to the stairwell, grabbed hold of the crowbar with both hands and pulled.
The woodwork split. But nothing happened.
‘And again,’ Mary wheezed.
The woodwork collapsed, but the door remained locked.
‘Maybe the other way,’ Mary said and did the same thing from the other side.
The lock broke. The door buckled. It was hanging at an angle and Mary forced the crowbar into the gap once more. The gap was wider now, so she got a firmer hold.
‘And puuull!’ she screamed. She was surprised to see an opening of about ten to fifteen centimetres appear.
She dropped the crowbar. The noise when it hit the floor made her ears ring. She took a firm hold of the door and pulled to make the opening bigger.
‘There now, there now,’ she said to the person sitting on the floor just inside the door, looking at her. ‘I know what it’s like. Now we’ll—’
‘Help,’ rasped a woman’s voice.
A Russian whore, Mary thought and shook her head.
‘I’ll help you, I will,’
she said and bent down to put her arm round the battered woman’s waist. ‘Men can’t just get their way, shouldn’t be allowed. This one bad, eh? And you’re all tied up and everything. Hang on . . .’
She found a sheath knife in amongst all the tools and cut through the plastic bindings that were tied round the woman’s wrists. With great effort, she managed to get her to her feet. The smell of piss and shit was overwhelming. She glanced over at the back of the door. The latch was not there.
‘Crafty buggers, men, eh?’ she mumbled in a comforting voice and stroked the woman on her bloody cheek. ‘Let’s get you a nice hot bath, eh, love? Come on now.’
The woman tried to walk, but her legs wouldn’t hold her.
‘You smell something terrible, girl. Come along with Mary, now.’
‘Help,’ whispered the woman. ‘Help me.’
‘There, there. That’s what I’m doing. You probably don’t understand what I’m saying. But I’ve been there too, you know, I’ve been where you are now and . . .’
Mary talked like this all the way to the stairs, where she had to half carry the woman up the five steps to the lift. When it came, Mary smiled and steered her in.
‘Hang on to this,’ she said, pointing to the steel rail. ‘We’ll be there in a jiffy now, love. What d’you look like, eh!’
It was only now, in the bright light from the neon tube on the ceiling, that Mary could take a proper look at the woman’s face. She had a great bump on one of her temples, bruising over half her face and one of her eyes was closed. The blood had dried and caked on her neck.
‘Nice clothes you got there, though,’ Mary said, with a hint of suspicion as she touched the red jacket. ‘That’s not from the Salvation Army, eh?’
The lift doors opened.
‘Now you be a good girl and put your arm round Auntie Mary.’
The woman stood without moving, with her mouth open. Her eyes showed no sign of life, and Mary held her gnarled hand up in front of her face and clicked her fingers.
‘Hello, you in there? Come on.’
With her left arm round the woman’s waist and her right hand under her arm, she managed to pull the woman over to the front door. She didn’t dare let go of her to look for the keys, so she rang the doorbell with her elbow instead.
Several seconds passed.
‘Help,’ groaned the woman.
‘There, there,’ Mary muttered impatiently and rang the doorbell again.
‘Mary,’ Johanne said gladly as she opened the door. ‘You were down there so long that—’
‘I found a whore in the cellar,’ Mary replied briskly. ‘Think she’s Russian or something like that, from round there, but she needs help all the same. Poor thing. Some jerk’s taken liberties with her.’
Johanne stood stock still.
‘Move out the way, then!’
‘Hanne,’ Johanne said quietly, without taking her eyes from the woman. ‘I think you should come here.’
‘Hanne’s not the sort to turn away a battered whore,’ Mary fumed. ‘Now get out the way. Now!’
‘Hanne,’ Johanne called again, louder this time. ‘Come here!’
The wheelchair appeared at the end of the hall, silhouetted against the glass wall where the trees cast long evening shadows into the flat.
Slowly she rolled towards them, the rubber wheels squeaking ever so slightly on the wooden floor.
‘This one needs a bath,’ Mary pleaded. ‘And something to eat, maybe. Be nice, Hanne, please. You’re a kind-hearted soul.’
Hanne Wilhelmsen rolled closer.
‘Madam President,’ she said and bowed her head before looking up again and holding her breath for a moment. ‘Come in, please. Let’s see what we can do to help you.’
XXV
‘So, let me just sum up,’ Adam said. ‘So there’s no misunderstandings.’He ran his fingers through his hair, then turned the chair round before sitting down so his stomach was against the back of it. He was balancing a red felt pen between his index finger and his thumb.
‘You were rung by a man you’ve never met before.’
Gerhard Skrøder nodded.
‘And you don’t know where he’s from or what he’s called.’
Gerhard shook his head.
‘Nor what he looks like, obviously.’
The arrestee scratched his neck and looked at the table, embarrassed.
‘It wasn’t exactly a video phone.’
‘So.’ Adam spoke with exaggerated slowness and put his hands over his face. ‘You’re sitting here saying that you took a job from a man you have only spoken to on the phone and you don’t even know his name. Someone you’ve never met.’
‘It’s not that unusual, that.’
Ove Rønbeck, his lawyer, twitched his hand in warning.
‘I mean, it’s not so strange . . .’
‘Yes, I think it is. What did he sound like?’
‘Sound like?’
Gerhard wriggled back on his chair like a teenager who’d been caught taking liberties with a reluctant girl.
‘What language did he speak?’ Adam asked.
‘He was Norwegian, I think.’
‘I see,’ Adam said, and let out a long breath. ‘So he spoke Norwegian?’
‘No.’
‘No? So why did you come to the conclusion that he was Norwegian?’
Rønbeck raised his hand and opened his mouth, but immediately sat back in his chair again when Adam turned to face him.
‘You have a right to be here,’ he said. ‘But don’t interrupt. I don’t need to remind you how serious this case is for your client. And for once I’m not actually that interested in Gerhard Skrøder. I just want to know as much as possible about the anonymous man who gave you the job.’
He screamed this at Gerhard, who pulled back even more. His chair was right up against the wall now, so there was no room to tip it, as he normally did. His eyes were evasive, so Adam leant forward and pulled off his cap.
‘Did your mother not teach you that boys should take their hats off indoors?’ he asked. ‘Why did you think the man was Norwegian?’
‘He didn’t speak proper English, like. More like . . . with an accent.’
Gerhard was scratching his crotch furiously.
‘You should go to the doctor about that,’ Adam said. ‘Stop it.’
He got up and went over to a cabinet by the door. He picked up the last bottle of mineral water, opened it, and drank half in one go.
‘Do you know what?’ He suddenly laughed. ‘You’re so used to lying that you don’t know how to tell a story properly, even when you’ve decided on it yourself. Talk about occupational injury.’
He put the bottle down and sat on the chair again. With his hands folded behind his neck, he leant back and closed his eyes.
‘Carry on,’ he said calmly. ‘As if you were telling a fairytale to a child, if it’s at all possible for you to imagine something like that.’
‘I’ve got two nephews,’ Gerhard told him curtly. ‘I bloody know what kids are like.’
‘Good. Excellent. What are they called?’
‘Huh?’
‘What are your nephews called?’ repeated Adam, with his eyes still closed.
‘Atle and Oscar.’
‘OK, I’ll be Atle, and Rønbeck over there can be Oscar. Now tell us what happened when Uncle Gerhard got a paid job from a man he’d never met.’
Gerhard didn’t respond. He was poking at a hole in his camouflages.
‘Once upon a time,’ Adam started. ‘Come on. Once upon a time, Uncle Gerhard . . .’
‘. . . got a phone call,’ said Gerhard.
There was silence.
Adam made a circular movement with his hand.
‘. . . from an anonymous number,’ Gerhard continued. ‘It didn’t show up on the display screen. I answered. The man spoke English. But it was as if . . . as if he wasn’t English, like. He sounded kind of Norwegian . . . in a way.’
‘Uhuh,’
encouraged Adam.
‘There was something . . . weird about his language, anyway. He said that he had a really easy deal to offer and that there was loads of dosh to be had.’
‘Can you remember if he said “dosh” or something else?’
‘Money, I think. Yes. Money.’
‘And this was on . . .’ Adam leafed through his notes, ‘the third of May,’ he said, and looked askance at Gerhard, who gave a faint nod and continued to pull at the hole in his trousers. ‘Tuesday the third of May, in the afternoon. We’ll get a printout of your log so we can check the time.’
‘But, it’s—’
‘You can’t—’
Rønbeck and his client protested at the same time.
‘Take it easy, take it easy!’ Adam groaned in exasperation. ‘Your telephone log is the least of your problems right now. We’ll come back to that. Carry on. You’re not very good at telling stories. Now concentrate.’
The lawyer and Gerhard exchanged glances. Rønbeck nodded.
‘He said that I should keep the sixteenth and seventeenth of May clear,’ Gerhard mumbled.
‘Keep them clear?’
‘Yes. Not make any plans. Stay sober. Be in Oslo. Available, like.’
‘And you didn’t know the man who rang?’
‘No.’
‘But you still said that was fine. You would drop the biggest street party of the year because a stranger phoned and asked you to keep the day clear. Well, well.’
‘It was the money. It was a lot of bloody money.’
‘How much?’
There was a long pause. Gerhard grabbed his cap and almost by reflex was about to put it on when he changed his mind and laid it back on the table. He still didn’t say anything. He was staring at the hole in his trousers.
‘OK,’ Adam said eventually. ‘We get the amount later. What more were you told?’
‘Nothing. Just that I should wait.’
‘For what?’
‘A phone call. On the sixteenth of May.’
‘And did you get one?’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘In the afternoon. Can’t remember exactly. Around four, maybe. Yes, just after four. I was going to meet some mates in Grünerløkka for a beer before the match. Vålerenga versus Fredrikstad at Ullevål. The guy rang just before I went out.’
