by Jo Nesbo
‘Let me see if I’ve got this right,’ Kari said, resting her chin on her palms. ‘There is a connection between Agnete Iversen and the three victims here. And the killer has gone to great lengths to make sure we don’t spot it because he’s afraid it’s that very connection which will identify him.’
‘Good, Officer Adel. You’ve changed your perspective and location, and now you can see.’
Kari heard an angry hooting and opened her eyes again.
‘The light’s green,’ she said.
23
IT WAS NO longer raining quite as hard, but Martha had pulled her jacket over her head as she watched while Stig retrieved the key and unlocked the basement door. The basement, like the garage, was filled with objects which told a family history; rucksacks, tent pegs, a pair of red down-at-heel boots which looked as if they had been used in some sort of sport, boxing, perhaps. A sledge. A manual lawnmower that had been replaced with a petrol-driven one in the garage. A big, rectangular chest freezer. Wide shelves with cordial bottles and jam jars joined together by cobwebs, and a nail with a key and a tag whose faded letters would once have told you what the key was for. Martha stopped at the row of skis, some of them still coated with the mud from an Easter skiing trip. One of the skis, the longest and the broadest, had split lengthways.
When they got inside the house, Martha realised immediately that no one had lived there for years. Perhaps it was the smell, the dust or maybe it was the invisible layer of time. And she had her theory confirmed when they entered the living room. She couldn’t see a single object that had been manufactured in the last decade.
‘I’ll make some coffee,’ Stig said and went into the adjacent kitchen.
Martha looked at the photographs on the mantelpiece.
A wedding photo. The likeness, especially to the bride, was striking.
Another photograph – probably taken a couple of years later – showed them with two other couples. Martha had a hunch that it was the men who linked the couples together, and not the women. It was to do with the way the men looked like each other. Their identical, almost posturing stances, the confident smiles, the way they took up space, like three friends – and alpha males – leisurely marking out their respective territory. Equals, she thought.
She went out into the kitchen. Stig was standing with his back to her, leaning towards the fridge.
‘Did you find any coffee?’ she asked.
He turned, quickly snatched a yellow Post-it note from the fridge door and stuffed it in his trouser pocket.
‘Yes,’ he said and opened the cupboard above the sink. He measured coffee into a filter, put water in the coffee-maker and switched it on with quick, familiar movements. He took off his jacket and hung it on the back of one of the kitchen chairs. Not the one closest to him, but the one closest to the window. His chair.
‘You used to live here,’ she declared.
He nodded.
‘You look a lot like your mother.’
He smiled wryly. ‘That’s what people said.’
‘Said?’
‘My parents are no longer alive.’
‘Do you miss them?’
She could see it in his face immediately. How this simple, almost commonplace question hit him like a wedge into an opening he had forgotten to seal. He blinked twice and opened and closed his mouth, as if the pain was so unexpected and so sudden that he had lost the power of speech. He nodded and turned to the coffee-maker, adjusting the pot as if it wasn’t sitting on the hotplate properly.
‘Your father looks very authoritarian in those photographs.’
‘He was.’
‘In a good way?’
He turned to her. ‘Yes, in a good way. He took care of us.’
She nodded. She thought about her own father, who had been the opposite.
‘And you needed looking after?’
‘Yes.’ He smiled quickly. ‘I needed looking after.’
‘What? You’re thinking of something.’
He shrugged.
‘What is it?’ she said again.
‘Oh, I saw you look at the broken ski.’
‘What about it?’
He gazed absent-mindedly at the coffee which had started dripping into the pot. ‘We used to visit my grandfather up in Lesjaskog every Easter. There was a ski-jumping hill there where my father held the record. My grandfather had held the previous record. I was fifteen years old and I had trained all winter so that I could set the new record. Only it was a late Easter that year, mild, and when we came up to my grandfather’s there was hardly any snow left at the bottom of the hill which lay in the sun and twigs and rocks were sticking up. But still I had to try it.’
He glanced quickly upwards at Martha, who nodded to encourage him.
‘My father knew how much I wanted to have a go, but he told me not to, it was too dangerous. So I just nodded and talked a boy from a neighbouring farm into being my witness and measuring the length. He helped me spread extra snow in the area where I was planning to land, and then I raced up to the top of the hill, put on the skis which my father had inherited from his father, and set off. The hill was unbelievably slippery, but I came off to a good start. In fact, much too good. I flew and I flew, I felt like an eagle, I didn’t give a damn about anything because this was it, this was exactly what it all was about, nothing could be bigger than this.’ Martha could see his eyes shine. ‘I landed roughly four metres beyond the place where we had spread the snow. The skis cut right through the sludge and a sharp stone sliced open my right ski as if it was a banana split.’
‘And what happened to you?’
‘I snowploughed. I carved a furrow across the slush and well beyond it.’
Alarmed, Martha put her hand on her collarbone. ‘Good God. Were you hurt?’
‘Black and blue. And I got soaking wet. But I didn’t break anything. And even if I had, I probably wouldn’t have noticed because my only thought was, what will my father say? I’ve done something he told me not to. And I’ve ruined his ski.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He didn’t say much, he just asked me what I thought would be a suitable punishment.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘I told him to ground me for three days. But he said that as it was Easter, two days would have to do. After my father’s death, my mother told me that while I was grounded, he got the boy from the farm to show him where I landed and tell him the whole story over and over. And that he had laughed until he cried every time. But my mother made him promise not to tell me, that it would simply encourage me to more madness. So instead he took the damaged ski home under the pretext of wanting to fix it. But my mother said that was nonsense, that it was his most precious keepsake.’
‘Can I have a look at it again?’
He poured coffee for both of them and they took their cups with them down to the basement. She sat on the top of the chest freezer and watched him while he showed her the ski. A heavy, white ski made by Splitkein with six grooves on the underside. And she thought what a very strange day it had been. Sunshine and showers. The blinding sea and the dark, cold basement. A stranger she felt she had known all her life. So far away. So near. So right. So wrong . . .
‘And were you right about the jump?’ she asked. ‘Was there really nothing bigger than that?’
He tilted his head pensively to one side. ‘My first fix. That was bigger.’
She bumped her heels carefully against the chest freezer. Perhaps the chill was coming from there. And it struck her that the power to the freezer must be on – a tiny red lamp glowed between the handle and the keyhole in the freezer lock. Which seemed odd given that everything else in the house suggested it had been abandoned for a long time.
‘Well, at least you set a new record,’ she said.
He shook his head while he smiled.
‘You didn’t?’
‘A jump is invalid if you fall, Martha,’ he said and took a sip of his coffee.
‘So you had to carry on jumping. Because boys measure themselves against their fathers and daughters against their mothers.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘All sons believe that one day they’ll turn into their father, don’t you think? That’s why they’re so disillusioned when their father’s weaknesses are revealed; they see their own failings, their own future defeats waiting for them. And sometimes the shock is so devastating that it makes them give up before they’ve even started.’
‘Was it like that for you?’
Martha shrugged. ‘My mother should never have stayed married to my father. But she chose to conform. I hurled it at her once when we argued about something she wouldn’t let me to do, I don’t even remember what it was. I screamed that it was unfair to deny me happiness just because she denied it to herself. I’ve never regretted saying anything that much in my whole life and I’ll never forget her wounded look when she replied: ‘Because I risk losing the one thing which brings me most happiness. You.’
Stig nodded and looked out of the basement window. ‘Sometimes we’re wrong when we think that we know the truth about our parents. Perhaps they weren’t weak. Perhaps something happened to give you the wrong impression. What if they were strong? What if they were willing to leave behind a disgraced name, allow themselves to be stripped of all honour, take the blame, to save the ones they loved? And if they were that strong, perhaps you’re strong, too.’
The trembling in his voice was almost imperceptible. Almost. Martha waited until he turned his gaze on her again before she asked:
‘So what did he do?’
‘Who?’
‘Your father.’
She saw his Adam’s apple slide up and down. Saw him blink more quickly. Press his lips together. She saw that he wanted to. Saw him watch the take-off point come closer. He could break the fall by throwing himself to the side.
‘He signed a suicide note before they shot him,’ Stig said. ‘To save my mother and me.’
Martha felt dizzy while he continued to speak. She might have pushed him over the edge, but she was going down with him. And now there was no way back to the point where she could erase what she had learned. Deep down, had she known what she was doing all along? Had she wanted this wild floating, this free fall?
Stig and his mother had been to a wrestling tournament in Lillehammer that weekend. His father would normally have gone with them, but had said that he needed to say at home, that he had something important to do. Stig had won in his weight class and when they came home, had run to his father’s study to tell him. His father had been sitting with his back to him and his head resting on the desk. At first Stig thought his father had fallen asleep while working. Then he saw the gun.
‘I had only seen that gun once before. My father used to write his diary in his study, a diary bound in black leather with yellow pages. When I was little he used to say it was his confession. I used to think that to go to confession was just another word for writing, right up until I was eleven and my RS teacher told me that to confess is to tell someone your sins. When I came home from school that day, I crept into his study and found the desk key – I knew where he kept it. I wanted to know what my father’s sins were. I unlocked . . .’
Martha took a breath as if she were the one telling the story.
‘But the diary wasn’t there. Instead I found an old-fashioned, black pistol. I locked the drawer, returned the key and sneaked out. And I felt ashamed. I had tried to spy on my own father, to expose him. I never told anyone and I never tried to find out where he kept his diary again. But when I stood behind my father in his study that weekend, it came back to me. It was my punishment for what I had done. I put my hand on his neck to wake him up. It wasn’t just that he wasn’t warm, it was the chill, a kind of hard, marble-cold death exuded from his body. And I knew that it was my fault. Then I saw the letter . . .’
Martha looked at the vein on his neck while he told her that he had read it. Seen his mother stand in the doorway. He told her how at first he was going to tear up the letter, pretend that it never existed. But he hadn’t been able to do it. And when the police came, he had given it to them. And he could tell from looking at them that they wanted to shred it, too. The vein bulged as if he was an inexperienced singer. Or someone who isn’t used to talking very much.
His mother had started taking the antidepressants her doctor prescribed. Then other pills on her own initiative. But like she used to say, nothing worked better or faster than alcohol. So she had started drinking. Vodka for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He had tried to take care of her, get her off the pills and booze. In order to do that he had had to quit wrestling and other after-school activities. His teachers had come to their door, rung the doorbell and asked why he, who used to get such fine grades, was skiving and he had thrown them out. His mother had deteriorated, becoming increasingly unbalanced and eventually suicidal. He was sixteen years old when he discovered a syringe among the pills while clearing up his mother’s bedroom. He had known what it was. Or at least what it was for. He had plunged it into his own thigh and it had made everything better. The next day he had gone down to Plata and bought his first wrap. Six months later he had sold everything in the house that could easily be converted into cash and robbed his defenceless mother blind. He didn’t care about anything, least of all himself, but he needed money to keep the pain at bay. Since he was under eighteen and couldn’t be sent to adult prison, he had started paying for his habit by confessing to minor robberies and burglaries with which older criminals were charged. When he turned eighteen and such offers dried up and the pressure, the constant pressure to get money only grew worse, he had agreed to take the fall for two murders in return for being supplied with drugs while he was in prison.
‘And now you’ve served your sentence?’ she said.
He nodded. ‘I certainly have.’
She slipped off the chest freezer and went up to him. She wasn’t thinking, it was too late for that. She reached out her hand and touched the vein in his neck. He looked at her with big, black pupils that almost filled the iris. Then she put her arms around his waist and he put his arms around her shoulders, like two dancers who couldn’t decide which of them should lead. They stood like this for a while, then he pulled her close. He was burning up, he must have a fever. Or did she? She closed her eyes, felt his nose and lips against her hair.
‘Let’s go upstairs,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve got something for you.’
They went back to the kitchen. It had stopped raining outside. He took something from the pocket of his jacket which was hanging over the kitchen chair.
‘These are for you.’
The earrings were so beautiful they initially left her speechless.
‘Don’t you like them?’
‘They’re gorgeous, Stig. But how did you . . . Did you steal them?’
He looked gravely at her without replying.
‘I’m sorry, Stig.’ Her thoughts were muddled and tears welled up in her eyes. ‘I know you’re not using any more, but I can see that the earrings used to belong to someone—’
‘She’s no longer alive,’ Stig interrupted her. ‘And something that beautiful should be worn by someone who is.’
Martha blinked in confusion. Then the penny dropped. ‘They belonged . . . they were . . .’ She looked up at him, half blinded by tears. ‘Your mother’s.’
She closed her eyes, felt his breath on her face. His hand on her cheek, throat, neck. Her own free hand which she placed on his side, wanting to push him away. Pull him closer. She knew they had long since kissed in their imagination. Hundreds of times, at least, since the first time they met. But it was different when their lips finally touched and an electric shock went through her. She kept her eyes closed, felt his lips, so soft, his hands gliding across the small of her
back, his stubble, his smell and his taste. She wanted it, wanted all of it. But the touch also awakened her, tore her out of the lovely dream she had allowed herself to get lost in because there had been no consequences. Not until now.
‘I can’t,’ she whispered in a trembling voice. ‘I’ve got to go now, Stig.’
He released her and she quickly turned away. She opened the front door, but paused before she left.
‘It was my fault, Stig. We can never meet again like this. Do you understand? Never.’
She closed the door behind her before she could hear his reply. The sun had forced its way through the layer of clouds and the steam rose from the glittering, black tarmac. She stepped out into the humid heat.
Through his binoculars Markus saw the woman hurry into the garage, start the old Golf they had arrived in and reverse out, still with the hood down. She drove so fast that he couldn’t focus on her properly, but it looked as if she was crying.
Then he aimed the binoculars at the kitchen window again. Zoomed in. The man was standing there watching her. His hands were clenched, his jaw was tight and the veins bulged at his temples as if he was in pain. And the next moment Markus knew why. The son stretched out his arms, opened his hands and pressed them against the inside of the windowpane. Something gleamed in the sunlight. Earrings. They stuck to each palm and two thin streams of blood trickled down to his wrists.
24
THE OFFICE WAS in twilight. Someone had turned off all the lights when they left, probably thinking they were the last ones there, and Simon had let it stay that way, the summer evenings were still light enough. Besides, he had a new keyboard with illuminated keys, so he hadn’t even needed to turn on his reading lamp. Their floor of the office building alone consumed 250,000 kWh per year. If they could bring it down to 200,000, they would apparently save enough money to run two extra emergency vehicles.
