Where Monsters Dwell

by Jorgen Brekke

  In Trondheim, September is without question an autumn month. But on rare occasions a day would come along that people living south of the Dovre Mountains would call summerlike, no matter what the date. After a long period of rain showers and overcast weather, it now looked like they were going to get another one of those days. Even before eight in the morning the thermometer in the kitchen window read 64°F. He found a dry crust of bread and a little orange marmalade and ate breakfast. The humidity was unusually high, and as he was eating he could feel the sweat forming on his temples. He was wearing a long-sleeved woolen shirt, and realized that was a mistake. He went to change as he chewed the last bite of his breakfast.

  Singsaker hated sweating. That had been the first symptom of everything that had followed; he began sweating on cold nights last autumn. Then came the headaches, the bad moods, and the feeling that the world wasn’t real. Before he finally collapsed the day after Christmas, he’d already started to hallucinate. No pink elephants or castles in the sky. Just small things, like hearing Anniken’s voice when she wasn’t there, or the feeling of having his wallet in his hand when he’d actually left it at home. He remembered one time, when he pulled out his Visa card to pay for something. He stood swiping it through the device again and again before the cashier told him that he didn’t have a card in his hand. He didn’t think he was afraid of death anymore. If you’ve cheated it once, it’s not as scary. What he couldn’t face was the thought of everything else happening all over again. The growing tension. The breakdown. The feeling of losing his grip. The intolerable, slow drama of cancer.

  He put on a thin, light-blue, silk shirt. It was a gift from some friends who’d been in Thailand many years ago. He didn’t wear it often but more often than he saw those friends. It was great on hot days, he told himself, and it was the truth, that he was sweating because it was warm, that he was healthy. The tumor in his brain had become an empty wound. Before the tumor, he could remember things that hadn’t happened, but now he forgot things that really had. Hallucinations had turned into loss of memory—the supernova into a black hole.

  On the short walk across the street to Vatten’s house, he tried to organize the events of the day before, but couldn’t do it chronologically. The order was fuzzy. Had he spoken with Jens Dahle before or after he visited Siri Holm? And when had the interview with Vatten taken place? He paused on the sidewalk outside the house and thought about something she had said yesterday, or was that from the dream he’d had last night? There were books in which the killer was a detective with amnesia who was investigating himself.

  This is no mystery novel, he told himself, almost wishing that it were. He didn’t need to check his alibi. Not yet.

  * * *

  Two police cars were parked outside Vatten’s house. Singsaker went in through the courtyard gate and noticed Vatten’s Cervelo bicycle leaning against a fence. The old Volvo was parked in the driveway, as always.

  Inside, the house bustled with activity. Members of the white-clad team were scuttling about everywhere. The other officers, who could wear whatever they liked but oddly enough often chose similar attire, were in the minority. Actually, he saw only the lower part of the denim pant legs of a detective at the top of the stairs leading to the second floor. Mona Gran was standing right inside the door, smiling.

  He looked at her. Only now did he notice that she was really very good-looking. Dark blond hair and blue eyes. A nose that was just big enough to attract attention but not so large that it ruined the overall impression.

  “What have we found?” he asked.

  “You should probably ask the evidence techs. Anyway, we didn’t find what we were looking for.”

  “You mean he’d already left for work?”

  “No, not according to our colleagues who checked with the Gunnerus Library.”

  He stood there staring at her, thoughts churning through his slightly mangled brain.

  “So where is he then?”

  “I wish we knew.”

  “Damn,” he said. He might not remember everything he should about the Vatten case, but he was sure of one thing: Jon Vatten was not the type to run. “Did he take off?” he asked, almost to himself.

  In the meantime, the detective in jeans had come downstairs. Thorvald Jensen shrugged in resignation. Behind him came Gro Brattberg.

  “This bird has flown,” said Jensen. “But look what we found.”

  He held out a notebook and turned to a specific page. On it was sketched a picture of a little brick house that looked like an English country cottage. But larger buildings could be made out behind it, which indicated that it most likely was located in a city.

  “What’s this?” Singsaker asked.

  “Look at the sign next to the house,” said Jensen.

  Singsaker studied the sign on the sidewalk: The Museum of Edgar Allan Poe.

  “What sort of book is this?” he asked.

  “It’s a notebook,” said Jensen dryly. “Looks as though Vatten used it as a sort of diary. He has a whole stack of them on the kitchen table. He wrote a bunch of strange stuff in this one. Little sketches and thoughts, some philosophical observations, some factual stuff, including things about Edgar Allan Poe. Did you know that he married his cousin, Virginia, when she was only thirteen years old? If you did anything like that today, it’d be a case for the police. But most of the things in this notebook are pure nonsense. And then he glued in this picture. Based on what he wrote, it seems that he visited the museum some time this summer.”

  “Oh, shit. But nothing really happened there this summer, did it? We’re more interested in finding out whether he was there about a week ago.”

  “True enough. Did we actually check out his alibi for the time of the murder in Richmond?”

  “No, that didn’t come up until we talked to the States last night,” said Singsaker. They stood looking at each other, thinking.

  “You know what bothers me the most?” said Jensen after a moment. “That fucker took off, and we thought that was the last thing he’d do. Aren’t we supposed to be the best judges of people?”

  “Vatten isn’t the world’s easiest person to get a handle on,” said Singsaker.

  The thing was, Jon Vatten—the somewhat modest, diffident Vatten, the man who never went anywhere and who rode his bike to work at the same time every day—didn’t seem like an insane murderer who would flay his victims and steal their heads. But if he really was the perpetrator—and the investigation was pointing more and more in that direction—it also meant that nobody had the slightest idea who the real Vatten was. Nobody had managed to see behind the mask that hid the insanity.

  “Have we put out an APB?” asked Singsaker.

  “All over the country,” said Brattberg.

  He stared at her. She looked worn out. Dead tired. He felt like asking her what time she’d gone to bed last night, but he wasn’t used to expressing concern for his boss.

  “What about the press conference?” he asked.

  “Without a suspect in custody there really is no point,” said Brattberg dully. “We’ll make a simple announcement. ‘No developments in the case.’ That’ll have to do.”

  “So the fact that a suspected murderer is running from the police isn’t something the public needs to know?”

  “That’s correct, Singsaker. What can the public do with information like that except panic?” she snapped.

  He shrugged and asked, “So, what now?”

  “We continue investigating at the Gunnerus Library. Everyone has to be questioned again. Focus on Vatten, and find out whether anyone has any idea where he might be hiding. Does he have a cabin? Does he ever take trips outside the country, and if so, where? Things like that.”

  It struck Singsaker that she had left out one possibility.

  “We also shouldn’t forget that Vatten tried to commit suicide the last time we had him under investigation,” he said.

  “We haven’t forgotten any of that,” Brattberg said shar
ply. “No matter what, the main thing is that we have to find him.”

  * * *

  Odd Singsaker got into one of the police cars and immediately drove to the Gunnerus Library. Before he got there, Per Ottar Hornemann called him. His tone was sharp, like that of a director under a lot of stress.

  “It’s gone,” he said.

  “What’s gone?” said Singsaker, as he held the cell phone to his ear while maneuvering through the heavy traffic. He stopped at a red light and was finally able to concentrate on what Hornemann was saying. A woman in the car next to him gave him a dirty look for talking on his cell while driving. It didn’t look good to be breaking the law while sitting in a police car, but he had no time to waste. So he just shrugged apologetically.

  “The Johannes Book,” Hornemann said. “The Johannes Book is gone. It disappeared sometime after Gunn Brita was picked up by the morgue and after we locked the book vault yesterday afternoon. I locked it myself, so I know that the Johannes Book was still there.”

  “How could that have happened? Are there any signs of a break-in at the vault?”

  “No. Whoever was in here must have had both codes. And I’m the only one who’s supposed to have them both. What’s even stranger is that we changed the code on Monday morning, when Siri Holm took over one of the codes.”

  “If I understand correctly, only you, Siri Holm, and Jon Vatten have the codes to the book vault. Nobody else?”

  “That’s right. Only I have both of them.”

  “And Vatten hasn’t shown up for work today, as far as I know. What about Siri Holm? Is she at work?”

  “No, and that’s what worries me. She isn’t here either. She and Vatten are the only ones who didn’t come to the meeting we set up for eight o’clock this morning. We were supposed to discuss a strategy for the difficult situation we find ourselves in.”

  The light changed to green, and Singsaker started off.

  “Just stay where you are,” he said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.” He stomped on the gas, noting that the fact that Siri Holm hadn’t shown up for work made him feel more distressed than was appropriate.

  * * *

  Hornemann was pale and looked like Singsaker felt. As if he should have retired long ago. He was sitting in his ascetic office gazing at Singsaker. Singsaker had sat down, wondering what it was about book people. Hornemann seemed more distraught today, after losing his valuable book, than he had the day before, when one of his employees was found murdered. But perhaps the sum of all these events had begun to take its toll on him. Singsaker took out the Moleskine notebook from his back pocket. He still hadn’t written anything in it, and he probably wasn’t going to do so now, but he’d noticed that a notebook had a calming effect on some interviewees. He decided to get straight to the point.

  “When did you discover that the Johannes Book was missing, before or after this morning meeting?” he asked.

  Hornemann’s eyes became more focused as he began to talk.

  “It was afterward. I went there at about a quarter to nine, straight from the meeting. Fifteen minutes later I called you.”

  “OK,” he said, paging a little farther in the notebook’s blank pages. “But what was it that made you go into the book vault at all? Didn’t my colleagues tell you that the area is off-limits for the time being?”

  “Yes, but I’m the director here. I feel a certain responsibility. I discovered that the surveillance cameras hadn’t been turned on, and that they’d been off since you were here together with Vatten yesterday. I just wanted to check that everything was in order.”

  “That nobody had taken anything?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Did you think that seemed like a logical possibility? Given who had access? What I’m asking you is, Did you have any reason to suspect that somebody had been inside the vault?”

  “No, not from a rational standpoint; it was more of a hunch. I’ve always felt a great responsibility for our book collection. The Johannes Book is a national treasure. It’s only here because the farmer who donated it stipulated that it had to be kept here, and not at the National Library in Oslo. So when something happens, like yesterday, I’m extra vigilant.”

  “Yes, of course, that’s only natural,” said Singsaker, studying the head of the library. There was nothing to indicate that he was holding anything back. But it was difficult to determine that with certainty.

  “Why did you call me first?” he wanted to know.

  “You’re the only one who gave me a card.”

  Singsaker tried to remember when he’d done that.

  “This Johannes Book. Is it ever removed from the vault for legitimate reasons?” he asked.

  “We’ve loaned it out a few times this year. Our conservator and bookbinder, Silvia Freud—she’s German—has done a little work with it, but mainly she has been working on a copy of the book.”

  “A copy? Why is that?” He pretended to take notes.

  “It’s going to be used in an exhibition about the Norwegian Middle Ages that we’re planning for the Science Museum in the fall. But the security at such an exhibition isn’t good enough to warrant displaying the original source material. You should see the copies that Silvia makes. She’s a master. I can’t even tell the difference from the original. For the Johannes Book she used calfskin that we’ve had in storage ever since the days of Broder Lysholm Knudtzon. Besides all the books, he left a good deal of whole calfskins and remnants. Some of these remnants are of the same quality as the rare parchment in the Johannes Book. Naturally we discussed to what extent the skins themselves needed to be preserved but agreed that we could use some of the remnants for such purposes. Of course, we won’t use the whole calfskin.”

  Hornemann had livened up now, as if talking about books was enough to make him forget the situation.

  “Where can I meet this Silvia Jung?” asked Singsaker.

  “Freud,” Hornemann corrected him. “She has an office in the basement. I can take you there.”

  On the way downstairs Singsaker asked the head of the library whether he had tried to call Siri Holm. He said that he hadn’t. It was normal for people who called in sick to do so later in the morning.

  “We generally work quite independently here,” he said.

  Hornemann’s reply didn’t reassure him, so Singsaker asked for Siri Holm’s number. He got it, put it in his pocket, and promised to call her after he spoke with Silvia Freud. Then he called Brattberg and informed her about the missing book.

  * * *

  He said good-bye to Hornemann outside the conservator’s office. Silvia Freud’s door was big and white and had no nameplate. He never would have found it by himself. He knocked on the door and was invited in by a voice with a German accent. The book conservator was a sun-tanned woman younger than forty. She demolished all his preconceived notions about book conservators by not even wearing glasses. She was dressed in tight designer jeans and a colorful, form-fitting top. Silvia Freud was sitting at a slanted worktable in the middle of a large, windowless basement office, with a work lamp above it that would make any dentist jealous. A faint murmur could be heard from the ventilation pipes below the ceiling.

  They shook hands, and she told him how upset she was about what had happened in the library the day before. It struck him that she didn’t look as upset as she claimed. When he told her about the Johannes Book, on the other hand, she turned deathly pale. She sat motionless for a minute or two. But she didn’t look at him. Her gaze flitted restlessly, as if not sure where to settle.

  “What do you mean by ‘gone’?” she said at last, and he could almost hear a quaver in her voice.

  “It’s no longer in the vault,” he said.

  “You mean it’s been stolen?” she asked, and her expression changed. Her voice also became more steady, but he had a feeling that she was straining to control herself.

  “I doubt that it left on its own accord,” he said.

  “But that’s just terrible! A treasu
re like that. Do you think that the murderer took it?”

  “I don’t know. But it would be helpful if you could answer a few questions.”

  “Naturally,” she said. Now she was just as composed as when he’d arrived.

  “When was the last time the book was out of the vault?”

  “That was about two weeks ago.”

  “Was that when you were finishing the copy for the exhibition?”

  “Yes, did Hornemann tell you about that?”

  “That’s right. Where is this copy kept?”

  “I have it here.” She pointed to a tall, white cabinet against the wall. It had a lock on it.

  “Could I see it?”

  “Of course,” said Silvia Freud. Had some of the quavering returned to her voice, or was he just imagining it? She opened the cabinet quickly, removed a book, and closed it so fast that he couldn’t see anything clearly. But he got the impression that there were two rather similar-looking books inside.

  She handed him the book.

  “May I look through it?” he asked.

  “Do what you like, it’s only a copy. But keep in mind that I put a lot of work into it.”

  He paged rapidly through the book. He had no idea what the original Johannes Book looked like, but he had no doubt that Silvia Freud was an expert in her profession. The book looked ancient. When he reached the final pages, he noticed that she had done such a thorough job that she even included remnants of the pages that had been torn out, just like in the original. The pages that Siri Holm had told him about.

  “What can you tell me about the pages that were removed?” he asked.

  Silvia Freud smiled.

  “In the copy, of course, they were not really torn out. I just replicated what the remnants of those pages looked like. There are so many rumors about the Johannes Book. Most of them come from the family at the farm where it was discovered. The family used to tell stories to each other. One of the stories says that the last pages in the book were torn out by a previous owner because they revealed why there was a curse on the book. A more credible rumor, one circulating here at the library, says that the book once belonged to Broder Lysholm Knudtzon, and that he tore out the pages at the end in order to bind another book. Apparently the text on those pages made no sense. Those pages were said to have been written on and erased several times, and what remained was almost illegible. Knudtzon probably thought it was a good idea to reuse them, but he was also said to have believed in the book’s curse, and as he got older, this belief grew stronger. I don’t know if something in particular happened, but apparently he was the one who went to this farm in Fosen and returned the book so that it could find its proper resting place. But he forgot to give back the book that he had bound with the last pages of the Johannes Book. Some people think that book was among the five or six books he later sold to a hatter who emigrated to America. But we don’t know anything for certain. Not even if Knudtzon was really the one who owned the Johannes Book.”