What Never Happens

by Anne Holt

  Bernt Helle pushed him away. For the first time during the long, fruitless investigation into Fiona’s murder, his behavior was aggressive. He didn’t relent until Adam was standing a few feet from the bed. Then he stroked Yvonne’s hair.

  “Actually, hearing this has been a relief for me,” he said in a quiet voice, as if the police were no longer there. “Fiona was so . . . always searching, you know. I often wondered why. I don’t understand why it would’ve been so hard to tell me, though, after all these years, so many . . .”

  There was an edge of repressed anger in his voice, which he heard himself and swallowed. Adam noticed that the grip on his mother-in-law’s hand was firmer when he continued, “I accept that there’s a lot of this I don’t understand. We have to talk. Properly, I mean. But right now you have to answer Stubo’s questions. It’s important, Yvonne. Please.”

  She was crying silently. Her tears were as big as raindrops. They gathered in the corners of her eyes for a moment before overflowing and running down her temples into her hair.

  “I didn’t want . . . We thought . . . It was . . .”

  “Shhh,” Bernt comforted. “Take it easy.”

  “Her life would have been ruined,” Yvonne whispered. “She wasn’t even sixteen. The baby’s father . . .”

  Speech failed her. A fine stream of transparent fluid escaped from her left nostril, and she wiped the back of her hand over her face.

  “He was a good-for-nothing,” she said loudly. “And Fiona was just about to start high school. The boy ran away, and it was too late to . . . I should have noticed, of course, but who would . . . Teenagers have a right to a private life too. And a bit of baby fat . . . I—”

  “Yvonne,” Bernt Helle said firmly, trying to look her in the eyes. “Listen to me. Just listen to me for a minute!”

  She had turned away from her son-in-law. She was trying to pull her hand from his firm grip.

  “Listen to me,” he repeated, as if he was talking to a rebellious daughter. “The two of us can take all the time we need to talk about this later. But what is important right now is that the police get some answers.”

  No one said anything. Yvonne had given up the fight with her reluctant muscles. She lay there helpless once again, bereft of energy. Even her hair looked lifeless, spread out gray and thin across the pillow.

  “His name is Mats Bohus,” she said suddenly, the same old voice, dismissive and indifferent at the same time.

  “Sorry?”

  “Mats Bohus. He was born on October 13, 1978. I don’t know anymore.”

  “How can you . . .” Bernt Helle started but couldn’t finish the question.

  Once again, Adam approached the bed.

  “And this Mats got in touch with Fiona recently,” he stated, as if he didn’t need confirmation from Yvonne.

  She mumbled in agreement all the same, without looking at Adam.

  “Before or after New Year?” he asked.

  “Before Christmas,” Yvonne whispered. “He was . . . he is . . .”

  Her nose would not stop running. Bernt Helle fished out a handkerchief from a drawer in the bedside table and gave it to her. She had just enough energy to lift her left hand and put the hanky to her nose.

  “I sent her away,” she said. “I sent Fiona to my sister in Dokka. Far enough away. Secluded enough to prevent any questions.”

  Adam shuddered when the woman laughed. She sounded like a wounded crow; her laugher was hoarse, grating, and joyless.

  “Then she gave birth prematurely,” Yvonne continued. “I wasn’t there. No one was there. They just about died, both of them. Then . . .”

  She gulped as she breathed in and then coughed so much that Bernt sat her up in bed. When the coughing eventually subsided, he carefully wiped around her mouth and lowered her back down.

  “There was something wrong with the boy,” she said, her voice hard, “but it was no longer our problem.”

  “Something wrong with the boy,” Adam repeated. “What exactly?”

  “He was too big. Slow, heavy, and unbelievably . . . ugly.”

  For a split second, Adam envisaged Ragnihld just after she had been taken from her mother’s womb, red, slimy, and helplessly un-beautiful. He put his hand to his mouth and coughed. His eyes narrowed. Yvonne Knutsen didn’t appear to notice his disapproval.

  “What happened then?” Bernt Helle asked, almost inaudibly.

  “We forgot,” Yvonne replied. “We had to forget.”

  “Forget . . .”

  Adam took a silent step away from the bed.

  “The boy was given away,” said the woman. “Adopted. Obviously I don’t know by whom. It was best that way. For him and for Fiona. She had her whole life in front of her. If only we managed to forget.”

  “And did you manage? Did you manage to forget, Yvonne?”

  Bernt Helle had let go of her hand now and was sitting on the edge of the chair, as if he was about to make a break for it. His left leg was twitching, and the heel of his boot was tapping on the linoleum.

  “I forgot,” Yvonne said. “Fiona forgot. It was best. Don’t you understand that, Bernt?”

  Her fingers clawed the sheets, where his hand no longer was. His gaze was fixed on the crooked, faded lithograph. He leaned back in the chair and cocked his head. His eyes did not leave the picture. He stared, blinked, and squinted at the abstract composition of discolored cubes and cylinders.

  “Please try to understand,” Yvonne pleaded. “Fiona was too young. It was the best thing to do, to send her away, put the child up for adoption once it was born, and then forget the whole thing. Carry on as if nothing had happened. It was absolutely necessary, Bernt. I had to think about Fiona. And her alone. She was my responsibility. I was her mother. The boy would have a better life with mature parents, with people who could—”

  “We’re not exactly talking about the thirties,” Bernt exclaimed and pulled away from the bed even more. “It was the late seventies! The age of feminism, Yvonne! Gro Harlem Brundtland and eco-activism, abortion and positive discrimination for women in the workplace, for Christ’s sake, it was . . .”

  He got up suddenly. He stood over her with his balled hands raised in a manner that was at once threatening and desperate. Then he lifted his face to the ceiling and ran his open hands over his head.

  “For years and years we struggled to have children! We went abroad, to all kinds of clinics, we tried and tried and—”

  “I think,” Adam interrupted tersely, “that we should stick to your own wise words, Helle. These are obviously issues you need to talk about, but that can wait until later.”

  The big man looked at him in surprise, as if he had just registered that the policemen were there.

  “Yes,” he said in a feeble voice. “But then I think I’ll . . .”

  He moved slowly over to the other side of the bed. The air in the room was stale. Adam could feel the sweat dripping from his armpits, cold trickles down to the waist of his pants. He wiped his finger under his nose.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked cautiously.

  Bernt Helle didn’t answer. Instead he straightened the picture. Gently pushed it to one side, then a fraction to the other.

  “I understand that you need answers,” he said, still facing the wall. “And I really want to help. But right now there’s actually not a lot I can do. I shouldn’t be here. So I’ll go.”

  Sigmund blocked the door.

  “I’m not under arrest,” Bernt Helle said. He was at least a head taller than the compact policeman. “Out of the way.”

  “Let him go,” Adam instructed. “Of course he’s got the right to do exactly as he pleases. Thank you for your help, Mr. Helle.”

  The widower didn’t answer. The door closed slowly behind him, and they could hear his steps, hard rubber on polished linoleum, fading down the corridor. Adam took Bernt Helle’s place on the chair.

  “So now it’s just us.”

  The sick woman seemed to be ev
en sicker now. Her flush had died down. Her face was not as gray as when they arrived, but it now had a frightening bluish white tint. Her eyelids slid shut. Her lower lip was trembling, the only indication that Yvonne Knutsen was still alive.

  “I understand that this is difficult,” Adam tried. “And I won’t bother you for much longer. I just want to know what happened—”

  “Go away.”

  “Yes, I just want—”

  “Go away.” Her voice broke.

  “What did he want?” Adam asked. “Mats Bohus. What happened when he turned up?”

  “Go away.”

  “Does he live in—”

  “Please, leave me alone.”

  Her hand fumbled for the alarm button that was taped to the side of the bed. He got up.

  “I do apologize for all this,” he said. “Good-bye.”

  “But,” Sigmund Berli protested when Adam grabbed him by the arm and led him out into the corridor. “We have to—”

  “The man’s name is Mats Bohus, and we know his date of birth,” Adam said and looked over his shoulder.

  Yvonne Knutsen was gasping for breath and pushing the alarm button again and again.

  “How difficult can it be to find him when we already know that much?” Adam whispered and remained standing in the doorway.

  When a coated man in his thirties appeared in response to the frantic alarm, Adam took Sigmund’s arm again and started to walk away.

  “It can’t be that difficult,” he said again, as if he was trying to convince himself.

  He glanced at his watch.

  “Quarter past twelve already. We don’t have much time.”

  The air outside was cold and sharp, with a scent of spruce and burnt wood coming from a nearby house. Adam stood still for several minutes before sitting down with heavy movements in the passenger seat.

  “You drive,” he said to Sigmund, who took his place behind the wheel in surprise and put the key in the ignition. “We don’t have much time.”

  He didn’t find it hard being on his own anymore. In fact, he did whatever he could to stop people from coming. They were lining up. His parents, especially his mother, called several times a day. He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of his brother since the fight, but friends, colleagues, and acquaintances all seemed to think that Trond Arnesen had none of the skills required for living alone. Yesterday, two old friends from school had turned up on his doorstep with homemade lasagna. They were put out when he wouldn’t let them in.

  He had read that normally it was the opposite.

  He had read in the glossy women’s magazines that he hadn’t gotten rid of yet that normally the nearest and dearest were left in peace and quiet following a tragic death in the family. He had read how the death of a child often left behind an emptiness that the parents’ friends and acquaintances avoided in silent embarrassment.

  It wasn’t like that for him. People were elbowing their way in. His boss at work had said that he should take it easy. Take the time he needed to grieve, was the expression he’d used on the morning he laid his arm around Trond’s shoulders and offered to drive him home. As Trond accepted, it was difficult not to invite him in. The man was in his fifties, balding with a comb-over and a snub nose in the middle of his round face. His boss had sent stealthy glances in every direction, as if storing impressions that he could expand on when he got back to work. Finally he was satisfied and left.

  Another celebrity had been murdered.

  Trond put the newspaper down and went into the kitchen. He had everything he needed for the weekend in the fridge. His mother had insisted on shopping for him. He opened a beer. It wasn’t even one o’clock yet, but he had locked the doors, taken the battery out of his home phone, and turned off his cell phone. He wanted to be alone, right until Monday. The very thought gave him a boost. For the first time since Victoria had been killed, he felt something that resembled peace.

  The unaccounted-for one and a half hours were nearly forgotten. He drank half the can in one gulp before sitting down in an armchair with the day’s newspapers.

  Even Aftenposten was making a big deal about it. The greater part of the front page and two whole inside pages were dedicated to the murderer who, according to the paper’s grim comments, was a killing machine the likes of which Norway had never seen. Six columns were taken up drawing a speculative profile. They imagined that it was a man, obviously, with heavy features and unruly hair. The news desk had superimposed pictures of Fiona Helle, Victoria Heinerback, and Vegard Krogh across his chest. There was no more talk of a woman-hater who had been rejected by his mother. Rather, they veered toward the idea of an unsuccessful wannabe. The underlying implication of a major opinionated interview with three well-known psychologists and a retired policeman from Bergen was that the murderer was probably to be found among the ranks of people voted out of the Big Brother house, unsuccessful Pop Idol contestants, or Eurovision Song Contest finalists who hadn’t won. The brutal killer had probably experienced his fifteen minutes of fame and couldn’t cope with the withdrawal symptoms when the spotlight was suddenly turned off. That’s what the experts believed.

  Vegard Krogh was described as a rising talent, an uncompromising artist.

  He was found with a pen stuck in his eye.

  Trond laughed so much that the beer sprayed out of his mouth.

  Vegard Krogh was the world’s biggest creep.

  The guy had hated Victoria and everything she stood for. Lots of people did, but Vegard Krogh had not been satisfied with mere discontent. After one of Victoria’s harangues about culture’s inability to adjust to market forces, Vegard had approached them at Kunstnernes Hus. It was late on a Friday night, and everyone was there. In a loud voice, he’d picked an argument with her. Then, when Victoria turned her back on him with her little finger bent like a pathetic penis for all the others around the table to see, he had poured his beer on her head. Quite a scuffle followed. Trond wanted to report him to the police.

  “That’ll just make him feel more important than he is,” Victoria said at the time. “He wants attention, and I can’t be bothered to give it to him.”

  Since then, they had neither seen nor heard from Vegard Krogh, except for the odd barbed comment in articles that the Observer sent to Victoria. She didn’t care, but Trond got rattled every time he came across one of Krogh’s rotten pieces. When the guy was given a short guest appearance on Absolute Entertainment, Trond stopped watching that channel.

  A prick of the highest order, he thought.

  Vegard Krogh wanted to be a celebrity at any cost and had now finally succeeded.

  Trond drank the rest of the beer and went to get another can.

  He was going to be alone all weekend and decided to get drunk. Maybe he would take a bath. Watch a movie. Take a couple of the pills in Victoria’s medicine cabinet and sleep for twelve hours.

  Those one and a half hours were nearly forgotten.

  “A pen,” Sigmund Berli said lamely.

  “Mont Blanc,” replied the pathologist. “Type, Bohème. Appropriate, according to what I’ve read in the papers. I didn’t want to remove it till you’d had a look.”

  “How is it . . .”

  Adam broke off and bent down over the body. He studied the exposed face. The mouth was half open. The nose was covered in scratches. The unscathed eye stared at a point on the ceiling. Poking out of the other eye was a stubby pen. When Adam walked around the metal table, he could see that the writing instrument had been thrust into the corner of the eye. It went deep, he assumed, as only about two inches of the black pen could be seen, perfectly positioned at a right angle to the cheekbone. A small jewel in the clip shone ruby red in the harsh light.

  “Has the eyeball itself been perforated?” Adam asked and leaned even closer.

  The deceased’s right pupil looked alarmingly alive as it squinted toward the alien body in the corner of the eye. It looked like Vegard Krogh had realized that his favorite pen was on its way into his br
ain.

  “Well,” the pathologist said. “The eyeball has in all likelihood been destroyed, naturally. But he . . . the killer didn’t stab the pen into the eye itself.”

  “But he may have tried to,” Adam suggested.

  “Yes. The pen may have slipped on the eyeball and then penetrated here”—he used a laser pointer and made the red dot dance around the corner of the eye—“where it is of course easier to get in.”

  “Interesting,” Adam mumbled.

  Sigmund Berli said nothing. Unnoticed, he had retreated a couple of steps from the metal table.

  “So he was actually dead before this was done?” Adam asked.

  “Yes,” the pathologist replied. “Possibly. What killed him was the blow to the neck. As I said, I haven’t done a detailed investigation yet, because I understood that you wanted to see him first. However, it seems to be reasonably clear that he was hit here.”

  The red dot vibrated just above Vegard Krogh’s left temple. His hair was matted and dark.

  “Knocked out, more than likely. Then this blow to the neck”—the pathologist scratched his cheek and then hunkered down so that his face was at the same level as the head of the victim—“killed him. It’s a bit difficult to show you without turning him over and I don’t want to do that before I’ve taken out the pen and—”

  “That’s fine,” Adam said. “I’ll wait for the final report. So it was a blow to the neck. Having been knocked out first by a blow to the left temple. With what?”

  “Something heavy. Probably something metal. My initial guess would be a solid bar. When we have a closer look, we’ll no doubt find particles in the wounds, which will give us more precise information.”

  “Then we can assume that the murderer is right-handed,” Adam said. “Not that that’s much help.”

  “Right-handed?”

  “Left temple,” Adam explained, distracted. “Hit with the right hand.”

  “Only if they were facing each other,” Sigmund said. He had gone over to the door and was sucking on a piece of candy. “If the murderer came from behind, he might—”

  “They were facing each other,” Adam interrupted. “At least, that’s what the team who examined the scene have concluded. From the footprints. Thanks for your help.”