What Never Happens

by Anne Holt

  “When he’s down,” Dr. Bonheur smiled. “It’s unusual for people to feel the need for help when they’re in a manic phase. Then they generally feel like they can take on the world. You should be aware that he . . .”

  Once again, Adam felt the doctor looking at him, watching him, sizing him up.

  “Mats is a very intelligent boy,” Dr. Bonheur said. “But as a child, he was not very good in school. His parents were wise enough to move him to a smaller school. A private school. Not that I want to push an opinion . . .”

  He raised his hands with a smile. Adam noticed that the pinkie on his right hand was missing. There was only a stump, pink against his otherwise dark skin.

  “But the Steiner school was perfect for Mats. He’s a . . .”

  Again, there was some hesitation. It seemed as though he was weighing every word.

  “He is an exceptional young man. Very knowledgeable. Plays chess like a professional. And he’s good with his hands too.”

  Adam had noticed the chessboard just by the door. It was freestanding, and the squares looked as if they were made from ebony and ivory, in a hardwood frame. The pieces had been left in the middle of a game. Adam got up and went over to the table. The white knight on c3 was foaming at the mouth, its hooves rearing above the pawn beside it, a hunchbacked man in a cloak with a staff.

  “The opening move at Reykjavik,” Adam said and smiled. “When they finally started to play after all the setbacks. Spassky played white.”

  “You play chess?” asked Dr. Bonheur in a friendly voice and came over to the table.

  “Played. Don’t have the time anymore. You know . . . But the world championships in Iceland were something else. Great moves. Followed it all the way. Then.”

  Adam picked up the queen.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured, and admired the cloak of blue stones and the crown with a band of crystals.

  “But totally unpractical to play with,” the doctor said and laughed. “I prefer a classic wooden board. I got this for my fortieth birthday. I don’t really use it. But it’s decorative.”

  “I thought one of the symptoms of bipolar disorder was the inability to concentrate,” Adam said and put the queen carefully back in place. “Doesn’t really work with chess.”

  “You’re right.” The doctor nodded. “I repeat: Mats Bohus is an exceptional and special young man. He can’t always play. But in his good periods, he enjoys a game. He’s better than me. He sometimes just drops by for a game, even when he’s not committed. Perhaps he gets particular pleasure from beating me.”

  They laughed a little. Sigmund Berli yawned and yawned.

  “What is this actually about?” asked Dr. Bonheur, his tone suddenly very different. Adam straightened up.

  “I would rather not say yet.”

  “Mats Bohus is in a very vulnerable position.”

  “I fully understand and respect that. But we’re also in a . . . vulnerable situation. A completely different one, of course.”

  “Does this have anything to do with the death of Fiona Helle?”

  Sigmund suddenly woke up.

  “Why do you ask?” he said.

  “I’m sure that you know that Mats was adopted.”

  “Yes . . .”

  Adam drew it out.

  “He loved her program,” Dr. Bonheur continued and gave a fleeting smile. “Taped them all. Watched them over and over again. He didn’t know he was adopted until he was eighteen. His mother decided to tell him the truth when his adoptive father died. He could at times be quite obsessed with stories similar to those on On the Move with Fiona. His mother died as well, about a year ago now. Mats talked constantly about trying to find out where he came from. Who he was, as he put it.”

  “Did he manage?” Adam asked.

  “To find out who he was?”

  “Yes.”

  A brief smile swept over Dr. Bonheur’s face as he said, “I tried to get him to realize that the key to understanding himself lay in his life with his adoptive parents. Not in looking for someone who accidentally brought him into the world.”

  “But did he find his biological parents?”

  “Not that I know of. Evidently one of the social workers gave him some guidelines on how to trace his parents. But I don’t think he ever got any further.”

  “Why did you ask if our visit had anything to do with Fiona Helle, then?” asked Sigmund as he rubbed one of his eyes with his knuckles.

  The doctor held Adam’s eyes when he answered.

  “I see I’ve hit the nail on the head.”

  He picked up a pawn, thought for a moment, and then put it back where it was before. Adam picked up the same piece.

  “How does his illness manifest itself?” he asked as he gently fingered the staff.

  “Over the past twelve months, the intervals between phases have been shorter,” Dr. Bonheur explained. “Which is, of course, exhausting for him. He was very manic for a period before Christmas. Then he had a relatively good period. On . . .”

  He crossed the floor and leaned over his desk. Looked through a pile of papers. He ran his finger down a page and then stopped.

  “He came here in the morning on January 21,” he finished.

  “Early?”

  The doctor turned the page.

  “Yes. Very early. He got here around seven, in fact. In a very bad way.”

  “Do you think he’s”—Adam put the pawn down again and looked at his watch—“awake yet?”

  “I know that he is,” the doctor replied. “He normally wakes up about five o’clock. Sits alone in the common room until the others turn up. Likes to be on his own. Especially when he’s as down as he is now.”

  “Could we . . . ?” asked Adam and raised an arm toward to the shut door.

  Dr. Bonheur nodded and led the way. He locked the door behind them and went over to the elevator. No one said anything. They went in.

  “I should let you know . . .”

  The elevator stopped. Halfway down the corridor, the doctor turned and finished his sentence: “I should let you know that Mats Bohus has a . . . very special appearance.”

  “I see,” said Adam, perplexed.

  “He has problems with his metabolism, so he’s very large. Heavy. And he was born with a harelip, which was operated on, though obviously not very successfully. We have offered him another operation several times, but he has refused.”

  Without waiting for a response, he walked on. He opened a door and went in.

  “Hi, Mats. You’ve got visitors.”

  Mats Bohus was sitting on a wooden chair by a Formica table in the middle of the room. His buttocks oozed over the edge of the seat, and it looked like he had trouble getting his thighs under the table. He was dressed in a shapeless sweatsuit. In front of him was a row of beautiful animals. Adam could make out a swan as he got closer. A giraffe. Two lions with glorious manes and open mouths. The elephant was shiny and golden, with a raised trunk and big, see-through ears.

  “What are you making?” Adam asked quietly. He was right up by the table; the other two men were still by the door.

  Mats Bohus didn’t answer. His fingers were nimble, working fast with something that looked like tissue paper. Adam stood beside him and watched a horse being created, with great anatomical detail, down to the hooves and raised tail.

  “Adam Stubo,” he finally said. “I’m with the police.”

  Mats Bohus got up. Adam was astonished by the ease with which he pushed back the chair, put the horse with the lions and the giraffe, took a step to one side and turned toward him.

  “I knew you would come,” he said without smiling. “But you took your time.”

  The scar on his upper lip was angry and red. It pulled. You could see one of his front teeth, even though his mouth was shut. He had a small nose, and his chin was invisible in the folds of skin that ran down his neck.

  But his eyes were like Fiona Helle’s. Slightly slanting and clear blue, with long, dark lashes.
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  “I don’t regret it,” Mats Bohus said. “Don’t for a moment think that I’m sorry.”

  “I understand,” Adam Stubo said.

  “No,” Mats Bohus retorted. “I don’t think you do. Shall we go?”

  He was already halfway to the door.

  Eleven

  Lina Skytter padded into her study. Her slippers were too big. The robe must have been bought for someone else. The cuff on the sleeves was at least eight inches wide.

  “Even though you’re my best friend,” she said as she sat down on the guest bed, “I hope you’re not going to get into the habit of showing up at half past seven on a Saturday morning to borrow my computer. Don’t you have Kristiane right now? What’ve you done with her?”

  “With the neighbors,” mumbled Johanne. “At Leonard’s.”

  A battered notebook lay by the keyboard. She hadn’t opened it for years, but she had always known where it was. Thirteen years, she calculated. She had moved three times since then. Three times she had found the notebook in a shoebox of small secrets: a brass ring from when she was a child—she had been engaged to the best-looking boy on the street when she was five. The plastic name tag that Kristiane had around her arm in the maternity ward. Johanne Vik’s girl. A love letter from Isak. Her grandmother’s brown cameo.

  The notebook.

  Three times she had decided to throw it away. Each time she had changed her mind. The yellow notebook, with a spiral binding and a tiny heart on the next to last page, continued to accompany her through life. Once upon a time she had written W inside the heart. Childish. But she was a child then, she argued with herself. A girl of twenty-three.

  “What are you looking for?” Lina asked.

  “You don’t want to know. But thanks for letting me come again. Our computer is just hopeless. Virus-ridden and slow.”

  “My pleasure. I hardly see you these days.”

  “It’s only been a month since I gave birth, Lina! For the sixteen weeks before that, I was waddling around like a duck, with pelvic dysfunction and insomnia.”

  “You’ve always had problems sleeping,” replied Lina cheerfully. “Can’t you just stay here today? We could go into town when you’re finished. Do a little shopping. Go to a café. It’s nonsmoking almost everywhere now, so it wouldn’t be a problem with Ragnhild.”

  She looked out the window. The carriage was just below.

  “They just sleep all the time at that age, anyway.”

  “In fact they don’t,” Johanne told her friend. “Thank you for asking, but I have to go home.”

  “Where’s Adam? How are you getting along at the moment? Is he completely crazy about Ragnhild? I bet—”

  Johanne groaned loudly and looked at Lina over her glasses.

  “I’m very grateful that I could come here,” she said slowly. “But when I actually dare to disturb my childless, party- going friend early on a Saturday morning, it’s because I actually have something really important to do. Do you think you could leave me alone to work uninterrupted for a while, then we can talk afterwards?”

  “Of course,” muttered Lina and got up. “Jesus, you are—”

  “Lina!”

  “Fine. I’ll make some coffee. If you want any, you’ll have to tell me.”

  The door slammed a bit too hard. Johanne looked over at the carriage. Not a movement. Not a sound. She sat back in her chair with relief.

  In the old days, she still would have been confined to bed after the birth. She needed peace and quiet, she thought every time Lina called or her sister pestered her or Adam made cautious noises about how nice it would be if people came to visit. Just a light dinner, maybe, or Sunday tea? As soon as he mentioned it, he could see her shoulders tense up, so he let it drop. Talked about something else. Then she forgot. Until the next time the phone rang and someone went on and on about seeing Ragnhild, about coming to see them all.

  She had to find a way to normalize her sleep schedule.

  She had to sleep.

  Her fingers danced on the keyboard.

  www.fbi.gov

  She clicked her way to the History page, mainly because she didn’t really know what she wanted. Under a picture of a fluttering American flag, J. Edgar Hoover was portrayed as an excellent and democratic boss: a model of neutrality, in political terms, for nearly half a century. Even now, well into a new century, over thirty years after the perverted director had died, he was still patriotically hailed as the responsible and visionary innovator of the modern FBI, the world’s most powerful police organization.

  She smiled. Then she burst out laughing.

  Enthusiasm. Self-confidence. The indomitable American superiority that was so infectious. She was young, in love, and she nearly became one of them.

  The notebook was still closed.

  She clicked on the link to the academy. The picture of the building, surrounded by a beautiful park full of autumn colors, made her stomach turn. Johanne didn’t want to remember Quantico, Virginia. She refused to remember Warren striding around the classroom; she didn’t want to see the thick gray bangs that fell over his eyes whenever he leaned over one of the students’ shoulders, usually hers, as he recited Longfellow and winked his right eye with the last line. Johanne heard him laugh, coarse, vigorous, and infectious. Even his laughter was American.

  The notebook was still unopened.

  Opening the notebook with all those addresses loaded with memories would turn back the clock. For thirteen years she had banished the thoughts of her months in Washington, weeks in Quantico, nights with Warren, picnics with wine and skinny-dipping in the river, and the catastrophic, unspeakable turn of events that had ruined everything and nearly broken her.

  She didn’t want to do this.

  She picked up the yellow book. It smelled of nothing. She touched the spiral binding with the tip of her tongue. Cold, sweet metal.

  The picture of the academy covered half the screen.

  The auditorium. The chapel. Hogan’s Alley. Demanding days, beers in the evening. Dinner with friends. Warren, always late, unfocused as he poured a pint of beer down his throat. They always left the others separately, with some minutes in between, as if no one knew.

  The notebook would remain unopened. It wasn’t necessary.

  Because she remembered.

  Now she knew what she had been looking for since Adam had come home on the evening of January 21, exactly one month ago, and told her about the body without a tongue in Lørenskog. The story had touched something in her, light and diffuse, like a cobweb in a dark attic. The feeling had bothered her again when Victoria Heinerback was killed and had been frighteningly intense when Vegard Krogh had been found a day and a half ago, dead, with a fancy pen stuck deep in his eye.

  But now she knew.

  A glimpse of the secret, forgotten chamber was enough.

  Ragnhild was crying. Johanne dropped the notebook into her bag, speedily exited the Web sites she had visited, logged off, and pulled on her jacket as she was leaving.

  “Oh,” Lina said, now fully dressed. “Are you leaving already?”

  “Thanks for your help,” Johanne kissed her on the cheek. “Have to run. Ragnhild’s crying!”

  “But you can—”

  The door shut.

  “Jesus,” Lina Skytter muttered and wandered back into the living room.

  She had never seen her friend in such a state.

  Calm, kind, predictable Johanne.

  Boring Johanne Vik.

  Mats Bohus had been in the hospital for a month now. Exactly a month. He liked numbers. Numbers didn’t argue. Dates followed one after the other, neat and orderly, without any discussion. He had come here four weeks and three days ago. It was five to seven in the morning by the time he finally made it to the entrance. He had walked and walked around Oslo all night. A cat had accompanied him the last part of the way, from Bislett, where he had stood looking at his own apartment for a while. There was no one there. It was completely dark. Of course
there was no one there; it was his apartment, and he lived alone. He was completely alone, and the cat was gray. It meowed. He hated cats.

  Of course they would come.

  He didn’t read the papers.

  Not the way things had turned out. It seemed as if the snow was never-ending. At night, when everyone else was asleep, he often sat watching the snowflakes dance in the night light. They weren’t really white. More gray, or luminescent blue. Every now and then someone popped in to check up on him. They said it wasn’t snowing. They just couldn’t see it.

  “Mats Bohus,” the large man said to him. “This is your lawyer, Kristoffer Nilsen. You know Dr. Bonheur. This is my colleague, Sigmund Berli. Do you need anything?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “I need a whole lot.”

  “I mean, would you like a coffee or something like that? Tea?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Water, perhaps?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Stubo poured him a glass of water from the carafe. It was a big glass, and Mats Bohus gulped it down in one sip.

  “This is not an ordinary hearing,” the policeman said. “Okay? You haven’t been charged with anything for the moment.”

  “Right, I see.”

  “If we do find it necessary to charge you later, we’ll certainly take your . . . illness into account. You’ll be taken care of. I just want to talk to you now. Get some answers.”

  “Understand.”

  “That’s why your doctor is here and, just in case, we asked Mr. Nilsen to attend. If you don’t like him”—Adam Stubo smiled—“you can have someone else. Later. If necessary.”

  Mats Bohus nodded.

  “As far as I understand, you were quite old when you discovered that you were adopted.”

  Mats Bohus nodded again. The man who called himself Stubo was sitting opposite him, in the doctor’s chair. Behind the doctor’s desk. He thought it was impertinent. It was a personal desk, with a picture of Dr. Bonheur’s wife and three children in a silver frame. Alex Bonheur was sitting on the windowsill. It looked uncomfortable. Behind him, through the window, Mats Bohus could see the day dawning, a gray, dull light.

  “Can you tell us a little bit about it?”