What Never Happens

by Anne Holt

  “Let me put it this way,” he said and turned his small, beady eyes on Adam. “You are one of my most valued colleagues. That is why I’ve sat here for more than an hour listening to this”—he pulled at his mustache, which curled cheerfully at the corners of his mouth and normally made him look like a fat, friendly uncle—“crap,” he concluded. “With all due respect.”

  No one said anything. Adam looked at his colleagues. Six of the most experienced investigators in Norway sat around the table and did not look up, instead playing with a cup or fiddling with eyeglasses. Lars Kirkeland appeared to be deeply engrossed in his doodles. Only Sigmund Berli looked up. His face was red and distressed, and he looked as if he was about to stand up. Instead, he put up his hand, as if he was asking permission to speak.

  “Is it not worth a try? I mean, we’re in deadlock as it is! If you ask me, this is—”

  “No one is asking you,” the boss said. “Enough has been said. Lars has given a detailed report of the investigation so far. Everyone here knows that there is no . . . hocus-pocus in police work. Meticulousness, people. Patience. No one knows better than we do that hard work and the systematic processing of all new evidence is the only way to go. We are a modern organization, but not so modern that we would throw weeks of intensive, good police work out the window because some woman feels and thinks and believes that maybe she knows.”

  “That’s my wife you’re talking about,” Adam said in a level voice. “And I will not allow you to call her ‘some woman.’”

  “Johanne is just some other woman,” the boss said, equally calm. “In this context, that is what she is. I apologize if my choice of words offends you. I have the greatest respect for your wife, and I am fully aware of how useful she was in that kidnapping case a few years ago. And that is one of the reasons why I have”—he passed his hand over his scalp again. The thin strands of hair looked like they’d been drawn on his head—“been tolerant,” he said, “of your somewhat dubious handling of case documents. But the case is very different now.”

  “Different!” Sigmund spluttered. “We know nothing. Not a damn thing! What Lars just presented was actually an endless string of technical findings that lead absolutely nowhere and tactical analyses that basically mean only one thing: we have no idea where to look! Jesus, we—”

  He stopped himself.

  “Sorry,” he said feebly. “But listen—”

  The boss raised his hand.

  “No,” he said. “The last thing we need now is more criticism in the press. If we go after this Wencke Berger . . .”

  He peered into the wastepaper basket as if the crime writer was in there, together with her name written in red felt-tip pen.

  “If we even look in her direction, all hell will break loose. She’s becoming extremely popular, as far as I can see. I saw her on TV twice yesterday, and according to NRK’s previews, she’s the main guest on First and Last tonight.”

  He sucked in through his teeth. The sound was annoying. Then he smacked his tongue and twirled his mustache with his thumb and forefinger.

  “And if, God forbid, there is any truth in this hypothesis of yours,” he added, looking at Adam, “in this absurd, spaced-out theory based on old lectures and boredom, then the woman’s a hard nut to crack.”

  “Therefore, it’s better not to try,” Adam said and looked straight back at him.

  “Spare me your sarcasm.”

  “But you’d rather have three unsolved murders than a fuss in the press,” Adam said and shrugged his shoulders. “Fine by me.”

  The head of NCIS stroked his immense belly. Stuck his thumb in under his tight belt. Sucked through his teeth again. Hoisted up his pants, which immediately slipped back down to the crevice below his gut.

  “Okay,” he said eventually. “I’ll give you two weeks. Three. For three weeks, you are absolved from doing anything other than finding out Wencke Berger’s movements around the times of the murders. And only that. Do you hear?”

  Adam nodded.

  “No other capers. No digging around in other parts of her life. I don’t want any trouble. Okay? Find out if her alibi does have any cracks. And my tip is, start with the last murder. With Håvard Stefansen. She was certainly close by when he was killed.”

  Adam nodded again.

  “If I hear one word that that woman is being investigated”—his face was beet red now, and the sweat was shining on his forehead—“from anyone other than the people around this table, who”—his fat little hand slammed down onto the table—“are damn well going to keep their mouths shut about this”—he took a deep breath and let it out between clenched teeth—“I will be very angry,” he concluded at last. “And you know what that means.”

  They all nodded like eager schoolboys.

  “And you,” the boss pointed at Sigmund, “if you absolutely must be Adam’s squire, that’s fine by me. Three weeks. And not a day more. Otherwise, the investigation continues as before, Lars. The meeting is closed.”

  The chairs scraped on the floor. Someone opened a window. Someone else laughed. Sigmund grinned and gestured that he had to go to his office to make a phone call.

  “Adam,” the boss said and pulled him to one side as the room emptied.

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t like that last case,” he said quietly.

  “Håvard Stefansen?”

  “No, the last case in that old lecture. The one that hasn’t happened yet. The fire. The policeman’s house getting burned down.”

  Adam didn’t answer. He just blinked and looked out the window, distracted.

  “I’ve asked Oslo police to do a few extra rounds,” the boss continued. “At night. To Haugesvei.”

  “Thank you,” Adam said and held out his hand. “Thank you. We’ve moved the kids to their grandparents’.”

  “Good,” muttered the boss and made as if to leave.

  But for a short second he hesitated, with Adam’s hand in his.

  “And that’s not because I believe in this profile of yours,” he said. “It’s just a precaution. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Adam said in earnest.

  “And,” the boss continued and whipped the cigar case from Adam’s breast pocket. “I’ll take this. Please stop smoking in your office. I get such a chewing out from Health and Safety.”

  “Okay,” Adam said again, but this time with a broad smile.

  He had imagined that it would be more glamorous. Maybe not quite Hollywood, with the stars’ names glittering on their doors, but an aura of something special. There was nothing special about the puce-colored room at the top of a long staircase, with tepid coffee in a thermos and tea bags in a paper cup. There were two benchlike sofas along one wall, where five people sat waiting for something. Adam had no idea what function they had. They weren’t famous, and they did nothing. Sat there in sloppy clothes drinking coffee while they looked at the clock, constantly. Just below the ceiling in the corner was a monitor in which he could see the studio. People with headsets wandered backward and forward as if they had all the time in the world.

  “Hi,” he mumbled to two uniformed policemen who were standing by the stairs, looking out for whoever approached.

  As security had been stepped up in connection with all NRK’s activities, it had been easy to gain access to the studio. He only needed to show his ID to the young man down in reception, and he was pointed in the right direction. He nodded and smiled, but no one seemed to notice. Some of them were talking, while the others ran in and out of the room. The chair opposite the monitor was empty. Adam sat down and grabbed a paper so that he wouldn’t look completely lost.

  “Adam Stubo,” said a voice, and someone touched his shoulder.

  He turned toward the voice and then got up.

  “Wencke Berger,” he said.

  “I get the impression you’re following me,” she said and smiled.

  “Not at all. Just tighter security measures.”

  He waved his hand in the direction of
the two policemen.

  “Well, that certainly is tight security measures,” she said and straightened her glasses. “Using an experienced and respected homicide investigator as security during the recording of a light entertainment program is impressive. But perhaps not the best use of resources?”

  She was still smiling. Her voice was friendly, almost teasing. But he caught a look behind her glasses that made him straighten up.

  “We have to use what we’ve got, you know.”

  He was sweating, so he took off his coat.

  “These days,” he added.

  He threw his coat over the back of the chair he had just gotten up from.

  “These days,” she repeated. “What sort of days are they?”

  “A murderer on the loose,” he said.

  “Or several,” she smiled. “As far as I can tell, you aren’t even sure if it’s one and the same man.”

  “I’m sure,” he answered. “One man. Or woman for that matter. Not to be sexist. These days.”

  Her cheeks split into dimples, from her eyes to her jaw.

  “Better to be on the safe side,” she nodded.

  She didn’t want to go. The anchorman came up the stairs, greeted everyone, had his nose powdered again by a sprightly young girl, then disappeared into the studio. Wencke Berger didn’t move. Her eyes were locked onto Adam’s face.

  “Nice pin you’ve got there,” he said with deliberation.

  “This one?” She patted her lapel without looking at it. “Bought it in a secondhand shop in New York.”

  “It’s got a special history,” he said.

  “Yes,” she nodded. “That’s why I bought it.”

  “So you know . . . you know why the laurels have been replaced with—”

  “Eagle feathers? The Chief, of course!”

  Her laughter was soft and dark. The chatter in the room had died down, as if their conversation fascinated more than just the two of them.

  “The Chief?” Adam asked. “Do you know him?”

  “Warren Scifford? No. That would be an exaggeration. I know of him, naturally. Have probably read everything he’s written. I once had the pleasure of meeting him. At St. Olaf College. In Minnesota. I followed a series of lectures there. I’m sure he wouldn’t remember me. But it’s impossible to forget Warren Scifford.”

  She looked down at the pin at last. Stroked it with a stubby finger.

  “Ask your wife,” she said lightly without looking up. “Warren is a man you never forget.”

  Everything was spinning for Adam. His head felt light, he put his hand to his throat, and tried to swallow.

  “But . . . know?” he stuttered incoherently.

  She looked at the ceiling as if she was savoring her last words.

  “No,” she replied.

  Then she leaned toward him. Her face was barely a hand’s breadth from his.

  “What are you doing here, Stubo? Truthfully, I mean?”

  It was uncomfortably quiet. The makeup girls’ chat from the adjoining room filled the stillness with a slight hum. Her eyes were darker now, almost black behind the clear lenses of her glasses. He noticed that she had a fleck on her iris, a white patch that was eating into her left eye; he couldn’t see anything but the yellowish-white defect in Wencke Berger’s staring eye.

  “We have to go in now,” whispered a woman wearing big headphones and holding a timetable under her arm. “We’re going on air.”

  Wencke Berger straightened up and pushed her bangs away from her face; they fell down again.

  “Are you coming?” asked the production assistant and pulled her by the arm.

  “There are lots of Norwegians at St. Olaf,” said Wencke Berger without showing any sign of moving. “And people of Norwegian descent. Maybe that’s why—”

  “I’m sorry, but we really must—”

  The production assistant put her hand on her arm. Wencke took three slow steps backward.

  “Perhaps that’s why Warren always ends his lectures by saying—”

  “Come,” said the woman with the headphones, obviously annoyed now.

  “That Johanne Vik is the best profiler he’s ever met. Or maybe it’s just true.”

  Then she disappeared into the studio. The heavy steel door swung slowly shut behind her.

  “Is everything okay, sir?” the younger policeman asked. He seemed worried and offered Adam a glass of water. “Detective Inspector? Is everything . . .”

  But the detective inspector was glued to the monitor. The titles were rolling, a hare and a tortoise danced around in a psychedelic labyrinth and forced Adam to lean against a chair for support. The host appeared on the floor to enthusiastic applause from the carefully primed studio audience.

  Wencke Berger sat down.

  Her suit was deep red.

  The host laughed at something she said. Adam wasn’t listening. He was staring at a small pin that was nearly invisible on the screen. Only every now and then the metal would flash in the studio lights when the author moved, when she leaned forward as the host did. They exchanged confidences in front of a million viewers, and Adam heard nothing until the fair-haired man asked, “And what did you do down there? On the Riviera, I mean, in the middle of winter.”

  “I’ve been writing,” she said. “I’m working on a novel about a crime writer who starts killing people because she’s bored.”

  Everyone laughed. They laughed in the studio, a vibration, a rumbling over the floor. They laughed in the small room where Adam was standing, laughed long and loud, and the host laughed longest and loudest.

  “You can say what you like,” Wencke Berger concluded when things quieted down. She put her hand on the man’s thigh, soft and maternal. “If there’s anyone who knows what there is to know about murder, it’s us. And what’s more”—she smiled and finished—“we know how to get away with it.”

  “God damn it, Adam. That’s some story.”

  In a house in Sagveien, just behind the old mills by the Aker River, a good fire was burning in the brick fireplace. It was late at night. Adam was leaning back in a deep wing chair. When he closed his eyes, he could hear the waterfall at Mølla, where the river roared toward the fjord some miles further south, swollen by the spring thaw. Outside the windows, it was dark and wet. Inside it was warm and sleepy.

  Adam had told the story that he wasn’t supposed to tell.

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s quite a tale.”

  The other man got up and came back with two glasses from the kitchen. Adam could hear the ice cubes clinking.

  “Here,” said Bjørn Busk as he handed him a generous glass of whiskey before putting another log on the fire and sitting down in the other chair. “Is Johanne at home alone?”

  “No, she’s staying with her parents. But only for one night. She has this idea that Wencke Berger knows where we are at any given time, so she doesn’t want to stay in the same place as the kids. It’s the two of us the woman is after. Not the children. We’ll stay at home. Kristiane will stay with Isak for a while, and Johanne’s mother will look after Ragnhild, at night that is. God knows how long we can stand it.”

  Bjørn Busk put his feet on an ottoman and took a sip of whiskey.

  “You’re absolutely convinced,” he said thoughtfully.

  “That she’s out to get us? No. But I am one hundred percent certain that she killed Victoria Heinerback, Vegard Krogh, and Håvard Stefansen. And I’ve never actually”—he stopped and stared at the light playing in the amber drink—“said that before,” he finished. “That I’m certain that she’s guilty. In a case that is chemically cleansed of evidence.”

  “I’m glad you said that yourself,” Bjørn Busk smiled. “Because as far as I can tell, there’s nothing to give reasonable cause for suspicion.”

  “Which is why I’ve come to you. In the middle of the night. Without calling.”

  “No problem. After Sara moved out—”

  “I’m so sorry, Bjørn. I should’ve gotten in touch
when I heard. I should’ve—”

  “Forget it. That’s life. We all run around. Are busy. Have enough with our lives without having to get involved in other people’s problems. I’m fine, Adam. In a way . . . I’ve gotten over it. And I really appreciate your coming here tonight.”

  Bjørn Busk smiled and put down his glass on the small table between them. He was a big man, the same age as Adam. They had been friends ever since they went into their first classroom together in 1962, with short hair and blue bags slung over their narrow, suntanned shoulders.

  “It could be said,” he mused, “that our criminal justice system doesn’t really take account of motiveless murders. If there is no real evidence or it’s weak, we tend to build on the motive. I’ve never quite seen it like that before, but”—he took a drink. A deep furrow appeared in his brow—“as normal citizens have to be protected from arbitrary interference by the authorities, by setting standards for reasonable doubt before an actual investigation can be instigated—”

  “Enough, that’s all a bit legal, Bjørn. The point is that if we can’t find a motive, we can’t do a damn thing. Unless of course the murderer is caught with a knife dripping with blood, his pants down, or by three witnesses with cameras.”

  “Perhaps a bit extreme, the way you put it. But yes, that’s roughly what I meant.”

  They chuckled. Then it was quiet.

  “You’re asking me to do something that’s actually illegal,” Bjørn said.

  Adam opened his mouth to protest.

  “Not illegal,” ran through his mind. “I’m just asking you to stretch the limits a bit. To look through your fingers. Take a chance, that’s all. In the name of justice.”

  “Yes,” he said instead. “I guess I am.”

  “There are no grounds for compulsory disclosure. Absolutely none whatsoever. Or for disclosure at all, for that matter.”

  “Without a court order, I won’t have a chance of checking her account,” Adam said. He could feel the heat from the whiskey burning his cheeks. “And without checking her account, I haven’t got a chance in hell of finding out where she was when the murders took place.”