In Dust and Ashes

by Anne Holt

  He looked at the letter now lying askew on the tabletop.

  “How can it have taken two different people to write a suicide letter? And why? And why on earth could the writing so obviously belong to Iselin Havørn all the way through? And what’s more …”

  Fortunately this time she did not take the opportunity to interrupt him when he paused for thought before continuing: “Iselin Havørn was a damned racist who incited hatred, conspiracy theories and antagonism. She stood for everything you despise and oppose. Now she’s dead. Why … why are you so intent on showing that a bitch like her did not take her own life, but was …”

  Now he hesitated too long.

  “Murdered,” Hanne finished for him. “I believe she was murdered. And no one should be murdered. No one. No matter who. I don’t have any answers to those other questions of yours. But we’ll find the answers. You and I, Henrik. And the first thing you’re going to do is to investigate Iselin Havørn. Dig up absolutely everything you can. In the meantime …”

  She drew the thick bundle of printouts closer.

  “… I’ll delve even more thoroughly into Tyrfing’s realm. Somewhere in Iselin’s life lies the answer to why she was killed. If we find that, we’ll find the perpetrator. Elementary, my dear Dr. Watson. Elementary.”

  The fact that Sherlock Holmes had never said anything of the sort, and strictly speaking it was the Oslo Police Chief who decided what he could and could not do, were points on which Henrik Holme wisely kept his own counsel.

  “Okay,” he said and, rising from his seat, he left for home.

  FRIDAY JANUARY 15, 2016

  When Christel Bengtson finished the first recording of the day at twenty to twelve in the morning, she checked her cellphone for the first time since breakfast. There were four new text messages, three of them from her best friend. The messages all exhorted her to get her hands on a copy of that day’s edition of the gossip magazine Se og Hør as fast as she could.

  It turned out to be not too difficult.

  Piles of weekly magazines were scattered through the largest of the buses parked in Sørkedalen that was used as a really cramped canteen for the film crew. Christel had never quite known why, until one of her more experienced colleagues explained it to her. The production company had an arrangement with most of the magazines. They provided exclusive interviews with actors and received positive reviews of their series and free magazines in exchange.

  Only then did Christel understand why the producer had been so unbelievably annoyed when she had refused to be interviewed. Se og Hør had also dangled the inducement of a free trip to Bali for her, Hedda, and her father as soon as filming was over, but Christel had stood her ground. An in-depth interview in the VG Helg weekend supplement would suffice, according to her. The producer had made a fuss for several days before finally giving up.

  Se og Hør lay at the top of the pile. Christel Bengtson was today’s front-page headline.

  Making Millions was splashed inside a bright yellow star above a portrait photo taken three months ago in connection with the start of filming. Diagonally above the lower part of the picture big red letters screamed: Christel Bengtson – Blog Queen Moves to TV Screen.

  Groaning aloud, she began to leaf through it.

  Over a five-page spread, the magazine had stolen comments and photographs, some from one source, some from another, and cobbled it all together into what passed for an article. Incredibly enough, it all appeared perfectly seamless, Christel concluded with a sigh after a first reading. You would have to be a terribly critical reader to notice that in a couple of instances it was clear that the quotes had not actually been given to Se og Hør. One of the double page spreads was dominated by a picture of the apartment block in Geitmyrsveien, taken after dark. In the evening, obviously, since most of the windows were brightly lit. She saw that the curtains at her own living room window were closed. When she held the magazine all the way up to her eyes and at a particular angle to get the best possible light, she detected a tiny gap in the curtains. And a hand. She knew it was her hand.

  The man in the white delivery van had only wanted a photograph of the apartment block. The guy who had scared her witless had only been a wretched Se og Hør photographer. She felt relieved, quite literally – her breathing was easier, and she noticed her shoulders drop.

  She could live with this article. The fundamental tone was positive, and none of the content was specifically wrong. As for herself, she found the report pretty innocuous, but if that was what they wanted to use to fill their columns, then be my guest.

  And it contained no photos of Hedda.

  Christel tossed the magazine into a half-full wastepaper basket and left the bus. She could manage a walk down to Røa for lunch before the next scene. As she strolled across the parking lot, taking deep breaths of the raw, cold air, she made a decision.

  She would stop feeling watched.

  Everything had an explanation, and that creeping sense of being followed was only her imagination. Probably it had something to do with her mother leaving her when she was small, just as a psychologist had once tried to explain to her. She had become so well known that she just had to live with the reality that there would always be photographers around. At the end of the day, they did not mean her any harm.

  No one was out to get her, she decided there and then.

  And felt immensely relieved.

  Only four people turned up in addition to Maria herself.

  Thank God.

  And not a single journalist, despite Iselin Havørn’s life and suicide still being a hot topic in the public arena. That day’s Aftenposten published a feature full of stinging denunciation of the brutal campaign against the sixty-two-year-old immigration critic. The writer shared many of Iselin’s viewpoints, but used a slightly different turn of phrase and moreover, had never made any attempt to hide his identity. That had given him free access to the country’s newspaper columns in recent years. In the beginning, Iselin had followed him with interest, but she had lost faith in him along the way. He was too wishy-washy, in her opinion – far too wishy-washy. She would not have thought so today, it had struck Maria Kvam as she skimmed the article over the meager breakfast she had managed to force down before leaving for the chapel. His fulmination against the Norwegian authorities in general and the tyrants of sweetness and light in particular had been allocated three whole pages in the newspaper. The author concluded that the treatment of Iselin Havørn had constituted an even more excessive and acutely worrying curtailment of freedom of speech in Norway. Furthermore, the witch-hunt would lead to increased numbers of a large, expanding and totally legitimate group of anti-immigration commentators feeling hounded into expressing themselves under a cloak of anonymity. They would simply have to make a better job of hiding their identities than Iselin Havørn had done.

  It crossed Maria’s mind that Iselin would have liked the article as she folded the newspaper and dropped it into the bag of papers beside the fireplace.

  Apart from herself, only Halvor Stenskar and three employees from the VitaeBrass administration section had gathered to accompany Iselin Havørn to her grave.

  They had all succeeded in keeping their mouths shut about the time and place, and the funeral directors were obviously trustworthy. The man who had expressed a scintilla of disapproval when Maria had chosen the casket pranced discreetly around them in the minutes before the organ music struck up and Iselin Havørn’s final journey began. The chapel was decorated with candles, but only a single wreath of flowers. Enormous, it was composed of red and white roses, and the wording on the broad silk ribbon was printed in gold letters on a white background: With eternal gratitude from colleagues and friends.

  Maria had ordered it and VitaeBrass had paid the bill.

  Halvor Stenskar was the only person on the front pew with Maria. Near the end of the eulogy, he leaned close to her.

  “I had the distinct impression that Iselin wanted to be cremated? We once talked ab
out it, on a boat trip–”

  “She’s to be buried,” Maria said so loudly that the pastor stopped in surprise for a moment before expertly picking up the thread again and continuing.

  Soon it was all over.

  Halvor Stenskar and his employees carried out the coffin. Maria walked immediately behind them. On the way to the open grave she stared down at her own feet and concentrated intently on putting one foot in front of the other without keeling over. Not until the casket was lowered into the dark, wet earth that even in January was soft and crumbly did Maria lift her gaze. The very last she saw of the great love of her life was a box of the simplest particleboard.

  At last it was over and done with.

  Hedda had slept well ever since she had been tucked in at around seven. She frequently woke again about midnight, mainly because for the past week she had been trying to do without a night diaper.

  Without much success so far.

  Bengt Bengtson had patiently changed bedclothes and washed her draw-sheet every morning without fail. Even though the little girl went to the toilet in the middle of the night, she slept so soundly near morning that it all went haywire. Every time. Her grandfather consoled and encouraged and washed the bed linen, still persisting in his delight at being able to stay at home with a totally unexpected toddler in his old age.

  He loved this child.

  In a way, it was even better this time around.

  When Christel had been born, he was admittedly already past forty, but still becoming established in life. It had cost him a fortune to take over his childhood home in Nordberg. Even though both his sister and his much younger half-brother had been generous in terms of how much they were willing to accept for their share of the property, he and Eleonora were left with a mountain of debt. When Christel was born, he had taken all the overtime he could get, and at times days would pass between the occasions he came home before his daughter had gone to bed. Eleonora soon had enough of being mother to a toddler. She did a runner from the little family, the house and the remainder of the debt, and Bengt was left alone with Christel. So much of his time since then had been spent taking care of his daughter’s material needs that he had lost out on far too much. All the same, things had gone well, he often comforted himself, and Christel had turned into a mature, responsible young woman who, on top of everything else, provided well for herself and her daughter at the age of only twenty-two.

  With Hedda, everything was different.

  It was true that she attended the kindergarten in St. Hanshaugen, at Christel’s insistence. For his part, Bengt felt that a few hours a day was more than enough of socializing with other children. He dropped her off late and picked her up early on four out of five days in the working week: Thursdays belonged to Christel. In addition, he frequently gave Hedda a day off without Christel having any knowledge of it. Now the toddler had become so proficient at speaking that he had to talk his own daughter round. Last week she had been annoyed with him when Hedda told her how they had spent the day. Grampa and the little girl had visited the Oslo Reptile Park, baked buns and then watched Disney’s Frozen for the umpteenth time.

  A brilliant January day for them both.

  It was now well past eleven on a Friday night, and he sat reading John Grisham’s latest thriller. Jazz was playing on the radio, and he had lit two scented candles on the coffee table. On Fridays, he always spent Hedda’s time at Haugen kindergarten making the apartment shining clean. Christel thought they should employ a cleaner, but he had never capitulated on that point.

  People should clean up their own dirt. You should never be too grand to do that.

  His teacup was empty, and he wondered whether to treat himself to a glass of whisky. As Christel was at a party, he had not touched any alcohol. The habit had persisted since the time of Christel’s high school graduation that she had spent with a huge belly, and been reinforced for a while when Hedda had suffered two attacks of false croup within a short period. It had scared them witless, both he and Christel. Bengt Bengtson was keen to be in a permanently fit state to drive, unless everything was shipshape and everyone was at home.

  However, maybe he could make an exception tonight.

  The NRK Jazz station was playing Chet Baker, and he decided to pour himself a tiny dram to savor before going to bed. Whenever Christel was at a party, he let Hedda sleep in his double bed. That was the safest way, both he and Christel felt. By the grace of God, he was a sound sleeper, and a number of times he had failed to wake when Hedda began to toddle around, slightly confused and fast asleep. She was far safer sleeping by his side.

  The phone rang.

  Bengt was in the process of pouring from a bottle he had held on to since before his granddaughter’s birth. He looked up at the telephone, half in surprise and half in annoyance. Of course, it might be Christel, and most of all he felt worried as he put down his glass and crossed to the armchair to take the call. He did not recognize the number. It was far too late to phone anyone you didn’t know well, and he was almost angry when he picked up the phone and barked: “Bengt Bengtson!”

  A woman’s voice answered at the other end.

  “Good evening,” she said. “This is Turid Belsvik from Hamar. So good of you to take the call, Bengt. I’m really sorry for phoning so late.”

  “Yes, it’s nearly half past eleven.”

  He did not know anyone in Hamar. He could not bear the idea that someone he had never met should call him by his first name just like that.

  “Yes of course,” the cheerful voice answered. “But we up here thought you might like to hear this news straight away. Are you on your own at home?”

  “Yes. Not really, as a matter of fact. What’s this about?”

  “I’m calling from Norsk Tipping, the Norwegian National Lottery, you see. And we’d like to ask if you’ve submitted a few lines in this evening’s EuroJackpot?”

  Bengt felt unusually hot.

  “Yes. Yes, I have. Ten regular lines that I place for five weeks at a time. On the Internet, you know. I have one of those …”

  He began to feel faint. He was lightheaded, and his feet felt heavy as lead. He sank down into the chair.

  “Did you say you had someone with you?” Turid from Hamar asked him; her voice suddenly sounded very distant. “Or are you on your own?”

  “I’m … my grandchild is sleeping, but my daughter will be home soon. What … what’s this all about?”

  “You’ve probably already guessed. I’m phoning to tell you you’ve won.”

  “I’ve … have I won, did you say? The EuroJackpot?”

  “Yes. When will your daughter actually get home?”

  “I don’t know. But she’s not usually late. What prize have I … I mean, this week it’s the maximum sum, isn’t it? I surely haven’t–”

  “Yes you have, Bengt.”

  The woman was unable to hold back a burst of cackling laughter.

  “Norwegians have won the main prize in the EuroJackpot before, but never when it’s been at its highest.”

  Once again she laughed with delight.

  Bengt rose gingerly from his seat. His legs held. As he walked slowly across the room to his whisky glass, he heard someone enter the front door. From the hallway he heard Christel whisper a hello: she didn’t want to wake Hedda. Bengt listened for a long time to Turid from Hamar, punctuated only by a couple of minor questions from him. Christel came into the living room and, taken aback, stood watching him until the conversation was over. Bengt let the hand holding the phone drop slowly. He put the glass of whisky to his mouth and drank it all down in a single gulp.

  “I’ve won the star prize in the EuroJackpot,” he said. “We’re rich, Christel. We are 763 million kroner richer than we were only an hour ago.”

  He lifted the bottle of thirty-year-old Glen MacAdam and indulged himself with another wee dram.

  SATURDAY JANUARY 16, 2016

  The frost had arrived at last. When Jonas woke around six o’clock wi
th a thumping headache, it was still dark outside. Nevertheless he could see that the trees in the forest on the other side of the yard were glazed with frost. The sky had cleared and the ice crystals glistened in the moonlight.

  Winter was finally here.

  Not that it made any difference.

  For once he had a hangover. On Friday evening he had watched five episodes of The Walking Dead. He had seen them before. Lots of times, and he had no idea why he had decided to view them again. It was at least somewhere to fix his eyes while he drank. When an old bottle of red wine was empty, he attacked a half-bottle of vodka he had bought in Sweden a long time ago. He had drained that too by the time he tumbled into bed.

  His body was screaming for water and more sleep.

  Fortunately he had some cola in the fridge. He drank a bottle in record time and chewed down three Paracet tablets lying loose in an eggcup on the shelf above the cooker. Naked, he stood staring down at his milky-white, skinny torso.

  He could play a part in The Walking Dead.

  Anyway, he felt more dead than alive as he stumbled across the ice-cold floor to make some coffee. After two or three cups he had hopes of falling asleep again, as sometimes, paradoxically enough, a dose of caffeine was the only possible way for him to calm down.

  His headache was still excruciating. He grabbed a pair of jogging trousers from the back of a chair and pulled them on without bothering with boxer shorts. A sweater lay on the floor beside the cooker. When he slipped it on, he held his breath to fend off the pungent smell. He did not have a washing machine and it had been some time since he was able to muster the energy for a trip to the coin-operated launderette in Thorvald Meyers gate. The bag of dirty laundry beside the bed was so overflowing that it had begun to stink too.

  He switched on his computer while he waited for the water to boil. His eyes were so dry that he had to squeeze out tears by screwing them up several times in order to see.

  At least that old crow Iselin was no longer headline news.