In Dust and Ashes

by Anne Holt

  Besides, the letter had come in useful later and was now hidden in a double-bottomed safe no one had any idea existed.

  “Hello!” Maria yelled, slapping both hands on the metal door. “I’m dying of thirst!”

  No one came to give her water. Not for hours yet.

  “Convictions for the whole gang of them,” Kjell Bonsaksen said, clapping his hands as he entered Henrik’s office without knocking. “Congratulations!”

  Henrik looked up from his computer screen and smiled at the retired Superintendent.

  “Well, really we shouldn’t congratulate one another on achieving convictions,” he answered. “But thanks. No one was found unfit to plead, either. How’s it going down in France?”

  “Brilliant, thanks,” Bonsaksen said, sounding pleased, as he sat down in the empty chair. “We’ve ordered three breeding animals now. Australian Cobberdogs – one from Australia and two from the Netherlands. It’s going well. And then there’s the weather! If it’s not exactly summer at the moment, at least it’s a vast improvement on the deplorable weather here.”

  He pointed apathetically at the gray light outside and fished out a cigar butt from his breast pocket. Henrik could swear that it was the same one as last time.

  It was just after eleven o’clock.

  “You’re very capable, Holme. Really smart. Thanks to you, twenty-two convicted terrorists are now under lock and key and you’re due much of the credit. Take it while it’s going.”

  He rubbed his face with his right hand and shook his head, as if struggling to stay awake.

  “Have you been equally clever with the Abrahamsen case?” he asked, looking around.

  “The ring binder’s at home,” Henrik reassured him. “Safe and sound. We’ve actually taken a really good look at it, both Hanne Wilhelmsen and me. And we’ve made quite a bit of progress. We’ve come a good distance, in fact.”

  “And what do you think you’ve found? Was I right? Is the poor guy innocent after all?”

  Henrik gave a faint smile and slammed his heels together under the desk.

  “I think so. I really do think so. At first I thought it was a case of suicide, but eventually I arrived at–”

  His cellphone rang.

  “Excuse me,” Henrik said to Kjell Bonsaksen before answering the phone. “Hello, Hanne.”

  The conversation lasted six and a half minutes, though Henrik did not contribute anything other than a brief yes now and again and a what? on a couple of occasions. Bonsaksen helped himself to a cup of coffee from the Moccamaster machine and scrolled through his own cellphone for news, without making any move to leave Henrik to take the call in peace.

  Finally it ended and Henrik got to his feet.

  “You look very pale!” Kjell Bonsaksen glanced up at him with an anxious expression as he returned the cigar to his pocket. “Is something wrong?”

  Henrik crossed to a hook by the door and grabbed his leather jacket.

  “I need to find out where Jonas Abrahamsen lives,” he said quietly as he tapped the back of his head. Stupid, stupid.

  “He lives in Maridalen. I checked it out after I bumped into him at the gas station here at the beginning of the month. Why do you ask?”

  “Hanne’s asked me to bring him in for interview as quickly as I can. He’s innocent, Bonsaksen. It really does look to me as if you were absolutely right. Hanne wants him in before the story leaks to the media.”

  “What the hell …” The retired policeman leapt up faster than anyone would have thought possible. “I’m coming with you,” he said firmly. “Then you can tell me the whole story on the way.”

  Henrik hesitated for a few seconds before pulling on his jacket and winding his scarf around his neck.

  “Okay,” he said, nodding. “It’s probably best if you tag along.”

  “Today I’m not going to stay here any more,” Hedda said happily and took a big bite of her apple. “Today I’m getting picked up!”

  “Yes, today you won’t have to stay here any longer,” Jonas said, with a nod, and he held her under her chin as he looked into her eyes. “But are you sure you don’t want to stay here, then? Stay with Jonas?”

  Hedda laughed. Her gleaming white milk teeth sparkled in the light from the shoemaker’s lamp above the kitchen table.

  “Nooo,” she whined. “I want to go home to Mummy and Grampa. Oy!”

  She pulled away from his grasp and ran to the window.

  “Police!” she yelled with delight. “Maybe they’re looking for burglars!”

  Jonas walked calmly across and peered out.

  In the distance, on the other side of the field at the bottom of the road, two police cars were driving, approaching quietly, but with blue lights pulsing in the gray morning darkness. The snow that had fallen in such quantities last week was now almost entirely gone. Clumps were dotted here and there across the field, and dirty gray snowdrifts still flanked the roads here in the valley.

  “They’re probably hunting for burglars, right enough,” Jonas told her. “And now you and I will just go back to the bedroom.”

  “No,” the three-year-old complained. “I want to watch. I want to go out. Why can’t we go out, Jonas?”

  “Because I’ve got something important to do,” Jonas said. “Come on now, sweetheart. We’ll go into the bedroom.”

  “Well, that’s certainly some crazy story,” Bonsaksen said, indicating left up Sandermosveien. “The worst one I’ve ever heard. Poor, poor Jonas. And did Maria Kvam really use the introduction to Anna’s genuine suicide letter as a template for the one she forged?”

  “Yes. She wanted to make it … more authentic? In any case, the first four sentences were identical, word for word. I’ve read them before. Very religious, and obviously influenced by the Book of Job.”

  “But did Anna take her own life, or was she murdered by Maria?’

  “That remains to be seen. Anyway, at least there can no longer be any doubt that Anna planned to commit suicide. Whether Maria beat her to it, or whether something else happened, it’s impossible to say. In the meantime. It’s clear, though, that Maria is involved in some way or another. She had the suicide letter hidden in her safe.”

  “Incredible,” Kjell Bonsaksen murmured. “But maybe not, all the same. History is too full of such stories. Anna took care of her inheritance. Maria frittered it away and was never satisfied. Do you know …”

  He had slowed down. They were driving in his personal vehicle, which was to be sold in the course of that week.

  “Maria Kvam was nothing but a fucking drifter,” he said, running the fingers of his left hand over the bridge of his nose. “All her life. Never passed her exams. Spent all the money she inherited. Got rich when her sister died. Squandered money when she had it, and when Iselin was about to swan off and keep a small fortune, she made damn sure she kept that as well.”

  “More of an out-and-out criminal than just a drifter,” Henrik said. “I think we have some colleagues behind us.”

  He peered out through the side window. Two patrol cars with blue lights flashing, without sirens. Suddenly the blue lights were switched off.

  “We do a lot of emergency squad training out on these roads,” Bonsaksen said. “Here we are! Nearly there. Henrik–”

  “Yes?”

  “I should have looked more closely at Maria Kvam. What a fucking slip-up. But you know, when not even Jonas’s lawyer did that, and–”

  “She had an alibi. A watertight alibi. Seemingly. And Jonas lied, in addition to being verifiably at the crime scene at the worst possible time. For him, I mean. And you.”

  Bonsaksen turned into a narrow road leading to a farmyard. The windows in the small farmhouse were brightly lit. The track was icy and rutted. The snow had not been cleared when it was dry, and had subsequently melted before freezing again.

  “I’m looking forward to this,” Bonsaksen said softly, switching off the engine. “Think what it must be like to hear … after all these years. After
having lost everything.”

  He sniffed noisily and unfastened his seatbelt.

  “Could I lead the way?” he asked, seeming almost disconcerted. “You see, after I met him on New Year’s Day, I’ve sometimes dreamed about … I’ve thought that–”

  “Of course you can,” Henrik said. “But you’re an experienced policeman. Don’t promise too much. Stick to the main point.”

  “Which is that we’re convinced of his innocence,” Kjell Bonsaksen said, smiling. “I’m looking forward to it like a child to his birthday! Thanks very much.”

  They stepped out of the car. The farmyard was covered in ice. Henrik hopped from one bare patch to another in the direction of the front door. Kjell Bonsaksen wobbled unsteadily with his legs splayed, moving across the ice in the same direction.

  “Are they coming here?” Henrik called out in surprise, pointing.

  One of the police cars had stopped with its hood turned into the driveway, less than a hundred meters away.

  “They’re probably just turning,” Bonsaksen shouted back. “Wait for me, and then we’ll knock on the door.”

  He laughed, so excited he almost couldn’t bear to wait.

  They had arrived, just as it had been decreed by fate that they would, sooner or later. Four days and nights was what it had taken. Jonas had spent four days and nights with a child who looked like Dina, and they were the best days of his life since he lost her.

  He had smiled. Even laughed sometimes. They had played and eaten meals together. At nights she had snuggled up beside him, just as daughters creep up behind their fathers, shielded from everything evil and wicked.

  Of course they had come. It was only strange that it had taken them so long.

  Someone was knocking on the door of the little, unlocked porch.

  Jonas opened the door and recognized Kjell Bonsaksen. The other man was slim and looked bashful. They asked if they could come in. Bonsaksen was smiling. Jonas had never seen him smile before, but now he was grinning so broadly that Jonas backed away. Both men stepped into the room that was Jonas Abrahamsen’s living room and kitchen combined.

  Bonsaksen was talking. Jonas could not properly hear what he was saying. It was as if someone had slipped a glass jar over his head, and it was so cold inside there. Cold and incredibly silent. He looked at the policeman’s mouth. Tried to see all the words streaming out that he could suddenly hear, but that did not convey any meaning.

  “Would you like to sit down?” the other man said.

  He had kind eyes. Jonas did not know his name. Maybe he had mentioned it to him when they arrived. He could not remember. He hadn’t heard, and he put both hands over his ears as he sank down on to the settee.

  He caught the words “miscarriage of justice”.

  The stout policeman kept talking and now there was something that might be about Anna. Or about somebody called Maria.

  No one was talking about Dina, though, and Jonas rocked from side to side on the settee as he clutched his hands tightly to his ears.

  He did not quite follow what Bonsaksen was talking about, and he didn’t dare listen. Not even when he began to hear. The policeman said that he was innocent. He said that Jonas had spent eight years in prison for something he hadn’t done, but Jonas did not want to hear it. It was too late now.

  There was another knock at the door.

  The men turned around in astonishment, and Jonas rose from the settee.

  “She’s lying in there,” he said hoarsely, pointing at the low, shabby wooden door leading into a bedroom with a bed he had built himself. “She’s lying in there and she’s dead, and I’m really sorry.”

  The door crashed open. Policemen poured in and now there was noise everywhere. Loud, piercing, shouting, murderous sounds, and Jonas covered his ears.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated though no one could hear him.

  The slim man with the kind eyes rushed to the bedroom door.

  “It’s too late,” Jonas said, bowing his head. “Everything is too late.”

  Henrik forced a finger beneath the tight belt. He screamed furious commands at the two uniformed men who had followed him, keep away, open that window, call for an ambulance, as he tugged and tugged at the brown leather strap around the neck of the child in Jonas’s bed. Henrik could neither pull his finger out nor push it in. He shrieked so loudly that everything fell silent, and he growled and snarled as he tugged at the leather, but the child was still dead.

  A knife appeared out of nowhere. Grabbing it, Henrik sliced along his own finger, where a few millimeters of air between the child’s skin and the coarse leather had opened up. He cut himself as he twisted the blade into the leather, but the belt was now starting to give.

  He was bleeding copiously by the time the leather snapped.

  He kissed the little girl with deep breaths, and applied his stiff fingers with rhythmic brutality to her heart. Kissed and pressed and prayed to God.

  “It’s no use,” Bonsaksen said, placing a hand on his back as he attempted to breathe life into her for perhaps the tenth time. “It’s too late.”

  Hedda would not wake. She was spattered with Henrik’s blood, the gash on his finger was gaping right down to the bone, and he could hear a man weep in the living room.

  “No,” Henrik snarled, striking the child’s chest with his fist as he uttered one syllable at a time: Noth-ing. Is. Ev-er. Too. Late.

  Once again he leaned over her. Covered the girl’s mouth with his own and blew. Then he straightened his back, ready to thump, he would never stop, there was always some hope, and he refused point blank when Bonsaksen tried to drag him away.

  “That’s enough now, Henrik. She’s dead.”

  Eventually Henrik let his arms fall. The uniformed policemen withdrew silently from the room.

  “No one could have done more,” Bonsaksen told him. “You did everything you could.”

  Henrik Holme did not answer. He slowly crouched down. With his good hand on the three-year-old’s forehead, he was whispering words of comfort, almost a lullaby, as if the child might be his very own.

  Hedda Bengtson had opened her eyes.