Odd Numbers

by Anne Holt

  It had been an eternity since Billy T. had felt so helpless. Admittedly his life had not been particularly easy for a long time. The spring of 2003 had been spent on self-reproach and an increasingly all-consuming attempt to persuade the seriously injured Hanne Wilhelmsen to speak to him. She had refused to see him, even for a few minutes, just enough to ask for her forgiveness. For a long time, he had felt that it had been his fault. He was the one who should have prevented it all.

  He had come crashing into that damned cottage in Nordmarka a few seconds too late to prevent her from being shot. He had spent the next six months reliving the episode, image by image, over and over again—especially at night, when it became difficult to sleep. He looked for the mistakes he must have made. The opportunities he had had to stop her. It was completely reckless of Hanne to rush in to confront a corrupt, fugitive police officer, guilty of murder, probably armed, and at the very least pretty desperate. He and Hanne had heard the helicopters, reinforcements were only minutes away, and Billy T. had slipped on the ice. If he hadn’t fallen on the ice, he would have been able to stop her. Hanne had said something about him needing to get crampons. She had smiled, he thought he recalled, before she had plunged right in to face the man who had almost killed her.

  Billy T. had not stopped reproaching himself until the arrival of summer. He had only slipped. It hadn’t been anyone’s fault. He had come a few seconds too late. It was impossible to turn back the clock. In the end, he gave up his persistent attempts to meet Hanne. Actually Billy T. had given up on everything to some extent. Life took its own course, but it was never like before. Yet another broken relationship followed, and yet another child was born in the wake of a three-week affair that was doomed from the very first night. He had moved a few times. His maintenance obligations had not begun to be manageable until the eldest boy turned eighteen and was no longer his financial responsibility. He saw his children only when absolutely necessary—something that grew increasingly seldom with each year that passed. Although he spent more and more time at Grønlandsleiret 44 and sometimes spent the night there on some random sofa, he was never the old Billy T. What had previously been a productive, if casual, relationship with rules and routines eventually changed into something resembling breaches of the law, and then withdrawal from the police force.

  In truth, life had never been the same as when Hanne Wilhelmsen was queen of Oslo Police District and he was her armor bearer.

  But he had managed. In a way.

  Now he didn’t even know what to do with his hands.

  “I know I’ve not been the best father in the world,” he said in an undertone, trying to make eye contact with Linus. “Not to you, and not to any of the others. In that regard, I’m like my old man. He pissed off when I was four, and in the main my mother had to manage for herself. He popped in with Christmas presents when he could remember, and as a teenager he took me along with him on a couple of shady deals that I’m not especially proud of. Not a good father. Just like me. But despite all that, I’m still your father.”

  The young man did not answer.

  Linus did not meet his eye either. He simply sat there, a bit tired and slumped in the chair, with his arms hanging at his sides. His face was entirely expressionless.

  “I’m happy you’ve moved in,” Billy T. went on, clasping his hands for the third time in the past minute. “Truly. As far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome to stay. At least until you’ve finished all your school subjects. You expect to be finished by spring, don’t you?”

  Linus shrugged one shoulder and canted his head.

  “Can I go now?”

  “No.”

  “So if I stand up and go to my room, you’re going to stop me? Physically, I mean?”

  “No, I’ll call a locksmith and give you an hour to pack your things before I throw you out.”

  He prayed that his son would not see through his bluff.

  At least Linus remained seated. Now he glanced out of the window, squinting apathetically, as if about to fall asleep. Billy T. sighed and put both hands at the back of his neck. There were no lamps switched on, and darkness was about to envelop the grubby windowpanes. He stood up and flicked on a lamp beside the sofa, as well as the ceiling light above the dining table, where they were sitting.

  “Are you sure of that?” Linus said at once.

  “Of what?”

  “That you’re really my father?”

  Billy T. poured coffee from a thermos flask into an already half-filled cup. He noticed his hand was shaking and sat down again.

  “That’s an insult to your mother.”

  “I don’t have any doubts that she’s my mother. I’m just asking if—”

  Billy T. slammed his fist on the table so hard that coffee sloshed out of the cup. Quick as a wink, Linus sat up straight in his chair.

  “I’ve never doubted your mother’s word about who your father is,” Billy T. spluttered. “I’ve never had any reason to, not as far as you’re concerned or any of my other children. You still have one or two things to learn about women, Linus. The first thing is that as a rule, they don’t tell lies about that sort of thing. When a woman comes and tells you that you’ve made her pregnant, then you’ve made her pregnant. No question about it.”

  He struck the table again, this time with the flat of his hand. Hard.

  It was sore. He kept a straight face, staring intently at the young man on the opposite side of the table. An almost irresistible impulse to stand up came over him. To give the boy a hug. To hold him so hard that he would stay there. He wanted to shower Linus with all the love he felt for him, that he had always felt for all his children, but that had never been sufficient to make him into a good dad. He wanted to hold a conversation with his son, but he no longer knew him. Probably he never had.

  “Yes, you’re somebody who knows all there is to know about women, Dad. Especially about how to hold on to them.”

  Finally Linus looked at him. Billy T. thought he could see something resembling anxiety in his eyes, and he took a couple of deep breaths before clearing his throat and continuing, in a far calmer voice: “It’s obvious I’m no hero. You’re right there. And I’ve not been much of a father either, as I said. Maybe it doesn’t help for you to hear it, but in fact I was better with your older brothers when you were really little. When you were all little. Then I became a bit . . . absent. But I’m here now, Linus. I’m here now.”

  “I’m twenty-two. It’s a bit late, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, you’re right, it’s late. But don’t you remember . . .”

  Billy T. couldn’t manage to sit still. He got to his feet and crossed over to the picture window beside the door leading out to a balcony, where a withered Christmas tree and broken gas barbecue were stored.

  “We had good times too, Linus. When you were a little boy. Don’t you remember that we came up with things to do? With Hanne, for instance? Do you remember the time you and I and Hanne took a trip on our motorbikes to the midsummer celebrations at Son? You rode pillion with me, you must have been about ten, and you—”

  “I was eight and a half. That’s the only time you ever took me to anything outside Oslo. I remember that trip really fucking well, Dad. It was raining when we left, but the weather improved and it turned into a lovely evening. I drank as much Coke as I wanted, and you’d been to Sweden and bought a gigantic bag of candies. We slept in a green tent, and I had a sleeping bag with Star Wars motifs all over it.”

  It gave Billy T. a jolt when Linus mentioned Star Wars.

  Darth Vader was pulverized.

  Billy T. had gone home with the figure stuffed underneath his arm instead of returning to Hanne’s on Tuesday morning. Undisturbed, he had placed it in a garbage bag in the basement storeroom and had smashed it to pieces with a hammer. Sauntering along the harbor basin, all the way from Vippetangen to Aker Brygge, he had tossed the tiny plastic fragments into the sea. One by one, sometimes two at a time, from a bag he had filled with
breadcrumbs and mixed well. He would look like a random bird lover. He could not care less if the seagulls were killed by the feed mixed with plastic that they dived for, squealing and shrieking.

  The figure had to cease to exist.

  Now it had been obliterated.

  He had been so agitated that he had to go home and take a shower. Afterward he had stretched out on the sofa to close his eyes for a while. When he had awakened, it was ten o’clock. Fortunately, Hanne had not been interested in how he had spent the afternoon when he had finally, far too late, turned up at her place, as arranged. Billy T. was afraid he would have told her everything.

  Nobody must find out about Linus’s engraved Darth Vader figure. It was bad enough that his watch had been found at the crime scene, but he had managed to explain that away by the skin of his teeth. Darth Vader was a far greater threat, since it would have caused the police to take a closer look at Linus.

  The police definitely must not put Linus under the microscope.

  “So yes, Dad. I do remember that trip. But that’s just about all I remember from my childhood with you—apart from endless hours at police headquarters. You were just going to do this, and you were just going to do that. Hell, I think I saw more of Hanne and your other colleagues than of you in those years.”

  Billy T. was still standing with his back to Linus.

  “I know that. I know that, Linus. But just because I wasn’t there for you as I should have been, that really doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I do. And right now I’m pretty scared that you’ve got yourself mixed up in something you can’t control. And if you don’t start talking soon, I’m going to have to phone your mother to hear about what happened. What happened before you came to me, I mean.”

  “Don’t you fucking dare!”

  Billy T. turned around again. He walked calmly back to the table. The boy had literally braced himself. He was leaning forward with both arms resting on the table, his back straight, perched on the edge of the chair, as if about to make a run for it. It lasted only a brief moment. His cheeks were redder, but he forced a smile as he leaned back again and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “If you do that, I’m leaving. I’ve got friends I can stay with.”

  “What friends?”

  “Loads.”

  “Who are they, then?”

  Linus shrugged again and repeated: “Loads.”

  “Like Andreas, for example? Or Arfan, as he calls himself these days?”

  For the first time, Linus quite clearly looked uncertain. He gulped and began to bite his thumbnail, even though it was already bitten down to the quick. It was obvious he was trying to pull himself together when he met Billy T.’s gaze, but the twitching of his eyelids betrayed that he actually wanted to look away.

  “Where’s your watch?” Billy T. inquired; he seized the opportunity on the spot when he realized that his son’s guard was down.

  “What watch?”

  “Don’t kid with me. The watch you got from me. The old man’s gold watch. Where is it?”

  Shrugging one shoulder again, Linus cocked his head and said something inaudible.

  “What did you say?” Billy T. asked sharply.

  “Don’t really know. In my room, maybe.”

  “Could you go and get it, then? I’d like to have it engraved with your name, like we agreed.”

  “Why the hell are you starting to talk about that damned watch now?” Linus said without any sign of moving.

  “Because it’s not in your room.”

  Linus began to scratch the back of his left hand.

  “It’s actually with the police,” Billy T. said.

  Linus stiffened. Quite literally. His fingers froze, and he seemed to be holding his breath.

  “And what I’m really wondering,” Billy T. continued in a quiet voice, as if afraid someone might be listening, “is how my watch—the watch I inherited from my old man and which you in turn got from me—landed up in NCIN’s office and got blown to smithereens.”

  Linus turned pale. The angry roses in his cheeks disappeared as if an invisible eraser had rubbed across his face. He opened his mouth and closed it again. Swallowing, he leaned across the table. For a second, he laid his face on the tabletop, before he sat up abruptly, got to his feet, and stormed over to the door, where he turned and took two steps toward his father.

  His face was chalk-white now.

  Billy T. also stood up and stretched to his full height.

  The boy did not budge an inch.

  “I don’t give a shit what you think, Dad. I owe you absolutely nothing. Not a shit. You’ve never given me anything. If you think this fucking watch is going to make up for all the football matches you didn’t come to, all the end-of-term events at school you didn’t turn up at, all the . . .”

  Billy T. towered above him by half a head. He tried to put his hand on his son’s shoulder, but it was immediately pushed away.

  “Then you’re wrong,” Linus said. “You’re really fucking wrong. If it’s okay with you for me to go on staying here, then I will. If not, then I can always find somewhere else. But don’t think . . .” He took another half step toward his father. They were standing so close that Billy T. could smell the aroma of coffee as the boy continued: “ . . . that I intend to share any fucking thing with you. Anyway, I can guarantee you one thing, Dad. There’s one thing I can honestly assure you of.”

  He closed his eyes for a couple of seconds. When he opened them again, they seemed different. Linus’s eyes were actually just as blue as Billy T.’s one blue eye. Now they looked gray. Billy T. felt compelled to move back, but he forced himself to stay where he was.

  “I haven’t converted. I’m never going to convert. I don’t believe in any God. And if I should take it into my head to become religious, I certainly wouldn’t—”

  Billy T. felt shivery. Adrenaline was shooting through his body, and he could feel gooseflesh forming on the skin of his arms. He had talked to so many people in his life. Victims of violent crime, relatives in the aftermath of a homicide. Killers, thieves, and psychopaths. There was not a single type of human being in existence that Billy T. had not encountered, some marked by sorrow and shock, others defined by indifference, stupidity, and sometimes evil.

  Linus snapped his mouth shut, pressing his lips together in a straight line, and took a deep breath.

  “I definitely wouldn’t associate with those monkeys, at any rate,” he spluttered. “You can be sure of that.”

  He wheeled around and marched out to the hallway. Moments later he slammed the door of his room shut.

  Billy T. stood rooted to the spot. He was still shivering. He had seen a lot and met many people. At one time he had been a good policeman—one of the best, in his own opinion and that of other people. He had based a career on his knowledge of people, and in his time he had been an expert at distinguishing lies from truth. Now he knew two things about his son.

  Linus was telling the truth.

  It should have been a relief. A great, heartfelt comfort, if it had not been for the other thing he had seen in his son’s eyes. In his facial expression and tight lips, in his body language and voice, but first and foremost in the depths of those gray eyes that were no longer blue.

  Linus was filled with hatred.

  “I can’t stand Coke,” Lars Johan Austad said, shoving the bottle back across the table. “Don’t you have Solo? I’d prefer a bottle of Solo.”

  The investigator smiled, despite having sat in the poky interview room for more than an hour without coming a jot closer to a story the police could have any use for.

  “Of course you can,” he said. “As soon as you give me something to go on.”

  “But I’ve told you everything I know,” Skoa complained. “I was heading into Burger King to try a raid on the garbage bin. I was standing outside that café there on the opposite side of the street, and then I was aware of someone coming up to me from behind. And he said . . .”

  He gr
abbed the bottle of Coke and opened it.

  “Hell,” he mumbled. “I’m so damn thirsty.”

  Half the contents disappeared.

  “How did you know it was me?” he asked, wiping his mouth with a filthy sleeve.

  “Skoa, come on. As soon as someone thought of sending your description over to us in the Drug Squad, we knew who you were. You shuffle your feet, the majority of you. You more than most. Far more. War injury, isn’t it?”

  “Mm.” Skoa nodded. “Solo,” he reminded him, holding out the half-full bottle of Coke to the detective.

  The policeman did not answer. He leaned back in his chair and threw his pen down on the table before folding his arms across his chest.

  “A thousand kroner,” he summarized. “From a total, random stranger. Someone you didn’t see because he took you from behind.”

  “He didn’t take me from behind!”

  Skoa looked at him with disgust.

  “He just sort of came up behind me and put his arm through here . . .”

  He pointed at his own kidneys.

  “He was wearing gloves, and I’ve no idea whether he was black or white or yellow. But he spoke Norwegian. Very good Norwegian. So I dragged myself along to TV2. Delivered the package. Left again. That’s it.”

  The investigator took out a cigarette. He fiddled with it for a few seconds before tucking it behind his ear and studying the stinking hulk at the opposite side of the table.

  “Would you like a shower, Skoa?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “I’ve a clean change of clothes lying here. You can have them. The clothes are probably a bit too big, but they’re better than the ones you’re wearing.”

  “You’re kind,” Lars Johan Austad said. “I’ve said that many times: if it hadn’t been for you folks in the police, I’d have been dead long ago.”

  The detective gave a dispirited smile and keyed in a text on his iPhone: Nothing to be gained from Skoa. As usual, he’s telling the truth. Pass on the message: dead end.

  He sent it and stuffed the cell phone into his back pocket.