Odd Numbers

by Anne Holt

She was not looking at him.

  She was no longer writing either.

  “A number of features in that family history might prove interesting to us,” he went on, sounding uncertain. “Shall I continue with that now?”

  “Yes.”

  “The father of Kirsten, Albert, Walter, and Simon was called Birger Kalvefjord. He was in the Resistance during the war. He was involved with Max Manus and Gunnar Sønsteby and that gang, until the Germans captured him in September 1943. He came home on the white buses less than two years later. Was decorated and all that stuff. Opened the grocery store in Torshov that his son-in-law, Trond, later took over.”

  Now she looked up from her paper at last.

  “I see,” she said, slightly more interested.

  “And if I make a big leap in history, Trond went bankrupt in 1986.”

  “The small independent food stores had been struggling for some time at that point,” Hanne said. “The supermarket chains were making serious inroads by then.”

  “Yes. But Trond’s nemesis was not a supermarket chain. It was a Turkish shop. The kind where the whole family work from dawn to dusk and the oldest son goes to buy stock from the farmers at 3:00 a.m.”

  “A shop where the owner keeps his shoulder to the wheel, in other words. Does his job and gets help from his own family. For the greater, common good.”

  “Well, yes. By the way, I used the word nemesis wrongly. Trond hadn’t done anything wrong, and nemesis really means some kind of divine revenge following—”

  “You’re going off the subject, Henrik. What is your point?”

  “That it was foreigners who killed his business. They opened a store directly across the street. Loads of fresh vegetables. Cheap. Olives and a variety of interesting cheeses. The kind of thing Trond didn’t have a clue about and didn’t like anyway.”

  He blushed again.

  “I’m guessing, of course. I don’t know.”

  “Okay then.”

  She crossed her slim arms on her chest. She was sitting in an ordinary office chair, the way she often shifted over from her wheelchair into another kind of seat. Henrik wondered whether it had something to do with exercise. That her body might become sore from sitting in the same position all the time.

  “Anyway, he died later that year.”

  “Of what?”

  Henrik shrugged.

  “I haven’t managed to find that out for sure, but I browsed through Aftenposten’s paper archives and found an obituary. It might suggest suicide. It doesn’t spell it out admittedly, but even I was able to read between the lines in the text. I think it would be reasonably obvious to someone like you.”

  He gave a shy smile. She peered sternly back at him.

  “And for what reason is that interesting?”

  “The racism thing,” he answered meekly. “A motive for—”

  “Henrik. We’re not investigating Kirsten Ranvik to find out whether she’s racist. Strictly speaking, we’re not investigating Kirsten Ranvik at all. We’re trying to unravel what became of Karina Knoph, which is a completely different matter, when all is said and done. Agreed?”

  Hanne did not appear as annoyed as her words might suggest. Henrik adjusted his collar slightly and fiddled with his cuffs.

  “Now you’re being unreasonable,” he said softly.

  “Me?”

  “Yes. Kirsten Ranvik was exactly who I was to investigate. You asked me to find out if there was anything in her life that might support this . . .”

  He finally dared to look up.

  Hanne did not bat an eyelid.

  “. . . friend of yours in his theory that she’s running some sort of . . .”

  She still merely stared at him.

  “That she’s having an influence on young men, sort of thing. Through this reading club. If there was any basis for believing her to be a right-wing extremist. That was what you asked me to do.”

  Her silence unnerved him, making him go on talking even though he actually did not have very much more to say.

  “It was when Kirsten Ranvik’s name cropped up in both these cases that you became curious. Me, too, for that matter. Since then I’ve done exactly what you asked me to do.”

  “You’re right.”

  “What?”

  “I was unreasonable. I’m sorry. I appreciate what you’ve found out. It’s impressive. You’re impressive, Henrik. But right now I want to focus on Karina.”

  She had called him impressive. His left fist reached for his right collarbone three times before he pushed his hands underneath his thighs.

  “I think I know precisely what happened to Karina,” he said gleefully. “Or . . . not absolutely precisely, though. But almost.”

  “Let me hear.”

  “I visited Gunnar again,” he said quietly.

  “I see.”

  “This morning,” he said more loudly. “After his mother had gone to work. I’ve . . .”

  He stood up and fetched his backpack. Taking out a single sheet of paper, he unfolded it and placed it in front of her.

  “A kind of . . . special report,” he said. “We haven’t really come to any agreement as to how we’re going to organize the paperwork in this investigation, but I . . .”

  Now she was not listening. She was reading. Rapidly, from what he could understand. He nibbled at an already far-too-short fingernail as he waited.

  “Good work, Henrik.”

  She put down the paper and took off her glasses.

  “But you had the heart to leave him, all the same?”

  Henrik thought he could see the suggestion of smile lines around her eyes.

  “Almost not,” he admitted. “But I was a bit . . . happy, too. At how much he had actually told me.”

  “You had reason to be. Let’s see . . .”

  She squinted up at the ceiling.

  “Based on your conversation in Frogner Park with Abid Kahn, two conversations with Gunnar Ranvik, and your visit to Ullersmo Prison, you can work out the following: Karina and Gunnar were a teenage couple, though the interest was considerably greater on his side than on hers. She was flirting with drugs—hash at least—and persuaded him to come with her up to the lake at Maridalsvannet on September 3, 1996, where two of Karina’s friends, Fawad and Mohammad, have either accompanied them or turned up.”

  “Turned up, I think.”

  “They also want some hash. They begin to argue. Either because Karina isn’t a generous type or because she thinks there isn’t enough for all of them. A scuffle ensues, Karina falls in the river, and . . .”

  Putting her elbows on the table, she supported her chin with her hands.

  “That’s where my imagination comes to an end,” she said.

  “She falls in the river,” Henrik took over eagerly. “There’s a fast current there. The banks are reinforced with stone.”

  “Fairly shallow, though. Can’t you actually stand up in it there?”

  “A great many people have drowned in the Aker River in the course of history, you know.”

  “Go on.”

  “The boys panic. They haul her up out of the river, maybe all three of them help with that. But what if she’s dead? She might have cracked her head, or already frozen to death, or—”

  “You don’t freeze to death as quickly as that.”

  “Hit her head, then. As I said, I’ve been up there, and the banks are steep and quite high. So they get her out.”

  He paused for thought. Hanne’s eyes were still fixed on him.

  “She’s dead. The boys panic. Gunnar wants to summon help. Shouts for the police. Threatens them. Becomes hysterical. He’s not the one who’s caused Karina’s death. Fawad and Mohammad beat him to death.”

  “Gunnar is alive, Henrik. They didn’t beat him to death.”

  “But what if they thought they had?”

  Hanne seemed increasingly skeptical but nodded almost imperceptibly. He interpreted it as encouragement to press on.

  “Gunna
r is lying there, battered and unconscious. Karina is dead. Fawad and Mohammad have two bodies to get rid of.”

  “This is quite a frequented place, Henrik. They risked being surprised by walkers at any time.”

  “All the more important to get rid of the bodies, then! Anyway, it was autumn, cold, and growing late. Not so many people out and about. They . . .”

  Now it suddenly seemed as if Hanne had lost interest. She shoved the paper farther across the desk and fiddled with the pen.

  “. . . had to fetch help,” he finished his sentence all the same. “And while they were gone, Gunnar managed to get up, stagger into the undergrowth, and get far enough away that they could not find him when they came back.”

  Hanne smiled.

  It was a pleasant smile, he thought. A smile that you would give a child who had been clever but not really clever enough. She opened her mouth to say something when a sudden, unexpected idea struck him.

  “Wait!” he blurted out, springing up from his seat. “Do you have a copy of the case documents? Of the police investigation into the assault on Gunnar?”

  Hanne pointed to the farthest-away cupboard. He went over to it and looked quizzically at her. She nodded.

  “Do you remember we agreed that this investigation was far from being ham-fisted?” he said, sitting down with the papers on his lap. “Following Karina’s disappearance, the police did a terrible job, but a great deal was done to find out what had happened to Gunnar. Among other things, they conducted door-to-door inquiries of the nearest neighbors. To find out if they had seen or heard anything suspicious. One of the things they asked about . . .”

  Henrik leafed quickly through the papers. Hanne still did not say a word. Eventually he took out a single sheet of paper.

  “Bingo! Strange vehicles. The neighbors in Kjelsås had noticed six parked vehicles that normally did not belong in the area.”

  Once again he jumped out of his chair, skirted around the desk, and placed the paper in front of Hanne.

  “There.” He pointed, using his nail-bitten finger. “There were two cars they never traced. The description was too vague. The last four were identified. Three belonged to overnight guests, in Myrerveien and Midtoddveien, respectively. The last one was a delivery van that turned out to belong to a tradesman.”

  His finger tapped a name on the list.

  “A bricklaying firm by the name of Eilif Andersens. The neighbor noticed it because she thought the logo on the side of the van was odd. It was the largest of the Three Little Pigs, with a workman’s cap and a bricklayer’s trowel in its hand.”

  Hanne leaned to one side and looked diagonally up at him.

  “Now I’m really not quite with you here.”

  “A bricklayer! The van was eliminated from the investigation precisely because that firm was carrying out work in . . .”

  He grabbed the paper and held it up.

  “Midtoddveien 34C. A bricklaying firm, Hanne!”

  Without hesitation, he produced his phone from his pocket and tapped something in. Only seconds later, he went rigid. His arms slumped to his sides.

  “Fawad’s brother,” he said slowly, aware that for once he had gone pale. “Imran Sharif. He works in the Eilif Andersens bricklaying firm. He does now, at least. What if . . . what if he already did so in 1996? Then at least help was not far off, Hanne. Fawad and Mohammad could summon help quickly to whisk the body away.”

  She did not answer. But she was looking at him. And she was thinking.

  “Fawad clammed up right then,” Henrik said, ambling back to his chair.

  But did not sit down.

  “It was when I asked him what Imran had been doing in 1996 that Fawad lost interest in getting a new computer.”

  The silence between them lasted for a very long time.

  “I think you should take a trip out to Mortensrud,” Hanne said in the end. “I really do believe a trip out there could prove interesting.”

  Youngsters were no longer interested in stamp collecting in the slightest. You noticed it at auctions and club meetings—the average age was becoming increasingly old. Nowadays it was only computers and action films that meant anything. They belonged to the rare occasions when he saw his grandchildren, but his definitive impression was that childhood today was something quite different from the way it had been in the fifties.

  As for himself, he had begun collecting as a five-year-old, when he had received his first postcard from abroad. From America, with a greeting from an uncle who was a sailor and who thereafter made a habit of sending him postcards from all over the world. That was the start of a lifelong passion. If his collection was perhaps not worth much compared to the amount of time he had invested in it, it was nevertheless valuable to him. It also contained the odd little treasure.

  After spending all of his adult life in Ålesund, the last seventeen as a departmental manager at Fiskerstrand shipyard, he had chosen as a freshly minted retiree to move home again to Oslo. His wife was dead, and their two children had both left the town as soon as they had grown up. Both lived in the Oslo area, and if he followed them there, he would at least see more of his grandchildren.

  And maybe his sister, too, even though they had deliberately kept very sporadic contact in recent years. It was Peder who had wanted it that way—just a short message at Christmas and birthdays. He was allowed to indulge in a short visit to the house in Skjoldveien on the odd occasion he was in the capital.

  For a while it had seemed tempting to move home. But Oslo was no longer home: he had realized that in the past few years. When he was a child, he had attended Sagane School. A couple of years ago he had gone for a walk along the Aker River and past the school, only a stone’s throw from the Hjula weaving mill, which had still produced textiles until well into his own childhood.

  Now the playground was full of colored children. Girls with hijabs and cheeky, dirty black hoodlums who pilfered like thieving magpies. He had seen one or two blond heads in the swarming, undisciplined crowd and was filled with sympathy. One tiny tot at the school gate, skinny and snotty-nosed, had seemed so alone in the throng that Simon had slipped him a 100 kroner note. As soon as he had turned his back, they had pounced. The big boys, already with a hint of sparse beards at the age of twelve. They swiped the banknote. Simon had been on his way back to catch them when the bell rang. The hordes disappeared into the school building like cockroaches under a bathtub when the light was switched on.

  He was not racist.

  Simon Ranvik was a nationalist. He believed in Norway. In red, white, and blue and the Christian cross on the flag. His uncle who had been at sea for more than thirty years had been full of amusing anecdotes about people all over the world. But they could stay where they belonged.

  Especially the Muslims.

  It was strange that people did not understand. Did not appreciate what a crazy experiment they had gone along with. That they did not understand how there was an overall plan behind it, so easy to discern, if only you looked closely. This was not what his father had fought for during the war. He had not sacrificed years of his life for Muslim cabinet ministers and Negroes in Parliament. Not for mosques and calls to prayer, and people who could not bear to see a drawing of a pig without blowing other people sky-high.

  Norway, the real Norway, did not understand its own good.

  But the scales were falling from their eyes. They were becoming fed up. He noticed it, not only in the shops and in the philately club. On TV and radio, in newspapers, and at a couple of meetings of the Retiree Association: everywhere, the tide was turning. Most people had begun to realize what he and his family had understood for a long time.

  These foreigners would destroy the country if something did not happen.

  Simon Ranvik put his newest stamp in its rightful place in the album and closed it.

  This would be a historic May 17.

  The men of Eidsvoll had declared Norway independent and Norwegian. They had not envisaged a witches’ ca
uldron of foreigners gorging themselves on Norway’s riches, and in the end they would triumph if they were not stopped.

  Peder’s plan was ingenious. The sacrifices Simon had been required to make in the furtherance of the cause were nothing compared to what his father had had to tolerate when he had been the one battling against invading forces.

  He got to his feet and replaced the album on the bookshelf. Glanced at the clock. Almost four-thirty, he saw.

  It was time to send that day’s messages. The incident in Sandefjord had gone exactly as intended. The first message would be one of congratulations and would go to his brother.

  Imran Sharif was his brother’s double.

  He too was slightly built but in considerably better shape. His upper arms bulged beneath his T-shirt. The facial resemblance between the brothers was striking, but Imran’s complexion was even and his teeth were good.

  He had received Henrik with chatty surprise and invited him in. The house in Mortensrud was large and well maintained, with the obligatory trampoline in the garden and a triple garage beside the road. There were two children’s bikes propped up at the gate, Henrik had noticed, and asked if they could go inside to talk. Undisturbed. Imran had grinned and commented on how unusual it was for policemen to come to people’s homes to interview them. Not that he had any experience with the upholders of the law, but as Henrik Holme possibly knew, he had a brother who had filled the family’s quota of that sort of thing. And more.

  “Slightly out of the ordinary,” Henrik had agreed. “But I felt I should bother you as little as possible. It’s actually to do with a minor matter.”

  It transpired that Imran had a home office on the upper floor of the massive garage.

  “Take a seat,” he said, once they had quickly climbed the steep stairs and gone inside. “Would you like something? I’ve got all sorts of cold drinks in the cooler. I can put on some coffee if you’d rather have that. Whatever!”

  Henrik turned him down politely and sat on a small sofa. Imran chose an armchair and hoisted his feet up on the table.

  “This must have something to do with my brother,” he said. “And I just want to say right off: he can’t stay here when he gets out. We’ve already tried that. It was sheer hell. He comes and goes as he pleases and doesn’t contribute a sou. I’m very fond of my brother, really, but you know, it’s not good for the children, having him here. Not all the time at least. My wife goes nuts at the very thought. I’ve been in touch with the prison social work service and they say—”