Åse Berit Nytorpet padded across and took him by the hand.
– Now you sit down, Oswald, she said in a honey-sweet voice as she led him over to the sofa.
She turned to the policewoman.
– It’s about time you left. Oswald gets upset when strangers come visiting.
31
IT WAS 12.15 WHEN Axel, wearing his cycling gear, emerged from the clinic doors. He’d arranged to have an extra afternoon off that week. Felt like he needed it.
As he headed out into the yard, he heard someone calling his name. He turned. A woman almost as tall as he was, with shoulder-length blond hair, was following him.
– Axel Glenne? she repeated.
He could think of no reason to deny it. The woman said:
– Kaja Fredvold, journalist for VG.
She held out her hand, but Axel turned and took the stairs down to the basement door.
– I’ve tried to call you several times. I’m sure you know what it’s about.
– I’m on my way out.
– Off for a run? the journalist asked.
He nodded curtly, unwilling to say anything that might prolong the conversation.
– I’ve got a couple of questions for you. I’m writing an article about these murders, the bear business …
Axel knew he ought to control the irritation he felt brewing inside him. He glanced at her. She was wearing a suit jacket, jeans and boots, and seemed in no doubt at all about her perfect right to pop up anywhere she liked and ask whatever she wanted to.
– I’ve got nothing to say. Nothing of interest.
– It’s amazing what can actually be of interest, she said, giving him a conspiratorial wink, clearly making an effort to seem friendly. – As far as I can gather, you were the last person to talk to Hilde Paulsen on the day she disappeared.
– Was I?
– And Cecilie Davidsen was one of your patients. We can have a cup of coffee at The Broker. Or something to eat, if you prefer.
Axel sprang up the three steps that led to the basement and stood in front of the journalist.
– Do I look as if I’m on my way to eat lunch?
– No, she smiled. She had an underbite, he noticed. – But it needn’t take long. We can do it here if you like.
– Cecilie Davidsen had an eight-year-old daughter. Does it ever even occur to you what it must be like to lose your mother and instead get a picture of a corpse smeared all over the front pages every bloody day?
He was being unreasonable. He was saying things he should never have said. But his irritation had flared up and he could no longer contain it.
– Of course, said the journalist. – We think about these things all the time, but we have other considerations too. People have a right to know …
– Bullshit, hissed Axel.
He pulled himself together, managed to get the basement door unlocked.
– This is not necessarily the smartest way of dealing with things, he heard from behind him.
He remained standing down in the dark until he was able to breathe calmly again, still consumed by rage and with no idea where it had come from.
He abandoned the bike ride. An hour and a half later, he walked in through his own front door. Made some coffee and took it out on to the terrace. A cold wind blew up from the fjord. He pulled his jacket tight. Not the smartest way, he repeated to himself. The smartest thing would be to ring the journalist and apologise. Answer the questions politely and willingly, give her enough material for yet another big story. You’ll always do the right thing, Axel. Call Miriam. Or go over there. Apologise to her for having crossed the limits. Abused his position. Tell her they must never meet again …
It wasn’t Miriam he should be going to see, it was Brede. If it were even possible to find him. Make up for having betrayed the pact. For having shopped him. As though an apology would be enough. I want fuck all from you. They were identical twins; when they were small, it was impossible to tell them apart, until they spoke. Their mother had always said Brede’s voice was different. Brede never asked, she maintained, he demanded. That wasn’t right, Axel thought. Brede’s voice was always full of something that was never allowed to come out. That no one could respond to. Brede was sacrificed, he thought. He had to be sacrificed so that Axel might get on in life. They were one, but something had gone wrong and made them into two, and of the two of them, only one could have a life.
Could he have prevented it? If he hadn’t said anything … He was fifteen years old when Brede was sent away. Brede had given up playing at being a Resistance saboteur fleeing for the safety of the Swedish border. Now he played Nazi games with the younger kids in the neighbourhood. He was the leader. Called himself HHH: Hitler, Himmler and Heydrich all rolled into one. The kids would arrive home in the evening with swastikas painted in black tar on their chests and refuse to say what they had been up to. Not even when they were caught in the forest near Svennerud, half naked and frenzied, with Brede in the middle waving one of Colonel Glenne’s pistols about, did any of them dare to tell on him. But that wasn’t when he was sent away. It was later that summer. That’s why I’m asking you, Axel. And I’m only going to ask you once.
Axel pottered about in the kitchen. Still an hour before Bie was due home with Marlen. He opened the bread bin; there was only a crust left, and he remembered he had promised to shop on his way home. As he was about to take a look in the fridge, his mobile phone rang. He didn’t recognise the number, had no desire to talk to anybody, but steeled himself and took the call.
– Is everything all right, Axel?
He recognised Solveig Lundwall’s voice. She had only ever rung him at home once before. It was not a good sign.
– How are you? he said, trying to divert her.
– You must deal with Per Olav, she insisted. – He’s drinking even more than before. Litres of it. I know you’ve told him he should cut down, but he doesn’t listen. Just swills it down the moment he gets inside the door. The kids too, but mostly Per Olav. He’s up in the night and drinking that damn milk. In the morning it’s all gone. I can’t put up with it for much longer.
He let her carry on, and when she stopped to draw breath he interjected.
– I’ll have a word with Per Olav, Solveig. Make an appointment for him.
She was the one in urgent need of an appointment, and he was about to suggest the following day when she said: – I’ve seen him. The person you were asking about last time.
– Was I asking about someone?
– You asked if I’d seen that person who looks like you. I saw him. I followed him. No one else knows about him. But the time is near now. You know it too, Axel. The time is near.
– You followed him, you say? Axel responded, wondering whether he ought to contact the hospital straight away.
She didn’t reply for a few seconds.
– I’m calling to give you a warning, Axel Glenne.
– It’s good of you to worry about me …
– Good? This is not good. You must listen to me, not just babble on and always know best.
– I am listening, Solveig.
– Yesterday, she began. – I saw you again yesterday. On the Underground.
He hadn’t used the Underground yesterday but didn’t interrupt her.
– It was your face, your eyes, your hands. You had long hair and a beard and looked like a tramp, just like that time I saw you at Majorstuehuset. I know you do it so that no one will recognise you, Axel Glenne, not until the right time comes. But I recognised you.
– Where did you say this was?
– On the Underground.
– Which line?
– Frognerseteren. You sat looking out of the window. But it was as though you could see me reflected in the glass. It was creepy, but nice too. It was a church holiday. I meant to get off at Ris, but I couldn’t get up from my seat, had to sit there as long as you wanted me to. All the way to the terminus. You got out there and disappeared in the
direction of the forest. Understand?
– No, Solveig, I don’t understand.
– Then you turned round, and I wanted to follow you, I want you to know that, but I couldn’t, not yet. And I know Cecilie Davidsen was killed because she was your patient.
She lowered her voice.
– You’re the one they’re after, Axel. They’re after you because you have Jesus in you. You’re dangerous to them.
32
HE SWUNG THE car into a parking space along Helgesens gate and turned off the engine. Leaning forward, he could see the window of the attic flat. There was a light on. He still hadn’t made the decision to actually go up there. He could turn, head back home, do the shopping on the way as he’d promised. Bie had reminded him of what they needed: bread, mince, toilet paper. The rest he would have to think of himself. Milk, he thought, recalling the conversation with Solveig Lundwall. It wasn’t a delusion, what she’d seen on the Underground. It was the interpretation that was psychotic, not the fact that she’d seen someone who looked exactly like him. Is that why you’re sitting here, Axel? he thought.
It was 4.30 when he got out of the car. It had been a week since he last saw Miriam. It took her less than ten seconds to open up after he rang the bell. He slipped inside and elbowed the door shut behind him. Without a word she wrapped her arms around him and held him tight.
She leaned towards him and poured him an espresso. She’d been at the gym and was still wearing the white jogging pants and the vest with Miriam written across the chest in glittering letters.
The doorbell rang. She gave a startled jump, then disappeared out into the hall, closing the door behind her. He could hear her voice out there, interrupted by another female voice, hoarser and rougher.
He got up and peered into the alcove. There was room for two in the bed, but only a single duvet. Above the bedhead a shelf with bedtime reading: a textbook on orthopaedic surgery, and a few titles in her own language. Next to them a picture of a man about Axel’s own age. He was wearing a white uniform. Looked like some kind of naval officer.
When she returned a few minutes later, he was once again seated on the sofa.
– The woman who lives under me, she explained. – She needs someone to talk to. I had to tell her I had a visitor. I’ll call in and see her tomorrow, before I go to my lecture.
– Doesn’t she have a job to go to?
Miriam was standing in front of him. He picked up the smell of her, thought how a smell could paralyse you.
– Typical doctor’s question, she said teasingly. – Do you have a job? Are you on social security?
He could have reached out his hand, let it glide down her back, down to the elastic on her trousers. It was painful to resist.
– You’re afraid of being a typical doctor, he told her.
– Anita has a doctor who doesn’t do enough to help her. He thinks of her as a case.
– Anita, that’s the neighbour?
Miriam nodded.
– She’s had it rough. Was alone with Victoria and had to work all the time just to make ends meet. Two years ago, someone from the child protection agency turned up and sat with her for a couple of hours. She had no idea what they wanted. A week later they came back and took Victoria.
– I’m sure they must have given the matter a lot of thought.
It was still possible to talk about something, about the neighbour, about anything at all. When the moment came when neither of them said anything else, that was when it would happen.
– They had no reason to do it, Miriam protested. – Someone at the nursery school claimed that Victoria never had any warm clothes on and always seemed hungry. And so off they went. Anita did used to take drugs, but she’s been clean ever since Victoria was born.
– Are you certain about that?
– Why would she lie to me?
He had nothing else to say. Took her by the arm and pulled her down on to the sofa.
– How long can you stay, Axel?
She’d taken the slides out of her hair and it flowed down her back. He lifted it to one side and pressed his nose against the nape of her neck. He couldn’t stay.
Someone bending over him, staring down into his face. He turns away. Miriam is standing on the bank of the tarn. As he walks over to put his arms around her naked body, she starts to wade out. He follows. The tarn expands until it fills the horizon. Then she dives forward and disappears beneath the water.
He woke up. What do you want from me, Miriam? It was quiet in the room. It was morning: 5.30. Daylight coming in from the ceiling window. He’d been sleeping for three and a half hours. He felt rested. He sniffed down from her shoulder to her armpit. The sweat was acrid, herb-like. She lay with her back to him, her hand still around his genitals, and when he removed it she felt for them again, as though unwilling to let go. He pulled one of her arse cheeks aside and wriggled his way in between her thighs.
– What are you doing? she murmured, half asleep, and drew her knee up under her. He had to take hold of it and lift it before he could slip inside her. Then he just lay there, not moving.
– Aren’t you asleep? he whispered in her ear as she began to move her backside against his stomach.
– Yes, she grunted. – Don’t wake me.
He put a spoonful of strawberry jam on the crispbread, took a mouthful of coffee.
– Axel, she called from the sleeping alcove. – What did you do with my vest?
He finished chewing and swallowed.
– The one with your name on in red glitter? I’ve taken it. Need something to remind me of you.
The next moment she was standing in the doorway with a towel round her.
– I mean it, I can’t find it.
He realised that he was tapping his ring against the coffee cup.
Last time I saw it, you were using it to dry yourself with. Removing any last traces of me.
– I left it on the floor in the alcove; it isn’t there any more.
– Were you going to wear it today? With all those stains?
– You idiot, she scolded him. She came over to the table, put her arms around him and slid down on to his lap. – Do you have to go?
– Soon.
She leaned back and looked into his eyes.
– Will you come back?
On his way down the crooked and uneven staircase, he stopped outside the door of the downstairs flat. Miriam had been so upset that the neighbour’s daughter wasn’t allowed to live there any more. And the memory of that led him to thoughts of his own family. He’d sent a text to Bie. Explained that he’d been asked to cover for someone in Oslo. It was something that happened now and then. OK, she’d answered. Just those two letters. He read the hand-painted ceramic nameplate on the neighbour’s door: Anita and Victoria Elvestrand live here. It struck him that it would always hang there, regardless of whether the words written on it were true or not.
Out on the pavement he stood a moment and inhaled the October air that rushed towards him, dense with cool exhaust fumes. He glanced up at Miriam’s window on the fifth floor. Up at the grey-black sky above the rooftops. It was Thursday morning. As he walked towards where his car was parked, he thought: Tonight I must talk to Bie.
THAT SOUND YOU just heard was yourself sleeping. It’s Thursday morning. The time is 6.30. I’m sitting here with the morning paper and a cup of coffee. Like any average person who’s got up early and is about to set off for work. It was no more than three hours ago that I made this recording of you. Both of you. Played it back to myself lots of times while I’ve been sitting here. You’ve probably got up too. You’re tired because you slept badly last night. Lay there muttering and tossing and turning. Your bad conscience getting to you. That would be just like you. Tons of stuff in the papers about the woman they found in Frogner Park. I can just see your face when you found out who it was. The unease that makes you curdle inside. You still don’t know what this is about. But you hear a sound in the distance and it’s beginning
to dawn on you that it’s coming closer. You’re a good listener. Which makes what you did even worse. There’s no way back now. No way back for me either after what I did back then. But now I’ve done something a lot worse, so it doesn’t matter any more.
She was different from the first one. It took a while for her to get scared. She seemed indifferent when she woke up and found herself taped up. Asked what I wanted with her. I told her straight away. She didn’t believe me. Mocked me and tried to make fun of me. But when we got there and I showed her what I had in mind, then she turned into a little child, just like the first one. Emptied all her orifices. Began to scream, too. I let her carry on until she was all screamed out. Then I told her when it was going to happen so she’d know exactly how much time she had left. By the time you hear this, I’ll have told you the same thing. How many hours and minutes before it happens.
I lay beside her all through that first night. Removed her stinking clothes. Didn’t touch her. Lay there in a semi-doze. Glanced at her now and then. I’d wrapped her in a woollen blanket so she wouldn’t get cold. Gave her water too. She wouldn’t have any food. She calmed down with me lying there. Started talking. That she was ill and going to have an operation. That she had a child. An eight-year-old daughter who was afraid to sleep alone. Would I let her go so she could get home and tuck in her daughter, who was lying in bed afraid? For a while I let her believe I would. Dried round her mouth with a damp cloth and stroked her cheek. And when she realised I was lying, she began to wail again. But she wasn’t angry. I could lie with my face pressed right up against her neck. She wanted me to.
I’ve killed twice. And still it’s not your turn yet. I’ve chosen the next one. The day has been appointed. I know already how I’m going to get her to come along with me. Know where she’ll be found. You’ll find her. But not everything will be planned beforehand. I don’t like things to be too neat. Chance has to be allowed to play its part. Things can go wrong. And if I’m caught, you’ll get away.
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