Blessed Are Those Who Thirst

by Anne Holt

  Squinting, she turned her head to the other side.

  “It looks like you, Håkon! It damn well looks like you too!”

  She laughed and let him tear the newspaper out of her hands.

  “It most certainly does not,” he protested, feeling insulted. “I don’t have such a round face. My eyes aren’t so close together either. And besides, I’ve got more hair.”

  The newspaper was crumpled ferociously and thrown into the bin.

  “If this is the way you’re conducting this investigation, I can well understand why no one has any hope of solving it,” he declared, still somewhat miffed. “Honestly . . .”

  She didn’t give up. She retrieved the crushed newspaper, smoothing it flat with a long-fingered, slender hand, nails lacquered with clear enamel.

  “Look at this likeness. Couldn’t it be anyone at all? These drawings really shouldn’t be publicized. Either the victim fixates on some particular blemish, so the man is given a nose that’s far too large and we get no tip-offs. Or else they look like this. Like a man. A Norwegian man.”

  They stared for a long time at the picture of the anonymous Norwegian man with the insignificant face.

  “Do we actually know he’s Norwegian?”

  “Not with absolute certainty, but he spoke fluently and looked Norwegian. We have to assume he is.”

  “But he was supposedly quite tanned . . .”

  “Now you really must give over, Håkon. There are enough racists here in the force without you persuading yourself to believe a blond man speaking in Oslo dialect is a Moroccan.”

  “But they commit rape far mo—”

  “Cut it out, Håkon.”

  Her tone was almost aggressive now. It was true that North Africans were overrepresented in the rape statistics. It was true the rapes of which they were found guilty were often unusually vicious. It was also true she found her own prejudices surfacing occasionally, as a result of too many encounters with curly-haired, handsome scumbags who lied to your face even when they’d been caught literally with their trousers down and every single Norwegian man in the same situation would have said something else: yes, true enough, we were fucking, but it was of her own free will. She knew all that, but it was quite another thing to say it out loud.

  “What do you think are the hidden statistics for ‘Norwegian’ rapes?”

  She waved two fingers of each hand in the air when she used the word “Norwegian.”

  “Those rapes that happen after a night on the town, at office parties, by husbands . . . you name it! That’s where you’ll find the hidden statistics. Every girl knows they’re hopeless to prosecute. While the more ‘straightforward’ rapes . . .”

  Her fingers waved in the air again.

  “. . . the nasty assaults, the dreadful dark-skinned attackers, the ones who aren’t from here, the ones everybody knows the police are out to get . . . they’re the ones that are reported.”

  Silence. Feeling offended, Håkon smiled, shame-faced and defensive.

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “No, I realize that. But you really shouldn’t say such things. Not even as a joke. Of one thing I’m absolutely sure.”

  Sweaty and dispirited, she stood up, leaned across toward the window, and endeavored to open it wider. The new curtains fluttered slightly, more from her own movements than any draft from outside.

  “God Almighty, it’s scorching.”

  It was no use. The window slid back to a gap of ten centimeters, no good at all. It had to be thirty degrees Celsius in here.

  “Of one thing I’m absolutely sure,” she repeated. “If all the rapes actually committed in this country were reported, we would all be horrified by two things.”

  Håkon Sand wasn’t sure why she stopped. Perhaps to afford him the opportunity to guess what two things would horrify everyone. Instead of taking the chance of saying something stupid yet again, he waited for the upshot of her silence.

  “First of all: how many rapes take place. Second: foreigners would feature in the statistics to almost exactly the same extent as their proportion of the population would suggest. Neither more nor less.”

  She moaned again about the heat.

  “If these sweltering temperatures don’t come to an end soon, I’ll go crazy. I think I’ll go out for a jaunt. Want to come?”

  With a look of horror, he turned down her offer point-blank. Another motorcycle trip was still fresh in his memory: a freezing, dangerous journey through Vestfold in the late autumn six months previously, with Hanne Wilhelmsen in the driver’s seat and himself as a blinded, soaking-wet pillion passenger. On that occasion, the excursion had been a matter of life or death. His first motorbike ride—and most decidedly his last.

  “No thanks, I’d rather go and jump in the lake,” he said. It was half past four. They could actually go home.

  “Strictly speaking, you should make a start on going through the tip-offs,” he added meekly.

  “I’ll do that tomorrow, Håkon. Tomorrow.”

  * * *

  He was consumed by despair. It was sitting like a nasty gray rat gnawing inside him, somewhere behind his breastbone. Since Sunday morning, he’d drunk two bottles of orange-flavored antacid to no avail. The rat obviously liked the taste and continued gnawing with renewed vigor. No matter what he did, no matter what he said, nothing was of any help. His daughter did not want to talk to him. True enough, she wanted to be there, in her own childhood home, sleeping in her childhood bedroom. He found a tiny scrap of comfort in that, the fact that she probably was at least finding some kind of security through keeping him close. But then she wouldn’t talk.

  He had collected Kristine from the emergency psychiatric clinic. When he saw her sitting there, exhausted, with dark eyes and sunken shoulders, she reminded him of his wife twenty years earlier. At that time, the young woman had sat like that, with the same vacant stare, the same hopeless demeanor and expressionless mouth. She had just heard she would die, leaving behind her husband and daughter, barely four years old. Then, he’d become furious. He had cursed and yelled and taken his wife to see every single expert in the entire country. Eventually, he’d borrowed a considerable sum of money from his parents in a futile hope that distant experts in the United States, the promised land for all medical practitioners, would be able to alter the cruel diagnosis so mournfully reached by fourteen Norwegian doctors. The journey didn’t result in anything other than the young woman dying far from home, and he spent the return trip with his beloved in a refrigerated compartment in the aircraft hold.

  Single parenthood with little Kristine had been difficult. He had been newly qualified as a dentist, at a time when the previously lucrative profession had become less profitable after twenty years of social democratic public dental services. But they had managed. The middle of the seventies had seen the struggle for women’s liberation, something, paradoxically enough, that had been of assistance to him. A single father insisting on looking after his daughter was favored by all kinds of special arrangements from the public authorities, great sympathy from everyone he came into contact with, as well as help and support from female colleagues and neighbors. They had managed.

  There hadn’t been many women. An occasional relationship, certainly, but never of particularly lengthy duration. Kristine had seen to that. On the three occasions he had ventured to introduce the topic of remarriage, she had sulked, rejecting every effort to curry favor. And she always won. He loved his daughter. Naturally, he understood that all men love their children, and from a purely rational viewpoint saw he wasn’t especially different from the rest of the Norwegian male population. Emotionally, nevertheless, he insisted to himself and his circle of acquaintances that the relationship between himself and his daughter was a special one. They had only each other. He had been both father and mother to her. He had tended her in sickness, made sure she had freshly laundered clothes, and consoled the teenager when her first romance collapsed after three weeks. When the thi
rteen-year-old, in joy mixed with terror, showed him her bloodstained underpants, he was the one who took her to a restaurant for fillet steak accompanied by diluted red wine to celebrate his little daughter being on her way to becoming a woman. For two years, he had turned down every insistent demand for a brassiere, since the midge bites to be covered by the garment were so insignificant any bra at all would have looked comical. He had taken lonely pleasure in his daughter’s brilliant school grades, and was alone with his bitter sorrow when she chose to celebrate with friends four years later when she was accepted into medical school in Oslo.

  He loved his daughter, but he couldn’t manage to reach her. When he collected her, she accompanied him willingly, and she had asked the emergency doctor to phone him. So she had wanted to go home. To him. However, she said nothing. Tentatively, he had fumbled for her hand in the car on the drive home, and she had allowed him to take it. Nevertheless, there was no response, just a limp hand passively accepting his grasp. Not a word was uttered. When they arrived home, he had tried to tempt her with a meal: freshly baked bread, sandwich toppings he knew she liked, roast beef and prawn salad, and the best red wine he possessed. She had seized the wine but left the food. After three glasses, she took the remainder of the bottle with her, excusing herself politely and heading for her bedroom.

  That had been three hours ago. Not a sound was to be heard from her room. He rose to his feet, stiff from sitting on the sofa. It was American—low, excessively soft, and plump. The candles, palely flickering during the bright spring evening, were now sputtering, as they ran out of wax. Stopping at the door of the girl’s bedroom, he stood stock-still for several minutes before daring to knock. There was no response. Hesitating for a few more minutes, he made up his mind to leave her in peace.

  He went to bed.

  * * *

  In her girlish bedroom, painted yellow and adorned with checked curtains, Kristine Håverstad sat with a teddy bear on her lap and an empty wineglass in front of her on a white-painted table. Her bed was narrow, and she had cramps in her legs from having assumed a lotus position for a long time. She welcomed the cramps. They became increasingly uncomfortable, and she concentrated on examining how sore she actually was. Everything else receded, and all she could feel was the tingling, aching protest from limbs deprived of blood for a lengthy period. Eventually she could not endure it and lay down on the bed to stretch her legs. Even more excruciating when the sensation rushed back into her calves. She grabbed around one thigh with both hands, squeezing hard until tears pricked her eyes. All this to make the spasms last. She certainly couldn’t continue like this, however.

  After a while she let go, and the pain in her chest returned. It was completely empty inside, an enormous hollow space with an indefinable ache. It swirled around and around, faster and faster, and in the end she stood up to fetch the little box of pills prescribed by the emergency doctor. Valium, 2 mg. A tiny packet. Each pill represented hope of respite, to some degree. For a spell. She stood for ages holding the box in her left hand, then carried it to the bathroom, lifted the toilet seat, and poured pills down into the pale blue chlorinated water. They remained floating on the surface, bobbing gently, before slowly sinking one by one to the porcelain depths and disappearing. She flushed the toilet. Twice. Then she washed her face thoroughly in bracingly cold water before entering the living room. It was dark now. Only a tiny light on the television set was visible, shedding a pale yellow glow on the soft rugs at the entrance to the room. She picked up another bottle of red wine from the kitchen, quietly, so as not to wake her father. If he was sleeping. She remained sitting in the best chair, her father’s old armchair, until that bottle was empty too.

  Then he appeared at the doorway. A towering figure, with slumped shoulders and the palms of his hands opened, outstretched from his pajama-clad body, in a gesture of helplessness. Neither of them said anything. He hesitated for a long time, eventually stepping into the room and crouching down beside her.

  “Kristine,” he said gently, to say something rather than because he had something to say. “Kristine. My girl.”

  She wanted so much to respond. More than anything else in the whole world, she wished she could engage with him, lean forward and let herself be comforted, and comfort him. Tell him sorry for what she had inflicted on him, sorry she had disappointed him and spoiled everything for him by being so stupid as to go off and get herself raped. She wished she could wipe out the last few horrendous days, wipe out everything, be eight years old and happy again, allowing herself to be tossed in the air and caught in his arms. But she simply couldn’t. Nothing and no one could make everything all right again. She had destroyed his life. All she could manage to do was reach out her hand and let her little finger stroke his face, from the soft skin below the temple, across his rough, unshaven cheek until it rested at the cleft in his chin.

  “Daddy,” she said in almost a whisper and stood up. Staggering slightly, she regained her balance and returned to her room. At the door, she half turned and saw he was still there, crouched down, with his face in his hands. She closed the door behind her and lay fully clothed on her bed. After only a few minutes, she was in a deep and dreamless sleep.

  WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2

  The paved incline leading from Grønlandsleiret to Oslo police headquarters bustled with activity. People were coming and going. A few taxis were driving up and down at speed, dodging everything from men in suits on their way to meetings with important people on the floors above to old ladies tottering in on skinny legs, wearing sensible walking shoes, to give irate and agitated reports about missing poodles. The sun shone incessantly, and the dandelions on the grass were becoming gray haired. Even Oslo Prison looked attractive in the midst of the avenue of poplar trees, as though the infamous TV crook Egon Olsen might emerge from the gate at any moment, humming a tune, ready to plan another heist. Half-naked people were sprawled or seated in every possible spot between the buildings, some on their lunch hour, others unemployed or housewives deriving pleasure from the only patch of green in the Gamle Oslo quarter of the city. A few dark-skinned lads played soccer, startling the occasional sunbather with an errant ball to the stomach. The children laughed and showed no sign of shifting their match to another location.

  Hanne Wilhelmsen and Håkon Sand were sitting on a bench directly beside the wall. Hanne had rolled her trousers up above her knees and removed her shoes. With a stolen glance, Håkon ascertained that she didn’t shave her legs. It was okay, as she had only some light, soft, feminine down that made her look even lovelier than if her legs had been shiny. Her skin had already turned a shade of pale golden brown.

  “Have you thought about one thing?” Håkon Sand inquired, food in mouth. He continued chewing and then folded the waxed paper neatly, pouring the rest of the milk carton contents down his throat.

  “Have you considered that there wasn’t a Saturday night massacre this time? I mean last Saturday night.”

  “Yes.”

  Detective Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen had finished her modest lunch long before. It had consisted of yogurt and a medium-sized carrot. Incredulous, Håkon had asked her if she was on a diet, and she had not replied.

  “Yes, I’ve thought about it,” she acknowledged once more. “Odd. Perhaps the jokers have grown tired of it. We have at least managed to keep the story out of the newspapers. It must be a bit boring after a while, going to all that bother just to annoy us. He was probably hoping for something more. If the theory about it being a prankster is true, that is.”

  “Maybe he’s quite simply run out of blood . . .”

  “Yes, maybe so.”

  The soccer ball soared toward them in an arc. Hanne leaped up and caught it with a smile, then turned to face her colleague.

  “Fancy a game?”

  An energetic, dismissive gesture extinguished any hope of seeing Håkon Sand play football with the Pakistani boys. Hanne kicked the ball back and groaned. She sat down, rubbing her tender instep.

/>   “Out of practice.”

  “What do you really think about that case?” Håkon Sand asked.

  “Truth to tell, I don’t know. Hopefully, it’s just nonsense. But there’s something or other about it I don’t like. Despite everything, the guy must have gone to a lot of bother.”

  “Or lady.”

  “I don’t honestly believe a woman would do something like that. It’s kind of . . . a bit too masculine. All that blood.”

  “But what if it wasn’t a prank? What if those three places were scenes of actual crimes? What if . . . ?”

  “Don’t you have enough to do, Håkon? Is it necessary to spend time on what-if crimes? In that case, you’ll get plenty to keep you busy in the future, that’s for sure.”

  Slightly peeved, she donned her socks and shoes and rolled her trousers down.

  “Game over. We need to get back to work,” she insisted.

  They ambled into the station. Some gilded monstrosity hanging from the ceiling in a feeble attempt at decorating the enormous foyer seemed about to collapse from the heat. The sunshine was reflected so brilliantly it was painful to look at.

  No great loss if the whole piece of junk takes a dive, Hanne Wilhelmsen thought.

  Then she took the elevator to the second floor.

  * * *

  Håkon’s speculations concerning the Saturday night massacres consumed her thoughts, which was immensely annoying. She now had five rape cases, seven assaults, and a suspected case of incest to work on. It was more than enough. It was true they had a special group to deal with child abuse, but during this absurd spring it seemed that little children were becoming increasingly valuable as sexual objects. They all had to take a share of the load. The case assigned to her was of the kind that would typically be dropped. Clinically, there was no sign of anything untoward. It did not matter that the child had changed character completely, to the total despair of both mother and kindergarten, and a psychologist had established with a great degree of certainty that something or other had happened. Regardless, this was as far distant from securing a conviction as from here to the moon. “Something or other” was not exactly specific, seen from a legal point of view. All the same, it conflicted with her innermost instincts as a police officer not to try a bit harder. During the judicial examination, the youngster had said quite a lot but had gone completely silent when Hanne had carefully tried to coax out the name of the person with “weird pee, like milk.” Another judicial review would be her last-ditch effort, but it would have to wait. At least for a couple of weeks.