Blessed Are Those Who Thirst

by Anne Holt

  “But you know, Håverstad, that’s not how it operates here with us. It’s not the way to go about it, having people solve crimes on their own, taking revenge at dead of night, to the secret rejoicing of the public. That only happens in films. And perhaps in America.”

  There was a knock at the door. A bizarre figure flung it open without waiting for an answer. At least six and a half feet tall, he had a closely shaven head, an unkempt red beard, and an inverted cross on his earlobe.

  “Oh, excuse me,” he blurted out at the sight of Håverstad, without seeming altogether sincere. He looked at the detective inspector.

  “Friday beer at four o’clock, are you coming?”

  “If I’m allowed to make it not only a Friday beer but a Friday Munkholm, then fine!”

  “We’ll say four o’clock, then,” the giant replied, slamming the door behind him.

  “He’s a policeman,” she assured him apologetically. “An undercover detective. They sometimes look a bit strange.”

  The atmosphere had changed. The lecture was over. She placed the two typewritten sheets in front of him to read through. It was quickly accomplished. They contained nothing concerning the topic they had been talking about—what she had been talking about—for the past half hour. The detective inspector pointed with her forefinger at the foot of the second sheet, and he signed.

  “Also here,” she added, indicating the margin of the first page.

  It was obvious he could leave. He got to his feet, but she waved away his hand, extended to shake hers in farewell.

  “I’ll come out with you.”

  Locking the office door behind her, she walked at his side down a passageway with blue doors and flooring. People were scurrying to and fro in the corridor, none wearing uniforms. They both stopped at the stairs leading to the exit. Now she was willing to shake hands.

  “Take my good advice, Håverstad. Don’t stick your nose into something you might not be able to smell. Do something else. Take your daughter away on a vacation. Go on a trip to the mountains. Travel to the south. Whatever. But let us get on with our job. On our own.”

  He mumbled a few parting words before descending the stairs. Hanne Wilhelmsen followed him with her gaze until he approached the massive metal doors holding the unbearable temperature inside. She took a few paces toward the windows facing west, reaching them at exactly the same time as he came into sight below. His trudging figure and rolling gait almost made him look like an old man. He stood still for a moment, straightening his back, before vanishing downstairs to the underground parking lot.

  Detective Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen felt great pity for the man.

  * * *

  Kristine Håverstad normally took pleasure in being at home on her own. Now she was incapable of enjoying anything at all. When her father rose, she was awake, but she’d stayed in bed until she heard the door slam behind him around half past seven. After that, she had used up all the hot water. First she showered for twenty minutes, scrubbing herself red and sore, and then she had taken a long, boiling-hot bubble bath. This had become her routine, practically a ritual, every morning.

  Now she was sitting, wearing an old jogging suit and a pair of well-worn sealskin slippers, sifting through her CD collection. When she had left home two years earlier, she had taken only the most recent ones with her, and her favorites. The pile she had left behind was fairly extensive. She grabbed an old a-ha CD, Hunting High and Low. The title was apposite. She felt she was searching for something she had no idea where to find. She did not have any idea even of what it was. As she was opening the case, she dropped it on the floor. One of the hinges broke, and she cursed softly when the two sides separated and could not be fixed together again. Angrily, she attempted to manage what she knew was impossible, resulting in the other hinge breaking too. Furious, she threw both pieces onto the floor and began to cry. Damn CD producers! She wept for half an hour.

  Morten Harket had not broken in two. Leaning forward, with stiff, muscular arms, he was staring at a place somewhere to the right of her with an inscrutable black-and-white gaze. Kristine Håverstad had studied medicine for four years. She knew her anatomy. She fished the little cover photograph from the plastic fragments in front of her. That muscle she could see was not visible in normal people. It required exercise, a great deal of working out. She felt her own slim upper arms. The triceps was there, of course, but not visible. It certainly was on Morten Harket. The underside of his upper arm bulged powerfully and distinctly. She sat staring.

  The man had been very fit. His triceps muscles had been conspicuous. When she tried to think back to that dreadful night, it was impossible to understand when she had caught sight of it. Perhaps she hadn’t. Perhaps she had simply felt it. But she was one hundred percent certain. Her rapist had possessed bulging triceps.

  A fact. That she did not know what to do with.

  Noises suddenly were audible from the hallway, and she jumped as though she were caught red-handed committing a crime of which she was oblivious. Adrenaline pumping through her bloodstream, she retrieved the pieces of broken plastic as quick as lightning, endeavoring to hide them in the enormous heap of unbroken disks facing her. Then she started to cry again.

  Everything terrified her at the moment. This morning, a tiny bird had flown toward the huge panorama window in the living room, while she was sitting there trying to force down some food. The sound made her leap skyward. She knew exactly what it was; it was quite common for the poor things to smack into the window. They virtually always came to no harm. Occasionally they remained lying there for half an hour or so before wobbling to their feet, flapping their wings gingerly a few times, and flying dizzily into the air again. This time as she had stepped outside to pick up the little bird, feeling its tiny heart beating time and time again, she felt deeply distressed. In the end the bird had died. Probably of shock because she had lifted it. She felt guilty and ashamed.

  Her father leaned over her. He pulled her to her feet, and she staggered, as though she were physically incapable of supporting her slight frame in a standing position. He could not recall her being so thin and was startled when he grasped her skinny wrists to prevent her from toppling over. He carefully hauled her across to the settee, where she allowed herself to be placed on the deep cushions without any protest. He sat down beside her, leaving a narrow space between them. Then he changed his mind, moving slightly closer, but stopping short when she made a move to pull herself back. Solicitously, he clasped her hand, and she let him hold it.

  There was no other physical contact between them. Kristine was glad of that. She couldn’t manage to pull herself together, though she really wanted to do so. She wanted at least to say something, to say anything at all.

  “I’m so sorry, Dad. So terribly sorry.”

  In fact he didn’t hear what she was saying. She spoke softly and moreover was crying so heartbrokenly that half her words were not properly enunciated. But at least she was talking. For a moment he was unsure whether he should say something in reply. Would she regard his silence as a sign of helplessness? Or was it exactly the best thing, not to say anything, only to listen? As a compromise, he coughed.

  That was obviously the right thing to do. She drifted toward him, slowly, almost hesitantly, but eventually her face was close to his neck. That was where she stayed. He sat like a pillar of salt, with one arm around her and the other hand in hers. He was not sitting comfortably, but he didn’t move a muscle for half an hour. There and then he knew the decision he had made when he found his daughter on the floor less than a week earlier, devastated and destroyed, a decision he had doubted as recently as his visit to the police that morning, had been correct after all.

  * * *

  “Is it possible to make any sense at all of this?”

  Since they had so many major cases, no one had a monopoly on the so-called operations room. It was not much to boast about anyway, but was at least a room, just as good as any other.

  Erik Hen
riksen was sweaty and redder in the face than usual, making him look like a walking traffic light. Right now he was seated. On a tilted worktable facing him lay a sea of report sheets. These were the tip-offs in the Kristine Håverstad case.

  The officer looked up at Hanne Wilhelmsen.

  “There’s a lot of peculiar stuff here.” He laughed. “Listen to this. ‘The sketch bears a striking resemblance to Arne Høgtveit, the municipal court judge. Regards from Ulf of Nordland.’ ”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen smiled broadly. Ulf of Nordland was a notorious criminal who found himself inside prison walls more often than outside. Judge Høgtveit had probably seen to his most recent stay.

  “Actually, that’s not so idiotic. It does look a bit like him,” she said, crumpling the report and aiming for the wastepaper bin beside the door. She scored a hit.

  “Or this one,” Erik Henriksen continued. “ ‘The culprit must be my son. He has been possessed by evil spirits since 1991. He has closed his door to the Lord.’ ”

  “That’s not so idiotic either, you know,” Hanne Wilhelmsen said. “Have you investigated further?”

  “Yes. The man is a clergyman in Drammen. His mother has been a psychiatric patient at Lier Hospital since 1991.”

  Now she laughed out loud.

  “Are they all just like that?”

  She scanned the reports that were spread out, seemingly chaotic but probably according to some kind of system.

  “That one . . .”

  Henriksen clapped the bundle farthest to the left with his hand.

  “. . . is simply stuff and nonsense.”

  Unfortunately, that was the largest stack.

  “This one . . .”

  His fist punched the closer bundle, which was smaller.

  “. . . is lawyers, judges, and police officers.”

  Then he let his fingers stray across the table.

  “Here are previous sex offenders, here are the usual, men unknown to us, here are people who clearly are too old, and here . . .”

  He picked up a slim bundle containing four or five sheets.

  “. . . these are women.”

  “Women.” Hanne chortled. “Have we received reports about women?”

  “Yes. Should I throw them out?”

  “You can safely do that. As a matter of form, hold on to the lawyer and police bundle, and perhaps the crazy pile too. But don’t waste any time on them. At the moment. Concentrate on the sexual deviants and the usual men without police records. If the reports have been made by people who seem reasonably serious, at least. How many does that leave then?”

  He counted quickly. “Twenty-seven men.”

  “Who have probably not committed the crime.” Hanne Wilhelmsen sighed. “But bring them in. As quickly as possible. Let me know if anyone seems particularly interesting. Does that phone work?”

  Taken aback, he responded that he assumed so. He lifted the receiver and held it tentatively to his ear for a second.

  “Dial tone, anyway. Were you not expecting it to be working?”

  “There’s always some issue with the equipment in here. Nothing but castoffs no one else wants.”

  Pulling a slip of paper from her tight jeans, she dialed an Oslo number.

  “Senior Technician Bente Reistadvik, please,” she requested. Before long the technician was on the line.

  “Wilhelmsen, Homicide, Oslo Police, here. I have a couple of cases with you. Firstly . . .”

  She glanced again at the note.

  “Case number 93-03541. Offense against Kristine Håverstad. We have asked for DNA and also sent over some fibers, hairs, and various fragments.”

  There was silence for a while, and the detective inspector stared into space without making any notes.

  “No, I see. When will it be ready, approximately? As long as that?”

  Sighing, she turned around, leaning her posterior on the edge of the desk.

  “What about these Saturday night massacres of ours? Have you anything for me on them?”

  Ten seconds later she was staring at the red-haired policeman with a startled expression.

  “Is that right? Okay.”

  A pause.

  “Exactly.”

  A lengthy pause. She turned around again, obviously searching for something to write on, and received pen and paper from her colleague. Pulling the telephone cable around the edge of the desk with her, she sat down at the other side of the two desks, which had been placed together.

  “Interesting. When can I have that in writing?”

  Another pause.

  “Great stuff. Thanks very much!”

  The receiver banged into place. Hanne Wilhelmsen continued to make notes for a minute and a half. She stared at what she had written for a few moments, without uttering a word. Then, folding the sheet of paper twice, she stood up, placed the note in her back pocket, and left the room without even a word of farewell.

  Erik Henriksen sat back, feeling somewhat cheated.

  * * *

  His golden tan was as simulated as his muscle tone. The former was a result of solarium rays, enough to inflict terminal skin cancer on a large group. The bulging muscles had been assisted by artificial substances, more specifically various types of testosterone, mainly anabolic steroids.

  He was in love with his own appearance. He was a man. He had always wanted to look like this, especially when he was going through puberty as a skinny, cross-eyed boy on the receiving end of daily thrashings from other boys. His mother had not been able to prevent any of it. With breath reeking of mints and alcohol, she had tried despondently to comfort him when he arrived home with black eyes, scraped knees, and burst lips. However, she stayed hidden behind the curtains rather than intervening when the hooligans in the neighborhood challenged both her and her boy by staging fights ever closer to the apartment block where he lived. He was aware of it, because when he had initially shouted up for help to the kitchen curtains on the first floor, he had seen the movement as she withdrew from the window. She always drew back. What she did not know was that the beatings were caused more by her than by his own puny appearance.

  The lads in the street had proper mothers. The kind of cheerful, clever women who offered slices of bread with milk, some of them working, but none of them full-time. The others had annoying, sweet little siblings and, what’s more, fathers. Not all of them lived there; at the beginning of the seventies, the trend toward divorce had even reached the small town where he grew up. But the daddies turned up all the same, in cars on Saturday mornings, with sleeves rolled up, beaming smiles, and fishing rods in the trunk of the car. All except his.

  The boys called his mother Alkie-Guri. When he was little, really little, he had thought his mother had such a lovely name. Guri. After Alkie-Guri was mentioned, he hated it. From that day to this, he couldn’t stand women with that name. He couldn’t stand women much in any case.

  He survived puberty, barely, and the bullying diminished. He was seventeen and had grown eighteen centimeters in eighteen months. He did not have acne, and his shoulders had broadened. The squint had been repaired in an operation following which he had been required to go about with a humiliating patch over his eye for six months, not exactly increasing his popularity. His hair was blond, and his mother told him he was handsome. For the life of him he could not understand why Aksel, for example, had a girlfriend when no one would even look at him. Aksel was a slightly overweight, bespectacled classmate who, on top of everything else, was at least a head shorter than him.

  They weren’t actually nasty but simply avoided him and occasionally threw sarcastic comments in his direction. Especially the ladies.

  When the boy was in his second year of senior high school, Alkie-Guri lost her marbles completely. She was committed to a psychiatric hospital. He had visited her once, shortly after her incarceration. She was lying in bed then, festooned with pipes and tubes, with her head in the clouds. He had not known what he should do, what he should say. While he was sittin
g there, in silence, listening to her nonsense, the quilt had slid halfway off her body. Her nightdress was open at the front, and one breast, a skinny, empty sack of flesh with a dark, almost black nipple, had grimaced at him, like a staring, accusing eyeball. Then he left. Since that time, he had never seen his mother. That day he made up his mind about what he would become. No one would be able to torment him again.

  Now he was sitting facing a computer screen, pondering deeply. The choice was not entirely easy. He had to restrict himself to the ones who were absolutely sure things. The ones who had nobody. The ones nobody would miss. Now and again he stood up and stepped over to a filing cabinet, taking out files and looking again at the little passport photograph fastened with a paper clip at the top of the first page. The passport photographs always lied, he knew that from bitter experience. However, they conveyed some inkling.

  Eventually he was satisfied. He felt his excitement escalate, a real kick, as good as when he measured his muscles and realized he could expect an increase of at least one centimeter on his upper arms, compared with the last measurement.

  It was an ingenious arrangement. And most ingenious of all was that he was fooling the others. Fooling and tormenting them. He knew exactly how things stood with them, the idiots in the Criminal Investigation Department at police headquarters. They were utterly bamboozled by these Saturday night massacres. He even knew that’s what they were calling them: Saturday night massacres. He smiled. They didn’t even have the brains to decipher the clue he had left them. Cretins, all of them.

  He rejoiced.

  * * *

  “Tell me, where are you hanging out these days?” Hanne Wilhelmsen asked, collapsing onto the visitor’s chair in Håkon Sand’s office. He was struggling with a quid of chewing tobacco that was leaking rather too much, and his upper lip formed into a peculiar convex shape as a safeguard against the undoubtedly bitter taste.

  “I hardly get a glimpse of you, you know!”

  “Court,” he mumbled, endeavoring to help the chewing tobacco back into place with his tongue. Having to give up, he stuck his index finger under his lip and pulled out the entire splodge. He shook his finger on the edge of the wastepaper basket, and wiped the remainder on his trousers.