Blessed Are Those Who Thirst

by Anne Holt

  * * *

  The man Finn Håverstad lay in his bathtub planning to murder had changed his mind. Yesterday he had been so determined, so definite about doing it. Now he wanted to skip a Saturday. It did not matter a jot that they had found the body in the abandoned garden. He was one hundred percent certain nobody had been there for several years. That was possibly why he had been slightly slipshod with the depth. He had had too much to do. Bloody hell. It was good to get coverage in the newspapers, though. Perhaps that was what had blinded him yesterday. Now, after further thought, it struck him that things were becoming dangerous.

  By a quirk of fate, he was sitting with a glass of exactly the same brand of whiskey as Håverstad the dentist had on the edge of his bath. It would break his pattern. That was what he enjoyed most. What had bothered the police most. He particularly liked the blood aspect. It aroused interest. If it had not been for that very detail, he would not have been given so much attention. And pigs’ blood! On Muslims!

  When the body was discovered, however, it immediately became more serious. Now he had to reckon on them allocating more resources. That was not his intention at all. It was a fucking nuisance they had found the body.

  * * *

  The lady was as round as a ball and deeply suspicious by nature. After forty years of running a boardinghouse, no one was going to come here and pull the wool over her eyes. It was one thing that they were going to have those Olympic Games here in the winter.

  “We’ll be well rid of those foreigners there,” she mumbled to herself as she spread thick slices of bread with half a gram of butter, making it extend as far out toward the edges as possible. The thicker she cut the slices, the fuller the guests would be. Then they used up fewer sandwich toppings. Bread was cheaper than the cold meats and cheese. Simple arithmetic. She had calculated with satisfaction that she could save up to sixty or seventy kroner in only one round of supper. There was money to be made that way, in the long run.

  “We’ll get rid of those foreigners at the Olympics, oh, yes, but these asylum seekers, we’re worse off with them,” she continued grimly without anyone listening, apart from an enormous brindled cat that had jumped onto the kitchen worktop.

  “Kitty, kitty, get yourself down from there!”

  A couple of cat hairs had fallen onto one of the buttered slices, and she plucked them off with her small, plump fingers.

  Then she came to a decision.

  Drying her hands on her voluminous apron that was far from clean, she lifted the receiver on an old-fashioned black telephone with a rotary dial. Her fingers were so fat that she could not fit them properly into the holes, but she managed to dial the number for the police. She had it taped beside the telephone, handy should the occasion arise.

  “Hello? This is Mrs. Brøttum from the Guesthouse! I want to report an illegal immigrant!”

  Mrs. Brøttum managed to report her immigrant to a patient lady who assured her they would investigate the matter. After ten minutes oohing and aahing about all the Muslims flooding into the country, with their obvious special attraction to the Lillehammer area, the lady at the police station, now not quite so patient, managed to wind down the conversation.

  “Mrs. Brøttum again,” sighed the uniformed officer to her colleague at the central switchboard in Lillehammer police station as she threw the note into the wastepaper basket.

  Not very far from the station, two other uniformed policemen were enjoying a late dinner break. Three hot dogs and a large order of fries each. They were sitting on a hard, rigidly mounted concrete bench, scowling across at a pretty, neat woman in old-fashioned clothes who sat at the far end, beside the fairly busy highway. She was eating the same as them, but not as much. And not as fast.

  “I’ll bet that woman over there’s not Norwegian,” one of the officers said, his mouth full of food. “Look at those clothes!”

  “Her hair’s too light,” the other one said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Her hair’s far too light.”

  “She might be Turkish,” the first one insisted. “Or Yugoslavian. They’re sometimes blonde, you know!”

  “Her over there’s not a foreigner.”

  The other man did not give up. Neither did the first.

  “Let’s bet on it,” he challenged. “I’ll wager three hot dogs and one order of fries.”

  Thinking about it, the other man peered over at the small figure. She had now obviously realized they were interested in her, as she stood up abruptly and stepped quickly over to the trash can with what was left of her food.

  “Okay.”

  The other took him on. They both got to their feet and approached the lady, who looked panic-stricken.

  “I think you’re damn right, Ulf,” the doubter said. “She’s scared of us in any case.”

  “Hello there,” the first one shouted, confident of victory. “Stop a minute!”

  The woman with the bizarre clothing stopped suddenly. She looked over at them, terrified.

  “You’re not from these parts, are you?”

  He was friendly enough in a way.

  “No, I not from here.”

  “Where are you from, then?”

  “I from Iran, asylum seeker.”

  “Oh, yes. Well, have you got any papers on you?”

  “No papers here, but where I live.”

  “And where’s that, then?”

  Of course she had forgotten what it was called. Moreover, she would hardly have been able to pronounce Gudbrandsdalen Guesthouse if she had all the time in the world. Instead she simply pointed uncertainly up the road.

  “Up there.”

  “Up there, yes, well,” one of the policemen repeated, glancing at his colleague. “I think you’d better come with us. We’ll have to check this out more closely.”

  They did not notice that the woman had tears in her eyes, or that she was trembling. They did not pay very much attention at all.

  When the little Iranian woman did not appear for supper at the Gudbrandsdalen Guesthouse, Mrs. Brøttum came to the conclusion that her tip-off had been followed up. Humming cheerfully, she splashed out on an extra slice of cucumber for the buttered slices of bread with liver paste. She was exceedingly pleased.

  In a cell at Lillehammer police station, the Iranian sat waiting for the police to check who she was. Unfortunately, she was brought in at the same time as the change of shift. The two who had placed a bet on her nationality were preoccupied with getting home to their wives and children, and asked their replacements to write the report. They promised on their honor to do so.

  But of course they forgot. And so the woman sat there, without anyone actually knowing where she was.

  WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9

  It was raining cats and dogs. Not to mention elephants and minke whales. It was as though everything nature had held back for the past two months was pouring out all at once. The water splashed down onto the dry earth that was totally unable to absorb such enormous amounts at the one time. Which led to the rain instead taking a shortcut to the sea by turning the streets into riverbeds. Åkebergveien looked as though the River Aker was in spring flood. It cascaded and streamed, and three traffic policemen were standing in rubber boots and rain attire, wondering when the water would reach the level when it would quite simply sweep the parked cars away. There was traffic chaos in Oslo.

  Even the farmers, who, during the long period of drought, with their usual pessimism, had predicted the worst crops in living memory, as they did every single year, whether there was too much rain, too little rain, too little sun or too much, were of the opinion that there had to be limits. Now the harvest was certainly in peril. This was a total natural disaster.

  Only the young folks were delighted. After the long heat wave, even a sudden surprising storm could not change the fact that summer temperatures were here to stay. The mercury in the thermometers still pointed to eighteen degrees Celsius. The youngsters shrieked in glee as they frolicked in the downpour, wearing only
their bathing trunks, despite their mothers’ vociferous protests. It was to no avail. This was the most cheerful, most intense, warmest rainy weather anyone could ever remember.

  The angels are mourning Kaldbakken, Hanne Wilhelmsen thought as she glanced out the window.

  It was like sitting in a car inside a car wash. The rain was pounding so violently against the windowpanes that the outlines of everything outside were completely obliterated, creating a pale gray fog. She leaned her forehead against the cool glass, and a dewy rose formed beside her mouth.

  The intercom instructed them all to come to the conference room. She looked at the clock. There would be a memorial ceremony at eight o’clock. She hated that kind of thing. But she went.

  The superintendent appeared gloomier than usual, appropriately enough. He was wearing a suit for the occasion, still wet from his ankles to his knees. It looked rather sad and so was suitable from that point of view. Dampness clogged the air in the unventilated room. No one was dry, but everyone was warm. And most of them were genuinely sorry.

  Kaldbakken could hardly be called a popular man. He was too reserved, too taciturn for that. Grumpy, some would say. He had, however, been decent in all his years there. Fair. It was more than could be said for several other bosses at the station. So when some individuals dried a tear during the superintendent’s stammering memorial speech, it was not just for appearance’s sake.

  Hanne Wilhelmsen did not shed a tear, but she was sad. She and Kaldbakken had worked well together. They had rather different viewpoints about most things outside the large building in which they earned a living, but as a rule they were in agreement about everything to do with their investigations. Moreover, you’re better off with the devil you know. Hanne had no idea who would be the chief inspector now. In the worst-case scenario, they would end up with someone from another section. But it would probably be a few days yet before anyone was appointed. The man should at least be allowed to go to his grave before his successor moved into his kippered office.

  The superintendent was finished, and an awkward silence descended over the gathering. Chairs scraped, but no one made a move to leave. They were all uncertain whether the session was over, or whether the lengthy silence was part of the proceedings.

  “Well, the show must go on,” the superintendent said, coming to their rescue.

  The room emptied in less than a minute.

  Hanne Wilhelmsen had got it into her head she needed to find the Iranian woman from the ground floor. It was worrying that she had disappeared without a trace. In her own mind, she feared the lady was already lying somewhere with her throat cut, underneath a few feet of earth. The Saturday man could have altered his habits. At the very least, they ought to get hold of her. It annoyed the detective inspector intensely that she had been carelessly superficial in her interview with her that first Monday. It hadn’t seemed so important then. And of course she had so damn much to do.

  Now it had at least been established that the woman in the secluded garden had been raped. Both one way and the other, in a manner of speaking. Hanne Wilhelmsen was sitting with the examination results from Forensics. They had not yet carried out any DNA analysis, that took a bloody long time, but semen had been identified in both the rectum and the vagina.

  They had to find the lady from the ground floor. In the meantime, her home address was being covered. They had decided to do a fresh, thorough round of interviews with all the neighbors. Just to be on the safe side. Four police officers had allocated most of the day. She herself had more than enough to do in the office.

  And outside the window, the prospect was still wet and gray.

  * * *

  Kristine Håverstad was unsure whether she would manage to kill someone who was sleeping. Although she felt a liberating sense of anticipation about what lay ahead, she wished she had a more effective weapon than a knife. A gun would be the best thing. Then she could taunt him. Take the upper hand, place him in the same situation he had forced her into. That would be best of all. That would be the fairest thing. Then he could pray to God not to die. She would take her time. Perhaps compel him to take off his clothes, to stand before her totally defenseless and stark naked, while she had both clothes and a gun.

  Her father had a gun in his bedroom. She knew that, but she didn’t know the first thing about guns. What she did know, however, was the most effective and deadly place to stab a knife into someone. But she needed some time. He had to be sleeping heavily. Between three and five o’clock people sleep most deeply. Between three and five she would get him.

  She would manage to kill him, even though he was sleeping. But it was far from being the way she would have preferred.

  * * *

  The woman from Iran was sitting in a detention cell in Lillehammer for the fourteenth hour. She had been fed, as everyone detained there was. She had received nothing else. She did not challenge it and did not utter a word. That’s the way it should be.

  Last night she had not slept at all. There were so many noises and far too much light. What’s more, she was terrified. She had sat in a cell twice before. It had not been as clean then. And she had not been given food either. But the uncertainty and anxiety had been exactly the same.

  Creeping into a corner of the cell, she drew her knees up underneath her chin and sat without moving a muscle for several hours more.

  * * *

  “She’s vanished without trace. No one has heard her, no one has seen her. Doesn’t seem to have been home since Monday. Difficult to say, the neighbors tell me, because she kept herself to herself. Never a sound from that apartment, according to the two who live across from her.”

  Erik Henriksen looked like a drowned red fox. A little puddle had already formed around him, becoming larger by the minute. Leaning forward, he shook his head vigorously.

  “Hey, there’s no need to make me as wet as you!” Hanne Wilhelmsen protested.

  “You should see that weather,” Erik said excitedly. “It’s unbelievable! It’s pouring, it’s bucketing, up to here in lots of places!”

  He made a light karate chop on his own knee and beamed.

  “It’s almost impossible to drive a car! The motor gets drowned!”

  He did not need to tell her. Hanne Wilhelmsen thought it looked as though the water would soon reach her window on the second floor. The traffic policemen in Åkebergveien had given up an hour earlier, and now the road was completely closed. In fact, people in the police station had gone from cracking lively jokes about the burst of rain to appearing legitimately concerned. The traffic chaos was no longer only a source of irritation. An ambulance had broken down when the engine became too wet in a small lake in Thorvald Meyers gate. They were so near Accident and Emergency that no harm was done; the patient had simply got soaked when the paramedics had to lift the stretcher between them, wading the two hundred meters or so down to the emergency room, as they carried the old lady with the broken femur. But worse things could happen. No one was particularly afraid of fire at the moment, but it was frightening to contemplate that the city’s infrastructure was in the process of breaking down entirely. Two telecommunications areas had collapsed after a base station was flooded. A generator was close to stalling at Ullevål Hospital.

  “What are the meteorologists saying?”

  “No idea,” Erik said, leaning against the window and looking outside. “But I say it won’t let up for quite a while.”

  The superintendent entered as Erik left. He had removed his jacket but was still uncomfortably dressed in his suit trousers, which had clearly been purchased several kilos earlier. He pinched the trouser legs at the thigh before sitting down.

  “We won’t manage it before Saturday, will we?”

  It was actually more a statement of fact than a question. Hanne therefore found no reason to reply.

  “What are we doing now?” he asked, this time looking for an answer.

  “I’ve sent four men out to Kristine Håverstad’s apartment building
. They’re going to interview all the neighbors again. More thoroughly this time.”

  She stared slightly uneasily at the wet patch where Erik had stood.

  “It’s embarrassing. I should have been more meticulous the first time.”

  That was true. The superintendent, however, certainly knew why she had not been. He rubbed his face and sniffed.

  “Damn it, with this change in the weather we’ll all come down with colds. That’s all we need now. An influenza epidemic.”

  Sighing deeply and sniffing again, he realized that Hanne Wilhelmsen still appeared concerned about her rather deplorable contribution to the rape case of the previous week. When they still had time. Perhaps enough time to prevent last Saturday’s bloodbath.

  “Well, Hanne,” he said kindly, pushing his chair closer to her. “It was a rape. A horrible but unfortunately otherwise fairly ordinary rape. What should you have done? With all the rest we have to do? If you are right in this theory of yours that it’s the same person behind the Saturday night massacres as well as this rape—and I think you are—then that’s something we know now. We didn’t know it a week ago.”

  Halting, he drew a rough and noisy breath, and sneezed violently.

  “Do you know how many we’d need to be here in this section if we were to investigate every single rape to the degree it deserves?”

  Hanne shook her head.

  “Me neither.”

  He sneezed again.

  “That’s life. We have too few staff. Rape is a difficult crime. We can’t spend much time on such things. Sorry to say.”

  His apology was heartfelt, and Hanne knew that. But the superintendent would not have had the job he had if it weren’t for his extremely flexible and pragmatic character. Rape was a difficult crime to prove. The police needed to prove things. That was the way it was.