by Anne Holt
‘That’s what we’re trying to work out,’ Kjetil said calmly. ‘The key question is why Marianne was murdered. If you have any information whatsoever that might help us to—’
‘Of course I haven’t,’ she snapped. ‘Of course I haven’t a clue why anyone would want to kill Marianne! Apart from her bloody parents!’
He didn’t bother to comment on that.
Synnøve tugged at her sweater. She picked up the glass of water and put it down again without having a drink. Fiddled with her wedding ring. Ran her fingers through her hair.
Tried to make the time pass.
That was what she must focus on in the days to come. Making the time pass. Time heals all wounds, but whenever she glanced at the clock only half a minute had passed since the last time.
And no wounds had healed.
‘Can I go?’ she mumbled.
‘Of course. I’ll drive you. We’re going to have to trouble you with more questions before too long, but—’
‘Who?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Who’s going to trouble me with more questions?’
‘Since the body was found in Oslo, and all the indications are that the crime took place there, this is a case for the Oslo police. Naturally, we’ll be assisting them as necessary, but—’
‘I’d like to go now.’
She stood up. Kjetil Berggren noticed that her sweater was too big, and her shoulders were drooping. She must have lost five or six kilos in just a couple of weeks. Six kilos she couldn’t afford to lose.
‘You must eat,’ he said. ‘Are you eating?’
Without replying she picked up her quilted jacket from the back of the chair.
‘You don’t need to drive me,’ she said. ‘I’ll walk.’
‘But it’ll only take me three minutes to—’
‘I’ll walk,’ she broke in.
In the doorway she turned back and looked at him.
‘You didn’t believe me,’ she said. ‘You didn’t believe me when I said something terrible had happened to Marianne.’
He examined his nails without saying a word.
‘I hope that haunts you,’ she said.
He nodded, still without looking up.
It doesn’t haunt me at all, he thought. It doesn’t haunt me because Marianne was long dead by the time you came to us.
But he didn’t say anything.
*
She couldn’t complain about the efficiency. The police sketch artist had produced not only a full-face picture but also a profile, a full-length picture from the front, and a detailed drawing of some kind of emblem or pin which Martin Setre claimed the man had been wearing on his lapel. Silje Sørensen leafed quickly through the drawings before laying all four out on the desk in front of her.
She was sceptical about sketches like these, even though she was the one who had requested them.
Most people made terrible witnesses. Exactly the same situation or exactly the same person could be described afterwards in completely different ways. Witnesses would talk about things that didn’t exist, events that had never taken place. Animatedly and in detail. They weren’t lying. They just remembered incorrectly and filled the gaps in their memory with their own experiences and fantasies.
At the same time, facial composites could sometimes be absolutely key. The artist had to be skilful and the witness particularly observant. There were advanced computer programs that could do the work more easily and in certain cases more precisely, but she preferred drawings done by hand.
And that was what she’d got.
She studied the portrait.
The man was white, and probably somewhere between thirty-five and fifty. From the notes in the file she could see that Martin Setre wasn’t absolutely sure whether the man had shaved his head or had actually lost his hair. He was bald, at any rate. Round face. Dark eyes, no glasses. The nose was straight and the chin broad, almost angular. A narrow double chin framed the lower part of his face. He was heavily built, she could see that from the full-length drawing too, but not necessarily overweight. His height was estimated at around one metre seventy.
A short, stocky man who was smiling.
Silje presumed the picture had been drawn like that because the man had been smiling all the time. She glanced through the notes and her theory was confirmed.
Nice teeth.
His clothes were dark. A dark overcoat and a dark shirt. The tie was also dark, and the knot seemed loose. The drawing was in black and white, and all the monochrome tones made her feel pessimistic. When she held up the full-length picture and examined it more closely, it struck her that there must be thousands of men who looked more or less like this. Admittedly, Martin had said that the man spoke English or American, but using a different language from one’s own was an old and well-established trick.
He had just a suspicion of dimples.
Knut Bork came in without knocking, and she gave a start.
‘Sorry,’ he said in surprise. ‘I didn’t know you were here. Haven’t you got anything better to do on a Saturday afternoon?’
‘If I hadn’t been here, the door wouldn’t have been open, would it?’
‘I …’
Knut Bork was tall and fair-skinned, almost pale, with red-blonde hair and ice-blue eyes. When he blushed he did it properly: he looked like a traffic light.
‘It’s fine,’ said Silje, holding out her hand. ‘What did you want to leave me?’
‘This,’ he said amiably, handing her a thin folder. ‘It’s to go in the Marianne Kleive file.’
She took the papers and put them down next to the sketches without looking at them more closely.
‘Exactly what we needed right now,’ she said. ‘A spectacular murder at one of the city’s best hotels. Have you seen the evening papers?’
He raised his eyebrows and let out a long, slow sigh.
‘Anything new?’ she asked, nodding at the folder.
‘Only a couple of new witness statements. Half of Oslo seems to have been at that bloody hotel that night. And you know how it is – everybody thinks they have something interesting to pass on. The phones are red-hot with people wanting to talk.’
Silje picked up her cup of coffee.
‘Sometimes no witnesses are better than a thousand witnesses,’ she said. ‘The worst thing is that we have to take them all seriously. Someone might actually have seen something relevant. Cheers!’
The coffee was bitter and lukewarm.
‘Shouldn’t you be going home soon?’
‘The same applies to you,’ he said. ‘You got the drawings? Can I have a look?’
He came around the desk and leaned over the sketches.
‘No particular distinguishing features,’ he murmured.
‘No. He’s below average height, but the very word “average” tells you he’s not the only one—’
‘Do you think we’re barking up the wrong tree here?’
He held one of the pictures up at eye level.
‘Maybe,’ she sighed. ‘But it’s the only tree we’ve got.’
‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing to the sketch of a lapel. ‘A pin?’
‘Something like that. Do you recognize it?’
‘It’s a clover leaf, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘All the pictures are black and white, but the clover leaf is red.’
‘Martin insisted he was absolutely certain. We generally prefer not to have any colour in these sketches, because it can be confusing. But this pin – or whatever it is – was evidently red, no doubt about it.’
‘And these … flourishes, what are they supposed to be?’
They both examined the picture. On each leaf was a shape that might possibly be a letter in an unfamiliar alphabet.
‘Martin said there was a letter on each leaf,’ said Silje. ‘But he couldn’t remember what they were.’
Knut Bork picked up a box of lozenges from the desk.
‘Can I have
one?’ he asked, sticking his finger in the box before she had time to answer.
‘Help yourself,’ Silje mumbled. ‘Have five. There’s something familiar about that logo, isn’t there?’
‘Yes,’ said Knut Bork, and suddenly he started to laugh. ‘You’re right there! My grandmother has one on every single jacket she owns!’
His laughter broke off abruptly. Silje looked up at him. His face was bright red once again, and he was gasping like a fish on dry land.
‘Knut,’ she said tentatively. ‘Are you all right? Have you …’
She got up so quickly that the desk chair rolled away and crashed into the wall behind her. Knut Bork was considerably taller than her. For a moment she thought about climbing up on to the desk, but dismissed the idea. She wrapped her arms around him from behind and linked her hands in front of him with her right thumb pointing in towards his body. Then she squeezed with every scrap of strength she could summon.
Three black projectiles flew out of his mouth.
He coughed and took a deep breath, and she let go.
‘Thanks,’ he panted. ‘I couldn’t get … Look at that!’
He pointed to the wall opposite them. The throat lozenges had stuck to the wall in a triangle, with less than half a centimetre between them.
‘Bang on target,’ he puffed.
She looked at him, her eyebrows raised, and sat down again. ‘Perhaps now you can tell me about this logo?’
His voice still sounded hoarse as he cleared his throat and said: ‘Norske Kvinners Sanitetsforening.’
‘What?’
‘The letters are N, K and S. Norske Kvinners Sanitetsforening – the Norwegian Women’s Public Health Association.’
She pulled the drawing of the logo towards her, as if he had insulted her. A red clover leaf with a stalk, and a letter on each leaf.
‘I need to check,’ she muttered as she put down the sheet of paper and typed the name of the association into the search box on her computer.
‘There you go,’ said Knut Bork. ‘What did I tell you?’
She was staring at the association’s homepage.
The logo was a red clover leaf with the letters NKS in white. One on each leaf.
‘What the … ?’
She couldn’t marshal her thoughts.
‘A punter who pays for sex, and a possible murderer,’ she began, the words coming out in a staccato rhythm. ‘Of the male gender. Going around. Pulling young lads. In the middle of Oslo.’
She swallowed and moistened her lips with her tongue.
‘With a membership badge of the Norwegian Women’s Public Health Association clearly visible on the lapel of his jacket. What the hell is going on? Is he taking the piss or what?’
Knut Bork picked up the drawing and walked over to the notice-board by the window. He pinned it up and took two steps back. He stood there for a while, his head tilted to one side, then he suddenly turned to Silje and nodded.
‘Perhaps that’s exactly what he’s doing, Silje. Perhaps this guy is trying to take the piss.’
*
When the man on the phone said he was from the police, Marcus Koll Junior thought for a confused moment that someone was trying to play a joke on him. When he realized a few seconds later that he was mistaken, he got up and started pacing back and forth across the living room. To begin with he was concentrating so hard on sounding unconcerned that he didn’t grasp what the man was actually saying.
They couldn’t possibly know anything.
It was simply unthinkable, he tried to convince himself.
He stopped by the big windows looking south.
The sloping garden was lit up. Fir trees heavy with snow were an almost fluorescent ice-blue against the dense darkness beyond the fence. Low cloud hid the city and the fjord. From where he was standing, the world beyond his own domain did not exist.
Except on the telephone.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Marcus, trying to put a smile into his voice. ‘I wonder if you could possibly go over that again? The connection isn’t very good.’
‘The information,’ the voice said, clearly impatient. ‘You called us on Monday with information about that series of break-ins.’
A faint puff of wind brought the snow cascading down from the nearest tree. The dry crystals sparkled in the lamplight. Right down at the bottom of the garden stood two tall pine trees with bare, erect trunks and rounded crowns, like soldiers standing to attention on sentry duty.
Marcus tried to absorb the feeling of relief.
He’d been right. Of course they didn’t know anything
There was no cause for alarm.
‘Oh,’ was all he said, swallowing. ‘I don’t think that was me.’
‘Aren’t I speaking to Rolf Slettan?’ said the voice at the other end of the phone. ‘On 2307****?’
‘No,’ said Marcus, concentrating on breathing calmly. ‘He’s my husband. Rolf. He was the one who called you. My name is Marcus Koll. As I said when I answered the phone.’
There was silence for a couple of seconds.
That brief moment of silent confusion, thought Marcus. Or disgust. Or both. He was used to it, just as everyone grows used to a stigma when they have carried it for long enough. Before little Marcus started school, Marcus Koll Junior had persuaded Dagens Næringsliv to do a profile on him, pointing out that he was the only gay man with a husband and a child on the list of the hundred wealthiest people in the country. He hoped that little Marcus would be protected by the fact that everyone knew, and didn’t need to whisper. That he wouldn’t need to deal with it all later, when they found out.
It occurred to him several weeks later that not everyone read Dagens Næringsliv.
‘Oh yes,’ the voice at the other end of the line said eventually. ‘Is … is he at home? Rolf Slettan?’
‘Yes, but he’s just putting our son to bed.’
This time the silence lasted so long that Marcus thought they’d been cut off.
‘Hello?’ he said loudly.
‘Yes,’ said the man. ‘I’m here. Could you ask him to ring me? The information he gave has just been left lying around here, and I’ve got a couple of questions I’d like to—’
‘Is it the number that came up on the display?’ Marcus interrupted.
‘Er … yes, that’s fine. Tell him to ask for Constable Pettersen. Is he likely to ring this evening?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought so,’ said Marcus. ‘We have plans for this evening. But of course, if it’s important I can ask him to call you. In half an hour or so.’
‘That would be great, if you could. There was another break-in last night, and it would be—’
‘Certainly. I’ll tell him.’
He ended the conversation without any further farewell phrases, and put the phone down on the coffee table. It struck him that the room was too dark. He slowly walked around, from one source of light to the next, until the room was so well lit that the view of the garden almost disappeared in the sharp contrast between outside and inside.
Rolf had told him about the tyre tracks by the gate. To begin with Marcus had been surprised, almost annoyed that Rolf was getting so worked up about the fact that someone had pulled into the small area by the side of the road. It wasn’t fenced off, and was a natural place to give way to oncoming traffic. Since the snow had started falling heavily after New Year, he had seen tracks there all the time.
It wasn’t until Rolf had the chance to explain more clearly that Marcus was prepared to discuss the matter. He had to admit that it seemed strange for someone to stay there for a while, as the varying depth of the tracks and the number of cigarette butts seemed to indicate. When Rolf stubbornly maintained that the same car had been parked further up the road while he was examining the tracks by the gate, and had taken off as soon as he showed interest in it, Marcus fell silent.
Rolf’s strong feeling that someone had been watching them fitted all too well with his own growing sense of unease. More and mo
re often he caught himself looking over his shoulder for something, although he didn’t know what it was. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say he was looking for someone. Up to now he hadn’t been able to put his finger on anything concrete, but ever since before Christmas the impression that he had a living shadow had grown stronger and stronger. Only after New Year had he realized that the panic attack that had almost brought him to his knees four days before Christmas, after remaining at bay for many years, was not only due to the pangs of conscience with which he had been wrestling.
It was as if someone were keeping an eye on him.
The problem, as Marcus Koll Junior saw it, was that this surveillance presumably had nothing whatsoever to do with gangs of thieves and a spate of housebreaking.
If someone were spying on him, of course.
‘No,’ he said out loud, and sat down in the armchair again.
It was bound to be his imagination.
It had to be his imagination.
He was easily frightened at the moment, much too easily frightened, and Rolf’s observations could just as easily be linked to a couple of young lovers who had stopped for a cuddle. A kiss and a smoke. Or perhaps a responsible driver who had stopped to answer his mobile.
The doorbell rang.
The babysitter, he thought, and closed his eyes.
It was ten o’clock, and he was really too tired to go out.
In three months and five days it would be ten years since his father’s death.
Marcus Koll opened his eyes, stood up and tugged hard on both his earlobes to perk himself up. The doorbell rang again. As he crossed the living room he decided that 15 April would be the day when all his troubles would come to an end. Despite the fact that the date had lost its original significance, he would still use it as a milestone in his life: 15 April would be the turning point, and everything would be the way it had been before. If he could just get there. The house on the ridge would once again become a fortress; his secure framework around his family, far beyond his father’s dominion.
It was a promise he made to himself, and for some reason it made him feel a little bit better.
Before the Day Dawns
