Fear Not

by Anne Holt

  Johanne felt remarkably contented when the alarm clock rang at the early hour of five-thirty on the morning of Monday, 12 January. At first she couldn’t work out why she was being woken up so early, and lay there in that pleasant no-man’s-land between dream and reality, while Adam hurled himself at the wretched thing and silenced it. The dry warmth beneath the covers made her draw them more closely around her. When Adam lay down again with a groan she wriggled up against his back.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ he murmured. ‘The plane to Bergen leaves in two hours.’

  ‘Ragnhild’s asleep,’ she whispered. ‘Kristiane and Jack are at Isak’s. Can’t you stay for quarter of an hour?’

  It cost him his breakfast, and as he sat in the car on the way to Gardermoen just after six-thirty, late and with grumbling pains in his stomach, he almost regretted it.

  Johanne, on the other hand, felt better than she had for a long time. The evening with Karen Winslow had gone on until three o’clock on Saturday morning. It would have been even later if Karen hadn’t had to drive a good 200 kilometres to Lillesand the following day. Adam had taken Ragnhild to visit his son-in-law and his grandson Amund on Saturday morning, and stayed out all day. Johanne had slept for longer than she could ever remember. After a long breakfast and three hours with the Saturday papers, she had driven to Tøyenbadet and swum 1,500 metres. In the evening Sigmund Berli had called round. Uninvited. He had brought pizza and warm beer. The unwelcome guest gave Johanne a good excuse to go to bed before ten o’clock.

  It had done her good.

  She was still feeling happy after meeting up with her old friend. Ragnhild had gone to bed too late on the Sunday, and she had finally reached the age where she caught up on some lost sleep the following day. Johanne ambled around in Adam’s huge pyjamas, made a big pot of coffee and settled down on the sofa with the laptop on her knee. Her teaching commitments hadn’t yet started post-Christmas, and she had decided to spend the day at home. She would leave Ragnhild to sleep until she woke up, despite the fact that the woman who ran the nursery got annoyed if she wasn’t dropped off before ten.

  Johanne checked her e-mail; she had nine new messages. Most of them were of no interest. One was from the police. She glanced through it quickly, and realized immediately that it was the same message Adam had received on Saturday morning about the murder of Marianne Kleive. The police had obtained a complete guest list from the wedding reception at the Continental, and were making routine enquiries as to whether any of the guests had noticed anything that might be relevant to the case. Johanne deleted the message straight away. Adam had already replied for both of them, besides which she wanted to devote as little thought as possible to that terrible evening when Kristiane had almost been hit by a tram.

  Karen Winslow had already replied to the question Johanne had sent the previous day. She pulled the blanket more tightly around her and opened the message as she sipped the scalding hot coffee.

  Dear Johanne,

  It was so great to see you! A wonderful evening and an interesting(!) walk through the city! Meeting your husband was fantastic, and I have to say – my own man has one or two things to learn from him. His warmth and generosity when we showed up in the middle of the night exceeded all expectations.

  I’m writing you from Oslo Airport. The wedding was unbelievable, but the drive to and from Lillesand a nightmare.

  As we agreed, I’ll fill you in on some of the most relevant parts of our research / intelligence as soon as I can. Just to respond to the questions in your message of this morning: the name ‘The 25’ers’ is based on the sum of the digits in 19, 24 and 27 (did I tell you that?). Our theory is that the numbers 24 and 27 point to St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, chapter 1 verses 24 and 27. Look it up yourself. The number 19 is claimed to have a somehow ‘magical’ significance in the Koran. It’s too complicated to explain here, but if you google ‘Rashad Khalifa’ you’ll figure it out. If our numerologists are correct, the name ‘The 25’ers’ is quite scary …

  They’re calling my flight now, so I’ll have to run.

  And don’t you forget – you and your family have PROMISED to come visit us this summer!

  All the best and a big hug,

  Karen

  Johanne read through the message again. She needed a printout to remember the strange references. The printer was in the bedroom. As she opened the door the closed-in smell of sheets, sleep and sex hit her. Adam refused to sleep with the window open when the mercury dropped below minus five. Quickly she linked the computer to the printer. When the rasping sound told her that the document was being printed, she went over to the window and threw it wide open.

  She closed her eyes against the fresh, cold air.

  The Bible, she thought.

  She wasn’t even sure if they had one, but she knew there was a copy of the Koran in Adam’s bookcase. He insisted on having a bookcase of his own in the bedroom, five metres of shelving containing an absurd mixture of books. The Book Club’s splendid series on holy scriptures stood alongside reference books on weapons, huge works on heraldry, almost twenty books about horses and bloodlines, an ancient edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, plus everything that had ever been drawn and published by Frode Øverli. Leaving the window open, she crouched down in front of the bookcase on Adam’s side of the double bed. The Koran was easy to find: its spine was adorned with gold leaf and Oriental patterns. The book standing next to it was so worn that the spine was missing. When she carefully took it out, the covers felt soft with age.

  The Bible.

  Slowly she opened it. There was ornate handwriting on the flyleaf: To Adam from Grandma and Granddad, 16 September 1956. She quickly worked out that it must have been the day of his christening; Adam was born on Midsummer’s Eve that same year.

  She half-closed the window and tucked both books under her arm. With the printout in one hand and the laptop in the other, she went back to the sofa.

  She saw that Adam’s Bible was the old translation. She found Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, and ran her finger down the page.

  24. Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness: to dishonour their own bodies among themselves.

  She stopped.

  … to dishonour their own bodies among themselves …

  ‘Presumably that means they had sex with one another,’ she murmured, before her eyes found verse 27.

  … And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts, one towards another: men with men, working that which is filthy and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error.

  Even though she basically understood what it meant, she closed the tattered book and pulled the laptop on to her knee. She should have thought of this in the first place, instead of rooting around in Adam’s bookcase. She had done something similar only once before, and he had been cross for hours afterwards.

  It took her two minutes to find the same text on the Internet, but in the new translation.

  Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.

  Much clearer, she thought, with a slight shake of her head.

  Verse 27 was also clearer when clothed in more modern language.

  In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

  Johanne regarded herself as an agnostic. For her that was just a more elegant word for ‘indifferent’. However, she had to deal with believers in her work and always tried to do so with due respect. Apart from a brief flirtation with religion in her teens, faith in God had never really interested her.

  Until now.

  Over the past few months she had been forced to develop a relationship with various religions on the most intense level. Texts such as the ones she had jus
t read didn’t frighten her in themselves. As a researcher and a non-believer, she looked at them within the historical context and found them quite interesting. However, taken literally with relevance to people living in 2009, she thought Paul’s words were appalling.

  If Karen and the APLC were right, and the name ‘The 25ers’ really could be traced back to these verses, then they must be an organization working directly against homosexuals and lesbians. Without paraphrasing. No church group. No religious community.

  A pure hate group.

  If ultra-conservative Christians really had joined up with radical Muslims in a new organization of their own, there was every reason to believe that their hatred was more violent than any she had spent the last few months examining more closely.

  She read the last line again:

  … received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

  She shuddered and picked up the printout of Karen’s e-mail.

  The number 19. The Arabic-sounding name Rashad Khalifa. Her fingers flew over the keyboard: 4,400 hits on Google.

  ‘Morning, Mummy. I need porridge.’

  Ragnhild scurried across the living-room floor on bare feet. Johanne just had time to put the laptop on the coffee table before her daughter hurled herself into her arms.

  ‘I’m not going to nursery today,’ Ragnhild laughed. ‘Today you and me are going to have a Teddy Bear Day!’

  Johanne gently pushed her daughter away in order to make eye contact, then she said: ‘No, sweetheart. You are going to nursery today. It’s Monday.’

  ‘Teddy Bear Day,’ Ragnhild said mulishly, pushing out her lower lip.

  ‘Another time, chicken. Mummy has to work today, and you have to go to nursery. Don’t you remember? You’re all going skiing in Solem Forest. You’ll be cooking sausages over the fire and everything!’

  The sulky face split into a big smile.

  ‘Oh yes! And how many days is it till my birthday?’

  ‘Nine days. It’s only nine days until you’re five!’

  Ragnhild laughed happily.

  ‘And I’m going to have the best birthday in the world, with bells on!’

  ‘So to make sure you get to be such a big girl, we’re going to make porridge. But first of all you and I are going to hop in the shower.’

  ‘Yess!’ her daughter replied, hopping off towards the bathroom like a rabbit.

  Johanne smiled at the sight of her. It had been a lovely weekend, and she intended to enjoy an hour alone with her youngest daughter before she tackled a new week.

  If only she could push away the thought of The 25’ers.

  *

  The last person to push open the door of the small chapel at Østre Crematorium was called Petter Just. He stood there for a moment, wondering if he was in the right place. It was three minutes to twelve, but there couldn’t be more than twenty people in the chapel. Petter Just, a classmate of Niclas Winter’s who hadn’t seen his old friend for many years, had thought it would be packed. Niclas had done very well in life, from what he had read. Sold his work to museums and private collectors. A year ago the local paper had run a big article about Niclas and his work, and Petter Just had got the impression that he was on his way to a major international breakthrough.

  A thin, elderly man wearing glasses that suggested he was almost blind pushed a folded sheet of paper into his hand. A photograph of Niclas adorned the front page, with his name and the dates of his birth and death printed in an old-fashioned typeface underneath.

  Petter Just took the small leaflet and sat down quietly right at the back.

  The clock struck its last four chimes, then fell silent as the organ took over.

  The chapel was simple, almost plain: slate slabs on the floor and beige stone walls that turned into severe, rectangular windows for the last few metres. Instead of an altarpiece, the front wall was adorned with a fresco that Petter Just didn’t understand at all. More than anything it reminded him of an old advertising poster for Senterpartiet, with trees and seeds, farmers and fields and a horse that looked an awful lot like a Norwegian fjord horse. At any rate, no animal like that had ever trotted around in the Middle East, he thought, as he tried to find an acceptable sitting position on the hard pew that was covered in red material with stains on it.

  He really had thought that Niclas was famous. Not a celebrity like the people you see in magazines and on VG, of course, but fairly well known within his field. A real artist, kind of. When Petter decided to go to the funeral, it had been mainly because he had once had a lot of fun with Niclas. They’d had a pretty cool time for a while, in one way or another. Niclas had been completely crazy when it came to drugs and so on. He hadn’t been all that particular about who he went to bed with, either.

  Petter Just almost blushed at the thought.

  At any rate, he didn’t do that kind of thing any more. He had a girlfriend, a fantastic girl, and they were expecting their first child in July. He had never been like Niclas really, but when his mother happened to mention that his old friend was dead and the funeral was today, he wanted to pay his respects.

  Hardly anyone was singing.

  He didn’t even bother miming, which he suspected the two men sitting on the other side of the aisle three pews ahead of him were doing. Some of the time, anyway.

  There was only one woman in the chapel, and she didn’t exactly seem crushed. Nor had she managed to dig something black out of her wardrobe. Her suit was elegant, fair enough, but red wasn’t really appropriate for a funeral. She was sitting there looking bored stiff.

  The music came to an end. The priest stepped up to the pulpit, directly in front of the central aisle, which resembled an oversized bar stool that might fall over at any moment.

  The two men in front of Petter started a whispered conversation.

  At first he was annoyed. It wasn’t right to talk during a sermon. Well, maybe ‘sermon’ wasn’t the right word, but any rate it was rude not to keep quiet while the priest was talking.

  ‘… found several works of art … no children or siblings …’

  Petter Just could hear fragments of the conversation. Although he didn’t really want to, he found himself concentrating on them.

  ‘… in his studio … no heirs …’

  The priest indicated that the congregation should stand. The two men were so absorbed that they didn’t react until everyone else was on their feet. They kept quiet for a little while, then started whispering to each other again.

  ‘… lots of smaller installations … sketches … a final masterpiece … nobody knew that …’

  The bastards were ruining the entire service. Petter leaned forward.

  ‘Shut up, for God’s sake!’ he hissed. ‘Show a little respect!’

  Both men turned to look at him in surprise. One was in his fifties with thinning hair, narrow glasses and a moustache. The other was somewhat younger.

  ‘Sorry,’ said the older man, and both of them smiled as they turned to face the front.

  He must have given them a real fright, because they didn’t say another word for the rest of the ceremony. It didn’t last much longer anyway. No one spoke, apart from the priest. Not like when Lasse died in a car accident two years ago; he had been one of three little boys racketing around in Godlia in the eighties. His funeral had been held in the large chapel next door, and there still wasn’t room for everyone who wanted to attend. There had been eight eulogies, and even a live band playing ‘Imagine’. A sea of flowers and an ocean of tears.

  Nobody here was crying, and there was just one wreath on the coffin.

  The thought brought tears to his eyes.

  He should have got in touch with Niclas long ago. If it hadn’t been for the aspect of their relationship that he really wanted to forget, the aspect that had never really been his thing, he would have kept up the friendship.

  Suddenly he didn’t want to be there any more. Just before the final note died away, he got up. He pushed the old, short-sighted
man out of the way and yanked open the heavy wooden door.

  It had started snowing again.

  He started to run, without really knowing what he was racing towards.

  Or from.

  *

  ‘Changing the subject,’ said Sigmund Berli, before kicking off his shoes and putting his feet up on the little table between the two armchairs in Adam’s hotel room. ‘I’ve got myself a girlfriend.’

  Adam held his nose, pulled a face and stabbed his index finger several times in the direction of his colleague’s feet.

  ‘Congratulations,’ he said, laughing behind his clenched fist, ‘but your socks stink to high heaven. Take them away! Put your shoes back on!’

  Sigmund leaned forward as far as he could towards his own feet. Sniffed hard and wrinkled his nose slightly.

  ‘They’re all right,’ he said, settling down again. ‘I haven’t had any complaints from my girlfriend, anyway.’

  ‘Who is she?’ asked Adam, moving over to the bed, as far from Sigmund as possible. ‘And how long has this been going on?’

  ‘Herdis,’ Sigmund said eagerly. ‘She’s … Herdis is … Guess! Guess what her job is!’

  ‘No idea,’ Adam said impatiently. ‘Are you actually going to offer me a drink or what?’

  Sigmund fished a plastic bottle of whisky out of his inside pocket. He picked up one of the glasses Adam had fetched from the bathroom and poured a generous measure before handing it to his friend.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Sigmund poured himself a drink.

  ‘Herdis,’ Sigmund repeated contentedly, as if just speaking her name was a pleasure. ‘Herdis Vatne is a professor of astrophysics.’

  ‘Hmff … !’ Adam sprayed whisky all over himself and the bed. ‘What did you say? What the hell did you say?’

  Sigmund straightened up, a suspicious look in his eyes.

  ‘I suppose you thought I couldn’t pull an academic? The trouble with you, Adam, is that you’re always so bloody prejudiced. You defend those Negroes to the death. Despite the fact that they’re over-represented in virtually all the crime statistics we have, you’re always going on about how difficult things are for them, and—’