by Anne Holt
He swallowed and ran his fingers through his hair in an uncertain, resigned gesture.
‘Nobody knew about it! How can The 25’ers have known about a … a lesbian lover …’
He spat out the words as if they had a bitter taste.
‘… when nobody else knew?’
‘Somebody knew. One person knew.’
‘Who?’
‘Erik Lysgaard. Her husband. He must have known. You don’t live together for forty years without knowing that sort of thing. They must have had … some kind of agreement.’
‘And then he would have … told … he would have … if he had any idea that …’
It almost seemed as if the big man was about to burst into tears. Johanne still hadn’t noticed a thing.
‘He must have told someone,’ she said. ‘Not The 25’ers, obviously, but someone close to them. That’s why they wanted this case investigated, Adam. They wanted us to discover Eva Karin’s … sin. And that’s what we’ve just done.’
Adam put his hands to his face. His breath was coming in short gasps. Johanne had never noticed it before, but his wedding ring was digging so deep into his finger that he probably wouldn’t be able to get it off.
‘You have to find this woman,’ she whispered, moving so close to him that her lips brushed his ear. ‘And then you have to get Erik to tell you the name of the person to whom he revealed this great secret.’
‘The first part will be easy,’ he said from behind his hands, his voice muffled. ‘I think the second part will be impossible.’
‘But you have to try,’ said Johanne. ‘At least you have to make an attempt to talk to Erik Lysgaard.’
*
The Bishop’s widower was sitting in his usual old armchair staring blankly out into the living room, which was almost in darkness. Only a lamp next to the TV and a candle on the coffee table cast a soft, yellow glow over the room. Lukas was sitting in his mother’s armchair. It was as if he could feel the warmth of her on his back, the contours of the mother he missed with an intensity he couldn’t possibly have imagined before she died.
‘So at least we know the reason,’ he said quietly. ‘Mum died because she took a stand. She died for her generosity, Dad. For her faith in Jesus.’
Erik still didn’t answer. He had barely said a word since his son had arrived three hours ago, and he had refused to eat any of the food Lukas had brought with him. A cup of tea was all he had managed to get down, and that had taken some persuasion.
He had, however, agreed to read the newspaper. In a way that was a sign of life, Lukas thought.
‘Why hasn’t anybody contacted me?’ his father said, so unexpectedly that Lukas spilt a little of his own tea. ‘I don’t think I should have to read about this in the paper.’
‘They rang me. I had Inspector Stubo on the phone this morning, from Flesland. He had to go back to Oslo, and I didn’t think it was a good idea for them to send somebody else to talk to you. You’ve kind of … got used to him. I knew you wouldn’t be listening to the radio or watching TV, and you don’t answer the phone either, so I thought it was best if I came myself. I came as soon as I could, Dad.’
Erik gave him a long, lingering look. His eyes were red-rimmed, and from the corners of his mouth a deep, dark furrow ran down either side of his chin. His nose was narrower now, and seemed bigger. In the flickering candlelight he looked half-dead.
‘You don’t sound very well,’ he said. ‘You sound as if you’ve got a cold.’
‘Yes.’ Lukas smiled wearily. ‘I’m not on top form. But it’s good to know this, Dad. To know there was a particular reason why she was murdered. We should be proud of the fact that she …’
His father gasped. Snorted, snivelled audibly and covered his eyes with the back of his hand.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he said in a loud voice.
‘But Dad, things will be easier now. Stubo thinks this is a major breakthrough, and they’re almost bound to clear up the case. It’ll be easier for both of us to move on when we know what—’
‘Did you hear me? Did you hear what I said?’
His father was trying to shout, but his voice wouldn’t hold.
‘I don’t want to talk about this! Not now. Not ever!’
Lukas took a deep breath and was about to say something, but changed his mind. There was nothing more to say.
Sooner or later his father would reach a turning point in his grief. Lukas was sure of it. Just as he himself had felt a strange sense of relief when Stubo rang while they were getting William dressed, in time his father would also find comfort in the knowledge that Eva Karin had died for something she believed in.
There was no longer any point in going on at his father about the photograph.
When Astrid told him late last night that she had given the photograph to Adam Stubo, he had yelled, ranted and sworn at her. In the middle of his outburst he had hurled a glass vase on to the kitchen floor. It exploded into a thousand pieces, and only when he saw her terrified expression and realized she was afraid he was going to attack her did he manage to calm down.
It didn’t matter so much any more.
His mother’s murder would be cleared up, and it evidently had nothing to do with a missing sister. Adam Stubo had promised him over the phone that the photo would be returned as soon as they had made copies, and had said it was probably less central to the murder than he had first thought. The body would be released and the funeral could take place in just five days.
That would help all of them.
His father, too, he thought. It was more important for his father than for any of them to be able to draw a line under this before too much longer.
When all this was over, Lukas could look for his sister in peace. Whatever Astrid thought. At any rate, there was no need to bother his father about why the photograph had been moved from his mother’s room and hidden in the attic.
He still had a sore throat. The tea tasted bitter, and he put down the cup.
His father was asleep. At least it looked that way: his eyes were closed, and his scrawny chest was moving up and down with a slow, even rhythm.
Lukas decided to stay. He closed his eyes, pulled his mother’s old tartan blanket over him and fell asleep.
Long Day’s Journey into Night
When the telephone rang it was as if someone were tugging at him. Adam grunted, turned over and tried to get whoever was holding his calf to let go. He kicked out at thin air, pulled the covers over him and groaned again. The sound of the mobile grew louder, and Johanne put the pillow over her head.
‘It’s yours,’ she said sleepily. ‘Answer the bloody thing. Or switch it off.’
Adam sat up abruptly and tried to work out where he was.
He fumbled around on the bedside table in confusion. His old mobile had turned out to be beyond repair, and he wasn’t used to the ringtone of the new one.
‘Hello,’ he mumbled, and noticed that the glowing numbers on the clock were showing 05:24.
‘Good morning, it’s Sigmund! Were you asleep? Have you read VG yet?’
‘Of course I haven’t read the bloody paper, it’s the middle of the night.’
‘Do you know what’s in it?’
‘Of course I don’t,’ Adam growled. ‘But I assume you’re intending to tell me.’
‘Go away,’ Johanne groaned.
Adam swung his legs around and rubbed his face with one hand to wake himself up.
‘Hang on,’ he said, pushing his feet into a pair of dark blue slippers.
Johanne and Adam had sat up until three. When they finally stopped discussing the case, they decided to wind down with an old episode of NYPD Blue. Detective series always made him sleepy.
Now he was practically unconscious.
He stumbled into the bathroom and the stream of urine splashed against the bowl of the toilet as he held the phone up to his ear and said: ‘Right, I’m listening now.’
‘Are you pissing? Are you
pissing while you’re talking to me?’
‘What’s going on with VG?’
‘They’ve got every single bloody name. Of the victims.’
Adam closed his eyes and swore, silently and with feeling.
‘I can’t get my head round this at all,’ said Sigmund. ‘But all hell has broken loose here, as you can imagine! There are journalists everywhere, Adam! They’re calling me and everybody else non-stop, and—’
‘Nobody’s called me.’
‘They will!’
Adam shambled into the kitchen, trying not to make a noise as he picked up the kettle with one hand.
‘I realize we’re in deep shit when it comes to leaks,’ he said with a yawn. ‘But did you really have to wake me before half past five on a Saturday morning to tell me?’
‘That’s not the main reason why I’m calling. I’m calling because …’
The cafetière was full of coffee grounds. As he rinsed it out under the tap, the water made such a noise splashing against the glass that he couldn’t really hear what Sigmund was saying.
‘I didn’t quite get that,’ he muttered, the telephone clamped between his shoulder and ear. He pushed the measuring spoon down into the coffee tin.
‘We’ve found the woman in the photo,’ said Sigmund.
It was as if the very aroma of the coffee suddenly made Adam feel wide awake.
‘What did you say?’
‘The Bergen police have found the woman in your photograph. It probably doesn’t mean as much as you’d like to think, but you’ve been so keen to—’
‘How did they find her?’ Adam interrupted him. ‘In such a short time?’
‘Somebody who works there actually recognized her! Here we are with our databases and our international collaboration and Lord knows what else, and it’s actually the old methods that—’
‘Who knows about this?’ said Adam.
‘Who knows about what?’
‘That we’ve found her, for fuck’s sake!’
‘A couple of people in Bergen, I presume. And me. And now you.’
‘Let’s keep it that way,’ Adam said decisively. ‘For God’s sake don’t let anybody at headquarters know! And nobody with NCIS either. Ring your man in Bergen and tell him to keep his mouth shut!’
‘It’s a woman, actually. You’ve got so many preconceptions that I—’
‘I couldn’t give a toss about that! I just don’t want this to end up in the paper, OK?’
The water was boiling; Adam measured out four spoonfuls of coffee, hesitated, then chucked in a fifth. He poured in the hot water and headed back towards the bathroom.
‘So who is she?’ he asked.
‘Her name is …’
Adam could hear papers rustling.
‘Martine Brække,’ said Sigmund. ‘Her name is Martine Brække, and she’s alive. Lives in Bergen.’
Adam stopped in the middle of the living room. The almost empty wine bottle from the previous night was still on the table. The newspaper with Johanne’s scribbles was lying on the floor, the bowl of crisps tipped over beside it.
‘How old is she?’ he asked, feeling his pulse rate increase.
‘I don’t know,’ said Sigmund. ‘Oh yes, there it is! Born in 1947, it says here. She lives in—’
‘Sixty-two this year. Johanne was right. Johanne might be bloody well right!’
‘About what?’
‘I have to go to Bergen,’ said Adam. ‘Are you coming?’
‘Now? Today?’
‘As soon as possible. Come and pick me up, Sigmund. Straight away. We have to go to Bergen.’
He rang off before Sigmund had time to reply.
Adam managed to shower, get dressed and drink a pitch-black cup of coffee without waking either Johanne or the children. When Sigmund’s car obediently drove along Hauges Vei and parked outside the apartment block half an hour later, Adam was waiting by the gate.
It was Saturday 17 January, and he was standing there with no luggage.
*
The man who had saved a girl from being hit by a tram on Stortingsgaten in Oslo twenty-nine days earlier was drinking expensive mineral water from a long-stemmed glass and wondering if his suitcase had made it on to the plane. He had been late arriving. Now he was sitting on board British Airways flight BA 0117 from Heathrow to JFK in New York, one of only three passengers in first class. The other two were already well into their third glass of champagne, but he politely refused when the flight attendant offered him more water.
He was enjoying the generous amount of space he had, and the calm atmosphere in the front section of the plane. The curtain separating them from the other passengers transformed the racket from behind into a low murmur, which combined with the even hum of the engines to make him sleepy.
On this final section of the journey home he was travelling under his own name. The high-level security measures within US air travel and border controls following 9/11 made entering the country under false papers a risky business. Since he hadn’t booked in advance, and everything but first class was sold out, he had had to pay out more than $7,000 for a single ticket to the United States. It couldn’t be helped. He was going home now. He had to go home, and he was travelling under his real name: Richard Anthony Forrester.
During the two months he had spent in Norway, he hadn’t called the United States once. The National Security Agency monitored all electronic traffic in and out of the country, and it was unnecessary to take such a risk. The instructions were clear from the start. If he needed to contact the organization for some unexpected reason, he could ring an emergency number in Switzerland. He hadn’t needed to.
However, during Richard A. Forrester’s stay in Norway, there had been a considerable amount of lively activity on his laptop. It was in Britain, being looked after by a short, stocky man with chalk-white teeth and a dark, close crewcut, who was visiting various rural communities presenting a new holiday offer from Forrester Travel. The company belonged to Richard. He had set it up two years after his wife and young son had been killed by a drunk driver, who had left the scene of the accident and killed himself in another crash four kilometres down the road.
As far as it was possible to check in practical terms, Richard A. Forrester had been in England since 15 November. It was only a safety measure, of course; no one would ever ask.
He lowered the back of his seat and covered himself with the soft blanket. It was only nine o’clock in the morning, but he hadn’t slept much the previous night. It felt good to close his eyes.
When Susan and little Anthony died, his life had ended.
He had tried to follow them to heaven in a suicide attempt. It achieved nothing, apart from the fact that he could no longer count himself a US Marine. They had no use for suicidal soldiers, and Richard had to face the future without work as well as without his wife and child. All he had was a small pension, a suitcase full of clothes, and an insurance payout which he didn’t really want from the accident.
‘Can I get you anything else?’ asked the attractive flight attendant. She leaned across the empty seat beside him and smiled. ‘Coffee? Tea? Something to eat?’
He returned her smile and shook his head.
In the three months after the accident he had more or less become a tramp, usually drunk and constantly possessed by a blind, white-hot rage. One night he had quite rightly been thrown out of a bar in Dallas. He lay semi-conscious on the ground in some back street until a man appeared out of nowhere and offered him a meeting with God. Since Richard wasn’t due to meet anyone else, he allowed himself to be helped up and led to a little chapel just two blocks away.
He met the Lord that night, just as the stranger had promised.
Richard Forrester ran a hand over his hair. It was nice to let it grow again, but he still had only a few millimetres of stubble covering his scalp. He was blessed with thick hair with no sign of bald patches yet, and he always kept it short. However, when he shaved his head his appearance ch
anged considerably.
He settled down more comfortably, turned off the light above his head and pulled down the blind.
The God he had met in Dallas that November night in 2002 was completely different from the one he knew from home. His parents were Methodists, as were most people in the neighbourhood of the small town where he grew up. As a child Richard had thought of his religion as a kind of social participation in a closed community more than as a personal relationship with God. There was a service every Sunday, and the odd church bazaar. There was the football team and the Mothers’ Union, barbecues and Christmas parties. Richard had mainly grown up with a pleasant God who made little impression on him.
When the stranger took Richard along to the chapel, he met the omnipotent God. He had a revelation that night. God came to him with a violence that made him think he was going to die at first, but eventually he passed into a state of peace and total surrender. That night in the chapel was Richard Forrester’s catharsis. By the time the new day dawned, he was reborn.
His life as a soldier for his country, as a married man and a father, was over.
His life as a soldier of God had begun.
He never touched alcohol again.
Richard Forrester listened to the low hum of the engines, and saw the pretty girl in his mind’s eye.
She had seen him. When the woman who was going to die went down into the cellar on her own, it provided him with a chance he just had to take. When the child appeared he was in despair for a moment, because of what he knew he must do.
Then he realized that this was a pure and honest child.
Just like Anthony, who had been born prematurely and with brain damage, which would have prevented him from ever maturing mentally. The girl was the same kind of child. Richard had understood that after just a few seconds.
He allowed her to run away, up the cellar steps.
In order to be completely sure, he had kept an eye on her. After he had saved her from being hit by the tram, it was easy to get one of the agitated observers dressed in his party clothes to tell him who she was. Richard had simply stood there on the opposite side of the street until the mother had carried the child inside. A man who was busy entertaining the constant stream of smokers with a dramatic eyewitness account had willingly given Richard the mother’s name when he said he wanted to send her some flowers. He had found the address on the Internet.
