Death By Water

by Damhaug, Torkil

  – We do know that Mailin Bjerke had certain information about Berger, that she’d talked about revealing this live on Taboo.

  Everyone turned to look at him. Viken said: – Before you arrived, we managed to discuss the possibility that Berger took his own life, or that he took an accidental overdose. We’ve also looked at the possibility that he felt threatened by something Mailin Bjerke knew about him. In other words, that a man who made a living out of having a bad reputation might suddenly get cold feet because one more corpse was added to the pile. But if you have something interesting to add to the point, Horvath, then we’re dying to hear it.

  If not, then please shut up, Roar concluded in his thoughts, regretting profoundly that he hadn’t put a sock in it. He’d had less than four hours’ sleep and knew that his critical faculties were suffering. But with the eyes of the whole gathering on him he decided to go ahead anyway and say something.

  – Elijah Frelsøi, aka Berger, was named after the prophet Elijah, he began, and realised immediately that he had started down a ski jump that was way too steep. – The guy was completely obsessed by prophesies … and he apparently believed we should worship false gods, like Baalzebub for example, also known as the lord of the flies.

  Roar felt like a ski-jumper who had made his effort too early and got caught in a crosswind and what’s more had forgotten to fasten his boots on. Attempting to land feet first, he reeled off something about the prophet Elijah killing the four hundred false prophets, and how these four hundred, in Berger’s version of the story, came back and tore out the prophet’s eyes. He also made a quick reference to the gospel of Matthew, or was it Mark: if thy eye offend thee, tear it out. Dan-Levi’s exegesis might possibly have had a speck of interest in it, but in Roar’s version that speck was impossible to find. He stood there knowing where the ring found in Berger’s car came from, about the DNA match and Berger’s possible attempt to tell the dead woman’s sister that he knew what had happened. Very shortly the whole gathering would know this too, but not from him. He held three aces, or at least two aces and a jack, and all he could show was a two of clubs, and no one, least of all himself, had any idea what they could do with it.

  – Thank you, Horvath, Viken said, interrupting. – All that’s missing here is that the descendants of Jesus Christ turn up in Oslo pursued by a six-foot-six albino contract killer. As it happens, not unlike Berger.

  The laughter that ensued was the best thing Roar could have hoped for. The kind of laughter that dissolved the tension when things got a bit too fraught in a difficult case. And Viken seemed more than happy to have had just such an opportunity handed to him on a platter. Even Flatland’s stony face cracked up. A couple of minutes later, when the meeting ended, the bony, angular technician gave Roar a nudge in the ribs on the way out.

  – From now on I’m going to call you da Vinci, he announced, turning away, no doubt so that he could savour his grin alone.

  35

  Monday 12 January

  ROAR PARKED JUST beyond the church. There was still another half-hour before the funeral was due to start, but already the crowds were packed outside the church door. Women in muted colours, men in shades of dark grey and black. He had used the occasion as an opportunity to buy himself a new suit. It was charcoal grey, with a thin white stripe. He walked down between the graves and stopped at the edge of the crowd of people.

  A few minutes later, Viken showed up. He caught sight of Roar, standing there fiddling with his phone, looking as if he was texting.

  – Well there you see, he said measuredly as Roar walked across to him, and it wasn’t immediately clear what he meant. It was the first time the two of them had been alone together since the conversation in Berger’s kitchen. It had occurred several times to Roar to visit the detective chief inspector in his office and explain why he had lied about his source that morning in the garage, but the mere thought of talking to Viken about Jennifer Plåterud was enough to put him off the idea. Anyway, the feeling that he had anything to confess was in itself ridiculous He pulled himself together, called for a full alert and reminded himself that he was thirty-four years old, not sixteen.

  Just then she arrived. He made a face and looked the other way, heard the sound of her stilettos on the asphalt. He ought to have known Jennifer would turn up. For some reason or other she’d got close to both Liss Bjerke and her mother. When he turned, she was standing there, a quick blink of the eyes that was possibly intended to express surprise at the sight of him wearing a suit. Roar was familiar with her views on the lack of style of Norwegian men. As for Viken, well, he was probably an exception; he would have been voted best-dressed detective chief inspector on the force if any such competition existed.

  – Working lunch? Jennifer said quietly.

  – For us, not for you, the detective chief inspector responded.

  Roar looked at her with a gaze that revealed absolutely nothing. Had he known he would end up trapped between Jennifer and Viken, he would have found some excuse to give the funeral a miss. The evening before, she had called and hinted that she might be able to pop round and see him. He told her that Emily was staying with him, that he had to get up long before the sun to get his daughter off to kindergarten in the morning, and that he was on his way to bed already. Jennifer took the hint.

  Roar had been to Lørenskog church a number of times before, most recently when his nephew was christened there a couple of years previously. The church was from the twelfth century, a simple lime-washed building with south-facing windows and glass that filtered the light, coloured it and dropped it at an angle down into the nave, which was now packed with mourners.

  They managed to squeeze in on the second row from the back. Crowds of people stood at the rear by the door and out in the porch, some unable to get in at all. The nave was decorated with more floral tributes then Roar Horvath could ever remember having seen at a funeral before. The white coffin was covered, as were the altar and the whole of the aisle.

  He felt the pressure from Jennifer’s thigh. She was sitting between him and Viken. The detective chief inspector’s gaze swept around the nave. Not for one moment had he thought the case was solved. Roar had expected that finding the ring would make him change direction, but when they went through the latest information on Friday afternoon, Viken had declined to be impressed. He pointed out that Berger received a steady stream of visitors, and that the TV celebrity had been almost continually stoned over the past few weeks. That someone might have planted Mailin Bjerke’s ring in his car was not only conceivable, it was downright probable according to him. That this same person could have got hold of a tuft of hair from Berger’s flat and placed it at the scene of the crime was equally likely.

  – A touch far-fetched perhaps, section head Helgarsson had objected at the afternoon briefing.

  – Far-fetched? Viken expostulated. – That someone might wish to divert suspicion, or for some reason be looking for a way to take revenge on the man? He wasn’t exactly loved by one and all.

  Helgarsson had attended the meeting with a view to finding out how many officers he could transfer from the Mailin case to other duties. At the press conference immediately prior to the meeting, he had been careless enough to express the view that they now had evidence that undoubtedly implicated the late Berger with the murder of Mailin Bjerke. This was of course self-evident; no one could seriously doubt that Berger had something or other to do with the crime. For the newspapers, however, what Helgarsson said was more or less the same as announcing that the case had been solved. And if that later turned out not to be so, then no desk editor was going to lose any sleep over it. Helgarsson’s statement was more than enough reason for them to use the whole front page to announce that Berger was presumed to be the killer.

  It didn’t worry Viken, it would give them peace to work in for a while, but within the department he argued fiercely against the talk-show host being the man they had been looking for. He used the same arguments as he had on the Fr
iday, before the latest information became available, and it might have been the case that he appeared more certain in his views than he really was as a way of preventing resources being taken off the case. Whichever it was, Helgarsson didn’t gamble on opposing him, but he did make it clear that they had only a limited amount of time at their disposal before he would be looking at the question again.

  Roar leaned a little to one side in order to study those sitting on the front pew. Some of them he was able to recognise from behind. The stepfather closest to the aisle. After Jennifer had called him when he was stuck in traffic near Teisen, Roar had contacted Oslo University. No one there knew anything about problems with the telephone lines on 11 December.

  Next to the stepfather was a woman with a thick neck and stooped shoulders. Mailin’s mother, Roar guessed. Next to her again he noted Liss’s long reddish hair, and then Viljam Vogt-Nielsen, sitting motionless with head bowed. He appeared to have done all he could to assist in the inquiry without being overly enthusiastic about it. To Roar he seemed genuinely crushed by the loss of the woman he’d lived with, and he had alibis for most of the relevant times they were interested in. But it was obvious that Viken was by no means finished with him.

  Judging by his speech, the priest had known Mailin for a good many years. He described her as the personification of goodness: warm, considerate of others, not least those who wandered the darkest roads. One of those wanderers had threatened her, thought Roar. Perhaps more than one. The work of making a list of her patients hadn’t got far. Mailin’s supervisor had been able to help them sort out which of the young men had ended up participating in her study. One had died of an overdose; another had been admitted to the spinal unit at Sunnaas Hospital after a traffic accident a year earlier. The other five had got in touch with the police on the advice of the supervisor, and it didn’t look as though any of them could be connected to the murder. But the social security office had records for only a few of her remaining patients. Mailin’s computer, with all her journal notes, had never materialised, and no backup had been located either. With the permission of the chief county medical officer, they had eventually gained access to the filing cabinet she shared with her colleagues in Welhavens Street. It contained a few drafts for her doctoral thesis, but no journals.

  As it happened, Mailin’s two psychologist colleagues were sitting a couple of rows in front of Roar, over by the wall. He’d noticed them on the way into the church, hand in hand. Initially Torunn Gabrielsen had lied in order to give her partner an alibi for the evening of 11 December. Facing accusations of an extensive benefits fraud, Pål Øvreby had finally changed his story, though the prostitute he claimed to have spent several hours with had still not been traced. He had given them a first name, a hotel room in Skipper Street and, for some unknown reason, the girl’s age. She was apparently at least seventeen.

  The coffin was raised and carried down the central aisle. At the front was Viljam, with Mailin’s stepfather on the other side. Behind them three young men, almost certainly relatives, held the other handles. They had still not heard from the biological father, despite making extensive efforts to get in touch with him.

  Roar recognised the last of the pallbearers as Mailin’s supervisor, because Tormod Dahlstrøm was one of those media psychiatrists who had an opinion on everything from marital breakdowns to the catastrophe in Darfur. Behind the coffin Liss and her mother walked side by side, Liss almost a head taller. She was looking at the floor in front of her. Then others gradually joined the procession. Elderly people, children, adults. Roar recognised a couple of faces from Lillestrøm and, well back in the escort, a very promising top-flight footballer. It struck him that Mailin Bjerke was the type who brought all kinds of people together, and though he had never met her, he could feel the grief in the church streaming through him.

  Outside, the sun was making tiny fractures in the cloud cover. The coffin was placed in the back of the hearse. Several hundred people were gathered in silence around it. Closest was the stepfather, standing with his arms around Mailin’s mother, Liss a metre away from them with Viljam. In a tree nearby, a bird that Roar identified as a great tit began to sing. It was pretending spring had already come.

  As the hearse started to move away, the mother pulled herself free and ran after it. Roar heard her shout something that must have been her daughter’s name. She caught up with the hearse and it stopped. She tried to open the rear door. The stepfather and a couple of others arrived and took her by the arm, but she held on tight to the handle. Her shouted cry had turned into a long-drawn-out wordless scream. It reminded Roar of Emily, waking up alone in the dark.

  They stood there with their arms round Ragnhild Bjerke for a long time before she released her hold on the car, and it continued on its slow journey out through the gates and down the old main road.

  I’M STILL SITTING in the room you just left. The dust has settled back-down on the living-room floor, but outside the wind is rising. All the things I would have told you if you hadn’t run out of here. But you had no reason to stay. Maybe you were afraid of me too, of what I might do to you. You owe me nothing. But I must finish writing this, not because I need to confess, but because this story needs to be told.

  After I stopped Jo that evening he was about to walk out into the waves, I took him away from the beach with me. His parents were drunk all the time and completely irresponsible. He had no one to care for him. I took him back to my apartment. He was freezing and I made him take a shower. Aren’t you going to shower too? he asked. He was twelve years old, Liss, and I know he bore no responsibility for what happened.

  Afterwards I got him to tell his story. There had been an incident with this girl, the one called Ylva, and something to do with a cat. He was mad about this Ylva, and furious because she’d gone off with another boy. I spoke to him about it for a long time. I promised to help him. Sooner or later, Ylva would be his, I had to swear it. When he left my apartment later that night, I felt certain that he wouldn’t make another attempt to drown himself. And that became a turning point for me. That he should survive. Not just that particular holiday trip, but afterwards too. So I had to see him again, I knew it that morning when I saw him boarding the bus for the return flight to Oslo …

  Naturally that wasn’t the only reason. I wandered through this waste land, still felt parched. It was thirst that drove me to see him again. It was forbidden. But it saved me. A few drops of water are all I need, I said to myself, and Jo needed it as much. He was happy when we were together. But he never forgot what I had said to him about the girl he met in Crete. He was always reminding me of my promise, that I would show him how to get her, teach him what he needed to know. Ylva was the princess and Jo the prince who would steal her heart away. Even though he was about fourteen years old by now, the game went on. In the same way as the pact was a game. It’s the kind of thing you can say to a child: rather die than tell someone else the secrets we share. We sealed this secret and holy pact with blood from small cuts made on the palms of our hands. And his childish enthusiasm made me feel once again a touch of forgotten joy; it was these drops that reminded me there is water out there somewhere in that waste land through which I wandered.

  Did I fail to understand how damaged he was? Not even when he told me how he could turn into someone else, a person who stood in a dark cellar hitting out wildly with a sledgehammer. Did I not understand that these games with which we amused ourselves were, for him, something very much more than games? That they became the stories around which his life revolved, that they kept everything in motion? Did I not even understand years later, when I saw the reports of a young woman found dead outside Bergen? Did I not react when I saw her name?

  PART IV

  1

  Friday 16 January

  VILJAM GOT BACK at about two. Liss sat in the living room looking out the window, the notebook in her lap. She heard him tidying up in the fridge, squashing empty plastic bags in under the sink. Then his footsteps acr
oss the floor and down the stairs.

  – I’m making a stew. Are you eating here today?

  She shrugged. – The footballer has asked me out.

  – Isn’t it about time you started using his name? Viljam asked with a little smile, it caused her to look for the sort of feeling Mailin must have felt when she saw him smile like that. Something intense, joy or sadness.

  He put a piece of paper on the table beside her. – Maybe he’ll just give up if you carry on pretending you don’t give a shit about him.

  She picked up the paper, a notification that a parcel had arrived for her from Amsterdam. Don’t go and collect it, she heard herself think. Since the funeral, she had almost managed to keep what had happened that night in Bloemstraat out of her thoughts. But it didn’t take more than a package in the post for it all to come back to her. She had thrown away the letter from Zako’s father, though she could still remember word for word some of the things written in it. You’ve got to tidy things up, Liss. That’s what Mailin would have said. Tidy up and move on. Had Mailin been there, she could have told her where to move on to.

  – Is it the post office up on Carl Berners Place? she asked.

  – Correct. I can pick it up for you if you like. Have to get some exercise before I go off to work.