Requiem

by Geir Tangen

  The Courthouse in Haugesund

  Saturday morning, October 18, 2014

  Every time Lotte Skeisvoll stood in front of the new courthouse in Haugesund, the same childhood memory came back to her. She and Anne are on the floor in the living room in their old house at Solvang. Dressed only in tights. Around them flows a tsunami of Lego pieces. She remembered that she always made sure that Anne had the nicest, best blocks to build with, while she took the leftovers. Pieces that were almost impossible to put together into a house. The result was a peculiar construction with bare poles at one end and narrow, oblong windows of various sizes at the other. Anne always started to laugh when she saw the strange buildings Lotte had scraped together with the leftover blocks.

  The white courthouse in Haugesund resembled her childhood building projects. Normally it was closed on Saturday morning, but Lotte knew there was a commitment hearing going on inside, and she took the chance that she might get to speak with an executive officer.

  There was a moderate gale, and the rain beat on the asphalt as she crossed Knut Knutsen OAS street from Rådhusplassen to the courthouse. She found safety under the overhang in front of the entrance and cupped her hands around her face to peer into the windows alongside the entry door. She had guessed correctly. The executive officer, André Ferkingstad, was standing right inside, talking with one of the city’s most recognizable defense attorneys.

  She tapped lightly on the window to get his attention and was immediately recognized by Ferkingstad, who came over to open the door. The attorney removed himself as she stepped inside and stomped off the rain.

  “I don’t think you need to appear at this commitment hearing, Skeisvoll. You’re not on my list.”

  “No, no … It’s not that. I have a couple of questions that I was wondering if you or someone else here can answer for me. It’s concerning the homicide cases we’re working on.”

  She could see that the sober-minded prayer house man turned pale, and he looked nervously around.

  “I don’t know anything about that!”

  Lotte was taken aback. She wasn’t there to accuse him of anything. At the same time, the memory of a rejoicing Ferkingstad watching his own house burn down made her skin crawl. She shuddered at the thought. The man did not seem entirely of sound mind.

  She did not comment on his reply, but instead took out her notepad. It had gotten wet on one corner, and her irritation made itself known immediately.

  I’ve gotten sloppy. There’s no order in even the simplest things.

  “I don’t know how much you’ve picked up from the newspapers, but this concerns a killer who clearly has access to information from court documents. What I’m wondering is who, other than the police and you here at the courthouse, might have access to details from various court cases.”

  André Ferkingstad looked at her in astonishment. “All judgments are public, so in theory it can be anyone at all.”

  Lotte sighed. Ferkingstad was evidently not particularly quick on the top floor. She didn’t need tautologies.

  “Yes, I do know that. That wasn’t what I meant, but both you and I know that it’s not possible to do an internet search to find out whether your neighbor has been convicted of drunk driving or if he’s a sex offender. Who, other than the police or you in here, can get to such information? Attorneys, journalists, security firms?”

  “Not security guards. The press and law firms can probably dig out such information if they wish, but…”

  “But?”

  André Ferkingstad scratched his bushy beard thoughtfully before he threw out his hands in a gesture of resignation. “You have to come here and ask for access to the judgments. It’s only the most recent court cases that are out on our systems. If you’re going to find documents from older cases, you have to contact us directly. Us, or you … All the papers are archived in the police building.”

  “Do people often ask about this?”

  “No, almost never. But if you think about the case in the newspaper, that journalist was one of our most frequent visitors a few years back. A coarse fellow, and a real nuisance.”

  “Gudmundsson?”

  “Yes … He’s plastered on every single newspaper stand in town with that self-glorifying smile of his. He’s a hyena who smells blood and shit a mile away!”

  Lotte noticed inflamed roses on Ferkingstad’s cheeks. He was not the only one who had reacted with disgust to Viljar’s tasteless feature in yesterday’s paper. People were dismayed by the tabloid angle.

  “Do you keep a log of such inquiries? Is it possible to see who has looked at which judgments?”

  Ferkingstad nodded in confirmation. “Yes, but I must have the case numbers it concerns, and it will take a few days to come up with a complete list. We don’t have it digitally, anyhow, not for cases from before 2010.”

  Lotte closed her eyes. Yet another locked door in this case. They didn’t have several days at their disposal. The killer had such short intervals between homicides that it gave them minimal playing room with investigation tactics.

  Probably that was also part of the plan. He wanted to keep them in high gear so they couldn’t think about it.

  “Okay. Do that as quickly as you can,” said Lotte, giving the three case numbers to the executive officer.

  As Ferkingstad opened the door to let her out, a tall figure came toward them. He walked with head lowered and his hands in front of his face to protect himself from the driving rain. It was Øystein Vindheim.

  Ferkingstad indulged himself in a broad grin and patted the new arrival on the shoulder as he came up to them. “You’re not at the library, brother?”

  Vindheim tossed his wispy hair a little to shed the rain. “Early lunch break. Thought I should get my raincoat, which I forgot here last Thursday. Looks like I need it today.”

  “Are you brothers? You have two different surnames.”

  Vindheim turned toward Lotte and grinned. “Don’t you see the similarity?” Øystein Vindheim placed himself right next to Ferkingstad. “We’re half brothers. Same mother, different fathers. I’m the beauty, he’s the beast.”

  Øystein poked his brother amiably in the side. André Ferkingstad seemed able to control his reaction to his brother’s wisecracks.

  Lotte wanted to ask him about the meeting with Ranveig Børve two days ago, but did not want to mention it with Ferkingstad as an audience.

  She went out the door, and was closing her notepad when she discovered to her surprise that she had written only one word on it from the meeting with Ferkingstad: Police?

  I have to pull myself together. Now I’m not doing my job.

  She smoothed out the paper, which had curled up at the corner, let the door close behind her, and trotted down toward the police building. She had made it no farther than to the Old Slaughterhouse when a police car with blue lights stopped abruptly ahead of her. Out jumped Knut Veldetun. It was obvious that he was worried.

  “Damn it, Lotte! Do you have it on silent, or what?” He ran over to her. “Jump into the car, I’ll drive you up to the hospital. It’s Anne. Overdose.”

  Lotte Skeisvoll grabbed Knut by the arm. Her legs buckled under her, but the sturdy policeman held her upright.

  “Come on, Lotte, get in. Olav has taken over the case. We have to get you up to the hospital.”

  Right there and then, no police investigation in the world held any significance for Lotte. In one short minute, the world was turned on its head. Anne had been found unresponsive, Knut told her. If she was still alive, he didn’t know.

  Four years earlier …

  McDonald’s, Oasen Norheim

  Late Saturday morning, August 28, 2010

  His hands were shaking, but Jonas kept them hidden under the table. He had trouble breathing. The restaurant reeked of greasy, sticky, frying odors. His palpitating heart would not settle down. In front of him was the extensive feature in Haugesund News. Five pages inside the paper. Besides a two-page spread for him, there was one
full page with Hermann Eliassen and two pages of political denunciations. All written under Gudmundsson’s byline. In principle, this was everything he had dreamed of. The ultimate revenge. A solid nail in Eliassen’s political coffin. The follow-up cases would seal it once and for all.

  Yet everything had gone completely wrong. Gudmundsson had overlooked a tiny little detail. A little stroke that felled a great oak. In the illustration picture, it wasn’t possible to identify him, but in the left-hand corner of the picture, you could see the table where Jonas and Viljar had sat and talked. On the table was an open interview pad. Invisible to the naked eye, but with a magnifying glass the details in the picture came out more clearly.

  INTERVIEW WITH JONAS FERKINGSTAD it said in capital letters at the top of the pad. The rest was illegible. Viljar Ravn Gudmundsson had thus unwittingly revealed his name. He had been careless about the most important thing of all: protecting the source.

  As if that weren’t enough, Viljar refused to pick up when he called. Only voice mail. So far, he had to hope that no one at home or in his social circles read the newspaper with a magnifying glass. If he could have, he would have collected all the newsstand copies from every single store and burned them. This was a total nightmare. He felt that people were staring. That they were whispering behind his back. He got up so suddenly that the soda cup crashed to the floor. He didn’t notice it, just sprinted out of the fast-food restaurant. Had to get air. Had to think.

  Shaking, he sat down on a bench alongside Norheim Church. Tried to make out the writing on the pad without a magnifying glass. It was impossible. He crossed his fingers that the journalists in Oslo wouldn’t reveal his name. That they took into account that he was a victim. But that was a lost hope.

  Just then, a text message came in from an unknown number. Someone who said he was a reporter on TV 2 wanted to give him the opportunity to comment on the statements from Hermann Eliassen that this was a fabrication and purely an act of revenge from a candidate for New Voices. Someone who felt offended because he hadn’t been selected for the core of youth they would be grooming in the party.

  Since TV 2 had discovered his name in the picture, Jonas realized that it was only a question of time before the whole world would collapse around him.

  There was no way back. It would come out this evening. I have to take hold of the situation myself. I have to buy myself time. I need until tomorrow to get away.

  Jonas took the phone and browsed back to the TV journalist’s first call. With shaking hands, he pressed the Reply button, and made a silent prayer that this would work.

  “Sandgren, TV 2.”

  “Yes, this is Jonas Ferkingstad calling. I have an offer for you. If you wait to release my name until tomorrow night, you will get an exclusive, candid interview with me in the evening. Only TV 2, no one else gets to talk with me.”

  Haugesund Hospital

  Late Saturday morning, October 18, 2014

  The room was white. White walls, white ceiling, white linens, white skin. For once, Anne looked as if she had peace. The light hair waved nicely down her cheeks and shoulders. Pale and lifeless. All the small wrinkles and furrows in her face were whisked away. It was like looking at a beautiful little doll. A doll who might suddenly decide to open her eyes and burst out a mechanical “Mama!” Anne didn’t do that. There was no button on her back that could make her wake to life in a moment. The batteries were run down.

  Lotte looked at her sister with different eyes. For the first time in many years, she saw the defenseless little girl. The girl who had always been the happy, bubbly one. The girl who was always ready with a joke or an amusing story. The girl who always wondered how things really fit together. Curious about life, without a thought that the world also offered danger and wickedness. When she was little, she was fragile as a baby bird in the nest. It took nothing to disappoint her, hurt her, or make her angry. Anne always thought well of others, and never understood that anyone could deceive her. When their parents died, life struck Anne with full force. Like a car that at high speed smashes skin, bone, and flesh into a bloody, lifeless mass. It happened right in front of Lotte’s eyes without her noticing it. Anne had slipped out of her hands. Little by little. Small, trivial problems. Then slightly bigger, but obviously understandable problems. Gradually major, dangerous problems that made the warning lights blink.

  It wasn’t until she saw the needle marks that she became aware of the decline, and realized that her sister had gone under. Since that day shame had pounded on the door, and there were no more excuses and rationalizations. Lotte had used most of her strength to defend herself. Not her sister. She had hidden away the despair, sorrow, and powerlessness in a corner of her brain that was locked with a chain and double padlocks. No one would get to see that space.

  Only now, in all this whiteness and cleanliness, did it come to the surface. She let it happen. The tears ran while she whispered her sister’s name again and again. Lotte realized that this was a turning point. Never again would she act indifferent to what happened with Anne. There was no longer any point in pretending that it didn’t affect her.

  The doctors had barely managed to bring Anne back to life. Her heart had stopped, and it had been awhile before the ambulance personnel got it started with resuscitation.

  “We still don’t know if there will be damage from the cardiac arrest,” a nurse explained. “But it seems as if it’s going better than we feared. She’s breathing on her own, and she has sensitivity in her extremities. We’ll keep her sedated for the time being. Until we wake her, we can’t say anything more about the state of things.”

  The happiness that she was actually alive was overshadowed by this uncertainty. Could Anne be confined to a bed for the rest of her life? Lotte was ashamed that her train of thought also touched on the fact that she didn’t have time or room for a sister requiring nursing care.

  How egotistical can a person really be, she thought at the next moment, and gave herself an imaginary box on the ear.

  While Lotte was absorbed in her own thoughts, her phone beeped again and again. She chose not to look at the messages while she was sitting beside Anne. There had to be an end to putting career ahead of family.

  A short time later, a flock of white coats came gliding into the room. Lowered eyes. Mumbling. Glasses on the end of their noses. One of them came over to Lotte and asked her nicely to wait outside until the doctor visit was over. She could come back in again later, but they had decided to keep Anne sedated for another few hours, so she would probably not have contact with her sister until then at least. This sort of thing could take time.

  Lotte went out and sat in a little group of sofas located right outside the patients’ common room. She took out her cell phone and started browsing through the messages. There were considerably more well-wishers than she would have thought, and actually no one who questioned that she wasn’t steering the boat at the moment.

  Have I started to get a cynical image of human nature?

  She smiled a little at herself. Opened message after message and felt on the verge of tears. Suddenly a message from Viljar leaped out at her. She had obviously noted that he had called a couple of times too, but she couldn’t bear to get involved in his problems right now.

  When she read the message, that view changed almost immediately.

  Hi, Lotte. I’ve found out something important. The guy we’re chasing copies murders from crime novels. I’ve been at the library and got help. We found all three murders in different books. Call me soon!

  Was that possible?

  Lotte sighed dejectedly and tried to recall whether she had heard of anything similar before. The murderer must think they were a flock of birdbrains in the department who hadn’t discovered this before now. She called Viljar. He answered on the first ring.

  “Is it possible for you to stop by, Lotte? It will be hard to do this over the phone. You have to see this with your own eyes.”

  Lotte bit her lip. She shouldn’t. An
ne needed her here. It would be much better if she sent Scheldrup Hansen or one of the others.

  “Listen, I’m actually pretty occupied now. My sister is in the hospital. Is it okay if I send the Kripos investigator?”

  “Only if that means I get to give him a kick in the balls.…”

  She sighed heavily. There were evidently others who had a strained relationship with the Kripos investigator.

  Lotte gave up. Maybe it was best if she did this herself. She felt guilty as she made her decision, but she couldn’t let this wait either. She confirmed that she would be there in half an hour.

  Lotte took a deep breath and then slowly let it out again. A trick she had learned at yoga class. It was supposed to empty the body of worries, thoughts, and bad feelings. Lotte talked to herself.

  “Now, it’s crucial to focus. Maybe Anne won’t wake up until tomorrow. She won’t even notice that I’m here. I’ll go see Viljar and hear what he has to say. After that I’ll contact the department physician and go on family leave immediately. It’s impossible to lead an investigation at the same time as I have to get Anne on her feet again.”

  Viljar’s apartment on Austmannavegen, Haugesund

  Late Saturday morning, October 18, 2014

  After the visit to the library, Viljar let apathy surround him again. He hadn’t said anything to Lotte on the phone, but there was an unopened email in his in-box. The subject line of the message left little doubt about the contents.

  Pronouncement of judgment #4

  Viljar did not want to open it. Had no desire whatsoever to read another one of these bizarre messages. The last one had been about Ranveig. Portraying her as a kind of lawbreaker who deserved the death penalty was just as hair-raising as it was bloody unjust. That action had convinced Viljar of one thing anyway. This was not about finding offenders who deserved punishment. This was about finding offenses in those whom the killer had decided to kill.