by Geir Tangen
“I’m sorry, but I thought you knew.…”
Harald Madsen didn’t say anything else for a while, before he cleared his throat. He saw that the investigator was still struggling to get control of her own frustration, and decided that there was no point in embroidering on the misunderstanding. He chose a different strategy.
“We can find out who was behind the pseudonym if I have access to my old emails. Tomorrow is Monday, and then our office assistant will be at work, so perhaps—”
Lotte threw herself over the phone. Here it wasn’t relevant to wait for any tomorrow. If the office assistant was holding things up, the Gjøvik police could pick her up with flashing lights.
“Great, Madsen. As you know, we don’t have until tomorrow to rescue the next victim in this case. We’ll send a patrol and pick up your office assistant.”
“In Spain…?”
“Spain … What do you mean?”
“She’s on a fall vacation in Albir with her grandchildren. Comes home early tomorrow.”
Lotte looked up at him with tired eyes. They had been jerked back to the start. The killer was still a ghost who was moving in the shadows. Maybe a name tomorrow …
Lotte struggled to gather both courage and energy. She had to think differently. They would soon have him now. They were getting close; there was no doubt of that.
“I think we need to look in this guy’s manuscript a little. Has he described the murder of this woman in the field such that we can trace her and rescue her?”
“Not her. Him. In this manuscript, the killer copies Mankell’s suicide from Sidetracked, but in the killer’s version, it’s a man who is killed, not a woman who commits suicide. If I don’t remember completely incorrectly, it was a journalist who had spread lies and half truths for years.”
Lotte had had a secret hope when she heard that the victim in Henning Mankell’s book was a woman. In that case, it would have meant that Viljar Ravn Gudmundsson was temporarily out of danger, but now that little scrap of hope flickered out like a tealight on a back burner. It was Viljar’s turn this time.
Harald Madsen appeared to have read her thoughts.
“You should read the chapter. So far, the killer has been very occupied with being correct when it comes to places. Although, at the last murder. The pistol killing … It should have happened down toward something he calls Karmsundet, but it didn’t, as I understand it from the news sites?”
“What is it you’re telling me now? Is it that detailed? So that you can recognize places and such?”
“Put it this way,” Madsen answered. “I was sitting with the manuscript in one hand and my iPad with the news on the other the whole way here to Haugesund. Almost everything tallies. Crime scenes. Victims. Names. Methods—”
“Names? Are you kidding me? Has the guy used real names?”
Harald Madsen broke into a smile. “That’s probably why he uses a pseudonym. He knows you, or at least knows who you are. If he’d used his own name and had this published, he would’ve had his head bitten off by everyone. Now he’s hiding behind a name that everyone knows, but that no one can attack.”
Lotte shook her head. She’d been so sure they had him, but now he was slipping out of their hands again. “Is such a thing even legal? Can authors write about whomever they want under a false name?”
“Don’t forget that this is an amateur when it comes to publishing, Skeisvoll. You have no idea how many manuscripts we get every year where it turns out that the author has used the names of real people. It does make it easier for the author to write when he knows who the various characters are, but we take that sort of thing out as soon as we start editing.”
Harald stood up, took the first pages of the manuscript with him, and browsed up to the first section at the beginning. “Look here,” he said, pointing.
Lotte felt herself turning cold. The words flickered before her eyes. This was unbelievable:
On the morning, four days before the light went out, the journalist Viljar Ravn Gudmundsson stood proudly in the conference room, enjoying the atmosphere around him. Big smiles, hungry eyes, and arrogant laughter filled the room. This was how things should be.
“Good Lord! This is completely crazy! Is there more?”
A few seconds later, Harald Madsen had browsed up to what was the first murder a few pages later. Lotte held her hand in front of her mouth as she read her own name and the victim Rita Lothe’s name. It felt as if a rubber band were about to break inside her head. This isn’t possible.
“How can this be? Is he psychic? He’s planned every slightest little detail? This is completely cuckoo!” With the exception that the weather was wrong, that Lars Stople wasn’t present, and that she had an experienced, older investigator with her instead of an unseasoned constable, this was almost an exact copy of the events that morning.
Harald Madsen took the pages back and turned them. Pointed at the title.
“Why do you think the title is Maestro?”
Haugesund Police Station
Sunday evening, October 19, 2014
After the meeting in the cramped office, the next step was to start contacting publishers all over the country. If the guy sent the manuscript to a tiny little publisher at Toten, he must have sent it to others too. No publisher would accept a pseudonym without correct name and address being listed as contact information.
Hopefully not all the office assistants are in Spain, thought Lotte.
There was a reasonable hope that someone besides Alfa Madsen Publishers had saved both the manuscript and the contact info, according to Harald Madsen. He’d been sent with Lars Stople to get the names of publishing people he knew whom they could contact at home on a Sunday evening.
She stayed behind in her office. Her first priority was to read the manuscript in detail. See if it might lead them to the next victim, and where according to the recipe he would be killed. How, they already knew. She knew she was short on time and had to focus on the pages that concerned this murder. Lotte shuddered as she browsed ahead in the manuscript. Recognized names, places, crime scenes. Knew she shouldn’t, but stopped when she saw the depiction of the murder of Ranveig Børve. The whole thing was so calculated. So consistent. Everything was described, giving answers to several questions in the investigation. She herself was the protagonist, and the person behind the pseudonym must have frighteningly good insight into her psyche, because the accounts of her thoughts in the book tallied quite well with what she was thinking at the scene. Where she thought she was ingenious when she decided to drop the details and concentrate instead on everything the murderer hadn’t deliberately left behind, the killer described how she thought along similar lines. Not verbatim, obviously, that would be too much, but similar enough that it was nonetheless frightening. For a moment the thought struck her: Was she herself a victim later in the action? Lotte was afraid to look.
A feeling of being observed crept down her spine. Reading this. All the details. Even her own thoughts and actions. It was impossible to imagine that it was real.
Has he been observing me over time? Three years ago? Is he still doing it?
Lotte refused to accept her own paranoia. It must simply be an almost autistic insight into the work and mentality of the police.
Or was it that every detail was placed like that deliberately to force her to think along the lines she did? Do the things he wanted her to do? Make the choices he’d written in advance that she should make?
The words of Harald Madsen echoed in her head.
“Why do you think the title is Maestro?”
A maestro. An orchestra conductor. Someone who directs everything and everyone in the orchestra to get them to follow his instructions, and in that way achieve musical art.
He is going to exert himself to the utmost to follow the given notes. Any break will frustrate him, and he must make corrections to get us on his tracks again. In other words, he will not deviate from the manuscript so long as he has a chance to do it just
as it says. There is our chance to stop him, she thought.
She quickly browsed to what was to come. The time for the murder was late in the afternoon, or early evening. The author hadn’t used exact time designations. Didn’t give the name of the victim this time.
“Damn it!”
She saw Harald Madsen out in the hall and called him in.
“Do you remember who it was who was killed in that field? Was it Viljar? Is it toward the end of the manuscript, maybe?”
Lotte flapped the manuscript in front of the publisher’s eyes.
“No, it’s just that … This is not exactly a stroke of genius as a novel. Then we would have published it. It is crawling with loose threads toward the end. Maybe it says that somewhere, but I seem to recall that one of these logical faults is who gets set on fire out on that field. Hopelessly weak for a crime writer, but the guy doesn’t have an ounce of talent, so—”
Lotte sighed. Was no longer able to control herself.
“Yes, I’ve understood that, but now we have to act. We’re fighting against time. Your literary observations will unfortunately have to wait.” She could hear how that sounded, but didn’t really care. “Is Viljar there toward the end?”
Madsen put on an offended expression. “Listen, it’s three years now since I read this manuscript. I don’t remember all the details.”
She stood up, waved him out the door as if he were a cat that had done its business indoors. Slammed the door behind him and sat down with the manuscript. All the stress delayed her. It was as if she were living in a nightmare where she couldn’t leave the spot.
“Focus, Lotte,” she said sternly to herself. She read about how he would transport the victim in a boat from a boathouse in the vicinity of town to an open field right behind the small-boat harbor on the island of Lindøy. There, according to the manuscript, he would carry the victim out in the field and tie him up to a fencepost. Afterwards he would douse the victim and a wide area around him with gasoline. Enough to create a fire that would cause a sensation and attract attention from people in the vicinity. He himself would already have passed through Røyksundet and be on his way back to the city in the boat when the homemade fuse reached the stripe of gasoline and set off the inferno.
There was only one thing to do to rescue Viljar, and that was to frustrate the author’s plan. Set out some mines that would obstruct him from following the book, but at the same time without revealing that they knew the sequence of events. The problem was that perhaps they were already too late. Perhaps Viljar Ravn Gudmundsson was already tethered firmly to a fencepost on Lindøy at that moment. If they were unable to rescue Viljar, then at least they had the killer now. The boat would be stopped when it came to the pier in Haugesund.
Lotte picked up the intercom and told everyone in the group to come back at once. This time she chose to follow the newbie’s well-intentioned tip. The meeting room on the west side could serve as an operations center for the final hunt.
Requiem: Benedictus
I feel his wheezing breath against my throat while I carry him. He’s heavy, and he is constantly squirming. I don’t care. I have an iron grip around his waist that he won’t get out of. He’s hog-tied besides and can’t do any great harm with his outbursts. The panic is noticeable. The anxiety, despair, and fear. I know how bad it is to feel these things, but nonetheless, the worst is hope. That little sprout that everything will work out in the end. That you’ll be rescued. That you’ll get away. That death isn’t awaiting you up ahead after all. Hope creates panic. The adrenaline makes the blood pump with unreduced force. Fortunately for him, I have everything required to take away the panic. Everything that’s needed to replace the frightening hope with far more pleasant resignation.
It’s only then, while the last shreds of hope die, that I find peace among those who must be sacrificed. Then calm settles like the silence when the first snow falls against the ground on Christmas Eve. Before the bells chime. Quietly and softly. The certainty is like that too. Quiet and soft. The pulse that gets slower. The gaze that is slowly lowered toward the ground. Resignation …
In a few minutes, that is where we are. When he finally understands that help isn’t coming. When he realizes that he won’t get loose. When at last he grasps that this is happening to him, and that I’m not going to grant him amnesty. Then comes resignation.
Screams are replaced by sobbing. Stiff muscles relax. I know this, because I’ve seen it before. Ranveig was like that.… A feverish struggle against death, until she quite suddenly collapsed in total apathetic resignation. Surrender … I savor the word. Whisper it in his ear while I carry him up toward the goal. Surrender.
He’s not there yet, but soon.
The sound of the lapping water against the stones on the shore rinses my thoughts away for a second or two. It’s so peaceful here. Quiet. No worry that ruins the picture. Just me and the water. He’s tied up. The whimpering no longer reaches me. I don’t hear the protests, the oaths, and the spite. Mostly thanks to the muzzle, of course, but all the same … I don’t think I would hear him if he shouted either. If he screamed, or blew on all the trumpets on Judgment Day. He can’t reach me. I am out of range. It’s just me and the whispering of the water on the beach rocks. The thumping from the gas can I’m carrying. I am. He isn’t. It can be that simple.
“It is written in the Scriptures,” I whisper to him as I come up to the stake for the second time. He sees my red gas can, and I realize from his look that he understands the scope of what is coming. Not a peaceful death. No, not this time. Not a sleeping fall from the seventh floor, no exploding bullet that turns everything black in a hundredth of a second, no blackout after insufficient oxygen supply to the brain … No, this time there will be pain. Skin that slowly melts in the flames and that implodes the body in a hell of agony. Blood that boils, the smell of singed flesh, before the brain collapses from all the nerve endings shrieking out in a simultaneous scream of pain. A short time later, death occurs, when the flames pass the skin and all blood circulation stops. Minutes later, all that remains is carbon and ash. What before were thoughts, feelings, smells, tastes, and urges will turn into what they arose from. Carbon and ash.
I feel my fingers prickling from getting to be a witness to this step into eternity. Getting to see a person leave the body in his final moment. A bit stupid that I can’t be standing right there. I regret writing the scene that way. I see now that I wouldn’t have had any problem witnessing the event before I take the boat back, but I’m sticking to the plan. My requiem must be completed to the letter. I sprinkle and sprinkle. Over him and around him. In spirals around the stake. I am overjoyed by the dry grass around my feet. This will be a spectacular sight. Even out from sea.
I wait for the resignation, but it is long in coming. Maybe it’s not so easy to let go when the outcome involves so much pain? I think about my own pain. It’s going to hurt indescribably toward the end. I know that. But it will be worth it. When that happens, people will have seen me. Seen my talent. My exit will happen in the certain knowledge that I won’t be forgotten. It’s close now, but still there is no one who knows. No one who understands. No one who sees the picture the way I’ve drawn it. That will come only when all the bridges are burned, and the final tone in the piece slips out of the melancholy oboe. Piano pianissimo … One last beat with the baton, and everything that is and will be is gone.
The white, homemade fuse is the last thing that will draw into itself the potential energy of 95-octane fossil fuel. Not really necessary. Fuses don’t burn faster for that reason, but the danger that it will go out on the way toward the spiral in the dry grass is slightly less. That was what was described in the recipe anyway. I lift it up so that he can see it. He feverishly shakes his head and tries to shout. It sounds like a low rutting roar from a moose. Anger. Desperation. Fear. Still no resignation. That irritates me. Are journalists tougher than others? Do they have more undone in life than most people? Do they have a built-in faith tha
t everything can be changed at the last second? That a deadline is something that can be postponed? I smile a little at my own thought.
“Deadline. That’s exactly what this is,” I mumble to myself. A line of death. I raise the fuse in the air one more time and call to him, “This is the deadline!”
He stiffens. A swelling pride expands in my chest. I can see the head being lowered. The shoulders shaking. He is crying. Finally, I think. Finally he got peace.
I ignite the lighter and let it work the end of the fuse. He doesn’t react. Arches his back as far as possible. Sinks down on his knees. Some sparks come before the fuse starts to crackle. A shimmering white light. I set it down and turn my back to the scenario. Walk toward the boat. Know I have about two minutes to board the boat and get myself around the cape. Too bad that I don’t get to see the high point itself, but I suspect I’ll hear it.
I have just come on board the little dinghy, and at first I don’t notice what is happening behind me. I turn around one last time and see to my amazement that there is activity out in the field. I don’t understand how that’s possible. Two police cars have swerved in by the small-boat harbor, and while I am approaching the narrow sound between the north side of Lindøy and Røyksund, I see people running down toward the stake in the field. They can’t possibly reach it. In that case, it will be fatal. I am forced to slow down. I must see the outcome before I round the cape.
They are only fifty meters away now, but I feel my own pulse lowering. The fuse has reached the goal, and the flame erupts. In less than five seconds, it’s done. The flames stand several meters in the air as the body is ignited. The hellfire reaches out toward the police, who almost reach him. But only almost … An unearthly scream is heard over the roar of the engine. Clean, pure, and delightful pain resounds through the air.
Small-Boat Harbor, Lindøy
