No Echo

by Anne Holt

He refolded the sheet of paper and, satisfied, pushed it back where it had been.

  “Thanks for nothing,” Billy T. said. “Do you have an archive in your ass, or what?”

  Then, nodding to Severin Heger to accompany him, he raised his hand to take his leave of the Chief of Police, and disappeared from the room.

  “What’s actually wrong with the guy?” Karianne said, before providing the answer herself. “He’s suffering from post-Hanne-Wilhelmsen-syndrome. Isn’t it about time he got over that woman?”

  No one responded. She bitterly regretted her outburst when she felt the Police Chief’s eyes on her.

  “I think you should confine yourself to matters you know something about,” he said, unruffled. “That’d be the best course of action.”

  It was Tuesday December 7, 1999 and, outside, it had started to snow.

  7

  Hanne Wilhelmsen did not wear black because she was in mourning. It’s simply that it was so practical. Her leather jacket had four capacious pockets, making it unnecessary to carry a handbag. When she had left home, she had thrown two pairs of black jeans and four dark T-shirts into a bag together with underwear and socks. It was mainly because she had nothing else that was clean, and also because she had no idea when she would have the opportunity to wash clothes when traveling.

  She caught sight of herself in a shop window.

  Her hair had grown long again. A few months earlier, she had begun to comb her fringe back. At long last her hair had grown long enough to sit properly in the new style. The reflection on the glass showed her someone she barely recognized.

  She shifted her focus from the strange mirror image to the shop itself. A clothes shop. They did not have especially much on sale. The interior was simple and severe, with a few garments hanging on a steel frame. Two slim headless mannequins were dressed in tight trousers and crop-tops. A pair of bright-red gloves took center stage on a small high-legged table.

  She went inside.

  They were the reddest gloves Hanne had ever seen.

  Slowly, paying no attention to the young woman who was presumably asking if she needed any help, she tried them on.

  They were made for her, enveloping her hands like a second skin. Hanne, feeling warmth spread along her arms, touched her face.

  “Duecentomila lire,” she heard someone say.

  Without answering and without removing the gloves, she produced her wallet and handed over her VISA card. The woman smiled expressively and said something, possibly an acknowledgment of the customer’s taste and choice. Hanne was still wearing the gloves as she signed the receipt.

  When she left the shop, she noticed for the first time the gentle breeze sweeping through the narrow streets. High above the terracotta-colored buildings she could see the sky turning blue: an unfamiliar summer hue, out of place in December. She stared at her gloves and started to walk.

  The gloves were all she could think about.

  Suddenly a rectangular piazza opened out before her. A marble fountain was surrounded by sidewalk restaurants, open even now, well into the Advent season. She took a seat at a table beside the wall and ordered a cappuccino.

  Momentarily she felt something reminiscent of peace. Animated voices, laughter and unceremonious scolding, clinking of glasses, and rasping sounds of opera from the loudspeakers above her head all blended together into something that epitomized Italy, the Italy she had sought refuge from, in months spent off the beaten track. She fished out a cigarette, still wearing her gloves. As she coaxed a flame from her lighter, she heard a voice.

  “Scusi—”

  Hanne slowly lifted her eyes from her own cigarette. They stopped at a pair of red hands. She was taken aback for a second. She had to cast about, to find out where her own hands were, whether they were still hers.

  Someone held a cigarette between two fingers, asking for a light. The hands were wearing the same gloves as Hanne’s. Exactly the same snug-fitting, fiery-red calfskin gloves for which she had just paid a small fortune.

  “Scusi—” she heard once more, and looked up.

  The woman was gazing at her and smiled. When Hanne showed no sign of sparking her lighter again, the stranger took the unfamiliar gadget from her hands and helped herself. She lingered. Hanne stared at her. The woman was no longer smiling. Instead she stood with the cigarette in her hand, untouched, until there was nothing left but a baton of ash.

  “Can I sit here?” the stranger eventually asked, dropping the cigarette end on the ground. “Just for a minute?”

  “Of course,” Hanne replied, pulling the adjacent chair out from the table. “Please do. Sit. Please.”

  Then, leisurely, she drew off her gloves and stuffed them into her pocket.

  8

  Brede Ziegler’s apartment in Niels Juels gate was located in a pale-gray anonymous block in the functionalist style of the 1930s. Billy T. clambered out of the patrol car and peered up at the façade. A button on his pea-jacket fell off and disappeared into the slush underneath the vehicle.

  “We can’t park here,” Severin Heger said.

  “Help me, won’t you? My button’s somewhere under here.”

  Billy T. groaned and stood upright again, drying his hand on his trousers.

  “Bloody hell. Now Tone-Marit will change all the buttons. I like these ones. See if you can find it for me.”

  “We can’t stay here,” Severin reiterated. “The car’s blocking the vehicle entrance.”

  “I’ll stay wherever I fucking want,” Billy T. said crossly. “Besides, it’s mid-morning and this is a residential property. Nobody will go in or out of here at this time of day.”

  He slapped the police ID on the dashboard, clearly visible through the windscreen, and locked the car.

  “How many apartments are there here, actually?”

  Severin Heger shrugged, appearing to contemplate moving the car himself.

  “One, two, three—”

  Billy T.’s right forefinger ran from window to window. Several of them had no curtains, and the building seemed dazzled by the low winter sun that had just broken through the cloud cover.

  “I’ll bet there’s two on each floor,” he said, as he set off, jogging across the asphalt driveway. “That makes eight apartments, plus Ziegler’s big penthouse at the top.”

  Beside the double glass doors at the rear of the building, the doorbells were marked with brass nameplates.

  “No temporary paper labels here, eh?”

  Billy T. fumbled with a bulky bunch of keys. Finally he found the right key and let them in. The hallway brought to mind a small hotel reception. The floor was covered in azure and gray tiles and there was a faint smell of ammonia. The walls were primrose-yellow with three lithographs in severe black frames. On the opposite side, mailboxes were built into the wall and labeled with brass plates similar to the ones on the doorbells. An enormous leather winged armchair and a sideboard had obviously been placed here so that residents could sort their mail before going out or going home. A manila-fiber wastepaper basket, half-filled with advertising flyers and empty envelopes, capsized as Billy T. tried to inspect the contents. He righted it carelessly, leaving three colorful ICA supermarket-chain leaflets scattered on the floor. He stretched out to reach a small box fixed to the cornice directly above the chair.

  “CCTV,” he said eagerly. “Get somebody to secure the tapes, Severin. Today.”

  “There should be a sign on the door advising people of that. Both because it’s a legal requirement and because part of the point must be to scare layabouts from trying anything. And while we’re talking about rules and regulations, Billy T., do we actually have permission to do this?”

  Severin Heger leaned against the wall beside the framed lithographs, with his hands thrust deep inside his pockets as if to distance himself from the entire enterprise. Billy T. waved the bunch of keys.

  “His wife said yes. As for Ziegler himself, well, asking him is a bit more difficult.”

  “Did his
wife really agree that we could enter the apartment without her being present? That’s obviously Ziegler’s own bunch of keys you have there.”

  “Yep. But I phoned the lady. On her cellphone. She was on her way to Oslo. She said it was fine.”

  Severin removed his glasses and placed them in a brushed-metal spectacle case.

  “Can’t get used to these,” he said glumly as he stepped into the open elevator. “I would never have let anyone like us into my apartment if I weren’t absolutely obliged to. Do you have the code to go all the way up?”

  A small metal plate was hooked on to the key ring. Billy T. squinted at the tiny figures and tapped a five-digit number into the display on the door.

  “Crazy to have the number attached to your keys, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, good Lord,” Severin exclaimed.

  Billy T. gave a long-drawn-out whistle as the metal doors opened soundlessly.

  The elevator went directly into the apartment. From where the two police officers were standing, the distance to the opposite wall must have been at least thirty meters. The floor was glossy black and Billy T. could count four doors on either side of the wide corridor that opened out into what had to be the living room.

  “Black lacquer,” he blurted in excitement. “The guy’s damn well lacquered the whole floor!”

  “Floor paint,” Severin Heger mumbled. “It’s just floor paint. I’ve never in my life seen a coal-black floor in anyone’s home.”

  “Smart! Really smart!”

  Billy T. strode into the apartment with his boots on, his footsteps clearly delineated in the light from the spots running along the perimeter of the high ceiling. They had switched on automatically as the elevator doors opened. Severin Heger removed his shoes.

  “Check out this kitchen,” he heard Billy T. yell. “Mini-kitchen! I thought chefs had gigantic kitchens.”

  Severin found himself tiptoeing as he crept along the corridor. He felt just as awkward every time.

  “Oh, good Lord,” he repeated as he turned the corner and peered into the diminutive kitchen. “Well, it might be small, but no expense has been spared.”

  The refrigerator looked like a bank vault. Constructed of solid steel, it was divided vertically, with the freezer on the left side and the fridge on the right. In the freezer section a built-in dispenser displayed buttons for ice, crushed ice, water, and carbonated water. The fridge gave the impression of being a fortress around an abundant storehouse of food, but turned out to contain three rolls of film, a table-pack of butter, and two bottles of champagne.

  “Besserat de Bellefon,” Billy T. read aloud. “Brut. Grande Tradition.”

  “That’s not too bad a drink. But look at that!”

  Severin pointed at the actual kitchen fittings, while Billy T. surreptitiously tucked the rolls of film into his pocket.

  “I’ll bet that’s German.”

  Severin caught hold of an arched steel handle and opened a drawer.

  “Feels expensive,” he said as he peered at a label, discreetly attached to the inside of the drawer. “Poggenpohl. The best there is.”

  “But that there is more like a canteen—”

  Billy T. wrinkled his nose and pointed at the stainless-steel cutlery, all arranged in perfect order, as if a photographer from an advertising bureau was expected at any minute.

  “In that case it must be the canteen in the royal palace,” Severin said. “This is Italian designer steel. There’s not a single item here that doesn’t match.”

  If the kitchen was minuscule, the living room on the other hand measured more than a hundred square meters. The walls and ceiling were chalk-white and the beams were black like the floor. The entire room centered on a seating arrangement comprising two five-seater settees facing each other, separated by at least four meters. Billy T. picked up a deluxe edition about Indian temple monkeys from the table and leafed through it indifferently. Tossing it aside with a thump, he pointed at an oil painting on the gable wall behind one of the settees.

  “Look at that red color at the bottom there. It matches the settee! He’s bought a fucking picture to match the furniture!”

  “Or the other way round,” Severin said, as he approached the enormous abstract painting. “Gunvor Advocaat. I think it’s the other way round, Billy T. First the picture, then the furniture. Incredibly stylish, with that red against the black!”

  Billy T. did not answer. He struggled to open a door in the south-facing glass wall that gave on to a magnificent roof garden.

  “Locked,” he said superfluously as he gave up. “Let’s take a look at the bathroom. Bathrooms are always mind-blowing.”

  He trudged back to the long corridor between the living room and the elevator. Suddenly he halted, squinting at a series of fifteen to twenty photographs framed behind glass and hanging in three rows on the wall.

  “Brede Ziegler and … Here’s something for you, Severin. Brede and Wenche Foss!”

  Severin Heger grinned as he pointed at the next picture.

  “Catherine Deneuve! That’s Brede Ziegler and Catherine Deneuve!”

  “And Brede eating with Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg!”

  “And that’s … Who the fuck is that?”

  “Björk,” Severin said. “That’s Ziegler and Björk in a car!”

  “Jaguar,” Billy T. murmured. “Who’s Björk?”

  Severin laughed so hard he began to hiccup.

  “And you say I’m star – hic – struck!”

  Billy T. thumped him on the back and leaned closer to the picture on the lower right.

  “It can’t be,” he exclaimed, smacking his index finger on the glass.

  “Do you see who Brede is shaking hands with there?”

  Severin tried to hold his breath and talk at the same time.

  “The Pope,” he groaned. “Brede is being intro – hic – duced to the Pope.”

  “Take a glass of water. That gizmo on the fridge looked classy.”

  Billy T. let his hand slide across the wall to the first door beyond the photographs. The handle felt cold and heavy against his hand. He pressed it gingerly and nudged the door open.

  The bedroom was similar in style to the rest of the apartment. The floor here was lacquered in brilliant white. A double bed with a brushed-steel frame was placed in the center of the room. The bed linen had been stripped, and the quilts and pillows were neatly folded at the foot of the enormous mattress. The bedside tables were also white, with frosted glass drawers. A book by an author unfamiliar to Billy T. lay on one of these. The other was bare, apart from a table lamp with a globe shade fashioned of the same glass as the drawer fronts. The bedroom walls were stark and unadorned. The wardrobe sliding doors were of smoked mirror glass. Billy T. stared at his reflection for a second or two, before drawing one door aside.

  “This is perverse,” he said in an undertone to Severin, who was standing in the doorway gulping a glass of water. “There must be fifty here.”

  A broad tower of shoeboxes, each one with a Polaroid photograph attached, was stacked inside. Billy T. opened the box at the top of the pile. The front picture showed a pair of lady’s red stiletto shoes. The contents matched. The next box was labeled with a photo of men’s black dress shoes. The contents were exactly as expected.

  “An archive of shoes,” Severin said, impressed. “He had quite a sense of order, our friend Brede!”

  “But look here—”

  Billy T. opened the closet on the other side, where three columns of wire baskets stood side by side.

  “Two baskets of women’s stuff,” he said, lifting a black bra between his thumb and forefinger. “The rest is men’s clothing. You’d almost think the woman didn’t live here. Look at this—”

  He opened the middle of the wardrobe. A clothes rail extending for at least three meters was crammed with hanging suits, trousers, blazers, and shirts. At the far end beside the shoeboxes dangled a gossamer party dress, a maxi-skirt, and two blouses.

/>   “Is it just me, or is there something creepy about this whole place?” Billy T. asked. “It looks like something in an expensive showroom. The only thing approaching any kind of personal touch in the entire apartment is a really tacky wall covered in celebrity photos and a wardrobe that could be put on sale in the Ferner Jacobsen department store. Was he never at home, or what? And Vilde, then … Did she actually even live here?”

  “This stuff’s not Ferner Jacobsen,” Severin said, running his hands lingeringly over a cashmere jacket. “This hasn’t been bought in Norway at all. The bathroom – you said that we ought to take a look at the bathroom.”

  “If we can find it,” Billy T. mumbled, closing the bedroom door behind him. “What about this door here?”

  Stepping into Brede Ziegler’s workroom was like moving from one world into another. The walls were decorated with deep-red silk wallpaper in a pattern Severin chose to call lions’ paws. Fifteen to twenty lithographs and three oil paintings hung close together, some in semi-darkness, others below their own brass picture lights. The flooring was dark and partly covered with an oriental rug. In the corner farthest from the door stood a marble statue of Aphrodite on an open shell, measuring one and a half meters high. The writing desk was roughly rococo style: shiny lacquered wood with an inlaid sheet of green felt as a writing pad. A Mont Blanc fountain pen lay diagonally on the felt, beside a matching glass inkwell, black and yellow. A telephone with a mahogany case sat beside an answering machine that looked as if it came from some time in the seventies. The air was oppressive and clammy. Severin poked his nose forward and sniffed loudly.

  “Do you smell it?”

  “Mmm. Pot.”

  “I agree – and listen, my hiccups have stopped.”

  “Good for you. What do we have here?”

  Billy T. picked up an onyx owl, set it to one side, and riffled quickly through the papers it had held down on the desktop.

  “A bill from the phone company: eight hundred and fifteen kroner and fifty øre—”

  “Not particularly chatty, in other words.”

  “An invitation to … the Chinese embassy. Dinner. And this—”