No Echo

by Anne Holt

  Interviewer:

  Then I’ll see you later. (Pause.) Let’s say two o’clock?

  Witness:

  (Lengthy yawn? Sigh?) Okay then. Two o’clock.

  Interviewer’s note: The interview was terminated because of other pressing business. The witness was cooperative, but obviously affected by tiredness. He seemed somewhat distressed when speaking about the deceased. In one instance – when talking about the money that by his own account was swindled from him – he had tears in his eyes. The interview will resume at two o’clock.

  17

  The winter sun that suddenly broke through the heavy clouds did little to help. The room remained gloomy. A solitary 25-watt bulb with no shade hung from a cable in the center of the ceiling. Thale stepped over cardboard boxes on the floor and sat down on the bed. It creaked noisily.

  “I don’t understand why you don’t just move back home. This place is miserable, to put it mildly. Fourth floor without an elevator and hardly any furniture. Besides, it stinks …”

  She sniffed the air.

  “Mold. This place must be a health hazard.”

  She rubbed the sole of her foot on the grubby wall-to-wall carpet and pulled another grimace. Daniel sighed demonstratively as he set down the last packing case. Perspiring from all the heavy lifting, he ran his index finger along his top lip.

  “Thale, listen to me. There was some trouble over the rental contract in Bogstadveien and—”

  “I could at least feel that you were safe there. Nice and bright and orderly. Why on earth, at the age of twenty-two, you had to find yourself a landlady who doesn’t allow girls to visit or the use of the toilet after nine o’clock at night is beyond my comprehension, Daniel. You’re more than welcome to move back home. Any time you like. It would be cheaper for you too. This dreary room is so … You’re always so impractical, Daniel. In fact, you always have been.”

  “This place is cheap. And it is practical not to spend very much money on rent.”

  It came out more sharply than he had intended. He smiled and added: “Anyway, it’s pathetic to move back into your childhood bedroom after you’ve left home.”

  Thale, standing on the bed with her shoes on, was about to take down a picture of a gypsy woman smiling seductively over the edge of a tambourine.

  “You simply can’t have this hanging here.”

  She unhooked the picture resolutely, unaware of her son’s irritation. Daniel was not particularly enthusiastic either about the gypsy women or about the elk in the sunset hanging on the opposite wall, but his mother could at least have asked. He choked back a protest and scratched his neck. This was how things had always been. Thale made decisions. His mother was not particularly quarrelsome. She was just thoroughly unsentimental and had an extremely practical disposition. It was as if all her emotions were used up in the theater; as if she had to operate at a minimum level for the remainder of the day in order to come to life on stage. Even when, at the age of fourteen, they had thought he was going to die, all that Thale had talked about was how things should be arranged. She had decided that the boy would recover his health, and so that was how it turned out. She browbeat, organized, and bullied the doctors, and Daniel got well again. His mother took it all as a matter of course. Later, Daniel had often wondered why she did not show more gratitude to Taffa. Admittedly Taffa was Thale’s sister, but that still didn’t make it inevitable that she would be there for her, the way she was. It was Taffa who had sat at his bedside in the evenings, who had comforted him and read to him and stroked his hair, even though he was in ninth grade by then. Only on one occasion had he been able to discern genuine anxiety on his mother’s face. That was in the middle of the night, after a performance. Thale had crept into the hospital, thinking Daniel asleep. He had seen her face in the subdued light from the bedside lamp and realized that his mother was scared to death. He grasped her hand and called her Mummy for the first and last time. She let him go, smiled encouragingly and left. Immediately after that, Taffa had arrived and she had stayed until he fell asleep again.

  His mother was putting on her coat.

  “There’s nothing more I can do here. But I still can’t understand why you’re so hard up that you have to stay here. Is that three or four jobs you’ve got now, as well as studying?”

  “Two, Thale. Two decent part-time jobs.”

  “Well, you should be able to manage to pay for a reasonable place to live.”

  Thale always looked at something else whenever she spoke to him. She had put on her coat and was now rummaging through a packing case.

  “Are these Grandfather’s books?”

  She picked up a small book.

  “Catilina. Impossible play. No good roles for women.”

  The gloves she had tucked under her arm while she leafed through the book dropped into the case, but she did not notice.

  “This is a first edition. The original one, from 1850. Do you know how much this is worth? It’s fortunate there wasn’t a bankruptcy hearing.”

  She put down the book and caught sight of her gloves. Daniel felt more than anything that he wanted to cry. He gnawed the inside of his cheek and raised his voice.

  “I’m not selling any of Grandfather’s belongings. Okay? He wanted me to have the things he left behind. Then it turned out that the house at Heggeli was mortgaged to the hilt. So what? Grandfather had these books at least, and he’d be turning in his grave at what you’re saying. He loved his book collection. Loved, do you understand that?”

  Thale spread out her arms in despair.

  “The man had promised you the value of a colossal villa, Daniel. He let you down, you know. Instead of securing his only grandchild’s future, he chose to … gamble away …”

  She spat out the words, as if the mere thought that her own flesh and blood, her father, had been a notorious gambler made her feel sick.

  “Thale, can’t we go out for something to eat? Have a chat?”

  Daniel ran his fingers over his eyes and tried to take hold of her arm, but she twisted away and pulled on her gloves.

  “Go to a café now? No. I need to go home for a nap. I’ve a performance tonight, you know that.”

  She blew him a kiss. Then she vanished without another word. The door was left open behind her. Daniel picked up Ibsen’s first play. He knew that the book was valuable, but had never dared to investigate more closely how much he might get for it. The gods must know he needed money.

  He needed it desperately.

  18

  The Chief of Police was right. Of course she should have given some kind of advance warning. She could simply have phoned, he had said as his evasive eyes glanced at her in mild reproach. He was right, of course he was, from a purely objective point of view. She could have sent a letter or made a phone call. The Police Chief was not to know that something of that sort had been impossible. Not until she was in Norway at least, and then she felt she might as well turn up in person.

  The new office was located in the depths of the red zone, distant from all the others in the section. She had accepted the key without a murmur. The room was stripped of everything other than an office desk with a chair and a shabby enamel metal shelf unit. In addition, a computer sat on the floor beside a jumble of cables unconnected to anything whatsoever. An almost imperceptible odor of ammonia and dust told her that the last occupant had moved out long ago. The window refused to budge. The frame was probably warped. All the same, she lit a cigarette. Since there was nothing resembling an ashtray, she used the floor.

  The assignment had obviously been engineered by Billy T. to keep her here. Hanne Wilhelmsen was to read through all the written material in the Ziegler case. Analyze it. Come up with suggestions for further interviews or alternative steps in the investigation. Write notes. In a best-case scenario they would hardly need to meet. She had carried a half-meter-high stack of documents along the corridor from the waiting room without anyone so much as looking in her direction. Now the papers sat l
ike a wobbly model of the Postgirobygget skyscraper on the other side of the desk. Hanne lit yet another cigarette and rubbed her eyes. It was Saturday December 11, and she had spent six hours skimming all of it.

  Perhaps she needed glasses.

  The apartment was like a mausoleum. She had endured it for all of ten minutes, just enough to scrape together a few items of clothing, fill a suitcase, and book into a hotel. The Royal Christiania was within walking distance of police headquarters. It would be best to take one thing at a time. She had wondered initially about going up to Håkon and Karen in Vinderen. They had a large house and plenty of space. Something stopped her. After having seen Billy T. turn his back on her, she realized what it was.

  She had never spared them a thought.

  When Cecilie died, the others were as nothing. Even Cecilie’s parents were insignificant. Cecilie’s death was Hanne’s sorrow, Hanne’s misfortune. The others could take care of the funeral, gravestone, and obituary in Aftenposten. Hanne did not even know if she had been mentioned in that. In all likelihood she had been; Cecilie’s parents had always been friendly, never disapproving. In her most lucid moments, Hanne could see that all they had wished for, through almost twenty years, was that she would accept them.

  Hanne had not given them a thought. Not her parents, not their friends. Cecilie’s death was her death. There was no room for anything else. That her parents might want something of their daughter’s – a piece of jewelry or a picture, the antique vinaigrette that Cecilie had inherited from her grandmother and that had been her dearest possession, or the photograph of Cecilie as a newly qualified doctor wearing her white coat and holding her stethoscope and diploma triumphantly aloft – the thought had not entered her head. The apartment was untouched. Cecilie’s parents did have keys: they had been given a set when Cecilie was at her most poorly. They could have let themselves in and taken whatever they wanted. No one had been there. Hanne knew that the moment she opened the front door. It was her own sorrow that filled the rooms, untouched by all the others.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Assuming she had misheard, Hanne opened a ring binder without answering it.

  Another knock followed and the door opened ever so slowly. A woman warily popped her head inside.

  “Sorry! Am I disturbing you?”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen looked up and blew cigarette smoke through gritted teeth.

  “Not at all. Come in, if you can stand the smoke.”

  “Actually, I can’t really.”

  The woman was young and slender, almost frail-looking. When she tottered across to the window on the highest heels Hanne had seen outside Italy, it struck her that the girl was unlikely to be a police officer. An office worker, probably. Or one of those clerical assistants who typed up interviews, and that sort of thing.

  The window relented and she threw it wide.

  “There’s a knack, you see. It’s something to do with the settlement of the whole building. You have to press just here …”

  She smacked the bottom corner lightly with her fist. Then she opened her slim hand and held it out it to Hanne.

  “Silje Sørensen. Police officer. Nice to meet you!”

  Hanne half-rose from her seat and took her hand.

  “Hanne Wilhelmsen. Chief Inspector. In name only, that is.”

  “I know! I’ve heard about you, you know! Everybody has.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Hanne made great play of lighting another cigarette with the old one.

  “I was really only delivering these to you,” Silje Sørensen said, slapping a green folder down on the desk. “Have they not even given you an extra chair? I’ll bring you one.”

  “No, not at all. I’ll do it later. Here, take this one.”

  Hanne pushed her chair halfway round the desk and found a comfortable spot for herself to perch on the window ledge.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Silje Sørensen said, remaining on her feet. “As I said, I was only supposed to give you these …”

  She pointed again at the papers in the green cover.

  “More interviews. And then I just wanted to say that … that it’s lovely to have you back, you see. Of course I’m new and all that, but … That was all. Welcome back.”

  She headed for the door, but turned around after only a couple of steps.

  “Tell me, where have you been, in actual fact?”

  Hanne burst out laughing. She lifted her face, turned to the snowy weather outside the window, and laughed out loud. For a long time. Then she dried her eyes and turned to face the room again.

  “You may well ask. I must tell you this. I’ve not spoken to many people since I got home, but they at least have better reason to ask than you. But you’re the first one. In fact.”

  She gasped and tried to pull herself together.

  Silje Sørensen sat down. She crossed her legs, tilted her head, and asked again: “But where have you been, then? I’ve heard so many strange stories.”

  “I’m sure you have.”

  Hanne’s laughter continued. She tried to catch her breath and tears ran down her face. Then she fell totally silent. She held her breath and closed her eyes to ward off a violent headache crawling ominously up her neck. It would take complete hold if she did not relax.

  “What have you heard?” she eventually asked.

  “Lots of weird things. Different things.”

  “What, then?”

  “Where have you been? Can’t you just tell me?”

  Hanne reopened her eyes. Silje Sørensen’s face was still not visibly affected by police work. She did not hide herself. Her big blue eyes were genuinely curious. Her smile was authentic. There was not a trace of cynicism in the graceful features of her face.

  “Jesus!” Hanne muttered.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. You remind me of a picture I … Nothing. Beautiful ring.”

  She pointed at Silje Sørensen’s right hand.

  “Got that from my husband.” Silje was whispering, as if the ring were an embarrassing secret.

  “Everything’s fine. Don’t bother about the people here in police headquarters. They’re chronically bitter about the levels of pay and can’t bear anyone else having money. I’ve been in a convent.”

  Hanne’s heels hit the floor. Then she left the room. First of all she went to the toilet to swallow down three Paracet tablets with a glass of water. Then she checked four offices before she found a chair that she could appropriate without too much of a guilty conscience. On the way back she balanced a ceramic ashtray on top of a half-full cup of coffee in one hand, as she dragged the chair behind her with the other.

  “You’re still here,” she said dully to Silje Sørensen as she closed the door behind her.

  “A convent,” Silje said slowly. “Is that true? Have you been …? Have you become a nun, or what?”

  “No. Not quite. I’ve been staying at a convent hotel. In Italy. It’s quite simply a place where you can take some time to yourself in order to … have some time. Think. Read. Get your strength back. Eat simple food and drink simple wine. Try to find your way back to … simplicity.”

  “Oh.”

  “I don’t suppose that’s what you had heard. Lesson number one for every detective: don’t believe everything you hear. Or everything you see. Understand?”

  When Silje did not answer, Hanne opened one of the document folders spread out in front of her.

  “Silje,” she said deliberately, as if not entirely sure whether she liked the name. “We’re both working on the same case, I see. Has it struck you that this investigation is sprawling in all directions?”

  “What? Pardon?”

  “I can’t seem to be able to get a grip of … They say so little, these witnesses. It strikes me that it’s not only because they have so little to tell, but more that … They haven’t been asked!”

  “But it’s—”

  “Don’t take it personally. You’re totally new, and
your interviews are all right, but look … Look at this, for instance. This is an interview that Billy T. conducted himself.”

  Hanne Wilhelmsen dropped her cigarette on the floor before realizing that she had brought an ashtray. Ignoring the fact that Silje bent down to peer underneath the desk, she produced the report of the conversation with Idun Franck as she ground the cigarette butt into the linoleum.

  “This Franck woman is, in my opinion, one of the most important witnesses we have in this case. She has spoken intimately with the deceased over a period of several months and has in her possession notes, tape recordings, and God knows what. And then she gathers up all this stuff and protects it under her duty of confidentiality. Billy T. must have become terribly interested in law recently. His special report looks most like a legal dissertation. He lets the woman chatter away about the Criminal Procedure Act, section 125, and her right to refuse to give a statement and blah, blah, blah. It seems a bit strange to me that an editor in a publishing company, who should first and foremost have knowledge of language and literature, starts to refer to the European Convention on Human Rights …”

  Smacking her lips, Hanne shook her head as she let her finger run across the paper.

  “Here. Article ten. How does she know all this? Police Prosecutor Skar is still poring over it to work out that whole legal mush, and she’s a lawyer after all! Idun Franck couldn’t have known … It’s advanced expertise for a publishing editor, I must say. And here …”

  Hanne produced yet another cigarette, but refrained from lighting it.

  “Why hasn’t he asked how they work at the publishing house? Whether there are others who had contact with Brede? It seems there were loads of photographs taken at the restaurant, but Billy T. hasn’t enquired about who took them. Information like that at least can’t be covered by this … duty of confidentiality! Besides, why hasn’t the lady in question been called in for formal interview?”