No Echo

by Anne Holt

  “All the same, there is something about that Idun Franck,” Silje said, grabbing the matches. “It was as if she were …”

  Hanne was not sure whether it was intentional. When Silje Sørensen tilted her head and looked askance at the ceiling, she looked like a thoughtful little child.

  “… keeping a secret!”

  “A secret,” Hanne repeated, holding out her hand. “The matches, please. Everybody has secrets.”

  “Don’t smoke.”

  “Come on. Let me have them. Don’t you have any secrets?”

  “Smoking’s dangerous. Besides, it’s forbidden here.”

  “That’s certainly not a secret. Come on, now. Give me the matches.”

  Hanne half-rose from her chair and tried to grab Silje’s wrist. Her young colleague stretched her arm above her head and laughed as she shook the box.

  “I have two,” she said. “First of all, I’m rich.”

  Hanne sat down again, opened a drawer, took out a lighter, and lit the cigarette.

  “Rich? I see.”

  “Loaded,” Silje whispered, giggling. “I mean, I really do have loads of money. But I don’t tell anyone. Not here at police headquarters, I mean.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Hanne said drily. “You just go round in clothes that cost ten thousand kroner, shoes for almost half that, and jewelry we could have sold and used to build a new national prison. What is your second secret? Are you pregnant?”

  Silje Sørensen was a pretty woman. She was small, almost petite. Hanne had previously wondered whether her colleague had been measured in her high heels to achieve the regulation height at police college. Her facial features were regular, and her nose had a slight kink that emphasized the inquisitive expression in her eyes.

  “Now you look retarded,” Hanne Wilhelmsen said.

  “But,” Silje began, and closed her mouth.

  “You’re scratching your belly. Buy a good cream and apply it often. Besides, there was a smell of vomit after you’d been to the toilet yesterday morning. Bulimic? I don’t think so … Pregnant? Probably. Elementary, my dear Silje. But …”

  It was as if the information about Silje’s pregnancy had suddenly struck Hanne as a catastrophe. She stiffened entirely, with her hand halfway to her mouth, the cigarette still bobbing between her lips. In the end she had to close her eyes on the smoke and exclaimed: “Have you seen Daniel Åsmundsen, Silje?”

  “Seen him? Wasn’t he released yesterday?”

  “I mean seen!”

  Hanne stubbed out the cigarette in the foul-smelling ashtray and headed for the door. When she returned three minutes later, she was holding something behind her back. She leaned toward Silje. Their faces were only a fraction apart when she repeated, forcefully: “Have you ever in your life clapped eyes on Daniel Åsmundsen?”

  Silje drew back without thinking.

  “I don’t think so,” she said slowly. “Why do you ask?”

  “Thank goodness they had the wit to record the boy on file. I don’t have a bloody clue whether they took his prints, but his photo was in the case files anyway.”

  She plumped down in her own chair and slapped a photo of a young man’s face in front of Silje.

  “Look at this boy. Is there anything familiar about him?”

  Silje stared at the photo for a long time. Daniel Åsmundsen looked young. She knew he was more than twenty, but judging from the photograph he could easily pass for a teenager. Maybe it was the roundness of his cheeks that made him look younger, or possibly his eyes that gazed wide-open into the camera lens.

  She raised the photo to her face and squinted.

  “There is something familiar about this face,” she said hesitantly. “I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen him before, but all the same there’s something …”

  She put her knuckle into her mouth and sucked loudly.

  “Look here,” Hanne said, turning to the computer screen, which had finally been connected by one of the dilatory IT assistants. “If it’s as I believe, then the information in the Population Register will show that … Bingo!”

  “What is it?”

  “Daniel Åsmundsen’s mother’s name is Thale Åsmundsen. Isn’t she the actress, by the way? The one at the National Theater? Never mind … Look here. Father: Unknown!”

  She clenched her fists and banged them on the keyboard in her enthusiasm. The details disappeared in a chaos of indecipherable symbols.

  “At the morning meeting with the Chief it emerged that Brede probably has a child somewhere. Billy T. had spoken to … Doesn’t matter a damn. And if you look at this picture here, then—”

  “Honestly. You just told me that nothing exciting happened at that meeting, and then you say that—”

  “Look! Take another peek at this photo!”

  Silje picked up the picture again and lightly smacked her lips.

  “Brede Ziegler,” she said. “Daniel Åsmundsen looks like Brede Ziegler. But …”

  She continued to stare at the picture. The same round face as his father, the same nose: slightly too broad, slightly too large, but wide, oval nostrils.

  “How does this help us?” she asked meekly and looked up. “So Daniel may be Brede Ziegler’s son, but what has that to do with the murder?”

  “No idea,” Hanne said, grinning broadly. “But get that millionaire fur coat of yours. We’re going out.”

  61

  Billy T. sat with his knees tucked under the table for fear that the chair would not bear his 107 kilos of weight. He got cramp in his thighs from trying to make himself lighter. Besides, he was not hungry.

  “Why would they call a Norwegian restaurant ‘Frankie’s’?” he asked crossly as he sipped his beer; the froth settled on his moustache and made him reluctant to lick his lips. “Can’t they think of something Norwegian? Like ‘Hunger’, for example? Hunger is good.”

  “If we’d gone there, we’d still not have a table. They try to make the queuing arrangements seem hip. Urban and young and democratic, and that sort of drivel. The truth is that they make a fortune out of people hardly having wiped their chins before the next customer pokes you on the shoulder. Here at Frankie’s, on the other hand …”

  Severin Heger smiled at the proprietor, a good-looking woman from Bergen who was sashaying between the tables.

  “Carpaccio and spaghetti alla vongole for both of us,” he ordered, putting down the menu.

  “I don’t want any fucking vongley spaghetti,” Billy T. said.

  “Yes, you do. And a white Italian.”

  The woman suggested a type, and Severin was drawn into a lengthy discussion. Billy T. yawned. He tried to forget the morning meeting, but it was impossible. He had walked around in a daze all day long. If Hanne had not reacted as she had, he would have handed in his resignation. Unequivocally. Then his children could starve to death. What Tone-Marit would have said about it, he could barely imagine. He had hardly spoken to her for several weeks. He came home late, grunted at both her and the baby, and was up and out before the first morning feed.

  “I can’t afford this,” he complained when the woman left.

  “My treat,” Severin said, raising his glass in a toast. “Shitty day? Something you want to talk about?”

  “White Christmas,” Billy T. said, nodding apathetically at the massive windows, where big flakes of snow were drifting past.

  If the low temperature held out, even the inner city would be blanketed in snow in a few hours. Billy T. yawned again, regretting the toolboxes he had bought for the boys. They were going to be disappointed. Also he would have to get Jenny another present. A fucking car seat was not enough.

  “You’re wrong,” Severin Heger said all of a sudden, as if he had been standing beside a cold fjord in May and had at last decided to dive in. “Vilde can’t be Brede’s daughter.”

  Billy T. drained the rest of his glass. When he put it down again, he shook his head slowly.

  “And you’ve found that out?” he asked tersel
y.

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  Severin picked up a Parmesan shaving and placed it on his tongue.

  “Vilde’s father is called Viktor Veierland. Engineer. He’s still married to Vilde’s mother. Vivian Veierland is her name.”

  “Do they have an obsession with the letter V in that family, then? And what about it, anyway? A marriage has never stopped people having children. With someone else, I mean.”

  The waiter poured their wine and removed their beer glasses.

  “But listen to this,” Severin said, discouraged. “Vilde was born in 1975. In Osaka in Japan, of all places. Her father had a job there from 1974 to 1977. At that time they were never in Norway. They saved money, the man explained. The entire point of their stay was to pile up money for a house here in Norway. Incidentally, the guy was quite down-in-the-mouth about my questions. They were never in Norway at that time, Billy T. You know as well as I do what that means. To be on the safe side, and for your sake, I checked whether there was anything at all that might indicate that Ziegler had made a detour to Japan at that time. Nix. He has never been to Asia at all.”

  The spaghetti arrived at the table.

  “Okay, okay!”

  Billy T. held his hands in the air and rolled his eyes.

  “You don’t need to rub it in, then. My theory has collapsed like a—”

  He dropped his fork in his food and threw the linen napkin on the floor in irritation.

  Severin’s cellphone played a digital version of a Norwegian folk tune.

  “Hello?”

  Billy T. was tired out. His eyes slid shut. The room seemed to spin round on its axis. The snow outside the window changed color: now the swirling flakes seemed violet in the harsh street lighting. He gasped for air. The money, he thought lethargically. Why does a guy walk around in Oslo with 16,000 kroner on him, in the middle of the night? Why was he walking around in Oslo at all? He was in pain, and it was Sunday night. Brede Ziegler should have been at hospital. Or at home. Hanne was right. He must have met someone. A prearranged meeting. Billy T. tried to eat, but the spaghetti slid off his fork. He made an attempt to help out with the spoon, but his hands were behaving as if they no longer belonged to him. He sat there gaping at the almost untouched plate.

  “It was Karianne,” Severin said, crestfallen, stuffing the cellphone back into his brown shoulder-bag. “Sebastian Kvie died three-quarters of an hour ago. Poor, unlucky bastard.”

  It was exactly forty-eight hours till Christmas Eve. Billy T. could think of nothing except that the toolboxes for the boys were totally, totally wrong.

  62

  When the woman opened the door, it seemed as though she had been expecting them. Or, more to the point, was waiting for them. Although the apartment was furnished as if it had been preserved at some time in 1974, it was clean and tidy. A hollow on one of the armchairs revealed that someone had just been sitting there, but the TV was switched off. It was totally silent in the apartment, and there were no books or newspapers lying around. Just as if she had known they were on their way and was simply sitting here waiting. When Hanne Wilhelmsen showed her police ID, the woman nodded gently and brushed away invisible dust from her trouser leg.

  “I have tried to do the right thing, but I was wrong.”

  It was the very first thing she said. Not hello. She did not invite them in, either. She simply headed for the living room and took it for granted that they would follow. The settee was a DIY construction, covered in floral Marimekko fabric. The petals had once been deep purple. Now they were faded to a pale shade of lilac, and the stuffing had leaked through in a number of places. An enormous yucca plant in the corner facing the street served as a Christmas tree, decorated with handcrafted Christmas baskets, two blue glass baubles with artificial snow, and festooned with lights that did not work. Beyond the living room, Silje Sørensen could make out a kitchen with orange walls and green appliances.

  “If you hadn’t come to me, I would have paid you a visit,” the woman said calmly. “It’s not fair to Daniel, how it’s all turned out.”

  Hanne’s look made Silje shut her mouth on the questions that sat on the tip of her tongue. Instead, she leaned back on the settee, fingering her diamond ring.

  Thale Åsmundsen appeared unaffected by the ensuing silence. It seemed that she had left her features behind at the theater and had no expressions left for personal use. She curled up in the armchair with her legs tucked underneath her. Her mid-length hair was smooth, but not anywhere near what you would call a hairstyle. She lifted a teacup to her mouth. It took some time before she finally put it down again.

  “It began when I met Freddy,” she said, composed. “You know of course that that was Brede Ziegler’s real name. Freddy Johansen. I didn’t really like him.”

  For the first time some kind of expression appeared on her scrubbed, shiny face; a touch of something Hanne interpreted as self-mocking irony.

  “But I was only eighteen. It was all some sort of protest. Against my father, and also against Idun. She is much older than me and had already graduated from university. Father wanted me to study law. So I applied for drama school instead. And got involved with someone who … wasn’t academic. It became something of a scandal at home in Heggeli. Which I was exceptionally pleased about.”

  The irony had gone. All the same, Hanne was puzzled. It might seem as if the woman in the green flannel trousers was reliving an old sorrow, but then she shrugged and went on: “That was how it was. Actually it had all been over between us for a while before I fell pregnant. I just didn’t understand it. Freddy was, to put it mildly …”

  A smile drifted across her mouth and she hid her face in her cup for a moment.

  “… not interested, you might say. Well. I couldn’t care less. I wanted to have the baby. The last time I met Brede at that time was in 1977, on the street. I was heavily pregnant. He said hello and walked on. Without asking. He never phoned me. Never tried to find out whether he had fathered a boy or a girl. I sent him a letter, to keep things above board. Told him that the boy had been born. And that his name was Daniel. He never replied. It was all the same to me. Freddy was never preoccupied about who he was. He was preoccupied about who he was going to be. I had understood that long ago. Would you … would you like a cup?”

  She held her own up to them in the form of a question. Silje nodded, but Hanne waved her hand dismissively and lied: “We’ve already had a bucketful of coffee. No, thanks.”

  “At the time I dumped Freddy, he had actually also dumped himself.”

  Thale Åsmundsen gave a short burst of mirthless laughter. Hanne was not even sure that she had meant to laugh. Maybe she had just snorted.

  “He had started as an apprentice chef in order to go to sea. But then he discovered the sophisticated restaurant life. He wanted to be elegant too. He reinvented himself. That was when he became Brede Ziegler.”

  Now her laughter sounded more genuine.

  “Just think! Freddy Johansen became Brede Ziegler. You would think he was the one who was the actor, rather than me. I’ve actually seen it myself …”

  She stretched out her leg and pulled a grimace, as if her legs had gone to sleep.

  “I’ve seen how he could stand in front of the mirror and try out different roles. Have you seen that Woody Allen film? Zelig?”

  Hanne nodded, Silje shook her head.

  “That was what Brede was like. Some evenings at the Young Conservatives’ meeting: one of the jet set with a loden coat and beautiful sweater. A night at Club Seven, and hey presto … he turned into a sensitive member of the avant-garde. His best role, all the same, was the man-of-the-world with artistic talents. Little by little, he became really good at that. Fucking poser!”

  It seemed surprising that she swore. It did not seem appropriate to the flat, deadpan way she had of expressing herself. Hanne Wilhelmsen asked carefully, “But weren’t you sad that he didn’t bother in the slightest about the child?”
/>   Now Thale Åsmundsen looked genuinely taken aback.

  “Sad? Why would I be? I didn’t want Freddy Johansen – and I wouldn’t have touched Brede Ziegler with a bargepole. Freddy was like … Do you know the myth of Narcissus?”

  She fixed her eyes on Hanne as if she had given up on Silje Sørensen. Hanne shrugged.

  “Sort of. That’s the one who falls in love with his own reflection, isn’t it?”

  “Exactly. That’s just what he was like. And I had no interest in being Freddy’s Echo. Besides, I had Idun. She was the only person who seemed genuinely happy when Daniel was born. He called her Taffa, almost before he said ‘Mummy’ to me.”

  She stood up abruptly.

  “I’m hungry,” she said casually. “I usually eat at this time. After the performance. Yes … whether I’m performing or not. I’m off this evening, but I’m hungry …”

  She gave a faint smile and padded barefoot out to the kitchen. Silje grabbed Hanne’s foot.

  “She ought to have a lawyer, we should—”

  “Shh. We’re eating.”

  The kitchen table was painted orange, like the walls. Thale Åsmundsen put out a teapot and three rough ceramic cups.

  “I can’t be bothered spending time looking for new things. I like routine. Things being where they’ve always been.”

  Silje stared at her in fascination. Not only her home, but her entire being seemed like a throwback to her hippy days. Although Thale Åsmundsen clearly had a pretty face, she wore no make-up, she was dowdy, with baggy flannel trousers, bare toes, and a wide Indian batik shirt. Silje had seen her play Miss Julie in a Swedish television production, and could hardly grasp that this was the same person.

  “You could well say that Idun and I shared the job of mothering,” Thale Åsmundsen said, cracking three eggs into a pan. “Daniel and I always eat fried eggs and drink hot chocolate. It’s become a sort of … Well. Although Daniel lived here, of course, he spent almost as much time at her place. As soon as I dared to let him out on his own, he took the tram to the Old Town by himself. And when Daniel was ill …”