Hanne Wilhelmsen - 01 - The Blind Goddess

by Anne Holt

  It took less than an hour. Hanne couldn’t help feeling that poor Roger was only being seen as an appendage of Lavik. If the decision went against Lavik, it would go against Roger. If Lavik went free, Roger would do likewise.

  “You’ll have a judgement today, I hope, but it may not be until midnight,” the magistrate declared as the hearing at last came to an end. “Will you wait, or may I have a fax number for each of you?”

  He certainly could.

  Roger was escorted back to the basement, after a whispered conversation with his defence counsel. The magistrate had already gone into the adjacent office, and the typist had followed him. Bloch-Hansen put his shabby but venerable document case under his arm and went over to Håkon Sand. He seemed more friendly than he had reason to be.

  “You can’t have had much when you arrested them on Friday,” he said in an undertone. “I wonder what you would have done if you hadn’t found the notebook and been lucky with the fingerprints. Or to put it more bluntly, you must have been miles away from reasonable grounds for suspicion when you took them both in.”

  Håkon felt faint. Perhaps it was obvious to the other two, because the lawyer was quick to reassure him.

  “I’m not going to make any fuss about it. But if I can offer you a word of friendly advice: don’t get involved in things you can’t handle. That holds good for all aspects of life.”

  He nodded curtly but politely and went out to meet those journalists who had not yet lost patience. There were quite a few. The two police officers were left alone.

  “Let’s go and get something to eat,” Hanne suggested. “Then I’ll wait with you. I’m sure it’ll be all right.”

  That was a barefaced lie.

  * * *

  Again he noticed the subtle fragrance of her perfume. She’d given him a hug of consolation and encouragement as soon as they were by themselves. It hadn’t helped. When they emerged from the grand old courthouse, she remarked on how sensible it had been to wait for half an hour. The inquisitive crowds had long gone off home to the warmth. The television people had had to bow to their fixed schedules and hurry back with what little they’d got. The newspaper reporters had also vanished, after having obtained a short statement from the defence counsel. It was already quarter past eight.

  “Actually, I haven’t eaten all day,” Håkon realised in some astonishment, feeling his appetite sneaking back after having cowered in a corner of his stomach for over twenty-four hours.

  “Nor have I,” Hanne replied, even though it wasn’t entirely true. “We’ve got plenty of time. The magistrate will need at least three hours. Let’s find somewhere quiet.”

  They walked arm-in-arm down a little hill, trying to evade the heavy splashes from the roof of an old building, and managed to get a secluded table in an Italian restaurant just round the corner. A handsome young man with jet-black hair escorted them to their places, plonked a menu down in front of them, and asked mechanically whether they wanted anything to drink. After a moment’s hesitation, they both ordered a beer. It was delivered in record time. Håkon drank half the glass in one gulp. It revived him, and the alcohol made an immediate impact—or perhaps it was just the shock to his atrophied stomach.

  “It’s all disintegrating,” he said, almost cheerfully, wiping the froth from his upper lip. “It’ll never get through. They’ll walk straight out and back to their old games again. Mark my words. And it’s my fault.”

  “We’ll worry about it if it happens,” said Hanne, though she was unable to disguise the fact that she shared his pessimism. She glanced at the clock. “We still have an hour or two before we may have to admit defeat.”

  They sat there for quite a while without saying anything and with a faraway, unfocused expression in their eyes.

  Their glasses were empty by the time the food came. Spaghetti. It looked appetising, and was piping hot.

  “It’s not your fault if it hasn’t worked out,” she said as she struggled with the long white strands covered in tomato sauce. She’d tucked her napkin into her collar with an apologetic gesture to protect her sweater from the inevitable accidents.

  “You know it isn’t,” she added emphatically, scanning his face. “If it goes wrong, we’ve all failed. We were all agreed on trying for custody, no one can blame you.”

  “Blame me?”

  He banged his spoon on the table so that the sauce spattered everywhere.

  “Blame me? Of course they’ll blame me! It’s not you or Kaldbakken or the commissioner or anyone else who was wittering on for hours in there! It was me! I was the one who messed it up. They have every right to blame me.”

  He suddenly felt full and pushed the half-eaten food away, almost in distaste, as if the mussels might be concealing an unpalatable release order.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever performed so badly in court, believe me, Hanne.”

  He took a deep breath and beckoned to the sleek young man for a bottle of mineral water.

  “I’d probably have done a better job if I’d had a different defence counsel. Bloch-Hansen makes me nervous. His ultra-correct, factual style throws me off balance. Maybe I’d prepared myself for a bloody and open battle. When my adversary challenges me to an elegant fencing duel instead, I just stand there like a sack of potatoes.”

  He rubbed his face vigorously, grinned, and shook his head.

  “Promise me you won’t say nasty things about my performance,” he begged.

  “I can assure you of that on my word of honour,” Hanne promised, raising her right hand to confirm it. “But you really weren’t that bad.

  “By the way,” she went on, changing the subject, “why did you tell that Dagbladet reporter about a possible third person still at liberty? It sounded as if we had someone specific in mind. At least, I assume he got it from you?”

  “Do you remember what you said when I was so shocked at the way you treated Lavik in the last interview before we arrested him?”

  She frowned in concentration.

  “Not really.”

  “You said that frightened people make mistakes. That was why you wanted to frighten Lavik. Now it’s my turn to play the bogeyman. It may be a shot in the dark, but on the other hand it may hit someone out there who’s scared. Very, very scared.”

  The bill arrived within seconds of Håkon’s discreet signal. They both reached for it, but Håkon was the quicker.

  “Out of the question,” Hanne protested. “I’ll pay—or at any rate let me pay half.”

  Håkon clutched the bill to his chest with a pleading expression.

  “Let me feel like a man just once today,” he begged.

  It wasn’t much to ask. He paid, and rounded it up with a three-kroner tip. The oily-haired waiter showed them out into the darkness with a smile, and hoped to see them again soon. His sincerity wasn’t very convincing.

  * * *

  Weariness enveloped his brain like a tight black cowl, and his eyelids drooped whenever he stopped speaking for a few moments. He took out a small bottle of eyedrops from his jacket pocket, bent his head back, pushed his glasses to the end of his nose, and poured the drops liberally into his eyes. He’d soon used up the whole bottle; it had been new that morning.

  Håkon Sand rotated his head in an effort to loosen up his neck muscles, which felt as taut as harp strings. Twisting a bit too far, he felt a sudden spasm of cramp on the left-hand side which made him flinch.

  “Aaaah!” he yelled, massaging the painful area vigorously.

  Hanne looked at the clock for the umpteenth time. Five to midnight. It was impossible to know whether it was a good or bad sign that the decision was taking so long. The magistrate would have to be especially punctilious if he were going to send a lawyer to jail. On the other hand he would hardly be less careful with a decision to release. It was probably obvious that the judgement would go to appeal, whichever it was.

  She gave a yawn so enormous that her slim hand couldn’t cover her entire mouth, and as she leant back H�
�kon noticed that she had no amalgam in her molars.

  “What do you think of those white fillings?” he asked, and she stared at him in astonishment at the incongruity of the question.

  “White fillings? What do you mean?”

  “I can see that you haven’t got any amalgam in your teeth. I’ve been thinking of getting rid of mine, since I read an article about how much rubbish there is in the ‘silver’ ones, mercury and the like. I’ve read that people have even been made ill by them. But my dentist advises me against the new composites and says that amalgam is much stronger.”

  She bent towards him with her mouth wide open and he could see quite clearly that it was all perfectly white.

  “No cavities,” she said with a smile and a touch of pride. “Of course, I’m a bit too old to belong to the ‘no cavities’ generation, but we had well-water where I grew up. Lots of natural fluoride. Probably dangerous, but there were sixteen of us kids in the neighbourhood who grew up without ever having to visit the dentist.”

  Teeth. Something to talk about anyhow. Håkon went over to check the fax machine again. It was still on and working okay, just as it had been the last time he’d checked and the time before. The little green light stared up arrogantly at him, but to reassure himself he had to verify once more that there was paper in the feed tray. Of course there was. He could feel a yawn coming on, but he suppressed it by clenching his jaws. Tears came to his eyes. He picked up a well-thumbed pack of playing cards and cast an enquiring glance at Hanne. She shrugged her shoulders.

  “I don’t mind, but let’s play something different. Casino, for instance.”

  They finished two games before the fax emitted a promising trill. The green light had changed to yellow and a few seconds later the machine sucked in the top blank sheet of paper. It remained in the machine for a moment before its head emerged on the other side, neatly printed with a fax cover sheet from Oslo Magistrates Court.

  They both felt their pulses racing. An uncomfortable tingling crept up Håkon’s back, and he had to shake himself.

  “Shall we take it out page by page, or wait till the whole lot has arrived?” he asked with a wry grin.

  “Let’s go get ourselves a cup of coffee, then when we come back, it’ll all be there. It’s better than standing here waiting for it page by page.”

  They had the feeling they were absolutely alone as they left the room and walked along the corridor. Neither of them said anything. But the coffee in the anteroom had gone, so someone must have been in, because Hanne had put a fresh jug on less than an hour before. Håkon went into his office instead, opened the window, and brought in a plastic bag that had been hanging on a nail outside. He took out two half-litre bottles of orangeade.

  “The only fizzy drink that quenches nothing but your thirst,” he quoted sardonically.

  They clinked bottles in a gloomy toast. Håkon did nothing to suppress a loud and substantial belch, while Hanne gave a tiny burp. They returned to the incident room. Very slowly. There was a smell of polish, and the floor gleamed more than usual.

  When they came into the room the evil green eye had taken over again from its yellow counterpart. The machine had reverted to its somnolent hum, and the out-tray now contained several sheets of paper. Håkon picked them up with a hand trembling more from fatigue than tension and quickly perused the top final page. He sank down onto the small sofa and read aloud:

  “The defendant Jørgen Ulf Lavik will be remanded in custody until the Court or the prosecution service deems otherwise, though no later than Monday 6 December. Visits and correspondence will be prohibited for the duration of custody.”

  “Two weeks!”

  His tiredness was swept away on a rush of adrenaline.

  “Two weeks for Lavik!”

  He sprang up from the settee, staggered past the coffee table, and flung his arms round Hanne, scattering the papers.

  “Let go of me,” she laughed. “Two weeks is literally only half a victory; you asked for four.”

  “It’ll be pushing it, certainly, but we can work round the clock. And I swear”—he thumped his fist on the table before going on—“I’ll bet a month’s salary that we have more on that bastard before the fortnight’s out!”

  His childlike optimism and enthusiasm didn’t immediately rub off on Hanne. She gathered the papers together and put them in sequence again.

  “Let’s see what else the magistrate has to say.”

  On closer inspection the decision couldn’t even be described as half a victory. At most an eighth, perhaps.

  Christian Bloch-Hansen’s views on Karen Borg’s witness statement had found support, by and large. The Court shared his interpretation of Van der Kerch’s farewell letter as not in itself exempting her from her duty of confidentiality. The Dutchman’s intentions had to be subjected to fuller appraisal, an appraisal in which particular emphasis had to be given to the question of whether promulgation of the information would be to his advantage. There was some indication that this was not the case, since the statement actually incriminated him to a significant extent, and would thus harm his posthumous reputation. In the opinion of the Court the interview conducted by Karen Borg was too short in this respect. The Court therefore proposed to ignore the statement at present, since it might conflict with statutory trial procedures.

  Nevertheless, with some reservations, the Court found that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that a felony had been committed. But only with regard to the first charge of the indictment, the specified quantity of drugs that had been discovered in Frøstrup’s apartment. There was no reasonable cause, in the Court’s opinion, to suspect the defendant of anything more, in view of the inadmissibility of Karen Borg’s statement. In one simple phrase the magistrate had conceded that there were grounds for believing that the defendant might tamper with evidence. Two weeks’ remand in custody could not be regarded as disproportionate to the severity of the charges. Twenty-four grams of hard drugs was a substantial amount, with a street value of about two hundred thousand kroner. A fortnight behind bars, then, was the outcome.

  Roger Strømsjord would go free.

  “Oh, shit,” they exclaimed simultaneously.

  Roger was implicated solely on the strength of the statement from Han van der Kerch. As long as that was inadmissible, the Court had only the coded telephone numbers, which were inadequate evidence in themselves. He was to be released.

  The telephone rang. They both leapt up, as if the gentle burbling were a fire alarm.

  It was the magistrate, to check that the fax transmission had functioned properly.

  “I suppose I can expect an appeal from both sides,” he said in a weary voice, though Håkon thought he could detect a trace of humour in it.

  “Yes, I want to appeal against the release of Roger Strømsjord, anyway, and seek a stay of execution. It would be a catastrophe if he were let out tonight.”

  “You shall have a stay of execution,” the magistrate promised him. “Now we’ll all turn in, shall we?”

  That was one thing they could all agree on. It had been a long, long day. They put on their coats, locked the door carefully behind them, and left the half-empty bottles of orangeade standing in splendid isolation. The slogan was right: it had quenched nothing but their thirst.

  TUESDAY 24 NOVEMBER

  It was like waking up with a bad hangover. Hanne Wilhelmsen hadn’t been able to sleep when she got home. Despite hot milk and a shoulder massage. After only four hours of intermittent dozing she was jerked into to full consciousness by a wretched news programme on her clock radio. Lavik’s remand in custody was the first item. The commentator considered the hearing equivocal, and was extremely doubtful about the tenability of the police case. Of course, they didn’t know the reasons for the decision, and therefore spent several minutes speculating on why the car salesman had been released. The speculations were fairly wide of the mark.

  She stretched herself dispiritedly and forced herself up out of the wa
rm bedclothes. She had to skip breakfast, because she’d promised Håkon she’d be at work by eight o’clock. It looked as if it was going to be yet another long day.

  In the shower she tried to concentrate on other things. She rested her forehead against the shiny tiles, and let the scalding water run down her back and turn it bright pink. She couldn’t get the case out of her mind. Her brain had gone into overdrive and was carrying her along with it. Right now she almost wished she could be the subject of an immediate transfer. Three months in the traffic police would be ideal. She might not be the type to run away from a difficult task, but this case was completely monopolising her. There was no peace, all the loose threads kept going round and round, weaving themselves into new solutions, new theories. Even if Cecilie didn’t complain, Hanne realised that she herself was at the moment neither good friend nor good lover. At dinner parties she would sit staring mutely at her glass and being politely formal. Sex had become routine, without much evidence of either passion or involvement.

  The water was so hot that her back was going numb. She straightened up and winced in agony when it scalded her breasts. As she adjusted the mixer control to escape being boiled alive, a thought suddenly struck her.

  The boot. Billy T.’s hunting trophy. It must obviously have a twin somewhere or other. Locating a specific size ten winter boot in Oslo at this time of year might seem like a hopeless exercise, even if the owner hadn’t dumped it. But the number of current owners couldn’t be so immensely great and it might just be worth a try. If they managed to get hold of the other boot it should bring them someone virtually guaranteed to be involved in all this. Then they would see how tough he was. Loyalty had never been a strong point among drug dealers.

  The boot. It had to be found.

  * * *

  The day was just dawning. Even though the sun had not yet risen over the horizon, the luminosity behind Ekeberg Hill to the southeast of the city centre seemed to promise fine cold November weather. The temperature had fallen below freezing again. The local radio stations were broadcasting warnings to motorists and predicting delays and overcrowding on buses and trams. A few workers on their way to another day’s toil paused outside the Dagbladet offices to scan the pages of the newspaper displayed in the window.