by Thomas Enger
There was another detail that struck Yngve as odd.
Mari had been beaten before she died. Not particularly hard, but hard enough for her to suffer a small rupture in her upper lip. It probably hadn’t been more than a punch. Afterwards the killer had put his hands around her neck and squeezed. Everything suggested that the murderer had become angry and then violent, and that he’d later regretted what he’d done. Nothing similar had happened to either Johannes Eklund or Børre Halvorsen.
Mari’s murder is the key to all of this, Yngve thought. It has to be.
Johannes Eklund’s autopsy report didn’t reveal anything they hadn’t already been able to deduce themselves. He had been beaten to death with a sharp, hard object, but so far they hadn’t had any solid leads about where his microphone case might be.
The man on the CCTV footage was still unidentified, but a lot of people still hadn’t been interviewed for the second time. Slowly, but surely, they were moving in the right direction. At least, that’s what Åse kept telling him.
Eighteen people – eighteen tickets from the opening night – were still not accounted for. They’d either not made contact with the police yet – perhaps because they didn’t think they had anything in particular to offer, and so were of little interest; or they were of interest, because they hadn’t hurried to help. That might mean they had something to hide, or they were protecting someone.
The hotline phone rang again. Yngve braced himself for yet another ‘valuable tip’.
He sat up straight, though, when the caller said his name: Ivar Morten Tollefsen. Imo.
After a pause, Imo spoke. He said: ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
38
NOW
The prosecutor, Ms Håkonsen, is walking up and down in front of me with a glass of water in her hand. My own glass is empty, so I fill it.
‘So even though Ida Hammer had refused to meet you or talk to you, you still went over to her house?’
‘I did.’
‘Why?’
‘She’d been Mari’s best friend. I thought she could help me.’
‘And did she?’
I think about Ida for a second. I haven’t seen her in the courtroom. I know she had a rough time after Mari died, and after…
I clear my throat and say: ‘Well yes. And no.’
39
THEN
I had been to Ida’s house once before. It was a few weeks after Mari had interviewed me. She wanted me to go with her to a party there. It was the first time I’d properly met her friends. I had seen them, of course, in school and around Fredheim, but they weren’t part of my group; but after that night, all of a sudden they were.
I had a football match the next day, so I stayed away from the booze, which was flowing freely. I really couldn’t stay late either. It was an important match against Ham-Kam, the top team.
Mari and I sent each other looks all evening, and it felt as if we both knew that something was going to happen later that night. When I had to go, she left with me, and the looks she got from her friends, the ones saying ‘we want to know everything’, only confirmed what I’d been thinking.
I walked her home.
There were a few drops of rain in the air that night, but it wasn’t cold. Thunder rumbled in the distance, with the odd lightning strike breaking through the dark clouds. It felt as if somehow the sky was reflecting the electricity between us. And somewhere along the road our hands met.
We stopped outside her house and talked for hours. Quietly, because we didn’t want anyone to hear what we were saying. And that’s where we kissed for the first time. A little, careful kiss to begin with, then more and more intense. My insides rose and fell on the swell, and as I walked home afterwards – a lot later than my coach would like – it felt as if my whole body was smiling.
I lay in bed thinking of Mari. I relived the kisses, the warmth of her body, her tender, sad voice when she said she had to go, as she should’ve been in bed a lot earlier. My dad’s going to kill me, she said.
Now, no one answered when I rang Ida’s bell. I stepped back and looked up at the windows. No twitching curtains. No sound from inside.
‘Ida?’
I coughed and tried again, a bit louder this time, before ringing the bell once more. I heard someone fiddling with an upstairs window lock.
Ida stuck her head out. Her eyes were red and swollen.
‘Hi,’ I said, a bit awkwardly. Ida didn’t answer, but her eyes darkened with anger.
‘Can I talk to you?’ I asked.
‘About what?’ Her voice was always a bit nasal, but it sounded worse now, coming from above my head.
I shrugged. ‘What do you think?’
She didn’t answer.
‘I didn’t kill them.’
‘And why should I believe you?’
‘Why shouldn’t you?’ I stared up at her. ‘I really liked Mari, you know that. I think maybe…’ No, I couldn’t use the word I was about to say. It was so easy to use big words about people who were dead.
‘Someone said they’d seen you at the school.’
I sighed. ‘It’s not true. I was at home all night.’
Ida didn’t answer.
‘Please come down,’ I begged. ‘I need to talk to you.’
It didn’t look like she was going to close the window. Not to begin with at least. I looked up at her with pleading eyes. I wasn’t planning on giving up. Then something in her hard mask changed. Her face softened, and she rolled her eyes.
‘Hang on a minute, then.’
It took more like five for her to open to the door and stick her head out. I realised that she’d done herself up. Her eyes were more shiny and she’d put on some foundation. She was wearing a different top as well. I had to stop myself from staring at her breasts; they seemed to have been stuffed inside a bra that was far too small for them.
She didn’t open the door fully, or invite me in. She seemed to want to keep me at a distance, so she could shut the door quickly if I suddenly decided to attack her.
‘What do you want to talk about?’ she asked.
‘Mari, obviously,’ I said with a sigh. ‘I’m trying to find out what happened.’
Was that really what I was doing? I wasn’t sure.
‘Isn’t that what the police are supposed to be doing?’
‘Yes, but I need some answers too. And you knew her best.’
Ida just looked at me.
‘Can’t we at least talk about it?’ I pleaded. ‘See if we can think of anything new?’
Again, it was like she looked me up and down. Assessed me. I knew that she liked me, really. Finally, she opened the door and let me in.
‘Do you want anything?’ she asked, when I’d kicked off my shoes. ‘I think we’ve only got Coke and milk.’
‘No, thanks,’ I said.
‘Let’s go out the back, so I can have a cigarette.’
I followed her through the house and out onto the veranda. It looked like this was where Ida had been sitting all day, under a blanket. Her mobile phone was on the bench. There were cushions on one of the chairs. The ashtray was close to overflowing.
Ida found another cushion for me, and we sat down.
‘What the hell’s going on, Ida?’
She let out big sigh. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.
‘She must have said something to you about … something. About why she split up with me, just like that, out of nowhere. Why she wouldn’t speak to me after.’
Ida looked at me briefly, tapped her cigarette packet to get one out. She lit it. ‘I thought it was a bit harsh, to be honest.’
I waited for her to continue.
‘And a bit odd that she didn’t want to say anything.’ She exhaled the smoke. ‘But I promised to help her to…’ She sighed.
‘To what?’
‘To keep you away from her.’
I felt my eyes widen. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The last few days before �
� she was killed, she was here, with me.’
‘She was?’
‘Yes.’
‘So…?’ I couldn’t decide which question to ask her first. ‘Did she stay overnight as well?’
Ida nodded and took another drag on her cigarette.
‘I don’t think she was on good terms with her parents. Or … I don’t know.’
‘So she was … here, when she should have been at school?’
‘Yes,’ Ida said.
‘But … was she ill?’
‘No. She didn’t seem to be.’
‘Bu why wouldn’t she talk to me? Did she tell you?’
Ida took a deep breath. ‘I don’t really know,’ she said. ‘But hey, she was my friend. If I could help her in any way…’
I needed a few seconds to absorb what Ida had just told me.
‘Was she scared of me? Is that it?’
‘It was nothing like that. I think she just didn’t want to talk to you.’
‘There wasn’t … anyone else, was there?’
‘Do you mean – was she in love with anyone else?’ She smiled when I nodded. ‘No, Even. She wasn’t. She would have told me that.’
Ida took another drag on her cigarette. For a few moments we just sat there in silence.
‘She was very different, those last few days,’ Ida said at last.
‘Different, how?’
‘As if … well, as if she wasn’t quite with it, if you know what I mean.’
Ida blew the smoke straight up in the air. I watched what little wind there was catch it and whisk it away.
‘She really lost it at one point.’
‘How so?’
‘All the calls – from you. Her dad. She didn’t want to talk to anyone, and her phone just wouldn’t stop ringing. Suddenly she just threw it against the wall. The screen broke almost completely, and something else inside it must’ve bust, too, because she couldn’t turn it back on later.’
I slumped into my chair. I couldn’t imagine Mari acting like that. Why hadn’t she just turned the phone off?
Ida rubbed her eyes, as if the smoke was making them hurt.
‘When was this?’ I asked her.
‘The day she broke up with you.’
Saturday, I said to myself.
‘She regretted it afterwards. Started crying and everything. Made me take her phone to the repair shop for her.’
‘She didn’t want to do it herself?’
‘No, she didn’t want to leave the house. My room, even.’
‘Because she was afraid she might run into me, was that it?’
‘Yeah,’ Ida said. ‘Something like that. Or her parents. I don’t know.’
‘What was going on with her parents?’
‘I don’t know. She didn’t want to talk about it. Cecilie even texted me to ask if I knew where Mari was.’
‘Did you tell her?’
‘Of course I did. I had to. I told her about the broken phone, too, so Cecilie wouldn’t worry about not getting a reply.’
Ida’s phone vibrated. She checked to see what it was, but didn’t respond to the notification.
‘Were you at the show that night?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Did you speak to Mari afterwards?’
‘No, I knew she was going to interview Johannes, so me and Elise, we just left.’
‘You … didn’t notice anything suspicious on your way out?’
She shook her head. ‘The police asked me that as well, and I’ve tried to think. But nothing happened – nothing was different. Everyone was happy. It was a fun show.’
I moved a little in my chair. ‘It must have been one of the last people left then,’ I said. ‘Unless someone forgot something and went back inside.’
‘Possibly,’ Ida said.
I thought about something Yngve Mork had said in the press conference – about the killer leaving through one of the upstairs windows.
‘Who would have stayed behind, other than the guys who were part of the show?’ I said – to myself more than Ida.
‘The janitor, maybe.’
I looked at her. ‘Tic-Tac?’
She nodded. ‘He was there that night. I saw him. And he’s got keys to everything.’
I thought about that. And remembered that I’d seen something in his eyes the morning I’d arrived at the school and seen Ida collapsing to the floor. I’d thought it was shock, but could it have been something else? Fear? Remorse? Nervousness?
Tic-Tac was the kind of guy I could imagine eyeing up the girls at school. Had he seen Mari that evening, spoken to her and then … tried it on in some way?
There was no way of knowing.
‘How well do you know Mari’s parents?’ I asked.
‘Well, you know,’ Ida said, ‘I was there all the time. Cecilie’s like my second mother.’
‘I think I might go to see them,’ I said. ‘Want to join me?’
40
Ida, for some reason, had to change her clothes yet again. When she finally joined me she said that she really didn’t want to go, but she knew she’d have to see Mari’s parents at some point, so why not get it over with?
I was dreading it, too. I wondered how Frode and Cecilie would feel about seeing me again. If they could even face talking to me. I was glad I had Ida coming along with me.
As we got closer to their house, I thought about the first time Mari had invited me over for dinner. As we’d sat down and started to eat – oven baked cod with peas, potatoes and bacon – they were all watching me carefully. It was only after the meal that I understood why.
‘You really shouldn’t hold your cutlery like that,’ Mari said, teasing me.
‘How do you mean? Like what?’
‘Like you are skiing and the knife and fork are your sticks.’
‘Oh, do I?’
Mari had laughed.
Apparently my parents had never bothered to teach me properly. I’d make sure I got it right the next time I shared a meal with my girlfriend. I hadn’t been invited back to their table, though, and every time I went there to pick Mari up or just visit, I could always feel a certain distance from her parents. Cecilie, in particular, never said much.
‘You’re different, you and Mari,’ I said to Ida, as I walked beside her, pushing my bike. Mari wasn’t at all interested in blogging or fashion; she was serious about her schoolwork and she already knew what she wanted to do with her life. Ida’s biggest worry, it seemed, was what she should be wearing, and whether it would make her look sexy enough.
‘How do you mean, different?’ she asked.
I tried to find the right words – ones that didn’t sound condescending or disrespectful.
Ida came to my rescue. ‘I guess we are,’ she said. ‘Or … I guess we were. But isn’t that a good thing? I mean, that you can be completely different and still like each other?’
I thought about my friends for a moment. I was the only one of us who played football. Fredrik was an only child, and a very spoilt one at that. Kaiss was a devout Muslim. Oskar was a cross-country skiier.
Yeah, it was a good thing.
‘So tell me,’ I said, ‘what were you guys doing at school recently?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘I guess I just want to know what Mari did those last few days…’
She thought about it for a moment. ‘We were studying Ghosts in Norwegian literature.’
‘Ibsen.’
‘Yes, I think that was the dude’s name.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Sooo boring.’
I smiled.
‘We were doing some grammar bullshit in English. And we were doing blood samples and stuff like that in biology. Did blood tests on each other. Yuck!’
I remembered doing that the previous year. I’d actually enjoyed it.
Soon we were at Mari’s house. I took a deep breath and tried to steel myself. Like Ida said, better to get it over and done with.
After we’d rung the bell, a w
oman I’d never seen before opened the door.
‘Hi,’ Ida said. ‘I was wondering if Mari’s mum and dad are in? I’m Ida – Mari’s best friend.’
‘Oh, right,’ the woman said, before sending me a long look, as though she was wondering why I was there, too. If she didn’t already know who I was, I wasn’t going to tell her.
‘Frode’s not here right now,’ she said, ‘but I’ll ask if Cecilie can talk to you for a second. Hang on a minute.’
The woman closed the door. Ida and I exchanged glances. Neither of us knew what to expect. I’d heard some people say that losing a child was the worst thing that could happen to anyone. That it was impossible to imagine the grief unless you had actually experienced it yourself.
We waited for a few minutes, then the door opened again. Cecilie was standing there in front of us. At first she only had eyes for Ida, tears welling up. Then she started to sob, and Ida did too. They stepped towards each other and hugged for what seemed like a good minute or more. It looked as if they both were hanging on to each other for dear life, crying and hugging. I just stood there on the bottom step, not knowing where to look or what to do.
When they let go of each other, Cecilie wiped Ida’s tears from her cheeks and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
Then she saw me.
And everything changed.
She pushed Ida away. The overwhelming sadness gave way to a rage that seemed to grow with every second. She struggled for words as she stared down at me. Like a boxer waiting for the bell to ring. I wanted to say something, to find the right words to soothe the hurt I could see in her eyes. A pain she thought I’d caused her.
Cecilie just looked at me with horror, then at Ida – as though she could not comprehend how Ida – Ida – could betray her this way.
‘Cecilie,’ I said. ‘I didn’t—’
‘Go,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘Just leave. Both of you. Go away!’
‘Cecilie,’ Ida tried as well, but Mari’s mother gave her the same hard look as she’d given me.
