by Anne Holt
‘The men’s national football team has lots of …’
‘Cut it out. Football is a world sport. On the football field, the spectators have scarves, banners and noisy rattles. And traipse around in their team colours. Along the ski trails, what do you see there? Knitted sweaters, plus fours and Norwegian flags, Jan. Markers of national identity. Flag upon flag upon waving fucking flag! All over the place. Any ordinary Sunday at Holmenkollen looks like a seventeenth of May parade on rotten snow. This year a gang of women from Bærum had even put on national costumes. National costumes! On a ski trail!’
A furious blush had spread from her neck upwards. She was really unrecognizable.
Selma Falck had built her career as a lawyer and celebrity on the basis of never taking a position on political questions. A kernel of the strictly politically correct was all she ever allowed herself to express. She had fronted several fundraising campaigns, but only to benefit totally uncontroversial causes. Save the Children and UNICEF, as Jan could recall. He had read one solitary interview in which the journalist had pressed her harder to find out where she stood. The only thing she would say, after a great deal of pressure, was that she had never voted for the party her husband represented in parliament.
Selma Falck was known for her direct manner, forthright character and no-nonsense approach. But if you analysed interviews with her, listened more closely when she spoke on TV or radio, it was as if the real Selma Falck was well hidden behind the armour of threadbare phrases and invulnerability.
There was only one arena in which a hard-hitting Selma expressed definite opinions.
In a court of law.
Now, however, she was in full flow in Jan Morell’s living room.
‘Football’s all about winning,’ she went on. ‘Fundamentally it’s a dreadfully boring sport for eighty-five of the ninety minutes. It matters not a jot whether the players are yellow, brown or white as far as the vast majority is concerned, as long as their shirts have the Norwegian flag on their chests. And they win. Football has a long tradition of multi-ethnicity. Cross-country skiing hasn’t, as you well know. Until yesterday I was reasonably sure that Hege was sabotaged because she’s different. Some madman or other who …’
The spaceship doors opened. Maggi moved towards the coffee table.
‘Have you had enough?’
Jan glanced again at the time.
‘Yes. I fancy a dram. The usual. What about you?’
He shot a look at Selma, who had finally sat down again.
‘If you have a Pepsi Max, I’d like one of those. If not, nothing. Thanks.’
‘Unfortunately we don’t have any soft drinks at all.’
Without another word, Maggi cleared the table.
Jan Morell liked having Maggi around. He didn’t really know what he thought of her, apart from that she was good at what she was employed to do. A woman of few words, simply, who had come into the family at a time when he couldn’t even manage to speak to his own child. Magdalena Wajda arrived with excellent references into a house that had come to a standstill because of grief. He gave her short, sharp orders in the first few days. Later she found things out on her own initiative. There was nothing to be said about her efforts, though the food she had prepared in the first six months had been tasteless and bland. For her first Christmas she had received three cookery books from Hege and him in a present she had taken with her to Poland. The books returned with her to Vettakollen, and everything improved after that.
He didn’t know her. It had never been necessary.
Now, however, something unfamiliar had come over her, he realized. Usually she moved in a light, determined manner – Maggi was an efficient woman who had never broken a single object in all of her thirteen years as housekeeper. Now she knocked over Selma’s coffee cup. It was half full, and a Polish curse slipped from Maggi’s lips before she dashed to the kitchen for a cloth.
Jan had never seen her run before.
‘There you are,’ Selma said, having gathered up the dishes by the time Maggi had come back. ‘I’ll carry them out.’
Despite Maggi’s protests, she was as good as her word. Maggi wiped up the spillage, brought Jan a tumbler of whisky with ice cubes and made herself scarce again.
‘You don’t drink,’ he said, raising his glass in a toast. ‘I’ve read that. Sensible of you.’
Selma scratched just above her eyebrow and asked: ‘Where’s Hege?’
‘Out running. Up the Korketrekkeren track.’
‘So late?’
‘She can’t settle.’
‘No. Who can?’
Yet again she stood up and crossed to the window.
‘Who in heaven’s name could possibly be behind all this?’ Jan ventured again.
‘I don’t know, as I’ve said. Repeatedly.’
‘No, but can’t you think of anyone? What could be the purpose of it? Who could be interested in harming both Hege and Haakon? And maybe Hedda?’
‘Stian Bach comes to mind as far as the last-mentioned is concerned,’ Selma said, as she put more wood on the fire. ‘But we know for certain that he hasn’t been anywhere near Hege since then. She said so herself.’
‘And how on earth would Hege and Haakon ingest such a thing? Neither of them suffers from herpes, and …’
‘The ointment could quite simply be applied to the skin.’
‘To the skin?’
‘Yes. If the skin is grazed, the uptake would be more effective, of course. But that’s not strictly necessary. Lots of medications are intended to be absorbed through intact skin. Nicotine patches, for example. Voltaren in gel form. Quite normal. As far as I’ve understood, it’s not a matter of whether or not the skin is broken, but of the properties of the medication.’
She drew back her sleeve and rubbed her lower arm. She had freckles, he saw, pale freckles scattered all over her skin, even at this time of year.
‘An ointment,’ she ploughed on, ‘will have active ingredients intended to be absorbed through the skin. A pill is designed to be absorbed through the gut. Or the stomach. With broken skin, the ingestion process is faster, but as far as I could discover, not crucial. Besides …’
She examined her arm, found a little scratch, and pointed: ‘Most of us have cuts and scrapes on our skin at any particular time. Our skin is extensive. Our largest organ, in fact.’
‘So anyone could just … shake our hand, for instance?’
‘That would be some handshake,’ she said. ‘A bit sticky, I would think.’
‘But you know what I mean, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘This means that anyone at all could have done this. We’re not any further forward.’
‘No. We have …’
She wandered around the room, coming to a halt at a dark-oak sideboard just beside the kitchen door.
‘Someone in the NCCSF knows the story from Italy. There can’t be many, otherwise the story would have leaked out. I’m actually surprised it wasn’t publicized long ago. And even more surprised that Stian Bach is still in post.’
Jan put down his glass.
‘That’s the big problem with the NCCSF,’ he said, sighing.
‘What is?’
‘Jobs for the boys. Lack of transparency. It’s the same old gang that tramped around down there at Ullevål who now hold sway in the crystal palace they’ve built on the hill up here. Friendship cuts across everything. Vacancies are filled without being advertised. In the best-case scenario, they advertise them for the sake of appearances, but employ someone they already know anyway. A brother-in-law. A pal from student days. Someone they’re certain will sit completely still, without rocking the boat, and not insist on any changes.’
‘Dagens Gang has pressed them pretty hard for a long time, though.’
‘Yes, indeed. But it doesn’t seem to have helped any. You know …’
He clasped both hands to his face and rubbed until the skin was red. Shook his head, took another mouthful from
the glass and inhaled deeply.
‘They let themselves be measured only by results,’ he said. ‘And as long as we’re the world’s top cross-country skiing nation, the rest of us will let them do it. Just wait. If we do as well in PyeongChang as everybody predicts, we’ll once again see a nation intoxicated by medals without any thought of accounts, organization or efficiency. The system is absolutely … wrong. It was a system error that led to Martin making a fool of himself over that asthma medication last year, and that’s definitely …’
He stopped of his own volition. Held the glass up to the light. The flames from the fire made it sparkle with glints of amber, and he drained the glass in a final gulp.
‘It was definitely a system error that meant Stian Bach could make such a catastrophic blunder as what happened in Italy. And not least that he got away with it. If the story had become common knowledge, the boys would have persuaded the guy to quit, and then blamed it on human error. Human error! It’s to protect ourselves from bloody human error that we have systems! And Hedda, she’d have been the one who’d have had to give up all hopes for the Winter Olympics and probably the whole of season eighteen/nineteen into the bargain.’
He stared into his empty glass.
‘Dilettantes, the lot of them. To some extent they let me take part as well. I’ve personally picked out at least three of the employees over there. The Finance Director, for example. Arnulf Selhus. He worked for me earlier. And I don’t even have any formal connection to the Federation any longer. Christ …’
He gave a lopsided smile. Actually longed for another drink.
‘MCV would have gone down the tubes if I’d run the company the same way,’ he muttered.
‘Could you find out who knew about what happened in Italy?’
‘Why should I … yes! Exactly. Those who knew about that near-catastrophe … They also know you can walk right into a pharmacy in Italy and buy an ointment containing Clostebol. After all, getting hold of the stuff is the first thing you have to do if you’re out to sabotage anyone.’
Selma nodded.
‘That would be a start at least. A start is more than we had this morning.’
‘Here,’ Jan said, handing her his mobile phone. ‘I’ve had this list since Hege told me about that episode down there.’
Selma read the note.
‘Stian Bach,’ she murmured. ‘We knew that. The president, Bottolf Odda. One, two, three, four, five coaches. Arnulf Selhus. Astrid Beita. Who’s that?’
‘The cook.’
‘Physiotherapist. Only one. Knut Nilssen. Don’t they usually have more?’
‘It varies. The skiers themselves would rather have more physios at the expense of having a doctor, but it’s all a question of cost, you see. But before the start of the season, there’s always a doctor with them. And then as a rule it’s only Knut who travels. Go ahead and send that list to yourself.’
‘I’ll probably remember it,’ she mumbled.
All the same, Selma’s fingers followed his instructions, and she gave him back the phone.
‘Journalists,’ Jan added. ‘There was a group of journalists there for two days. I’ll rustle up their names and send them to you.’
‘Fine. Thanks. I have to go now.’
Once again she rose to her feet. Jan followed her out into the hallway. She pulled on a dark-green quilted jacket and thrust her hands into a pair of gloves.
‘Tomorrow by five,’ he reminded her softly. ‘A certificate. From a psychiatrist or a psychologist. Last chance, Selma.’
‘Understood,’ she answered, with a faint smile, as she opened the door. ‘By five.’
‘And no more gambling?’
She looked him straight in the eye.
‘No. That would break our agreement. Besides, I don’t have any money.’
Her gaze was steady. Open, but not strained.
‘Fine,’ he said tersely, and closed the door behind her.
His phone gave a peep. He took it from his trouser pocket and tapped his way into his mailbox.
Hi Jan. Have you seen Klaus lately? Have tried to contact him for past few days, but no one knows where he is. Want to get some good photos of the old girl before she finally pops her clogs. Let me know if you hear anything. Goggen.
Jan Morell hadn’t seen Klaus for at least six months. They had become increasingly rare, these get-togethers with the boys from Kjelsås. Klaus could be anywhere at all. He was still a bachelor, had no children, and had finally become a world-renowned nature photographer. Last year he’d been in the Caucasus, off the beaten track and with no internet access, for six weeks at a stretch. The results had been published in National Geographic. Now and then he took portraits, but only as a favour to friends. Klaus had been given a bottle of malt whisky in return for the big picture of Katinka and Hege on his office wall.
He was his own man, Klaus, an old-fashioned free spirit, and he was often difficult to pin down. Jan Morell, with far greater problems to contend with, didn’t even bother to answer.
THE DILEMMA
Maggi was so perturbed she couldn’t sleep.
She couldn’t just pretend nothing had happened, that much she knew. Sooner or later Hege would discover that the tube of ointment was no longer in the air vent. If she had been the one who had put it there. It could scarcely have been anyone else – with the best will in the world, Maggi could not imagine that Jan Morell would have any reason to conceal something inside a bathroom he barely ever visited except for the odd time when he changed a light bulb.
It must have been Hege who had tried to stash the tube in there.
It was empty, all used up.
Maybe she was guilty after all.
An accident, surely. A dreadful misunderstanding.
Maggi considered returning the tube and forgetting the whole thing. Attempting to do so, at least. No one apart from Hege and Maggi had any reason at all to open the faulty grate, and what the world didn’t know, certainly couldn’t harm it.
The tube could stay there till the end of time.
On the other hand, it was possible that the ointment could get Hege off the hook. Maggi knew a fair amount about skiing after all these years in the timber house in Vettakollen. She was less certain about the anti-doping regulations. They couldn’t possibly be downright unfair. Regulations usually weren’t. If it turned out that Hege had ingested that blasted substance by some demonstrable accident, then the punishment would surely be reduced. Maggi had Googled the difficult name of the cream, Trofodermin.
It was quite simply an ointment for cold sores.
No one would improve at skiing through using a cold sore ointment.
Everyone would understand that.
She tossed and turned fitfully in the bed. It was nearly midnight, and Jan had, as usual, asked for a very early breakfast. The room was too warm, she felt, and got up to open the window.
She could tell Hege what she had found. Convince her to talk to Jan. Get Jan to sort it all out, the way he always sorted everything out. Except for now, as he didn’t know about the ointment. And therefore didn’t understand any of it. He was even more silent than usual. When she observed him without his knowledge, he had an expression in his eyes that she couldn’t recall ever seeing since she had first moved in and everything had been impacted by the death in the family.
Maggi opened the window slightly and switched on the bedside lamp before moving the pillows and sitting up in bed. She took out a book and reading glasses, but her brain refused to cooperate. The letters turned into meaningless codes she couldn’t crack. It was as if the tube of ointment, which now lay in a plastic bag at the bottom of her underwear drawer, was sending out an annoying, high frequency sound that only she could hear.
It would be difficult to talk to Hege.
Years ago, when her diary used to be hidden in there, Maggi realized that Hege had no idea that the cleaning routines also included the air vent. There was no reason to enlighten her. Young girls often wrote diar
ies, and Maggi had never succumbed to the temptation to read it. From that point of view, the air vent was a good hiding place. The book was allowed to rest in peace.
Nevertheless, Hege would have been terribly embarrassed.
On the other hand …
Maggi put aside her book, but left the light on. All this nonsense about drugs, suspension, punishment and the secret ointment was far worse than an old diary written by a teenager who, strictly speaking, had never done anything wrong. Hege was sensible.
But maybe she wanted to back off, anyway. To start with, Hege had hidden this ointment. That must mean she had done something she didn’t want other people to know about. A slip-up, certainly a mistake, an easily explained misunderstanding that could possibly get the punishment reduced, but which in a panic she had chosen to keep hidden.
Maybe Maggi ought to go straight to Jan.
But on second thoughts, that wasn’t an especially good solution. Bypassing Hege like that would make her look small. Her relationship with Hege was the most important thing in Maggi’s life, and she had never told tales to Jan about anything whatsoever. Not that there had been very much wrongdoing to tell him about, but on an odd occasion during all these years she had certainly kept one or two things from the strict, but loving, father of Hege Chin.
She needed to go to the toilet.
She had diarrhoea, felt unwell and was so beyond all hope of sleeping that after her visit to the toilet she switched on the TV. The volume low, almost mute, so that no one else could hear. At this time of night only Animal Planet had anything to offer. Maggi sat in her winged armchair, watching a programme about spotted hyenas in Tanzania. She had rarely seen such ugly animals and this gave her respite from her thoughts.
But only for a few minutes.
Maggi really yearned for someone to give her some advice. She had so few people in her life. Her sister, of course, in Wroclaw, but what would she know about such things. Maggi still kept in touch with Agnieszka, a woman whose acquaintance she had made when she first came to Norway. At that time they both planned to stay for a year or so, and then return to Poland to find their own apartment. A life of their own. They were both still in Norway.
