The Snowman

by Jo Nesbo

  Gert Rafto scrutinized the young man in the doctor’s coat. Then he swore under his breath, marched out and slammed the door behind him.

  Four weeks later Rafto called. He asked if Mathias could come to see him.

  “Drop in tomorrow,” Mathias said.

  “I can’t. It’s urgent.”

  “Then get yourself to the emergency room.”

  “Listen to me, Lund-Helgesen. I’ve been in bed for three days without being able to move. You’re the only one who’s asked me straight out if I’m a drunk. Yes, I am a drunk. And no, I don’t want to die. Not yet.”

  Gert Rafto’s apartment stank of garbage, empty beer bottles and him. But not of leftovers, for there was no food in the house.

  “This is a B-one vitamin supplement,” Mathias said, holding the syringe to the light. “It will get you back on your feet.”

  “Thank you,” Gert Rafto said. Five minutes later he was asleep.

  Mathias walked around the apartment. On the desk there was a photograph of Rafto with a dark-haired girl on his shoulders. Above the desk on the wall hung photographs of what must have been murder scenes. Many photographs. Mathias stared at them. Took a couple of them down and studied the details. Goodness, how sloppy they had been, the murderers. Their inefficiency was especially noticeable on the bodies with wounds from both sharp and blunt instruments. He opened drawers and looked for more photographs. He found reports, notes, a few valuables: rings, ladies’ watches, necklaces. And newspaper clippings. He read them. Gert Rafto’s name ran right through them, often with quotes from press conferences at which he talked about the murderers’ stupidity and how he had caught them. Because it was clear he had caught them, every single one.

  Six hours later, when Gert Rafto awoke, Mathias was still there. He was sitting by the bed with two murder reports in his lap.

  “Tell me,” Mathias said. “How would you commit a murder if you didn’t want to get caught?”

  “Avoid my beat,” Rafto said, looking around for something to drink. “If the detective’s good, you haven’t got a hope in hell anyway.”

  “And if I still wanted to do it on the beat of a good detective?”

  “Then I would cozy up to the detective before committing the murder,” Gert Rafto said. “And then, after the murder, I would kill him, too.”

  “Funny,” Mathias said. “That’s just what I was thinking.”

  · · ·

  In the weeks that followed, Mathias made quite a few house calls to Gert Rafto. He recovered quickly and they talked often and at length about illness, lifestyle and death, and about the only two things Gert Rafto loved on this earth: his daughter, Katrine, who, incomprehensibly, returned his love, and the little cabin on Finnøy, which was the one place he could be sure of finding peace. Mostly, though, they talked about the murder cases Gert Rafto had solved. About the triumphs. And Mathias encouraged him, told him the fight against alcohol could be won, he could celebrate new triumphs so long as he kept off the bottle.

  And by the time late autumn came to Bergen, with even shorter days and even longer showers, Mathias had his plan ready.

  One morning he called Laila Aasen at home.

  He gave his name, and she listened in silence as he explained the reason for his call. The daughter’s blood sample had revealed new information and he now knew that Bastian Aasen was not the child’s biological father. It was important that he be given the real father’s blood sample. This would of necessity mean that the daughter and Bastian would be apprised of the relationship. Would she give her consent?

  Mathias waited, allowing this to sink in.

  Then he said that if she considered it important that the matter remain behind closed doors, he would still like to help, but it would have to be done “off the record.”

  “Off the record?” she repeated with the apathy of someone in shock.

  “As a doctor I’m bound to observe ethical rules regarding candor to the patient, here, your daughter. But I’m researching syndromes and am therefore particularly interested in following up her case. If, with the utmost discretion, you could meet me this afternoon …”

  “Yes,” she whispered in a tremulous voice. “Yes, please.”

  “Good. Catch the last cable car of the day to the top of Ulriken. There we will be undisturbed and can walk back down. I hope you appreciate what I’m risking, and please don’t mention this meeting to a living soul.”

  “Of course not! Trust me.”

  He was still holding the receiver to his ear after she had hung up. With his lips to the gray plastic, he whispered: “And why should anyone trust you, you little whore?”

  · · ·

  It was only when she was lying in the snow with a scalpel to her throat that Laila Aasen admitted she had told a friend she was going to meet him. Because in fact they had originally had a dinner date. But she’d mentioned only his Christian name and not why they were meeting.

  “Why did you say anything at all?”

  “To tease her,” Laila howled. “She’s so nosy.”

  He pressed the thin steel harder against her skin and Laila sobbed her friend’s name and address. After which she said no more.

  When, two days later, Mathias was reading about the murder of Laila Aasen and the disappearances of Onny Hetland and Gert Rafto in the newspaper, he had mixed feelings. First of all, he was displeased with the murder of Laila Aasen. It had not gone as he had planned; he had lost control in a frenzy of fury and panic. Hence there had been too much mess, too much to clean up, too much that reminded him of the photographs in Rafto’s apartment. And too little time to enjoy the revenge, the justice of it.

  The murder of Onny Hetland had been even worse, nearly a catastrophe. Twice his courage had failed him as he was about to ring her doorbell, and he had walked away. The third time he had realized he was too late. Someone was already there ringing the bell. Gert Rafto. After Rafto had left he had rung and introduced himself as Rafto’s assistant and had been let in. But Onny had said she wouldn’t tell him what she had told Rafto; she had given a promise that the matter would stay strictly between them. Only when he had made an incision in her hand with the scalpel did she talk.

  Mathias gleaned from what she said that Gert Rafto had decided to solve the case under his own steam. He wanted to rebuild his reputation, the fool!

  There had been nothing to criticize about the disposal of Onny Hetland, however. Very little noise, very little blood. And the carving up of her body in the shower had been efficient and quick. He had packed all the parts in plastic and placed them in the large backpack and bag he had brought along for the purpose. On his visits to Rafto, Mathias had been told that one of the first things the police check in murder cases is cars observed in the vicinity and registered taxi rides. So he walked the whole way back to his apartment.

  All that remained now was the last part of Gert Rafto’s instructions for the perfect murder: Kill the detective.

  Strangely enough this was the best of the three murders. Strange because Mathias had no feelings for Rafto, none of the hatred that he had felt for Laila Aasen. It was more about him getting close, for the first time, to the aesthetics he had envisaged, to the idea he had of how the murder should be executed. His experience of the very act itself was above all as gruesome and heartrending as he had hoped it would be. He could still hear Rafto’s screams echoing around the deserted island. And the strangest thing of all: On the way back he discovered that his toes were no longer white and numb; it was as if the gradual freezing process of his extremities had been halted for a moment, as if he had thawed.

  Four years later, after Mathias had killed another four women, and he could see that all the murders were an attempt to reconstruct the murder of his mother, he concluded that he was mad.

  Or, to be more precise, that he was suffering from a serious personality disorder. All the specialist literature he had read certainly pointed to that. The ritual nature of the murders, their having to take place on th
e day the first snow of the year came, his having to build a snowman. And, not least, his growing sadism.

  But this insight in no way prevented him from continuing. For time was short; Raynaud’s phenomenon was already appearing with increasing frequency, and he thought he could detect the first symptoms of scleroderma: a stiffness in the face that would eventually give him the revolting pointed nose and the pursed carp mouth with which the worst afflicted were ultimately burdened.

  He had moved to Oslo to continue his work on immunology and water channels in the brain, as the research center for this was the Anatomy Department in Gaustad. In addition he was working at the Marienlyst Clinic, where Idar was employed and had recommended him. Mathias also did night shifts at the emergency room since he couldn’t sleep anyway.

  It was not difficult to find victims. Initially it was the patients’ blood samples that in many cases ruled out paternity, and then there were the DNA tests by the Paternity Unit at the Institute of Forensic Medicine. Idar, who had fairly limited competence even for a general practitioner, covertly took advice on all cases concerning hereditary illness and syndromes. And, if the patients were young people, Mathias’s advice was invariably the same.

  “Get both parents to appear at the first consultation, take mouth swabs from everyone, say it’s just to check the bacterial flora and send the samples to the Paternity Unit so that we at least know we’re working from an accurate starting point.”

  And Idar, the idiot, did as he was told. Which meant that Mathias soon had a little file on women with children who were sailing under a false flag, so to speak. And best of all was that there was no link between him and these women, since the mouth swabs were submitted under Idar’s name.

  The method for luring the women into the trap was the same as the one applied with such success to Laila Aasen. A telephone call and an agreement to meet at a secret location unknown to anyone. Only once had it happened that the appointed victim broke down on the phone and went to her husband to tell all. And that had ended with the family splitting up, so she had received her just deserts anyway.

  For a long time Mathias had pondered how he could dispose of the bodies with increased efficiency. At any rate, it was obvious that the method he had used with Onny Hetland was not viable for the long term. He had done it piecemeal with hydrochloric acid in the bathtub in his apartment. It was a risky, laborious process and injurious to his health, and it had taken almost three weeks. So he was greatly pleased when he chanced upon the solution. The body storage tanks at the Anatomy Department. It was as brilliant as it was simple. Just like the cutting loop.

  He had read about the loop in an anatomy journal; a French anatomist recommended it for use on bodies that had started to decompose, because the loop cut through soft, rotting tissue with the same precise efficiency as through bone, and because it could be used on several bodies at the same time without any danger of transmitting bacteria. He had realized right away that with a loop to cut up the victims, transportation would be radically simplified. Consequently he contacted the manufacturer, flew to Rouen and had the tool demonstrated, in halting English, one misty morning inside a whitewashed cowshed in northern France. The loop consisted of a plain handle shaped like—and the approximate size of—a banana furnished with a metal shield to protect your hand against burns. The wire itself was as thin as fishing line and ran into both ends of the banana, from which it could be tightened or slackened with a button. There was also an on-off switch that activated the battery-driven heating element and made the garrotelike wire glow white in seconds. Mathias was elated; this tool would be useful for more than carving up bodies. When he heard the price he almost burst out laughing. The loop cost Mathias less than the flight to Rouen had. Batteries included.

  The publication of the Swedish study concluding that somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of all children had a different biological father from the one they thought reflected Mathias’s own experiences. He was not alone. Nor was he alone in having to die a cruel, premature death because of his mother’s whoring with tainted genes. But he would be alone in this: the act of cleansing, the fight against disease, the crusade. He doubted that anyone would thank or honor him. This he did know, however: They would all remember him, long after his death. For he had finally found what was to be his fame for all posterity, the masterpiece, the final flourish of his sword.

  It was chance that set the ball rolling.

  He saw him on TV. The policeman. Harry Hole. Hole was being interviewed because he had hunted down a serial killer in Australia. And Mathias was reminded of Gert Rafto’s advice: “Avoid my beat.” He also recalled, however, the satisfaction of having taken the life of the hunter. The feeling of supremacy. The feeling of power. Nothing later had quite compared with the murder of the police officer. And this Herostratically famous Hole appeared to have something of Rafto about him, some of the same offhandedness and anger.

  Nonetheless, he might have forgotten all about Harry Hole had it not been for one of the gynecologists at the Marienlyst Clinic mentioning in the cafeteria the next day that he had heard that this to all outward appearances solid detective was actually an alcoholic and a nutcase. Gabriella, a pediatrician, added that she had the son of Hole’s girlfriend as a patient. Oleg, a nice boy.

  “He’ll be an alcoholic then, as well,” said the gynecologist. “It’s in the damn genes, you know.”

  “Hole’s not the father,” Gabriella countered. “But what’s interesting is that the man who’s registered as the father, some professor or other in Moscow, is also an alcoholic.”

  “Hey, I didn’t hear that!” shouted Idar Vetlesen over the laughter. “Don’t forget client confidentiality, folks!”

  Lunch carried on, but Mathias was unable to forget what Gabriella had said. Or, rather, the way she had expressed herself: “the man who’s registered as the father.”

  Accordingly, after lunch, Mathias followed the pediatrician to her office, went in behind her and closed the door.

  “May I ask you something, Gabriella?”

  “Oh, hello,” she said, and a flush of anticipation spread up her cheeks. Mathias knew she liked him; he supposed she thought he was handsome, friendly, funny and a good listener. She had even, indirectly, asked him out on a couple of occasions, but he had declined.

  “As you may know, I’m allowed to use some of the clinic’s blood samples for my research,” he said. “And in fact I found something interesting in the sample of the boy you were talking about. The son of Hole’s girlfriend.”

  “My understanding is that their relationship is now a thing of the past.”

  “You don’t say? There was something in the blood sample, so I was wondering if there was anything in the family …”

  Mathias thought he could discern a certain disappointment in her face. As for himself, he was far from disappointed by what she had to tell him.

  “Thank you,” he said, standing up and exiting. He could feel his heart pumping eager, life-giving blood, his feet propelling him forward without consuming any energy, his pleasure making him glow like a cutting loop. For he knew this was the beginning. The beginning of the end.

  The Holmenkollen Residents’ Association was having its summer party on a burning hot August day. On the lawn in front of the association pavilion the adults were sitting on camp chairs under umbrellas and drinking white wine while the children ran between tables or played football on the gravel field. Although she was wearing enormous sunglasses that concealed her face, Mathias recognized her from the photograph he had downloaded from her employer’s Web site. She was standing on her own, and he went over to her and asked with a wry smile if he might stand beside her and pretend he knew her. He knew how to do this sort of thing now. He was not the Mathias No-Nips of old.

  She lowered her glasses, scrutinizing him, and he established that the photograph had lied after all. She was much more beautiful. So beautiful that for a moment he thought Plan A had a weakness: It was not a foregone con
clusion that she would want him; a woman like Rakel—single mother or not—had alternatives. Plan B had, to be sure, the same result as A, but would not be anywhere near as satisfying.

  “Socially timid,” he said, raising a plastic cup in an embarrassed gesture of greeting. “I was invited here by a friend living nearby, and he hasn’t shown up. And everyone else looks as if they know each other. I promise to decamp the second he appears.”

  She laughed. He liked her laugh. And knew that the critical first three seconds had gone in his favor.

  “I just saw a boy score a fantastic goal on the field down there,” Mathias said. “I wouldn’t mind betting you’re related to him.”

  “Oh? That might have been Oleg, my son.”

  She succeeded in hiding it, but Mathias knew from countless sessions with patients that no woman can resist praise of her child.

  “Nice party,” he said. “Nice neighbors.”

  “You like parties with other people’s neighbors?”

  “I think my friends are worried I’m spending too much time on my own,” he said. “So they try to cheer me up. With their successful neighbors, for example.” He took a sip from the cup. “And with the very sweet house wine. What’s your name?”

  “Rakel. Fauke.”

  “Hello, Rakel. Mathias.”

  He shook her hand. Small, warm.

  “You don’t have anything to drink,” he said. “Allow me. House sweet?”

  On his return, and after passing her the cup, he took out his pager and looked at it with a concerned expression.

  “Do you know what, Rakel? I’d love to stay and get to know you better, but the ER is short-staffed and needs an extra man immediately. So I’ll put on my Superman outfit and make my way into town.”

  “Shame,” she said.

  “You think so? It’s only for a few hours. Are you going to be here long?”