The Girl With No Heart

by Marit Reiersgaard

  NOW YOU ARE SAFE.

  I’m never going to feel safe. Never.

  «You’re in love,» said Julie. «I see it in you.»

  Marte pinched her mouth shut demonstratively while she shook her head.

  «Tell me about it,» Julie said. «You can tell me. As the daughter of a detective I have a duty of confidentiality.»

  Marte laughed.

  «Then it’s worse with me. You should never confide in the daughter of a journalist.»

  «Haha, I’m glad you warned me! But say who it is then. Anyone I know?»

  «I don’t know... he’s in the class ahead of me. His name is Fredrik.»

  Julie stopped and stared at her.

  «Fredrik? Isn’t he the one people are talking about, the one who found...»

  Julie bit her lip. She had no desire to talk about what had happened.

  «Yeah.»

  They didn’t say anything else until they turned in along the townhouses.

  «I hope your dad’s a better cook than my mom. I’m hungry,» Julie said with a smile to shake off the unpleasant feeling that had come over them. Fredrik. Julie knew who that was. A real Casanova, she thought. Nice clothes, cool hair, smooth charm. She didn’t like the type. But it was typical that a little gray mouse like Marte had a crush on someone like him. Not that she would have a chance. She recalled that he had circled around both Linnea and Idunn at the party. Julie shuddered. There had been some drama going on that evening, but she and her friend Beate didn’t feel inclined to care.

  38

  Verner Jacobsen had buried himself in reports the whole weekend, had driven to and from the police station, and in the few hours he was home, he might just as well not have been there. Ingrid let him carry on without complaining. There are some advantages to living with a writer, he thought. Ingrid understood the need to let your head escape no matter where your body might happen to be.

  Now he was back at the crime scene. He moved around outside the cordoned area and discreetly followed what was happening. The grief was apparent in all directions. Candles flickered, weeping rose toward the crowns of the trees. He had noticed Julie, Bitte’s daughter. She was standing on the roadside with a girl whose name he didn’t know. They each lit a candle. There had been a steady stream of people ever since the discovery became known. Over the weekend some scattered grave candles had grown to a forest of lights. He felt numb. Pictured Victor’s grave. Must remember to buy grave candles!

  Not that it matters, he thought. What help is a candle in a mound of earth, or the edge of a ditch?

  He waved Ida Madsen over to him. They would soon be leaving to talk with Idunn’s parents. Ida Madsen had spoken with them earlier. Verner had still not met them.

  «Are you sure you want to do this?» Ida asked. «I can take Heiki or someone else with me.»

  «It’ll be fine,» Verner assured her.

  «You don’t look completely fine,» she continued.

  Verner felt her scrutinizing gaze as a prickling on his skin. He knew that he had winter in his face and heavy bags under his eyes. He had encountered a stranger in the mirror every morning since he understood that Victor was in the process of disappearing from his life. He tried to smile.

  «I have a pure grief to bear, no uncertainty or questions. My goal now is to give these parents answers so they can get there too.»

  Ida nodded.

  Ida Madsen was not one to say much, but her observational capacity sometimes bordered on intrusive, both for those being investigated and the investigators themselves. She was an expert on timeline and had worked closely with the case right from the start. In her quiet manner. She always managed to find the small gaps in time that made the investigation leap forward. Verner knew that she had already mapped much of Idunn Olsen’s close circle of friends and where they had been, or in any event said they had been.

  «They’re still in shock; it’s not certain we’ll get anything out of this.»

  «No, I’m aware of that,» Verner answered. «But it may be good for them to meet with us. If nothing else, it gives a sense that something is happening.»

  Verner felt a stab of pain as he put his thumb on the doorbell. The man who answered attempted a smile, an awkward gesture, based on years of learned politeness. Verner shook his hand and introduced himself. Then they went in, after taking off their shoes. The living room was tidy. No newspapers on the table, no dirty plates, but the dining room table resembled the sales counter in a florist shop. A sweet and cloying aroma hung in the air. «Odor of Chrysanthemums,» he thought, picturing to himself the brown cover of a book of short stories by D.H. Lawrence that he had read in high school. He went over to the table and looked at some of the cards. Many contained references to the Bible. John 14:27. Matthew 11:28. Verner assumed that consoling words were to be found in these verses.

  «Most are from folks in the congregation,» Gustav Olsen explained, but Verner had noticed one that wasn’t. You have our sympathy. On behalf of the parents in 9B, Kristian Skage.

  A sting of jealousy simply from seeing the name. Neat handwriting.

  «Kristian stopped by with that yesterday,» said Gustav, who had noticed how Verner hesitated at that particular bouquet.

  Verner knew that Kristian Skage had been questioned at length all day Friday. But there was no evidence or anything else that linked him to the crime. Verner felt a strange disappointment when he realized that. That would have put a firm end to the relationship with Bitte Røed. What is going on with me? It struck him at the same moment. How can I not wish Bitte a little happiness? He held back the smile that wanted out. A little happiness for Bitte, she deserves it, but maintain focus now, he told himself, looking over at Idunn’s mother. Before, he had never had trouble keeping a stern eye on what was important. Now his thoughts were flying in all directions, like a flock of crows that were suddenly spooked.

  Sølvi Olsen was a shadow on the couch. She had barely looked up as they came in, as if she had completely given up being at home in her own house. She resembled a waiting room person, someone at the doctor’s office—withdrawn in her own pain, waiting to get the definitive diagnosis. Verner had no problem reflecting the pain he saw in her face.

  «I need to know as much as possible about Idunn,» Verner began, sitting down, even though no one had asked him to. The mother let her head fall into her hands.

  «Our only child,» she said. «Our only one! How could God take her from us?»

  «God works in ways we don’t understand,» the father said, who had sat down next to his wife, raising a careful finger toward her. He had a steady voice, but something trembled below, irritation, perhaps anger. Verner Jacobsen had difficulty interpreting his body language. It struck him that it probably would have been wiser to question them separately, but now it was too late.

  «Don’t mix God into this again,» the mother exclaimed.

  She had been fiddling with a necklace. Now she jerked on the chain, so that it broke. A cross on a thin silver chain ended up on the floor.

  «I sit in her room all day, lie on her bed, read the magazines she read. I’m trying to figure out who she was, and you know what...? I didn’t know my own daughter. I thought she was a Christian, that she had good friends, and then it turns out that...»

  «That?»

  «You’ve taken her laptop, so you can see for yourself.»

  «It’s being worked on right now, but it takes time to get information released from Facebook and so on,» said Verner. «What do you mean that you didn’t recognize her? Did you go through the contents of her computer before we got it?»

  «Yes, yes, of course I did, it was still on, logged-on to Facebook. I actually just started to read all the messages that her friends had written on her wall. There were so many who were sad. I had just managed to check her private inbox before the battery ran out and then...»

  «And then what?»

  «Idunn had written... No! I can’t bear to talk about it, you can just read it yourself!»
/>
  «It’s not that simple,» said Ida Madsen. «We don’t have the password, and like Verner said, it takes time to get Facebook to release that information.»

  Sølvi flared up in sudden anger. She rose and stomped out of the living room. She did not come back. Her husband stayed seated, looking guilt-ridden.

  «She hasn’t wanted to talk about it with me either, if that’s any consolation. I think she discovered something about Idunn. She could be difficult,» Gustav said quietly.

  He leaned over and picked up the cross Sølvi had dropped on the floor.

  «Actually, I thought to myself,» he continued. «Every so often, to be sure, that she should be under house arrest. Or I don’t know, some form of punishment or other. You punish those you love, isn’t that true?»

  He put the cross and the chain down on the table. Verner suddenly heard Bitte Røed’s voice, like an echo from the first morning at the crime scene.

  God’s finger. Aren’t obelisks also called God’s finger?

  Verner Jacobsen’s eyes fell on Gustav Olsen’s hands. He was pulling his wedding ring on and off as if it tormented him.

  Sølvi Olsen was suddenly standing in the doorway.

  «Excuse me,» she said. «I don’t usually behave like that.»

  «Think nothing of it,» said Verner Jacobsen. «You’re not usually in a situation like this.»

  «No.»

  She gasped for air in small hiccoughs.

  «She’s gone! Not just from her room. Do you understand? She’s gone from the whole house. Gone from the couch. She used to sit right there.»

  Her gaze fell on Verner, who automatically slid further over toward the middle.

  «She’s gone from the hall,» Sølvi Olsen continued. «Her shoes just stand there, waiting for her feet. She had such small feet! And her clothes... full of empty space. She’s gone everywhere. And at the same time so very present. In all things. The soft cheese she made ski jumps out of is in the refrigerator. What should I do with it now? I can’t eat it, I can’t just throw it away, either. She’s still out there. Come and see!»

  Verner followed her into the kitchen. Sølvi pointed at a plate.

  «Crumbs! That’s all that’s left. She never put things in the dishwasher. Now I have no idea what to do with everything.»

  She staggered and had to support herself on the counter. Gustav, who had been in the doorway, came over to her, took hold of her arm, led her back to the living room, and got her to sit down. She sank down on the couch and sat there looking apathetically ahead of her.

  «You’re still in shock,» Verner Jacobsen said. «Body and brain are trying to understand what happened. Ida Madsen and I will help you find out what happened.»

  Sølvi nodded.

  «She changed, I couldn’t keep up. But I thought that it would work out, that teenagers, you know...»

  «In what way did she change?» Ida Madsen asked.

  «She got grumpier. More quarrelsome. But teenagers are just that way, right? In rebellion against everything at home? I don’t know... we only had her!»

  She wasn’t crying, but Verner Jacobsen noticed that even so, her eyes were running over with sorrow.

  «It wasn’t just here at home,» said Gustav. «You remember those meetings we had with the school.»

  «What were those meetings about?»

  «It was in connection with a bullying project. The PTA had taken the initiative to do something about the problem.»

  «Was it a big problem at the school?»

  «The PTA president thought so. He was the one who brought it up, and then the teaching staff got involved too. It was a good effort, but it was after this that Idunn started to get...»

  He breathed heavily and searched for the right word.

  «Difficult.»

  «Was she bullied?» Verner Jacobsen asked carefully, thinking about what the principal and assistant principal had told.

  «No,» Gustav said with a sigh. «Unfortunately...»

  «She’s dead,» her mother suddenly screamed. «You’re sitting here talking, just like then. Talk. Talk. Talk. As if she is still just a problem that has to be solved. Idunn was brought up in the Christian faith, she was considerate. She had a lot of friends. I hear that candles have been lit for her from here to Lierskogen. Everyone liked her. Everyone adored her. What if it was Marte who just wanted attention? Have you thought about that, Gustav? Gustav!»

  Gustav shook his head. Sølvi took the iPad that was on the coffee table and hammered with a finger on the screen. Then she held it up and showed them.

  «Look here. Now there are over five thousand who like her memorial page.»

  Verner knew the page in detail. The main image that at first had been a collage with portraits of Idunn was now replaced by a picture from the crime scene with all the candles. He recognized Fredrik on one of the pictures in the feed from what must have been a summer trip to Rome. The Spanish Steps were visible behind the group of youths where he sat with his arm around Idunn. New comments arrived steadily, but they were quite similar, all of them.

  «I’ve read absolutely everything that’s been written here,» said Sølvi. «But Marte has not once expressed that she is sad. Not even where Linnea has tagged her. And she called herself her best girlfriend. Is she envious of all the attention?»

  «It doesn’t have to mean that Marte isn’t grieving,» said Verner.

  He had thought quite a bit about the fact that neither Marte nor Fredrik had expressed anything on social media, and decided to have a talk with Marte as soon as possible.

  «I just lost my son,» he continued.

  His voice got husky and he quickly looked at Ida Madsen. She probably suspected that he was no longer able to conduct himself professionally. Ida sat expectantly and observant as always, with what was possibly a slightly worried frown.

  «He was only eighteen,» Verner continued, fiddling with his phone. «Sometimes I find myself starting to write a message to him.»

  Victor’s death had peeled away the topmost protective layer he had previously surrounded himself with. Verner Jacobsen stared at his feet. His socks were worn at the tip, and on the right foot there was a small hole by the big toe. He held his breath a moment to collect himself.

  Sølvi had said that she had seen something in her daughter’s message box. He raised his head and asked the mother to tell what she had seen, without having great hopes that she would do so. But then to his surprise he discovered that his own vulnerability must have been a kind of door opener.

  «I understand,» she said quietly. Then she opened her mouth, closed it again as if she changed her mind, and then opened it again.

  «Yes, you might as well find out now,» she said.

  She turned toward her husband.

  «You too. Idunn had written: Whore. In a message to Marte.»

  She stood up and went toward her husband, placed herself right in front of him.

  «Are you satisfied now?»

  Gustav looked like someone who was unable to handle a badly behaved child in a public place. His gaze vacillated uncertainly between the detectives.

  Being exposed to girls who bully, Verner Jacobsen thought, is worse than stepping on a wasp’s nest.

  39

  There was a note on the table in the hall when Verner Jacobsen came into the small single-family house on Åssiden in Drammen.

  Out with Lorca.

  He considered going out after them, knew which way they usually went, but didn’t have the energy. He took his laptop to the living room and turned on the TV. He wanted to check the news to see what the press had dug up in the course of the day. He figured there wouldn’t be much that was new. After that he would log on to the police portal to read the latest reports. But first, he had to make a quick visit to Facebook.

  It was Victor who got him started. Verner Jacobsen didn’t have many friends and he was not active on social media, but it had become an obsession anyway. He had to go to Victor’s page constantly. He couldn’t
make himself delete his son’s profile. As long as Victor was on his friend list, as long as he could still see his smile on the profile picture, as long as his friends posted messages to him, he was not completely gone. He often had a compulsion to write something himself, a kind of final farewell, but knew that it would only be extending the self-delusion. The thought that at any moment he could write a message to him, even though he never would, was somehow a consolation. I will never delete you, Victor, he thought, and was about to log out when a thought struck him. He wrote «Bitte Røed» in the search field at the top of the page and suddenly she was there. Her smile filled the screen from edge to edge. Should he add her as a friend?

  «Hi!»

  Verner jumped and closed the page without sending the friend inquiry when he heard Ingrid in the entryway. Immediately after, Lorca came clattering in on the wood floor. Verner picked him up onto his lap.

  «It sounds like you’re walking in high heels, Lorca,» he said, picking little chunks of ice out of the dog’s paws.

  «How are you doing?» Ingrid asked.

  He liked that she asked, and for just that reason he did not understand why he sounded so curt and irritated.

  «Fine.»

  «You look worn out.»

  She means I seem grumpy, but she doesn’t dare say it. He tried to pull himself together and produced an awkward smile. He had really meant to be kind, but when she was actually standing in the doorway, it was as if the intention of meeting her with friendly affection was a house of cards that collapsed from the air pressure that arose as she came in.

  «Are you sure it’s wise to work full-time after all that’s happened?» said Ingrid. «I’m sure you could get reduced hours, and you have vacation saved up, don’t you?»

  Verner turned up the volume on the TV.

  «There’s no reduced time when we’re in the middle of a homicide case. I thought you knew that. I have to check the news,» he said, staring at the screen.

  He didn’t have the energy to respond to the wounded expression he knew had come over her face. She did not complain about the fact that he was distant. She was understanding to the point of driving him to tears. But that was just what he couldn’t put up with.