The Girl With No Heart

by Marit Reiersgaard

  Maybe it wasn’t me after all, he thought, even if he could still feel the stickiness of blood on his hands. And he had good training in repression—he’d practiced it his whole life—but no matter how much he tried to forget, it was as if the images got stronger every time they showed up from the dark corridors of recollection.

  «Agnar!»

  It’s Mama who’s calling. She can’t see us. We stand still as mice, right until the cat that we’ve caught scratches. Finn screams.

  «Damn it, Finn, you always have to mess things up.»

  The cat disappears up the incline while we run the other way. We balance on stones poking up from the water and disappear into the forest on the other side before Mama is able to come down.

  «We have to find another cat,» I say.

  Finn nods, but doesn’t say anything. I have a feeling that he pinched the cat on purpose so that it would scratch. So he would have an excuse to let go of it. He’s so weak. But he’s the only friend I have. Finn doesn’t know that I could manage alone. He thinks I’m just as dependent on him as he is on me. I like to be by myself. I’ve always liked that, but it’s nice to have someone who can do the shit work sometimes. You see, I have a project. A secret plan. I call it Project Death.

  43

  Bitte Røed stood there with a vague sense of having let him off too easy. Agnar Eriksen had looked at her with a disgusting smile. He had stared just a bit too long at her chest, and there had been something provocatively self-confident about him. She had read up on his old case files, and knew all about his previous convictions. It had already started when he was sixteen, with placement in an institution after he assaulted his own mother. There were some newspaper clippings from the early 1980s. Father and Son Missing. The boldface headline was from the front page of Drammens Tidende. Bitte skimmed the article. The mother had reported them missing after they did not come back from a walk in the woods. The son did not come home until two days later, and said that they had gotten separated from each other. In later clippings, the father was still being sought, but the mother told the local newspaper that her husband had most likely seen his chance to take off. He probably had reason enough. Mother and son were left with lots of debt and no money. It was possible he had fled abroad, as it was later maintained that someone had spotted him in Germany.

  According to the documents she was looking at, Agnar Eriksen had been involved in several criminal cases. Burglary. Smuggling. Possession of narcotics. Drunkenness. Assault. The list was long. And no one had evidently had contact with his father, Ragnvald Eriksen, since that winter day over thirty years ago. The last report showed that on Wednesday, Agnar Eriksen was released from Ila state prison after having served a sentence for fracturing his mother’s skull.

  Agnar had been at large for almost a full day when his mother’s house burned. Was it a coincidence that it burned down right after he was let out of prison? And why had he gone straight to Finn? I would have gone home to my mother, she thought, but reminded herself at once that it was a mortal sin in her occupation to interpret things based on what you would have done. Besides, Agnar had a turbulent relationship with his mother, so it was natural that she was not the first choice. Unless he still had some unsettled business with her, of course. But for the time being, there was nothing to indicate that he had been in the vicinity. Must remember to call the pathologist, it occurred to her. She had not told Agnar that his mother’s remains had been sent to the medical examiner.

  She needed a breather. Coffee with sugar and milk would probably recharge her brain, and she headed down the long corridor which, when she was first hired, made her feel like she was on board the Danish ferry. The building was reminiscent of a ship in other ways too. It was located right by the riverbank, and parts of the building formed an arc, like the bow of a big cruise ship. She sat down in the little break room outside Superintendent Thomas Lindstrand’s office and browsed through the day’s newspapers. The lead stories were naturally about the Idunn case. Dagbladet had a panoramic picture of all the candles that were lit along the road. It made the narrow forest road resemble a river of light, flowing peacefully into the darkness. Region in Sorrow. As usual, VG took a harder tone to attract readers, with the headline Emotionally Charged Police. The caption read: Here Detective Inspector Verner Jacobsen breaks down after his first encounter with the scene. She flinched when she saw herself pictured. She was standing with her arm around Verner Jacobsen. It must have been taken that first morning, when they were together. The moment they had immortalized must be when Verner found out that the hearse with his son was missing. She had not noticed that the first photographers had arrived. Verner truly looked like he needed help, standing there with head lowered. He did not look at all like the steady policeman he should have been, and she looked like a bad advertisement for outdoor recreation. Did a bubble jacket really make her look so shapeless?

  «So, you’ve seen it?»

  Suddenly Verner was standing there. He was smiling and seemed far from needing help. It gave her a dull sense of inadequacy. She suddenly felt outside all that was happening. Couldn’t they use her as an insider? She was one! No way! Thomas Lindstrand—always so meticulous and proper.

  «We just have to shake this off,» said Verner when he saw the expression on her face. «You look like you’re ready for action anyway.»

  «How’s it going?» Bitte asked. «Or maybe I shouldn’t ask?» She looked at Verner. «I might leak something to certain important witnesses.»

  She was unable to conceal the sarcasm.

  «I’d rather have you on the team, Bitte.»

  She swallowed. Good Lord, don’t get weepy now.

  «Have you talked with someone named Marte Skage?» she asked.

  «That name sounds familiar. Who is that? Your boyfriend’s ex?»

  Oh, how she hated his tone of voice every time he said boyfriend. That she could even have a boyfriend probably surprised him.

  «No,» she said, a little more curtly than she had intended. «His daughter. I think she was best friends with the deceased, but something happened. I don’t know that much, but I’ve heard that there’s been some bullying among the teenagers in Tranby.»

  «Thanks for speaking up, Bitte. I’ll have a chat with her.»

  Just then, Bitte’s cell phone signaled that a text message had arrived. From the pathologist. He would send over the preliminary autopsy report about the deceased in the fire. She stood up, nodded to Verner, and walked toward the fax room.

  She skimmed the pages as they were spit out of the fax machine. It was confirmed that Erna Eriksen was the deceased, but she could suddenly see that this case was far more complicated than they’d first assumed. She took the report with her to read more carefully in her office.

  44

  Fredrik was sitting in the same interview room as last time. Apart from the fact that the police had been in his house over the weekend to search for God knows what, they had left him alone. They did ask whether he had anything against them «borrowing» his computer for a few days. Something in their voices told him it would be a bad move to refuse. The eyes of his father had removed the last remnant of doubt. They had also looked at his cell phone, but he was allowed to keep that. He had walled himself up in his room, laid on the bed, and stared at the ceiling. There was nothing to do without that device. It itched, a quite physical itch in his finger joints to hold onto the mouse and shoot wildly around. Let the machine gun shake. The satisfaction from seeing the screen sprayed red while he himself was still uninjured. He was good at staying alive. No one managed to get a hit on him as he snaked his way through the grass and had an opponent in his sights.

  It had been a terribly long day. Linnea had sent him a message, wanted to see him. But he couldn’t bear to answer. Marte had also sent a message:

  <3

  Nothing else. A heart. After what he’d done? And now the police wanted to talk to him again. Had they found something on the computer?

  He put his ha
nds in his pants pockets to hide the fact that they were shaking. They would talk about Idunn again, the man with the ponytail explained. The police were so preoccupied with that party. They pried and questioned. He had to be careful about what he said, and he had to remember what he said before. A flash of pain passed down his spine every time he thought about Idunn. He could not rid himself of the memory of the sight: the blood that had run out of the back of her head, staining the snow red. He had always seen her first and foremost as a body, and when she was lying there in the snow, it occurred to him that that was all she was to him then, too.

  The detective looked at him. His skin was tingling. Fredrik was unable to sit still. He stood up, but there was no place to go. He sat down again.

  «What is it you want to know?» asked Fredrik.

  Detective Inspector Verner Jacobsen smiled.

  «The truth.»

  «I’ve been telling it the whole time!»

  «Then we can go through your explanation one more time,» said Jacobsen. «You say that you found her, but that she was dead before you arrived?»

  «Yes, or I think she was dead, anyway. She looked injured. I tried to raise her. I shook her, but she didn’t react. Maybe she was unconscious, but I’m not a doctor.»

  «Tell me what you were doing before you found her. You were at a party?»

  «Yes.»

  «What happened at the party?»

  «Happened? My God, something happens all the time at a party, what is it you want to hear?»

  «What were you doing? Who did you talk with? What did you talk about? Try starting at the beginning. When you arrived, who did you come with?»

  «Some friends. Petter, Arne, and Jonas. We always hang out together.»

  «How did you get to the party?»

  «We walked by Høgdabakkene.»

  «Did you meet anyone on the road?»

  Fredrik hesitated. Then he shook his head.

  «But you’re quite sure you went with these boys you mentioned?»

  «Why would I lie about that?»

  «I don’t know, but in their testimony all of them, except for you and Petter, said that you talked with an old woman. So I’m wondering why some of you are obviously lying.»

  Fredrik felt his brain boiling. Why had those fucking idiots said that they talked with the old woman? They had agreed not to say anything, especially after they discovered that it was her house that had burned down.

  «We didn’t talk with her, she just stood there and yelled at us. I didn’t think it was important.»

  «I’ll decide if things are important, Fredrik,» said Verner Jacobsen. «The police need to see the whole picture, from various points of view. Then it’s easier to sort out what’s unessential. It’s not certain that it’s important, but I would like to know what she said to you.»

  «I don’t remember. It was something about a dog and tagging, or something like that.»

  «Were you going to tag?»

  «I don’t get involved in such things.»

  «And your friends? Are they involved with tagging?»

  «Should I take responsibility for them too now, or what?»

  «No, but you can take responsibility for telling the truth. If we catch you lying, Fredrik, we can indict you. Then you’ll have to be held here. You do know you can be held on remand even though you’re only sixteen?»

  Fredrik stared at the detective. Was the guy kidding? He let his gaze glide over to the woman from Child Protective Services, the same one who had been with him last time.

  «That’s correct,» she said, nodding seriously. «You would be wise to speak the truth right away.»

  Verner Jacobsen saw the little sneer. Was the kid on the verge of crying? A violent sense of tenderness came over him. Again, it was as if the boy had changed form and became Victor, who sat there struggling with tears, trying to be adult.

  «Fredrik. It’s important that you understand one thing,» he said gently. «These are probably details that have no significance whatsoever, neither for you nor for us, but it’s still important that you tell us absolutely everything you saw, heard or experienced that evening.»

  The boy moved his head up and down, slowly, but Verner assumed that was supposed to mean that he had nodded and tried again.

  «Were you going to tag? Or maybe you just had?»

  «Petter had a can with him, but he just sprayed in the snow, he didn’t damage anything.»

  «But what was he doing with it?»

  «Someone was going to borrow it, but I don’t know who. You have to believe me. Petter said he was taking it to someone. It wasn’t important.»

  It turned quiet, like right before a kettle of water starts boiling. Verner sat motionless. He felt more and more certain that something had happened at Linnea’s that evening, something that had dramatic consequences. But what?

  Fredrik inhaled so abruptly that Verner jumped.

  «Something happened at the party,» Fredrik said as he exhaled again.

  Verner did not say anything.

  «I have no idea if it has anything to do with what happened to Idunn, but...»

  Fredrik closed his mouth, and it looked like he was trying to back into the chair and disappear. He bit his lip as if he regretted what he had just said.

  «I mean, it was definitely just one of those girl-drama things and not important at all and...»

  Verner felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, and he fell for the temptation to peek at it. A text message from Thomas Lindstrand. He read the message and put the phone back in his pocket.

  «Fredrik, something has come up. We’ll have to pick up the thread a little later, but I want you to be prepared to be here for a while.»

  45

  Bitte Røed stared at the fax copy in front of her. She was tingling all over.

  «Hey! What’s going on with you?» said Verner Jacobsen, sticking his head in as he was passing. «Have you seen a ghost?»

  Bitte could immediately see the picture that Julie had taken of her the night before. She shuddered.

  «Look at this!»

  Verner took the sheet she handed him and read.

  «Four stabs with a sharp object, possibly a bread knife, have been determined?»

  Bitte nodded.

  He read on. «’Internal organs are relatively well preserved despite major external burn injuries. The cartilage of one rib has been severed. The lung punctured. Brownish mass corresponding to over a liter of blood in the chest cavity, as a result of holes in the aorta.’ Erna Eriksen was murdered!»

  «Yes,» Bitte said flatly. «And the fact that the victim incurred several stabs with such force means that it is reasonably certain this was not done in self-defense.»

  «Yes, that is a common explanation,» Verner said with a nod.

  «The question now is whether we have resources to investigate this in the midst of everything else. My first thought, of course, is that it must be Agnar Eriksen, her son. He has a prior conviction for assault against his mother. The problem is that he has an alibi.»

  «Maybe his alibi should be checked out again? But listen,» said Verner, taking a step closer. He wanted to put his hand on her shoulder to dampen the effect of what he had come to say. «I actually came to inform you about something,» he said, cursing himself because he didn’t dare meet her gaze. «You’re not going to like this,» he said, and suddenly thought: But I like this.

  If he were to be completely honest, for reasons he was ashamed to think about, he would like Kristian to be the guilty party. He was begrudging, that’s what he was. Begrudging and jealous.

  «Uh, I just want to say that your boyfriend...»

  «Can’t you just say ’Kristian’?»

  Bitte flared up. She was so tired of hearing that sarcastic tone of his.

  «Great,» said Verner. «Kristian has been charged. I thought it was best to tell you before the press gets hold of it.»

  He stood there a moment, uncertain whether she wanted to hit him or needed
consoling. Bitte stood up and turned toward the window.

  «What have they found?»

  He heard her swallow. She was probably on the verge of tears, but she had her back to him.

  «Microspores have been found on the victim’s clothing. The results of the tests just arrived, and there is a match with the mittens Kristian had on. Hairs have been found, besides.»

  «He probably touched her when he found her.»

  «Yes, but Fredrik says that he didn’t touch her. Besides that, Fredrik is also being held on remand. The prosecutor says there is danger of influence of witnesses. Their explanations are cracking. Maybe they were complicit in the murder, maybe they’ll just blame each other.»

  «Kristian is innocent,» Bitte said, turning around. She was not crying, but she had a strange look on her face. «You’ve made a mistake.»

  «Their homes will now be examined for physical evidence, and you should be prepared that they might have to go through your house too, since you’re...»

  «Lovers!»

  She spit the word at him.

  «I’ll leave you alone,» said Verner, quietly withdrawing. «I’m going into a press conference now. I just wanted you to hear it from a friend.»

  «That’s great,» she said. «It will be easy to go through my things, most of it is still in boxes. Besides, I have other things to think about right now. I’ll call the emergency room to see if they’ve treated anyone with cuts after the fire in Lier. I actually have a murderer running loose, in contrast to you.»

  Verner tried not to be offended by the sarcastic tone and backed out.