The Girl With No Heart

by Marit Reiersgaard

  «It’s you, finally!»

  The voice struck her through thick layers of adrenaline and made her defense mechanisms collapse like an old wooden fence.

  «Kristian?»

  She heard for herself how her throat tightened up in an attempt to stop the flow of tears. They ran over anyway.

  «You’re out of your mind, damn it!» she shouted. «You scared the pattern off the carpet here! Do you have any idea how much you scared me, just now?»

  Kristian, who at first only stared at her, smiled and said, «I didn’t think policewomen got scared.»

  «We’re the most scared of all,» Bitte said on her way upstairs. She let herself be caught by his outstretched arms. «We’re usually just a bit cleverer than others about hiding it.»

  «Good to hear that you’re no Wonder Woman,» Kristian said, holding her close to him.

  «But what are you doing here? Up on the second floor?» Bitte asked when they freed themselves from the embrace and went down to the living room.

  «Just had to use the bathroom,» Kristian said. «I’m sorry I frightened you, but you’re not the only one who was scared, I can assure you. You have no idea what frightful scenes I imagined when I discovered that the door was unlocked, and you weren’t here. And it’s completely dark. I had to light those candles there.»

  «The main fuse for the first floor has blown,» said Bitte. «Would you like a glass of soda?»

  Her mouth felt dry, and she needed a moment alone to calm her pulse.

  «Yes, thanks.»

  Bitte went into the kitchen while Kristian sat down on the couch. She retrieved a soda from the dark refrigerator, and hurried to close the door to keep it cold until she replaced the fuse.

  «I thought you were working this evening,» she said as she gave him the can.

  He looked like he hadn’t slept for days, and the beard stubble she thought was manly before made him look a little unkempt in the faint light.

  «Yes, I was supposed to, but then I just needed someone to talk to.»

  He did not look at her as he said that, enunciating each word very slowly.

  «Because of Marte?» Bitte asked without expecting an answer.

  She wondered how much she should say, hesitated a little, but then she said, «I got a text message from her.»

  Kristian sipped the soda with a grimace, as if he had swallowed a bitter medicine. He did not say anything. It was like he hadn’t heard what she just said. She wondered whether she should tell him that the police thought she was being lured into a trap. She sat down beside him, leaned against him, happy not to be alone. His body was stiff.

  «Marte,» he panted. «They’re going to take her from me. If I don’t do something, I’ll lose her forever. I’m willing to do anything, do you understand? Anything!»

  The glow in his voice had died out, but his eyes were just as clear. Bitte stared at him. A memory popped up. From the Scout camp where they became a couple for the first time. A discussion with one of the leaders by the campfire. She no longer remembered what Kristian had disagreed with, but she remembered his eyes. They had flashed.

  «What do you mean, Kristian?»

  Then it occurred to her. It was Marte who had killed Idunn. Marte and Fredrik. And he knew it. A father will obviously do anything to protect his child. Even lie to the police.

  «Kristian, I understand that you’re trying to protect Marte, but if she—»

  Kristian turned toward her, seized her hands, and squeezed around her wrists. He was strong.

  «Kristian,» she said. «Let go. That hurts.»

  He let her go just as abruptly as he had grabbed her.

  «Sorry, Bitte, I loved you. I did. I do. But Marte, she means more. So much more. She’s all I have. All!»

  He was talking as he breathed in as if he couldn’t get enough air. For a moment the choice of words made her uncertain. Loved? Did he just say «loved?» It was like he had withdrawn into himself, pulled a membrane around him that closed her out.

  «Kristian, I understand that you’re having a hard time right now, but I’m here to help you. We love each other, we should support each other in everything. Everything,» she added, stroking his back.

  «I got a text message from Marte,» she repeated.

  Kristian stared at her, but did not say anything.

  «She asked me to come to the obelisk, apparently she had something important to tell me. She said that I had to come right away.»

  «So why aren’t you there?»

  The strangeness in his gaze was accusingly intense.

  «I was there, but then... it turned out that Marte couldn’t have sent that message. I think maybe it was Fredrik who—»

  He interrupted her.

  «And how can you know that?»

  His voice was thick. Bitte Røed stood up, suddenly it felt safer to stand.

  «Because,» she began with her gaze fixed on something on the couch.

  The words she had meant to say piled up in her mouth and blocked her airway.

  «Because...»

  Suddenly the truth occurred to her. A sharp metal blade like a guillotine fell in her chest. She forced the words out and hoped that he had not noticed the finely diced fear that welled up in her. He had not noticed it yet, what she had just seen. A pink telephone that had slipped out of his pocket.

  91

  «There’s no one here.»

  Ida Madsen swept the beam of her flashlight across the cordoned-off area. There were few tracks in the fresh snow.

  «There never was anyone here, apart from Bitte Røed,» said Verner. «Come on!»

  «Where are we going?»

  Ida ran breathlessly after Verner back to the car. He was already behind the wheel and had started the engine.

  «Røed may be in danger,» he said while he tried to turn the car around.

  The road was narrow, and he had to go backward and forward several times to get the car in the right direction. The tires were spinning. He tried to take it slowly, so the wheels wouldn’t get stuck. If he drove into the ditch now, he might get there too late. He didn’t quite know what he would arrive too late for, but he had a feeling that it was urgent.

  «Røed got a text message that came from Marte’s phone. Someone else has taken her phone and used it to lure Røed out here and away from her own house for some reason or other. I have a sense of who it might be.»

  Verner caught himself wondering why he was suddenly using her surname.

  «Who?»

  He answered in the same bitter undertone he used every time he pronounced just these words.

  «Her boyfriend.»

  92

  Kristian Skage leaned back on the couch. He did not seem to have noticed that Marte’s phone had fallen out of his pocket. Bitte instinctively took a step back.

  «I just have to use the bathroom,» she said and concentrated on acting normal, walking slowly up the stairs. She opened the bathroom door, grabbed the key that was on the inside, closed the door hard so he would think she’d gone in. Then she locked it from outside, before she slipped soundlessly into Julie’s room and locked the door. What should she do now? Hopefully he would think she had locked herself in the bathroom. That would give her a little time. Time for what? She looked out the window. Would she break her legs if she jumped? Fire escape, she thought, we don’t have a fire escape!

  Why had she gone upstairs? I have to call Verner, she thought, patting her pants pocket. The cell phone! It was in her jacket pocket in the hall. She heard steps on the stairs. Kristian was on his way up. The steps were heavy. He had been in his stocking feet a minute ago. Why had he put on his boots? Her thoughts were muddled. He was obviously the one who had pretended to be Marte. Why? Why did he want her to go out to the obelisk? What did he want here?

  Her gaze fell on Julie’s bed. The diary. She picked it up. Was the solution somewhere on these pages? Did Marte know something? Kristian must have known that the diary was here. Was that why he wanted her out of the wa
y?

  «Bitte?»

  Kristian was in the hall outside the bathroom. She could not answer without revealing that she wasn’t in there.

  «Bitte, is there something wrong?»

  His voice had the usual caring ring she knew so well. She did not understand why that made her so scared. Who are you, Kristian? she thought. I thought I knew you.

  She heard him try the bathroom door handle. Push it up and down a few times. Then there was silence.

  She tried to skim the diary here and there, but she was mostly occupied with keeping track of where Kristian was. She heard him go downstairs again. Maybe he would just leave. He wasn’t himself. But it struck her that she didn’t really know what he was like, when he was himself.

  It feels as if I live in a house with no walls. Everyone can reach me. All the time. Obviously I can turn it off, and sometimes Dad turns off the Internet so I won’t sit up all night. But it doesn’t help. Everything is still there, the next morning.

  Cyberbullying, Bitte thought, skimming ahead. A paragraph here, a section there, without her finding anything that could shed light on what had happened.

  In a strange way the pain hurts less when I let the razor glide into my skin. The cut becomes something I can handle. It’s so much easier to handle concrete pain. A visible wound. And when I feel the blood running out, I think that it takes the bad stuff with it. What sits in my heart.

  Then her eyes stopped when she noticed Julie’s name. It was written far back in the book with many blank pages in between. No date.

  I’ll ask Julie. If I can hide the diary with her. Dad reads it. And he mustn’t read it. It’s bad enough if he finds out that I cut myself, and that I’m afraid I may be pregnant, but he mustn’t read that I thought he was strange when he came home that night. Poor Dad, he always tries so hard.

  «Bitte?»

  The diary fell out of her hands when she heard Kristian kick the door to the bathroom. She hadn’t heard him come up to the second floor again. There was silence. Bitte held her breath. Another kick. And another. He thinks I’m hiding in there, she thought and prayed that the door would hold. Give up, Kristian! Give up!

  There was the sound of another kick, this time followed by the sharp sound of door hinges coming loose.

  Bitte looked around for something to defend herself with. Found nothing other than Julie’s perfume bottle. Maybe she could spray it in his face, blind and confuse him enough that she could get out.

  «Where the hell are you!»

  The perfume bottle fell to the floor and rolled under the dresser. His voice had a mixture of surprise and anger when he discovered that she wasn’t in the bathroom.

  Then she heard him breathing. Heavy gasps. Right outside. He’s going to break down this door too, Bitte thought. She clenched her fists. There was only five centimeters of flimsy plywood between them. The taste of metal in her mouth. Nausea. Nerve ends were quivering inside her skin. The sudden, unpleasant insight: my lover is going to hurt me! Julie had a sign hanging on the outside of the door. The metal rattled as he shook the door handle. Bitte could suddenly not remember what was on that sign. All she saw was Julie. My child! I have to get out of here! But the certainty that she was alone and trapped in a corner spread to all parts of her body and made her head and heart, her lungs and kidneys cry out collectively: Now we’re going to die!

  93

  Verner Jacobsen drove onto the narrow street between the townhouses and parked in front of Bitte Røed’s apartment. The windows were dark.

  «It doesn’t look like she’s home,» said Ida.

  «I asked her to stay here,» said Verner, feeling a weary resignation that she always had to do what she wanted.

  «Maybe we should check the house anyway. Will you call her?»

  Verner picked up the phone and found her name.

  «She doesn’t answer,» he said, opening the car door.

  Ida was right behind him as he went up the steps to the apartment and felt the door. It was locked. He took out the picklock he always had in his pocket. It was an old lock and a moment later the door glided open. The house was dark, but a candle was flickering in the living room. Oh, shit, thought Verner. I was wrong. They’re having a romantic evening, and then we burst in and ruin the mood. He stood there as if frozen. He was slowly becoming aware of something.

  «Shouldn’t we go in?» Ida whispered right behind him.

  «Yes,» he whispered.

  Verner almost stumbled on a scarf and a pair of mittens that were on the floor. It was silent in the house, except for a low, undefined sound that might be coming from the neighbor’s TV set.

  «They aren’t here,» said Ida. «Why did they leave without blowing out the candles?»

  They could see the living room from the entryway. Three pillar candles were lit. Verner picked up the mittens from the floor and suddenly felt dizzy as the crucial detail from the interviews became clear to him.

  «What is it?» Ida said, taking him by the arm. «You look like you’ve seen a ghost.»

  «The witness interview with Kristian,» he whispered. «There it is. He describes what Idunn was wearing, do you remember?»

  «Yes?»

  «He said that she had white mittens on.»

  Ida shook her head.

  «Yes, we know that. She did have.»

  «Think about the pictures from the scene, Ida. Idunn is lying with the arm that still has a mitten on under her. The other mitten was found a short ways off and wasn’t visible from where the body was found. Kristian Skage must have seen Idunn before she died!»

  «Oh, my God! But where is he? Where’s Bitte?»

  Just then they heard someone moving on the second floor. A thud, as if something big and heavy fell to the floor.

  «Bitte!»

  Verner was up on the second floor before he had time to think.

  Ida was right behind him. The sight of the bathroom door hanging on one hinge made a shiver of cold run through him. And then he saw it. A little further down, one door away. Open. Destroyed. A shadow with its back turned, kneeling over a body on the floor.

  «Kristian Skage, let her go.»

  Kristian had one hand around her neck, one over her mouth. Bitte Røed was lying on the floor, pale from lack of oxygen, or fear, or both.

  «Let her go. Don’t make things worse now.»

  Verner tried to preserve the calm he usually had in his voice in dramatic situations, but this was different.

  Kristian released her. He made no sign of wanting to escape or attack them. On the contrary, he stood up and staggered toward them. Then he extended his hands as if he expected handcuffs to be slipped on out of thin air. Ida was the first to react. Like an obedient dog he placed his hands behind his back while she snapped the cuffs on.

  «Bitte, I... I didn’t mean to hurt you.»

  Kristian was crying. He stood with his back to her and talked with a clenched jaw while he looked at the floor.

  «I was just trying to get you to be quiet. I love you.»

  Ida had already called the desk and confirmed that reinforcements were on their way. Not that we need them, Verner thought, looking at the collapsed figure on his way downstairs with Ida right behind.

  «Verner...»

  Bitte Røed had pulled herself up to a sitting position. She felt her neck.

  «Are you okay?»

  She nodded.

  «I’m in one piece, apart from my self-esteem, which has gotten an aggressive, malignant virus and otherwise feels bad.»

  She tried to smile.

  «I’ll drive you to the ER for a check-up when the patrol car has picked him up,» said Verner, standing there awkwardly, struggling with emotions. He put his arm around her and helped her up.

  «I forgot everything about self-defense,» she whispered. «I trusted him.»

  «Of course,» said Verner.

  He was so close that he could take in the smell of her.

  «Of course you trusted him, he was...»


  «My boyfriend.»

  She finished the sentence for him, so he could avoid having to say those damn words one more time.

  «Was,» she added, and looked at him with a wide, open gaze.

  The impulse came abruptly, and he leaned over and let his lips graze hers.

  She pulled back as if she’d gotten a shock.

  Saturday, December 6

  94

  «Have you gotten any sleep?» Verner Jacobsen asked.

  Kristian Skage looked at him with dull eyes and sank down on the chair in the small interview room. The man had lost his energy, and was a bit like a soccer ball left outside for a long, rainy summer. It was as if he got smaller with every breath he exhaled. Verner wondered what Bitte had seen in him. Maybe he was what some women would call dashing. Sporty, thought Verner, even if there wasn’t much left of the cocky journalist now.

  «I probably haven’t slept in over a week,» Kristian said at last. «I’ve met my own awful ego everywhere. It hasn’t been pleasant.»

  Verner nodded, but did not say anything.

  «I haven’t been able to do anything, not eat breakfast, not take a shower, not look at Marte, not turn on the computer, not make coffee, and above all not read the newspaper without being reminded of how terrible I am.»

  Yes, that you are, you phony bastard! A goddamned phony little asshole, Verner Jacobsen thought, surprised by the spontaneous hatred that flared up. It wasn’t like him. The detective he usually was could find something good in everyone. Even the worst murderer has his positive sides. Now he caught himself sitting with clenched fists, holding firmly onto the chair to keep from punching the man sitting right across from him in the jaw.

  «Excuse me,» said Verner, getting up. «I’ll be right back.»

  Verner hurried down to the coffee machine. I damn well can’t sit there and listen to his lies, he thought as he concentrated on breathing normally. His breath stopped in the middle of his throat. Dyspnea, he thought. It wasn’t due to illness like with Mother, for me it’s only in my mind. It will work out. Breathe. Just breathe calmly, down into the stomach through your nose and out again, slowly through closed lips. He wondered if he should visit his mother after the interview. Maybe he should simply let someone else take over the job and leave right now? No, hell no, he has to be grilled, and I’m going to do it, he decided and hurried back.