Death of the Demon: A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel (20 page)

“What on earth for?”

Forgetting she was at a funeral, Hanne’s voice had increased in volume.

“Whoa, take it easy!”

He raised his hands and waved them repeatedly at the ground, several times over, in an attempt to dampen her enthusiasm.

“They have a pretty deluxe electric sharpening machine at the foster home. She usually took her own knives there . . . our knives, I mean, now and again to sharpen them. That morning she brought four of them with her, maybe five, even. I remember it because she had to wash two of them before she left and cut herself slightly. I had to find a Band-Aid.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this before?”

“I didn’t think about it! I was so sure she had brought them back with her that afternoon, she didn’t usually leave them lying over there. And . . .”

He stopped, noticing that the people encircling them had gone quiet, and everyone’s attention was fixed on the two of them. He drew her with him as he moved closer to the church wall.

“To be honest, my mother-in-law has been doing the housework
since Agnes died. She came right away. It was only yesterday evening, when she was complaining there were so few kitchen utensils, that I realized. I think there were four knives. Perhaps five, as I said.”

“From Ikea?”

“No, I’ve no idea about that. I don’t know where my wife buys . . . I mean, bought, knives.”

“But I expect you would recognize the knife again if you saw it?”

He was too exhausted to notice the caustic tone.

“I suppose so.”

“Then I reckon you should turn up at my office early tomorrow morning, at nine o’clock. On the dot. You have my sincere condolences.”

She wheeled around. There was only one reason why she did not haul the man off with her immediately. It was
not
that he had just attended his wife’s funeral, but that three children had just attended their mother’s.

Maren Kalsvik’s lips were blue and her teeth were chattering. She had sent the children over to the car, a large blue people carrier.

“What was it you wanted?” she said, her teeth rattling.

“It can wait,” Hanne said. “But we need to talk to you tomorrow. Twelve o’clock, does that suit?”

“Just as inconvenient as any other time of day,” Maren said, shrugging her shoulders. “At your office?”

Hanne Wilhelmsen nodded as she pulled up the hood of her duffel coat. Then she scurried over to the service vehicle, swearing like a trooper.

 • • • 

Billy T. was nowhere to be found. One or two people thought they had spotted him on his way out half an hour earlier, but they were unsure. Some were able to say that he had been looking for
her. The receptionist spread out her arms in despair, complaining that no one saw the point in the established and frequently ignored system of reporting personnel whereabouts.

“We’re the ones who get it in the neck,” she said unhappily, expecting some sympathy from Chief Inspector Wilhelmsen.

But the chief inspector was preoccupied. First she popped into Billy T.’s office to find the telephone number previously attached to Agnes Vestavik’s telephone directory, but it was impossible to locate it in all the uproar. She gave up after four or five minutes, reassuring herself that he had clearly told her it was the number of Diakonhjemmet University College’s School of Social Work.

Returning to her own office, she grabbed the telephone directory before sitting down. “Diakonhjemmet, the Norwegian” was the nearest she found, but there was a long list of additional numbers, for a School of Social Care, a hospital, something called the International Center, and a foundation with its own phone number. “Diakonhjemmet University College” had its own entry. She dialed the digits, without knowing what the focus of her inquiry would be.

A considerable time elapsed before anyone answered the call. Eventually a nondescript, almost mechanical voice piped up, “University College, how can I help you?” and Hanne wondered for a moment whether it was an automatic answering service. She asked for the dean’s office for lack of any better idea. There she spoke to a secretary whose voice was filled with sunshine and laughter, in stark contrast to the mechanical woman at the central switchboard.

Hanne introduced herself and endeavored to explain what she wanted without revealing too much. The lady was as quick on the uptake as her voice suggested, and she was able to confirm unequivocally that yes indeed, Agnes Vestavik, that poor, poor woman, had phoned several times the previous week. Or perhaps it was the week before that. In any case, she remembered
she had called, and they had all been deeply shocked when they read about her murder. How was the family doing?

Hanne could reassure her on that point at least and asked what Agnes had wanted of them. Unfortunately, the secretary could not help her with that, but as far as she remembered, on one occasion she had asked to speak to someone in the examination office. Since they did not have an examination office, she had asked to speak to the dean. That was the first time, she thought. But what they had talked about, no, she was
very sorry
but she could not help her with that. It was also possible the dean had passed her on to someone else, though she knew nothing about that.

Hanne asked to speak to the dean, but was told that, regrettably, he was at a seminar in Denmark and would not return until Friday.

Hanne Wilhelmsen tried not to express her annoyance, as the woman had really been a great help. Rejecting the offer of assistance to find out where in Denmark he was, she terminated the conversation. Before replacing the receiver, she nevertheless asked the secretary to find out as soon as possible whether Agnes Vestavik had ever worked at Diakonhjemmet’s School of Social Work. The secretary promised, laughing, and chirped a good-bye after noting Hanne Wilhelmsen’s name and telephone number.

Hanne’s ear was still brimful of the happy secretary’s voice when she put down the phone. It lifted her mood to talk to such people, but only for a few seconds.

She had to find Billy T.

 • • • 

Restlessness had taken its grip on Olav again. It was true he was calm when eating and sleeping, both activities that consumed a great deal of his time, but he was having increasing difficulty between meals. She had bought him some comics, but they did not succeed in holding his attention for longer than a few minutes
at a time. The initial subduing fear had obviously deserted him, and he no longer listened to her.

“They’re going to find you if you go out. You’re reported missing. On the TV and radio and in the newspapers.”

He smiled that strange smile of his.

“Just like in the movies. Will they give a reward?”

“No, Olav, they’re not offering a reward. They’re not searching for you because you’ve done something wrong. They just want you back at the foster home.”

He frowned.

“Fuck no,” he said vehemently. “I’d rather
die
than move back to that dump.”

She couldn’t resist a slight smile, a tired, weary smile. Catching sight of it, he vented his fury.

“You’re laughing, you bitch! But I’ll tell you one thing:
I’m not going back there! Do you understand?
 ”

She tried desperately to calm him down by making hushing gestures and pointing to the wall through to the neighbor’s apartment. It did not perturb him in the least. However, he was at a loss for something to say and instead padded through to the kitchen and started to pull out all the drawers. He yanked them all the way out, tipping the contents onto the floor and yelling piercingly with every single drawer he grabbed hold of.

She knew it would pass. There was nothing to do other than sitting quite still, closing your eyes, and waiting. Tears spilled down her cheeks. She had only to wait. It will pass. In a little while, it will pass. Sit still. Don’t say anything. Don’t do anything. Don’t, for heaven’s sake, touch him. Soon, soon, it will pass.

It took some time to empty out all the drawers. She could not see him, but from the noises she knew he was kicking the kitchen utensils about and making a dreadful racket. The neighbors would notice it. She had hardly begun to think of an explanation when the doorbell rang.

The boy immediately stopped in his tracks. He suddenly stood in the doorway, and fear had returned to his eyes. He looked at her, not in a plea for help but with a command for her to wait until he had hidden himself before opening the door. Without a word, he disappeared into her bedroom. She crept after him, closed the door, and dried her eyes on the way to the front door.

It was the downstairs neighbor, an elderly lady who knew most of what transpired in the apartment block. This was not strange in the slightest, since she spent all her time either sitting at the kitchen window where she had an excellent view of all the comings and goings, or at people’s doors with complaints: about noise, about music, about people who were not following the rota for the laundry in the basement or for washing the stairs when it was their turn.

“That was a terrible commotion,” she said suspiciously. “Has your son come home?”

She craned her scrawny neck in an attempt to see inside the apartment. Birgitte Håkonsen made herself as tall and wide as possible.

“No, he hasn’t come home. It was me, I dropped something on the floor. Sorry.”

“Dropped something on the floor for a whole half hour?” the old woman exaggerated. “Yes, I’m sure I believe that. Have you got visitors?”

She extended her neck even farther, and because she was taller than Olav’s mother, could discern the white rectangle at the end of the gloomy hallway. However, that told her nothing.

“No, I don’t have visitors. I’m all on my own. And I’m sorry about the noise. It won’t happen again.”

As she was about to close the door in her neighbor’s face, the old woman muttered about calling the police. She hesitated momentarily before slamming it shut, turning the security lock as well.

Olav was sitting on her bed with his legs in the lotus position. He was remarkably supple for someone so stout. Now he looked more like a Buddha than ever before. She stood there observing him, and neither of them uttered a word. Then he moaned, almost a low howl, before stretching his arms and lifting his face to the ceiling, asking his question into empty space: “What’ll I do?”

She did not answer, because he was not speaking to her. Whirling around, she shuffled back to the kitchen to tidy up. As absolutely quietly as possible.

 • • • 

It was impossible to get anyone to listen to me as far as the MBD was concerned. I took it up with the kindergarten first, but they simply smiled and said he would probably grow out of it. Again I thought I should talk to the child welfare service, as they could not possibly let me escape for a third time.

Then he started school. It had to go badly. As early as the first day, when all the parents were present, he got up from his desk in the middle of the first lesson and walked off out of the classroom. An odd expression crossed the teacher’s face, and she looked at me in the expectation that I would do something. I knew if someone attempted to stop him, all hell would break loose. So I made the excuse that he needed the toilet and concocted a urinary infection on the spot. Shortly afterward, I sneaked out to find him, but he was nowhere to be found. It later turned out he had entered another classroom, declaring that he would prefer to be in that class.

It wasn’t that he was stupid. On the contrary, he had a good head for math. And later, English. He was exceptionally good at English, but only orally. They said it might be because he was watching far too much television. Typical, really, when he hit upon something he was good at, something he mastered, they succeeded in turning that into something negative as well, something that was my fault.

Before the end of reception year, he was the school’s outcast. The other little school pupils shunned him, the pupils in years five and six teased him and persuaded him to do the most unbelievable things. On May 17, the Norwegian National Day, he managed to lower the flag on the school’s flagpole while everyone was listening to a speech given by a sweet blonde year-five pupil, talking about Wergeland, Norway’s national poet, and the children’s procession and freedom and the war, until suddenly she fell silent and pointed at the enormous flag now flying at half-mast. It had been cut into long strips, waving freely in the wind. Olav was standing beside the flagpole, jumping for joy and brandishing a pair of clippers, looking triumphantly at a group of class-six pupils who were standing doubled up with laughter at the back of the crowd. I couldn’t bear any more and just left. Several hours later, he arrived home clutching a hundred kroner in his fist. He had a wager with the big boys, he explained. When I tried to explain to him that he could have asked me for money, he looked at me in surprise with that strange smile I have never quite been able to fathom.

In the beginning, he was invited to birthday parties. At least, for the first year. He was always good-natured and happy when he returned home, but I never actually discovered how things had gone. Then that came to an abrupt halt, and it broke my heart when he watched the other children in the neighborhood trooping off to parties, dressed to the nines and carrying presents under their arms. He sat at the window on the first few occasions, but when I tried to suggest we should find some fun thing to do, he pushed me away and switched on the TV.

That was the only thing that, strictly speaking, did not fit well with the MBD diagnosis. He could sit for hours in front of the TV screen. He was all consuming, and it was mind-boggling how much of it he understood. As a toddler he had been completely uninterested in children’s television, even though I really tried to
get him to watch it. By the time he commenced the year-two class, he was watching everything. It seemed as though he derived just as much pleasure from cartoons aimed at very young children as from the daily news and action films. I knew he ought not to watch all the films, but it didn’t look as if he was ever scared. Apart from one occasion. I was going to bed, but he had started watching a film and refused to go to sleep. I attempted to lure him with a bribe of money, as he had to go to school the following day. But it was out of the question. The film was called
Alien,
and as far as I could see, a female was the central character. So I thought it couldn’t be too dangerous and went off to bed.