Medusa (24 page)

– Your father was a war hero, Miriam said suddenly.

Axel shared the last of the wine between them. It didn’t surprise him that she had found this out.

– Genuine Norwegian war hero, he confirmed. – There’s a phrase for it in Norwegian,
gutta på skauen
, the lads in the forest. For one whole winter he had to stay hidden away in a cabin, completely alone, miles from anyone.

– I’ve heard a lot about the war in Norway, she said. – Since I came here I’ve met a lot of people who said it was the brave Norwegians who defeated the Germans. I’ve even been inside one of those cabins you’re talking about, deep in the forest. They had the operations centre in a secret room in the cellar. The grandfather of the person who owns the cabin was a … what did he call it … was it a border guide?

– That’s right.

– He helped refugees over into Sweden. In the end he was caught and sent to a concentration camp.

Axel opened the second bottle.

– It was a very dangerous job, he nodded. – When we were kids, my father plotted in the whole network of cabins and flight routes for us on a map. We imagined walking them with him. I’ve lost track of how many times he told us about the moment he was just seconds away from being captured by the Gestapo. And every time we were just as scared. Even Brede sat there listening in silence … What did you say his name was, this man who was a border guide?

– I don’t remember. I can’t go around remembering everything. Some things should be forgotten.

It occurred to him that in a subtle way she was trying to involve him. She wanted him to ask more about these things that should be forgotten, tell him stories about her past. Lead him into them as though into a labyrinth. In the end it would be impossible to let her go.

He said: – Are you good at forgetting?

Her eyebrows flew up and quivered a few times. She didn’t answer.

– If I asked you to, could you forget what we’ve shared together?

She hugged him tighter.

– You say that as though it was already in the past.

He knew he was getting close to what he was supposed to be saying to her, but then he ducked away. Changed the subject, said something unimportant.

– You left an envelope behind in the office you were using at the clinic.

He didn’t mention how close he’d come to opening it, to peering into her life and the things he wanted to know as little about as possible.

– Bring it with you next time you come, she said. –
If
you come.

Again she gave him the chance to say what he had come to say.

Somewhere in the distance a phone is ringing. It’s for him, but he can’t work out where the sound is coming from. He’s lying on a stone floor, he’s cold. Brede is walking down a staircase towards him. It isn’t Brede. It’s Tom, coming down step by step. Never reaching him.

Axel opened his eyes in the dark, sat bolt upright. He heard Miriam’s slow breathing. Could just make out the hair that flowed across the pillow by the bedhead. The shapes of the books on the shelf above it became clearer, and the photograph of the officer in naval uniform. The only picture he’d seen at her flat. It had to be her father. He had avoided asking. Suddenly he remembered the last thing he’d said to her before she fell asleep: one day I’ll tell you about my twin brother.
One day?
she murmured, half asleep. Next time I come, he said. You will be the first to hear the story. About what happened that summer he was sent away.

It was two minutes to five. He dressed quietly. Out in the hallway he picked up his shoes. There was a smell of something rotting, and it struck him that it was himself he was smelling. He opened the front door slightly and the smell grew stronger. He opened it further. Something was obstructing it. He pushed and managed to get it half open. Suddenly realised what the smell reminded him of: the pathology lab, the smell of an autopsy. He switched on the light. It cast a yellowish cone on to the landing. A hand was lying there, an arm. Ripped and bloody. He hurled himself against the door and stumbled out in his stockinged feet, stepping in something wet and sticky. The body that lay there blocking the doorway was naked. It was a woman. Both legs were missing. The hair was a cake of coagulated blood, the face had been torn open. He couldn’t see the eyes. He stepped back inside, into the hallway. The door swung closed.

From the alcove he heard Miriam’s voice. She called his name. He staggered in to her.

– Where have you been? What’s that smell? Axel, say something.

He cleared his throat.

– It’s … it’s happened again.

She jumped out of the alcove.

– What has happened?

His body felt as though it was collapsing; he held on tight to the back of the chair.

– Outside your door.

She was on her way out; he grabbed hold of her.

– Someone’s lying there. A woman.

– No!

– She’s … You mustn’t go out there.

– Anita, she whispered.

He let go of her. Tried to keep hold of his thoughts. Managed to hang on to one.

– Wait five minutes, until I’m gone. Then call the police. Lock the door and wait here until they come, don’t open up for anyone else.

She looked at him in disbelief.

– Are you going?

– I must talk to Bie. She has to hear this from me … that I was here last night. You do understand, Miriam, you must tell the police you were alone. That you couldn’t get the door open. That you saw a bloodied arm and didn’t dare go out until they arrived.

She was still staring at him, as though she didn’t understand what he was talking about.

– Miriam. He took hold of her hair, drew her head away so that he could see her eyes. They looked frozen. – Remember now? Remember to ring?

He held her tight and kissed her on the cheek. Her arms hung slack.

– Don’t leave now, Axel, she whispered.

He squeezed out through the door, avoided breathing in the stench. Didn’t look down at what was lying there. Staggered down the uneven staircase and out into the back yard. As he put his hand on the gate, someone opened it from the outside. He jumped back a step, stood poised in the half-dark. A man with a cap pulled down over his forehead came in through the opening, pulling a newspaper trolley behind him. For an instant Axel met his gaze.

– Good morning, the man said in heavily accented Norwegian.

Axel dashed past him.

A diffuse band of silver light hung in the eastern sky. He looked at his watch: 5.10. He hurried in the direction of Carl Berners Place before realising he was going in the wrong direction. He turned back. No taxi, he thought. Mustn’t let anyone see me. Don’t even know where I’m going.

Half an hour later, he rang on a doorbell in Tåsenveien.

V
IKEN STOOD ON
the top step, breathing unevenly. Not because he was in such bad shape that he was out of breath from climbing a few stairs, but because what he saw was what he had expected to see, and yet so much worse that it left him gasping for air, and the stench from the dead body was almost unendurable.

Nina Jebsen had stopped on the step below him. He had picked her up on the way. An impulse shot through him: shield her from the sight of this. The dead woman – what was left of her – lay with her head twisted to one side, staring towards the stairs they had just ascended, though the eyes were almost caked over with dried blood. Deep rifts, what looked like claw marks, ran from the lower part of the face and down across the shoulder and back. One corner of the mouth had been ripped open, and the tongue lolled through the opening in the cheek.

Viken looked at the constable standing beside the door.

– Is this the neighbour who contacted the switchboard?

The name
Miriam Gaizauskaite
was written on a sign under the doorbell.

– Yes, she called the emergency number about, – the constable glanced at his watch, – fifty-five minutes ago.

– Technical?

– Not here yet.

Something had struck Viken on the way up. He turned and went downstairs to the floor below.

– Jebsen, he called up to her.

Nina came down the twisting staircase. She was pale and held on to the banister as though afraid the timbers would collapse beneath her at any moment.

Viken pointed to the sign on the door:
Anita and Victoria Elvestrand live here
.

– The missing woman, she confirmed.

Viken hurried back up again, over the first reaction now. He borrowed the constable’s torch and peered at the floor around the mutilated body. Not much blood; obviously the killing hadn’t been done here. The small amount there was came from the severed legs. He could see the clear imprint of a foot in it.

People were talking as they made their way up the stairs. Viken recognised one of the voices, a crime-scene technician. At the same instant he noticed something on the door and the door jamb. He squatted down and shone his torch. A broad marking across the woodwork, five deep downward scratches.

– What’s the first thing that hits you when you see this, Jebsen?

She squatted down beside him.

– Claws, she said at once. – Marks made by a large paw with claws.

Miriam Gaizauskaite sat on the sofa with her legs curled under her. She was wearing jogging pants and a thick sweater. She sat rocking from side to side and staring in front of her.

– So you didn’t hear anything until you tried to open the door? Viken asked again.

She shook her head.

– Listen, Miriam, Viken began, and noticed that Nina Jebsen was watching him. She was probably not used to hearing him address a witness using their first name. – You called the switchboard at seventeen minutes past five. Can you tell us why you were up and about so early?

She glanced at him, then over at Nina. Her pupils were wide open. Is she on something, or is it just the shock? Viken wondered.

– I … woke up early. Couldn’t sleep. Then I heard someone open the gate, thought it was the paper boy. I got up and went to fetch the paper.

– And you neither saw nor heard anything unusual from the time you went to bed at about twelve until you heard the gate open.

Miriam looked down at the floor.

– I didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything.

Half an hour later, Viken made a sign to Nina Jebsen: time to wrap it up.

– We don’t know yet who it is lying out there, said Nina, – but we can’t exclude the possibility that it’s your neighbour.

Miriam began to tremble.

– It is her, she said in a low voice.

– Do you think so?

– Something’s very wrong. I’ve had a feeling about it the whole time.

Viken said: – You know her quite well, I gather. I want to ask something of you. It won’t be easy. It isn’t easy for us either, if that’s any comfort. And you can say no if you don’t want to do it.

Miriam released the hold she had around her knees and let her feet drop to the floor. Her phone rang; it was on the coffee table. She picked it up, looked at the display, turned it off.

– It’s all right, she said. Her voice was clearer now. – I’ll identify the body for you.

The two women went out while Viken had a look round inside the flat. When they came back in again, Nina had an arm around Miriam.

– You’re quite certain?

Miriam leaned towards her.

– I recognise the tattoo, she muttered. – On the shoulder. The picture of a naked man.

– Did you have a visitor here yesterday? asked Viken.

Miriam didn’t answer.

– There are two wine glasses out in the kitchen. And one empty and a half-full bottle.

– I didn’t have visitors. I drank it myself over the last couple of days.

– In other words, you like your wine, said Viken. – Did you drink much yesterday evening?

She closed her eyes.

– A bit too much. I must have fallen asleep.

Before leaving the room, Viken went into the sleeping alcove and lifted the duvet and the two blankets that lay on the bed.

A
T ONE O’CLOCK
on Tuesday afternoon, the investigating team gathered in the meeting room. Four new tactical investigators had joined the group. Agnes Finckenhagen was also present, as was Jarle Frøen, the police prosecutor who was the nominal though far from actual leader of the investigation. The room was divided by sliding doors and there were no windows in the part they were sitting in. Already the air was starting to get heavy and close.

Detective Chief Inspector Viken summed up recent developments.

– We won’t get the DNA results today. But there is no doubt that the victim is Anita Elvestrand, the thirty-six year old who was reported missing from her home on Sunday afternoon by her neighbour on the floor above. The same neighbour gave a positive ID of the body.

– What about next of kin? asked Finckenhagen.

Viken nodded to Arve Norbakk.

– Parents dead, the sergeant informed them. – She has a sister living in Spain and a brother who is an oil worker out on the Gullfaks rig. They have been contacted, but neither of them has any imminent plans to come over.

Viken resumed.

– The neighbour’s name is Miriam Gaizauskaite, a Lithuanian citizen. She is studying medicine here in Oslo. We’ll come back to her. I’ve had pictures sent over from the pathology lab; let’s take a look at those first.

He clicked his way to the file on the computer.

– Jebsen and I were there and saw this abomination. Strong stuff, I warn you … One great advantage in your favour: the pictures don’t smell.

Sigge Helgarsson seemed to be about to make a comment, but instead tipped back on his chair and said nothing.

Viken pulled down the screen.

– As you will note immediately, the victim exhibits distinctive injuries to the face, neck and down the back.

He clicked through a series of pictures of the ravaged body.