The Final Murder (19 page)

‘School show? Right after a nervous breakdown?’

Jack growled at an over-confident drake. It puffed out its feathers and tried to take a piece of bread that was only a couple of metres from the dog’s snout.

‘Quiet,’ Johanne said.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Sorry. I’m talking to the dog. So, did Fiona take part? Did she tell you why she’d been away?’

‘Yes. Well, not… Oh, it was all so long ago.’

Her voice sounded slightly apologetic. But it also sounded as if she really wanted to help.

‘Like I said, we were best friends. Talked about everything and anything, like best friends do. But I remember that I was a bit put out, hurt, that Fiona didn’t really want to tell me where she’d been and what was actually wrong with her. That I’m sure about.

I remember my mother said I should just let it lie. That kind of… sickness was never easy’

‘But Modum Bad and the nervous breakdown could easily be

your own conclusions, not necessarily something you knew or are certain about,’ Johanne summarized.

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

‘Could you just give me an idea of what she was like when she came back?’

‘No… what she was like? Just normal, really. Like before. I hadn’t seen her for, well… five months, it must have been. From midsummer until the end of November. And at that age you grow up so fast. But we were best friends. Still, I should say’

A group from the nursery walked by, two by two, hand in hand, waddling down the path in their oversized winter clothes. A little fellow with his hat down over his eyes and a snotty nose was crying. A woman took him by the arm and called:

‘Not far to go now, children. Come along!’

‘Do you think she might have been pregnant?’ asked Johanne.

‘Pregnant? Pregnant?”

Sara Brubakk laughed lightly.

‘No, you can forget that. Goodness, time showed that it was

extremely difficult for her to get pregnant at all. You know that Fiorella was a test-tube baby?’

Johanne didn’t know. In fact, there was a bit too much about Fiona Helle’s life that hadn’t found its way into the NCIS investigation files.

‘In any case,’ Sara Brubakk added,’… I’m a hundred per cent certain that Fiona would’ve told me if it was anything like that.

We were like Bill and Ben. Pregnant? No, never.’

‘But you didn’t see her for five months,’ Johanne argued.

‘No. But pregnant? Absolutely not.’

‘OK. Well thank you very much for your time.’

‘Was that all?’

‘For the moment, yes. Thank you.’

‘Are you getting anywhere with the case?’

‘We generally manage to solve them,’ Johanne said evasively.

‘It just takes time. I realize that it must be very difficult for you all.

Family and friends.’

‘Yes. Just give me a call if there’s anything else I can do. I am more than willing to help.’

‘Thank you, I understand. Goodbye.’

The crocodile of children had turned into Mor Go’hjertasvei

and disappeared between the blocks of flats. The ducks had settled down. They were sitting in groups on the ice, their legs

underneath them and their beaks tucked into the heat of their breast feathers.

Johanne started to wander up the path along the river.

‘For a long time there were no secrets in this case,’ she thought to herself. Jack lolloped obediently along beside her. ‘It was remarkably free of hate and secrets. But then they popped up. As they always do, in all cases, after all murders. Lies. Half-truths.

Veiled facts and forgotten, hidden stories.’

Ragnhild started to cry. Johanne looked into the pram. Her

toothless gums were bared in a furious howl. Her mother filled the gaping hole with the dummy. All was quiet.

She had pondered on it for a long time. Why both cases, Fiona’s and Vibeke’s, were so strangely free of contradictions and underlying conflicts.

She picked up speed. The wind was bitter and biting. Ragnhild would wake up properly soon. They had to get home.

‘Maternal rejection has ended in murder before this,’ she

mused as she struggled with the pavement edge in Bergensgate.

‘But why nearly twenty-six years later? Had the child, now an adult, only just found out the truth? Could the revelation of a past betrayal have stirred such hate? Could it be the driving force behind a murder like this, a gruesome, symbolic execution?

Or …’

She stopped. Jack looked at her in surprise, with his tongue hanging out of his slavering mouth. A bus drove past. The exhaust made Johanne cough and turn away.

Maybe the rejection wasn’t that long ago.

The thought had struck her the night before, when Adam

warned her against unfounded speculation. Maybe Fiona Helle’s secret child had only recently traced its biological mother. Ironic, she thought to herself, if Fiona herself had become an object of desire, like those she had exploited for entertainment, on which she had built her career.

‘Don’t speculate. Adam’s right. This is too vague. And if the child really does exist…’

‘What the hell would that person have to do with Vibeke

Heinerback?’ she asked herself aloud, and then shook her head.

It had to be two murderers.

Or maybe not.

Yes, two. Or one.

‘I’ve got to stop,’ she thought. ‘This is madness.

Unprofessional. A profiler uses sophisticated data programs.

Works in a team. Has access to archives and know-how. I am not a profiler. I’m an ordinary woman out walking with her baby and dog. But there’s something, there’s something that…’

She started to run. Ragnhild was screaming in the pram, which rattled and shook and nearly turned over when Johanne slid on some ice as she turned the corner into Haugesvei.

When she finally got home, she locked the door and put on the security chain before taking off her coat and boots.

Trond Arnesen couldn’t sleep. It was two o’clock on Wednesday morning. He had been up a couple of times to get water, his

mouth felt like sandpaper, but he didn’t know why. There was nothing on TV. At least, nothing that caught his interest, or at least stopped him from worrying, gave him some minutes’ respite from his brain that was churning things over and over and keeping sleep at bay.

He gave up. Got up for the fourth time. Got dressed.

He thought he could take a walk, get some air.

The snow had started to fall at around eight. It lay like a clean, light blanket over the ground, over the rotting leaves and winter remains, dirty-grey snow banks and sludgy roads. The gravel

crunched under his feet and the gate squealed when he opened it.

He walked aimlessly up the hill, as if lured by the lamplight.

There was no way he could tell the truth.

He couldn’t even have told the truth straight away, at the time, when he still had a chance, in that sweaty room with the policeman who looked like he was about to burst out laughing.

It had definitely been the last time that Friday, and it had been so easy to forget.

Then Bard came.

Idiot.

Trond thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his down

jacket. He walked fast. There was no else around at this time of night and people had gone to bed in the dark houses along the road, hours ago. A cat darted across the road, stopped for a moment and stared at him with yellow, luminescent eyes, before disappearing between the trees on the other side.

He missed Vibeke. There was a vacuum behind his ribs, a longing that he couldn’t remember ever having felt before, but it was like missing his mum when he went to camp as a boy.

Vibeke was so strong. She would have sorted things out.

The tears left frozen tracks on his cheeks.

He sniffed, blew his nose on his fingers, and then stood still.

This was where the taxi had stopped for him to throw up. He

prodded the snowdrift with the toes of his boots. It was lighter up here, with lamp posts every five metres or so. The snow shimmered like blue-white diamonds when he kicked it.

His watch suddenly appeared.

Puzzled, he bent down.

It was his watch. He blew on it and shook off the snow, held it up to his eyes. Ten past three. The second hand ticked loyally on and the date showed the 18th.

When he put the watch on, the plastic burnt ice-cold against his skin.

He was glad and smiled. The watch reminded him of Vibeke

and he put his hand round the black watchstrap and squeezed it.

He should tell them.

He’d made such a fuss about the diving watch that he should

let Adam Stubo know that he’d found it. Trond had simply been mistaken. He hadn’t left it at home, but had worn it to the party and it’d fallen off when he was bent double puking up his guts.

The policeman might have moved heaven and earth to try and

find the watch. And Trond didn’t want heaven and earth to be moved. He wanted peace and quiet, and to have as little as possible to do with the police.

He could send a text message. That was the solution. Stubo

had given him his number and assured him that he could phone whenever he wanted. Texting would be safest. It was ordinary and undramatic, the modern way to communicate trivial messages and minor events.

Found my watch. Had dropped it in the snow. Sorry about the fuss!

Trond Arnesen.

There, it was done. He turned around. Couldn’t wander the

streets all night. Maybe he could find a DVD to kill time. He could take one of Vibeke’s sleeping pills. He’d never tried one before. It would probably knock him out completely. The idea was very appealing.

He didn’t care about the book that had disappeared. Rudolf

Fjord could buy a new copy.

‘Adam.’

She prodded him.

‘Hmmm.’

‘I’m scared.’

‘Don’t be scared. Go to sleep.’

‘I can’t.’

He gave a demonstrative sigh and pulled the pillow down over his face.

‘We have to sleep sometimes,’ was Adam’s muffled response.

‘Every now and then.’

He peeped out from behind the pillow and yawned.

‘What are you frightened of now?’

‘I woke up because your phone was beeping and then…’

‘Did my phone ring? Bugger, I should’ve…’

His hands fumbled around trying to find the light switch on the bedside table. He knocked over a glass of water.

‘Shit,’ he groaned. ‘Where…?’

The light exploded in his face. He squinted and sat up in bed.

‘It didn’t ring,’ Johanne explained quickly. ‘Just peeped. And then…’

‘Jesus,’ he mumbled. ‘Great time to send a text. Poor boy.

Guess he can’t sleep either. Seems a bit weedy, to tell the truth.’

‘Who?’

‘Trond Arnesen. Forget it. Nothing important.’

He got out of bed and pulled on his boxer shorts.

‘It’s good that you’ve finally agreed to let Ragnhild sleep in her own bed. Otherwise we’d all be going round like zombies. As if we don’t already’

‘Don’t be angry. Where are you going?’

‘Water,’ he grumbled and pointed. ‘Have to get a cloth.’

‘Just leave it. It’s only water.’

He hesitated for a moment. Then he shrugged his shoulders and crept back under the duvet. He turned down the light and held out an arm towards Johanne. She snuggled up to him.

‘What are you frightened of?’ he asked again. ‘Ragnhild’s just fine.’

‘It’s not that. It’s these cases…’

‘I knew it,’ he sighed, and made himself more comfortable.

The light still hurt his eyes.

‘Should never have got you involved in this mess. I’m an idiot.

Can I turn off the light?’

‘Mmm. I just don’t think you’ve got much time.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘What I say’

‘We all know that time is our worst enemy,’ he said, and gave a long yawn. ‘But then again, as we haven’t even found one hot lead, it’s better to be painstaking. Build stone by stone.’

‘But what if…’

He suddenly pulled himself away and sat up.

‘It’s nearly three in the morning,’ he groaned. ‘I want to sleep!

Can’t we leave this until the morning?’

‘What if the murderer was only out to get one of the victims?’

she said slowly. ‘If, for example, it was Fiona he wanted to get and then Vibeke was killed to camouflage his real motive.’

‘Hallo,’ Adam exclaimed and filled his cheeks with air. ‘We’re living in Norway. Camouflage killings! Have you ever even heard about that sort of thing?’

‘Yes, lots of times.’

‘But not here!’

His hands hit the duvet with a dull thud.

‘Not in the tiny kingdom of Norway, where people generally

kill each other with knives in drunken brawls! And in any case, one more murder is a pretty pathetic camouflage, I must say! But now we have to go to sleep I” ‘Shhh,’ she whispered.

‘I will talk as loud as I like.’

‘I agree that one killing is a poor camouflage. But that’s why you haven’t got much time.’

He stood up abruptly. The floorboards creaked under his

weight. The water spilt and he swore under his breath. The glass rolled slowly under the bed. He pulled off the duvet and walked towards the door.

‘You seem to get by on remarkably little sleep,’ he snapped.

She could have sworn that his voice trembled, as if he was holding back the tears. ‘But I can’t. If you’re frightened …’

His shoulders sank. He struggled with the bedclothes. Then he took a deep breath and continued:

‘You can wake me, of course. But then you have to be really

frightened. Absolutely terrified. I’m going to sleep in Kristiane’s bed. Good night.’

The door slammed and Ragnhild started to cry.

‘No,’ she heard a groan from the hall. ‘Dear God, noooooo!’

Vegard Krogh had never liked the woods that he had to go through to get to his mother’s house. When he was little, he never dared to take the path unless it was broad daylight, and then preferably with someone else. There was a story that a ghost lived there.

Supposedly the place had once been a graveyard. It had been levelled in the eighteenth century, with no respect for the dead. The poltergeists were taking their revenge, that was what the children in the neighbourhood said, and would hound anyone who dared to go into the woods after dark.