The Final Murder (17 page)

‘What makes you say that?’ he finally asked.

‘Can’t you just tell me where you were?’

His voice was no longer impatient. His brother was pleading

with him now, a whining, demanding little-brother voice that Trond recognized from childhood and that still annoyed him.

‘What makes you say that and why are you asking me now?’

After all, he was the oldest.

Bard shrugged his shoulders.

‘What with everything that’s happened … I’ve had other

things to think about. But now, now that… You just disappeared!

I looked for you everywhere. After I’d been for a slash. You helped me? D’you remember?’

Trond nodded but said nothing.

‘You were the only who wasn’t absolutely trashed. I wanted to borrow some money. Used over three thousand krone. Think I

bought rounds for everyone. You weren’t there. Couldn’t find you anywhere.’

‘Did you ask anyone where I was?’

‘Everyone was asking where everyone was all the time! Don’t

you remember? We just about had the run of the place. It was mad.’ He grinned, then pulled himself together. ‘The next time I saw you, it was three minutes past twelve. And I know that fine well, because you made such a big thing about your watch, the one you got from …’

‘My watch? I didn’t have my watch on.’

‘Yeah you did, cut the crap. When we had that beer-drinking

competition, you stood on the bar and took the time with that monstrosity on your arm.’

Trond flushed. And then got hotter. He could smell his own

body odour, sharp and bitter. His bladder was bursting. He

wanted to get up. He wanted to go to the toilet, but his knees refused to help him.

‘Why did I admit it?’ he thought. ‘Why didn’t I just deny it?

Bard was shitfaced. He might have made a mistake. Muddled up the times. There were so many people there. Everyone said that I was just mingling and drinking. Showing off. I should have denied it. I had every chance to deny it. I’ll deny it.’

‘You’re getting it all confused,’ he said, and clutched the table with both hands. ‘I didn’t go anywhere. You fell asleep on the bog.

Don’t know how long you…’

‘What the hell are you saying? I know I didn’t fall asleep! I didn’t get to bed until eight the next morning. I was pretty pissed that night, but not enough not to notice …’

Trond forced himself out of the chair. He took a deep breath.

Pushed out his chest and held his shoulders back. He was the big brother. The biggest, nearly ten centimetres taller than his brother.

‘I need a piss,’ he barked.

‘Right?’

‘You’re my brother. We’re brothers.’

‘Right,’ Bard repeated with a puzzled, slightly irritated look, as if Trond was wasting his energy trying to convince him that the world was round and circled the sun. ‘And?’

‘You’re wrong. I was there all the time.’

‘Do you think I’m a complete idiot, or what?’

He slipped round the table and stood in front of Trond, his fists balled. Bard was shorter than his brother, but much stronger.

Their faces were barely a hand apart.

‘You admitted it ten minutes ago,’ he hissed, his eyes narrowed.

Trond felt a fine shower of spit on his skin.

‘I admitted nothing.’

‘You said that you couldn’t say anything to Stubo. You said that you’d lied. Isn’t that admitting, or what?’

‘I really need a piss.’

‘Admit it.’

Bard punched his brother on the shoulder. Hard, with his fist.

‘Admit.’

Suddenly, without warning, Trond grabbed him round the waist.

Bard struggled to keep his balance, holding on to his brother’s shirt with his left hand as he tried to find something solid to hold on to with his right. A bit too late, he noticed that Trond’s foot was in the way as he tried to take a step sideways. They fell over. As they went down, Bard got caught on the cord of the mixer. A survival instinct made him move his head when he saw the heavy

Kenwood. The steel edge caught his ear. He howled and tried to lift his hand to feel the wound. His arms were pinned down. Only his head was free and he threw it from side to side as he shouted.

Trond punched him.

Trond sat with a knee on each of his brother’s arms and let rip.

He closed his eyes and laid into his brother.

When he was exhausted, he got up quickly. He smoothed down

his hair, as if

he couldn’t quite believe what had just happened

and wanted to pretend that nothing had. His brother groaned.

Blood was pouring from his ear. One eye had already started to swell up. His upper lip was split. His shirt was torn. His upper groin was soaking, a dark butterfly-shaped patch on the khaki material of his trousers.

‘You’ve pissed yourself,’ Bard slurred, holding his ear. ‘You’ve bloody pissed on me.’

He sat up, stiff and unsure if anything was broken. He studied his bloody hand and then put it over his ear again.

‘Is the lobe still there?’ he asked. His voice was hoarse and he spat some blood. ‘Have I lost my earlobe, Trond?’

His big brother crouched down and looked at the wound.

‘No. Nasty cut. The ear’s all there.’

Bard started to laugh. At first Trond thought he was crying. But his brother was laughing, he laughed until he coughed, holding his knees roaring with laughter and spitting blood.

‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’ he groaned. ‘You’ve never

beaten me up before. You’ve never even managed to tackle me to the ground. Have you ever had a fight before?’

‘Here,’ Trond said and gave him a hand.

‘Wait. Hurts everywhere. Have to do it myself.’

It took him a few minutes to get to his feet. Trond stood helplessly by watching him, hands hanging by his side. He scratched

his thigh uncertainly.

‘Worst thing is the piss,’ Bard said and carefully shook a leg. ‘In any case, you’ve still got an alibi.’

‘What?’

‘An hour and a half,’ Bard said and gently tested one of his front teeth.

‘What?’

‘I can swear on the Bible that you were in the centre of Oslo at half past ten and around midnight. You wouldn’t make it out here and back. Not without anyone seeing you, anyway.’

‘I could’ve taken a taxi.’

‘The driver would’ve told the police ages ago.’

‘I could’ve driven.’

‘Your car was at Mum and Dad’s. All the boys know that, they picked us up there.’

‘I might’ve stolen one.’

‘Aw shit, this ear,’ Bard said, and closed his eyes as he tried to move one of his shoulders. ‘It’s bloody sore. Do I need stitches?’

Trond bent down closer.

‘Maybe. I’ll drive you down to A&E.’

‘You still have an alibi, Trond.’

‘Yes, I was at Smuget. All evening.’

Bard bit himself gently on his split lip.

‘OK,’ he said and nodded.

They looked at each other. It’s like looking into my own eyes, thought Trond, even though his brother was beaten and bloody.

The same slightly slanting left eye. Green specks in the blue iris.

The Mongolian fold in the corner of the eye, which his mother always said was so unusual in this country. Even their eyebrows, which were so fair that their foreheads almost looked naked, were the same. He had beaten up his brother. He couldn’t understand why. And he found it even harder to believe that he’d managed it, Bard was stronger, faster and much bolder.

‘OK,’ Bard said, and wiped his nose on the back of his hand.

‘You were at Smuget. All night. Fine.’

He limped towards the sitting-room door.

‘I won’t say any more,’ he said and stopped. ‘But…’

He turned around and took a breath.

‘No one is going to think you killed Vibeke, Trond. I think you should tell the police everything. I can come with you, if you want.’

‘I was at Smuget all night,’ Trond repeated. ‘So it’s not necessary’

Bard

shrugged and limped on.

He was on his way to the bedroom to lay claim to Trond’s most expensive trousers. Theresa, his fiancee, could take them up. He had a right to take at least his best trousers.

‘You gave me a good bashing,’ he muttered, impressed.

The visit to Yvonne Knutsen was not a success. Johanne had

already been warned in the corridor. The nurse whispered that she was suffering from severe MS and refused to see most people.

Only her son-in-law and granddaughter were always welcome.

The woman in white was right. Yvonne Knutsen clammed up

the minute Johanne walked into the room. She lay rigid in her bed, which stood in the centre of the room. Otherwise the room was more or less empty. A faded lithograph hung askew in a

broken frame on one wall and there was a wooden chair by the bed. Through the dirty, streaked windowpanes, the sharp light of the low sun that had blinded Johanne as she drove the last stretch to the nursing home had been reduced to a matt disc above the horizon. Johanne got nothing out of Yvonne Knutsen other than ‘Please go away,’ before the sick woman turned her head and pretended to fall asleep.

‘I’m so sorry,’ the nurse had said, and rested a comforting hand on her shoulder when she came out, as if it was Johanne’s mother who lay there motionless, waiting to die.

The journey home was awful. One of her tyres punctured on

the E18 on the way back to Oslo. It took a while to find a lay-by where she could pull in and the tyre was frayed to shreds. It was bucketing down and stormy, and by the time she got the jack out, she was soaked to the skin.

She finally got home, an hour late.

‘MS is a horrible disease,’ she muttered, and rearranged the cushions to get more comfortable. She was sitting on the sofa in her tracksuit, with Ragnhild half asleep at her breast.

‘You think all illnesses are horrible,’ replied Adam.

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Oh, yes you do.’

He put a large spoon of honey in her tea and stirred it.

‘Drink up. I’ve put some ginger in, so that should help.’

‘It’s too hot. What if Ragnhild moved suddenly and I spill…’

‘Here,’ he said with determination, and took up the baby. ‘She’s full. Drink up so you don’t catch anything. Do you want a dram of something?’

‘No thank you. It was so awful to see.’

‘I agree. I had to talk to her just after the murder.’

Johanne lifted the cup to her mouth.

‘Tell me about it,’ Adam said, and sat down on the sofa facing her.

She pulled up her feet and tucked the cushions behind her

back.

‘Fiona has two children,’ she said.

‘Fiona, she’s … she’s got a daughter.’

‘Yes, but she definitely gave birth to two children.’

Ragnhild burped. Adam put her over his shoulder and stroked

her tiny back.

‘I don’t get it,’ he said.

‘Nor do I, in fact,’ she retorted.

She reached out for the papers he had given her when she got home, soaking wet and grumpy. The bottom page was still damp and soft.

‘In the journal of Fiona’s pregnancy and birth, she is constantly referred to as a first-time mother. And I can assure you

She dropped the papers back onto the table and made herself

more comfortable.

‘A doctor or a midwife can easily identify whether a woman has had a child before or not. It’s routine. But nothing like that is written in the papers. Fiorella was born by Caesarean and it was

planned. As far as I can tell from Fiona’s journal, she suffered from anxiety in connection with giving birth, which they obviously took seriously. A Caesarean on a set date, for no reason other than the psychological.’

‘Yes, but…’

Adam put Ragnhild down in the cot, which had been moved

back into the sitting room. He was rocking it gently with his feet.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Not so strange. Everyone thinks that Fiorella was Fiona’s first child. The doctors too, even though they must have known it

wasn’t so.’

‘But you,’ Adam’s brow was wrinkled with scepticism, ‘you

know better than everyone else.’

‘Not me, the pathologist.’

She went out into the kitchen and came back with the teapot in one hand and the autopsy report in the other. ‘Perinealrupture” she read out loud.

‘Which means?’

‘Think about it.’

‘I’m thinking. What does it mean?’

‘Listen to the words,’ she said impatiently, and helped herself to more tea and honey. ‘I’m coming down with a cold.’

‘Oh give over,’ Adam said. ‘Tell me what you’re getting at. How can you …’

‘Perineum,’ she interrupted,’… is the medical term for the area between the vagina and the anus. A perineal rupture can occur during childbirth, when you get torn from …’

‘Enough,’ he said and pulled a face. ‘I understand. But why the hell haven’t we seen that? If it’s there in black and white …’

He was put out and leant over the coffee table, grabbed the

autopsy report from her and started to read.

‘You just didn’t get what it meant,’ Johanne said. ‘You simply ignored it. You were blinded by looking for some sort of sexual motive, so …’

‘Ignored it,’ Adam shouted. ‘Ignoredit?”

‘You’re in good company. It’s been revealed that in the Knutby case, the Swedish police shelved a possible murder because they didn’t know what “toxic mass” meant. Don’t you read the papers?’

‘Preferably not,’ he retorted, leafing frantically through the report trying to find something. ‘But these new … What about that journal there?’

He tapped the other papers with his finger.

‘Why would the doctors lie? Is the journal a fake?’

‘Probably not. I rang my cousin Even - the doctor you met…’

‘I remember Even. What did he say?’

Adam sat down in the sofa opposite her again.

‘There can be only one reason why the journals don’t include details that are so relevant for doctors and midwives, and so easy to verify,’ Johanne explained.

‘And that is?’

‘That it would cause considerable distress to the patient if they were included. Considerable distress, Even said. And as far as I understood, great importance is attached to that.’