The Final Murder (26 page)

‘Stop treating me like an idiot.’

‘That was certainly not the intention. If I’ve treated you like an idiot, I apologize.’

‘You’re doing it again.’

‘What?’

‘That attitude. That “poor monster” attitude.’

‘Cut it out.’

Stubo got up. Came over to the chessboard. The policeman was as tall as him. He moved the bishop.

‘That’s wrong,’ Mats said.

‘Wrong? I’ll decide that.’

‘No, it’s a set game. The opening of the …’

‘Nothing is set in stone, Mats Bohus. That’s what’s so fascinating about all games.’

Mats let go of the door handle. His head hurt. He tended to get headaches about this time of day. When the place came alive and there were too many people. The room was overcrowded. The

lawyer was standing in a corner with his hands behind his back.

He rose up on his toes and then down again. Up. Down. He

reminded Mats more of a stressed policeman than a person who was there to help him.

‘I know what you’re playing at,’ Mats said to Adam Stubo.

‘I’m trying to have a conversation.’

‘Bullshit. You’re trying to build up trust. Talking about harmless things. To begin with. You want to create a relaxed atmosphere.

Make me feel safe. Make me think that you’re actually trying to help me.’

‘I am trying to help you.’

‘Really. You’re going to arrest me. You think this pandering helps. Eventually you’ll get to the point. That guy there …’

He pointed a stubby, fat finger in Sigmund Berli’s direction.

Sigmund was sitting on a chair, repressing yawn after yawn.

‘… he’ll probably turn out to be the bad guy. If your nicely nicely tactics don’t work. Pretty obvious really.’

The policeman had a small cut just behind his ear. The scab

looked like an A, as if someone has started to carve his name on his scalp, but then changed their mind.

‘This is just a waste of time,’ Mats Bohus said.

The rook’s embrasures were framed with silver. A minute

miniature figure with a crossbow was kneeling down, aiming, in one of them. Mats poked the tiny soldier carefully.

‘Do you not remember what I said when you came?’

‘Yes.’

‘What? What did I say?’

Adam Stubo looked long and hard at the young man. It didn’t

look as if he was thinking of leaving any more. The door was still closed and Mats Bohus was standing with his back to the others.

‘You said that you didn’t regret it.’

‘Exactly. And how do you interpret that?’

‘As a confession.’

‘Of what?’

‘I’m not quite sure yet.’

‘I killed her. That’s what I was talking about.’

The lawyer opened his mouth and took a step into the room, as he raised his arm in warning. Then he stopped suddenly, his jaw shutting with an audible snap. Dr Bonheur was sitting with his arms crossed, his face devoid of expression. Sigmund Berli looked as if he was about to get up, but changed his mind and sank back onto the chair with a grunt.

No one said anything.

Mats Bohus crossed the floor and sat down in the deep visitor’s chair. Adam followed him with his eyes. There was a strange aesthetic in the way the young man moved. He rolled. His flesh

rolled forwards, streamlined in waves, like a whale in the depths of the sea.

‘I killed my mother.’

His voice was different now. His whole appearance was of a

man who had just expended a huge amount of energy. The scar on his upper lip looked redder, tighter, he licked it with his tongue.

His arms hung heavy on either side of the chair.

Everyone was still silent.

Adam sat down as well. He leant over the desk.

Mats Bohus seemed younger than his twenty-six years. There

was hardly any sign of stubble. His skin was smooth. No spots, nor scars apart from the broad red stripe above his mouth. His eyes filled with tears.

‘She didn’t want me,’ he said. ‘She didn’t want me when I was born and she didn’t want me now. In her programmes … In interviews, she always said that nothing bad could come of families

being reunited. Everyone else got Fiona Helle’s help. She only turned her back on me, her own son. She lied. She didn’t want me. No one wants me. I don’t want myself either.’

‘Your mother wanted you,’ Adam said. ‘Your real mother and

father. They wanted you.’

‘But they weren’t real. As it turned out.’

‘You’re too intelligent to actually believe that.’

‘They’re dead.’

‘Yes, that’s true.’

Adam hesitated for a second before continuing:

‘The others, what about them?’

Mats Bohus was crying. Big, round tears hung on his lashes

before breaking and running down his nose. He leant slowly forwards, brushed the papers and family photos from the desk and

buried his face in his arms. The glass of water fell on the floor without breaking.

‘The others,’ Adam Stubo repeated. ‘Vibeke Heinerback and

Vegard Krogh. What had they done?’

‘I don’t want myself,’ cried Mats. ‘I… don’t… want…’

‘I don’t quite understand,’ said Alex Bonheur, his voice sharp.

‘First of all, I must insist that this … hearing ends immediately.

Continuing is not advisable. And …’

He put his hand gently on Mats Bohus’s back. The young man

responded with some loud sobs.

‘I don’t see how there can be any connection between …’

‘I’m sure you understand,’ Adam said calmly. ‘Even though

Mats doesn’t read the papers, I’m sure you do. As you know, there have been several murders with similar features and …’

‘There’s no question,’ Dr Bonheur said, and sent a reproachful look to the lawyer, who was still standing there with his mouth open, not knowing what to say. ‘Mats Bohus has been here since the twenty-first of January’

Sigmund Berli was trying to think. His brain cells were asleep.

He was so tired that he barely managed to get up, but he had to think and he burst out:

‘But the man’s here voluntarily. So he must be allowed to come and go as he pleases? Sometimes …’

‘No,’ Dr Bonheur said. ‘He’s been here all the time.’

An uncomfortable silence followed. The lawyer had finally

managed to close his mouth for good. Sigmund held his hand up, as if to protest, but didn’t manage to say anything. Adam closed his eyes. Even Mats Bohus had stopped crying. Earlier they had heard footsteps going up and down the corridor, people talking, a very loud scream, on the other side of the closed door. Now there wasn’t a sound.

It was Sigmund who finally ventured to ask the question:

‘Are you absolutely sure? One hundred per cent sure?’

‘Yes. Mats Bohus came to the hospital on the twenty-first of January at seven in the morning. And he has not been out since. I can vouch for that.’

Sigmund Berli had never felt so awake.

The TV was appalling on Saturday night, which suited Johanne rather well. Every now and then she drifted off, but was woken abruptly by her own thoughts that mutated into strange dreams as she dozed.

Kristiane was staying with the neighbours. It was the first time she had stayed the night with a friend. Leonard had turned up with a written invitation on a piece of red A4, with big, bold letters.

Kristiane’s bedwetting, the fact that Sulamit had to be a cat before she could fall asleep, went through Johanne’s mind. She hesitated.

‘The fire engine can be a cat for tonight if that’s what matters,’ Leonard said.

Gitta Jensen, who was standing halfway up the stairs, smiled.

‘That’s true,’ she said. ‘Leonard would really love Kristiane to stay. And what with Ragnhild and having to get up every night…

we thought it might be nice for you too.’

‘I want to,’ Kristiane decided. ‘I’m going to sleep in the

bunkbeds. On the top one.’

Kristiane was allowed to go, and now Johanne regretted it.

The girl could get so frightened. She was so wary of change. It had taken her months to get used to the new house. For a long time, she had woken up every night and looked for the grownups’

room where it had been in the old flat, only to be confronted with a wall. Her disconsolate cries did not stop until she was allowed to sleep on a small mattress beside Adam’s bed.

Kristiane would wet the bed. Then she would be ashamed and

sad. She had started to register what was going on around her recently and was more aware of her differentness. It was a step forward, but also incredibly painful.

For Johanne, at least.

Adam had rung. He was brief. Said that he would be home late.

Johanne turned off the TV. But then it was too quiet so she

turned it on again. She strained to hear sounds from the flat below.

They must have gone to bed already. More than anything, she

wanted to go down and get Kristiane. To have her on her lap, chatting about strange, harmless things. Put a night nappy on the nine-year old, which was invisible as no one apart from Mummy knew. They could play chess, according to Kristiane’s rules, which meant that the knight was allowed to charge wherever it liked and it was the only one that was allowed to eat pawns for dinner. They could watch a film. Stay awake together.

Johanne was shivering. It didn’t help to snuggle up in a blanket.

That morning, in a home that wasn’t her own, she had finally dared to peek into a room that had been closed for so long. She had been forced to do it. She didn’t want to. She felt humiliated and pathetic, and she was cold.

If only Adam would come home soon!

She held Ragnhild to her chest. She weighed nearly five kilos now and her skin lay in small folds over her plump hands. Time passed so quickly. Her first dark baby down had almost disappeared and it looked like she would have fair hair. She could hold

her gaze now, and even though everyone said it was too early to tell, Johanne was sure that she would have green eyes. There was a shadow of Adam’s cleft in her chin.

If only he would come home. It was eleven o’clock already.

They were going to her parents for a family meal tomorrow.

Johanne didn’t know whether she’d be able to leave the house.

The noise of a door downstairs made Johanne instinctively hug Ragnhild closer. Her mouth slipped from the nipple and she howled.

The rattling of keys. Heavy steps on the stairs.

At last she could tell Adam what they were up against.

One murderer.

A murderer who had killed and mutilated Fiona Helle, Vibeke

Heinerback and Vegard Krogh. There was a monster out there.

The incomprehensible outlines of a plan that for the moment told her little other than that the murders were carried out by one and the same man.

Adam stood in the doorway, his shoulders sloping under his

coat.

‘It was him. Mats Bohus. He’s confessed.’

‘What?’

Johanne got up from the sofa. She was shaking and nearly

dropped her daughter. Slowly, she sank back into the sofa.

‘So … but… What a great relief, Adam!’

‘He killed his mother.’

‘And?’

‘Fiona Helle, that is.’

‘And …’

‘There is no and. No more.’

Adam pulled off his coat and dropped it on the floor. He went out into the kitchen. Johanne heard the fridge door opening and closing. A can of beer being opened.

Adam was wrong and she knew it.

‘He killed the others as well, didn’t he? He …’

‘No.’

Adam crossed the floor and stood behind the sofa, with one

hand on her shoulders and the other round the beer can. He

drank. His swallowing was audible, almost demonstrative.

‘There is no serial killer,’ he said, and dried his mouth with the back of his hand, before finishing the can. ‘Just a series of bloody killings. Must be contagious. I’m going to bed, love. Exhausted.’

‘But,’ she started.

He stopped in the door and turned round.

‘Do you want a hand with Ragnhild?’

‘No, it’s not necessary. I’ll … But, Adam …’

‘What?’

‘Maybe he’s lying? Maybe he’s…’

‘He’s not lying. So far, everything he’s told us matches the evidence we found at Fiona’s house. We managed to question him

again this evening. Probably not advisable, in terms of his health, but … He knows details that haven’t been released. He had a clear motive. Fiona didn’t want anything to do with him. Like you said. She simply rejected him. Mats Bohus said she was repulsed by him. Repulsed, he repeated it again and again. He’s even …’

Adam rubbed his face with his left hand and let out a great sigh.

‘… kept the knife. The one he used to cut out her tongue. He killed her, Johanne.’

‘But he might be lying about the others! He might have confessed about murdering his mother but lied about…’

Adam was still clutching the empty beer can.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve never heard a better alibi. He hasn’t left the hospital building since the twenty-first of January.’

He stared at the beer can in exasperation, as if he had forgotten that he’d crushed it. Distracted, he looked up and asked:

‘Were you going to say something?’

‘What?’

Johanne put Ragnhild over her shoulder and pulled the blanket tighter round them both.

‘You looked as if you wanted to tell me something when I came in,’ Adam said, and gave a great yawn. ‘What was it?’

She had waited for him for hours, watched for him from the

window, stared at the phone, looked the clock. She had been

impatient and anxious, longing to share the burden of what she had seen and remembered. But now it was only a coincidence,

everything.

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘It was nothing.’

‘OK, I’m off to bed then,’ he said, and left the room.

Sunday the 22nd of February had barely dawned. The streets

were unusually quiet. Scarcely a pedestrian was to be seen on the main drag of Karl Johan, even though the clubs and the odd pub would be open for a few hours yet. A snowstorm was blowing in from the fjord, thick and furious, discouraging people from looking for a new watering hole. Even the taxi rank by the