The Final Murder (33 page)

‘There’s lots of meetings this evening,’ the woman replied. She was big and heavy with unflattering glasses. ‘I thought it would be best to stay a while longer, with people coming and going all the time. And not everyone is good at making sure the door is locked behind them. But if I’m here, it’s not so much of a problem.’

‘You truly are a loyal trouper,’ Kari Mundal praised her. ‘But please don’t wait for me. I may well be very late. I’ll be in the Yellow Room, if you want anything.’

She leant conspiratorially over the desk and whispered:

‘I’d rather not be disturbed.’

With her hands full of shopping bags, she tripped over the

spiral pattern on the floor. As always, she cast a glance at the gold shield bearing the party’s motto, and smiled, before heading for the lift.

‘Did you find everything I wanted?’ she asked suddenly, turning back to the entrance.

‘Yes,’ replied the stout lady behind the desk. ‘Everything

should be there. Forms, vouchers, everything. Hege in accounts is working overtime today, so you just go in to her if you need anything.

I didn’t mention it to anyone else.’

‘Thank you,’ said Kari Mundal. ‘You’re an angel.’

Rudolf Fjord paused for a few minutes on the broad landing on the first floor that looked down into the foyer, where the chandelier had been lit, casting a soft yellow glow on the room below.

Then he drew back into the shadows by the wall, by the impressive palm next to the door to his office. The fear that he had

managed to repress, the anxiety he had buried on the day he

received the party’s unconditional acceptance, flared up again, as he had known it would, even though he had prayed to God that it would never haunt him again.

‘I really appreciate your discretion,’ he heard Kari Mundal call, before a click and nearly inaudible rush of air told him that the lift was on its way up.

Vegard Krogh’s widow opened the door and smiled half-heartedly.

Adam Stubo had rung in advance and found her voice unusually pleasant. He had pictured a dark woman. Tall, with a straight back, a large mouth and languid movements. But she was in fact small and blonde. Her thick hair was tied up in two tired pigtails.

Her jumper looked like it had been pulled from a seventies time capsule; it was brown with orange stripes and a drawstring at the neck.

‘Thank you for letting me come,’ Adam said, giving her his

coat.

She led him into the sitting room and gestured that he should sit down in a stained, light-coloured sofa. Adam moved a cushion, lifted up a book and sat down. He looked around the room. The shelves were crammed and chaotic. The newspaper rack was overflowing, and he noted two copies of Information and a torn copy of Le Monde diplomatique. The glass table, between the sofa and the two armchairs that didn’t match, was dirty and a wine glass with the remains of some red wine was standing unsteadily on a pile of magazines he didn’t recognize.

‘Sorry about the mess,’ said Elsbeth Davidsen. ‘I haven’t

exactly had the energy to tidy recently.’

Her voice didn’t suit her body. It was deep and melodious and made her pigtails look like a joke. She had no make-up on and her eyes were the palest that Adam had ever seen. He smiled in

understanding.

‘I think it’s homely,’ he said, and meant it. ‘Who’s that by?’

He nodded at a lithograph above the sofa.

‘Inger Sitter,’ she mumbled. ‘Can I offer you anything? Haven’t got much in the house, but… Coffee? Tea?’

‘Coffee would be nice,’ he said. ‘If it’s not too much trouble.’

‘Not at all. I made some half an hour ago.’

She pointed at an Alessi coffee thermos and went to get a cup.

‘Would you like milk or sugar?’ he heard from the kitchen.

‘Both, please,’ he laughed. ‘But my wife doesn’t let me, so I’ll just take it black.’

When she came back, he noticed that she had a great figure

under her shabby clothes. Her jeans needed a wash and her slippers must have once belonged to Vegard. But her waist was small

and her neck was long and thin. Her movements, when she put

down the mugs and poured the coffee, were graceful.

‘I thought I was done with you lot,’ she said, without sounding unfriendly. ‘So I wonder what you want. A friend of mine, he’s a lawyer, said that it’s unusual for you to visit people at home. He said …’

Her smile was unreadable. A thin finger brushed her left eyebrow.

Her eyes, when they met his, were almost teasing.

‘… that the police call people in to make them feel insecure.

You’re at home in the police station, not me. But here I’m at home. Not you.’

‘I don’t feel particularly threatened where I’m sitting,’ Adam said, and tasted the coffee. ‘But your friend has a point. So you could draw the conclusion that I don’t intend to make you feel insecure. It’s more that I’m looking for…’

‘To talk?’ she observed. ‘You’re at a bit of loss and you’re the kind of policeman who looks around, tries to get a better overall impression, a bigger picture. And then maybe you’ll discover a new angle. Paths and evidence that you haven’t noticed before.’

‘Hmm,’ he said, astonished. ‘Not so far from the truth.’

‘My friend. He knows you. You’re quite well known.’

She gave a short laugh. Adam Stubo resisted the urge to ask

who her friend was.

‘I can’t quite get a handle on your husband,’ he said.

‘Don’t call him my husband, please. We only married for one

reason, and that was that if we wanted to have children it looked like we’d have to adopt. Please just say Vegard.’

‘OK, I can’t quite get a handle on Vegard.’

Laughter again, deep and short.

‘I don’t think there were many who did.’

‘Not even you?’

‘Certainly not me. Vegard was many people. We all are, I suppose, but, he was worse than most. Or better. Depends on how

you want to look at it.’

The irony was obvious. Again, Adam was struck by her voice.

Elsbeth Davidsen used a wide range of expressions. Small, telling movements in her hands and face, and careful but obvious

changes in her voice.

‘Do tell.’

‘Tell? Tell you about Vegard …’

She picked absent-mindedly at her knee.

‘Vegard wanted so much,’ she said. ‘At the same time. He

wanted to be obscure, literary and alternative. Innovative and provocative. Unique. But he also had a craving for recognition that was difficult to combine with writing essays and inaccessible novels.’

Now it was Adam’s turn to laugh. As he put down his mug and

looked around the room again, he realized that he liked this woman.

‘Vegard had a great talent,’ she continued thoughtfully. ‘Once upon a time. “I wouldn’t exactly say that he … wasted it, but he …

he was an angry young man for too long. When he was younger he was full of charm. Energy. I was fascinated by the uncompromising strength in everything he did. But then … he never grew out of it. He thought he was fighting against everyone and would never admit that as the years passed he was only fighting against himself. He lashed out, not realizing that whoever it was he was trying to hit had long since left. It was …’

Adam hadn’t reacted to the fact that the woman, up to now,

appeared to be untouched by her husband’s brutal death just over two weeks ago. A sensible strategy, he thought, given the situation.

She was talking to an unknown policeman. But now he could

see that her lower lip was quivering.

‘It was actually quite pathetic,’ she said, and swallowed. ‘And pretty bloody horrible to watch.’

‘Who was he out after most?’

With a listless hand, she puffed up a dirty red cushion.

‘Anyone who achieved the success that he felt he deserved,”

she explained. ‘Which he felt… robbed of, in a way. In that sense.

Vegard was the classic cliche of an artist: he was misunderstood.

The one who had been passed by. But at the same time … at the same time he tried to be one of them. More than anything, he wanted to be one of them.’

She leant forward and picked up a card that had fallen on the floor. She handed it over to him.

‘This came a day or two before he died,’ she said, and pulled at one of her pigtails. ‘I’ve never seen Vegard so happy.’

The card was cream-coloured and adorned with a beautiful

royal monogram. Adam tried to repress a smile and carefully put the card back down on the glass table.

‘You may well laugh,’ she sighed sadly. ‘We had a terrible argument about that invitation. I couldn’t understand why he felt it

was so important to get in with that crowd. To be honest, I was worried. He seemed to be obsessed with the idea that he finally was going to “be someone”, as he put it.’

She mimed speech marks in the air.

‘Did you often argue?’

‘Yes. At least latterly. When Vegard really started to get stuck and definitely couldn’t be called young and promising any more.

We’ve been soooo …’ She held her thumb and her forefinger a millimetre apart. ‘… Close to splitting up. Several times.’

‘But you still wanted to have children?’

‘Don’t most people?’

He didn’t answer. There was a sudden commotion outside on

the stairs. Something heavy fell on the floor and two angry voices bounced off the concrete walls. Adam thought they were speaking Urdu.

‘Nice here at Gr0nland,’ she said drily. ‘Sometimes it can be a bit too lively. At least for those of us who can’t afford to buy a flat in the new blocks.’

The voices out on the stair died down and then trailed off. Only the monotone drone of the city forced its way in through the dilapidated windows and filled the silence between them.

‘If you could choose one,’ Adam said in the end, ‘one of

Vegard’s enemies … Someone who really had a reason to wish him ill, who would that be?’

‘That’s impossible,’ she answered without hesitation. ‘Vegard had offended so many people and threw his shit around so liberally that it would be impossible to pick out one person. And in any case…’

She picked again at the hole on the knee of her jeans. The skin underneath was winter-white against the indigo blue.

‘Like I said, I’m not really sure if he could cause that much damage any more. Before, he was hard-hitting and on target with his criticism. Recently it’s just been … shit, like I said.’

‘But would it be possible,’ Adam tried again,’… to identify…

one group, then… One group of people that has greater reason to feel they’ve been wronged? Tabloid journalists? TV celebrities?

Politicians?’

‘Crime writers!’

Finally, a broad and genuine smile. Her teeth were small and pearly white, with a slight gap between the upper front teeth. A dimple appeared on one of her cheeks, an oval shadow of forgotten laughter.

‘What?’

‘Some years ago, when all his antics still attracted attention, he wrote a parody of three of that year’s bestsellers. Nonsense, really, but very funny. He got a taste for it. And in many ways it was his trademark, for years. Haranguing crime writers, that is. Also in situations where it was completely unjustified or inappropriate. A

kind of personal version of “Moreover, I advise that Carthage must be destroyed.”’

Again she mimed speech marks in the air. A car backfired outside the sitting-room window. Adam heard a dog barking in the

back yard. His back was sore and his shoulders ached. His eyes were dry and he rubbed them with his knuckles, like a tired child.

‘What are we doing?’ he asked himself. ‘What am I doing?

Searching for ghosts and shadows. Getting nowhere. There’s no connection, no common features, no where to go. Not even an

overgrown, invisible path. We’re flailing around in the dark, getting nowhere, without seeing anything except more new,

impenetrable scrub. Fiona Helle was popular. Vibeke Heinerback had political opponents, but no enemies. Vegard Krogh was a

ridiculous Don Quixote who waged war with popular fiction

authors in a world full of despots, fanaticism and threatening catastrophe. What a …’

‘I have to go,’ he muttered. ‘It’s late.’

‘So soon?’ She seemed disappointed. ‘I mean … of course.’

She went to get his coat and came back before he had managed to struggle out of the deep sofa.

‘I’m terribly sorry, on your behalf,’ Adam said as he took his coat and put it on. ‘For what has happened, and for bothering you like this.’

Elsbeth Davidsen didn’t answer. She walked silently in front of him down the hall.

‘Thank you for letting me come,’ Adam said.

‘It is I who should thank you,’ said Elsbeth Davidsen seriously, and held out her hand. ‘It’s been a pleasure meeting you.’

Adam felt her warmth, the dry, soft hand, and dropped it a

second too late. Then he turned and left. The dog in the back yard had got company. The animals were making a din that followed him all the way to the car, which was parked a block away.

Both wing mirrors had been broken and a parting message from Oslo East had been scratched onto the nearside doors:

Fuck you, you fucker.

At least it was spelt correctly.

‘If you don’t mind me saying, Johanne, you look bloody great tonight. You really do. Cheers!’

Sigmund Berli lifted his glass of cognac. It didn’t seem to

bother him that he was the only one drinking. A red flush spread around his eyes like a rash and his smile was broad.

‘Amazing what a good night’s sleep can do,’ Adam said.

‘More like eighteen hours,’ Johanne said under her breath. ‘Don’t think I’ve slept that long since I was in my last year at school.’

She was standing behind Sigmund’s back asking Adam silently, with gestures and facial expressions, why he had invited his colleague home with him on yet another weekday.

‘Sigmund’s a grass widower at the moment,’ Adam explained in a loud, cheerful voice. ‘And the man doesn’t have enough sense to eat unless the food is put on the table in front of him.’

‘If only I got food like this every day,’ Sigmund said, and swallowed a burp. ‘I’ve never tasted such a good pizza. We normally