Nemesis

43

Ramona

Harry found Vigdis Albu down by the beach. She was sitting on the same smooth rock where he had fallen asleep with his hands around his knees staring into the fjord. In the morning mist the sun resembled a pale imprint of itself. Gregor ran up to Harry wagging his tail. It was low tide and the sea smelt of seaweed and oil. Harry sat down on a small rock behind her and flipped out a cigarette.

'Did you find him?' she asked, without turning. Harry wondered how long she had been waiting for him.

'Many people found Arne Albu,' he answered. 'I was one of them.'

She stroked away a wisp of hair dancing in front of her face in the wind. 'Me, too. But that was a long, long time ago. You may not believe me, but I loved him once.'

Harry clicked the lighter. 'Why shouldn't I believe you?'

'You can believe what you like. Not everyone can love. We-and they-may believe that, but it is so. They learn the movements, the lines and the steps, that's all. Some of them are so good they can fool us for quite a while. What surprises me is not that they succeed, but that they can be bothered. Why go to all the effort to have a feeling reciprocated which you don't understand? Do you understand, Constable?'

Harry didn't answer.

'Perhaps they're just frightened,' she said, turning to him. 'To see themselves in the mirror and discover they're cripples.'

'Who are you talking about, fru Albu?'

She turned back to the water. 'Who knows? Anna Bethsen? Arne? Me? The me I became?'

Gregor licked Harry's hand.

'I know how Anna Bethsen was killed,' Harry said. He studied her back, but no reaction was discernible. The cigarette caught light at the second attempt. 'Yesterday afternoon I got the results of an analysis Krimteknisk were doing on four glasses which had been in the sink at Anna Bethsen's flat. They were my fingerprints. I had apparently been drinking Coke. I would never have dreamed of drinking it with wine. One wineglass had not been used. The interesting part, however, is that traces of morphine hydrochloride were found in the dregs of the Coke. In other words, morphine. You know the effect of large doses, don't you, fru Albu?'

She scoured his face. Shook her head slowly.

'No?' Harry said. 'Collapse and amnesia from the moment you ingest the drug followed by severe nausea and a headache when you come to. Easily confused with the effects of going on the bottle. It's a good date-rape drug, much like Rohypnol. And we have been raped. All of us. Haven't we, fru Albu?'

A seagull screamed with laughter above them.

'You again,' Astrid Monsen said with a brief, nervous laugh and let him in. They sat in the kitchen. She scuttled about, made some tea, put out a cake she had bought at Hansen's bakery 'in case anyone dropped by'. Harry mumbled trivialities about yesterday's snow and how the world they all thought would cave in, along with the twin towers on TV, hadn't changed much by and large. It was only when she had poured out the tea and sat down, that he asked her what she had thought of Anna.

She was open-mouthed.

'You hated her, didn't you.'

In the ensuing silence a tiny electronic ping was audible in another room.

'No. I didn't hate her.' Astrid hugged an enormous cup of green tea. 'She was just…different.'

'Different in what way?'

'The life she led. The way she was. She was lucky to be the way…she was.'

'And you didn't like that?'

'I…don't know. No, perhaps I didn't.'

'Why not?'

Astrid Monsen looked at him. For a long time. The smile flickered in and out of her eyes like an unsettled butterfly.

'It's not what you think,' she said. 'I envied Anna. I admired her. There were days when I wished I were her. She was the opposite of me. I sit inside here while she…'

Her eyes went to the window. 'She wore barely anything and stepped out into life, Anna did. Men came and went, she knew she couldn't have them, but she loved them, anyway. She couldn't paint, but she exhibited her pictures so the rest of the world could see for themselves. She talked to everyone as if she were justified in thinking they liked her. To me, too. There were days when I felt Anna had stolen the real me, that there was not enough room for the two of us and I would have to wait my turn.' She emitted the same nervous titter. 'But then she died. And I discovered it wasn't like that. I can't be her. Now no one can. Isn't that sad?' She directed her gaze at Harry. 'No, I didn't hate her. I loved her.'

Harry could feel his neck prickle. 'Can you tell me what happened the evening you found me in the corridor?'

The smile appeared and disappeared like an ailing neon light. As though a happy person occasionally appeared and peeped out of her eyes. Harry had a feeling a dam was about to burst.

'You were ugly,' she whispered. 'But in an attractive way.'

Harry raised an eyebrow. 'Mm. When you lifted me up, did you notice if I smelt of alcohol?'

She looked surprised. As though she hadn't thought of that before. 'No. Not really. You smelt…of nothing.'

'Nothing?'

She blushed a deep red. 'Nothing…in particular.'

'Did I lose anything on the stairs?'

'Like what, for example?'

'A mobile phone. Keys.'

'What keys?'

'You have to answer me.'

She shook her head. 'No mobile phone. And I put the keys back in your pocket. Why are you asking about all this?'

'Because I know who killed Anna. I just wanted to double-check the details first.'