Death By Water

1

Sunday 14 December

AS THE PLANE began its descent and the captain announced that they were approaching Oslo airport, Liss woke in the midst of an avalanche of thoughts. Two of them remained with her. Mailin is missing. I must find Mailin.

Sunday afternoon. Just after four. She’d spent the night on a bench at Schiphol, hadn’t managed to find a seat on a plane until morning. Almost twenty-four hours had passed since she’d sat in the café in Haarlemmerdijk. Wouters was the name of the policeman who’d answered when she called Zako’s number. Could one ever forget such a name? It isn’t true that I last saw Zako a week ago. I was there that night. Just before he died… Enclose those thoughts in a room. Lock it. The name Wouters on a sign on the door. Not to be opened. Will it ever be possible to forget that there is something inside that room? Start with the name, Wouters, forget the policeman’s name. Forget his voice, and what he told her. Then it might also be possible to forget where she was on Saturday night. I must find Mailin. I don’t care a damn about anything else.

The woman sitting next to her had finished reading VG. She handed it to Liss, even though Liss hadn’t asked for it.

She flipped through without reading. A few pages in, she stopped and just stared at the headline above a big story: Missing woman (29) due to appear on Taboo. It was about Mailin. Her partner had mentioned this TV programme. VG called it ‘a scandal show’. A talk show hosted by Berger, she read, a name she associated with obsolete rock music. Now he was attracting huge audiences with this series on the subject of taboos. Yesterday’s show was apparently about sexuality. It had caught fire when Berger defended the idea that child sex might be okay. Liss struggled to put this into context. What could Mailin, always so careful about the views she sponsored, be doing on a TV show with someone like that? The 29-year-old psychologist never turned up at Channel Six’s studio in Nydalen. She had not been heard from since earlier that evening. Several times in the course of the show Berger claimed that she must have got cold feet. He now refuses to make any further comment.

The woman beside her sat with eyes closed and held on tightly to the armrests. Liss wedged the paper down into her seat pocket, pressed her head against the window. The layer of cloud beneath them was thinning out. She could just see the fjord below and the fortress at the top of it. Leaving four years earlier, she had thought she would never be back.

What’s to become of you, Liss?

She had told the taxi driver Ekeberg Way, but not the number. As they got close, she asked him to stop. Paid with her credit card and got out.

Up here on the hilltop above Oslo, it was biting cold. Liss was dressed for a mild day in Amsterdam; she’d fled to the airport without even thinking about going home and packing some clothes. The temperature on the dashboard read minus twelve. She buttoned the thin leather jacket all the way up to the neck, not that it helped, tried to stuff her hands down into the tiny pockets.

She found the number, a large, bright yellow functionalist villa. The name on the letter box was right. The driveway was paved in red flagstones, so slippery that she had to tiptoe up with tiny steps, like an old woman. She rang the doorbell. Rang again, a bit too quickly because already she could hear sounds inside. A woman put her head out. Dark hair, bunched at the neck, nicely made up. She might be in her mid-thirties, some ten years older than Liss.

– Judith van Ravens?

The woman gave a little smile in response, as if she’d been sitting in the house waiting for a floral delivery. Liss noticed that she had a bundle in her arm, something wrapped in a crocheted blanket.

– I must talk to you, she continued in Dutch, pointing to the hallway.

A hostile look showed in the woman’s eyes. – What’s this about?

Liss struggled to control herself. She was freezing from her toes and up through her back to the roots of her hair. She hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours. She had killed someone. All she could hold on to were the two thoughts: Mailin is missing. I must find Mailin.

– Let me come inside for a moment and I’ll explain.

The woman shook her head firmly and tucked at the bundle she was holding next to her body. She was on the point of closing the door. Liss put her foot across the threshold. She pulled the photo of her sister from her bag and held it up in front of the woman’s face. The woman blinked in confusion and released her hold on the door. Liss shoved it open and pushed her way past her and inside.

The large room seemed almost empty. A suite of chairs that might have come from IKEA, a dining table in one corner, a large, pallid painting on the biggest wall.

– We’re only living here temporarily, the woman excused herself. – My husband is working for Statoil. He spends most of the time in Stavanger, but I couldn’t live there.

Her uncertainty evidently made her talkative. Unless this information about Statoil was offered up as a way of showing the intruder the powers that stood behind her. She held the bundle up to her shoulder. There was a pushchair bag on the sofa; perhaps she didn’t dare lay the sleeping child down.

Liss remained standing in the middle of the room. The woman didn’t offer her a seat.

– What is this about the photo?

– You took it, Liss stated, as calmly as she could.

– Did I?

– It was sent from your phone to a recipient in Amsterdam.

The woman drew a breath, and Liss readied herself. At any moment some great brute of a husband might turn up and throw her out. Maybe they’d call the police. But she was determined to stay put until she found out why these pictures of Mailin had been taken. A sudden vision of grabbing that bundled baby, threatening to beat its dark little head against the wall unless the woman told her what she knew.

It was as though this threat from some dark and closed place deep down inside her materialised itself, moved through the room and touched something in Judith van Ravens. She picked up the pushchair bag and headed for the door.

– Just going to put her down. Be right back.

Liss imagined her ringing her husband, if he wasn’t at home, or the neighbours, or the emergency number. It didn’t bother her at all. She knew she had come to the right house.

A few moments later, Judith van Ravens was back again.

– You’re right, she blurted out before Liss had a chance to say anything. – I did take that picture, but I don’t see why that gives you any reason at all to come barging in here. My daughter needs changing and feeding very soon, I’ve got hundreds of things to do, I’m expecting guests…

– The woman you took that picture of has gone missing.

Judith van Ravens stared at her. – What do you mean?

Liss took out the VG she had pocketed on the way out of the plane, opened it to the page and spread it on the table. Judith van Ravens read, looked at her, read again.

– How do you know that…?

– My sister, Liss answered dully. – It’s my sister that’s gone missing. And before I leave here, you’re going to tell me everything about these pictures. After that I’m going to the police.

– The police? Is that necessary?

– That’s for me to decide, Liss said firmly.

Judith van Ravens stood over by the window. – I haven’t done anything wrong, she said, suddenly sounding like a child who’s been dragged in to see the headmaster. – It’s just that I don’t want my husband to know anything about this.

She glanced across at Liss. – It’s true. I sent some pictures of that woman to Amsterdam, to someone I know.

– Zako.

– You know who he is?

Liss shrugged her shoulders. – Why did you do it?

Judith van Ravens rubbed her hands along her cheeks, pulling her entire face backwards.

– I’ve… known Zako some years. We’re friends.

Liss almost interrupted, but stopped herself. Zako doesn’t have women friends, she was going to say, and at the same instant saw him in her mind’s eye, lying on the sofa with vomit round his mouth. She could hear the voice of the policeman named Wouters, the one who was waiting for her to come and tell him what had happened that night.

– Sometimes we speak on the phone, Judith van Ravens continued, – and sometimes when I’m in Amsterdam we meet.

She was slender, a little below medium height, round hips and breasts not too big, even though she was probably breastfeeding. Not a typical Zako woman, Liss thought.

– And your husband’s not supposed to know about this, she noted with a touch of contempt.

– Actually nothing happens when Zako and I meet, Judith van Ravens assured her. – Not much, anyway, she corrected herself, – but my husband doesn’t have to know everything I do. He’s the suspicious type.

– What about the photo?

Judith van Ravens again stroked her cheeks, the movement continuing on up through her lustrous hair. – Zako called a few weeks ago. Asked for a favour. He wanted to surprise someone he knew, just for fun. I suppose that was probably you?

– Keep going.

– I was to take some pictures of a woman without her knowing it. I was given the name and address of an office. Waited outside in the car until she showed up. Followed her to a tram stop. She was with a man… It was a joke!

– When was this?

Judith van Ravens looked to be thinking about it. – Maybe three weeks ago. The end of last month. We flew to Houston the week after.

Three weeks fitted with the date Liss had noted in Zako’s flat.

– How long were you in the USA?

– We came back on Friday evening. I’m still a bit jet-lagged. Judith van Ravens closed her eyes. – I owed him a favour. The disappearance of this woman, your sister, can’t have anything at all to do with those pictures. Zako and I went to the film academy together. He’s strange, and he gets up to some weird things, but he isn’t involved in kidnapping or anything like that.

– Zako is dead.

The woman at the window stiffened. The colour drained from the already pale cheeks.

– It was an accident, Liss went on. It felt comforting, saying it like that. Something she might end up believing herself, if she repeated it often enough.

– How…?

Liss sat in one of the chairs by the coffee table.

– Overdose. A mixture of things. He fell asleep, vomited and choked.

Judith van Ravens slumped down into the sofa. – That’s not possible. Zako isn’t like that. He always has control.

Liss didn’t respond. For a few moments they sat in silence. In another room, a mobile phone began to ring. Judith van Ravens didn’t react. Sat hunched forward, legs crossed, staring at the tabletop. Suddenly she said:

– We have to go to the police. It’ll be a nightmare for me, but we have to.

– Why?

She didn’t raise her eyes. – It can’t be coincidental, this business with the pictures. If Zako has got himself mixed up in something or other, and someone has made this look like an accident…

Liss interrupted: – I’m sure you were right when you said it was only meant as a joke.

Judith van Ravens looked up. – Are you?

Liss nodded firmly. – Having spoken to you, it figures.

– Did you two… have a relationship?

Liss ignored the question. – It’s like you say. Zako wanted to surprise me. He didn’t mean any harm. It’s just a coincidence that my sister went missing directly after you took those pictures.

A moment’s relief: regardless of what had happened to Mailin, it wasn’t because of anything she, Liss, had done. It lasted for a few seconds, and then the doubt returned.

– Do you still have those pictures?

Judith van Ravens stood up, went into the next room, came back with a mobile phone.

– I didn’t delete them, she said, and showed Liss the screen. – Had forgotten all about the whole business.

Just then the baby began screaming in the next room.

– So you don’t think there’s any need for me to go to the police?

Liss waited a few seconds before answering. – As far as I know, no one believes Zako’s death was anything but accidental.

2

SHE NEEDED TO walk. Followed Kongs Way down towards town. It had snowed quite a lot, and the pavements hadn’t been cleared. Her thin boots were stiff with cold, and she slipped on icy bumps. Her phone began to ring. She thought of the detective inspector, Wouters. Sooner or later they’re going to find out, Liss. That someone else was there that night. That it was a woman in her mid-twenties, above average height, much too thin, with long reddish hair. No need to send out an alert. Anyone who knew Zako could point her out…

It was Rikke who’d called. Shortly afterwards, a text: Where are you? Have to talk to you.

It took almost an hour to reach Harald Hardrådes Square. She popped into a kiosk, bought a pack of Marlboros and a bottle of water, lit up the moment she was outside. Further up on Schweigaards Street was the commune where she’d been living just before she left. It probably still existed. Others would have moved in. Catrine still sent her messages at intervals; she’d even been out to Amsterdam to visit a couple of times. Maybe the closest thing to a best friend Liss had had.

She got her phone out to call her. At the moment Catrine was living in student accommodation. She’d also stopped throwing stones and bottles at walls of policemen with helmets and shields. Two years ago she’d started studying political science at Blindern and claimed to have found a better way to display her opposition. For Liss, it hadn’t been enough to move to the other side of town. She’d had to get far away.

When her call wasn’t picked up at once, she put the phone back in her bag, carried on towards Grønlandsleiret, and down to the church. There she stopped. Turned and looked up at the concrete block of the Oslo police headquarters. At the back were the security cells where she’d spent quite a few hours. No feeling worse than the sound of the door closing behind you. Being shut in. No knowing how long for… To the right of the station, the driveway leading up to the prison. What was the sentence for murder? Manslaughter, if they chose to believe her? She would be extradited to appear in court in Holland. Were the sentences longer there? Five years? Ten or fifteen? She might be over forty by the time she got out again… Locked up. Not for a few hours or a night, but for months, years. The only thing that scared her. Not to be able to go out the door when she felt she needed to. Pacing restlessly around in a tiny locked room. Shaking the bars, scratching at the walls. Waiting for the steps in the corridor, the rattling of keys. The appointed hour for exercise. Knowing that this is what it will be like until you’re old. This isn’t about you, Liss, she tried to tell herself. All that matters is to find Mailin. Nothing else is important.

She trudged up to the entrance to the police headquarters. What would you have said, Mailin? She tried to conjure up her sister’s voice. No one can make your choices for you, Liss. That wasn’t much help. She tried again. I don’t want you to get hurt, Liss. There is nothing in the world I care about more than you.

She pulled at the heavy door. Didn’t budge. It’s a sign, she thought, they won’t let you in. But the one beside it slid open and she stepped into the large hallway.

A girl about her own age in a Securitas uniform in the security booth. Two thin, pale braids hanging over the collar of her shirt. She looked as if she’d learnt to put make-up on in a children’s theatre.

– Can I help you? she said sullenly.

Liss peered up at the galleries around the hall. Different departments looked to be colour coded in red, blue and yellow.

– I’m here because of my sister. She’s gone missing.

– Okay, said the blonde without altering her facial expression. – You want to report a missing person?

Liss shook her head. – You’ve been looking for her for four days.

She didn’t want to tell any more to this creature slouched there chewing gum. – The detectives in charge of the case probably want to talk to me.

– What is your sister’s name?

– Mailin. Mailin Synnøve Bjerke.

– Sit down over there and wait.

A couple of minutes later, Liss was summoned back to the counter.

– None of the detectives can talk to you at the moment. Write your name and telephone number on this piece of paper and they’ll get in touch with you.

3

Monday 15 December

THE TAXI DRIVER handed Liss’s credit card back to her. She’d been living on it for a while now. Wasn’t sure how much more she could squeeze out of it; didn’t want to find out. She stepped out into the slushy snow. The weather had turned milder during the night. She’d spent most of it in the hotel room in Parkveien looking out the window at the rain.

She stepped experimentally through the puddles in the driveway. It was something like four years since she’d last been there.

Almost as soon as she rang, the door was cautiously opened. Tage’s head appeared.

– Liss, he exclaimed, and put his hand to his forehead. He had grown a beard since she last saw him, short and grey. There was hardly a wisp of hair left on his head. And the eyes seemed smaller behind the round spectacles. She felt almost relieved to see him. Perhaps because it wasn’t her mother who had opened the door.

For a moment it looked as though he was going to embrace her, but fortunately he decided against it.

– What in the world? But come in, come in. He shouted back into the house: – Ragnhild!

Tage still pronounced her name in that strange Swedish way. They had never got used to it. She remembered what she thought that day fifteen years ago, the first time he came to their house: a person who says Mother’s name in such a weird way is definitely not going to be allowed to move into our house. But thinking that hadn’t helped.

Tage got no answer and called out again, adding this time: – It’s Liss.

Liss heard a sound from the living room. The next moment her mother was standing in the doorway, her face drawn and without make-up. She gasped, but her eyes looked far away.

– Liss, she murmured, and stayed where she was.

Liss kicked off her boots, crossed the threshold, into the hallway. Had decided in advance to give Mother a hug, but that didn’t happen.

– You’re here. Mother took hold of her arm, as though to reassure herself her eyes were not deceiving her. – There, you see, Tage, she came.

– I never said she wouldn’t, Tage protested as he looked around. – Where are your things?

– What things?

– Suitcase, or bag.

– I just left.

– Okay then, Tage noted. He was an assistant professor in sociology, unless he’d finally got the chair he’d applied for hundreds of times. He always noted things before he permitted himself to have an opinion on them.

They sat in the living room. Not much was said. Liss reeled off something about not being able to sit calmly and wait in Amsterdam. Her mother contented herself with a nod, but was hardly listening. Seemed even more remote now than when Liss had arrived. She must have taken some tranquillisers. It wasn’t like her; she never touched medicines. But now her eyelids were heavy and her pupils small.

Tage withdrew to the kitchen to heat up some leftovers, though Liss had at first said no thanks. He wanted to bring the food into the living room, but she preferred to eat at the kitchen table. He sat with her. Her mother stayed where she was on the sofa. Leafing through a newspaper, Liss could hear.

– How long can you stay? Tage wanted to know.

As though she could give an answer to that. – It all depends.

He nodded, seeming to understand what she meant.

– Tell me what you know about Mailin, she said.

It was the first time since entering the house that she had been able to say the name. In this kitchen where they had sat together since they were small children. Liss wasn’t sure what she actually remembered and what she had seen in old photographs, but in her mind’s eye she saw them sitting at this pine table eating breakfast and supper, scissoring and gluing, rolling dice.

– She went missing on Thursday, is that right?

Tage rubbed the tip of his nose. – She hasn’t been seen since Wednesday. Not that we know of.

– What do you mean by that?

He shook his head. – I don’t know what I mean, Liss. I daren’t have any opinion at all.

– I have to know everything.

Her voice sounded hard. Tage removed his glasses, wiped them with a handkerchief. The fat, probably spitting up from the frying pan, didn’t disappear but spread out in a film across the lenses. He blew on them, misting them, wiped again, still no effect.

– She went out to the cabin, he said once he’d abandoned the cleaning and got his glasses on again. – That was Wednesday night. She always goes out there when she’s working on difficult projects. She spent the night out there, left there the next afternoon, it looks like. People heading for that café in the forest…

– Vangen, said Liss.

– Exactly, Vangen, people saw her car parked in the parking space down by…

– Bysetermosan.

– They saw it there Wednesday evening and the following morning. In the afternoon it was gone.

– She hasn’t come off the road somewhere?

An image of Mailin, trapped in her wrecked car in a deep ditch. Or at the foot of some cliff. Liss ran over the familiar roads in her mind.

– We found her car, Tage told her. – It was parked in Welhavens Street, close by her office. She must have driven there Thursday, in the afternoon. She was supposed to be taking part in that talk show.

– I saw that in the paper. That old rock-preacher Berger.

Tage cleared his throat. – None of us have any idea why she agreed to do that. The man is a complete arsehole, pardon my French.

Liss shrugged her shoulders. – He wants to break down a few taboos. Is that such a bad thing?

– My dear Liss, Berger and his disciples are parasites on the conception of free thinking, Tage announced. – But pretty soon no one’s going to be allowed to say so out loud any more. The fear of being called politically correct is a more efficient way of censoring people than any dictatorship could come up with.

It was clear that she’d got him going on one of his hobby horses. He walked over to the fridge, took out a beer, fetched two glasses and filled them both.

– On the pretext of freeing us from old prejudices, they create new ones that are a great deal worse.

Tage seemed irritated, which was unlike him. He could be grumpy and peevish, but he’d always found it difficult to display anger.

– The worst thing is, young people have started turning him into a cult figure. Even my most serious students regard him as a revolutionary. And now you think of me as some old codger who doesn’t understand the changing times, or worse still, has no sense of humour.

She had probably always thought of him as an old codger. But she could see that he had his own special sense of dry, intellectual humour. He could even make her laugh with his puns and his word games. All in all he was a decent, well-intentioned person. It was just that she’d never liked him.

– Berger flirts with heroin abuse, with paedophilia, with Satanism; he turns all accepted ideas of what’s right and wrong upside down. But what I say to my students is this: that with views expressed in the public arena comes responsibility; these are public acts, something quite different from choosing which suit you think you look best in.

– Mailin wanted to take part in his programme, Liss pointed out.

Tage sighed deeply. – I’m sure her intentions were good. But I doubt she would have achieved anything beyond confirming that the right to be a bastard takes precedence over everything else, as long as people find it entertaining.

It looked as if he were getting rid of a long-pent-up frustration by abusing some clapped-out old rock star who’d been allowed to let it all hang out on TV. You had to be pretty naïve to allow yourself to be provoked by something like that, thought Liss. Norwegian, at the very least – or Swedish. In Holland, that stuff didn’t attract much attention any more.

She let him carry on while she ate a few mouthfuls. Then she interrupted: – You say her car was parked outside her office?

Tage tugged at his beard. – She probably called in there on her way to the TV studio. We were sitting down and all ready to watch, but when the programme started, she wasn’t there. And that arsehole was cracking jokes at her expense. That she didn’t have the guts to turn up and other disgraceful comments like that.

– And she hasn’t been seen since?

Liss heard her mother getting up from the sofa in the living room. She joined them in the kitchen.

– You’ve had a bite to eat, I see, she said listlessly, resting a hand on Liss’s shoulder. – I’m just going for a little lie-down.

She disappeared again and went up the stairs.

Tage watched her. – I don’t know if she’ll be able to take it if something really has happened.

Really has happened, Liss almost interrupted. Four days had passed since anyone had seen Mailin. She controlled herself, poked at her spaghetti, chewed at a half-mouthful of the meat sauce. It tasted of nothing. Had to be at least twenty-four hours since she’d last eaten, but she didn’t feel even remotely hungry. Emptied the glass of beer.

– The police?

Tage refilled her glass. – They’ve questioned us about everything under the sun. If she was depressed, if she’s ever gone missing before, all that. About her relationship with Viljam.

– What do you think about that?

He scratched his liver-spotted crown with a finger. – What can one say? Anything might have happened… Dear Liss, we’re terrified. I’m sure you are too.

Terrified? Was that what she was? She went in and out of mental states. Mostly she felt remote. Now and then as though she was being torn to pieces. Then suddenly relieved: everything would come to an end. And then again the suffocating blackness that paralysed her. She’d killed someone. In her jacket pocket was a photo of Mailin. She could throw it down on the table in front of Tage: take me to the police station. Lock me up. But I can’t face the thought of talking about it.

He patted her gently on the arm. – Of course the police are investigating everything that might possibly be significant. It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened. People who live together quarrel and… He replaced the rest of the sentence with a cough. – Incidentally, have you met Viljam?

She shook her head. – Spoke to him on the phone three days ago, that’s all.

Mailin had never said much about this Viljam, but then she never did when it came to boyfriends, and Liss hadn’t particularly wanted to hear about him anyway. She remembered the message she’d received: Keep Midsummer’s Day free next year.

– He’s a law student, isn’t he?

– Correct. They’ve been a couple for over two years now. He seems a likeable young man to me. As far as Ragnhild is concerned, he isn’t right for Mailin, but then you know…

He inclined his head towards the door his wife had just left through.

– Ragnhild implies that she gets these odd vibrations from him. She can’t quite make him out.

Liss could feel the old irritation beginning to stir. In her mother’s eyes, none of Mailin’s boyfriends had ever been good enough for her. She always gave the impression that her daughters should feel free to choose whoever they liked, and at the same time she left them in no doubt as to what they ought to do. Usually she didn’t give up until things went her way.

– Do the police think this guy Viljam might have… done something?

Tage thought it over. – They interviewed him twice. But he was at work with a group of other students the whole of the afternoon when Mailin disappeared. I picked him up there, he came out here to watch the broadcast with us. The plan was for Mailin to join us afterwards. Viljam and I were out looking for her all night. In the morning we went out to the cabin to have a look there too. He seems as crushed as we are.

– Why did you go out to the cabin? Didn’t you say her car was in town?

– We didn’t know what to do. Just knew we had to try everything.

– Might she have gone off somewhere?

She could hear herself how thin it sounded, but she had to ask in order to endure being there at all, to keep a grip on the conversation, not get sucked down and dragged away… Of course Mailin hadn’t gone off anywhere without leaving a message. She wasn’t the type to let people worry on her account. Liss might have just taken off. But Mailin always wanted people to know exactly where they were with her.

– We’ve asked ourselves every imaginable sort of question, Tage said in that slow way of his that perhaps expressed a kind of calm. – But where could she have gone, and why? Ragnhild even called Canada, to ask your father if Mailin had turned up there. An absurd notion, but as long as there was a theoretical possibility…

Ragnhild had called her father. Liss knew that they hadn’t spoken for years. Fifteen, maybe, nearer twenty.

– What did he say? she wanted to know.

– She couldn’t get hold of him. He’s probably off travelling somewhere. Tage said this in a voice devoid of hidden insinuations. He had always been smart enough never to say anything implicitly critical of their father.

Suddenly Liss felt herself drained of energy.

She lay down in the room that had once been Mailin’s, in her bed. Too exhausted to sleep, her pulse hammering in her throat. She hadn’t spent the night in this house since leaving secondary school. Had to get up and walk, pacing over and over again the few steps between the door and the window. Switched on the light, sat down at the desk and froze. The photos were still up on the shelf above the table. One of Mailin in her graduation party outfit. The fair hair, the bright eyes that were so like her mother’s, but seemed happier. Another picture of Mailin and herself. She was probably about eight, which would make Mailin twelve. They’re standing on the rock outside the cabin, the one they used to dive into Morr Water from, Liss flailing her arms. It looks as if she’s about to fall. Mailin is holding on to her.

She took the photo down, studied every detail. The spruce next to the rock. The way the light created an ellipse in the water far behind them. And Mailin’s anxious face. What’s to become of you, Liss?

She couldn’t remember the picture being taken, but she could feel what it was like to stand teetering there, falling, and being held. – I’ll never be closer to anyone than you, she murmured. – Must find you, Mailin.

4

Tuesday 16 December

SHE TOOK THE metro from Jernbanetorget. A copy of Dagbladet was wedged down the inside of her seat. It was a couple of days old. A story low down on page eight: Woman (29) missing in Oslo. Not been seen since last Thursday, she read. The police do not yet know whether there are any suspicious circumstances. Seven lines, no name, no picture.

She flipped through it. Six months ago, she had been written up in Dagbladet’s magazine. She had been in an advert that was shown in cinemas in Holland. No idea how Dagbladet had managed to get hold of her. A journalist and a photographer turned up outside the flat in Marnixkaade. Zako claimed that he was the one who had tipped them off. They wanted to do a story. Young Norwegian girl on the verge of a career in modelling. They twisted things around, blew things up, created a picture of a non-existent her. Isn’t it a tough life for a girl in this business, with all the focus on your appearance? And then the standard question. What do you think about all the anorexia, the drugs, the instant disposability? The journalist wanted to combine a touch of glamour with a frisson of politically correct scepticism. You have to know what you yourself want, Liss had answered. You have to take control and make sure you don’t hand it over to anyone. What are your views on women as objects of the male gaze? She started to tire of the interview. I’ve got nothing against being an object, she said, and realised that she meant it. She could have expanded on her answer, refined it, made it acceptable, but couldn’t be bothered. On the contrary, she allowed herself to be lured into making pithy remarks that made her seem interesting. The result was presented as an example of the way the new generation of women thought. They skimmed the cream off what their mothers had fought to achieve, used it when it suited them. Enjoyed life, and themselves. Mailin called and congratulated her on the interview, even though she was sceptical about the message. Liss never heard a word from her mother.

She looked up and saw that they were at Carl Berners Place and just managed to get out before the carriage doors closed. Jogged up the steps, into the daylight. Her boots were dry again, both of them with an uneven grey rim round the outside of the ankle. A few days ago she would have hated to have them looking like that. In the life she lived, every imperfection acquired a significance. But not now. Not here in this misty winter city.

She was on her way to meet Mailin’s partner. Passed a post office. Wouters, she thought when she saw it. Saw in her mind’s eye the name of the detective inspector on an office door. She’s standing outside it with a letter in her hand. She’s written down exactly what happened that night in Zako’s flat. How she tricked him into taking all that Rohypnol and sat there watching as he became more and more helpless. How she left him there to collapse and drown in his own vomit. Mailin is missing, she protested. I can’t do anything for her if I write that letter.

She carried on down towards Rodeløkka. There had always been something about Mailin’s boyfriends. When she was younger, Liss had been obsessed with the need to find out about them. As if there was a code to them, something that told her what she should be looking out for herself. Once, perhaps in an attempt to crack this code, she’d allowed herself to be carried away. After that, she wanted to know as little as possible about her sister’s love life.

The house was away down at the end of Lang Street. She rang, waited, rang again. The front door wasn’t locked. She opened it and looked in. Light in the hallway and a staircase on the right.

– Hello?

She heard a door opening upstairs. He appeared at the top of the stairs. Then began descending towards her.

– Sorry, I was in the bathroom.

He stopped before he was all the way down. The eyes were quite large, the cheekbones high. His dark hair was longish and combed back. He gave a quick smile, came all the way down and held out his hand.

– Viljam.

He was quite a bit taller than her, but not particularly well built. She was surprised; she had imagined he would be like the person in the picture on Zako’s phone. But this wasn’t the man on his way out through the gate with Mailin.

He squeezed her hand, not hard, released it at once. He was unshaven, but his sideburns curved in a delicate bow towards the angles of his jaw and were symmetrically trimmed. It struck her that he was better looking than any of Mailin’s former boyfriends. He seemed calm, and was perhaps deliberately striving to maintain that calm. She never trusted her first impression of people she met. It was always accompanied by uncertainty, and often deceptive. She picked up a host of signals, full of contradictions and hidden significances. Being prepared was no help, she thought as Viljam walked in front of her down the hall. Most of what she picked up on she couldn’t think about until the encounter was over, and often not even then.

Liss looked round at the room. The ceiling was high, the room going halfway up into the next floor. The painting on the wall appeared to be of a winter landscape, snow through dark trees beneath a grey sky. Muted but full of light.

– Do you and Mailin own this house? she asked, though she knew the circumstances of how they came to be living there.

– Rent it cheaply, Viljam told her. – A friend of Linne’s working in the US on an open-ended contract. Not even certain he’ll come back. If he doesn’t, then it’s possible we’ll buy it.

He called her Linne. Liss had done the same when she was younger.

He took her upstairs and showed her around. The bedroom was in bright colours, with a solid double bed made of oak. There was a spare bed in an office. Liss tried to work out what was Mailin in the house. The bed and the dark brown leather furniture, the orchids on the windowsill in the living room, the painting, the piano.

Afterwards they sat in the kitchen, at a surface that stuck out from the wall and divided the room in two.

Viljam poured coffee from a cafetière.

– Keep expecting every moment that she’ll come in the front door, he said. – Kick the snow off on the threshold.

He sipped at his cup, looked away. Liss studied his hands. The fingers were long and thin. She glanced up at his profiled face against the afternoon light from the window. Thought of what Tage had said about Ragnhild’s reaction; that there was something about Viljam that gave her mother a funny feeling… These funny feelings of hers always filled the room with something floating and invisible; back home they used to swim in them all the time. Liss recalled why it was she had left, and would never come back.

– Mailin says you’re studying law. And that you also work.

He nodded. – The Justice Bus. Free legal aid for people who can’t afford to pay.

Was he trying to hide something? According to Tage, Viljam had been at work with some other students when Mailin disappeared. And the rest of that evening and night and the following day at the house in Lørenskog.

She swallowed some coffee. It was black and strong, just the way she liked it. – On the phone that day, you said that Mailin was going to call me.

Even in the light from the window his eyes were dark blue. She still didn’t know what she thought of him. Other than that he was good looking in an almost feminine way. As was usually the case with Mailin’s men.

– She said there was something she wanted to talk to you about. Don’t know what it was. Then she went out to the cabin.

– Just for one day? Liss could hear the scepticism in her own voice.

– She’s been spending a lot of time there recently. Working on a very demanding project. Part of her PhD. Says she thinks better out there. Nothing to disturb her. And on Thursday of course she was supposed to take part in Taboo.

Lisa could see her, sitting by the large French windows in the room at the cabin. View of a stretch of Morr Water between the trees.

– So that old rock-preacher Berger has turned himself into a talk show host, she remarked.

– You’ve never seen Taboo? Everybody’s talking about it.

– It’s years since I saw a Norwegian TV programme. I gather I’m missing something.

Viljam drained his coffee cup, poured them both refills.

– Read about it in a newspaper on the plane, she added. – Every week he discusses a new taboo which he claims we should get rid of. Smart guy.

Viljam took the bait. – Berger is an unscrupulous bastard who has discovered how much attention he can get just by digging in the dirt.

Liss wasn’t sure whether he sounded irritated or not.

– In the beginning he was untouchable, ostracised. Now he’s cool. Everyone who’s famous for being famous turns up on his show and yaps away with him.

– You mean Mailin?

He shook his head. – I was extremely surprised when she accepted the invitation. Then I realised it was for a reason. She wrote a piece for the newspapers about his show.

He pulled down a cutting from the cork noticeboard, Berger – a hero for our times. From Aftenposten, 1 December. – She discusses his project and shows what a narrow-minded idiot he really is.

Liss read the opening paragraph. Mailin could be absolutely ruthless when it came to something she disapproved of.

– She’s been working on incest and abuse and so on for years, Viljam continued. – You know that’s what her doctoral thesis is about? In Thursday’s programme Berger revealed that as a child he had had a relationship with an older man. It didn’t harm him in the slightest. Far from it: a relationship like that could actually be good for a child.

– I saw that in VG. A lot of very angry responses.

– He got in touch with Mailin a few weeks ago. She’s had several meetings with him. He claims that the taboo on paedophilia is against one of life’s natural expressions. He tries to promote himself as a kind of saviour. Everyone knows that he’s making a fortune out of the fact that people can never get enough of scandal. The more outraged viewers and Christians who threaten to boycott the channel – and best of all, the death threats – the better it is for his image and for the viewing figures.

Viljam got up and took a packet out of the freezer in the top of the fridge. – I’ll heat some rolls for us.

– Mailin would never let herself be used by a guy like that, said Liss. – She’s much too savvy.

Viljam opened the bag with a thin, curved knife. – Agreed. She was the one who was going to use him.

He put the rolls into the microwave. – She’s very careful about the oath of confidentiality and all that. But the day before she was due to go on Taboo, she mentioned something… something she’d found out. Something she was going to reveal in the programme. I’m not quite sure what.

He didn’t say any more.

– And Berger didn’t know about this? asked Liss.

– She told me she would give him a fair chance. She was going to arrange another meeting with him. Talk to him just before the broadcast. Give him the choice of whether to cancel it or not.

– But he didn’t cancel.

– On the contrary. He made fun of the fact that she’d withdrawn. Got a lot of bullshit off his chest. Not a word of explanation for why she wasn’t there.

– Presumably because he didn’t know that before the programme went out?

Viljam shrugged.

– At first I thought she’d changed her mind. That she’d decided after all not to give Berger cred by appearing on his show. But anyone who knows Mailin knows she’s not the type to drop out like that.

The rolls were thawed and ready; he took them out of the microwave, put them on a plate. Put out cheese and jam.

– After Taboo was over, I was certain she’d show up in Lørenskog. We sat there and waited, Tage, Ragnhild and I. Then we started ringing round. Later on that night we called the police. There was nothing they could do. Not until I called again the next day. They asked me to come in and give a statement.

Liss leaned forward across the table. – Did you tell them this about Berger and the meeting she was supposed to have with him?

Viljam sat back down in his chair. – Naturally. But they were more interested in hearing what I had been up to over the last twenty-four hours.

What she saw in his eyes then was fear. The partner is always the first to be suspected, she thought. Was Viljam the type of guy who could do something like that? What was like that? Suddenly she realised she was staring back at him with the same look of fear in her eyes. She excused herself, pushed aside the plate with the fresh warm roll, went out into the hallway and up the stairs.

As she bent double over the toilet bowl, she saw an image of Mailin’s naked body in the dark.

– She’s dead, she murmured. – Mailin is dead.

5

SHE FOLLOWED SANNER Street in towards the city centre. The traffic approaching from the opposite direction created a film of dust and noise around her. She turned away by the bridge, took the path that ran alongside the river. Stopped and sat down on a bench. Light snow was falling, and in the dead grass two boys were chasing around after a ball. A woman in a turquoise outfit with her head covered in a shawl shouted something to them, something sharp and high pitched in a language Liss didn’t understand. The boys ignored her and raced off in the direction of the riverbank.

What was it about Viljam that gave Ragnhild her funny feeling? Was it anything other than jealousy because Mailin had chosen him? Viljam is more than just despairing, she thought. More than just afraid. Or was she imagining that? At times she was certain she could tell when people were lying to her. Wasn’t that just her imagination too?

As she walked on, it stopped snowing. Columns of light passed swiftly between the clouds, as though the sun were hurrying away. She carried on up to Our Saviour’s cemetery. She felt her phone vibrating. She saw it was Rikke and took the call.

– Liss, where are you? I’ve been trying to get hold of you for days.

– I’m in Oslo.

Before Rikke could ask, she told her about Mailin. Just a few words. Silence at the other end.

– I had to come home.

– First Zako and now your sister. It’s crazy.

– Have they got a cause of death for him yet?

– I was called in for an interview. Zako was at my flat directly before he went home that night.

She was probably afraid Liss was going to ask what they had been doing there.

– It’s okay, Rikke, you don’t have to tell me everything.

A wail from the other end. – I’ve been a real bitch, Liss. I understand if you’re mad at me.

– I’m not mad at you. What did the police say?

– They questioned me about everything. When he left, what we’d taken. If we’d had sex. If I went back to his place with him afterwards. It was pretty creepy. Is it my fault if he took too much? They asked about you too.

– What did you say?

– What could I say? I mean, you hadn’t seen him for over a week. That’s right, isn’t it?

– Yes.

– When are you coming back?

– Don’t know.

– I understand.

– What?

– How terrible it must be.

The main street entrance was locked. She looked down the list of names on the doorbells, found Mailin’s. Beneath it, another name she recognised. As the connection dawned on her, she turned, about to walk away. Waited a few seconds and then changed her mind and rang one of the other bells, marked T. Gabrielsen. A woman’s voice over the intercom asked who it was. Liss told her; there was a buzzing from the lock.

The stairwell smelt mouldy. The woodwork was worn and the paint flaking. A woman appeared from a door on the first floor.

– So you’re Liss. Mailin has told me about you. I’m Torunn. This is so awful. Not you coming here, of course. You know what I mean.

Liss didn’t answer. This Torunn, presumably surnamed Gabrielsen, was in her thirties. She came up to Liss’s chin. She was quite chubby. Her hair was shoulder length and pitch black, but in the roots its true grey was visible.

– Mailin’s office is on the second floor. Have you got a key? I’m expecting a client. Just say if there’s anything I can do to help.

As Liss was halfway up the stairs she continued: – Are you looking for anything in particular? The police have already been here. She shuddered, took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes.

– No, nothing special, said Liss. – Just want to see her office.

Just want to look for her, she might have said. The woman nodded as though she understood.

On the second floor, Liss let herself into a room furnished as a waiting room. A sofa, some chairs, a radio on a table in the corner, poster art on the walls. Two doors leading out of it. Pål Øvreby – Psychologist, it said on one of them. Again she felt an urge to leave the place. A vague pain in the stomach, spreading down into her groin. Pål Øvreby isn’t going to decide what I do or don’t do, she thought, and turned away from his door.

On the other door, Mailin’s name was printed on a brass plate. Liss looked through the spare bunch of keys Viljam had given her, selected the largest one and let herself in. The office wasn’t big, but the ceiling was high, as was probably the case with all the rooms in an old city-centre building like this. Here too the paint had begun to flake off, but the run-down effect was partly relieved by a woven rug on one of the walls, two children reaching out towards the sun. And the thick reddish carpet was soft to walk on. Liss recognised the desk, something inherited from their grandmother. It was in heavy, dark wood and was much too big and distinguished for the office. Behind the desk were three shelves housing books and folders.

She sat in the swivel chair and leaned across the desk. A glimpse of the street down below, the tram wires, the traffic lights. She remained sitting for a long time. Mailin’s voice was somewhere inside that empty office. If she closed her eyes and tried hard, she could hear it.

What’s to become of you, Liss?

Mailin had decided to help those who needed help the most. She took care of people who had known the worst they could know. Abuse. Violence. Incest. People with real reasons for their suffering, thought Liss. Not like me, who had chances but wasted them. She let her gaze wander over the folders on the shelves, Mailin had noted on the spines what the contents were. On the backs of the books she saw a few familiar names. Freud, Jung, Reich. Others who she’d never heard of: Igra, Bion, Ferenczi, Kohout. Now and then Liss had felt the same kind of curiosity as her sister. To understand how the world adds up. How language shapes us. How we collect memories and dispose of them. But she had never had Mailin’s patience. Could never sit for hours with a book. Had to interrupt herself, every time. Fill her thoughts with something other than letters. Sounds and pictures, something that moved.

There was a cork noticeboard next to the shelves. Two newspaper cuttings pinned to the top of it, one of them an interview with Berger. Liss switched on the desktop lamp, read something Mailin had underlined: Nothing bores me more than watching the way a shoal of cunts move. There was also a postcard hanging there. It was from Amsterdam, Bloemenmarket. Liss recognised it. She’d sent it a long time ago, at least a year, and Mailin still kept it up on her noticeboard. Below the card she discovered a Post-it note with something scribbled on it. Liss angled the lamp so that she could make the writing out. One of the few things she was better at than her sister was writing neatly. Ask him about death by water, she read in Mailin’s untidy scrawl.

She turned back towards the desk. It had been tidied. A few documents in a file. She opened the top drawer, found a stapler, some pens and a packet of paperclips. The drawer below it was locked. She managed to open it with the smallest key in the bunch. Inside was a small bound book with a wine-red cover in some kind of soft, plush material. She ran her fingers across it. Mailin S. Bjerke was written inside. Apart from that the pages were empty. What were you going to fill them with, Mailin? Write about your patients? Or your own thoughts? Liss shoved the book into her shoulder bag.

Further back in the drawer, she found a diary. The daily planners were covered in initials and appointment times, obviously patients her sister was treating. Six or seven every day, sometimes eight. They all came to her with their stories. Everything she had to listen to, take care of, cure them of. Dense with initials; on the hour, every hour someone crossing her threshold to unburden themselves, and Mailin was supposed to sit there and take it all in, swallow it until she felt she was going dizzy… Liss flipped through the diary, toward the end of the year. Thursday 11 December was blank, but below the listing of hours she had written: 17.00 JH. And at the bottom of the page BERGER – Channel Six, Nydalen, 8 o’clock, and something about a jacket.

She had to pee, went out into the corridor. At the end of it she found a tiny loo with a washbasin. After she’d locked herself in and sat down, she heard a door go, and then footsteps. They disappeared, obviously into the waiting room. In an instant, this thought: Pål Øvreby comes striding down the corridor, tears open the door and finds her sitting on the toilet… She finished, hurried back to the office. The door was ajar. A man was leaning over Mailin’s desk, turned round on hearing her.

– I’m looking for someone, he said, and glanced round in confusion. – Mailin still works here, right?

Liss stayed in the doorway. – She isn’t here.

The guy couldn’t have been much older than her. He was thin and bony, wearing a dark blue reefer jacket with the collar turned up and a motif on the breast pocket, an anchor.

– I can see that, he said. – That she’s not here. Who are you?

Liss didn’t think that was any of his business. She closed the door behind her.

– Do you have an appointment? she countered.

The man peered out the window. The black curly hair was gelled up and hung in a thick wave down one side of his forehead.

– Not actually today. I’ve been here before, some time ago. I dropped out. Been trying to get in touch with Mailin to make an appointment, but she doesn’t answer. Thought I might as well just call in. Will she be along later today?

Liss studied him. The eyes were dark and restless. He was rubbing his hands together and obviously trying to keep them still. Abstinent, she thought.

– I don’t know when she’ll be back, she answered. If she’ll be back, she should have said. Mailin won’t be coming any more. – I’ll make a note that you were here. What’s your name?

The man’s gaze flickered around her, over to the rug on the wall, out the window again. He had so much gel in his hair, it put her in mind of the feathers on a seabird mired in oil.

– Doesn’t matter, he mumbled. – I’ll try again later.

He squeezed past her on his way out.

– I’m looking for Mailin too, said Liss.

He stopped. Stood there, rocked a moment on the threshold. – Are you here waiting for her?

She closed her eyes. That’s what I’m doing.

– Gotta go, the young man mumbled.

Liss slumped down into the office chair again. Noticed in the same instant that the appointment book, which she had left lying on the desk, was now back in the drawer. She picked it up, flipped back through. The page for Thursday 11 December had been torn out. She jumped up and ran out into the corridor. Heard the street door closing down below.

6

LARGE FLAKES OF wet snow were falling in her hair. She was already drenched and on the point of giving up when Viljam opened the door. The heavy eyes and the creases on the pale cheeks showed what he had been doing since she left some hours earlier.

– You’re home, she said as she held up the office keys. – Sorry if I woke you. Just wanted to hand these back.

He blinked in the afternoon light. – Doesn’t matter. Come in. More coffee?

She pulled off the soaking wet boots.

– Don’t you have lectures or something to go to?

He shrugged. In the kitchen he added: – Can’t take anything in anyway. Not getting much sleep these nights.

Liss put the keys on the table. Decided to tell him about the patient who had appeared and then disappeared again.

– He tore a page out of the diary? Viljam exclaimed.

– The one with the appointments for the day Mailin went missing.

– Have you told the police?

She had called them. Still no one there who had anything to do with the case. She had left another message.

– They’re doing nothing, she groaned. – Absolutely fuck all.

He didn’t respond, but once he had produced the rolls from earlier on he asked: – What did this guy look like?

She described him. Black curly hair, unkempt. Acne scars on his cheeks, shifty eyes. – I had the feeling he was on something or other.

Viljam poured coffee from a little grey bag into the cafetière. – Quite a lot of Mailin’s patients are. I’ve asked her if it’s safe to have an office without any kind of alarm system. She just shrugs it off.

As he chewed at half a roll with nothing on it, Liss unobtrusively watched his dark blue eyes. He had a heavy growth of beard and still hadn’t shaved. On the other hand, the narrow nose and full lips accentuated the feminine prettiness of the face. Not hard to see why Mailin was attracted to him. Although her sister was more concerned about what lay behind an appearance; she dived down to investigate what was not immediately apparent to the naked eye. Liss, by way of contrast, had always been fascinated by the surface of things, what the masks looked like, not what was hidden behind them. Even so, she too tried to follow her intuition in deciding whether to trust someone or not. As regards Viljam, she still hadn’t made up her mind.

– Did you find what you were looking for in her office?

She didn’t know what she had been looking for. If she told him she’d been looking for Mailin, he might stop asking.

– I spent an evening with my mother, she said instead. – She sits there completely paralysed, can hardly get a word out. She’s wilting in front of our very eyes.

She dragged her fingers through her hair; they stopped at a knot, which she began to twist at.

– I must do something. Anything at all. Go over every single thing Mailin did recently. Go where she went. Just not carry on sitting here waiting.

He didn’t answer, sat there staring at the table.

– What about the thesis she was working on? she asked. – Is it lying around here somewhere?

He drank from his coffee cup. – Her computer is missing. It wasn’t in the car. Not at her office either, nor at the cabin. Doesn’t make sense.

Liss mulled this over.

– What else does she use it for?

– Journals. Everyone who came to her for treatment.

– Presumably she backs it all up?

– Think so. We can see up in her study.

He went ahead of her up the stairs and into the little room with the desk and the couch. A model of a seagull hung from the ceiling, and the draught from the opening door was enough to set the wings in motion.

– She’s very good at organising her work systematically, Viljam remarked. – So the journals aren’t just lying around all over the place. I helped her buy a fireproof safe for her office. She shares it with the other people who work there.

They looked through the drawers without finding anything of interest.

– What are you looking for? Viljam wanted to know.

– Don’t know. I need to see what kind of things she was doing.

As they were about to head back downstairs again, she said: – I just leapt on the plane last Sunday, didn’t have time to pack anything. Can I take a look and see if Mailin has any clothes I could borrow?

Viljam glanced at her. Clearly he now saw for the first time the wet hair and the jacket with its large dark patchy stains from the shoulders and down over the chest. He opened the bedroom door. – The furthest cupboard is hers.

He popped into the bathroom, came back with a towel.

– Sorry for not thinking of it before, he said, and disappeared out.

In the cupboard, Liss found what she was looking for. Put on a clean pair of tights, but the bras were two sizes too large and she gave up on them. Borrowed a couple of pullovers, underwear and a bottle-green cashmere cardigan. Mailin’s trousers were too short in the leg for her, so she pulled her own on again.

– I’ve heard a lot about you, Viljam said when she came down again. – Mailin liked to talk about you.

– Really. So you know the worst?

– Quite the contrary. But the fact that you arrive in Norway without a change of clothes and use her wardrobe as though it was your own fits the picture.

Briefly his face lightened. She was relieved that he took it like that.

– Does she still have the same supervisor? she asked as she forced her feet down into the wet boots. – Is it still Dahlstrøm?

– Dahlstrøm? Do you know him? Viljam asked, and looked surprised.

– I met him when he was at that conference in Amsterdam this summer, with Mailin. I’d like to talk to him. She glanced at her watch. – Actually, I met one of Mailin’s colleague’s at the office. It was her who let me in. Torunn Gabrielsen, do you know her?

– Slightly.

Really it was her other colleague she wanted to ask about. How could Mailin bring herself to share an office with him? She wondered whether Viljam knew that Pål Øvreby and Mailin had once been a couple. The thought filled her with unease, and she couldn’t face asking any more questions.

The sleet had stopped. The streets looked as though they were soaked in oil. She walked aimlessly. Crossed a park. Down a narrow street. There was a café at the end of it. She looked in. Only two customers there, sitting at the back in the half-dark, an elderly couple each with a glass of beer. She picked a table by the window. The view out was on to a factory gate and a roundabout. On the pavement outside, a bush decked with garish Christmas lights. Her phone rang. She jumped. Wouters; the name pounded in her head. They’ve found out. Soon they’d be there to fetch her.

– Liss Bjerke? This is Judith van Ravens.

– How did you get my number?

– My call list. You called me several times before you got here.

Everything connected with Zako had been shoved behind a door. Liss had worked to keep it there. Now that door swung open again and it all came tumbling out. Suddenly she was angry. Why didn’t you delete me from the list? she nearly shouted.

– I’ve been thinking so much, said the voice at the other end.

– And now you’ve got something to tell me?

Judith van Ravens sighed. – I had to find out about it.

– About what?

– This business with the photo of your sister, what Zako was going to do with it… I haven’t been able to sleep since you were here. I called some friends in Amsterdam. The police think Zako’s death was accidental.

– I told you that.

– All the same, perhaps I should tell them about these photos. Don’t you think?

Liss said nothing for a moment. Inside her head, everything was still spinning. The image of Zako on the sofa. Hands washing bottles beneath a tap. Her own hands.

– I don’t think so.

– Why not?

Judith van Ravens’ voice was sharper, as though at any moment the doubt could turn into suspicion.

– I want the police to find my sister. That’s all that matters. If they start getting a lot of confusing information, it’ll take them longer, and by then it might be too late. Surely you can understand that.

She drank the rest of the coffee that had been brought to her table. Had no reason to be sitting there. Had nowhere else to go. Put her hand down into her bag for her cigarettes and touched something else. She lifted out the notebook she’d taken from Mailin’s office. Sat there studying how her sister had written her name inside the cover. Then she wrote her own name, imitating the calligraphy. Mailin had always been able to use her head better than her. Mailin was stronger, had more endurance, but somehow her hands seemed to live in a different world.

Liss.

She sat for a long time and looked at the four letters.

Liss is Mailin’s sister, she wrote. Liss Bjerke.

Liss Bjerke contacts the police. She hasn’t heard from them. Does she know something that might help them find Mailin?

The appointment on 11 December, the afternoon she went missing: JH.

The image of Zako lying on the sofa paled as she sat there writing. Didn’t disappear, but detached itself from her other thoughts.

Thinking about you helps, Mailin.

What was it you were going to tell Berger before the TV broadcast?

Viljam knows. Get him to tell you.

Had no idea where she got that from. She ordered another espresso. The waiter was from the Middle East, probably, or maybe Pakistan. The way he was looking at her was easy to interpret. He wanted her body without knowing anything else about who she was. It was uncomplicated. Awakened something in her, something she had control over. She held his gaze so long that in the end he was the one who had to look away. He returned, put her coffee on the table, remained standing there as though waiting for something.

– Do you want me to pay now?

– Pay when you leave.

He leaned slightly towards her. He had a dense growth of hair and thick eyebrows. He smelt strongly of something fatty and salty, disgusting in a way that for a few seconds allowed her to stop thinking.

As he walked back to the counter, she followed him with her eyes. So intensely did she scrutinise the broad back and the narrow hips that he must have noticed it.

She took the notebook out again.

Tell Mailin everything. About what happened in Bloemstraat.

Zako was choked. Someone put sleeping tablets in his beer.

What would you have said, Mailin?

You would have told me to talk to someone or other about it.

Ring Dahlstrøm.

She sat for a few moments, pressing the pen against a point on her forehead.

You mustn’t go away, Mailin. I need you.

7

Wednesday 17 December

TORMOD DAHLSTRØM TOOK her hand and held it tightly, obviously to express his sympathy. She knew he was somewhere in his mid-fifties, but there was something about him that made him seem younger. It wasn’t the jutting chin or the outline of the almost bald head beneath the thin crest of fair hair. Maybe the deep-set pale blue eyes. She had met him for the first time four years previously. The second time was six months ago, when he attended the conference in Amsterdam with Mailin. He was one of the keynote speakers, said Mailin proudly, and insisted that Liss take them to a really good restaurant. Liss had her suspicions about why her sister was so keen, but went along with it anyway. For some years Dahlstrøm had had a regular column in Dagbladet where people could write in about their problems. He advised them on their marital difficulties, gambling and drug addictions, infidelities, lack of libido, and eating disorders. On this latter topic he had written several books, Mailin pointed out to her.

His office was in a daylight basement room in his villa, with a view of the garden and some spruce trees in a copse along Frognerseter Way.

– Does she still come to you for mentoring? Liss asked after sitting down in the soft leather chair.

– Did you know that? He seemed surprised. – Mailin doesn’t usually reveal whom she’s going to for mentoring, does she?

– She tells me lots of things. She trusts me.

– I didn’t mean it like that, Dahlstrøm reassured her.

She hadn’t taken it that way either, but she had an idea that Mailin had talked to him about her, and now she sat there with an uncomfortable feeling that he knew what was going on in her head.

He poured coffee from a thermos, tasted it, made a face, offered to brew a fresh pot. She said no. There was a girl of about her own age sitting in the waiting room. – I won’t take up much of your time, I know you’re busy.

– I’m glad you want to talk to me, he said.

Liss had always felt a need to be on the alert when she was with her sister’s colleagues. When she was younger and Mailin introduced her to her fellow students, she had had the idea that psychologists could see through people, and that the slightest thing she said or did, or even thought, might give her away. In time her belief in such magical powers faded, and instead she had to guard against her own irritation, control that urge to provoke that all therapists aroused in her. Twice she had started in treatment and both times terminated after a few sessions. She had sworn never again to see a psychologist, and definitely not a psychiatrist.

Dahlstrøm was a psychiatrist.

– I’m having trouble functioning normally, he added. – At the moment it’s hard to think of anything apart from Mailin.

It sounded as though he meant it. He began by asking how things were at home in Lørenskog, and she had no problem talking about her mother’s reaction, or about Tage’s well-meaning but hopeless attempts to comfort her. But Dahlstrøm also wanted to know how she was coping.

– What’s your opinion on that TV show Mailin was supposed to be on? she interrupted.

He ran a finger over the depression in the bridge of his nose; it was crooked and looked to have been broken. Sitting in the Vermeer restaurant in Amsterdam, he had joked about how he used to box when he was younger.

– I mentor Mailin on the treatment of patients, he answered. – Anything else she does is none of my business. But if she had asked, I would have advised against having anything to do with Berger and what he’s up to.

– So you don’t like him either, Liss pressed.

Dahlstrøm appeared to be thinking this over.

– Any bully with a minimum of talent who is sufficiently ruthless is doomed to succeed, he said.

– There’s no harm in laughing at ourselves, is there?

– On the contrary, Liss, it’s good for us. But for those of us who work with the victims of cynicism, the world looks a little different.

He put one leg over the other and leaned back. – There is nothing we aren’t prepared to joke about. No matter what you say about sex or death or God, you won’t be breaking any taboos. Not as long as you do it ironically. Seriousness is the only taboo of our age. Taboo has migrated from content to form.

Liss said suddenly: – Mailin found out something about him. Something Berger’s supposed to have done. She was going to expose it on TV that evening. She was due to meet him directly before the show to give him a chance to cancel the broadcast.

– How do you know this?

– Viljam, her partner.

But I don’t know if I can trust him, she was on the point of adding.

Dahlstrøm sat up straight. – Have the police been informed of this?

– Viljam has tried to tell them. But they don’t seem interested. At least according to him.

– They have to work through a great many possibilities.

– I don’t think they’re doing anything at all.

– That isn’t correct, Dahlstrøm said firmly. – But I’ll make a call. I know someone at police headquarters you can talk to.

Liss prepared to bring the conversation to a close. She noticed how good it felt to sit with this man whom Mailin admired and trusted. If she went on sitting there much longer, she might end up telling him things she didn’t want him to know.

– It’s impossible to imagine someone hurting Mailin.

Dahlstrøm nodded. – Mailin is what I would call a fundamentally decent human being. But she’s also courageous, which means she makes enemies. On top of that, she’s spent a long time working in a landscape that is basically a minefield.

He sat there, brow wrinkled, looking out of the window.

– I know you can’t tell me anything about Mailin’s patients, said Liss. – But I know she’s working on a doctoral thesis about incest and that kind of thing. That’s no secret?

– Of course not. It’s going to be published… She’s studying a group of young men who have been the subject of serious abuse.

– Is it possible one of them might have harmed her?

Dahlstrøm hesitated before answering: – When Mailin started this study a couple of years ago, she chose seven men who she was going to follow over a period of time. She was very careful to find victims who had not themselves become perpetrators.

He raised his coffee cup, changed his mind, put it down again. – What is it that enables a vicious circle of sexual violence and abuse to be broken? What makes some people choose to endure the pain inflicted on them without taking it out on other innocents? That is what she wants to study.

Liss thought this through.

– You can’t know for certain whether one of the seven she ended up with hasn’t abused someone else, she objected. – Even though they might deny it when asked.

– That is correct. Mailin can only relate to what they tell her about themselves, and to the fact that they have no criminal record. But we’ve reached the limit of what I can discuss with you, Liss. I hope you understand that.

– But you will go to the police with what you know, if any of her patients have threatened her?

– You can rest assured that I will do everything I can to prevent anything happening to Mailin…

– But she’s been missing for six days, Liss protested. – We can’t just sit calmly and wait.

– I’m not doing that, he assured her. – I’ve already spoken to the police, and I’ll speak to them again.

– I’ll have to do that too, she mumbled.

Dahlstrøm looked quizzically at her. Now you can say it; she heard the thought race through her. You have killed a person, Liss Bjerke.

– I am her sister, after all, she added quickly. – No one knows her better than me.

Dahlstrøm’s gaze was on her the whole time and took in everything. He wouldn’t have been in a moment’s doubt about what she ought to do… She had to get out of this chair now, before she started talking and was unable to stop.

8

IN THE EVENING, she took the bus out to Lørenskog. Had no other place to go. Tage had given her a spare key. He didn’t say anything, just put it into her hand as she was going out the door the day before.

She let herself in.

– Is that you, Tage? She heard her mother’s voice from the living room

Liss shuffled in. Her mother was sitting on the sofa, in exactly the same place as she had been a day and a half earlier. She had lit a candle; there was a pile of newspapers on the table in front of her, and she had a book in her hands.

– Are you hungry, Liss? I can heat something up for you.

Liss wasn’t hungry. She’d forced down half a kebab before heading for the bus. Didn’t want to do anything else but get up to her room and curl up in bed.

She sat in the chair at the end of the table.

– I am sorry, her mother said.

– For what?

Her mother put the book down. – I’m glad you’re here, Liss.

Liss gave a quick nod.

– But right at the moment it’s impossible to be happy about anything, her mother continued.

– I know.

– There are so many things I’d like to ask you about. About Amsterdam. About what you’re up to these days.

Liss got up, went out into the kitchen, put some coffee on. Returned with cups, glasses and a jug of water.

– Are those new clothes? Isn’t that something Mailin usually wears?

– Had to borrow some of hers. Didn’t have time to pack a change of clothing.

Her mother raised her hand and stroked the bottle-green cashmere cardigan. Maybe that was a smile moving in her face.

– How long can you stay? she asked.

Liss poured them both a glass of water. It was colder than ice. She emptied a whole glass, a thin string of pain flashed through her throat and down into her shoulder.

– I’m not leaving until we know.

Not until Mailin has been found, she added silently.

To stave off the silence, she said: – What are you reading?

Her mother picked up the book. – The Charterhouse of Parma.

She held it up in the air, as though to prove to Liss that a book with that title really did exist.

– Stendhal, she continued. – Always read Stendhal when I need to find a place to get away from it all.

Liss sat in Tage’s office, switched on the computer. He’d given her the password for the guest log-in.

She opened Google. In the search field she typed: manslaughter + range of sentence. Deleted it. Typed instead: death by water, the words Mailin had scribbled on the Post-it note pinned to the noticeboard in her office. 46,700 hits. Articles about poisoned water, Silicon Valley, and Shakespeare’s Ophelia. She was too restless to start sorting through the chaos and instead ran a search for Berger + Taboo. Over twelve thousand hits. Clicked into Wikipedia. Before calling himself Berger, the talk show host’s name was Elijah Bergersen, or Elijah Frelsøi. Studied theology. Formed the rock band Baalzebub in 1976; a career as a solo artist followed. A couple of hits in the mid-nineties. Later best known as a stand-up comedian, and most recently on television with a number of controversial productions.

She found a lot of comments on the talk show Taboo. An article in Vårt Land under the headline Time to set a limit claimed that Berger was a member of an international network whose aim was to destroy Christianity and replace it with Satanism. Something called The Magazine urged all Christians to boycott the companies that sponsored his TV shows. Morgenbladet had an article entitled ‘Berger – a child of his times’, which almost read like a tribute to the man behind Taboo:

A lot of players are still splashing around in the backwater following developments over the last decade which have opened up new doors in the field of comedy and driven out political correctness, but Berger is in a class of his own. Free of all inhibition, he uses himself and others, and in doing so breaks the boundaries that define the place of entertainment, the space between entertainer and audience. He curses his way out into the realities of everyday Norwegian life and grabs the sleepy consumers of culture by the balls. Hello – is there anyone out there?

She heard the car going into the garage, and shortly afterwards Tage out in the hallway. It was close to midnight. She switched off the computer, wandered out into the kitchen. He popped his head in.

– Hi, Liss. Has Ragnhild gone to bed?

She offered him a cup of coffee. As though she were the one who lived there.

– I can’t take caffeine any more, he said. – Especially not this late.

He got them both a beer and sat down at the table. – I’m worried about her.

– Mailin? said Liss, wilfully misunderstanding him.

– Yes, of course, naturally. But about Ragnhild too. I don’t know if she’ll be able to deal with it. If something really has happened. There’s always been something special between Ragnhild and Mailin.

He took off his glasses, rubbed fiercely at his eyes and peered across at her, near sighted as an old mole.

– Neither you nor I could ever occupy that sort of place.

He got his glasses back on to his nose again and glanced at the door before continuing: – Now and then, in the privacy of my own mind, it has occurred to me that it might have been too close. At least on Ragnhild’s part. But Mailin has done well. She seems more comfortable with herself than anyone else I know.

He drank straight from the bottle. Downed most of it in two deep swallows. – But, my dear Liss, if there is anything at all I can do for you…

He patted her on the arm. She glanced up at him, on the alert as always when someone touched her. Registered that it did not irritate her. Not even that sloppy ‘dear Liss’, which he always reeled off and which she had always hated, seemed to bother her this time. From the very beginning Tage had wanted to get to know them both, Mailin and her. During all the years they had lived together under the same roof, he had put up with being ridiculed and rejected. It was more or less to be expected, he seemed to think, when you appeared as a replacement for an absent father. After the wedding, he had taken their family name, and his devotion to Ragnhild was so great that he put up with everything. Like a well-trained dog, thought Liss, but then for a moment had to abandon the contempt with which she had always treated him, and was suddenly grateful to this man who had found his place in a home with women who didn’t love him, not any of them.

She let herself into the room that had once been hers. It was tidy and clean. No posters on the walls, but they were still crimson red and the doors and frames black. At the age of sixteen Liss had finally got her mother to give in and allow her to paint the room in these colours, and for some reason or other she had let it stay like that, even seven years after Liss had moved out.

She switched off the light and lay naked under the duvet, rubbing her feet against one another for warmth. Still freezing, she drifted into a state that was halfway between waking and sleeping. She sees someone there, a man in a long coat climbing some steps. His name is Wouters, Liss. You will never be able to forget it. She runs into the dark room. Bends over Zako and listens to his breathing. It is deep and irregular.

There is a knock on the door.

Don’t open it, Liss. You mustn’t open it.

Mailin is standing there, in the middle of the room. She isn’t wearing the blue pyjamas, but yellow ones that glow in the dark. And she has cut her hair.

Liss leapt out of bed, stood there listening out in the dark, certain that someone had just knocked.

Her back felt clammy; she opened the window and turned on the light. Found the notebook in her handbag and took it back to bed with her. Sat for a long time stroking the plush cover before opening it and starting to write:

Did it happen several times, Mailin, that you came here and locked us in? Got into bed and put your arms around me. Held your hands over my ears so that I wouldn’t hear the hammering on the door. So I wouldn’t hear the voice out there, what it was shouting in to us.

9

Thursday 18 December

Liss let herself into Mailin’s office and switched on the light. She didn’t know exactly what she was looking for this time either, but she had an idea where to start. She walked over to the shelves and took down the three folders marked PhD. Two of them were full of articles, many printed from the internet. She put them to one side and opened the third. This contained documents that appeared to have been written by Mailin herself, systematically arranged with numbered dividing sheets. There was a list of books at the front. Then a title page: Victim and perpetrator. A study of eight young men who were subjected to sexual abuse. She flipped through several pages of notes, some handwritten. On the back of the next divider she came across what looked like the draft of a more extensive text:

Starting from Ferenczi’s thesis (cf. ‘Confusions of tongues between adult and child’, 1933), two points will be illustrated in the introduction. (1) The child’s search for tenderness can contain infantile erotic elements, but these will be pitched in the direction of play, security and contentment. The adult’s passionate sexuality on the other hand exists in the tension between love and hate; it is the urge to transgression, which also includes destructive elements. (2) Abuse occurs when the child in search of tenderness and care encounters the passion of the adult. Passion can take the form of sexual desire, but can also be aggressive/punitive, and involve the child being compelled to bear the adult’s feeling of guilt.

She flipped forward to the third divider:

In this chapter I will describe eight male patients all of whom have been subjected to sexual abuse. As far as possible it has been ascertained that they have not themselves subjected others to abuse. The eight will be interviewed before the treatment begins, and thereafter every six months over a period of three years. Evaluation criteria for aggressive behaviour, depression, anxiety and general quality of life will be employed…

This was followed by several pages describing methods, but in these papers Mailin had obviously not included any information on the eight patients. Maybe the rest of the thesis was in the archive safe she shared with the others who had offices there.

Liss looked out at the wet snow melting against the grey wall on the other side of Welhavens Street. Outside of town, in the surrounding forest, it would definitely be cold enough for the snow to lie. She could take the bus to Lørenskog and fetch the skis from her mother’s garage, take a ski trip out in the forest. Until the silence wrapped itself around her. She decided that she would go out to the cabin the next day.

Again she looked at the postcard from Bloemenmarkt, the one she had sent to Mailin. Resisted the temptation to take it down. Always embarrassing to read something she had written herself. Instead she tugged at the Post-it note hanging below it. Ask him aboutdeath by water, Mailin had scribbled on it. In haste, by the look of it, a thought that had struck her while working on something else, and which for some reason or other she wanted to remember. She stuck it into the notebook she’d taken the last time she was there.

As she let herself out of the office again, the door at the other end of the room opened. The man who emerged was of medium height and narrow shouldered, wearing a suit jacket and blue jeans.

– Well if it isn’t you, he exclaimed, and stood there looking at her. Then he approached until he was suddenly much too close. She took a step back, towards Mailin’s door.

Older now, Pål Øvreby had grown a thin beard, but he smelled the same. Tobacco and something vaguely rubbery, mixed with Calvin Klein deodorant.

– I heard you were here a couple of days ago, he said quietly.

– Wanted to see her office, Liss managed to say.

Pål Øvreby shook his head. – This business with Mailin is of course… It looked as though he were searching for the right word to use. – Actually just beyond comprehension.

She didn’t reply. It struck her that talking about Mailin was merely an excuse for him to intrude. But she couldn’t bring herself to raise her hands and push him away.

At that moment the door to the waiting room opened. Pål Øvreby stepped back, startled. Liss recognised the woman who put her head round the door: Torunn Gabrielsen, whose office was on the floor below.

– I’m waiting, she said impatiently, and from the way she said it, Liss knew that Pål Øvreby was her property. – Oh, it’s you, she added to Liss, and then sniffed, as though to find out what had been happening in the room.

Only now did Liss realise how irritated she was. – I was looking for something I forgot last time, she said brusquely.

– It’s terrible, Torunn Gabrielsen said, and suddenly the suspicious note was gone from her voice. – To carry on like this and not know. I’m hardly getting any sleep at night.

She didn’t look as if she was suffering from lack of sleep.

– Sit down, Liss. We ought to take the time to have a little chat.

– Weren’t we going to…? Pål Øvreby interjected.

– It’s worse for Liss than for us, Pål. The least we can do is find out how she’s coping.

– It isn’t necessary, said Liss, but she sat down in one of the chairs. – I can manage.

Pål Øvreby remained standing, diagonally behind her. She twisted round, wanted to know where he was.

– I know you and Mailin are very close, said Torunn, and slumped down into the sofa.

Liss could hear how she sort of folded her voice to sound sympathetic. – Maybe, she said, and turned the conversation in another direction. – Did the three of you work together?

The two psychologists exchanged glances. Pål Øvreby said: – We share a break room, we often have lunch together.

He still had that ridiculous American accent when he spoke. To Liss it had always seemed fake.

– Mailin was here on Thursday afternoon. Did you see her?

Again the pair looked at each other, Liss had the feeling they were deciding which of them should answer.

– We’ve spoken to the police about this, Liss, said Torunn Gabrielsen in a motherly fashion. – Her car was parked up the street here, but neither of us were here when she came.

She peered through the lenses of her glasses; maybe they weren’t strong enough, and the frames didn’t look as though they’d been renewed since the eighties.

– How much do you know about what Mailin was working on? Liss wanted to know.

– We sometimes discuss difficult cases over lunch, Pål Øvreby answered. – You have to in this business, back each other up.

He and Mailin had once been a couple. Almost ten years ago now. Liss couldn’t imagine her sister needing backing from someone like him.

– Mailin and I cooperated quite a bit in the past, said Torunn Gabrielsen. – We wrote a number of articles together.

– About what?

– Abuse of women. Threats, psychological violence, rape. We want to live in a city that is safe for everyone, regardless of gender.

– But you don’t work together now?

– Not so much.

Torunn Gabrielsen buttoned up her jacket.

– They can’t agree with each other, Pål Øvreby chuckled. – So they have to argue instead.

She looked coldly at him. – This is something you don’t understand, Pål, and there’s no need to bother Liss with it. She’s got other things to think about.

Liss interjected: – On that Thursday, Mailin was supposed to be seeing a patient here at five in the afternoon. His initials are J. H. Do either of you have any idea who that might be?

She could feel their gazes pressing in on her from both sides.

– Sounds as if you’re investigating the case, Pål Øvreby remarked. He stood there, smiling in a way that suggested he believed Liss had come there in order to see him.

– Stop it, Pål, Torunn Gabrielsen hissed. – Even you can understand why she wants to know what’s happened.

She turned towards Liss again. – I don’t know who Mailin had an appointment with that day. We don’t know each other’s patients.

It seemed as though she was making an effort to control herself and speak calmly, and Liss had her suspicions about what it was that was making her so angry.

– But you all use the same archive safe?

Torunn Gabrielsen stood up. – We don’t have access to Mailin’s notes. She has her own lockable drawers.

10

TORUNN GABRIELSEN FINISHED with her last patient and showed him out. All afternoon she had been in a bit of a state and it had affected her work, but she had managed to keep her mask up. Over and over again her thoughts returned to what had happened earlier in the day. Walking into the waiting room and finding Pål there pawing away at Liss Bjerke.

Torunn had seen pictures of her in Dagbladet’s magazine a few months earlier. Liss was completely unlike her sister, beautiful in a curious way, and not even the idiotic things she had to say on the subject of being a young woman could diminish that impression. In the flesh, her face had an even stronger radiance than in the photographs. A combination of naivety and self-assurance that had a confusing effect. Mailin often talked about her sister. The impression Torunn had was that Liss was a sort of pilgrim who had embarked on a dangerous journey through the world. The stories about this vulnerable and sensitive sister didn’t interest her much. Not until she found out about this business involving Pål and Liss.

She stuck her hand down into the bag she had shoved under the desk, fished out her phone. She needed to talk to someone. It was almost a year now since she had last spoken to Tormod Dahlstrøm. The mentoring had come to an end at her suggestion. For a long time she continued to hope that he would protest, persuade her to carry on, give some explanation of why she wanted to terminate the process. He hadn’t done any of those things. He had accepted the reason she gave, though he no doubt had his own opinions on the matter, and that had added fuel to the anger she felt.

Rather than call him, she finished a note in the patients’ journal, put a few documents away in the drawer, locked it and headed up the stairs. The door to Pål’s office was ajar, as usual when he wasn’t seeing patients. She knocked once, pushed it wide open and stood in the entrance. He was punching away at his computer keyboard, feigning indifference. She banged the door shut behind her.

– What did she want with you? she asked without any preamble.

He wrinkled his brow and gave her a look that suggested he had no idea what she was talking about.

– Liss, you mean? Liss Bjerke?

She didn’t bother to confirm it. She knew when he was lying, when he was bluffing, and when he was about to lie, because she knew every twitch on that face and could read it like a children’s primer. Almost before he had got started, he abandoned the hopeless task.

– Well you heard her yourself. She’s trying to find out what’s happened to Mailin. Not everyone just keeps breezing along as though nothing has happened when someone they know goes missing.

If that was supposed to be a dig at her, it missed badly. She took a few paces into the room.

– I want you to stay away from her, she said firmly. – Well away.

Again he wrinkled his brow, and this time he managed to look genuinely astonished.

– Well I’ll be damned. Someone lets themselves into Mailin’s office, I go to see who it is that’s poking around in there. Had no idea it was her baby sister.

Torunn hated to hear him use that phrase. – All I’m saying is, stay away from her.

She could see his anger forming. A way of tensing the neck, until it manifested itself in his eyes.

– Even if it was me that asked her to come, that has absolutely nothing to do with you, Gabrielsen. He pointed at her. – Not one fucking bit.

She took another step in his direction. – I’ve lied for your sake, she said between gritted teeth. – Lied to the police. I hope you haven’t forgotten that. Given false evidence. That is a punishable offence. I might change that statement, little Påly. I might tell them what actually happened, that you weren’t home at six o’clock on the day Mailin went missing, that you didn’t show up until after nine, and that you were in an absolute state. And that it certainly didn’t have anything to do with one of your patients, as you tried to get me to believe in the first place.

– I said that to spare your feelings.

– So now it’s me you’re protecting. Poor Torunn, I’ll take good care of her. Spare me the hypocrisy, you’re making me sick.

He gave up. Always did. He might toss off something in a flash of anger, take the occasional jab at her, but then he couldn’t keep it up. Couldn’t commit to anything, whether it be a quarrel or the opposite of a quarrel.

– I’ve got a few things to do, he said wearily. – Got to get this finished. He circled his forefinger over some documents lying on his desk, but she didn’t believe for a moment that he was going to do any paperwork. He loathed it, could hardly even bring himself to make journal notes, and the disability allowance application forms never got filled. – Or will you pick up Oda?

She had been waiting for that. For him to end up there. With something about their daughter.

– You pick her up, she said as coldly as she could. – I don’t remember making any alternative arrangement.

He shrugged his shoulders. – Then left me finish up here.

His arrogance made her anger flare up again. – She found out about you and Liss that time.

– Who found out what?

She could hear that he was taken aback. Without her needing to say any more, it was clear that he understood what she was talking about.

– So what? he said tentatively. But she knew how his neck dipped, whether he was going to lose his temper, or lie down and whimper. She had him under control, and now she gave an extra twist:

– I told Mailin.

– Get out of here, he hissed, and continued to tap away at the keyboard.

Back in her office, she again dug her phone out and opened the contacts. She was the one who had suggested that Mailin approach Tormod Dahlstrøm three years ago, when she was looking for a mentor. And it was she who had recommended her friend to Dahlstrøm, called her conscientious, talented, thorough. Had she thought that Mailin would take over such a large part of him, even to the extent of persuading him to mentor the research project, she would never have brought them together. Dahlstrøm never had much time – among other things, he had declined to mentor Torunn’s own project when she asked him the year before. She had analysed her anger a long time ago, acknowledged that it stemmed from jealousy, not that it did anything to dampen her anger. Nor did it make matters any better that whenever a professional disagreement arose, Dahlstrøm always seemed to side with Mailin. But after what had happened now, it might be possible to put all this behind her and move forward.

She sat there looking at her computer screen, wondering what Oda was doing. It was Thursday, when the children in the nursery were served hot food; they’d probably eaten by now and were outside playing… She must have it out with Pål. Get him to tell her what he was doing on that evening Mailin went missing. She couldn’t live with the uncertainty. She stood up and headed for the door, then stopped with her hand on the knob. Better to wait until he had calmed down, she realised. Stroke him the right way. When he was in a bad mood, he could be self-destructive. He’d been drinking a lot recently. He’d started reminding her again of how he and Mailin had been a couple for almost three years. Using it against her. Everything Mailin was which she could never be. Torunn ignored things like that, refused to appear weak. During one quarrel a couple of weeks ago, he had started going on about Mailin. Said something about Liss. Torunn pretended she wasn’t interested. But she was almost nauseous with rage when she put together the different threads of his ravings. She made certain the whole story came out. Afterwards he said it was all supposed to be a joke. Drunken babbling, he called it. True enough, he could say the most unbelievable things when he’d been drinking. But never anything like this business with Liss.

Just over a week earlier, Torunn and Mailin had shared a lunch break. It wasn’t something that happened often these days. After all the arguments about Mailin’s articles, it was a strain for them to sit and eat together. Again Mailin had remarked how worried she was about her little sister, who was clearly adrift in some very murky waters indeed. Maybe it was something she chose to talk about because it was far removed from the professional disputes they were involved in. Torunn used the occasion to ask about Liss, and Mailin appeared relieved at this show of concern. Cautiously Torunn approached the time some nine or ten years earlier when Mailin and Pål were a couple. She received then confirmation of the very thing she didn’t want to know.

11

LISS SAT IN the café outside the factory gates with the newspapers in front of her on the table. A week had passed since Mailin’s disappearance, and now her sister had reached the front pages in both Dagbladet and VG. The police had contacted her mother the day before. They wanted to extend the search, with a name and a photo, hoping members of the public might come forward with something new. Her mother asked for Liss’s view, though it was clear she had already decided to give her permission.

Liss had put off reading the newspapers for as long as possible. But in every kiosk and general store she passed, there was Mailin’s face staring out at her. It didn’t help simply to look away. VG had a long article about Berger, with the headline No regrets. The talk show host made it clear that he didn’t see anything wrong in making fun of his guest when she didn’t show up. One of his comments was quoted: It looks as though the young feminist psychologist is not going to honour us with her presence. No doubt she was called to order by the rest of the cunt shoal.

In Dagbladet, there was a backstory feature on Mailin. About her work with victims of abuse, quotes from former patients who had been helped by her. On the next page, an interview with Tormod Dahlstrøm in which he praised her research work. Beneath that the headline Colleagues in shock. Pictures of Torunn Gabrielsen and of him, Pål Øvreby. It looked to have been taken in the waiting room where Liss had spoken to them a few hours earlier.

She sat there looking out at the little Christmas tree with its brightly coloured lights. People walked by, their hands full of bags of shopping. They hurried about buying Christmas presents as though nothing had happened, as though Mailin’s face on the front pages didn’t have anything to do with them… Both Dagbladet and VG used a picture of her Liss had never seen before, obviously quite a recent one. Somewhere behind that calm gaze Liss could see that she was calling for help. She folded up the newspapers and threw them on to the floor.

The waiter was standing by her table. Clearly he remembered her from the last visit.

– Espresso? he asked.

– Double.

– Anything else?

There was something else. She had an impulse. Ask him to sit down at her table and place his huge hands over hers. The backs of them were completely covered in short black hair. Reminded her of Zako’s hands.

Moments later, he was back with her coffee. On the saucer was a little chocolate in a gold wrapping.

– Soon be Christmas, he said, with something that might have been a smile in his eyes.

She took out the red notebook. Studied Mailin’s lettering. It was uneven and forward-leaning, an almost childlike hand, it struck her. There was something childlike about Mailin herself too. The one who always knew what to do.

She wrote: Mailin taught me almost everything I know. But not how to use it.

Passion is both hatred and love.

The child who looks for love and is met with lust.

Was Mailin at her office that evening?

Torunn Gabrielsen. Jealousy.

Ask Dahlstrøm what happened between her and Mailin.

Pål’s hands are always cold and clammy.

Mailin: to the cabin on Wednesday afternoon. Called Viljam. Call anybody else? Sent me text message Thursday. Contacted Berger. Did she meet Berger?

Taboos. We need taboos.

The patient she had an appointment with: JH. Did she meet him?

Death by water. Title of something. A film? Possible to die from drinking too much water? Ophelia.

What is it about Viljam? Has Mailin noticed who he looks like?

She sat and looked at that last sentence. Hadn’t noticed the resemblance herself until she wrote it.

The way he talks. Something about his facial expressions.

When was the last time any of us heard from Father?

Dad.

She put the notebook back in her bag. It felt good having it with her. Mailin’s notebook. Now it was hers. Maybe Mailin wanted her to write in it. The thought made her take it out again.

Why do I remember almost nothing from when I was a child?

I remember the way to school, a couple of the teachers, the names of some of the others who were in my class. I remember Tage coming to our house and that we hated him being there. I remember we sat on the sofa and watched Dad on TV and Mum went out and wouldn’t sit and watch with us. But I should have asked you about all the rest, Mailin. I have no memories of Dad from before the time he left. And yet I can picture him so clearly.

What happened to the memories? Are they gone, or just hidden away in boxes that can no longer be opened?

There is a policeman named Wouters in Amsterdam. I have tried to forget his name. If I manage that, maybe I can forget what happened there too. If I tell myself another story of what happened that night in Bloemstraat. Tell it over and over again. So many times that it turns into a memory and drives away what I see in front of me now.

She took the metro to Jernbanetorget, ran up the steps to Oslo Central. Another half-hour before the bus to Lørenskog. She slightly dreaded going out there. Her mother had made some attempt at putting up decorations. Hung the star up in the living-room window. Dug out the stable and crib she always put on the bookshelf at Advent. When they were children, Mailin and Liss were allowed to take turns each day putting a new figure into the display. Joseph and the asses, the wise men, the shepherds, the angels, Mary. The baby Jesus was saved until Christmas Eve morning. Her mother had carried on with the ritual after they moved out. Not for one moment had she ever believed what was supposed to have happened in that stable, yet the figures had to be displayed there, same ritual, year in and year out. And now it was as though she was putting them there to get Mailin to come home for Christmas, as she always did after the crib with the infant was finally in place.

Liss slowly crossed the pedestrian bridge to the bus terminal. Half turned. Couldn’t face the thought of spending the night at the house in Lørenskog. Headed back towards the railway station. Suddenly she caught sight of a figure over by a newspaper kiosk. He was thin and bony, with untidy black hair. She recognised him at once as the man who had turned up at Mailin’s office the first time she went there. He was wearing the same reefer jacket, with the anchor badge on the breast pocket. He was standing talking to a girl in a quilted jacket and dirty jeans.

Liss went straight up to him. – Do you recognise me?

The man glanced at her. There was a swollen scar on his forehead, beneath his fringe.

– Should I? he said, uninterested.

– I met you two days ago, at Mailin Bjerke’s office.

This time there was no sign of his previous unease.

– Dunno what you’re talking about.

But Liss had always had a better memory for faces than anything else.

– It was you. You stole something when you were there. What’s your name?

He turned his back and hurried away, the girl in the quilted jacket following. Liss ran after them.

– Why did you tear a page out of her appointments book?

– What the fuck are you talking about?

– I’ve told the police. They’re looking for you.

He stopped, took a step towards her. – If you say one more word to me, I will knock your teeth out.

He grabbed the girl by the hand and disappeared in the direction of the exit.

12

Friday 19 December

SHE CALLED VILJAM. Someone shouted something in the background when he answered. He didn’t hear what she said and she had to repeat it.

– I’m at a seminar, he said apologetically. – I’ve only got a minute before the break’s over. What is this about Mailin’s car?

– I need to borrow it.

– Borrow the car? Is that all right?

– Why wouldn’t it be?

– I don’t know. It might be evidence… Sorry, Liss, I’m just not quite with it. I’m sure it’ll be all right. I’ve got a spare key. When do you need it?

She had no deadline.

– I’m going out to the cabin this afternoon. I can come down and pick up the key. There’s something else I’ve got to do first.

The man who opened the door looked to be in his forties, slightly built and thin on top, with a widow’s peak. Though it was still quite early in the day, he was wearing a suit and a white shirt, although it wasn’t buttoned at the collar.

– Liss Bjerke, I presume? he said with the hint of a lisp. When she confirmed her name, he let her in.

– I am Odd. His butler, he added with a little bow before heading down the carpeted corridor and opening a door. – Berger, your visitor has arrived.

Liss heard a rumbling response. The man who called himself Odd beckoned to her.

– Berger will see you in the living room.

She almost burst out laughing at the absurd formality of his speech, but managed to hold it in.

The room was large and well lit, with wide windows and a balcony looking out on to Løvenskiolds Street. A man she recognised from pictures in the newspapers and on TV sat behind a desk by the window, tapping with two fingers on a computer keyboard. In the flesh he looked older, the face yellowish and sunken.

– Sit down, he said without looking up.

She remained standing. Never liked being ordered to do something, especially not by elderly men.

Finally Berger gave her his attention. – Quite all right that you remain standing. He smiled as he let his gaze roam across her. – A woman like you should never sit down until she has been seen.

He pointed to a sofa against the other wall. – You don’t look like your sister, he announced. – Not in the least. Coffee?

He stood up, dominating the room. There was a brass bell on the desk; he picked it up, rang it. Almost immediately, Odd appeared in the doorway.

– Bring us some coffee, would you, said Berger.

Odd addressed himself to Liss.

– Latte? Espresso? Americano?

His lisp seemed more pronounced than when she had arrived, and she suspected it might be an affectation.

– Espresso, she answered. – Preferably double.

Again the little bow before he disappeared. It seemed even more ridiculous this time, and Liss began wondering what sort of performance she was witness to.

– He introduced himself as your butler, she said as she reluctantly took a seat.

– That is precisely what he is, Berger replied. – As a matter of fact, a graduate of the best training school for butlers in London. I don’t know how I would manage without the man.

– Must be good for your image, Liss remarked.

Berger limped across to a chair on the other side of his desk. – Of course. That is what I live off. A butler’s salary is not so large and the returns are very quick.

He fished out a packet of cigarettes, French Gauloises, offered her one and a light from a gold lighter with the initials EB engraved on it.

– A present from my sponsors, he smiled as he noticed her studying it. – The closest I come to grace in this life is the way my sponsors treat me. I live on grace. By grace.

The door opened soundlessly and Odd appeared again, carrying a tray on which stood a silver pot, cups, saucers, sugar and a small jug of milk. He had pulled on a pair of thin white gloves, and this time Liss couldn’t contain her slight outburst of laughter. No one asked what she was laughing at, and after pouring their coffees Odd withdrew once more, as silently as he had entered.

– I have, as you know, met your sister, said Berger. – But not on the evening when she was due to have come to the studio.

Liss had the feeling he said this to pre-empt her question.

He sat there, still observing her. – And now you want to know what has happened to Mailin. That is very natural. I gather you’ve just returned home from Amsterdam.

He exposed what looked like tiny and very white milk teeth. It gave his smile a childlike mischief that was in contrast to the worn face and large body.

– And I gather you defend child abuse, she responded as she dragged on the strong tobacco.

– Do I? he yawned. – My job is to provoke people, talk out loud about everything that outrages and fascinates them. I’m sure you’ve seen the sales figures for my show. No? The last show had a viewing audience of over nine hundred thousand. We’re full speed ahead for the magic one million. We have to close down our phone lines after every show, can’t handle the volume of calls. The Oslo papers alone had more than twenty-five pages on the last Taboo. But do we really need to talk about this? I so seldom receive visitors, and especially not strange women.

– What else is there to talk about?

– You, Liss Bjerke. That is much more interesting. A young woman travels to Amsterdam to study design but ends up spending much more of her time on assignments as a fashion model. Of a rather dubious nature, some of them, no doubt, at least by ordinary petit bourgeois standards. Let us speak of your party habits and your choice of lover boys.

She put the cup down so hard that the coffee splashed over into the saucer. Who the hell told you that? she wanted to ask, but managed to contain herself. Drove off the thought that even at that very moment someone was wandering around Oslo asking people how to find her. Wouters, the name flashed through her.

– Tell me about yourself, Liss, Berger encouraged her. – I love a good story.

She blinked several times, regained her self-possession. Had Mailin spoken to this guy about her? Mailin wasn’t like that. She looked over at him. The dyed black fringe hanging over his forehead emphasised rather than disguised how ravaged his face really was. But in the middle of what looked like a battlefield, the eyes behind the small square spectacles were mild and bright. She’d seen a few extracts from Taboo on the internet. Berger talked about children, about how, in a market-driven society like ours, it was inevitable that child sexuality would become a commodity too, like everything else. He talked about performance-enhancing drugs, how they were necessary if sport were to go on meeting our need to cultivate the superhuman. About the legalisation of heroin, a more interesting and cleaner stimulant than alcohol. Remarkably few people were killed by heroin. What killed people was its criminalisation and everything that led to it. Dirty needles. Dangerous sex. Murders as a result of unpaid debts.

– I love a good story, he repeated. – And I love them especially when they’re told by someone like you, even if my interest in young women is becoming increasingly academic. He sketched a gesture of frustration from his groin up towards his head. – More and more of it disappears up here, he sighed. – But that’s enough about that; tell me about yourself. In return, I give you my word you will get answers to all the questions you came here to ask.

This was not what she had come prepared for. For a moment she was so confused that she might even have sat in his lap like a little girl if he’d suggested it. Stay sharp, she warned herself, and spoke briefly about wanting to be a designer. This made him smile behind his cloud of Gauloises smoke, which in turn caused her to reel off something about trying out the modelling business: it meant nothing to her, but some people, she had no idea why, urged her to make a career out of it.

– Don’t pretend you don’t understand why, Berger admonished her. – You’ve known for a long time how your presence affects people. You’ve probably always known it.

– Not always, she blurted out. – I’m the typical ugly duckling that ended up in the wrong nest. At primary school no one wanted to have anything to do with me. Not at secondary school either.

– Yes, I can imagine that, he nodded.

She wanted to stop there, but ended up telling him more. About life in Amsterdam. The photo shoots. The parties. Was even about to mention Zako. At the last moment she managed to turn the conversation back.

– You were going to tell me about Mailin. How you met her.

Again the corners of the mouth lifted and the little white mouse’s teeth showed. He had noticed how obviously she changed the subject.

– I like Mailin, he said. – I like you both, as different as you are from each other.

– Why did you want to have her on Taboo?

He sat upright with a little grimace, as though he suffered from back pain.

– What I do, Liss, is something completely different from those endless reality shows, which people got sick to death of long ago. Something happens when I show up on the screen. My shows contain something uncontrollable, something that’s definitely not ‘nice’ and is even potentially dangerous. First and foremost I use myself, my life. My own history of abuse. Violence, sex, breakdowns. Then I invite a bunch of clowns along, people who will do anything at all to be seen on TV. In the beginning I was an untouchable; now it’s becoming acceptable for politicians and media parasites to be seen with me. It gives them cred. I can make fools of these guests, dress them down, say what I like. Doesn’t matter what I come up with, they’ll keep on smiling, happy to be cool, longing to be cool.

He gave a hollow laugh and started coughing.

– Other guests are invited because I want opposition, he continued once he had got his breath back. – I had read some of Mailin’s articles in the papers and got in touch with her. She’s every bit as intelligent as I thought she was. But different. No feminist preaching. It’s the world that concerns her, not ideologies.

– You’ve met her several times?

– Three times. She was here at my house a few weeks ago. We sat and talked about the show.

– I don’t believe you. Mailin would never allow herself to be used in support of the sort of things that you get up to.

Again he laughed.

– Well we never got the chance to find out. She wanted to turn the show into something other than I had planned. That’s fine. There would have been an edge. I like people to speak their minds. But then she never turned up.

– She got in touch with you.

– She called me the day before, he confirmed. – Said there was something she wanted to talk to me about. Practical things she wanted to get sorted out before the broadcast. She is irritatingly thorough. We arranged for me to call in at her office on the way to the studio. And I did.

– So you did meet her that evening?

– I got a text message that she’d been delayed. She sent me the code to the street door, asked me to wait in the waiting room. But as I say, she never arrived.

– And you just sat there?

– Hey, Liss, I’ve already explained all this to the police. If you ask me any more, I’ll begin to suspect that you’re working for them.

Beneath the teasing tone she sensed another that was sharper, like a warning. She stubbed out her cigarette, decided on a different approach.

– Do you believe we can manage without taboos?

He took a deep drag, held the smoke for a few moments before letting it drift out between his teeth with a whistling sound.

– We get rid of some, but then new ones appear. I try to destroy them a little quicker than they crop up again.

– Why?

– Because I am a revolutionary, a visionary, someone who wants to uncover something that is truer and purer than this culture of bullshit that is gradually choking us to death…

He looked at her seriously. Then he beamed.

– Don’t let me fool you. Naturally this has bugger-all to do with politics. I do what I’ve always enjoyed doing, provoking people. Do you see why I could no longer be a priest? When you give toys to children, most of them start playing with them. But some immediately want to take them apart, to see what’s inside. Afterwards they throw them away. That is the kind of child I am. I’ll never be any different. Luckily for me, I earn a helluva lot of money from this kind of stuff.

He laughed his hollow laugh.

– But now I’m thinking about quitting.

– Quitting TV?

– Everything, actually… The New Year broadcast will be the final show. Know what it’s going to be about?

She didn’t know.

– Death! Death is the ultimate taboo. It defies everything. It won’t even let you scratch it.

– A talk show about death? You wouldn’t be the first to come up with something like that.

– My approach will be different. He didn’t expand.

– Now you’re making me curious, said Liss.

– It will not be without a certain irony, he smiled and looked proud. – And yet it will be deadly serious. That’s all I’m going to say. You’ve already got me to say too much as it is.

13

SHE JUMPED ON board a tram on Frogner Way. Sat in the rear carriage without paying. Sent a text message to Viljam. He was still at his seminar, but she got an answer: Per På Hjørnet at one okay?

She was there at quarter to. Had an espresso. Went outside in the cold for a smoke, bought a newspaper and went back into the bar again. It was twenty past by the time he arrived, it irritated her.

– Don’t you get tired of sitting there swotting up on points of law? she contented herself with saying.

– Don’t even talk about it.

He ordered a latte. She had another espresso. Suddenly felt the urge for something that would pep her up more than coffee.

– It’s so dark in this town. The light just keeps disappearing.

– It must be almost as dark in Amsterdam in the winter, Viljam protested.

Liss didn’t want to talk about Amsterdam. – I was at Berger’s today.

– Berger, he exclaimed. – What were you doing there?

She didn’t answer. An elderly woman scurried past on the pavement outside. Walked along holding on to her tiny hat.

– There’s no wind at all out there.

Viljam sipped his coffee. – Did you go there because there’s no wind?

She looked at him. He had dark rings under his eyes.

– What you said about Mailin having found something out about Berger. That she was going to put pressure on him before the show.

– Did you ask him about that?

– I called on him because I wanted to form some impression of him. Maybe next time I’ll ask him straight out.

Viljam shook his head. – And what do you think that will achieve? That he’ll fall on his knees and confess to something or other? He seemed exasperated. – Leave that kind of thing to the police, Liss. If you keep on like that, you might be making it more difficult for them to find out what’s happened.

He brushed his long fringe back. – I’m not too happy either about the way they’re working, he said quietly. – They don’t seem to understand that with each passing day our chances are less. If something doesn’t happen soon…

Liss waited. The implication of what he almost said hung somewhere in the air between them. She took two big gulps, shivered and put the cup down.

– I feel sure you know what it was Mailin found out about Berger.

– You’re right, he answered.

He said no more; she grew impatient.

– I want you to tell me what it was.

She could see the muscles of his jaw working. Then he breathed out heavily.

– Mailin spoke to someone about him, he said. – Someone who was initiated into the world of grown-up secrets by Berger a long time ago. That was what she was going to reveal during the broadcast. Look directly into the camera and come out with it.

Liss opened her eyes wide. – Expose Berger live and on air as a fucking paedo?

Viljam began picking at his serviette. – She wanted to force him to cancel the broadcast, as a way of demonstrating that there are in fact certain limits. I asked if she knew what sort of reaction she would get. She claimed she did. I’m afraid she was wrong about that.

Liss thought about this for a few moments and then said: – According to Berger, she never showed up for their meeting.

The serviette was in pieces. Viljam dropped it on the floor. – Could be he’s telling the truth.

To Liss it seemed as if things had gone very quiet around them. As though people sitting at the other tables had stopped talking. He’s suffering, she thought. You’re suffering, Liss.

She laid a hand on his arm. – Let’s go for a walk. Have you got time?

They crossed the square in front of the Town Hall, continued along the quays. Nativity stars glowed in all the windows.

– You were supposed to be getting married in the summer, she said out of nowhere.

Viljam glanced at her. – How did you know that?

– Mailin sent me a text. Asked me to keep next Midsummer’s Day free.

– And there we were planning to keep it to ourselves for the time being, not say anything until Christmas Eve. He stared straight ahead. – She admires you, he said suddenly.

Liss looked startled. – Who?

– Mailin says you’ve always been braver than her. Not scared of anything. Climbing steep hillsides. Always the first one in. Diving from the top of big rocks.

Liss scoffed.

– You broke away and went to Amsterdam, he continued. – Mailin feels such a strong sense of being tied up in everything here at home.

What’s to become of you, Liss?

– What about you? she asked, to change the subject. – Are you brave?

– When necessary.

They were standing by the torch of peace, at the end of the quays. A few boats bobbed up and down in their berths. The wind had got up. Thin flakes of snow wafted around, unable to land.

– When are you going out to the cabin?

– This afternoon.

He dug out a bunch of keys, opened it and slipped a car key out.

– Think you’ll find out anything else about Mailin there?

She shook her head. – You and Tage have already been there. And the police.

She turned to the flame burning in its leaf-shaped container, reached out her hand. Found out how close she could hold it without getting burned.

14

LISS PARKED MAILIN’S car at Bysetermosan. Continued on foot up the forest track, into the silence. Not silence, but all the sounds of the forest: the winter birds, the wind in the treetops, her own footsteps.

She reached the place where she had to turn off the track. The snow had melted and frozen again. She could walk on it without using snowshoes. First a fairly steep upward incline. Almost four years since she’d been there, but she remembered every tree and every rocky outcrop. Wherever she went, this landscape always went with her.

She climbed over a rise and could just make out the roof of the cabin ahead through the trees. Stood a moment looking out across Morr Water and the ridge on the far side. Not until it had begun to turn dark did she carry on down.

There was a strong smell of brown creosote. She remembered that back in the autumn, Mailin had mentioned that she and Viljam were going out there to do some painting. She’d asked if Liss would come home and help them. Liss ran her hand over the rough planks of the outer wall. The sensation conjured up images of Mailin. It felt as though she were there, and for a moment Liss wondered whether she would be able to go in.

She lit the paraffin lamp in the kitchen, took it into the living room. Noticed the burnt-out logs at the back of the fireplace. Mailin must have been in a hurry. Neither of them ever left the cabin without tidying it up. The place should be clean, the ash removed and fresh logs brought in, so that all the next one to visit had to do was put a match to them. Now Liss had to sweep out the fireplace and then go out to the wood shed for more logs. Viljam and Tage had taken a quick look in there, as had someone from the police. Had they perhaps made a fire? It wasn’t like Mailin to ignore the strict rules they had made themselves.

Later she turned on the radio, tuned in to some piano music. Even that was too much and she switched off again, needed to empty the room of sound. She stood by the window and looked down towards Morr Water through the dim evening. Many years since she had stood there like this, Mailin by her side; that had been a winter day too, the sun about to disappear behind the hills, the trees full of twinkling needles. We’ll never give up this place, Liss. It’s ours, yours and mine.

Liss wept. Didn’t understand what was happening, had to touch her cheeks to feel. Mailin, if this is my fault… she murmured. It is not your fault. You couldn’t do anything about what happened. I must turn myself in. I killed him.

She pulled on the head lamp, picked up the two buckets and walked down through the trees. Followed the little stream down to the rock. It was as steep as a cliff. Deep below it. In the summer they could dive in from it. Had to dive far enough out to clear the shelf. Below the rock there was a channel in the ice. If it was glazed over, the ice was thinner than cut glass. The current from the stream kept the water open, no matter how cold it got. Old trees decomposing in the depths of the water released gases that also hindered the formation of ice. She threw one of the zinc buckets in, kept a tight hold on the rope, it fell almost three metres before it hit down below. She hauled it up, eased it over the outcrop, then did the same thing with the second bucket.

Further away on the left, there was a little bay. Our beach, they called it, because it was covered in rough sand. It was just big enough for both of them to lie there and sunbathe. Naked, if they were alone out there. Above it, between the trees, an old boathouse that contained a rowing boat and a canoe.

She returned via the beach. Put one foot on the ice, tested her weight on it; it would hold if she walked straight ahead. If she headed right, towards the rock and the stream, it would break, she would go through, sink down into the icy water. Death by water, she thought. If Mailin had gone this way… She hadn’t. The car was found in Oslo. Could someone have driven it there?

She got the wood stove going, boiled water. Went out on to the steps and lit a cigarette. Mailin didn’t allow smoking indoors. The stink lingers for years, she said, and Liss would never break the rule.

After a bowl of minestrone soup, she had a thorough look through the living room, the kitchen and the two bedrooms. She examined the cupboards, used her head lamp to look under the beds. Lifted up the mattress on the upper bunk bed, where Mailin used to sleep. Apart from the ashes in the fire, everything appeared to be as it should be.

She put on two more logs, curled her legs up under her in the corner of the sofa. Let her gaze wander. The antlers on the wall, next to the barometer. They were absolutely huge and must have belonged to a giant of an elk. She was the one who had found them. Down by Feren Lake. In summer they used to take the canoe out and carry it between the waters. Searched for beavers’ dams. Spent the nights out under the open sky. Woke at dawn and crept over to the place where the grouse fought each other in mating duels. All this she could remember; she was twelve and Mailin sixteen. But from the time when she was younger, there were just stray memories and diffuse recollections. When Mailin spoke of things that had happened when they were children, she was always surprised at how little Liss remembered of it. Don’t you remember how you nearly drowned in Morr Water? Liss didn’t. You were in your first year at school and thought you knew how to swim. I had to jump in with my clothes on and rescue you.

Her gaze stopped at the photo albums on the shelf. They were Father’s. At home, there was nothing that had belonged to him, but because it had been his cabin before he gave it to the two of them, he had left the albums here. She took one of them down. Hadn’t flipped through any of them since she was eleven or twelve. There was a certain thrill about it, almost forbidden. Father’s past. There had always been something about that side of the family. Something that was never talked about. Liss could just about remember her grandfather, huge and white bearded. Mailin said he always wore a suit and could imitate all sorts of bird calls. Cuckoos and crows and tits, of course, because you heard them there all the time. But, strangely enough, vultures too, and condors and flamingos. Not easy to say where he’d picked these up from, because he never travelled anywhere and hardly ever watched television.

Her father looked seriously out at her in one of the photos. Tall and pale and long haired, he was standing outside his parents’ house on the edge of the forest. It was pulled down years ago. Now there was an institution for difficult children there. In another photo her father was skiing somewhere in the mountains, wearing an anorak with the hood up. Liss turned to the picture she liked best. She was sitting on his shoulders, holding on to his long brown hair as though she were riding a horse. She felt a prickling in her stomach as she looked at the photo, and suddenly she remembered: he stumbles, and she shrieks as she falls towards the ground, but he recovers just in time. And then he does it again. She sobs for him to stop, put her down, but he realises she wants him to do it again, and then again.

The brown photo album was older. From Father’s childhood. He was helping out on one of the neighbouring farms; Mailin had pointed it out to her once. Father helped to round up the cows in the evening. Or to hang the hay out for drying. His body was thin and angular, like hers. She was standing in the doorway. His mother. You look exactly like her, Liss. Can you see that? Her father’s voice saying this. She could recall the timbre of it. Maybe they had been sitting here in the cabin, on this sofa. They’re flipping through this album together when he says this about how alike they are, as though it were a secret that she mustn’t tell anyone… The photo of Grandmother was black and white, but Liss was certain that even their colouring was the same. That tall, skinny woman in the blouse and the long skirt, pale and with a strange look in her eyes, half there, half dreaming. The hair pinned up in an old-fashioned way. In one of the other pictures she was standing out on the steps, smiling and looking even more like certain pictures Liss had seen of herself. Everything she knew about her came from Ragnhild. Grandmother had had her own studio where she spent the days painting, although nothing ever came of it apparently. She had left the family when Father was ten years old, but Liss didn’t know where she’d gone. Maybe Father had never known either. According to Ragnhild, she was ill in some way and ended her days in the mental hospital at Gaustad.

Liss took out the notebook. Mailin’s book.

Why do you remember everything, Mailin, and I’ve forgotten?

She sat for a while, considering the question, before she continued writing.

All the things I want to ask you about when you come back.

There is something in Viljam’s eyes that reminds me of these pictures of Dad, have you noticed? Something around the forehead too. And something about the way he talks. But the mouth is different.

Mailin, I miss you.

I miss you too, Liss.

Why didn’t you clear out the fireplace before you left?

I can’t tell you that.

There are only five more days to Christmas. I want you to come home.

She wrote down in detail what Mailin might have done at the cabin on that last visit: cooked some food, sat with a glass of wine and stared into the fireplace, or worked on her computer by the light of the paraffin lamp. She wrote down what her sister might have been thinking before she fell asleep. How she packed the next day, suddenly in a rush because she had to meet someone and didn’t have time to clean the fireplace. She hurried through the trees and down to the car. Drove out of the parking space.

Liss couldn’t imagine what happened after that.

15

Tuesday 23 December

THE COMMUNAL KITCHEN was sparsely equipped. A fridge, a table and five chairs, a small cooker, a microwave. On one wall hung a poster of Salvador Dali’s melting wristwatch.

A guy in a hoodie came in, gave Liss a quick look, took something out of the fridge, it looked like liver pâté. He cut himself a slice of bread, buttered it and hurried out again with the bread in his hand.

Just then Catrine returned from the toilet.

– Promise me you’ll never move into a student village, she warned her. – The moment I can afford something else, I’m out of here. She scowled in the direction of the kitchen surface, which was covered in dirty dishes and leftovers. – You’ve no idea how tired I am of people not tidying up after themselves. The guy that was just in here is one of the messiest pigs I’ve ever shared a kitchen with, and that’s saying something.

When they were living together in the commune in Schweigaards Street, Catrine had often been annoyed by the same things: pigs, usually of the male variety, who never cleaned up. Liss refreshed her friend’s memory, and Catrine had to concede that there had been a couple there who were almost as bad.

– If I ever move in with a guy, it’ll be a male nurse, she said now. – At least they know how to keep things tidy.

– I can’t actually see you with a male nurse, Liss observed.

– Don’t say that. I don’t mind if he’s a bit of a wimp. Maybe even gay. As long as he tidies up after himself.

It had been more than three years since Liss had last seen her. Catrine had let her hair grow, and dyed it black. She’d changed her way of dressing, too. From baggy pullovers to tight-fitting tops with low necklines trimmed with lace from the push-up bra beneath. From wide unisex jeans to skinny jeans that gave her a better-shaped bum than she’d ever had before. When Liss asked, she had to confess that she’d starting going to the gym as well. She was still into politics, but it was a long time since she’d last squatted in a house or fought in a street battle. She was studying political science now and sat on the board of some student body.

– How are things at home?

Liss didn’t think of the house in Lørenskog as home, but she let it pass.

– I’m sure you can imagine what it’s like.

Catrine nodded. – It seems so unreal to me. For you it must be completely…

She couldn’t finish the sentence, and Liss didn’t respond. She had visited Catrine for a break. Not to have to talk about all the things that were troubling her. Catrine obviously understood this. She stood up, fetched coffee, apple juice and biscuits.

– I see you’re still on a negative calorie budget, said Liss when she saw the packet.

– Yep.

– You don’t eat meat either?

– Now and then. But not wolf or bear.

Liss had to smile, a moment’s light relief, and then the thoughts began again.

– What does death by water mean to you? she said as she tipped three rounded spoonfuls of instant coffee into a cup. – Got thousands of hits when I googled it. I think it must be the title of a film. Or a novel.

Catrine was better read than she was and went to see a lot of weird movies.

– Has a familiar ring to it, she agreed. – How about the name of a rock band?

She popped out to her room, returned with a computer, got online. Almost immediately she exclaimed:

– Of course. The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot. I did actually once read it.

Liss peered over her shoulder.

– I like that. A drowned Phoenician.

– Why the sudden interest in poetry? Catrine wondered. – You’ve never been much of a reader.

She read the rest.

– It might have something to do with Mailin, she said. – She wrote Ask him aboutdeath by water on a note and pinned it to her noticeboard.

Catrine clicked forward to a commentary and read aloud:

– The Waste Land is a journey through a kaleidoscopic world labouring beneath a curse of sterility. Few who appear in that desolate landscape see any hope, almost all are blind.

She turned to Liss. – Do you think this has something to do with Mailin’s disappearance?

– Very unlikely. But every trace of her I come across seems to have some kind of significance for me. Everything that might tell me something about what she was thinking, what she was doing.

After the coffee, Catrine brought out a bottle of Southern Comfort. She’d always liked sweet-tasting things. After a couple of drinks she suggested that she and Liss take a trip into town. Liss didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know whether Catrine really wanted to spend the whole evening with her. Felt herself surrounded by a membrane that protected her but also certainly made her inaccessible.

– I’m not exactly a bundle of laughs right now, she said.

– Get a grip, Liss Bjerke. Catrine sounded offended. – If you really think I’m out for a bundle of laughs, then…

– Well I could certainly do with having something completely different to occupy my mind, Liss said, interrupting her as she emptied her glass. She couldn’t face the thought of going back to Lørenskog and spending the night before Christmas Eve with her mother and Tage.

Despite having a pretty limited wardrobe of clothes, Catrine took almost an hour to decide what to wear. Liss was given the job of stylist, for which Catrine asserted she was extremely well qualified, adding, with appropriate irony, that she had read in Dagbladet’s magazine article that she was on the brink of a career as a top model. Liss didn’t mention that she herself had spent less than ten minutes getting ready to go out. She had chosen one of the pullovers she found in Mailin’s dresser. Her leather jacket was finally dry, but it had some disfiguring stains on the lapel. Catrine ended up with a short, clinging satin dress. She lay down on the floor and struggled into a pair of sheer tights without knickers. She had arranged to meet a friend from her political science course. Her name was Therese, and she had something going with a footballer. – He plays in the First Division, Catrine revealed as they sat on the metro heading into town. – A premium quality piece of beef, I believe.

Therese was standing outside Club Mono doing something with her phone. She was short and dark, with intense black eyes. An unlit cigarette dangled from her narrow lips.

– Where’s the fillet steak? Catrine enquired.

– On his way.

Liss was only mildly interested in the codes they spoke in, but Catrine had clearly decided that her friend wasn’t going to feel left out of things this evening.

– Therese and I have developed a system of classification for our dates, she explained.

– Simplicity itself, Therese added. – The same as they use at the meat counter. That’s to say, shoulder and rump are ziemlich schlecht.

– Offal is worst, Catrine said with a grimace. – I can’t stand liver.

– OK, liver and offal are worst, Therese conceded. – Next comes shoulder and rump and so on. Cutlets and ham aren’t bad.

– And your date tonight is fillet steak, Liss interjected, to show that she understood. – What about sell-by dates?

– Of course, Catrine exclaimed. We’ll start using that. Best-before dates.

– Use-by, Therese added.

They found seats on an old-fashioned sofa in the back room of the café. Catrine leaned towards Liss and shouted above the music that flooded from the speakers in the ceiling.

– I’ll tell Therese, just as well she knows… Liss is Mailin Bjerke’s sister.

Therese stared at her. Liss liked her dark eyes.

– The woman who… oh shit. Sorry about that.

Liss gave her a quick squeeze on the arm. – It’s quite all right. Catrine invited me out so I’d have something else to think about. But tell me about your footballer.

Therese recovered quickly. – Hello, Catrine, thought I could tell you things without the whole town having to know about it.

– Only told Liss, cross my heart. You can trust her.

The first beer was gone and another round ordered. Liss had hardly eaten and guessed she was going to be drunk before the evening was over.

– No one’ll hear it from me, she swore and crossed herself. The atmosphere of secrecy had a calming influence on her.

– He’s so sexy I might even end up going to watch a football match, Therese shouted. – It’s about the most brain-dead thing I can imagine, but if he’s gonna be rushing about in skimpy little shorts, then…

– Footballers wear enormous shorts, Catrine corrected her. – They probably need all that space for their family jewels. Handball players are the ones with the tight little shorts.

Liss had to smile. Catrine had always been interested in the male anatomy and ever since primary school had conducted her own studies in the field.

– What did you say his name was, the fillet steak?

– Jomar.

Catrine gaped. – Are you going out with a guy named Jomar?

– That’s exactly what I’m doing.

– You could always call him something else, Liss suggested. – Jay, for example.

– And you better start reading up on football too, Catrine teased her. – Study the sports pages, all the league tables from Germany and Belgium.

Therese put down her glass. – He’s not like that. He can talk about other things. He studies.

– At the sports academy, Catrine added with a meaningful look over at Liss.

Therese scoffed. – Well, would you go out with one of those political science wimps?

– Pas du tout, Catrine confirmed. – Not if I was looking for sex.

– Which you are.

– I don’t go home with somebody on a Saturday night to talk about the Norwegian welfare state with him, if that’s what you mean.

– Bad guys are for fun, said Therese, – good guys for…

– Study groups, Catrine interrupted.

Liss burst out laughing. The membrane around her was invisble, and maybe the others hadn’t noticed it. She thought she would be getting in touch with Catrine again. And she felt she wanted to put her arms around Therese with the dark eyes and squeeze her tight.

It was past 11.30 by the time he arrived. For some reason or other Liss knew straight away that the guy standing in the doorway of the room they were sitting in was the footballer. He was tall, so she could see his head above the others hanging around him. He had tangled fair hair that looked bleached. Therese caught sight of him and waved. He came across with another guy, who was black and wore his hair in dreadlocks.

Therese introduced everybody. – Catrine, this is Jomar Vindheim.

He was wearing a suit beneath his leather jacket, a white scarf with gold threads running through it tied around his neck. Catrine gave him a sort of sour smile, probably reacting to his name.

– Jomar, this is Catrine, and this is…

He turned towards Liss. Took her hand. Surprised, she tried to withdraw it, but he kept hold. His eyes were quite slanted and in the light from the lamps on the wall looked greyish.

– Jomar, he said.

– Liss, she said as she managed to free her hand.

His friend’s name was Didier and it turned out that he had just been bought from Cameroon. Suddenly they were aglow with an interest in football, Catrine and Therese. Both of them were suspiciously knowledgeable.

– Lyn play with a flat four, Catrine volunteered.

– A flat eleven, Jomar corrected her, translating for Didier, who burst out laughing.

– Bright girl, he said, and patted her arm.

– Bien sure, comme une vache, she answered with her most brilliant smile.

Catrine’s grandmother was Belgian, and when her friend started speaking French it always sounded fluent to Liss. Didier was visibly impressed too and looked like being a pushover. On the other side of the table Therese had attached herself firmly to her fillet steak, describing an invisible but distinct chalk circle around him, territory she was prepared to defend with any and all means necessary. Liss was in the corner of the sofa, on the outside. That was where she wanted to be, partly present, mostly somewhere else.

16

JOMAR VINDHEIM’S BMW was parked right outside. He said he would drive; had hardly drunk anything, he assured them. Therese squeezed in beside him. Didier wedged himself into the middle of the back. Every so often he broke off from his conversation in French with Catrine to say something to Liss in Afro-English. He put an arm around each of them and smelled of a perfume Liss had never come across before. She liked the weight of his fist on her shoulder.

They sped up Trondheims Way, across Carl Berners Place. Jomar was looking for an address in Sinsen. By the time they clambered out of the car, it had started to snow again. Heavy, ragged flakes that hit the ground and melted instantly. They could hear music from an open window. Liss still felt only slightly affected by the drinking.

They ended up in a large flat on the fifth floor. The music was so loud she didn’t have to talk to anyone, could just glide from one room to the next, note the looks, some indifferent, some interested. Found a seat on a sofa in the darkest of the rooms. Sat and watched people dancing. Someone had a joint. It appeared between her fingers, sweet-smelling, and she took two deep drags before passing it on. It was stronger than usual, she realised at once that it would make her distant. Just then someone put on some rai music, at any rate the kind of stuff Zako used to listen to. His name flashed through her mind. Looking for a way into the locked room. The door behind which he still lay on his back on the sofa. But she didn’t open it, and was pulled on into the music, as thick as cannabis oil. She glanced at Catrine, who had manoeuvred Didier into a corner of the room. Her evening is saved, she thought, closing her eyes and drifting deeper into the music. Shook her head when someone asked her to dance.

– I won’t take no for an answer, he said.

Liss opened her eyes. Jomar Vindheim squatted down beside her.

– I want to dance. With you.

Again she shook her head. But when he took her by the arm and pulled her up, she didn’t protest. Looked round for Therese but didn’t see her.

He wasn’t all over her. Led a touch unrhythmically, but she couldn’t be bothered to make things more difficult for him. The room was filled with the voice of the Arabic rai singer; it was slow and heavy with scents. She was in a garden with hanging flowers, a place where no one could reach her.

– Therese sent me a text before I met you at Mono. Said you were the sister of that…

She half turned, signalling to him that she didn’t want to talk about it. He laid his hand on her bare shoulder, one finger gliding along her hairline.

– I must see you again, he said.

– I like Therese, she replied.

– Me too. But I must see you again.

And then Therese was there, Liss pulled herself free and swayed back towards the sofa. There she sank back into the garden she had made. Through avenues of jasmine and poppies she peered out at the dancers. Catrine was now wearing a red Santa hat with a flashing light on the tassel. She was draped round Didier’s neck. His hands had a firm hold around her trim buttocks. A little further away, Therese stood on tiptoes and kissed her fillet steak on the cheek. He looked away. Liss met his gaze and again shook her head.

After leaving the toilet, she wandered into the inner bedroom. Had an idea what was going on in there. All the traffic traipsing in and out. A guy in a denim jacket, without a hair on his head, sat over a glass table and scattered snow across it.

– First round is on the house, he yawned.

He made three lines. A boy who had been sitting beside Liss on the sofa and had given up trying to pick her up took out a brass pipe, snorted a line and handed it to her; he didn’t look a day over seventeen. She bent forward, sniffed it up. She felt it burn from the bridge of her nose all the way to the top of her head. An instant of intense pleasure. An image of the cabin appeared. Lie in the snow among the trees on the marsh, looking up into the black sky.

– I’ll go back there tomorrow, she said aloud.

The boy leaned towards her. He was wearing tight-fitting yellow trousers that made her think of portraits of Renaissance princes. But he has no codpiece, she thought, and it made her laugh.

– Back where? he wanted to know.

– Never mind, she said.

– Neverland?

She nodded.

– You’re cool. I like you. He put his arm around her, ran a finger down into her neckline. She twisted away, smacked him across the head with a bright smile, glided out into the corridor, headed for the living room, stopped in the doorway.

The guy who had laid the lines out on the glass table emerged into the hallway behind her. Opened the front door. A man with curly black hair stood there wearing a reefer jacket. She recognised him at once. He had been at Mailin’s office that day, torn a page out of her appointments book. Just then Jomar appeared and said something to him.

– That’s none of your fucking business, the guy in the reefer jacket growled, and pushed a bag into the dealer’s hand. In return he received an envelope, checked the contents and disappeared again.

Liss slipped out of the front door, the guy in the reefer jacket was already on the next landing down.

– Hey, she shouted.

He didn’t answer, carried on down. She ran after him, caught up with him just by the street door.

– I’m talking to you, she said, feeling stronger than ever.

The guy turned towards her with that same evasive look she had seen in the office.

– What’s the idea, following me about?

– You know exactly what I mean, she hissed.

He tried to get out the door, she grabbed hold of his arm.

– You were at Mailin’s office that day.

– Oh yeah?

– You knew she wasn’t there, but still you went there poking about in her stuff.

He glared at her. – You’ve had too much, bitch.

– Why did you tear that page out of her appointments book?

She felt an enormous rage, wanted to lay into him, hit him, bite his throat.

– What’s your problem, he shouted, and pushed her against the wall. – Stay away from me, you fucking psycho.

He took hold of her by the throat. She felt faint, the dizziness rising to her head; it could end here, like this… Far away, footsteps on the stairs, running down.

She collapsed. Someone slapped her on the cheek. Repeated her name, over and over.

She looked up into Jomar Vindheim’s face. His eyes were filled with anger.

– Who the hell did this?

– Never mind, she coughed. – It was my fault.

She awoke to the smell of sweet water. Aftershave. She was in a man’s house. Looked round. Alone in a large bed. Felt down. Clothes still on. The room was in darkness, but she could see a strip of light below the drawn blind.

It wouldn’t be much fun trying to piece together what had happened before she ended up in this bed. She must try to keep to the main details. Not get sidetracked by all the fragmentary flashes of memory that came whirling by: in town with Catrine. Meeting Therese. Fillet steak and the African. The party at Sinsen. The guy who had been at Mailin’s office. She’d gone for him. The fillet steak, whose name was of all things Jomar, had carried her out to his car and put her in the back seat. When he pulled up outside Casualty, she sat up. Refused to go in. So instead he’d taken her back to his place. She hadn’t the strength to protest, but seemed to remember talking away as she lay in his car. About Mailin. About the cabin at Morr Water. About Amsterdam too, probably. Had she mentioned Zako?… She’d passed out as soon as they got into his flat. A recipe for idiocy. Three highs. End up at the home of some unknown male and in no condition to take care of herself… He hadn’t touched her, she could feel it. He had put her in this bed and gone off to sleep somewhere else.

She got up quietly and came into a room. The TV clock said quarter to eight. One door led to the kitchen, another to a hallway. A third door was ajar. She could hear his deep, even breathing from inside.

The cold hit her as she opened the front door. She was wearing only Mailin’s thinnest pullover, had left her jacket behind at the place where the party was. She backed inside again. Some outdoor clothing hanging on a stand. Leather Marlboro jacket like this guy Jomar had been strutting about in the night before, two heavy-weather jackets, some suit jackets and a snowsuit. She put on what looked like the older of the heavy-weather jackets. Checked the pockets, emptied out some chewing gum, a few receipts and a packet of condoms, put them on the table by the entrance. Opened the door again and slipped away down the steps.

17

Wednesday 24 December

TORMOD DAHLSTRØM WAS still seeing a patient when she arrived. A woman, judging by the fur coat hanging just inside the door to the waiting room. Liss slumped down in the leather chair and began flipping through Vogue, couldn’t face reading it, not even looking at the pictures. The distant hum of voices could be heard from the office, broken by a long pause. Then a few sentences, then another pause. She picked up Dagbladet’s magazine section. Berger with his mouse’s teeth grinning out at her from the front page. She turned to the interview. He talked about his childhood. A father who was a pastor in the Pentecostal church. How glad he was to have grown up with this clear distinction of black and white, between what was Christ’s and what was the Devil’s.

The office door opened, and a woman in a dark green outfit emerged. She was quite a bit older than Liss. She held a handkerchief to her nose and took no notice of her, so it was a few seconds before Liss realised that this was a woman who had featured on the front pages of the weeklies for years, even in Amsterdam. The woman unhooked her fur and trudged out without putting it on.

Dahlstrøm appeared in the doorway.

– I’d no idea you had patients on Christmas Eve. Sorry if I…

– It’s fine, he assured her. – I’ve had a cancellation today. He added: – I’m glad to see you.

To judge by his look, he was sincere, his tone of voice too. Liss looked for a chink in it, something that would reveal the false bottom, but didn’t spot one.

– As for the woman you just saw leaving here… Dahlstrøm put a finger to his thin lips. – I’m counting on your discretion.

– Of course, said Liss. – I won’t give another thought to all those thousands I could have got from Seen and Heard.

– A thick wad, I’ve no doubt, he agreed as he held out a hand towards the even softer leather chair inside his office.

– Are any more of your patients famous across the whole of Europe?

– No comment.

He smiled, and the deep-set eyes seemed to come a little closer. – Because I’ve written books and my ugly mug’s been on TV for years, a lot of celebrities think I’m in a particularly good position to understand their problems.

His face grew serious again, and the eyes returned to the deep holes from which they looked out on to the world and didn’t miss a thing.

– How is your mum bearing up?

Liss shrugged her shoulders. – I haven’t been there for a few days.

– You’re living with friends?

– Sort of round and about.

She was still high after last night’s adventures in town, he must have noticed, but he said nothing. She had a reason for coming here, something she wanted to talk to him about, but suddenly she couldn’t think of anything to say.

– With each passing day we have to give up another fragment of the hope we’re clinging to, he said suddenly. – Not an hour passes without my thinking about Mailin. I feel sick, Liss, both mentally and physically. It is impossible to imagine that she won’t be back here again, knocking on the door… I always know when it’s her.

Liss’s energy returned. – If Mailin disappears, then I disappear too, she said.

Dahlstrøm sat up in his chair. – Disappear?

She looked at the table, feeling the weight of his gaze.

– Not literally. I didn’t mean it like that. But without her, I’ll become a different person.

He seemed to be thinking this over. Then he said: – I think something is bothering you. Not just Mailin’s disappearance.

She shrank. He noticed everything about her. Suddenly she felt naked. Yet it was still possible to talk to him. Start just where she was sitting. Continue to the party at Sinsen, the guy in the reefer jacket… There was something she had to remember, something she’d seen up in that flat. It slipped away and was gone in a welter of thoughts, everything that had happened since she came back, and before that, Bloemstraat, Zako dead on the sofa, the photo of Mailin… That time in Amsterdam was four years on the run, and before that, running from home, the commune in Schweigaards Street; before that again, living with Mother and Tage, and then the time before Mailin moved out, Mailin the good, Mailin whom Mother was so proud of, the bearer of all hopes, the one who was going to make something of herself. And before that, on the other side, where the memories refused to let her in… Liss, where do you come from?

She pulled herself together, forced away the need to tell him all this.

– I just have this feeling that I must look for Mailin, she said. – But there are no places to look… I’ve started writing things down.

He looked at her with interest. – Like what?

She hooked a lock of hair and twisted it round her finger. – Thoughts. And questions. What might have happened to her. Where she was when, who she met. Stuff like that.

– What the police do, he commented.

– Actually I’ve made notes of something I wanted to ask you about, she said. – About the people she works with down in Welhavens Street. Do you know them?

– I know Torunn Gabrielsen.

– Not Pål Øvreby?

Dahlstrøm ran a hand across the light, downy hair still showing on his head. – I’ve met him a few times. A psychologist who uses unorthodox methods in treating his patients. Why do you ask?

Liss didn’t know why. Probably because she wanted to hear something that would confirm what she herself thought about him.

– Torunn Gabrielsen and he live together, don’t they? She seems jealous of the fact that Pål and Mailin were once a couple.

– I wouldn’t know anything about that, said Dahlstrøm. – But I think Torunn Gabrielsen feels bitter towards Mailin for a quite different reason.

He seemed to ponder this. – There’s a lot of gossip here, Liss. I don’t usually sit here chattering away about my colleagues, though this is a special situation… I mean, I’m refusing to accept that anyone might have harmed Mailin. That’s the very last possibility we want to entertain, isn’t it? When every other possibility has been ruled out.

Liss knew exactly what he meant.

– Mailin and Torunn Gabrielsen sat on the editorial board of The Shoal. You’ve heard of that magazine?

She’d looked through a few editions Mailin had sent her.

– I’m sure you know that they also published a book together, he went on. – But at some point things went wrong. Mailin has been working with victims of abuse ever since she was a student. Her work is unusually good, it’s attracting a lot of attention.

– About the child’s need for tenderness and the adult’s passion?

Dahlstrøm leaned back in his chair on the other side of the low glass table.

– Mailin is fascinated by a Hungarian psychoanalyst named Ferenczi. One of Freud’s closest associates, and yet still a controversial figure.

Liss had seen several books by him in her sister’s office.

– Ferenczi was convinced that the abuse of children took place on a large scale, and at all levels of society. Freud of course came to believe that most accounts of this were the result of the child’s subconscious and imagination.

– But what is it about Mailin’s work that provokes the others at The Shoal? Liss interrupted.

– Mailin is interested in the fact that victims who present in a particular way expose themselves to risk, Dahlstrøm replied. – She wants to show people, women and men, how to look after themselves better, given the world we actually live in. And she has written a lot about how some repeatedly end up in situations that result in them being subjected to abuse. The hidden damage done to them traps them in a recurring pattern of behaviour. Torunn and the others on the board seem to believe that an account like this takes the focus off the perpetrators of the abuse, even to the extent of accusing Mailin of legitimising attacks on women.

He rubbed his finger over the slight hollow in the bridge of his nose. – A few months ago, Mailin wrote a response in Dagbladet. She criticised the others on the staff of The Shoal for avoiding any consideration of the behaviour of female victims, and in doing so denying them the chance of moving on. She was very crude, very direct, the way Mailin can be if she’s provoked.

Dahlstrøm stood up, crossed to the coffee percolator, lifted the jug and sniffed at it.

– Torunn Gabrielsen’s working method involves the patients meticulously describing the assaults they have been subjected to. She wants them to relive them, so to speak. The idea is that they will remember and in that way neutralise the damage inflicted on their psyche. Mailin has become increasingly sceptical about this way of doing things. She believes that it often makes things worse if the traumatic event is relived in detail. It can easily seem like another assault. Torunn is interested in Ferenczi too, but Mailin’s interpretation is different. She wrote an article about his theories in which she maintained that it can be just as important to learn to forget as to remember. This is among the things she’s looking at in the treatment of the seven young men as part of her PhD.

– Seven? Liss exclaimed. – Eight, isn’t it? I had a peek at one of the folders in Mailin’s office. I’m certain it said there that there were eight men in the study.

Dahlstrøm looked surprised.

– I must say, you’re going about this very thoroughly, Liss. Yes, originally there were eight subjects. One was dropped, or withdrew. That was in the early stages, over two years ago.

He poured out two cups of coffee, handed one to Liss. – I think we’ll take a chance that this is okay today as well.

– Has it been there since last time?

– Can’t remember, he winked. – I’m really quite an absent-minded person.

He didn’t seem the least bit absent-minded; on the contrary, Liss felt sure he was taking in every last thing about her.

– What’s it like, living in Amsterdam? It’s a wonderful city.

Liss didn’t answer.

– Mailin said you had a boyfriend down there.

Had Mailin spoken to Dahlstrøm about her? And about Zako?

– Then she’s misunderstood, or you have. I don’t have a boyfriend.

Zako was never your boyfriend. He used you. You let him use you. Zako is dead. You killed him, Liss Bjerke.

– There’s something wrong with me, she said.

Through the window the sky had turned dark grey. Suddenly she felt like a sack that was about to split open. I shouldn’t have come here, she heard herself think.

– Sorry. I come here and start to talk about myself. You aren’t my shrink.

– That’s not something that should worry you, Liss.

– I’ve never been like other people, she muttered.

– A lot of people feel that way. Most of us perhaps.

– I’m from another place, far away. No idea how I ended up here. Just know the whole thing is a misunderstanding. I don’t know anyone who…

There was a knock on the door. Dahlstrøm stood up and opened it slightly.

– Two minutes, he said, and turned towards her again. – Liss, I’m glad we can talk together. I hope you’ll come back and see me again.

He added: – And I don’t mean as your therapist.

18

IT WAS STILL snowing as she walked down Slemdals Way. It was colder now, and the wind came in sharp gusts that blew the snow into tiny drifts on the pavement in front of her. She pulled the heavy-weather jacket tightly around her. It was extra large and could have fitted two of her. The question of how she was going to return it struck her. Avoid meeting the owner. Images from the night before appeared again, but they were less distinct and no longer gave rise to so many emotions. Maybe this was the effect of the conversation with Dahlstrøm. The mere thought that there was somebody she could talk to made her feel calmer.

Approaching Ris Church, a man in a Father Christmas suit and thin shoes crossed the road. He had trouble keeping his feet on the slippery surface. He had a burlap Christmas sack over one shoulder. He padded along the pavement, picking his way tentatively between the frozen patches, slipped, fell and swore. The episode reminded her that it was Christmas Eve. She dreaded going out to Lørenskog, but she had hardly slept at all, and she needed a shower, even something to eat… Sit there and watch as Ragnhild slowly went to pieces. Tage’s futile attempts to keep her from falling apart.

A quick throb from her mobile. She took it out. Bitch! it said on the display; that was all. She didn’t know Therese’s number but realised who the message was from. It was a pretty accurate description of how she felt about herself as she headed on through the snow.

Viljam looked as though he’d just come out of the shower. The longish dark hair was wet and combed straight back. There had been no need for her to call in to wish him a merry Christmas. A text message would have done just as well.

– I’ll pay you ten kroner for a shower, clean clothes and a cup of coffee, she offered.

For the first time she saw a flash of something like humour in the dark blue eyes.

– Salvation Army closed already? he asked.

– I’ll go there if I need a roll and some soup as well.

He took her at her word. When she came down, freshly showered with sweet-smelling hair and clean underwear from Mailin’s wardrobe, he was standing there stirring something in a saucepan. She sniffed.

– Mexican tomato soup, he informed her. – Pretty good considering it comes from a packet.

He heated rolls, put some cheese and a bowl of apples on the table.

– Good of you to help out an old wretch like me, she said in the quavering voice of an old beggar woman.

He smiled dutifully. – And someone’s given you a new jacket, I see, he remarked. – Obviously you bring out the best in people.

She slurped at the soup, had no wish to tell him anything about yesterday’s events.

– What are you doing this evening? she asked, changing the subject.

He hesitated a moment. – Mailin and I had planned to have Christmas dinner with Ragnhild and Tage. Now I don’t know.

– Can’t you come along anyway, she asked, – so I don’t have to sit there with them on my own.

– Maybe… Actually, what is this with you and your mother?

– Is there something between me and her? she said guardedly.

He put his head very slightly on one side. – Nothing, apart from the fact that it seems as though you can’t stand her.

– That isn’t right. I don’t have a relationship with her, either a good one or a bad one.

– With your own mother? Sounds strange. But Mailin and Ragnhild are very close.

She couldn’t ignore this. – So now you suppose I’m the jealous little sister?

– I don’t suppose anything specific at all. Far as I’m concerned, the subject is closed.

– There is no subject, she insisted. – Ragnhild is the way she is. Impossible to live with, unless you’re made of rubber, like Tage. She has her idea of the world, and if yours is any different then you must be pretty stupid. She made it impossible for our father to live there. She froze him out.

Viljam looked at her for a few moments.

– Mailin’s idea of what happened is slightly different.

Liss pushed her soup bowl away. – Mailin is a compromiser. I’m not.

She looked out into the street. The snow was coming down heavily. A man hurried by with two children wearing their Sunday best in tow. A post office van stopped outside.

– Need a smoke, she said and got up.

She stood outside on the steps. The cigarette tasted like sheep’s wool, but she needed it. She needed something else too, something to keep her going, help her make it through the day… A week and a half since she’d returned to Oslo. She had no plans to stay. No plans to go back. Limbo. Something must happen. She flicked the half-smoked cigarette between two parked cars, opened the letter box and pulled out the letters and brochures, Aftenposten, and a package in a thick brown envelope.

She laid the mail on the kitchen table. – Your Christmas post has arrived, she called to Viljam, who had disappeared down into the living room.

– Great, he called back without notable enthusiasm.

She sat down and carried on eating her soup. It was lukewarm by this time but still tasted incredibly good. She looked at the pile of mail. Suddenly she had a thought. The brown package was addressed to Mailin, the name written with a black felt-tip pen. No sender’s address.

– Viljam?

He came up from the living room.

– We should open that, she said and pointed at the package.

– Perhaps.

It didn’t look as if he wanted to. She carefully felt the padded envelope. Inside was something hard. At once she thought she knew what it was.

– It’s not possible… She prised open the flap, put a hand inside and pulled out a mobile phone.

Viljam stared at it.

– Hers? she asked.

– Put it back. Don’t fiddle with it. The police need to see it without us messing with it…

– It’s already got my fingerprints all over it. She turned it on – Do you know the PIN code?

– Liss, this isn’t very smart…

– I want to see, she interrupted.

He sat at the table. – She often used her birthday as a code.

Liss tried; it didn’t work. – What about yours?

He gave her the four digits. No luck there either.

– I give up, we better go down to the police station.

She gave it one last try, using her own birthday. The display flickered into life.

– Shit, she called out, and held it up to show him. The phone was looking for a signal. The battery icon showed it was almost discharged. She opened the menu.

– Liss, let the police do this.

She ignored him, navigated to the call list. Last call was outgoing: 11 December, at 19.03. She grabbed the pen that was hanging on the noticeboard and a piece of paper.

– What are you doing? He sounded as nervous as she was.

– I need this call list.

She opened the messages. Kept on taking notes. Found the one Mailin had sent to her: Keep Midsummer’s Day free next year. Call you tomorrow. By the time she was finished, she had covered two whole pages.

– Don’t you trust the police?

– Are you impressed by what they’ve done so far? she said as she navigated to the images file.

– She didn’t use the phone much for pictures, Viljam volunteered. – She bought herself a good-quality digital camera in the summer. Carried it with her almost everywhere.

It looked as though he was right. The last photo had been taken fourteen days earlier, obviously at a restaurant. Viljam’s face in golden-brown light.

He gave a quick smile. – Annen Etage. The evening we got engaged. I surprised her.

Liss opened the folder with video clips, sat there with her mouth open.

– What is it? Viljam stood up and walked round the table.

She pointed to the display. The last recording had been made on 12 December at 05.35.

– The day after she disappeared…

– Listen, Liss, I said we should let them have this straight away.

She didn’t answer. Pressed play.

Indoors, in darkness, difficult to make out detail. A torch is switched on, must be the person doing the filming who is holding it. A floor is illuminated. A few newspapers strewn about, some bottles. A figure lying there, tied to something.

– Mailin, Liss screamed, bit her lip without even noticing it.

The camera zoomed in, the torch was shone into the face. Suddenly Mailin’s voice: Are you there, is that light there?

– What’s the matter with her eyes? Liss whispered.

There was blood around her sister’s eyes, and they stared blindly into the light without blinking. What are you doing? Are you filming me?

Panning round the room, some crates stacked against a wall, a wheel next to two barrels. The camera turned back to Mailin’s face.

Sand…

She said something else, indistinctly. Then she shouted: Liss!

There was a cut. Then a glimpse of a building.

THAT EVENING AS I sat in darkness down by the beach listening to the sound of the breakers, I had almost made up my mind. Go down there and disappear into the darkness, let myself be swallowed up and consumed by the water, along with the Phoenician and all the other drowned bodies.

Then a figure appeared over by the stone steps. I had a feeling it was Jo. He passed by in the darkness without spotting me, wandered on through the sand. I could see he was taking his clothes off. That scrawny white boy’s body in the cold moonlight. I waited until he was undressed before getting up and sort of casually strolling up behind him. He was standing staring out to sea, still hadn’t noticed me. I saw there was a note in one of his shoes. There was something written on it, like Forget me, in big, scrawled handwriting. He was going to drown himself. I saved him, Liss. He saved me. On the beach that night, with the breakers washing in over our feet, we made a promise to each other, without a word being said.