Killing Moon

18 Tuesday

Parasite

‘Parasites,’ Prim said, lifting the fork to his mouth. ‘We die of them and live off them.’ He chewed. The food had a spongy consistency and didn’t taste of much, even with all the spices. He raised his glass of red wine to his guest before washing down the mouthful and swallowing hard. He placed his palm on his chest, waiting for the food to go down before continuing. ‘And we’re all parasites. You. Me. Everyone out there. Without hosts like us the parasites would die, but without the parasites we would also die. Because there are good parasites and there are malign parasites. The good ones come from blowflies, for instance, which deposit their parasite eggs into a corpse so that the larvae eat it up in no time.’ With a grimace, Prim cut off another piece and commenced chewing on it. ‘If they didn’t, we’d literally be wading in corpses and carcasses. No, I’m not joking! The maths is simple. We would, in the space of a few months, have died from the noxious gases from corpses if not for the blowfly. Then you have the interesting parasites which are neither particularly useful nor do any great harm. Among these you have, for example, Cymothoa exigua. The tongue-eating louse.’

Prim stood up and walked over to the aquarium.

‘It’s such an interesting parasite that I deposited a few in Boss’s tank here. What happens is that the louse attaches itself to the tongue of the fish and sucks blood from it until the tongue eventually decomposes and disappears. Then the louse attaches itself to the stub of the tongue, sucks more blood, grows and develops into a completely new tongue.’

Prim’s hand shot down into the water and grabbed the fish. He brought it over to the table, squeezed the fish’s mouth so it was forced open, and held it up in front of her face.

‘Do you see it? Do you see the louse? Can you see that it has eyes and a mouth of its own? Yes?’

He walked quickly back and released the fish back into the aquarium.

‘The louse — which I’ve named Lisa — functions just fine as a tongue, so no need to feel so sorry for Boss. Life goes on, as they say, and he has company now. It’s a lot worse to cross paths with the malign parasites. Ones like this one here are packed with...’

He pointed at the large pink slug he had placed on the dining table between them.

‘The dog and I live alone,’ Weng said, hefting his jeans up under his paunch.

Sung-min looked at the bulldog lying in a basket in the corner of the kitchen. It only moved its head, and the only sound it made was a pant.

‘I took over the farm from my father a couple of years back, but the wife refuses to live out here in the forest, so she’s still in the block of flats in Manglerud.’

Sung-min nodded at the dog. ‘Bitch?’

‘Yes. She had a habit of attacking cars, thought of them as bulls, maybe. Anyway, she got caught on one and broke her back. But she still makes a sound if anyone comes...’

‘Yes, we heard it. And makes a sound when she smells dead animals, I understand.’

‘Yeah, as I told Hansen.’

‘Hansen?’

‘The officer who called.’

‘Hansen, yeah. But she’s not making any noise now.’

‘No, it’s only when the wind is coming from the south-east she smells it.’ Weng pointed out into the darkness.

‘Would you mind if my dog and I had a little search?’

‘You’ve a dog with you?’

‘He’s in the car. A Labrador.’

‘Be my guest.’

‘So,’ Prim said and waited until he was sure he had her full attention. ‘This slug looks pretty innocent, doesn’t it? Beautiful, even. Its colour makes you want to suck on it, it almost looks like candy. But I would strongly advise against that. You see, both slug and slime are packed with rat lungworm, so we definitely won’t be using it as any kind of dressing.’ Prim laughed. As usual, she did not laugh along, only smiled.

‘As soon as the worm enters your body, it begins to follow the bloodstream. And where does it want to go?’ Prim tapped his forefinger against his forehead. ‘Here. To the brain. Because it loves brain. Sure, yes, I understand that the brain is nutritious and a nice place for eggs to hatch. But the brain isn’t particularly good.’ He looked down at his plate and smacked his lips disapprovingly. ‘What do you think?’

Kasparov tugged hard at the leash. There was no longer any track where they were walking. It had become cloudy earlier in the day, and now the only light came from the beam of Sung-min’s torch. It stopped on a wall of tree trunks and low-hanging branches which he had to bend down to negotiate. He had lost any sense of where they were or how far they had walked. He heard Kasparov panting below the carpet of ferns, but couldn’t see him and had the feeling of being pulled by an invisible force into increasingly deep darkness. This could have waited. It could have. So why? Because he alone wanted to get the credit for finding Bertine? No. No, it wasn’t as banal as that. He had just always been like this — when he was wondering about something he had to find out about it at once, to wait was unbearable.

But now he was having second thoughts. Not only did he risk messing up a crime scene should he stumble over a body here in the darkness, it was also the fact he was afraid. Yes, he could admit it. Right now he was that little boy who was scared of the dark, who had arrived in Norway not knowing what he was afraid of, but had a feeling that other people, his adoptive parents, his teachers, the other children in the street, they knew. They knew something he didn’t know about himself, about his past, about what had happened. He never found out what that was, if indeed there was anything. His adoptive parents had no dramatic story to relate about his biological parents or how he had been adopted. But ever since, he had been consumed with a need to know. Know everything. Know something they, the others, did not.

The leash slackened. Kasparov had stopped.

Sung-min felt the beating of his heart as he pointed the torch at the ground and pushed the fern leaves aside.

Kasparov had his muzzle to the ground, and the light found what he was sniffing at.

Sung-min crouched down and picked it up. At first he thought it was an empty crisp packet, but then he recognised it and understood why Kasparov had stopped. It was a Hillman Pets bag, an anti-parasitic powder that Sung-min had bought in a pet shop once when Kasparov had roundworm. There was a flavour added to the powder which dogs liked so much that Kasparov only had to catch sight of a bag of the stuff and he would wag his tail so wildly that Sung-min thought he was going to take off. Sung-min crumpled it and put in his pocket.

‘Will we go home, Kasparov? Supper time?’

Kasparov looked up at him as if he understood the words and thought his owner insane. He turned, Sung-min felt a hard tug and knew he didn’t have a prayer, they were going deeper in to where he no longer wanted to go.

‘What’s most amazing is that when some of these parasites reach your brain, they begin to take over,’ Prim said. ‘Control your thoughts. Your desires. And the parasite will command you to do what’s necessary for it to continue its natural cycle. You become an obedient soldier, willing to die if that’s what it takes.’ Prim sighed. ‘As so very often it does, unfortunately.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh, you think this sounds like a horror story or science fiction? But you should know that some of these parasites aren’t even rare. Most hosts live and die without knowing the parasite is present, as is likely the case with Boss and Lisa. We believe we struggle, work, and sacrifice our lives for our family, our country, our own legacy. While in reality it’s for the parasite, the bloodsucker ensconced in the headquarters of the brain deciding things.’

Prim refilled their glasses with red wine.

‘My stepfather accused my mother of being just such a parasite. Claimed she began turning down roles because he had wealth so she could just sit at home drinking up his money. Of course that wasn’t true. Firstly, she didn’t turn down parts, but they did stop offering them to her. Because she sat at home all day drinking and had begun to forget lines. My stepfather was a very wealthy man, so her drinking could never have rendered him destitute, to put it mildly. Besides, he was the parasite. He was the one inside my mother’s brain, making her see things the way he wanted her to see them. So she didn’t see what he was doing to me. I was only a child and thought a father had the right, could demand that sort of thing from his son. No, I didn’t think every six-year-old was forced to lie naked in bed with their father and satisfy them, or face threats about their mother being killed if they said a word about it to anyone. But I was frightened. So I said nothing, but tried to show my mother what was going on. I had always been bullied at school because of my teeth and... yes, the way a victim of sexual assault behaves, I suppose. Rat, they called me. But now I began to lie and steal. I started skipping school, ran away from home, and began taking money from men to wank them off in public toilets. I robbed one of them. Put simply, my stepfather was nestled in both my and my mother’s brains, destroying us bit by bit. Speaking of which...’

Prim pronged the last piece on his plate. Sighed. ‘But now it’s over, Bertine.’ He turned the fork while he studied the pale pink piece of meat. ‘Now I’m the one nestling in the brain and giving orders.’

Sung-min had to run to keep up with Kasparov, who was straining even harder. A sort of hacking cough began coming from the dog, as if he were trying to dislodge something stuck in his throat.

Sung-min did something he had learned as an investigator. When he was almost entirely sure of something he tested his own deduction by trying to turn everything on its head. Could it be that what he had thought was impossible was possible all the same? Could, for example, Bertine Bertilsen still be alive? She might have run off, gone abroad. She may have been abducted and was now sitting locked up in a basement or an apartment someplace, was perhaps together with the perpetrator at this very moment.

Suddenly they were out of the woods and in a clearing. The light from the torch glittered on water. They were by a small lake. Kasparov wanted to get to the water and pulled Sung-min with him. The light flickered over a birch tree standing bowed over the water, and Sung-min momentarily caught sight of something that looked like a thick branch reaching all the way down to the water, as though the tree were drinking. He pointed the light at the branch. Which was not a branch.

‘No!’ yelled Sung-min, yanking Kasparov back.

The shout echoed back from the other side of the lake.

It was a body.

It was hanging folded at the hips over the lowest branch of the birch tree.

The bare feet were just above the surface of the water. The woman — because he could see at once that it was a woman — had, like Susanne, no clothes on her lower body. Her stomach was also exposed, because her dress was pulled up, stopping underneath her bra, and was hanging down towards the water, covering her head, shoulders and arms. Only her wrists were visible below the inside-out hem of the dress, and her fingers were reaching down below the surface of the water. Sung-min’s first thought was to hope there were no fish in the lake.

Kasparov sat still. Sung-min patted him on the head. ‘Good boy.’

He took out his phone. The coverage at the farm had been poor, but up here the signal indicator was down to one bar. But the GPS was working, and as he registered his position, he noticed he was breathing through his mouth. Not that there was much of a smell, it was just something his brain — after a couple of unpleasant experiences — had begun to do automatically upon understanding it was at a crime scene. His brain had also worked out that in order to establish that this was Bertine Bertilsen, he would have to position the torch on the ground and hold on to the tree trunk with one hand while leaning out over the water to pull up the hem of her dress so he could see her face. The problem was he might then place a hand on the trunk in the same place as the perpetrator and spoil a fingerprint.

He remembered the tattoo. The Louis Vuitton logo. Shone the light on her ankles. They were so white in the glare, as though she were made of snow. But no Louis Vuitton logo. What did that mean?

An owl, at least he guessed it was an owl, hooted somewhere out in the darkness. He couldn’t see the outside of her left ankle, maybe that’s where the tattoo was. He moved along the bank until he was at the right angle and shone the light on her.

And there it was. Black on snow white. An L over a V.

It was her. Had to be her.

He took out his phone again and called Katrine Bratt. Still no answer. Strange. Not taking Harry Hole’s call might have been a choice, but the lead detective should always be available to those they’re working with, that was an unwritten rule.

‘So you see, Bertine, I have an important task to carry out.’

Prim leaned across the table and laid his hand against her cheek.

‘I’m just sorry you had to become part of that task. And I’m sorry that I must leave you now. That this will be our last night together. Because even though I know you want me, you aren’t the one I love. There, I’ve said it. Tell me you forgive me. No? Please. Sweet girl.’ Prim chuckled quietly. ‘You can try to resist, Bertine Bertilsen, but you know that I can turn you on any time with the slightest touch.’

He did it, she could not prevent him. And, of course, she lit up for him. For the last time, he thought, raising his glass in a farewell toast.

Sung-min had got hold of the Crime Scene Unit, they were on their way. All he could do was sit on a tree stump and wait. He scratched at his face and neck. Mosquitoes. No, gnats. Little mosquitoes that sucked blood, even from larger mosquitoes. He had switched off the torch to save the battery and could just discern the body out there in front of him.

It was her. Of course it was her.

Still.

He checked the time, was already impatient. And where was Katrine? Why didn’t she call back?

Sung-min found a long, thin branch on the ground. Turning the torch on again and placing it on the ground, he stood by the shore and used the branch to snag the edge of the dress. Lifted it. Higher. And higher. Saw the bare upper arms now, waited to see her brown hair, it had been long and worn loose in the photos he had seen. Was it tied up? Was it...?

Sung-min made a hooting sound. Like an owl. He simply lost control, the sound just came out, the branch fell in the water and the dress was back covering what had caused him to make the sound. Covering what was not there.

‘Poor thing,’ Prim whispered. ‘You’re so beautiful. And spurned all the same. It’s not fair, is it?’

He hadn’t straightened her head after striking the table two nights previously and the shaking had caused the head to tilt a little to one side. The head was mounted on top of a standard lamp he had placed in front of the chair on the other side of the table. When he pressed the switch on the cord lying across the table and the 60-watt bulb inside Bertine’s head turned on and the light shone out of her eye sockets, colouring her teeth in the gaping mouth blue, an unimaginative man might say it resembled a pumpkin head at Halloween. While a man with just a little more imagination would see that the whole of Bertine — at least that part of her not by a lake in Østmarka — lit up, beamed with joy, yes, a man could easily imagine she loved him. And Bertine had loved him, desired him at any rate.

‘If it’s any consolation, I enjoyed the lovemaking with you more than with Susanne,’ Prim said. ‘You have a nicer body, and...’ He licked at his fork. ‘I like your brain better. But...’ He cocked his head to one side, looking at her ruefully. ‘I had to eat it for the sake of the life cycle. For the eggs. For the parasites. For revenge. It’s the only way I can become whole. The only way I can be loved for who I am. Yes, I know that probably sounds pompous. But it’s true. To be loved, that’s all any of us want, isn’t it?’

He pressed his forefinger on the light switch. The light bulb in her head went off and the living room was left lying in semi-darkness.

Prim sighed. ‘Yes, I was afraid you’d take it like that.’