Killing Moon

44 Friday

Interview

Prim checked the time.

One minute to six.

He had taken a seat at one of the window tables at Weiss. From where he was sitting, he had a view of the two freshly pulled half-litre beers in front of him, the Munch Museum in the light of the low sun outside, and the building where he had gatecrashed the terrace party.

A half-minute to six.

He let his eyes drift around. The customers looked so happy. They were standing in groups, smiling, chatting, laughing and patting each other on the shoulders. Friends. It looked nice. It was nice to have someone. To have Her. Then they would drink beer, and Her friends would be his.

A man wearing a porkpie hat came in. Terry Våge. He stopped and scanned the room as the door slid to behind him. At first he didn’t notice Prim discreetly waving his hand, his eyes no doubt needing to adjust to the dimly lit premises. But then he gave a brief nod and steered towards Prim’s table. The reporter looked pale and out of breath.

‘You’re...’

‘Yes. Sit down, Våge.’

‘Thanks.’ Våge took his hat off. His forehead glistened with sweat. He nodded at the beer on his side of the table.

‘Is that for me?’

‘I was going to leave as soon as the head was beneath the rim of the glass.’

Våge smirked in response and lifted the glass. They drank. Put down the beers and wiped the foam from their lips with the backs of their hands in an almost synchronised motion.

‘So here we are at long last,’ Våge said. ‘Sitting drinking like two old friends.’

Prim understood what Våge was trying to do. Break the ice. Gain trust. Get under his skin as quickly as possible.

‘Like them?’ Prim nodded towards the boisterous people at the bar.

‘Oh, they’re pen-pushers. The Friday drinks they’re having now are the highlight of their week, before they head home to their dull family lives. You know: eat tacos with the kids, put them to bed and watch TV with the same woman until they’re both bored enough to fall asleep. Then it’s up in the morning to more nagging from the kids and a trip to playland. I imagine that’s not the sort of life you live?’

No, Prim thought. But it might not be far off the kind of life I could see myself living. With Her.

Våge knew there wouldn’t be much opportunity to drink once he had taken out his notebook, so he took a big mouthful of the beer. Jesus, he needed that.

‘What do you know about the kind of life I live, Våge?’

Våge looked at the other man, tried to read him. Was this resistance? Had being so direct so early been a mistake? Profile interviews were often a delicate dance. After all, he wanted the interviewees to feel safe, regard him as a friend who understood them, open up and tell him things they wouldn’t otherwise. Or to be more precise: say things they’d regret. But sometimes he could be a bit pushy, too overt in his intentions.

‘I know a little,’ Våge said. ‘It’s unbelievable what you can find online when you know where to look.’

He noticed the other man’s voice was different than on the phone. And that he smelled of something. An odour that conjured up memories of a childhood holiday, his uncle’s barn, the smell of the horses’ sweaty harnesses. Våge felt a slight sting of pain in his stomach. Probably the old ulcer saying hello, as was its wont following periods of stress and indulgence in bad habits. Or when he drank too quickly, like now. He pushed the glass away and placed the notebook on the table.

‘Tell me, how did it start?’

Prim didn’t know how long he had been talking when he mentioned that his uncle was also his biological father, but that he only found that out after his mother had died in the fire.

‘Initial inbreeding isn’t necessarily so unfortunate, it can, on the contrary, yield excellent results. It is through persistent inbreeding that family defects arise. I had noticed there were some distinguishing features that I and Uncle Fredric shared. Small things, like the way we both put our middle finger to the corner of our mouth when thinking. And larger things, like us both having an exceptionally high IQ. But it was only when I began to immerse myself in animals and breeding that I suspected there was a connection and sent in both our DNA for testing. I’d harboured thoughts of revenge long before that. I was going to humiliate my stepfather the way he’d humiliated me. And he was indirectly responsible for the death of my mother. But now I realised the two of them were to blame, Uncle Fredric had also left my mother and me in the lurch. So, I gave him a box of chocolates for Christmas. Uncle Fredric loves chocolates. I’d injected a subspecies of Angiostrongylus cantonensis into them, a rat lungworm that is especially fond of human brains and which is only to be found in the slime of the Mount Kaputar slug. The result is a slow, agonising death with increasing dementia. But I can see I’m boring you. So let’s cut to the chase. I spent years developing my own subspecies of Toxoplasma gondii, and once it was ready the plan also began to form. The first and biggest problem proved to be getting close enough to Markus Røed to plant the parasite in him. Wealthy people are so much less accessible, so much harder to get close to, as a journalist you’d know all about that, when you’re trying to get a few words out of rock stars, right? The solution cropped up more or less by accident. I’m not the kind of person who goes out on the town much, but I’d got wind of a party being held on the rooftop where Røed lives. Up there...’ Prim pointed out the window. ‘And at the same time, through my job, I happened to come across a batch of green cocaine that I realised I could skim. You’re familiar with the expression? Yes, so I mixed it with my gondii friends. Not much, just enough to be sure it would have the desired effect once Røed consumed it. The plan was to wait for a couple of days after the party and then visit him again. That would be enough for him to get a scent of me, of the primary host, and be unable to reject me. On the contrary, he’d have done exactly what I asked of him, because from then on, he’d only have had one thought on his mind. Having me. I may no longer have had that little boy’s arse he wanted, but no one with gondii in their brain can resist the primary host.’

The Aune group was once more gathered round the bed in room 618.

Harry had explained to them how the case now appeared in a fresh light.

‘But that can’t be bloody right,’ Øystein exclaimed. ‘Bertine had a bit of Selmer’s skin between her teeth. So where did that come from? Maybe she screwed him earlier on the day she went missing?’

Harry shook his head. ‘The Greenhorn planted it. Just like he planted Røed’s saliva on Susanne’s breast.’

‘How?’ Truls asked.

‘I don’t know. But he must have. He did it to mislead us. And it worked.’

‘Fine in theory,’ Øystein said. ‘But running around planting DNA. Who the fuck does that?’

‘Mm.’ Harry looked thoughtfully at Øystein.

‘Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan at the party.’ Prim sighed. ‘While I was arranging the lines on the coffee table, the other dealer, the guy I would later read in the newspaper was called Kevin Selmer, was talking about how he’d never tried green cocaine before, only heard about it. His eyes were shining and when the lines lay ready, he dived in to snort the first one. I grabbed his arm and pulled him away — after all, I had to be sure there was enough for Røed. I clawed at him...’ Prim looked down at his hand. ‘Got blood and skin under my nails. Later, when I got home, I picked it out and preserved it. You never know when you might have use for that sort of thing. Anyway, the problems at the party just continued. Røed insisted that his two female friends each snort a line before him. I didn’t want to risk raising any objections, but at least the girls were well mannered enough to do the two thinner lines of the three I had arranged. When it was Røed’s turn, his wife, Helene, walked in and started giving him a telling-off, and maybe that was what stressed him out and caused him to sneeze and blow away the cocaine. That was bad, I didn’t have any more with me. So I ran to the kitchen worktop, found a dishcloth and cleaned the cocaine up off the table and the floor. Showed the dishcloth to Røed and told him there was enough there for a line. But he wouldn’t hear of it, said it was full of fucking snot and spit, and that he’d get some off K, Kevin that is, instead. Kevin was mad at me, so I told him maybe he could get a taste another time. He said he’d like that, that he didn’t do drugs, but that everyone had to test things once. He wouldn’t tell me his name or where he lived, but that I could find him at Jernbanetorget during normal working hours if I wanted to trade a little of my cocaine for his. I said yeah, sure, figured I’d never see him again. In any event, the party had been a fiasco, and I went back to the kitchen worktop to rinse the cloth and leave it when I noticed something on the door of the fridge. A theatre ticket to Romeo and Juliet. Like the ones Røed’s wife had handed out to some of us on the rooftop terrace. I’d stuffed the one I’d been given into my pocket without any intention of using it, and I’d seen Kevin getting one too. Anyway, while I was standing there, my mind began hatching a plan B. And my mind works quickly, Våge. It’s incredible how many moves ahead a brain can think out when under pressure. And mine was — like I’ve said — both fast and under pressure. I don’t know how long I stood there, scarcely more than a minute, perhaps two. Then I stuffed the cloth in my pocket and approached the girls. First one, then the other. They were favourably disposed towards me after the cocaine I’d given them, and I pumped them for as much information as possible. Not personal stuff, but the kind of things that could tell me where I might find them. Susanne wondered why I still wore a face mask. Bertine wanted more cocaine. But in both cases other men moved in and it was obvious that they were more interested in them than in someone like me. I went home happy, however; after all, I knew it would only be a matter of days until the parasites reached their brains, until they’d be screaming within like little girls in front of a boyband when they caught my scent.’ Prim laughed and raised his glass to Våge.

‘So the question is,’ Harry said, ‘where do we start looking for the Greenhorn?’

Truls grunted.

‘Yes, Truls?’

Truls made a few more sounds before he managed to speak. ‘If he’s managed to get a hold of green cocaine, we need to check the people who were near the seizure before it was sent for analysis. By that I mean people at the airport and at evidence storage. And, yes, me and the ones who drove it from Gardermoen to Police HQ. But also the guys who transported it from the evidence storage to Krimteknisk.’

‘Whoa,’ Øystein said. ‘We don’t know for sure that that seizure was the only batch of green cocaine to have come into the country.’

‘Truls is right,’ Harry said. ‘First we search in the light.’

‘As I suspected, I didn’t get another chance to get close to Røed,’ Prim said with a sigh. ‘I’d mixed all the parasites I had into the cocaine and those in my own body had been killed off by my immune system and a slight overdose of insecticide. So, in order to infect Røed I needed the parasites in the girls before their immune systems put paid to them. In other words, I had to eat some of the girls’ brains and eyes. I opted for Susanne, because I knew the gym where she worked out. Given that the human sense of smell is about as strong as that of a mouse, I had to enhance my appeal a tad. So I smeared myself with intestinal juices distilled from my own excrement.’

Prim smiled broadly and looked up. Våge didn’t return the smile, just stared at him with what looked like disbelief.

‘I waited for her outside the gym, and I was excited. I’d tested the parasite on animals that usually shy away from humans, like foxes and deer, and they had been attracted to me, especially the fox. But I couldn’t know for sure if it would work on people. She came out and I could tell straight away she was attracted. I arranged to meet her at the car park by the forest trails in Skullerud. When she didn’t turn up on time I wondered if I’d made a mistake, if she’d got her wits back about her when she no longer had the smell of my intestines in her nostrils. But then she appeared, and I was exultant, believe you me.’

Prim took a gulp of his beer, as though getting ready to dive in.

‘We walked into the forest, arm in arm, and when we were a little distance from the road, we left the trail and had sex. Then I slit her neck.’ Prim felt tears coming and had to clear his throat. ‘I am aware that you might like more details at this point, but I think I must have suppressed some parts. Anyway, I’d also brought along a vial of saliva from Røed that I smeared on her breast. I dressed her upper body so that the saliva wouldn’t be washed away in the rain before the police found her. The spit seemed like a good idea at the time, but it only served to complicate matters.’ He took a sip of beer. ‘With regards to Bertine, it was quite similar. I met her at a bar she told me she frequented and arranged to meet her in Grefsenkollen. She came by car and when I asked her to leave her phone and accompany me on an adventure in my car she had no qualms, only pure lust. She brought something she called a snuff bullet, a sort of mini-peppermill you inhale cocaine from. She persuaded me to take a sniff. I said I wanted to take her from behind and put a leather strap around her neck. No doubt assuming it was a sex game, she let me do it. It took a little longer to strangle her than I thought. Nevertheless, she stopped breathing in the end.’

Prim sighed heavily and shook his head. Wiped a tear away.

‘I must point out that I was very careful to remove any traces of myself the police might find, so I took her snuff bullet, seeing as DNA from my nose could have made its way inside. At the time I didn’t know that I would have use for it later. I had learned, incidentally, that if you’re going to kill someone and procure their brain and eyes, it’s a lot smarter to take their entire head home.’

Prim flexed his feet under the table, they felt like they were going to sleep.

‘Over the following weeks I ate little bits of brain and eyes. I needed to keep the reproduction of the annoyingly short-lived parasites going while I waited to get within striking distance of Røed. I sat a number of times at this very table wondering if I should drop by and ask if we could speak. But he was never home, I only saw Helene coming and going. Perhaps he was living someplace else, but I never managed to find out where. In the meantime, I’d eaten up the brains, the parasites were dead, so I needed a new mouse. Helene Røed. I figured it would cause Markus Røed pain — at least a certain amount — if I took her from him. And I knew of two locations I could get close to her. At the National Theatre on the date of the ticket on the fridge door. And at a place called Danielle’s. When I asked Susanne, she told me that was where she first met Markus Røed. And she couldn’t understand why Helene Røed still went to those Monday lunches — after all, she’d already reeled in her big fish. So I went along on a Monday, and sure enough, Helene Røed showed up. I ordered the same drink I’d seen her have at the party, a dirty martini, and poured an appropriate dose of gondii juice into it. Then I summoned the waiter, gave him a two hundred-krone note and had him take the drink to her table. I told him to point out another sender, that it was a joke between friends. I waited until I saw her drink and then left. I found out what time the interval for Romeo and Juliet was and that you only needed a ticket to get into the auditorium, that anybody could walk in when there was an interval and mingle with the audience. So I did what I already felt fairly experienced at, I went in and picked her up and...’ Prim grimaced and kicked out with one foot. Didn’t know whether it was the leg of the table or Våge’s leg he hit. ‘The next day she was found and Røed was taken into custody. And that was when I realised I’d shot myself in the foot. I had ensured he would wind up there because I wanted him to suffer, but then they said he’d probably be sitting there for months. So, I had to solve that problem. Fortunately, I have this...’

Prim tapped a finger against his forehead.

‘I used it and found another innocent person who could take Røed’s place. Kevin the cocaine dealer. After all, he’d been so keen to try green cocaine. He was perfect.’