Medusa

46

Wednesday 24 October

NNINA JEBSEN PARKED on the pavement. A constable was still standing in the entrance to the block in Helgesens gate. He was a few years younger than her, tall and muscular, with fair hair. Built like an athlete, she thought. She exchanged a few words with him before heading up to the attic flat. The security tape outside the door had been removed. She rang the bell. It took almost a minute for Miriam Gaizauskaite to open up. Her face was pale and drawn. She tried to smile when she saw Nina.

– I wasn’t expecting you just yet, she said.

Nina sat on the sofa and looked around the flat. The walls were painted a peach white; the curtains were red with a motif of tulips. A few plants with drooping heads stood on the windowsill.

Miriam emerged from the kitchen carrying coffee cups and a bowl of fruit. Nina helped herself to an apple. She was hungry, but she could hold out until lunch if she had enough coffee.

– As I mentioned, there are one or two things I’d like to talk to you about. We could have done it on the phone, but we find we often get better results face to face.

– I’ve already given a statement, Miriam said.

– Yes, you’ve already helped us a lot, Nina replied encouragingly as she took a bite from the apple. – Don’t you have lectures today?

Miriam looked up through the skylight.

– Couldn’t face going.

– I understand. But it’s probably not such a good idea to sit here thinking too much.

– Two good friends of mine have already called to tell me off. I’ll get going again tomorrow.

Nina looked at her. Miriam had large dark eyes and a fine, high forehead on which tiny wrinkles appeared and as suddenly disappeared again. Her nose was quite long, but narrow and straight. She could feel that she liked her, and reminded herself not to let it affect her judgement.

– You said that you heard someone down in the yard on Monday morning. You were lying awake and the time was a couple of minutes past five. Did you hear the gate once or twice?

Miriam thought about it.

– Just once.

– Did you hear anyone talking?

– No.

Nina waited a moment before saying:

– You can trust us, Miriam. Don’t be afraid to tell us what you know.

– I’ve got nothing else to say. Nothing new.

She got up, disappeared out into the kitchen and returned with a cafetière full of coffee.

– Good coffee, Nina said after taking a sip. She added: – You said you were alone all evening yesterday.

Miriam gave a slight nod.

– But that doesn’t appear to be the case.

She was startled.

– What do you mean?

– Our technical investigators found a footprint out in the corridor, in the blood on the floor. Where someone stepped in their stockinged feet.

Nina noticed how Miriam was holding on tightly to the arms of her chair.

– They found traces of the same sock in your flat. In the hallway, here in the living room, and over to the alcove.

Without waiting for her reaction, Nina took a sheet of paper from her pocket, unfolded it and laid it on the table in front of Miriam.

– The man delivering the newspapers met someone going out as he was on his way in. He gave us a description, which our artist has used. Look at it carefully, see if you can connect it with someone you might have seen before.

Miriam sat there looking at the drawing. Nina saw a quiver run down her neck, and her pupils grew even wider. Here it comes, she thought, just as Miriam buried her face in her hands and her whole body began to shake.

Viken’s office door was ajar. Nina Jebsen burst in, knocking as she closed it behind her. Viken was seated at his computer. He looked up at her over the top of his rectangular glasses.

– Good to see you, Jebsen.

He pointed to the chair on the other side of the desk.

– Just by the way, I have no objection to people knocking on the door before they come barging in.

– Of course, I’m sorry. She took out her notebook, flipped through it. – Thought this might interest you. I had another talk with Miriam Gaizauskaite.

– You look like you just won first prize in the office cake lottery.

– Miriam has been on a placement at a clinic this autumn, she said, blushing slightly. Viken felt certain it was because he had mentioned cakes. – Care to guess who her supervisor was?

Viken’s jaws began to work.

– You don’t mean…

She didn’t let him finish.

– Dr Axel Glenne. Who we know for sure was the last person to talk to Hilde Paulsen. And was Cecilie Davidsen’s doctor. We both agreed that was a little odd in itself.

– A bit tricky, certainly, Viken observed, not quite sure where he had picked up that particular expression.

– But that isn’t all.

He was curious now, took off his reading glasses and placed them on the desk.

– Glenne was at Miriam Gaizauskaite’s place on Monday night.

– I’ll be damned. Are you sure?

– He’s spent the night with her twice before, she said triumphantly. – On Tuesday morning he left her flat at about five. According to Miriam, he was the one who found the body outside the door.

Viken let out a long, slow breath, like the sound of air being squeezed from an old rubber mattress.

– The man at the gate, he said. – The description from the newspaper delivery man, it fits. Bloody hell, Jebsen, I think we’re beginning to get somewhere here. Let’s bring him in.

– I rang the clinic, she told him. – He’s off sick and hasn’t been there this week.

– Then let’s try his home. He turned back to his computer.

– I’ve rung there too. No one picks up. But his wife answered when I called her on her mobile.

Viken shot a smile at her that was a mixture of surprise and appreciation.

– He hasn’t been home since Monday morning. He’s called her a couple of times. She says she has no idea where he is.

Viken was on his feet instantly.

– Top marks, Inspector Jebsen. A-plus. I’ve said all along this has something to do with Dr Glenne.

47

THE WOMAN WHO opened the door was slim and of medium height. She might have been over forty, but she looked younger. Partly because her dark hair was combed forward in a style that seemed very modern to Viken, but above all because of the shape of her face. High cheekbones that kept the skin in place when it might have started to sag.

– Mrs Glenne, I presume? Sorry for disturbing you, he said, surprised at his own instinctive courtesy towards her.

She offered him her hand, and he shook it, surprising himself again. He didn’t often shake hands with witnesses he was about to interview.

– Vibeke Frisch Glenne, she said, her handshake firm, with no sign of nervous damp in the palm.

Viken ushered Norbakk forward.

– This is Sergeant Arve Norbakk.

As she greeted his colleague, Viken noticed that her slanting eyes opened wider.

– Eh… I believe we’ve met before, she said, her skin turning a shade darker under the suntan.

– We chatted in town one evening earlier this autumn, Norbakk explained with his boyish smile. – At a club. Smuget, wasn’t it?

Viken had a quick think and concluded that it wasn’t a disadvantage for his colleague to have met the lady before. If she responded to Norbakk the way most women did, it meant they would both be well received.

Vibeke Glenne led the way into the living room. It was large and bright, with windows facing east and west. Two enormous paintings hung on the wall, neither one of them depicting anything in particular, but the colours were bright, and they looked expensive.

She gestured towards the leather armchairs.

– Do sit down, I’ll get some coffee.

A girl of about eight or nine peeked in at them.

– Hello, said Norbakk. – Are you the one called Marlen?

– Blimey, said Viken. – Have you studied the whole family tree already?

– Didn’t you see the sign on the door? Norbakk winked.

– You’re not wearing uniforms, the little girl stated. She was fair haired, her face round; she didn’t look like her mother at all.

– Makes no difference, we’re still real, Norbakk countered, producing his badge.

Marlen shuffled over to him and he gave it to her.

– Can you see that’s me?

The girl stared at the card, then up at his face. She gave a sudden shy smile, and Viken was surprised to note that Norbakk, who was quiet and reserved, seemed to have a way with children too. All the better, because he himself certainly didn’t. What he did have was a sense of where people stood. Interpreting the code developed by each individual. Norbakk’s was a touch more encrypted than most, thought Viken. But he was well on the way to cracking it.

Vibeke Glenne returned with a pot of coffee and small gold-rimmed cups on a tray, along with a plate of biscuits that looked home-made.

– Mrs Glenne, as I explained to you on the telephone…

She interrupted. – I understand why you’re here. But that’s about all I understand. Marlen, go down to your room.

– She isn’t disturbing us, Viken assured her, registering the little girl’s miffed expression. Psychologically speaking it would be an advantage to have the child there, he reasoned.

– She can come up later if there’s anything you want to ask her.

Once the daughter had marched out with her haughty princess’s neck, Vibeke Glenne added: – I want to protect the children as much as possible. For a moment her voice seemed uncertain. – Though I don’t quite know what it is I’m protecting them from …

She sat upright, looked as though she were making an effort to pull herself together.

– You surely can’t believe that Axel has anything to do with these murders.

Viken said, in his most neutral tone: – It’s not our job to believe, Mrs Glenne. We leave that to the priests.

It was a phrase he had reeled off many times in the past. A slight movement of her face was enough to assure him that she took his point and was not offended.

– We simply note that nothing has been heard from him. Not to frighten you, Mrs Glenne, but let me remind you that three people have recently gone missing in Oslo. All three were later found dead.

Vibeke Glenne’s face turned grey.

– So you have not seen your husband since Sunday?

– Monday morning. He was up even earlier than usual, I think. He was gone by the time I got up, at around seven.

Norbakk made a note.

– How would you describe him? Viken wanted to know.

For a moment she looked surprised.

– Describe?

Viken didn’t answer, gave her time.

– He’s hard working, clever, a good father. Someone you can trust. I would say he is strong.

Viken was tempted to inform her that this trustworthy man had recently spent the night with a young female student in her flat, but decided not to. He might need to spring the information later as a surprise.

– I’d like to ask you about the Thursday thirteen days ago, he said instead. – Was your husband at home in the afternoon and all through the evening?

She thought about this.

– He goes for a bike ride in the marka every Thursday afternoon. I’ll check to see if anything special happened that evening.

She disappeared out into the kitchen, returning straight away with a calendar, flipped back through it.

– He’s written ‘office work’ here. He often stays late at the office in the evenings after he’s back from his bike ride. Applications, social security forms, things like that. That’s all I know.

– When did he come home?

– I pick Marlen up at the riding school on Thursdays. We’re home by eight thirty. I don’t think Axel was home by then that Thursday. Why that day in particular?

Viken waited before replying.

– That was the evening one of the victims disappeared. You perhaps know that she was a patient of your husband’s?

Vibeke jumped up from her chair.

– But this is insane. Do you know how long I’ve lived with him? Twenty-three years. If he was mixed up in anything, I would have known it. You can be a hundred per cent certain of that.

Just the same way you can be certain he’s a man you can trust, Viken thought with a sour smile on his lips.

– Of course, he said. – We don’t doubt that you know him better than anyone else. Can I just use your toilet?

She accompanied him out into the corridor. Viken turned and gave a sign to Norbakk, indicating that he should carry on going through the points they had agreed on earlier in the car.

They came into a large hall with light marble tiling on the floor. Two of the walls were almost covered by mirrors. This must be the hall of mirrors, Viken joked to himself. The toilet was in a corridor leading off it. He locked the door behind him. Having emptied his bladder, he washed his hands. He glanced over at the shelf below the mirror. A tube of toothpaste. Toothbrushes in a mug hanging on the wall. A packet of paracetamol, sticking plasters, some theatrical make-up for kids. The gentry each have their own bathroom, of course, he realised. He sent a text message to Norbakk: Try to get a look at the other bathroom. Probably upstairs. On more than one occasion he had lectured younger colleagues on precisely this subject: living rooms show how people want to be seen in the eyes of others; bathrooms will always tell you something about what lies behind the facade.

As he was letting himself out, he heard a familiar sound coming from a half-open door on the other side of the corridor. He peeked in. A teenager was seated on the edge of his bed, strumming on an electric guitar. A small amplifier stood on the floor in front of him.

– Practising? Viken asked.

The lad didn’t seemed surprised to see him standing there. He nodded and carried on plucking away at the strings.

– You play in a band?

Another nod from the lad. He had shoulder-length black hair that looked dyed, and a ring through one eyebrow.

– What kind of music? Viken wanted to know.

The lad glanced up at him, with perhaps just a touch of contempt in his eyes.

– Rock, blues, metal, whatever.

– I play guitar too, the policeman revealed.

– Oh yeah? The lad appeared tolerably interested in this bit of information.

– What’s your name?

– Tom.

– Mind if I have a go on your guitar?

Tom hesitated for a few seconds before getting up. He was skinny and rangy, the same height as Viken, with a row of pimples studded across his forehead. He unhooked the strap and handed over the guitar. A Gibson Les Paul. More expensive than any guitar Viken had ever owned. His fingers glided reverently across the strings.

– Get this from your father?

– Birthday present, the lad confirmed. – Dad bought it in England.

Viken strummed a few chords. Even with such a tiny amplifier he could feel the power in the sleek instrument.

– Wish I had one of these, he sighed as he ran through some riffs. – Know this one?

He let his fingers go. Tom watched, his face expressionless.

– Good, he said when Viken had finished. – Heard it before.

– ‘Black Magic Woman’, Viken said enthusiastically.

– Santana, isn’t it?

– Santana nicked it from Fleetwood Mac. The guy who wrote it was called Peter Green. Best white blues guitarist ever. He had a Gibson exactly like yours. In the end he let his nails grow so long he couldn’t play any more.

– What did he do that for? Tom asked.

– He thought it might cure him of having to play the blues.

– Crazy.

Viken handed the guitar back.

– Your turn.

Tom hung the guitar round his neck, turned up the amp a few notches. Viken didn’t recognise the riff, but it was powerful; the lad could play, there was no doubt about it. Suddenly a hoarse, reedy sound emerged from his throat. Viken leaned in the doorway, surprised. The lad sat there with eyes closed, suddenly deep inside his own, vulnerable world, with no thought of the stranger standing there watching him.

When he was finished, Viken exclaimed: – That’s powerful stuff, Tom.

The boy could hear that he meant it and smiled quickly, then turned and put the guitar on its stand next to the bed.

– Do you play in a band? he asked, clearly to deflect his embarrassment.

– Long time ago now, said Viken.

– What was it called?

Viken grinned. – We called ourselves the Graveyard Dancers. Actually came quite close to getting a recording contract.

– Cool name, Tom nodded.

Viken took his chance.

– Why isn’t your father home?

Tom shrugged his shoulders. – He rang Ma yesterday. It has something to do with his brother.

– Your father’s brother?

– Yep, twin brother.

Viken was careful not to show too much interest.

– So your father has a twin brother. What’s his name?

– Brede.

– Are they completely identical?

– Dunno. Never met him.

At that moment Vibeke Glenne appeared.

– Are you in here?

Viken winked at Tom.

– Couldn’t pass up the chance to try that guitar. I’ve never played on anything as good. Get yourself a Peter Green album, hear what he gets out of a Gibson.

– Album? Tom echoed in surprise.

– Er, I’m sure you can download the tracks, the chief inspector hurriedly corrected himself.

– Your son tells me that Axel has a twin brother.

Vibeke Glenne refilled their coffee cups.

– There hasn’t been any contact for years. Brede is an alcoholic, or a junkie, or I don’t know what. Been in and out of institutions all his life.

– The lad says he’s never met him.

She stared off into space.

– Neither have I actually.

Viken looked at her in astonishment.

– In twenty-three years?

– They lost touch when they were in their teens. Brede wouldn’t see Axel any more. Jealousy and all the rest of it. Axel has managed to make something out of his life. Brede didn’t care about anything.

Viken sat thinking about this as Norbakk wrote something in his notebook.

– So you don’t actually know if they resemble each other?

– They’re identical. I’ve seen photos of them when they were children. It’s impossible to tell the difference between them.

– Can you show me some of those photographs?

– Childhood photographs? Now listen here, I’ve still not even been told why you…

She broke off, got up and went into the next room. Viken heard her opening drawers. She returned with three or four photo albums in her arms.

– Here. I’m sure you’ll understand if I say I’m not in the mood to sit here reminiscing with you.

– That’s perfectly all right.

The photographs were from the early days of colour film. The colours were dull and had acquired a yellowish patina. Days by the seaside, celebrations of National Day in May. A woman with blond hair gathered in a braid, and a much older man whom Viken seemed to recognise.

– Axel’s parents, I presume.

Vibeke Glenne leaned over the table.

– That’s right. He was twenty years older than her. Famous for being in the Resistance; later became a supreme court advocate.

– Torstein Glenne? exclaimed Viken, astonished that the connection hadn’t occurred to him earlier. – Is your husband Torstein Glenne’s son?

He composed himself and flipped on through the album, stopping at a page with a number of swimming scenes. Fjord, smooth sloping rocks.

– Where were these taken?

Vibeke Glenne cast a quick glance.

– At the cabin. The summer place down in Larkollen. We’ve still got it.

Viken’s eyes narrowed.

– Summer place? Does it have a basement?

– A creep-in basement. Why on earth do you want to know that?

Viken didn’t answer.

– How old is the cabin? he wanted to know.

Vibeke Glenne raised her chin, obviously a mannerism of hers when she was thinking about something.

– It’s been in the family for a long time. From when Torstein was a child, I should think. From about the twenties or thirties.

– Is this Axel or Brede?

Viken held the album up so she could see.

– Axel, she decided.

– Show me a picture of Brede.

She pointed lower down on the page.

– But they’re absolutely identical, Viken protested, – even got the same swimming trunks. How can you be sure?

– Axel told me who was who.

Viken flipped on. Father, mother and one of the twins.

– Are there no pictures of them together? he wondered.

– What do you mean?

Viken searched back through all three albums.

– Dozens of pictures of twin brothers, but not a single one of them both together.

Vibeke Glenne looked exasperated.

– And what’s supposed to be the significance of that?

Viken mulled it over.

– You tell me. Probably none. Who have you talked to about Brede?

– Talked to? Actually, no one other than Axel.

– Are you telling me that you have never heard his parents or other members of the family say anything else at all about this twin brother?

She said: – Brede was sent away from home when he was fifteen. According to Axel, it was impossible for him to go on living there. He was beyond control. It was something that was never talked about in the family. Brede was, and is, taboo. Axel said I wasn’t to mention him to other people.

– So the parents sent their fifteen-year-old son away and never wanted to see him again?

– Axel’s family are a little unusual, Vibeke Glenne confirmed. – Not exactly awash with love and affection. I’ve never known my mother-in-law, Astrid, to care in the slightest about anyone other than herself. Not even her grandchildren. And old Torstein was, of course, a god. Remote and severe.

After a short pause she added: – Axel never talks about it, but I have noticed that he is still preoccupied with his twin brother. When he called yesterday, he mumbled something about finding him. It’s almost certainly got something to do with what happened when Brede was sent away.

– And what did happen?

She leaned back in the chair, crossed one leg over the other. Norbakk stood up before she began to speak.

– Afraid I’ll have to use your toilet too. No, don’t get up, I can find my own way.

48

– GET ANYTHING OUT of your visit to the toilet? asked Viken once they were seated in the car again.

Norbakk swung the vehicle down towards the gate and out on to the road.

– Mostly just the usual stuff, he said. – I presume you don’t want the brand names of a lot of shampoos and hairsprays and skin creams.

– Could probably use a few tips, said Viken. – What about medicines?

– Paracetomol, ibuprofen, stuff like that. A couple of things I didn’t recognise; I’ll check them when we get back.

– Doctors want to stuff us full of chemicals for the slightest thing, Viken observed. – But when it comes to their own family, they shut up shop. You said mostly the usual stuff?

Norbakk accelerated out of the roundabout.

– Well, not all parents with a family of young kids have a pair of handcuffs hidden away at the back of the wardrobe in the bedroom.

– Handcuffs? And in the bedroom?

– I got mixed up with all the doors and by happenstance ended up in the wrong room.

– I didn’t hear that, Arve, Viken grinned. When the sergeant was still wet behind the ears, he was the one who had taught him the use of the word happenstance. It had served him well many times himself.

He sat there scratching his jaw.

– So Axel Glenne allegedly has a twin brother, he said after a while.

– Allegedly?

Viken started humming a melody. Even the most fervent Stones fan might have had difficulty in recognising ‘Under My Thumb’.

– I have very clear memories of a case we worked on when I was in Manchester. Chap who had been knocked down and stabbed, had his credit card and all his ID stolen. He didn’t know who the attacker was, but he was able to give a very detailed description of him.

He carried on humming, possibly the same song. Norbakk glanced over at him.

– Was the case solved?

– Indeed it was. The description fitted the victim himself so well that some bright spark thought of checking it out. And it matched.

– He’d stabbed himself and stolen his own ID?

– Exactly. But it was impossible to get him to see it. He’s still walking around believing he was attacked. If, that is, the shrinks haven’t managed to get his head sorted out. And now I’m going to reveal to you why I’m telling you this entertaining little tale. Imagine a man in his forties. He has a twin brother no one in his family has ever seen hide nor hair of.

– His brother hates him.

– All right. But there is not one damn picture of the two of them together.

– Chance is what rules almost everything that happens in the world.

Viken gestured with his arm.

– Don’t get me wrong, Arve. I’m not the type that takes the long way round. The simplest answers are always the best. But this business about the twin…

– Was he thrown out of the house? I didn’t hear the whole story.

Viken took a box of pills out of his pocket and tapped out a couple.

– Acid indigestion, he explained. – Bananas are just as good, but I can’t go around looking like a starving ape.

He found a bottle of dead fizzy water in the glove compartment.

– The Glenne family hardly sounds like the best family in the world to have grown up in. But everyone has some sort of cross to bear. You know about the father. One of the heroes in the Resistance, and after that, a big cheese in the supreme court for years. They still called him Colonel there, long after the war ended. And the mother, according to Vibeke Glenne, was an immature and self-centred upper-class woman. But there again, it’s by no means certain a daughter-in-law is the most objective person to provide that kind of description. The older Mrs Glenne apparently didn’t want children. And when she suddenly found herself with two, that was at least one too many. It was worse for the twin who was disciplined according to Old Testament principles. Naturally he grew up to be the terror of the neighbourhood. The good twin, Axel, always tried to defend him – this is still according to the younger Mrs Glenne – but the whole thing exploded the summer they turned fifteen.

He put the tablets in his mouth, swallowed them down with a swig of water, and made a face.

– Would have been better off using wiper fluid, he groaned.

– What happened that summer?

Viken started chewing on a salt pastille. He noted with satisfaction that his story about the twins had captured Norbakk’s full attention.

– Vibeke Glenne says that at one time old Torstein had a dog. Apparently he was more devoted to it and treated it better than his wife or his kids. It wouldn’t surprise me if that was true. I was fortunate enough to meet Colonel Glenne on several occasions before he retired. The rumours I had heard were by no means exaggerated: he was not the sort of man you messed about with, if I can put it like that.

He looked out across the fields, up to a copse under the bright evening sky.

– Quite nice out here, he mused.

– What about the dog?

Viken turned towards Norbakk.

– You want to hear the end of the tale? Short version, Brede got pissed off with the animal, almost certainly with good reason. He shot it with one of the colonel’s own guns. Axel pleaded for him, his wife says, but his pleas fell on deaf ears and the lad was packed off to what used to be called in those days an approved school. He never came back home.

They drove over the crest of a hill. On the other side, at the edge of the road, a number of floral bouquets were gathered, a few small lighted candles beside them.

– Accident black spot, said Norbakk. – This stretch here is supposed to be highly dangerous.

Viken didn’t hear what he said. He continued on his own train of thought.

– My idea goes something like this: imagine this twin has not merely disappeared, but never even existed in the first place.

– That ought to be easy enough to find out, Norbakk countered.

– Probably. A run through births, marriages and deaths ought to do it, even if he changed his name.

– What about asking the mother? Isn’t she still alive?

– I gather she’s senile, yodelling away in some posh rest home somewhere in the west end of town.

Norbakk appeared to be thinking about this.

– The three killings we’re working with are unlike anything else I’ve ever come across in this country before, said Viken. – We’ve been offered a profiler if we want one. But it won’t do any harm if we think along psychological lines without having so-called experts breathing down our necks. You remember the profile I made of the perpetrator after the first two murders? A highly educated man in a well-paid job, a family man with a split personality, someone who grew up with a cold and unemotional mother who tyrannised him. When you’ve got a serial killer, be sure to take a very good look at the relationship he had with his mother. That’s where you’ll find the skeleton in the cupboard.

– Are you trying to say that this doctor, Glenne, has an imaginary twin brother who carries out sick stuff like this for him?

– I’m not saying anything, Arve, but there’s no law against thinking out loud. Often very necessary, in fact. When Norbakk didn’t respond, he added: – System is alpha and omega in our kind of work, I’ve been telling you that ever since you left school. But at the same time it’s important not to overlook your gut feeling. In the end, most cases are solved by the gut, Arve, whether we like it or not.

He laid a hand on his own, rumbling and growling like a leaden sky on a late summer’s day. Maybe it was protesting about the part it had been given to play.

49

FOR THE SECOND day in succession, Axel woke up on Rita’s sofa. He looked at his wristwatch. Thought it had stopped, but the clock on the wall showed the same time, and afternoon sunlight streamed in through the living-room window.

He hadn’t told Rita he would be coming back, but when he peered into the kitchen he saw that the table was laid for him. There was a note next to the plate: You’ll find what you need in the fridge and in the cupboard on the right.

He swigged down two glasses of cold orange juice, made himself a muesli mix and started the coffee machine going as he waited for the muesli to swell. Glanced through Aftenposten. Police have important leads in bear-murder cases. On page 4 was an identikit drawing of a person they wanted to talk to, a man seen near the scene of the crime that morning. – Is that what I look like? he murmured. Wide face and curly hair flopping over his forehead.

He took his coffee into the living room, sat back down on the sofa, turned on his mobile. No message from Miriam. Three from Bie. He listened to the first of them … And the police have been here looking for you. Asking where you were when your patient went missing. They looked through the photo album and asked all sorts of things about Brede, wondered if he existed at all. It was horrible. Please come home, Axel. Now.

He sent a text in reply: Be home this evening. Couldn’t face the thought of what it would be like. An unfaithful husband. A father wanted by the police. You’re a good boy, Axel. You’ll always do the right thing. He’d reached some kind of limit. If he went any further, he’d end up losing everything he had. Was that why he was still sitting there? Did he want to give everything up? Want Bie to be so crushed that she wouldn’t have him back? Want her to do what he wasn’t capable of doing himself, breaking up? You must be a very happy man.

He waited another half-hour before ringing Miriam. Was about to disconnect when she finally answered.

– I miss you, he said.

She said nothing.

– Miriam?

– Why did you disappear yesterday?

There was a note in her voice he hadn’t heard before.

– Couldn’t you have stayed and talked to the police?

She was right. He had been cowardly.

– They found out someone had been here, Axel. I had to tell them it was you.

He looked out of the window. In the next-door garden there was a climbing frame with a swing and an orange plastic slide.

– You’ve got every right to be angry with me.

– I’m not angry, Axel, I’m afraid.

– I understand that.

– No, you don’t understand.

Between the rooftops he could make out the trees in the Nordre cemetery, and a chimney sticking up from Ullevål hospital. The sky was pale grey, with a hint of yellow.

Without knowing why, he said: – Is it me you’re afraid of?

He heard her draw breath.

– You must go to the police.

If he didn’t turn himself in, they’d soon be publishing his name and his photograph. But he sat there listening to her voice, and he couldn’t bring himself to regret any of it.

– I want to see you one more time, he said. – Then I’ll go to the police.

– It’s my fault.

– What is your fault, Miriam?

– If it hadn’t been for me, none of this would have happened.

She’s the one regretting it, he thought. I can’t bear to hear her saying that.

– I must see you.

– I’ll call you this evening, she muttered.

– Are you at home now?

She hesitated before saying: – I’m at a friend’s house. Slept here last night. I have to pull myself together and go back home soon.

– I’ll come over.

– No, Axel. I daren’t.

She ended the call. He rang her again, but she didn’t answer.

Rita arrived at 5.45. He was still sitting on the sofa, looking out at the evening sky. It had turned a dark yellow.

– Are you still sitting here, Axel? she exclaimed. – You’re becoming a fixture.

He smiled feebly.

– Don’t worry, Rita, I’m not moving in.

She carried in some bags of shopping.

– I didn’t mean it like that. Have you spoken to the police yet?

He didn’t answer.

– Axel, for God’s sake. They’re all over the place looking for you. I had to tell a little white lie at the office. Actually, it was more dark grey.

She was getting in trouble too because of him.

– You’ve got no call to be in hiding. What’s the matter with you?

She sat down in a chair.

– Is it that student? Miriam?

He leaned his head back.

– I don’t expect you to understand it, Rita. I don’t understand it myself. I turn my back on Bie and the kids, spend the night with a student seventeen years younger than me. I stumble over a dead woman and run off. Last night I was wandering about up in the Nordmarka and terrified the life out of some old tramp.

Rita leaned towards him, put a hand on his arm.

– Sounds like the worst kind of mid-life crisis to me. Maybe you’d better pick up the pieces before it’s too late.

He had to smile. Just for a moment he felt he was standing on something firm that wouldn’t give way beneath him. A place where it was possible to take a decision. Doubt is what makes you crack up, he thought. You’ve never been the brooding type. You’ve always acted. Always moved on.

– You’re right, Rita. Time to get things straightened up. I’ll go to the police. But there’s one thing I have to do first.

He could see that she very much wanted to know what that might be, but he didn’t give her the chance to ask.

50

NINA JEBSEN POPPED a piece of Nicorette into her mouth and again tried to get into the register of residents site. When she got the same message again, that the server was down, she reached for the phone to call Viken, and remembered in the same instant that he was in a meeting. She considered postponing the search, but then had a better idea. The chief inspector had popped in to see her after returning from Nesodden. She had rarely seen him looking more pleased. He congratulated her once again for establishing that Axel Glenne had been at the student’s flat in Rodeløkka. Nina had no objection to being praised by Viken, and she was encouraged to continue her search for Axel Glenne’s twin, even though she was unable to access the register of residents. Even when Viken was at his most provoking, she found herself inspired to try her hardest. It was by no means everyone’s reaction. Sigge Helgarsson, for example, responded to Viken’s style in the opposite way, becoming reluctant, passive, inclined to do no more than the bare minimum.

She called the Rikshospital. Was informed that the departmental head was the only one able to give permission to divulge information from the maternity ward, even when the information was over forty years old. The head had gone home for the day, but would be back tomorrow. Nina looked at the pile of documents on her desk, thought things over. Viken had said Glenne was born in Oslo, but not where in Oslo. She could try the other hospitals, but reasoned that the same rules of access would apply there. She decided that Axel Glenne’s twin brother could wait another day. If he exists, as Viken had commented, with that rascally smile of his.

For a man like Axel Glenne, a successful doctor and father of three, to have invented a twin brother and persuaded even those closest to him that he was out there somewhere seemed a little far-fetched, to put it mildly. Even more so that it all had something to do with the murders of three women. It was no secret that Viken had a weakness for convoluted psychology. He had persuaded her to read books by John Douglas and other writers on the subject of the psychological profiling of killers, and he was apparently still in regular contact with a profiling expert he had got to know during his much-vaunted period with the CID in Manchester. Not long ago he had given a lunch-hour lecture on split personalities. But he had no respect at all for the opinions of Norwegian psychologists and psychiatrists on such matters, know-alls and phoneys that they were, every last one of them.

Nina had already managed to assemble a fair amount of information on Glenne and his family. The wife, Vibeke Frisch Glenne, known as Bie, had studied theatre and art history. In the eighties and nineties she had been editor of the Norwegian edition of Anais, later working as a freelancer for a number of other women’s magazines. She wrote about literature, travel, sex, fashion, and of course about health. Nina had found images of her on the net, from which it was obvious that she was an attractive woman. The Glennes’ joint income was of a size she could only dream about, and they had enough in the bank to keep them in style for the rest of their lives. Axel Glenne had been in practice for sixteen years and there had never been any complaints against him. He had three tickets for speeding and a conviction for driving while under the influence of alcohol that was over twenty years old. Not a lot that could be used against him.

She read through the memorandum Arve had written about Miriam Gaizauskaite. As usual, he had done a thorough job and had come up with a lot of stuff. Miriam hailed from a small country town in the south of Lithuania. Catholic family. Oldest of four children. Mother a doctor. Father a naval officer in the former Soviet Union who died in a submarine accident in the Barents Sea when Miriam was eight years old. Miriam came to Norway six years ago to take up a place at the faculty of medicine in the University of Oslo. From there on the information was a little sparse, and Nina reflected that for once, she could have done a better job than Arve. She also noted a few errors.

It was gone 6.30. Her stomach was rumbling. All she’d had to eat since lunchtime was a piece of crispbread. Convenient to have so much to do that she had no time to think about food, but it was going to be a long evening, and she ought to eat something to keep her concentration levels up. She could probably allow herself a little more now, seeing as she’d missed dinner. Arve Norbakk was also going to be working late, and she had nothing against a visit to a local café in his company.

He glanced up when she popped her head in.

– Busy?

He thought about it. Didn’t exactly seem open to invitations.

– I’m trying to find out whether old Mrs Glenne gave birth to one or two children all those years ago, she told him.

– Probably no point in asking the woman herself, he observed with a show of interest.

– I called the home where she’s living. According to the carer I spoke to, she denies ever having had any children at all.

– Like that, is it, he grinned absently, but Nina was not going to give up that easily.

– Actually, I’ve just been looking through that memorandum you wrote about the medical student.

As she had expected, this interested him more.

– I was just sitting here thinking about her, he said. – Do you think it’s enough with only one man on guard up there?

Nina had been wondering the same thing.

– She was given the offer of a personal alarm but said no. So there’s nothing more we can do.

He looked as if he was considering the matter.

– I guess you’re right at that. And something’s going to happen pretty soon now.

– An arrest? asked Nina. – Glenne?

Arve Norbakk leaned back in his chair.

– Bet your bottom dollar.

– But do we have enough? It all seems a bit thin.

He looked up into her eyes, and she wanted to sit down on the desk, right next to his hand.

– Viken’s made up his mind, he said. – Show me the police prosecutor in Oslo who could say no. Certainly not Jarle Frøen.

She understood what he meant.

– What I was going to say about your memo, she said, resuming her thread, – is that it contains one big mistake plus one major oversight.

Her ironic tone was supposed to convey that she was exaggerating, but it couldn’t be too obvious, not if she was to succeed in arousing his interest. From the look he gave her, she guessed she had succeeded. She suspected him of being more ambitious than most of the others, and she felt certain that this oversight she was teasing him about was the result not of carelessness but of the fact that he took on more work than everyone else.

– Let’s hear it then, he encouraged her.

It had often struck her that Arve Norbakk had a chance of going far in the business, and she didn’t think any the less of him for it.

– The mistake first. Miriam hasn’t been in Norway six years, it’s seven years. She told me she spent a year in school here before she began studying medicine.

He let out an exaggerated sigh of relief.

– So that’s it then? he smiled, and at once turned serious. – Thanks, Nina, a bit too much haste rather than speed at the moment. Great having a colleague who gives you the chance to correct your mistakes.

She saw her chance and took it.

– Fancy coming out for a bite to eat? Then I’ll tell you about the other thing, the oversight.

His mobile phone rang; he picked it up and looked at the display.

– Sorry, I have to take this. Can we do it tomorrow?

Maybe he was just saying it to avoid the invitation, but Nina decided that he really would like to have that cup of coffee with her.

– Deal, she said. – I’ll come and pick you up.

51

WHEN EVENING PRAYERS were over, Father Raymond went to his office and tidied away a few documents on his desk. He felt restless, and that was always when he worked best. As though the Lord had given him the gift of restlessness so that he would not fall for the temptations of passive self-satisfaction but make use of the abilities he had been blessed with. He began work on the lecture he was going to give at Saturday’s instructions seminar. It had started to rain, and a fierce wind rattled the house. He liked the sensation, how vulnerable it made him feel as a human being. And with it that sense of being held tight.

After he had been working for a while, he heard a knock on the door, and for a moment he struggled against a feeling of irritation at the interruption.

– Miriam, he exclaimed when he saw who it was standing there. Her hair hung down over her eyes. – But you’re soaking wet.

He found a towel in the cupboard and she dried her face.

– I forgot my umbrella, she explained. – Not that it would have been much help in this wind.

She was not just wet, he noticed. There were shadows below her eyes, and her hair was unkempt. Beneath her coat she wore a thin blouse with the top button undone. He couldn’t see the cross she usually wore on a gold chain around her neck.

– I rang at the sub-prior’s office, she burst out. – He said I would find you here.

Father Raymond had often thought of her after her last visit. What she had told him of the relationship with this man who was married with children had worried him. Most of all because she seemed to have got so deeply involved. She had been so tormented, and now obviously things had got even worse.

– What can I do for you, Miriam?

She looked as though she was struggling to find the words.

– That business you were talking about last time, he said to encourage her. – Have you managed to get any closer to making a decision?

She looked down at the floor.

– I haven’t seen him for a couple of days.

He gave her time to continue.

– I’m afraid, Father.

The priest coughed. He felt a powerful desire to sit down beside her.

– My neighbour has been murdered… She was lying outside my door… She has a little daughter.

She burst into tears. Father Raymond got up and went over to her. He touched the collar of her coat with two fingers. Miriam bent her neck; it looked so slender and vulnerable.

– This is a terrible story, he comforted her. – And for you to be mixed up in it. It’s so meaningless.

She turned her face up to him.

– It’s as if it’s had something to do with me the whole time, Father.

She was pale, and her mascara had run. Now, seeing this face so naked and helpless, he felt even more powerfully than before this sensation for which there were no words. The trace of Himin another’s face.

Miriam picked up the towel and dried around her swollen eyes.

– Something happened, she snuffled. – Just before I came here.

He began to rock back and forth on his feet, almost imperceptibly. It helped focus his attention.

– Can you tell me about it?

She hesitated.

– I don’t know. I don’t want to get you in trouble.

– Dearest Miriam, you know you can tell me everything. There is not a single thing you could tell me that I could not bear to hear.

She grabbed his hand and squeezed it quickly. He closed his eyes.

– Dearest Miriam, he said again.

– There was something in the letter box. An envelope with some… really hideous pictures.

– What kind of pictures?

She began to shake, and he put his arm round her shoulders.

– If it is something criminal, you must go to the police.

– Not until I know, she said in a low voice. – If I’m wrong, it would destroy him.

– Him?

He held her gaze.

– Is this the man you have a… have had a relationship with?

She swallowed twice.

– Is he threatening you, Miriam? Because you refuse to see him any more? You must not take any chances.

She straightened up. A firmness had appeared in her eyes.

– It always helps to come here, Father. When I talk to you, I know what the right thing to do is. I must be completely certain first. I can’t bear the thought of going through the rest of my life ashamed. I’ve already hurt him so much. If I’m wrong, it could destroy everything for him… First I have to hear what he says. I must give him the chance to explain. Can I come to see you again tomorrow? Or Friday?

– Dearest Miriam, come whenever you want to.

Again she took hold of his hand, and this time she kept hold of it.

– I don’t know what I would have done without you.

Father Raymond felt a warmth spreading through his whole body.

– But you must promise not to say a word about this to anyone, she said.

He was taken aback.

– I have a duty of confidentiality, Miriam, as you well know. But if you believe yourself to be in danger, in any way…

She released his hand.

– I don’t know if I can let you go, he protested. – Not until I know what this is about, what you’re telling me.

She attempted a smile.

– Dear Father, will you have me cloistered? Lock me up with the nuns in Karina priory?

Father Raymond had to abandon his attempt to finish writing the lecture that evening. After Miriam had gone, he sat there listening to the rain lashing against the window. He had no doubt that she meant what she said. He was bound by his oath of silence, but not where life and limb were in danger. He made up his mind to visit the prior to discuss the matter.

52

VIKEN RESTED HIS gaze on Jarle Frøen, the police prosecutor. Beneath Frøen’s thin red hair an irregular array of freckles was scattered across his scalp. It looked as though he might have stood beneath the ladder where a particularly clumsy painter was at work. The little splashes continued down on to a pale face that had a rather doughy consistency. As though it would never quite stop collapsing.

Viken enjoyed the feeling of being in control of the situation and did not let himself be provoked by Frøen’s surprising obstinacy. On the contrary, he found it stimulating. He didn’t even have to look at Finckenhagen to know where he had her, and that the result of the meeting was a foregone conclusion.

– We must keep our nerve, Frøen objected, and Viken smiled a friendly and obliging smile. It was, after all, the prosecutor’s job to sit there and cast doubt on whether they had enough evidence to make an arrest. – I note that this Glenne has a connection to all the victims, a distant one to be sure, but in and of itself striking. I note that he disappeared from the scene where Elvestrand’s body was found. Perhaps not surprising that he didn’t want to be caught with his trousers down, so to speak.

Frøen chuckled at his own little joke.

– I note also that he has not reported to us, despite our efforts to get in touch with him. I note that he has not been home since Monday. All more than a little suspicious, I grant you, Viken. But do you honestly think it’s enough to warrant holding him in custody? I’ll tell you what the court will want to know. One: is there the least bit of technical evidence that actually links the accused to the case? Two: where the bloody hell is the motive?

Viken let him ramble on and didn’t waste time with interruptions that would only have encouraged him. When Frøen did finally stop, he even permitted himself a question: – Any further objections? He was careful to sound encouraging rather than sarcastic, and cast a glance in Finckenhagen’s direction, though she wasn’t the one he had asked.

– I’m certainly not going to lecture you about the due processes of law, he said to Frøen, once the prosecutor had declined the invitation to continue. And thinking that a touch of flattery never did any harm, he added: – It’s good to have you on the team, Jarle. A relief to have people around who really know their stuff. Who can separate the wheat from the chaff. If we put enough effort into it and find Glenne in the course of the evening, that gives us effectively twenty-four hours before we need to make a formal application for remand. Plenty of time to go over every inch of his office, both the cars, the villa with garage and outhouses, the summer place down in Larkollen, and anywhere else you like. As for technical evidence, you can bet your boots we’ll have some by this time tomorrow. As you know, we have DNA traces from the victims. The most interesting were those found under Anita Elvestrand’s fingernails. I’ve just been talking to the pathologists. They had a preliminary DNA analysis of this material. Dr Plåterud said it was very interesting.

– In what way? Frøen wanted to know.

– Some peculiarity or other they need to take a closer look at… Viken prised a piece of paper out of his breast pocket and put his glasses on. – She called it translocation. People with such genes need not necessarily be visibly different, but it is not unlikely that someone in the immediate family might in some way deviate from the norm. It would be absolutely spiffing to get a little peek at this Dr Glenne’s molecules.

From the corner of his eye he could see Finckenhagen smiling.

– And I’ll use stronger language if we haven’t got something out of this chap before we get that far. I’ll use the time well, you can rely on it. We’ll drive him as hard as we can the whole night. You asked about motive. Well, as you know, I am of the considered opinion that the whole concept of motive is too narrow to encompass murders of this kind.

He left a short pause before continuing.

– This won’t be so much about motive as about a psyche so twisted that we have difficulty in comprehending it.

– Do you have any reason to believe that Glenne is so deranged? I mean, to all intents and purposes the chap seems completely functional.

Viken leaned across the table and gave a detailed account of the story of the twin brother whom no one had ever seen. Frøen did not look impressed.

– Someone born in the middle of Oslo in the sixties must be registered.

Viken couldn’t agree more.

– I’ve got Jebsen trying to trace him. But if she’d found him in births, marriages and deaths then she would have let us know long ago. Anyway, whether he exists or not, this whole business with the twin is so odd that the shrinks are going to be on it like vultures.

– What about the claw marks on the victims? Do you have anything connecting Glenne to that? I mean, apart from the fact that the man obviously likes riding his bike out in the woods?

This latter was said with what Viken would call a sly look, but he didn’t let it put him off his stride.

– I’ve had Plåterud look at these marks again, he answered, and pointed to a document on the table in front of him. – The slashes on the victims aren’t particularly deep; they could well have been made using claws from a severed bear’s paw. Even the rip on the cheek, if the claws had been sharpened. I have a theory as to why the killer does this. Apart from that, you’re probably also aware of the fact that Glenne doesn’t have a watertight alibi for any of the relevant periods of time.

Still in the same acid tone Frøen said: – I see you suggest that he may even have risen in the middle of the night, driven to a premises in Lillestrøm, stolen a stuffed bear and then returned to his bed before his wife woke up.

– That may be what happened, Viken confirmed stoically. – He might also have got hold of a bear’s paw in some other way. And I’ll bet my bottom dollar that several pieces of this puzzle fall into place when we interview him. If we don’t get started now, I’m afraid these pieces may elude us for good.

Frøen shrugged his shoulders.

– We can still bring him in on a voluntary basis and get a DNA sample, he protested, addressing Finckenhagen.

– In principle, she observed.

Viken nodded, as though again giving the idea serious consideration.

– Always supposing that we get hold of the bloke, and he says don’t mind if I do when we politely ask him to accompany us. On the other hand, he’s been playing hide-and-seek with us for two and half days now. Even so, Jarle, this is not the thing we’ve really got to worry about. He disliked addressing the prosecutor by his first name, but the situation required it.

– No?

Frøen was clearly feeling ill at ease, despite his uncharacteristically tough tone. A large oval patch of sweat had formed between his prominent nipples. His whole fat, doughy body would slump to the floor if the chair wasn’t there to keep it up, thought Viken as he played the card he had been saving till last, even though everyone knew he held it.

– How would you like to wake up early tomorrow morning and read the following story in VG? He held an imaginary newspaper up in front of him and pointed to the screaming headline: – Wild beast claims its fourth victim. Police helpless.

Frøen’s nostrils flared, and he started clicking the point of his Biro in and out.

– Can we pick him up tonight? Suddenly his major worry seemed to be that the arrest wouldn’t happen quickly enough.

Viken raised his hand, and for a moment it looked as though he was about to swear an oath.

– Just give us the sign, Jarle, he said warmly, – and we’ll have Dr Glenne next time he turns on his mobile phone.

53

THE WIND SWEPT down from Slemdalsveien as he crossed the road, the little drops of rain stinging against his forehead and cheeks. He was glad it was rainy and blustery. He wished he could open his head and let the wind stream through it. He was on his way to talk to the police. And home after that. It would be late when he got there. The children would be asleep. Probably Bie too, unless she was too restless. He imagined himself sneaking into the bedroom, sitting down on the side of the bed. Waking her by placing a still-wet hand on her cheek.

He stopped on the steps up to Majorstuehuset, turned on his mobile and scrolled down to Miriam’s name. It was the fourth time in half an hour he’d called her. Even so he waited for the answering machine to come on. He had no message for her.

He heard a train come jangling into the station as he bought his ticket from the machine. He had no small change, used his credit card. Didn’t hurry, ambled down on to the platform as the last carriage disappeared into the tunnel. If he never went home again, what would he miss? Sitting on the terrace with a glass of cognac. Looking up into the bright, fathomless sky above the fjord. Or sitting with Marlen at the kitchen table. She’s telling a story she’s made up, a journey somewhere, out beyond the Milky Way. She’s drawn the fabulous creatures she encountered there… Standing outside Tom’s room, hearing him play on his electric guitar. All he said when he got it was Thanks, sullen as ever, but Axel could see how thrilled he was, and understood that this guitar would bring them closer together.

After the next train had arrived and he was settled in a window seat, he looked up and saw flashing blue lights on the street outside. Two or three cars pulled up on to the pavement. It reminded him with a jolt of where he was going. Now that he was actually on his way, the feeling of repugnance at the thought of handing himself in for interrogation grew even stronger. But he couldn’t put it off any longer.

The train stopped in the middle of the tunnel, stayed there. There was no announcement. He looked around the half-full carriage. At an angle to one side of him a boy of about Daniel’s age was reading a magazine and listening to music through earphones, the leg on the seat shaking, possibly in time to the music. Maybe Daniel would be the one who would feel most betrayed, even if he had left home. Daniel had always reached out to him. Three seats further down, two girls of African appearance were tapping in messages on their mobiles. On the seat behind them was a woman in a hijab. She was looking out of the window into the dark tunnel wall. Bie and the children. To be with them and feel no shame. The way things used to be. It sounded like something from another time zone altogether. From the time before Brede reappeared in his thoughts. Axel had kept him at bay all these years. Locked him in a dark room and ignored the shouts coming from inside. Discovered a kind of peace in not hearing them any more. But Brede had managed to get out anyway. The day his mother mistook Axel for him. The train set off again. He knew it wasn’t possible to close that door again. Could no longer rid himself of the thought of what had happened that summer.

Police on the platform at the National Theatre station. He counted four or five. One of them with a dog. He still hadn’t realised why they were there. Not even when a couple of them burst into the carriage and ordered everyone to stay in their seats. Not until one of them stopped in front of him and yelled at him to hold out his hands did it dawn on him. But he had never been able to relate to orders screamed into his face, so he did nothing. At the same moment he felt a violent tugging at his shoulders, his arms were pinioned behind his back and he was pushed forward head first, his forehead and nose thudding on to the floor. A knee was forced into his neck, his wrists manacled together.

– Stay completely still! a voice bellowed into his ear.

He twisted in order to be able to breathe and was hit on the jaw. Heard another voice, further away: – Suspect apprehended at National Theatre station. Situation under control.

A response through a crackling transmitter: – Definite identification?

– Driver’s licence and Visa card. It’s him.

He couldn’t tell how long he lay there. Five minutes, maybe ten. The other passengers were told to leave. At last the pressure on his neck was relieved.

– On your feet.

He stood up, blood in his mouth. One of them at least was wearing a holstered pistol, he noticed. Am I that dangerous?

Outside, by the fountain, a car was waiting. He was led towards it. Halfway across the square a figure jumped out in front of him. The flash cut through the semi-darkness and tore it wide open. Twice, three times, until he was pushed in through the passenger door.

In his student days Axel had made a bit of pocket money at the weekend by doing blood tests on suspected drunk-drivers. He knew what a holding cell looked like. But he had never been inside one behind a locked door. He sat with his head resting against the wall, legs stretched out in front of him across the floor. His neck was aching, over the shoulder and down the ribcage on one side. He was certain at least one rib was broken. He had a swelling above his right eye and was still bleeding inside his mouth. An eye tooth had come loose.

A little earlier, he had heard sounds from one of the neighbouring cells. An elderly man, it sounded like. Pretty drunk, but sober enough to reel off a few verses: If you’ve sunshine in your heart, then the whole wide world is yours. And When the chestnuts bloom on Bygdøy Allé… It helped, hearing him sing out his joy like that. Axel could imagine what he looked like. See the days when the old man had first learned the songs, of which only these carefree fragments now remained. Think of some explanation for why he had ended up under arrest. That way he could keep the other thoughts at bay. But at some point the old man had been let out. It must have been an hour ago, maybe two. Naturally they’d taken his watch, along with his mobile phone, his wallet, belt and shoes. Now all was silent in the other cells. He was left at the mercy of his own thoughts between the sallow green stone walls, under the bright strips of neon lighting. These were the thoughts he would be living with for every moment that was left to him.

Bie had once shown him a picture in a magazine. A Buddhist monk walking through a valley flushed with red and gold leaves, sunlight streaming down through the branches. Beneath the picture it said: Not one single thought disrupts this walk. But the monk hadn’t got where he was by pushing thoughts away. He must have accepted them so completely that there was nothing left of them at all. Suddenly Axel thought of how he used to imagine his old age would be. Strolling along a beach. Sitting on a rock and looking out over the sea. A feeling of everything being calm and settled, of everything having been done, and now all that remained was to wait. Lying in that cell, staring into the wall, he knew he would never reach that beach.

54

THE RECTANGULAR ROOM he was taken to was inward facing. It had no windows and was lit by strips of neon lighting in the ceiling. The walls were grey, as was the wall-to-wall carpet. A video camera was suspended above the door, and he realised that the interview was going to be filmed, that someone would perhaps be sitting and following the proceedings on a screen.

A table and three armchairs by the further wall. He at once recognised the men sitting there. They were the same two who had interviewed him about a week earlier. It felt more like a month to him, maybe longer.

The younger one stood up. He was about the same height as Axel, powerfully built, with dark eyes beneath his light fringe.

– Sit down, Axel, he said and pointed to the vacant chair.

Axel understood that he was being addressed by his first name for a reason. But this man seemed a sympathetic type, and he was relieved to think that he would be present throughout the questioning.

– As you might remember, my name is Norbakk. And this is Detective Chief Inspector Viken.

The chief inspector directed his cold gaze on Axel and gave not the slightest sign of recognition. He was wearing a white shirt, obviously freshly ironed.

Norbakk said: – We’ve decided to charge you with the murders of three people. Hilde Sophie Paulsen, Cecilie Davidsen and Anita Elvestrand. This gives you certain legal rights. Among other things you have the right to see all documents relating to the case. And within twenty-four hours at the latest, a lawyer of your own choosing will be appointed to defend you, or else we can choose one for you. You have the right to have your lawyer with you during all questioning, but it may take some time for him or her to arrive. So we propose to make a start now. It means we can cut down on the amount of time you spend in the holding cell. Not a very cosy place to spend a night.

This was said with a sort of empathic undertone. Evidently the two men were to play different roles. This Norbakk was to be the friendly, understanding one. Axel hadn’t the slightest idea what his own role was supposed to be. He recalled suddenly a dream he had had several times. Stepping out on to a large stage, glimpsing a room full of people, the sense of their anticipation. Silence falls, everyone awaits his opening line. That’s when he realises he hasn’t learnt a single one of them.

– Fair enough, he heard himself say. – Let’s begin.

Down in the cell he had wondered whether he should ask for a lawyer, but had decided that the arrest was a misunderstanding he would quickly manage to clear up on his own. Not even the words charge you with the murders of three people altered his view. He had been on his way here to hand himself in. Voluntarily submit to questioning. Had given a blood sample without protesting.

– That’s good, said Norbakk as he sat down again. – You’re a cooperative type of person, we appreciate that.

Axel looked over at Viken, who had still not yet said a word, and who had kept his gaze on Axel’s face throughout. It looked as though he were scrutinising his every pore. Below the bushy grey eyebrows the detective chief inspector’s eyes were red rimmed, Axel noted. Lack of sleep, or an allergy maybe. He met the gaze, couldn’t face holding it, fixed instead on a point on the wall while he waited for Viken to speak. A long time passed, maybe as much as a minute, before he did so.

– Have you ever paid for sex with a prostitute?

Axel was startled. The voice was low and intense. But it was the content of the question that surprised him. On his way from the cell, in the lift, he had thought about what they might ask him. His whereabouts. Why he hadn’t handed himself in. His relationship to the dead women. But this was something else.

– I’ll repeat my question. Ever had sex with a whore?

In that instant he knew he shouldn’t say anything else without his lawyer being present. But this was not the time to show weakness. He had nothing to hide. Bought sex? He’d been to a brothel once, in Amsterdam. In his second year as a student, a trip abroad with the so-called Brass Band Orchestra, in which he did his feeble best with a tuba. He was the only one with the lungs for it, and his lack of musical ability was of no consequence to the orchestra. The visit to the brothel had been the result of a bet made over an almost empty bottle of whisky.

– We note that it is taking some time for the question to be answered, Viken commented tonelessly.

Axel pulled himself together. – No, I’ve never done that.

He saw a tightening at the corner of the detective chief inspector’s mouth, as though he were registering a small victory, and it struck Axel that they had information about what had happened that night in Amsterdam over twenty years ago.

– Have you ever had a homosexual relationship?

Abruptly it felt as though the floor his chair was standing on was uneven. He knew he shouldn’t ask what the question had to do with the case. Or what was meant by a homosexual relationship. Whether nudity and intimate touching among teenagers counted. He must not on any account get involved in a sort of struggle over limits with the dour man on the other side of the table.

– No.

– Children?

– What are you asking about?

– I’m asking if you’ve ever had sex with children or minors?

– Of course not.

– Have you ever felt any attraction in that direction?

– No.

– Sadomasochistic sex?

Not once had the chief inspector’s voice deviated from that same low and intense delivery. Axel shook his head.

– Does that mean no?

– Yes… it means no.

He glanced across at the other man. Norbakk nodded to him with something that might have been an encouraging smile playing around his lips.

– And yet, Viken continued, lowering his head a fraction, – and yet we found, in the bedroom you share with your wife, at the back of a cupboard, a certain item.

Axel knew at once what he was talking about. Suddenly in all its enormity it dawned on him that his status as the accused gave the law the right to enter his home, trample through his bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, through his children’s rooms. He felt himself stripped naked, exposed to public view in the marketplace. Felt an urge to ask for a towel to hold in front of him.

– A pair of handcuffs, he said. – My wife and I… we bought them for a laugh. It was a long time ago.

– Who did you say bought them?

Axel thought back.

– It was me.

– And who usually wears them?

– Well, I’ve tried them too, yes.

Detective Chief Inspector Viken’s face remained as expressionless as a mask. But there was a hint in the eyes that he was enjoying himself.

– How did you meet Miriam Gaizauskaite?

Finally, a question Axel had been expecting.

– I was her supervisor during her practical training in general medicine.

– Supervisor? Is that all?

– We’ve been together.

– What does that mean?

– We had a relationship. A couple of weeks.

– Sexual?

– Yes.

– And your wife, does she know about this?

– Not yet.

– And you think it’s okay to deceive her?

– No.

Here Norbakk interrupted.

– You say you had a relationship.

Axel felt relieved at being asked the question.

– It can’t go on, he said.

– Nonetheless, you’ve rung her twelve times in just the last twenty-four hours, Viken countered. – That doesn’t sound as if you’re completely finished with the young lady yet.

Without a pause he continued: – When did you last see your twin brother?

Now Axel tried to hold the chief inspector’s gaze.

– Years ago. Don’t exactly remember when. Ten, maybe twelve.

Before he had time to think any more about it, Viken was at him again.

– In the photo albums from your childhood, there is not a single picture of you and Brede together. Not one fucking photo. That bothers us, Glenne. Anything like that, where we don’t understand shit, that bothers us.

Axel looked up at the video camera, then at the wall, then at the table between them.

– Brede isn’t in any of the pictures in those albums, he said. – All the pictures are of me.

A low growling sound emanated from Viken’s throat.

– You’d better explain that to us, he insisted.

– There’s nothing to explain. Brede was sent away to a kind of institution. All his possessions were given away. All the photos with him in them were removed.

– Removed? Who did that?

– My mother, I suppose. Nothing was ever said about it.

Viken looked to be chewing this over.

– You told your wife that several of the photos in the album are of Brede.

Axel struggled to know what to say.

– Give us the name of one person who knows him, Viken suddenly asked. – Somebody we can get in touch with who can confirm that this twin brother really existed.

A space seemed to open up. A cold wind blew in through it, and Axel heard his father’s voice: You must always pay your dues, Axel.

– I want my lawyer, he said as firmly as he could. – Before we go any further.

Now there was no doubt about it: the detective chief inspector’s lips moved.

Enough to show a small amount of pink gum.

Axel knew several lawyers. Just four days earlier, he’d been at the fiftieth birthday celebrations of one of them. He’d been standing in the dark out on the terrace and looking up into a starry sky. That was in the days when he still believed he could choose how the rest of his life would be.

He couldn’t face the thought of involving someone he knew. At this stage someone chosen by the authorities would be good enough. At this stage? He was still thinking it would all be over by nightfall, or at the latest the following day. He’d thought he would be going to work. With patients to look after. Then home afterwards. Dimly he became aware that this was not how it was going to be.

The defence lawyer’s name was Elton. A skinny little guy about his own age, with square designer glasses and a slim-fit shirt that would have suited someone twenty years younger. His voice was slim fit too. Axel had thought that what he needed was someone who could steer a boat. That way he could lie down in the bottom and not look over the railings until they were in the harbour. Elton didn’t look like a skipper at all, but he’d got hold of the documents relating to the case and glanced through them. Afterwards he announced confidently: – Let’s hope this is all they have, Axel. I think they’re taking a flyer here. And if that’s the case, you’ll be a free man very soon.

When the interrogation resumed, Norbakk had been replaced by a young woman. She had a Bergen accent and was quite pretty, both factors that had a calming effect on Axel. There was something about the pitch of her voice that he liked. She’d taken over the part of the helpful and friendly one, read him his rights as an accused person all over again. He didn’t catch her name.

Viken picked up where he had left off a couple of hours earlier. Why had the twin brother been expelled from the family? Why had Axel not managed to get in touch with him all these years? Who could confirm that he actually existed? None of these questions excited any particular reaction from Elton, but he wanted to know why the investigators hadn’t managed to trace the twin brother using public records. Once he had been given the explanation, he advised his client to answer as fully as possible.

Axel had managed to think things over during the break. Prepare what he intended to say about Brede. Not a version based on lies, but one that avoided essentials. All these questions about his twin brother confirmed something he had had only a strange and inexplicable hunch about: that Brede was involved in the murders of the three women. Yet it merely left him still more confused, and when he was asked what he’d been doing wandering about in the Oslo forests for almost a whole day and night after he’d stumbled across Anita Elvestrand’s body, he had trouble answering. Viken leaned towards him like a hound picking up the scent of its prey. Had anyone seen him up there? He had met a tramp. Could he describe him? Wasn’t it odd that he kept on going back up into the woods? That he always seemed to be up there at roughly the times when the murders were committed? Again and again Viken came back to this business of What were you doing up there? And each time it became more and more difficult to avoid giving an answer.

Viken said: – Now let me help you, Glenne. I’ll run through the case for you. It’s hard to start talking. But once you’re over the first hurdle, you’ll feel as though a great burden has been lifted from your shoulders.

His voice had taken on a more conciliatory tone, as though he wanted to be a friend, an intimate friend.

– Let’s start with Thursday September twenty-seventh.

In detail he went over what Axel had told them about the bike ride in the forest. The swim in the tarn, the puncture.

– On your way back, you meet someone you know. She’s a physiotherapist, and you’ve worked with her on several occasions over the years. Let’s halt there for a moment. We’ll come back to it later. But first a bit about your family background, Axel Glenne.

Viken started talking about his father. Portrayed a man who always demanded the utmost of himself and of others. Someone whose demands his son did everything he could to live up to, but could never quite meet. A remote, punitive, god-like figure of whom Axel was terrified. But it was the mother Viken really wanted to talk about. He described her as aninsensitive and superficial woman who always put her own needs above those of others. Someone who had bullied her son and made him feel like a nothing. Axel, becoming increasingly confused, did not interrupt. Where had Viken got all this about his parents from?

– You might well have needed a brother. Someone to carry the burden of the suffering you endured at home. Because you were a lonely child, weren’t you, Axel? So lonely you had to invent a twin brother, since you didn’t have one.

Axel almost burst out laughing, but he was just too tired. It stuck in his throat like a ball. Viken carried on a while longer, talking about Axel’s life, the expectations, the rejections, the punishments, the emotional coldness. Then abruptly he was back in the Nordmarka again.

– You see that woman standing there, Axel. What takes place inside you at that precise moment?

Axel was still completely bewildered by the man on the other side of the table. Viken was obviously playing a game, but one that was becoming more and more difficult to understand. All Axel knew was that the rules changed the whole time.

– Nothing special, he choked out. – I hardly knew her.

– Hardly knew her. And yet all the same, that rage flared up inside you. Rage because she was an older woman. Because here she was, standing directly in front of you, blocking your way, so to speak. Things start to get thick, dense. Things start to happen you have no control over. You grab hold of her, drag her off the path and into the trees.

– No!

He heard his own voice. He should not have shouted. He should have answered calmly. Or else shaken his head with a weary smile. But he shouted because suddenly he felt an urge to say, Yes, that’s what happened. A temptation to assume the blame, to be so weighted down with blame he might sink to the very bottom, to a place where it was not possible to go any lower. He shouted because, in spite of it all, he did not wish to drown.

– What are you doing? he groaned. He turned to Elton, but the lawyer sat with his eyes looking straight ahead, clearly having no objections to the chief inspector’s methods.

– Let’s put it like this, Axel, Viken said in an understanding way. – Let’s say it wasn’t you who did it. Let’s imagine it was someone else who showed up at just that moment and dragged Hilde Paulsen off into the trees. Can you visualise that?

Axel bit his split lip.

– I’m certain that with an imagination like yours you can see it. It isn’t you who does this, it’s someone else. He looks like you, he’s your double. Your twin. The evil shadow that has followed you ever since you were a child. The person who suddenly takes over and does things you would never have done yourself. Things so terrible you can’t bear to think about them, things you would have stopped happening had you been able to. Let us call him Brede.

Axel stared at him in astonishment. Viken’s eyebrows were like hairy larvae, coiling and arching, not going anywhere.

– It is Brede who drags Hilde Paulsen off into the trees with him. He ties her up, hides her. A few hours later he comes back with a child-trailer, the thing kids sit in. He takes her to a place that only he knows about. Keeps her prisoner for several days in a cellar. Sedates her using a product that is familiar to you as a doctor, Axel. It’s called thiopental. Brede feels all-powerful as he stands there over the defenceless body. He can decide exactly how much longer she has to live. To the second when she is to die. He picks up a bear’s paw he has lying there. He’s no longer human now. He’s a powerful animal. He is God. He slashes her skin with the sharp claws, many times, uttering the kind of sounds an animal would make. Then he kills her. Pushes the hypodermic into her thigh. The final dose.

Viken never once took his eyes off Axel. Axel avoided them.

– After that, he takes her back into the wood, not too far away from the place where he first met her. He uses the same child-trailer. She’s a small woman and there’s plenty of room for her when he folds her over. Is it possible for you, Axel, to imagine that that is exactly how it happened?

He couldn’t bring himself to respond. Viken continued with his story. Now it was about Cecilie Davidsen. Axel goes to see her at the house in Vindern with the results of a test. His normal practice is to give patients this type of information at the clinic. Unless it was Brede who suddenly thought of visiting her at home? A few days later, Thursday October the eleventh, he follows his patient through the evening darkness. He attacks her, sedates her, drags her into his car. He kills her in the same way as he killed Hilde Paulsen. But he goes further this time, rips up more skin with the bear claws. Then he dumps the body in Frogner Park. It’s spectacular. The whole of Oslo is talking about it. It’s inconceivable, it’s evil, it’s as though someone or something very powerful is behind it all.

Then it’s Anita Elvestrand’s turn. She’s the neighbour of the beautiful young woman Axel has started spending his nights with. That’s why he chooses her. A sign to his twin brother. I’m close, Axel, I’m with you, following you, like a shadow. Even when you’re in bed with your student. He visits her on the night of Friday October the nineteenth. Somehow or other he persuades her to go out to his car with him. She gets in, and she’s already on her way to the place where the two other women lost their lives. A remote cabin perhaps. Or a summer place in Larkollen. Axel spends Monday night with his student. He gets her drunk on red wine. And while she’s asleep, that’s when it happens. The remains of Anita Elvestrand are brought in through the gate, probably using the same child-trailer that was used for Hilde Paulsen. She is carried upstairs and dumped in front of the door to the flat where the student and Axel are sleeping. – Because that’s what you’re doing, isn’t it, Axel? Or maybe you weren’t sleeping in her bed after all? Were you helping Brede carry a body?

Viken paused for a long time. A minute passed without anything being said. Maybe two minutes. Axel understood why that time was there. It was there for him to start talking in. And in the middle of this absurd game, he was pained at the thought of once again being asked to betray Brede.

The silence was broken by Elton’s feminine but surprisingly authoritative voice.

– Time to wrap this up, he said, tapping on his D&G watch with his index finger.

It was now five o’clock in the morning. But Viken had been given both time added on and extra time. He was back in his role as the tenacious Rottweiler that never lets go. Axel was still managing to keep it together, but it took him longer and longer to come up with answers to even the most simple questions. Why did he still have a child-trailer in the bike shed? Wasn’t his daughter nine years old? When was the last time it had been used? And where were the socks he was wearing when he found the dead woman outside the door?

It was light outside by the time he was taken back down to the holding cell in the basement. He had been lying in the bottom of a boat being sailed by others. Now it had capsized, and this murky green prison cell was the beach on which he had been washed ashore. He felt as though he had lost everything.

55

Thursday 25 October

NINA JEBSEN WAS the first to arrive at the meeting. After two and a half hours’ sleep on a sofa in one of the offices, she had managed to shower and put on her make-up, but she had no clean clothes to change into. She popped the day’s first Nicorette into her mouth. It tasted like the rubbers she used to chew into little pieces when she was at primary school. Fortunately the coffee was freshly brewed and she had an unopened pack of chewing tobacco in her jacket pocket. She’d make it through to lunch without eating.

Sigge Helgarsson arrived and sat down beside her.

– Our oldest girl was up all night being sick, he said by way of apology. – And Vala was on duty at the nursing home. Did I miss anything?

Nina moved her chair away from the potential source of infection.

– Don’t think anyone noticed you weren’t here. It’s been non-stop since yesterday afternoon.

Sigge gave a sigh of relief.

– I know someone tried to call me, but I had to turn off the phone to grab a few hours’ sleep early this morning. It was hell at home. Hope it wasn’t His Majesty’s Viken, the Voice himself.

Nina couldn’t stand any more of the chewing gum and wrapped it neatly in a serviette, which she tossed on to the table.

– Viken’s got other things to think about apart from you and your sick kids. Just be sure you don’t stick your pretty neck out too far today. If you don’t want your head chopped off.

– Bad as that, was it?

Nina yawned.

– We’ve been talking to Glenne for over twelve hours.

– Anything that nails him to the murders?

– Nails him? Not even a piece of Sellotape. Oh shit!

She sat up abruptly.

– The maternity ward, she muttered.

– Forgotten something? Are you pregnant?

At that moment Norbakk entered with Jarle Frøen, followed by the lad from Majorstua and a couple of the other newcomers. Nina was on her way out of the door when she bumped into Viken.

– We’re starting now, he said gruffly. – You can go to the toilet in the break.

Viken looked as though he hadn’t had a moment’s sleep. He was unshaven and his eyes were even more red rimmed than usual. But, as ever, he was wearing a freshly ironed white shirt. It occurred to Nina that he must have a cupboard full of them in his office.

– We’ll deal with the interrogations first, he began. – A number of interesting pieces of information have emerged. We can confirm that Glenne has no proper alibis for any of the times we’re interested in. He’s vague about a number of things and his answers are shifty. That confirms the impression we have generally of an evasive personality.

He stopped briefly. Jarle Frøen interjected rapidly.

– I’ve read the report, Viken. There isn’t much there that is going to impress a court.

– Yes, but we’re not finished with him yet, barked Viken, and the prosecutor decided not to pursue it.

– Admittedly the opening round has not given us the results we had been hoping for, the detective chief inspector continued, his voice a little calmer.

He addressed himself to Norbakk.

– You’ve talked to the people at the lab?

– Just before I came here, yes, Norbakk nodded. – They’ve been through Glenne’s villa on Nesodden with a fine-tooth comb, as well as the clinic and offices in Bogstadveien, and both cars. We’ve also got people looking at the summer place in Larkollen.

– The child-trailer?

– That too, of course. And they’re working on the hard disks of both his computers.

– And?

– There’s a huge amount of material to go through…

– But so far?

Norbakk rubbed his neck.

– First impression: not much. Not counting the pair of handcuffs found in a cupboard in the bedroom.

He gave Viken a little smile as he said this, but the chief inspector turned abruptly to Nina. She knew what was coming and steeled herself for it.

– What about this twin that no one else knows anything about, not even the wife he’s been married to for twenty-three years?

She looked out through the window.

– I did make another attempt to find out about it, she began.

– Attempt?

– The site is still down. Partly, that is.

– Down? Impossible.

– It’s very rare, but…

– Don’t tell me, Jebsen, Viken interrupted, – that you’ve been sitting around twiddling your thumbs while some dolt of a computer engineer is down there scratching his head?

Fortunately that was not the case.

– I’ve been in touch with the maternity ward at the Rikshospital. The section head there is the only one who can give permission for access to information in patients’ notes. I was supposed to call back…

– I don’t believe it! thundered Viken. – You mean all you did was telephone?

He looked at her, his eyes narrowed. Nina felt herself shrinking in her seat. Maybe I’ll end up the size of a pepperpot, she thought suddenly, and laughed nervously at the strange thought.

– I have had rather a lot to do, she managed.

– Yes, but for Christ’s sake, you might have taken the trouble to actually go along there. Do I need to remind you that we are dealing with a perverted and deranged person who has so far taken the lives of three women? If we’re going to stop him, everyone needs to pull their finger out and do exactly what they’ve been asked to do. And I mean everyone.

His mobile phone rang; he glanced down at the display.

– It’s the pathology lab, he said. – We’ll take a ten-minute break.

He disappeared out into the corridor.

– Whooph, Sigge gasped. – Glad that wasn’t me.

– He’s under a lot of pressure, said Nina.

Sigge rolled his eyes.

– As if he’s the only one who’s noticed things are hotting up.

Nina didn’t answer. She picked up her phone and withdrew to a corner of the room. A minute later she had the section head at the Rikshospital on the line. She told him what it was about, stressed how vital the information was to the investigation, that it was a matter of urgency. He promised to look into it.

When the meeting resumed, she noticed that Viken had used the break to calm himself down.

– Sorry about the interruption, he began, and for a moment Nina wondered whether he was going to apologise for the outburst against her. He didn’t. – The call was from Dr Plåterud, he said. – She has really pulled out all the stops. She’s got Glenne’s DNA profile ready and waiting for us.

It was obvious to all what the results were.

– No match with the material found under Anita Elvestrand’s fingernails.

Jarle Frøen placed both fists on the table. They were so ugly Nina couldn’t help staring at them. Big and pale, with scattered tufts of red hair along the backs of the fingers, and as freckled as his face and his bald head.

– The court is in session at six this evening, he informed them. – I postponed it for as long as possible. The question now is should we abandon it and drop the charges?

Viken glowered at him. Nina could see him struggling to maintain the calm he had achieved during the break.

– The DNA result needn’t necessarily mean anything at all, he asserted. – There’s a great deal of material still to be analysed. Last night I spoke to a former colleague in Manchester. An expert in the field of psychological profiling. He thinks what we have is extremely interesting. He agrees that this business of the bear prints is some kind of message. Same thing with the method of killing, making it look as though the victims have been savaged by a bear. His advice is to listen to this message, find out what it is the killer is trying to tell us, and wind it in from there. I asked him about this theory of a split personality. He says it’s not unlikely that what we’re dealing with is a person with two or more personalities. Several factors actually point in this direction. Among other things, the very short interludes between each killing. As you know, my hypothesis is that this twin brother of Glenne’s doesn’t exist…

Nina’s phone rang.

– This looks like the hospital, she said and stood up. – They promised me a quick answer.

She grabbed her pen and notebook and let herself out into the corridor. A woman named Astrid Glenne had given birth at the Rikshospital. The senior consultant himself had personally gone to the trouble of searching the archives to track down the notes. Nina was too tense to thank him. She had to concentrate fully to stop her pen from shaking as she wrote down what he said.

The buzz of voices stilled as she appeared in the doorway. She could feel every gaze following her as she made her way back to her seat.

– That was the Rikshospital about the birth record.

She looked at Viken. He half closed his eyes.

– About bloody time, he murmured.

– The senior consultant called me in person; he’d made it his number one priority.

– Get to the point, Viken interrupted.

Nina swallowed her irritation.

– Astrid Glenne gave birth to two boys on the night of the seventh of September 1964. The first birth was unproblematic. The second child got stuck and had to be delivered with forceps. He wasn’t breathing, had to be resuscitated, and lay in an incubator for more than three weeks, but he survived. He suffered from convulsions of some kind…

– Yes yes yes, said Viken gruffly. – We don’t need to hear the whole of the midwife’s report.

Sigge Helgarsson couldn’t resist it: – So goodbye, Mr Hyde. That leaves us with just Dr Glenne.

Viken gave him an angry look.

– What matters is not whether or not this twin actually exists. You can say what you like about Icelanders, but they’re not the brightest tool in the shed.

Sigge gaped.

– You’re the one who needs to get it together, he burst out. – If you’d said that about someone with black skin, you’d get yourself a reputation as a racist.

Viken brushed this aside.

– Racist, did you say? Before the Americans were allowed to use the base at Keflavik, they had to bloody well sign an agreement saying that not one black soldier would be stationed there. You Icelanders were terrified they might get your women pregnant. At least that way you wouldn’t be as milky white as you are now.

Nina Jebsen looked at him in astonishment. Sigge flushed to the roots of his hair.

– Complete crap, he growled. – Fifty-year-old rumours.

Viken shrugged.

– Pal of mine worked up there for a long time, he knows all about it. But we don’t have time for this nonsense.

– You’re damned right there, Viken. Jarle Frøen grinned as he got to his feet. – I’ll have a word with the district court.

56

THERE WERE ONLY two other customers at the Asylum Café. They took a window seat with a view over to the multi-storey car park and Grønland Square. When Nina had popped her head into Arve Norbakk’s office fifteen minutes earlier, it was clear that he had forgotten their arrangement to have coffee, and when she dropped a hint about it, he seemed to be so busy that she thought he would back out again. But as soon as he had picked up the hint, he was on his feet: that was a great idea, they needed to talk.

– Not a day of celebration for the team, he observed as they sat studying the menu. – All the more reason to treat ourselves to something nice to eat.

Nina agreed, but contented herself with a salad and bread on the side; it was too early for lunch.

– Sigge says he’s heard rumours that Finckenhagen wants to take Viken off the case, she said.

Arve Norbakk looked straight at her. He had the darkest brown eyes she had ever seen, at least in someone whose hair was so fair.

– Finckenhagen, he spluttered. – She wouldn’t dare. Even if Viken has made a fool of himself.

– He’s got tunnel vision about this, Nina announced. – The most elementary beginner’s mistake. These last few days he’s been interested in nothing but this doctor.

– Are you so sure it’s all been a waste of time?

She glanced at him.

– Sounds as if you still think Glenne is the one we’re looking for.

– I’m only saying it’s a good idea to keep an eye on him, said Arve.

– Should we really have been using such a huge amount of resources keeping a tail on him, as Viken insisted?

Arve answered without looking up from the menu.

– Maybe. The most obvious trails still begin and end there.

Once they’d ordered, Nina said: – One thing I’ve been thinking about. The ages of the three victims. Hilde Paulsen was fifty-six, Cecilie Davidsen forty-six, Anita Elvestrand thirty-six.

Arve raised an eyebrow.

– You’re right. Ten years younger every time.

– Probably just chance, she said, – but it does seem odd.

– If it isn’t just chance, and it happens again, then the next victim should be a woman of twenty-six.

– Don’t say that, she exclaimed as she finessed the plug of chewing tobacco out of her mouth and wrapped it in a serviette. She washed her mouth out with Pepsi Max. – I’m not sure we’re taking good enough care of this medical student.

Their food came. She’d ended up with spaghetti bolognese after all.

– Viken asked me to stay in touch with her, Arve reassured her. – I talked to her earlier today. She can call me whenever she likes. If she’s not interested, that’s all we can do, you know that as well as I do.

Nina wrapped spaghetti round her fork and realised that she’d made a mistake. Spaghetti was fine for kids, and a couple who’d known each other for a while. But first time out in a café with a man sitting opposite and watching you? Tacos were the only thing worse, she groaned to herself as she reached for a serviette. Fortunately Arve tactfully lowered his gaze to the rib steak on his own plate.

Once she’d eaten as much of the spaghetti as she thought she could allow herself, it was time to turn the conversation to matters outside the investigation.

– How did you end up in the police, Arve?

He laughed slightly and poured more beer into his glass. He was a guy who could fix car engines, mend things, cut down trees. His hands were broad and thick, with marks and scars he must have got working with machines and tools. She tried to imagine what it would feel like to be touched by them, held tight by them.

– Probably because I figured it was somewhere I could actually do something, he said. – Started studying law, but I always had to get a pal to wake me up during the lectures. Dropped out and spent a couple of years at folk high school, mountain climbing and rafting and camping out in cracks in glaciers. That was probably when it dawned on me that I needed a more active life than just swotting up on points of law. Something more unpredictable. I’ve always been someone who likes doing something. How about you?

She pushed the plate of half-eaten spaghetti to one side. She hadn’t the slightest objection to telling him the story of her life. What it was like to grow up in a high-rise in Fyllingsdalen. The friends who got pregnant as soon as they were done with high school, then moved out of the family apartment and into the block opposite. She’d always known she had to get out of there. Arve carried on eating and listening, didn’t say anything.

– What was that other thing, by the way? he suddenly asked.

– Other thing?

– You said yesterday you’d found one mistake and one omission in my notes about the medical student. You gave me the mistake straight away, I was supposed to get the omission for dessert.

Nina wiped thoroughly around her mouth. Registered that the serviette was still showing signs of tomato sauce.

– You dashed that report off pretty quickly, she said, and risked a teasing smile.

– You’re right, I had to prioritise. Aren’t you going to tell me?

Nina leant back in her chair. She’d managed to change into a light silk blouse she’d bought earlier in the day. It clung tightly across her breasts.

– According to Miriam herself, she doesn’t have a large circle of friends. She’s got two or three close ones, and she has some contact with the Catholic church in Majorstua.

– Well I got all that, didn’t I? Arve protested.

– Yes, but not that she’s been engaged.

His eyebrows shot up.

– Really? Here in Norway?

She gave a triumphant laugh.

– For two years.

– Well, you got me there all right, Nina.

She liked the way he said her name, putting equal stress on both syllables.

– Honestly, he continued, – I’m glad it was you who noticed. There are enough people who like to exploit others’ mistakes. Did she say who to?

– I didn’t ask; that wasn’t the most important thing right then. She said she broke up with him some years ago. I still don’t know whether it’s of any importance at all…

Arve scratched the tip of his chin with two fingers. He sat for a while staring thoughtfully into the air, straight past her.

– It might well be important, Nina, he said at last. – I guess Viken’s not the only one who’s been suffering from tunnel vision these last few days.

57

AXEL STUMBLED THROUGH the park outside the police station where he’d spent most of the last twenty-four hours. He stopped under one of the huge hazels. It was still raining, but not as much as the day before, and the wind had subsided.

He had a large swelling above one eye, and his lower lip was still swollen. He had hardly slept for the past few days, nor washed nor even run a comb through his hair. The bristles on his chin itched, and he could smell the body odour seeping up from his armpits. The physical degeneration felt like a temptation to sink further down into it.

It was dark by the time he slanted across the street to a café on the other side. In a stand outside the door a few last copies of the morning’s papers were still on display. The entire front page of VG carried a picture of a man being restrained by two police officers. The features of the face had been disguised, but anyone who knew him would have been in no doubt about who it was. The caption read: Doctor arrested – suspected of murders.

He needed something to drink. Most of all he needed to empty his bladder. The man behind the bar stopped him as he was on his way to the toilet.

– Are you going to buy something? The toilet is for customers only.

– A cognac.

– Can you pay?

The man gave him a lingering scrutiny. That’s the way it is now, thought Axel. This is the reception you’ll be getting from now on.

– You’ll just have to wait and see, he muttered as he walked into the strong smell of filthy urinal.

Afterwards he took a table in an inner recess of the darkened room. The first glass disappeared in one. It wasn’t cognac, but the colour wasn’t unlike. He signalled to the barman and had a second. For a brief moment waving a credit card had changed his status. He took his time over the third glass. He couldn’t quite come to terms with the thought that at some point or other he would have to get up and leave the place.

His phone vibrated in his jacket pocket. He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there staring down at the table. It struck him that if he didn’t answer the phone now, he would never answer it again. A distant sense of relief when he saw that it was Rita. She was the only person he could face talking to right now.

– Axel, I don’t believe you. What a pickle you’ve got yourself into now.

He tried to make a joke about pickle but it didn’t work out. Instead she got him to tell her about the last twenty-four hours. Afterwards she said: – What are you going to do now?

He drained his glass.

– Didn’t you say you started working for me twelve years ago, Rita? Not many people know me better than you do.

He fell silent. She said: – I don’t believe for one moment that you… Not for one moment, Axel, do you hear me? But you were incredibly stupid to let yourself get mixed up with that…

Axel interrupted before she could use a word he didn’t want to hear.

– It isn’t her fault. Save the criticism for me.

– She rang yesterday, by the way.

– Miriam?

– Isn’t that who we’re talking about?

– What did she want?

– Apparently she left an envelope behind in the desk drawer in Ola’s office. She said she’d come in and fetch it, but I never saw her.

Axel could feel himself waking up.

– When was this?

– Yesterday afternoon. And then she said something very odd.

– What did she say?

– That if she didn’t turn up, I was to deliver it to you as soon as possible. She said it was important. Seemed really upset.

He checked his unanswered calls. Over thirty of them. Lots from Bie. One from Tom. And directly below it on the list: Miriam. Yesterday evening, 6.55. He called his voicemail. Twenty-three messages. The first was from Bie. Then a journalist from VG. Then several others he didn’t know. He clicked his way through them. On the sixth he heard an indistinct sound, a car engine probably, above it a pop song he’d heard a few times, and someone whistling in the background. He was about to click forward to the next one. Then he heard her voice: Where are we going? Miriam: the name shot through him. An indistinct male voice answered her. Axel couldn’t stay seated; he had to get to his feet. He clamped the phone to one ear, pressed a finger in the other. Miriam’s voice: The cabin? Are you mad? Suddenly the man’s voice was more prominent. What the hell have you got there? Give it to me! Some rustling sounds. Then her scream. Rising and ending in a shout: Axel. Then silence.

Axel stumbled to the toilet. Played the message over again. There was something familiar about the man’s voice. He couldn’t place it. It was drowned out by Miriam’s scream. She was calling for him. She was frightened.

He ran to the door.

– Hey there! yelled the bartender and raced after him. – You’re a helluva cheeky bastard.

Axel raised both hands submissively.

– Sorry, got a message, I have to leave. Of course I’ll pay.

The bartender glowered at him. Not even a big tip sweetened his mood.

Outside the café he ran into a woman in a black coat.

– The very person I’m looking for, she said as he hurried on.

He turned round.

– Kaja Fredvold, VG, the woman informed him. – We’ve met before. I’d like to interview you.

A swarm of thoughts buzzed through Axel’s head. Miriam. She had been afraid when he called her the previous afternoon. Afraid when he visited her that last time. He hadn’t understood what it was. Hadn’t wanted to understand.

– I don’t have time for people like you, he said as calmly as he could.

The journalist grabbed him by the sleeve of his jacket. When she smiled, her jaw jutted forward, making her underbite even more prominent.

– We’re going to run a story on you anyway, Glenne. You’ll find it pays to play along.

A man emerged from a car parked half up on the pavement. He was fat and grunted like a sumo wrestler. He was holding a camera.

– This is Villy, he works with me. We’ll drive you home and we can talk on the way.

Axel turned and was about to walk on. The journalist still had hold of him.

– Or we can just do it in here in the café, she suggested. – Looks like you’ve been enjoying yourself there.

Axel pulled himself free and pushed her. She staggered back a few paces and somehow or other managed to trip over a kerbstone. As Axel rounded the corner, he heard her shouting something to the photographer.

He asked the taxi driver to stop at the bus bay in Helgesens gate and continued on foot. The gate was half open; he slipped through and let it swing shut behind him.

On the landing outside her doorway, there was no sign of the mangled corpse that had been lying there when he’d left the flat two days earlier. A bouquet of flowers hung from the door handle. He’d sent them himself, before his arrest. He rang the bell, tried the handle at the same time. The door wasn’t locked.

Her smell in the hallway. Her perfume. Faint smell of damp from the bathroom. All the lights in the living room were on. The bed was made. He lifted the blanket; a T-shirt on the pillow. Surgical textbook on the shelf above. And the photo of the man in naval uniform. The coffee machine in the kitchen was on, the glass jug half full. On the table, a dish with a packet of lasagne, ready for heating, and a piece of crispbread with a bite taken out. Next to it was a white A5 envelope. He picked it up. There were photos inside. Four of them. The first showed the terrified face of Hilde Paulsen, the physiotherapist. She was lying on the floor, up against a stone wall. On the back of the photo the number 1 had been written with a black marker pen. The second picture showed the face of a dead person, with bloody scratches running from the jaw down over the neck. He recognised Cecilie Davidsen. She lay propped up against what had to be the same stone wall. On the reverse the number 2, again written with a black marker pen. The third photograph: the head of a woman with fair hair. He was in no doubt that this must be Anita Elvestrand. The eyes stared at him – he could tell that she was still alive – but the mouth had been ripped open at one side and the tongue protruded from the gash. On the back, the number 3.

The fourth picture was of Miriam. She was smiling and looked happy. Bright sunlight caused her to peer into the camera, and her hair was shorter than it was now. The photo was taken standing against a creosoted wall. Half of it had been cut off. Someone was standing next to her; a bit of the hand holding her shoulder was still visible. On the back, in the same felt-tip writing: And the fourth will be…

He dropped the pictures on to the table and stumbled out into the corridor and down the twisted staircase without closing the door behind him.

58

AXEL WAS RUNNING through Sofienberg Park. Suddenly he stopped and pulled out his phone, punched in the police station number. He couldn’t face the thought of talking to Viken so instead asked for the young sergeant, whose name, he now recalled, was Norbakk.

– I’ll put you through to the operational leader, the woman at the other end told him.

– I want to talk to Sergeant Norbakk, Glenne insisted. – Nobody else. Call him and tell him that Axel Glenne is trying to get in touch with him.

Within half a minute his call was returned.

– Glenne? Where are you calling from?

Axel recognised Norbakk’s voice.

– It’s about Miriam Gaizauskaite. You know who that is? He carried on walking through the park.

– What about her?

– I think she’s been abducted. She left a message on my voicemail.

– Message?

– She was screaming, calling for help. Someone attacked her. It must have been last night. In her flat there’s an envelope with photographs of the dead women. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?

– I understand. We’ll send a car up there. Can you come to the station and make a statement?

– I’ve got nothing else to say.

He terminated the call, switched off his mobile.

Rita stood in the doorway and stared at him, her eyes wide.

– What do you look like? Has someone beaten you up?

He tried to smile through his swollen lip.

– You’d make a pretty convincing tramp.

– The envelope, he said.

Rita pulled her dressing gown tight around her.

– What is it, Axel? Aren’t you well?

He was neither well nor ill. Fear had made him alert, cleared his head. He explained the situation in a few words.

– That is the sickest thing I’ve ever heard, Rita declared. – You know what, now, for the first time, I really do feel afraid.

– Where is that envelope Miriam rang you about?

– It’s still in the drawer in Ola’s office.

– Can I borrow your car?

– Yes, but have something to eat first. You stink of alcohol. It can’t be all that urgent now you’ve told the police.

He allowed himself to be persuaded. While he waited, he sat at her computer and logged on. He was the lead story in all the online editions. Police release accused,he read in Aftenposten; 43-year-old doctor is still suspect. VG ran with a different story: Furious suspect attacks journalist. He had to read it through twice before he realised what it was about. Beneath the headline, a photograph of himself. An old one that Bie had taken at Liseberg. He was standing by a merry-go-round, laughing. The light in the room seemed to change as he looked at it, becoming brownish and dreamlike, the shadows deepening. He was losing everything. He thought of Bie. The children. Mostly of Daniel. This is your father, Daniel. Miriam’s voice came to him: If I close my eyes in the dark, Axel, I see your face. He stood up, went out to the bathroom. Pulled off his jacket and vest and stuck his head under the shower. You’ve got to wake up now, he growled. Axel Glenne, you’ve got to wake up.

Rita put a plate of chicken breast in mushroom sauce on the table. She glanced at the computer screen.

– So proud I know such a famous person, she remarked drily.

Axel managed a brief laugh.

– How about the patients? he wanted to know.

– Not a single one of them believes you’re capable of anything like that. Not one, take my word for it. Quite a few have called in just to say so. A couple have cancelled their appointments, but only for practical reasons. Not more than three or four.

– Have you heard anything from Solveig Lundwall?

– Come and sit down and eat. You look like death warmed up standing there.

He did as he was told.

– Her husband called. Solveig’s been sectioned.

Axel tore off a piece of chicken.

– Good news.

– Apparently it was quite dramatic. She was going to hang herself from a tree. She’s got some idea that somehow she has betrayed you. That it’s because of her you wound up in jail.

– She’s in a terrible state, he said, chewing away. – They must be quite sure they don’t release her until she’s been given the help she needs.

Rita said: – By the way, Seen and Heard called me last night. They want to do a feature on you.

– That rag. He glanced across at her. Nothing surprised him now.

– They said they’d give it a positive spin. Something people would enjoy reading, in spite of all the terrible things.

– What did you tell them?

– I told them to go to hell and take their enjoyment with them to spread it where it’s needed.

He put his hand over hers.

– Without you that’s where I’d be too.

He would have liked to say more, but instead he stood up and turned to the window, looking out at the night sky shaded with hints of orange.

59

RITA HAD TIDIED his office after the search, but it was still chaotic. The computer had not yet been returned. Some of his books and folders were still missing. He let himself into Ola’s room. It didn’t look as though the police had been in there.

The envelope lay in the middle desk drawer, where he had seen it earlier. He opened the flap, pulled out the pile of smaller envelopes. All were stamped and addressed to Miriam. There was also a single sheet of paper. He unfolded it, recognising her handwriting. It looked like the beginning of a letter.

I received your most recent letter today. Yes, I’ve met someone else! It’s horrible of you to spy on me, but I’m not going to let you spoil things. No matter what you do, I’ll never tell him about you. You don’t exist when I’m with him. Not even in my thoughts.

Are you trying to scare me? I thought you’d understood. I don’t wish you any harm. You’ve suffered enough as it is. I wish you well. But I can’t do any more for you. Not after what happened in the cabin that time. You told me about your family; I know I’m the only one you’ve dared to talk to about them. I’ve thought a lot about what you told me. Your grandfather, who helped so many refugees to freedom during the war, how he was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to a concentration camp. When he got back he was a wreck, but never a word of thanks for all the lives he’d saved. And your father, the best father in the world, you said, but he drank and kept you both locked up in the cellar. I remember as though it were yesterday when you told me about it. We were sitting on the steps outside the cabin, and I didn’t understand how you could think such a thing, that it was all your mother’s fault because she left you, and that your father always meant well by what he did. I was stupid enough to say what I thought of him, and then you seemed to turn into another person completely. I can’t forget it, even though I want to. I’ll always see your eyes the way they were that night in the cellar. You hated me then, you wanted to destroy me. A thousand apologies can’t make up for something that has been crushed. I know you trusted me more than any other girl you’ve ever met. And that was why you told me about your family. I can understand you and forgive you, but I can never trust you again. You must go to a

That was obviously as far as she’d got. He looked through the envelopes. The last one was stamped 27 September this year. It contained a folded sheet of paper.

This is the last letter I’ll write to you. Don’t know if you’ll read it. Makes no difference. I’ve started talking to you instead. Have found a way to get you to listen to what I have to say. Get you to listen to every fucking word. With no chance to get away. I waited for you yesterday. You said back then that you needed time before you were ready. Now that time has passed. I wanted to surprise you. You came out and got into a car with a man. Drove to Aker Brygge. You sat half a bloody hour in that car. Today he drove you home, and as you were about to get out, he took a sniff at you and then I knew what was going on. He’s forty-three. Seventeen years older than you. He earns eight hundred and fifty thousand a year and has seven million in the bank. He’s married and has three kids. I guess that’s all okay by you. And then I think how I should never have let you out of the cellar in the cabin that time, that the one night you spent down there wasn’t enough. That maybe I’ll come and fetch you from your bed one night when you think you’re safe and take you back to that cellar, and who knows whether you’ll ever get out again.

Axel sat there looking at the letter. It had been typed on a computer and wasn’t signed. No sender’s name on the envelope. Posted the day after she started her training with him. Several times Miriam had wanted to tell him about something that had happened to her. Something she was afraid of. Each time she’d got close to it she’d pulled away. That last night he’d spent with her, she had said something about a cellar in a cabin she’d been in. Close to the Swedish border. What were you doing out there? he should have asked her. But he hadn’t. He’d guessed it had to do with a man. He didn’t want to know anything about her past. About the men before him. What the two of them had together existed on a tiny island in the present moment. Both past and future could wipe it out at any time. But he had wanted to talk about himself. Something from his own past. Had he been using her? He saw her in his mind’s eye. The way she looked when she was listening. She took it all in, didn’t try to change anything.

The next letter he opened was more than two years old.

When you left, it was allegedlybecause you needed time to think, but more than a year has passed now and I think you were lying. It’s not a good idea to lie to me. I know you thought it was horrible to be left sitting down there in that cellar, but I didn’t know what I was doing. When you come, you’ll see that I’ve changed. You didn’t believe me when I told you that you were the first girl I’d ever been with properly. There have always been women I could have had; I got plenty of offers but I was never interested. After that first night in Sandane when we walked along by the fjord, I told you it was you I wanted. Nobody else. And you said that made you happy. You said a lot of other things too. That there was nobody else you wanted either. That you would stay with me for ever. That we were twin spirits, and all that kind of girl talk. That you liked having sex with me. That it was the best you’d ever had. Killing someone is no worse than giving them something and then suddenly taking it away again.

Dated 19 August last year:

I know you saw me today. You walked right past the car. You saw me and then pretended you hadn’t seen me and crossed over the road with your friend. You took the Metro down to the Storting and then walked to Alexis’s. You spent an hour there and then you went home. There was a light on in your window until ten past eleven. Then it was dark. You were sleeping. Or else lying there thinking. I’ve been off work all this week. There hasn’t been a single second of the day when I haven’t known where you are or what you’re doing.

On 9 June:

If you can just manage to forget what happened, this is my plan. I’ll sell the cabin and borrow from the bank and buy a place in town. Big enough for two. Please forget what happened. I made a mistake and I’ve really learned my lesson.

He flipped back through the bundle of letters. Flipping his way back through a relationship he didn’t want to know about. He knew that what he was reading could tell him what had happened to her. Suddenly it dawned on him that it might also tell him something about where she was. He recalled what she had said about the cabin she’d been in. Had to be the same one that was mentioned in the letters. A cellar that had been used during the war. The former owner of it had been a border guide, she’d told him. The grandfather of someone she knew.

As he read back through the letters, more and more of them were written in an untidy scrawl. The tone of them changed too, the threats disappearing as he reached a time before what must have been the break-up. He opened an envelope stamped 16 July, five years ago:

I’m still sitting here on the steps and looking down at the path. Then I look at the finger with the ring I got from you. Engaged. Imagine if you’d got the weekend off and decided to come out here again. Surprise! You like to surprise me. What you wanted to do the night before you had to leave, I never would have believed it…

Axel skimmed ahead.

I knew you’d like it out here in the forest. Best cabin in all Hedmark. We can stay up here for months and years with no one ever disturbing us. Maybe we should move out here, settle down, go hunting, live off the forest. The way my father did. Leave the rest of the world behind.

There was a photo with the letter. Axel held it under the light from the desk lamp. It was the same picture that had been in the envelope in her kitchen, only this one wasn’t cut in half. She was standing in front of the creosoted cabin. The person with his arm around her looked to be twenty or thirty centimetres taller than her. From his features it was clear he had Down’s syndrome. On the ground in front of them was the shadow of a head and a hand. Thrown by whoever was taking the picture. On the back of the photo was written: Oswald doesn’t have the words to say so, but he likes you too.

Axel tore the letter out of the envelope that was date-stamped four weeks before the last one he had read.

Pottering about here and counting the days until you come. Looking forward to showing you the real me. I know of a great place to swim that nobody else knows about. A tarn not too far away. Then we can head on towards the border, and I’ll show you a bear’s hide. Maybe the mummy bear herself will be there. Saw the tracks of a female and two cubs not long ago. You say the bear is my inner animal. Yours too, if you ask me. Have fixed the car and will pick you up at the station as planned. But that old bus isn’t reliable. If it breaks down on the timber road, you’ll have to take the bus to Åmoen. The cabin is nearly ten kilometres further north and deep in the forest, so don’t try getting there by yourself. Ask one of the guys at the Esso station to drive you up here. I worked there every school holiday when I was a kid. Ask for Roger Åheim and say hello from me.

He read through the last lines again. She’s in that cabin, he thought with a jolt. And in the same instant: I know how I can find it.

It was just after midnight. After the phone had rung for the seventh time, he began to doubt whether anyone would answer. Another ten rings and he was about to give up. Then he heard a grunt at the other end.

– Tom? It’s Dad.

No answer, but he could hear his son’s breathing. Imagined him standing there in the dark in his boxers and T-shirt, trying to figure out what was going on.

– Dad, he muttered. – Christ…

His hair would be dangling down over his eyes as he stood there, thin and pale, shivering with cold. When was the last time Axel had felt the need to put his arms around his son? Hold him close, hold him tight so that he wouldn’t disappear.

– What is it?

The voice was distant; the boy had regained his composure.

– Tom, you’ve got a thousand questions you want to ask me. I’ll give you answers to all of them in just a little while. All the answers I can. But right now I need you to help me with something very urgent. Can you do that?

A grunt from the other end.

– You know Grandad’s old maps, the ones up in the loft? We used to look at them together, you and me and Daniel.

– That stuff from the war?

– That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I want you to go up to the loft and get them.

– You mean now?

– I mean now.

– What d’you want them for?

As calmly as he could, Axel said: – A woman has gone missing. I have to find her. Before it’s too late.

– Are you and Mum going to get divorced?

– I need you to do as I ask, Axel said, pulling hard at his cheek. – Go up to the cupboard behind the suitcases and the boxes with the winter gear. Take your phone with you. Don’t wake anyone.

He heard Tom opening the door of his room. Moving through the house. Axel imagined himself walking along beside him. The smells from the kitchen, the bathroom and toilet, of unwashed clothes, soap, perfume, bread, leftover food. The smell of the house itself, layered in the walls, contained his whole history within it. And the smells of the sleeping, those who meant more to him than anything in the world. If the door was slightly ajar, he could stop outside, listen out for Bie’s breathing in the dark.

He heard Tom open the door to the loft and pulled himself together. Thought about what he was looking for. The box on the second shelf down of the cupboard.

– Have you found them, Tom?

– Yes.

– I want you to fax them to me. But you have to be quiet, don’t wake your mother.

– Don’t think these’ll go in the fax.

– You’ll have to cut them up and send them in smaller sections.

– You want me to ruin them?

– We can tape them together if we need them later.

He explained to Tom what to do. Shortly afterwards, the fax machine in the photocopying room next to the office whirred into life. Once he had satisfied himself the maps were legible, he asked:

– How is Marlen?

Tom didn’t know. – She’s started sleeping with Mum. Why have I never met Brede when he’s my uncle?

Axel glanced at his watch. It was 12.55.

– He refuses to see me.

– Mum says he’s an idiot.

– She’s never met him either. Brede was treated badly. He was angry because I had all the advantages.

Tom said: – If you’re Daniel, then I’m Brede.

Axel felt his heart sink.

– That’s not true, Tom. I love you very much indeed.

– You’re in all the newspapers and on TV. Everyone I meet talks about you the moment my back is turned. Calling you a bloody killer.

– They’re wrong. He buried his face in his hands, rubbed hard up and down.

– Are you going to be moving out?

– I don’t know, Tom. All I know is that this will soon be over.

He spread the pages out across the desk. The maps were from the 1940s. Routes taken by refugees over the border into Sweden drawn by the old Resistance hero Torstein Glenne for his sons. Circles around the places where there were cabins that could be used as hideouts. Which Axel, many years later, had pointed out to his own sons, using the same words about the price of freedom as his father had.

From the internet he printed out a map of Åsnes county, located Åmoen. Nearly ten kilometres further north, it said in the letter. He searched with his fingers across his father’s map: Fallsjøen, Åmoen, a farm track leading north, a timber road branching off from it. He checked the distance. It coincided with one of the places Torstein Glenne had circled.

– That’s where you’re keeping her, you bastard, he muttered. But I’ve got you now.

Sergeant Norbakk answered at once. Axel said: – I know where she is.

– What the hell are you talking about? Miriam?

Axel described what he had found in the letters. He had expected scepticism, but the sergeant appeared to take him seriously.

– Were the letters signed? he wanted to know.

– No, but there is a name mentioned in one. Axel took out the photo. – Oswald, it says. That must be the person in the picture with Miriam. A very tall man who appears to have Down’s syndrome.

– Excellent, I’ve got all that. Anything else?

– The letter-writer says he used to work at an Esso station at a place called Åmoen.

Norbakk expelled a long, slow gush of air.

– We’ll get in touch with the owner. Maybe the guy still works there. He added: – You’ve made more progress in one evening than the police have in four weeks.

Axel didn’t know quite how to take this. Maybe it was meant as an apology.

– We’ll get people out there straight away, Norbakk said. – Give me a route description while I call the operational centre.

– You turn off a couple of kilometres past Åmoen. Axel described the route up through the forest.

Norbakk said: – I’ve got a map on my screen; are there any place names after you turn off the A road?

Axel checked his own map.

– It says Åheim at the end of the first side road. You drive on. Turn off east quite a way after that.

Norbakk asked him to repeat his description of the route. – Good, he said. – We’ll take someone with us who knows the area. We’ll also need people from the Emergency Response Unit. I’ll call you if we need to check anything else.

– I’m going myself, said Axel.

Silence from the other end.

I must find her, he thought. Maybe I’ll never see her again after this. But I must find her, or I’ll lose everything.

– D’you think that’s such a good idea? said Norbakk at last. – This is an armed operation.

– I’ll take the map and the letters with me, Axel replied.

After ending the call, he felt a peculiar calm. A few raindrops came spinning through the night and splattered in a pattern on the window. It felt as though layers of dross had suddenly been cleared away from his mind.

– I’m going myself, he repeated aloud as he let himself out of the office.

LAST NIGHT WE sat in the car after I’d taped your mouth. I didn’t say a word. Only now, when you’re lying in bed, are you going to hear what I have to say. Summer three years ago was the last time we lay in this bed together. We will lie here again tonight. Maybe I’ll free your hands, so you can touch me. I didn’t touch any of the others. I’m not like that. Just lay there beside them so they wouldn’t feel too alone. But you belong to me. I want you one last time before I take you down into the cellar. You’ve been there before. If only you knew how much pleasure it has given me to think of your beautiful eyes the moment you realise the way this is going to happen. You told that story about the twins who were inseparable. One of them had to go to the kingdom of the dead. Maybe I’ll join you down there soon so we can be together. The god of chance decides when it will be.

You’re the only one there’s any urgency about. Soon they’ll know you’re missing. I asked you to bring the pictures I put in your letter box. You left them behind. Maybe I’ll have time before I go to work tomorrow. Maybe I’ll let someone else find them. I’ve been leaving clues for them to follow the whole way. Scores of opportunities to get to me before I took you. If they’d done their job properly down at the police station, this would never have happened. Not to you or any of the others. It’s all their own bloody fault.

I told you once that unfaithfulness is the worst of all sins. Actually, the only one. I said it on one of the first days at the school. We bunked off and took a walk along the fjord. You said you felt the same way. I thought you realised that I meant it. You pretended to understand. You should have listened to me. You did what you should never have done. I don’t care a damn who he is. He’s just anybody at all. Now it’s too late. I’m coming to you now, Miriam.