The Blind Goddess

MONDAY 26 OCTOBER

There was a whole pile of yellow message slips on the post shelf in her office. Hanne Wilhelmsen hated telephone messages. She was far too conscientious to throw them out, but knew that at least half of the eleven who had rung had nothing significant to say. The most enervating part of the job was having to respond to questions from the public, impatient victims who couldn’t see why it should take more than six months to investigate a rape by a known assailant, irascible defence lawyers enquiring about prosecution decisions, witnesses who considered themselves of greater importance than the police gave them credit for.

Two of the messages were from the same person. “Ring Askhaug, Ullevål Hospital,” they said, with a phone number. Hanne thought anxiously about all the scans they’d taken of her skull, and rang the number. Askhaug was there, even if Hanne did have to be transferred to three other numbers before she eventually got the woman on the line. Hanne introduced herself.

“I’m glad you phoned,” chirped the woman at the other end. “I’m a nurse in the psychiatric department.”

Hanne breathed a sigh of relief. At least her own head wasn’t the problem.

“We had a patient here, a prisoner on remand,” the nurse continued. “A Dutchman, I think he was. I was told you were in charge of the case. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“He was in a psychotic state when he was admitted, and went to Neurology for several days before we saw any improvement,” the nurse explained. “We got his mental condition into some sort of order eventually, even if we don’t know how long it will last. We put incontinence pads on him at first; it would have been too labour-intensive otherwise, you see.”

The soft southern voice sounded apologetic, as if it was she alone who was responsible for the lamentable state of resources in the health service.

“It’s normally the nursing auxiliaries who change the pads, you know. But he was thoroughly constipated until I happened to be on night duty. We take a turn too, with the patients, I mean. So I changed this man’s pads. It’s really the auxiliaries’ job, you know.”

Hanne knew.

“Well, I noticed a white, undigested lump in his stool. I wondered what it was, so I picked it out. We wear plastic gloves, you see.”

A slight giggle came down the line.

“And?”

Hanne was getting impatient. She ran her finger rapidly to and fro over the stubble at her temple. Her hair was growing back, and it itched.

“It was a piece of paper. The size of a postcard, folded up, but the writing was still legible. Even after a little wash. I thought it might be of interest, you see, so I rang you. To be on the safe side.”

Hanne praised her profusely and hoped she would soon get to the point.

At long last she learnt what the message on the paper had been.

“I’ll be with you in fifteen minutes,” was Hanne’s immediate response.

They had finally set up an incident room. That sounded pretentious, until you entered it. Twenty square metres had been left over at the furthest end of the northwest corridor after A.2.11 had been partitioned into rooms. It was impersonal and almost unusable. For bigger cases they called it the incident room, gathering both documents and personnel together in the one place. Quite functional, in a way. Two telephones, one on each of a pair of desks placed back to back beneath the window, with the same thin metal legs as in the rest of the building; the desktops sloping in opposite directions like a pitched roof. On the ridge was balanced a narrow board full of nibbled pencils, rubbers, and cheap pens. Behind each desk the walls were covered in shelves. They were empty, a reminder to everyone of how little they had on the case. A constant tiring hum emanated from an old photocopier in a small adjoining room.

Chief Inspector Kaldbakken was chairing the meeting. He was a slim man whose dialect contrived to make half his words stick in his throat in an indecipherable mumble. It could have been worse: at least they were all used to him, and could guess at what he was saying. Which wasn’t much.

Detective Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen was reporting. She was going over everything they had, separating fact from speculation, solid information from hearsay. Unfortunately most of it was speculation and hearsay. But it made an impact of sorts. There was little physical evidence, scarcely enough to convince anybody.

“Let’s arrest Lavik,” exhorted a young constable with a snub nose and freckles. “Stake everything on a single card. He’ll crack!”

You could have heard a pin drop, and in the embarrassing silence the redheaded officer realised he’d made a fool of himself. He began to bite his nails in shame.

“What do you say, Håkon? What have we actually got to go on?”

It was Hanne who was asking. She looked better now, and had bowed to the inevitable and cut her hair short. It was a distinct improvement: the lopsided style of the past week had been rather comical. Håkon seemed somewhat distracted, but refocused his attention.

“If we could get Lavik to make a voluntary statement, it might possibly give us a lead. The problem is that from a tactical point of view we have to be certain the interrogation will be effective. We know…”

He broke off, and started the sentence again.

“We believe the man to be guilty: there are too many coincidences. The meeting in the middle of the night with the armed fugitive, the initials on the banknote, the visit to the cells the day the warning note scared the shit out of Han van der Kerch. And another fact: he was visiting Jacob Frøstrup only a few hours before the poor chap did himself in.”

“That doesn’t actually prove anything,” said Hanne. “We all know that prisons are full of drugs. The warders, for instance, can go in and out quite freely without any check whatsoever, directly from outside to an individual cell if they want to.

“Quite unbelievable,” she added, after a moment’s thought. “It’s absurd that the staff of a department store like Steen and Strøm have to subject themselves to searches to prevent shoplifting, while prison staff have no inspection for drug-smuggling into prisons!”

“Unions, trade unions,” muttered Kaldbakken.

“And Han van der Kerch’s dread of the prison may have something to do with that. Perhaps he suspects people within the prison system,” Hanne went on, not rising to the chief inspector’s political views. “It seems unlikely to me that Lavik would take the risk of being stopped with a case full of drugs. Frøstrup’s death is more an indication that Van der Kerch’s fear of prison was justified.

“But this note here is Lavik’s work. That much I’m certain of,” she said, holding up a plastic envelope containing the undigested warning.

The writing was faint and half-obliterated, but no one had any difficulty reading the message.

“It looks like a poor joke,” the redheaded man ventured again. “Bits of paper like that belong in crime novels, not in real life.” He laughed. He was the only one who did.

“Could a person really be driven into a psychotic state by such a note?” asked Kaldbakken sceptically. In thirty years he’d never come across anything like it.

“Yes, it literally frightened him out of his wits,” said Hanne. “He wasn’t in very good condition before, of course; a note like this could have been the last straw. He’s better now, anyway, and back in a cell. Well, better doesn’t mean much, he’s sitting in a corner and refusing to say anything at all. Karen Borg can’t get anything out of him either, as far as I know. He ought to be in hospital, if you ask me. But they’ll throw him back at the prison service as soon as he can remember his name.”

They were all very well aware of that. Prison psychiatry was a perpetuum mobile, to and fro, to and fro. The prisoners never really got any better. Only worse.

“How about asking Lavik in for a chat?” Håkon proposed. “We could take a chance on his not refusing, and see how it holds up. It might be the most stupid thing we could do; but on the other hand, does anyone have a more feasible suggestion?”

“What about Peter Strup?” It was the superintendent’s first contribution to the discussion.

Hanne replied, “We’ve got nothing on him at the moment; in my notes he’s just a big question mark.”

“Don’t leave him aside forever,” the superintendent advised, closing the meeting. “Bring Lavik in, but don’t push him too far. We don’t want the whole legal profession on our backs. At least not yet. In the meantime, you”-he pointed at the young lad with the snub nose, and moved his finger along-“and you… and you… can do all the dirty work. Come with me and get your duties. There’s a lot to be checked. I want to know everything about our two lawyers. Eating habits and deodorants. Political affiliations and women. Look out especially for common factors.”

The superintendent departed, accompanied by the red-haired lad and the other two, roughly the same age, who’d had the sense to keep quiet during the meeting. It hadn’t made any difference-the youngest always got the routine chores.

Hanne Wilhelmsen and Håkon Sand were the last to leave the room. She noticed that he seemed very satisfied, despite the situation.

“Yes, I do feel good,” he responded to her friendly and surprised enquiry.

“In fact, I feel bloody good!”

Håkon Sand was begging to be allowed to attend. Detective Inspector Wilhelmsen was far from positively inclined. She hadn’t forgotten the blunder with Han van der Kerch.

“I know the man,” he argued. “My presence may put him more at ease. You’ve no idea what power competent lawyers think they have over inept ones. He may well get over-confident.”

She finally conceded, in exchange for an explicit promise from Håkon to keep his mouth shut. He could speak if she gave him a sign, but even then should restrict himself to empty phrases or insignificant comments, nothing about the actual substance of the case.

“Let’s do the good guy-bad guy routine,” she said in the end with a grin.

She would be the surly one, he could contribute encouraging slaps on the back.

“But don’t be too aggressive,” Håkon warned her. “There’s a risk he’ll just get up and walk out, and we’ve got no adequate reason for holding him.”

He came to the meeting with them voluntarily. No briefcase, but otherwise smartly and professionally dressed, in a suit and stylish shoes, too stylish for the slushy streets of Oslo. His trouser legs were wet, and the light brown leather of his shoes had a dark band along the sides, which would probably mean a troublesome autumn cold in store for him. The shoulders of his tweed coat were also wet, and Håkon glimpsed the exclusive label on the lining as Lavik took it off and gave it a shake before turning in search of a hook or coat hanger. He found neither, so draped it over the back of his chair. He was relaxed and cooperative, showing no sign of apprehension.

“I must say, I’m rather intrigued,” he said with a smile, sweeping his hair back from his brow. It flopped forward again immediately. “Am I suspected of something?” he asked, smiling even more broadly.

Hanne reassured him: “Not at the moment.”

Håkon thought she was taking a risk. But with the lesson of experience fresh in his mind, he said nothing. Neither he nor Hanne had anything to write with or on. They both knew that the flow of speech could easily dry up at the sight of a tape recorder or writing implements.

“We’re pursuing various lines of enquiry concerning one or two cases we’re having trouble with,” she admitted. “We have a feeling that you might have something to contribute. Just a few questions. You’re free to leave whenever you like.”

It was scarcely necessary to tell him.

“I’m fully aware of that,” he said, good-naturedly, though they could discern a grittier undertone. “I’ll stay till I feel like going. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Håkon, hoping he was within his remit. He wanted to say something, if only to mitigate his sense of being superfluous. This it failed to do.

“Did you know Hans E. Olsen? The lawyer who was murdered recently?”

Hanne went straight to the point, but Lavik had obviously anticipated this.

“No, I can’t say I did,” he replied calmly. Not too fast, nor too falteringly. “I didn’t know him, though of course I’ve spoken to him on occasion. We work in the same field-as criminal defence lawyers, I mean. I must have bumped into him in the law courts a few times too, and probably at meetings of the Defence Lawyers’ Association. But as I say, I didn’t really know him.”

“What theories do you have about the murder?”

“The murder of Hansy Olsen?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what theories…”

The hesitation was natural, he sounded reflective, as if he was trying to be helpful, like any innocent person making a statement to the police.

“To be honest, I haven’t thought very much about it at all! It struck me it might be dissatisfied clients, which is the explanation that’s going around in the profession, if I can put it like that.”

“What about Jacob Frøstrup?”

Hanne and Håkon agreed later that they were almost sure they saw a flicker of uncertainty in the lawyer’s manner when his unfortunate client was referred to. But since they had no tangible evidence for their impression they had to concede it was probably more a projection of hope than sound judgement.

“It was a dreadful shame about Jacob. He’d had a devil of a time from the moment he was born. He’d been a client of mine for many years, but he’d never been arrested for anything particularly big. I don’t understand why he should get involved in something like this now. He didn’t have long to go; he’d had AIDS for more than three years, I believe.”

He’d been staring out of the window as he spoke. That was the only perceptible change since the beginning of the conversation. Apparently conscious of this, he turned to face his interviewers again.

“I heard that he died the same day I visited him. Very upsetting. He certainly seemed terribly depressed. He talked about taking his own life, didn’t want to go on living, what with the pain, the shame, and now this charge on top of everything else. I tried to cheer him up a bit, and told him not to give in. But I have to say that the news of his death didn’t take me entirely by surprise.”

Lavik shook his head slowly in sorrow. He flicked at his shoulders as if to remove nonexistent dandruff; his hair was thick and lustrous and his scalp healthier than Håkon could boast of. Håkon, feeling defensive, looked down at his own black jacket and quickly brushed off the white flakes that stood out so embarrassingly against the dark background. The lawyer gave him a sympathetic and extremely condescending smile.

“Did he say anything about why he had such a large supply of drugs?”

“Frankly,” said Lavik reproachfully, “even if he is dead, I find it highly irregular to be sitting here repeating to the police what he told me.”

The two officers accepted his position in silence.

Hanne gathered her thoughts before playing her final card. She ran her fingers over the shaved area by her temple, a habit she’d developed over the last few days. It was so quiet in the room that she fancied that the others would be able to hear the rasping sound it made.

“Why did you meet a man in Grünerløkka at three o’clock last Friday night?”

Her tone was incisive, as if she were trying to make it sound more dramatic than it actually was. But he was ready for her.

“Oh that, that was a client. He’s in deep trouble, and wanted immediate help. The police aren’t involved yet, but he’s afraid they will be. I just had to give him some advice.”

Lavik smiled reassuringly, as if it wasn’t unusual for him to drag himself out of bed in the middle of the night to rendezvous with clients in the city’s less respectable districts. All in a day’s work, his expression almost seemed to say. All in a night’s work.

Hanne leant towards him and rapped the fingers of her left hand on the desk.

“And you expect me to believe that,” she said in a low voice. “You expect me to believe that?”

“It doesn’t matter to me what you believe,” said Lavik, smiling again. “What matters is that I’m telling the truth. If you think otherwise, you’ll have to try and prove it.”

“That’s exactly what I intend to do,” Hanne replied. “You can go. For now.”

Lavik put his coat on, thanked them, and said good-bye amicably, closing the door carefully and politely behind him.

“You had a lot to say,” said Hanne in some annoyance to her colleague. “Not much point in having you here.”

Her head injury had made her more irascible. Håkon ignored it. Her mood was simply the result of frustration at Lavik’s excellent parrying of her questions. He just grinned.

“Better to say too little than too much,” he retorted in his own defence. “Anyway, we know one thing now. The owner of the boot must have spoken to Lavik after the episode on Friday night. He was well prepared. Why didn’t you say anything about the piece of paper, by the way?”

“I want to keep that in reserve,” she said pensively. “I’m going home to lie down now. I’ve got a headache.”

“They don’t know anything!”

Lavik was intensely pleased with himself, and even through the distortion of the telephone line the older man could hear his exultation. He’d been worried about his younger colleague, who’d looked as if he might be on the verge of a breakdown at their last meeting in Maridalen. A confrontation with the police could have had catastrophic repercussions. But Lavik was utterly sure of himself. The police knew nothing. A shaven female and a dumbo of an old student contemporary of his-they’d just seemed puzzled, with no cards up their sleeves. Of course the events of Friday night were rather unfortunate, but they’d bought his explanation, he was certain of that. Lavik was absolutely delighted.

“I swear they know nothing at all,” he repeated. “And with Frøstrup dead, Van der Kerch round the bend, and the police completely clueless, we’re in the clear!”

“You’re forgetting one factor,” said the other man. “You’re forgetting Karen Borg. We don’t know what she knows, but it’s almost definitely something. The police think so anyway. If you’re right that they’ve got no leads, it means that she still hasn’t talked. We don’t know how long that situation will last.”

Lavik didn’t have much to say to this, and his jubilation abated somewhat.

“They may be wrong,” he said, more meekly. “The police can get things wrong. She may not know anything at all. She and Sand used to be as thick as thieves when we were all students together. I bet she would have told him if she’d had anything to tell. In fact, I’m damned sure she would.”

He was sounding more confident again, but the older man could not be persuaded.

“Karen Borg is a problem,” he stated emphatically. “She is and will remain a problem.”

There were a few seconds’ silence before the older man brought the conversation to a close.

“Don’t ring me again. Not from a phone box, nor from a mobile. Don’t ever ring. Use the normal method. I’ll check every other day.”

He slammed down the receiver. Lavik jumped at the other end as the noise shot through his ear. His ulcer gave a stab. He took out a packet of antacid powder from his inside pocket, bit off the end, and sucked in the contents. It left a white residue on his lips that would stay there for the rest of the day, but in just a few seconds he felt better. He looked carefully both ways as he came out of the phone booth. His euphoria had evaporated, and belching intermittently he made his way back to his office.