The Blind Goddess

FRIDAY 6 NOVEMBER

She had developed a routine of calling in on her unfortunate client every Friday afternoon. He said nothing, but it seemed as if in some strange way he valued these meetings. Huddled up and thin as a rake, he still had the empty look in his eyes, but she thought she could detect a trace of a smile each time he saw her. Even though Han van der Kerch had so tenaciously resisted being transferred there while he had the mental capacity to say what he wanted, he was now in Oslo Prison. Karen Borg had permission to visit him in his cell, since it was impractical to bring him out to an interview room. It was lighter here, and the warders seemed both fair-minded and considerate, insofar as their workloads allowed. The door was secured behind her during every visit, and she felt an odd comfort from being locked in, the same feeling that had driven her into the cupboard under the stairs at home in Bergen as a child whenever the world seemed against her. The prison visits had become a time for contemplation. She sat there with the silent man in front of her, and listened to the orderly in the corridor clattering by with his trolley, the echo of obscene shouts and laughter, and the heavy jangling of keys whenever a warder passed the door.

He didn’t look quite so pale today. He kept his eyes on her all the way to the bed as she sat down beside him. When she took his hand, she felt him squeeze hers in response; almost imperceptibly, but she was sure she had discerned a slight pressure. With hesitant optimism she bent forward and brushed his hair away from his forehead. It was growing too long, and immediately fell back again. She continued stroking his brow, running her fingers through his hair. It was evidently soothing, because he closed his eyes and leant towards her. They remained sitting like that for several minutes.

“Roger,” he murmured, his voice a husky croak after not having been used for such a length of time.

Karen Borg didn’t react. She went on caressing him and asked no questions.

“Roger,” said the Dutchman again, a little louder now. “The guy at Sagene with the second-hand cars. Roger.”

Then he fell asleep. His breathing became more regular, and his weight against her body increased. She rose carefully to her feet, moved him into a more comfortable position, and couldn’t help kissing him gently on the forehead.

“Roger at Sagene,” she repeated to herself, knocking softly on the door to be let out.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

Håkon Sand took hold of the thick file and banged it down on the desk. It slipped out of his grasp and papers spilled out all over the floor.

“Damn!” he exclaimed, getting down to sort out the mess. Hanne joined in on all fours to help him. They stayed there on their knees looking at each other.

“I’ll never get used to it. Never!”

He spoke with sudden vehemence.

“What?”

“That so often we know there’s something crooked, that someone has committed a crime, we even know who’s done it and what they’ve done, we know so bloody much. But can we prove it? No, we sit here like eunuchs, impotent, with all the odds stacked against us. We know, we’re certain, but if we risked going to court with what we know, it would all be dissected by some defence lawyer devising a rational explanation for each single piece of evidence we produce. They pick and pick, and finally everything we knew becomes a mush of uncertain facts, quite enough to put it all in reasonable doubt. Hey presto, the bird has flown and the rule of law has been upheld. Whose? Not mine, anyway. The rule of law has just bloody turned into a useful tool for the guilty. It means putting as few as possible in prison. That’s not rule of law! What about all the people who’re murdered, raped, suffered child abuse, or are robbed or burgled? Hell, I should have been a sheriff in the Wild West. They took direct action when they knew who’d done it. Tied a rope to the nearest tree and hanged the criminal by the neck. A sheriff’s star and a Stetson would have been a bloody sight better rule of law than seven years at law school and ten stupid jury members. The Inquisition. Now that’s what I call a court. Judge, prosecutor, and defence counsel all rolled into one. There really was some action then, not a load of waffle about the rule of law for crooks and gangsters.”

“You don’t mean all that, Håkon,” Hanne said soothingly, retrieving the last pieces of paper. She’d had to lie almost flat to reach an interview transcript that had lodged itself under the mobile shelving.

“You don’t mean it,” she repeated, half muffled under the desk.

“Well, not entirely. But almost.”

They were both feeling frustrated. It was late on a Friday afternoon. There had been too many long days, working into the evenings, which she coped with better than he did. They sat and sorted the papers into their original sequence.

“Brief me,” he demanded when they’d finished.

It didn’t take long. He knew how little physical evidence they had, and their wider tactical investigations had ground to a halt. Forty-two witnesses had been questioned in all. Not one of them could throw any light on the case, not even a vague lead to follow up.

“Has anything come of the watch being kept on Lavik?” said Håkon, putting the papers to one side. He took a warm bottle of beer out of a plastic supermarket bag and knocked the cap off against the edge of the desk. The wood splintered slightly and he brushed a sliver of glass off the neck.

“It’s the weekend,” he said in excuse, raising the bottle to his lips. The foaming beer threatened to splash down his clothes, so he leant forward and shifted his legs. He wiped his mouth and waited for an answer.

“No, with the resources we’ve got it’s impossible to mount twenty-four-hour surveillance on the guy. It’s as chancy as a game of roulette. No point in following him at all if it’s not effective. It just makes it more infuriating.”

“What about the business side of his activities?”

“It would be an enormous task to get to the bottom of it. He’s had some hotel projects in the Far East. Bangkok. Which isn’t that far from the heroin markets. But the investors he’s been working for are sound enough, and the hotels are already built. So there’s nothing suspicious about the business itself. If you could wangle the expenses, I’d be delighted to go to Thailand and investigate further.”

She pulled a face that clearly indicated what she thought of the likelihood of such budgetary extravagance. It had turned dark outside, and the weariness they both felt, together with the faint aroma of beer, made the little office seem almost cosy.

“Are we on duty now?”

He knew what she meant, shook his head with a smile, and handed her a beer, opening it in the same way as the first. Once again the desk suffered, but this time the neck of the bottle remained intact. She took it from him, then set it down and disappeared without a word. She was back in a couple of minutes and struggling to make two candles stay upright on his desk. They did so eventually, having dripped wax everywhere, each tilted at a slightly different angle. She switched off the main ceiling light and Håkon turned the desk lamp to the wall so that it cast a diffused glow into the room.

“If anyone comes now, the rumours will start flying.”

He nodded in agreement.

“But it could only be to my advantage,” he said facetiously.

They clinked their bottles together, a bit too forcefully.

“This was a good idea. Is it allowed?”

“I’ll do what I like in my own office at half past six on a Friday evening. They’re not paying me for being here, and I’m taking the train home. And there’s nobody waiting for me there, either. What about you, is there anyone waiting for you?”

He intended it as an amicable enquiry, just an impulsive and well-meaning attempt to exploit the unusual atmosphere. But she clearly interpreted it as overstepping the mark, stiffened in her chair, and put her bottle of beer down. He could have kicked himself as he noticed her change of attitude.

“How about Peter Strup?” he said after an uneasy silence.

“We haven’t seen much of him. Perhaps we should. But I just don’t know what there is we can put our finger on. I’m more interested in what Karen Borg must know.”

Even in the flickering candlelight she could see him flush. He took off his glasses to distract her attention, and wiped the lenses on his cotton sweater.

“She knows more than she’s saying, that much is obvious. Presumably about criminal offences other than the one we’ve got Van der Kerch for now. We’re holding him for murder. The forensic tests are complete, and enough to convict him. But if our theories are right, he may also be up to his neck in drug trafficking. It wouldn’t exactly be favourable to his sentence to have that on top of a murder. She’s got a duty of confidentiality, and she’s a woman of principle, believe me. I know her. Or used to, anyway.”

“Well, at least it doesn’t look as if that memo of mine has caused any harm to come to her,” said Hanne. “She hasn’t been aware of anything unusual or worrying?”

“No.”

He wasn’t as confident as he sounded. He hadn’t spoken to her for a fortnight. Not that he hadn’t tried. Even though she’d kissed him to seal a promise that he wouldn’t phone her, he’d broken it after just a couple of days, after he’d fallen down a loft ladder very early the Saturday before last. He’d tried her office number on the Monday morning, but had been turned away by a friendly-sounding woman on the switchboard. Karen Borg was busy, but yes, she would pass on the message that he’d phoned. She’d passed on four more messages since then, but none had elicited a response. He’d accepted it with his old feeling of resignation, but even so felt bitter disappointment whenever the telephone rang and he leapt to answer it, only to find that she must be sticking to her resolution not to speak to him for at least a month. There were still two weeks to go.

“No,” he reiterated, “she hasn’t noticed anything unusual.”

The candles had made big circles of wax on the desk. Håkon put his hand protectively but unnecessarily behind the flames and blew them out, then stood up and turned on the ceiling light.

“So much for the Vorspiel,” he said with artificial cheerfulness. “Now off to our respective weekends!”