The Blind Goddess

FRIDAY 13 NOVEMBER

Billy T. had called the place an apartment. The term was quite unmerited. The block could be categorically described as being in one of the worst locations in Oslo. Built in the 1890s, long before anyone could have imagined the monstrous volume of traffic that would later eat into its surroundings, it was wedged between Mosseveien and Ekebergveien, looking like something spat out as inedible, but still standing there, clinging on in a state totally unacceptable to all except the local inhabitants of park benches, for whom the alternative would have been a container on the quayside.

It smelt stuffy and oppressive. There was a bucket just inside the door containing what looked like the remains of ancient vomit and something else undefinable but presumably organic. Hanne Wilhelmsen ordered the snub-nosed redheaded constable to the kitchen window. He shoved and heaved at it, but it wouldn’t budge.

“This window hasn’t been opened for years,” he panted, getting a little nod by way of response. He took that as permission to abandon the attempt.

“What a dump this place is,” he exclaimed, fearful of moving lest he come into contact with lethal and unknown germs. Too young, thought Hanne, who had seen all too many of these dreadful holes that somebody called home. A pair of rubber gloves flew through the air.

“Here, put these on,” she said, pulling some on herself.

The kitchen was immediately to the left after the narrow entrance hall. There were dirty dishes everywhere, weeks old. A couple of black rubbish bags stood on the floor and Hanne had to use the toe of her shoe to clear enough space to get by. The stench wafted out into the room, making the constable retch.

“Sorry,” he choked, “excuse me.”

He rushed past her and made for the door. She grinned and went into the living room.

It was hardly more than fifteen square metres, and part of it was taken up by a makeshift construction serving as a sleeping alcove. There was a post right in the centre from floor to ceiling, and a curtain of cheap brown cloth drawn back against one wall and attached with nails to a bar on the ceiling, itself erected so crookedly that it might have been the work of a drunk.

Behind the curtain was a homemade bed, as broad as it was long. The bedclothes couldn’t have been washed for years. She lifted the quilt with her gloved fingers. The sheet was like a paint palette, shades of brown interspersed with red splodges. A half bottle of aquavit lay at the foot. Empty.

There was also a narrow shelf behind the curtain. Astonishingly enough it had books on it, but closer inspection revealed them to be Danish pornographic paperbacks. Part of the shelf was taken up by empty or half-empty bottles, a few souvenirs from Sweden, and a small, rather indistinct photograph of a boy of about ten. She picked it up and studied it carefully. Did Jacob Frøstrup have a son? Was there a little boy somewhere who would have been fond of the wretched heroin addict who’d ended his days in Oslo Prison from an overdose? Absentmindedly wiping the dust off the glass with her sleeve, she made a bit more space for it and put it back.

The only window in the room was between the alcove and the living area. And it opened. In the courtyard, three floors below, she could see the young constable leaning on one arm against the wall with his face pointing towards the ground. He still had his rubber gloves on.

“How’s it going?”

She didn’t get an answer, but he straightened up and gave her a reassuring wave. A few moments later he was standing in the doorway again. Pale, but recovered.

“I’ve had to go through this five or six times,” she said, with a consoling smile. “You get used to it. Breathe through your mouth and think of raspberries. It helps.”

It didn’t take more than fifteen minutes to search the flat. They turned up nothing of interest. Hanne wasn’t surprised: Billy T. had told her he’d searched thoroughly and there was nothing there. Well, nothing visible, anyway. They would have to start looking for the invisible. She sent the young man out to the car for tools. He seemed grateful for another opportunity to get some fresh air. He was back in two or three minutes.

“Bere shall be start?”

“You don’t need to breathe through your mouth when you talk; you don’t breathe in as you speak, do you?”

“I’ll be sick if I do’t ho’d by dose all de time, ebed bed I talk.”

They began with the panel that seemed newest, the wall behind the sofa. The young lad got a good grip on it with the jemmy and worked up a bit of a sweat, but it actually came off fairly easily. Nothing there. He hammered it in place again and pushed the sofa back.

“The carpet,” Hanne ordered, bending down in one corner. It might once have been green, but now it was encrusted with dirt and grime. The two police officers had to avert their faces from all the flying dust. But they managed to roll it up right across to the sofa. The floorboards underneath looked positively antique, and could probably be nicely restored with a good sanding down.

“Dook, dat one’s dot so b’ack,” exclaimed the constable, pointing to a short floorboard projecting about twenty centimetres from the wall.

He was right. The board was noticeably lighter in colour than the rest of the filthy floor. And the solid muck between the boards that gave the floor a level surface was completely missing in the gaps here. Hanne took out a screwdriver and began to prise the board loose. She lifted it up carefully to reveal a small compartment, entirely filled with something packed in a plastic bag. The redheaded constable got so excited that he forgot to breathe through his mouth.

“It’s money, Inspector Wilhelmsen, look, it’s money! And what a hell of a lot!”

Hanne stood up, took off her soiled gloves, threw them in a corner, and put on a new pair. Then she squatted down and fished out the package. He was right. It was money. A fat bundle of thousand-kroner notes. At a quick guess she estimated it to be at least fifty thousand kroner. The constable had taken out a polythene bag from his inside pocket and held it open for her. It was just about big enough.

“Well done, Henriksen. You’ll make a good Sherlock Holmes.”

Hanne’s praise heartened the youngster, and in his delight at the prospect of getting out of the fetid place he cleared everything up himself and locked the door behind them, leaping down the stairs after his superior like a puppy with its tail wagging.