The Blind Goddess

FRIDAY 27 NOVEMBER

It was no use trying to get reimbursement for the trip. A hundred and forty miles in a wretched official car with no radio or heater was so unenticing that she had decided to take her own. A mileage claim would have to go through endless administrative channels and would probably end up with a negative result.

Tina Turner was singing, rather too loudly, “We don’t need another hero.” That was fine: she didn’t feel particularly heroic. The case was at a standstill. The Court Appeals Committee had rubber-stamped the release of Roger, and reduced Lavik’s time in custody to a single week. Their initial elation on hearing that the Appeals Committee were also of the opinion that there was reasonable cause to suspect Lavik of felony evaporated within a few hours. Pessimism had soon wiped the grins off their faces and dampened their spirits again. From that point of view it was wonderful to get away for a day. A hungry man is an angry man, and in the department they were all feeling starved of progress and taking it out on their colleagues. The Monday deadline loomed like a brick wall in front of them, and no one felt strong enough to surmount it. At the morning meeting, which Hanne had attended before setting off, it had only been Kaldbakken and Håkon who had evinced any faith at all in their still having a chance. As far as Kaldbakken was concerned the feeling was probably genuine; he was not one to give up until the whistle had blown. Håkon’s touch of bravado was more likely playing to the gallery, she thought. His face was lined and his eyes red from lack of sleep, and he might have lost some weight. That aspect at least was a distinct improvement.

In all there were fourteen investigators on the case now, five of them from the drugs squad. Even if they’d had a hundred, the clock would be ticking just as inexorably towards Monday, the cruelly short time the three old fogies on the Appeals Committee had foisted on them. The decision had been a harsh one. If the police couldn’t come up with more than they’d mustered so far, Lavik would be a free man again. Lab reports, postmortem reports, lists of foreign trips, an old boot, unintelligible codes, analyses of Frøstrup’s drugs-everything lay piled up in the incident room like scraps of a reality with a pattern they recognised but couldn’t assemble in a way that would convince anyone else. A graphological analysis of Van der Kerch’s fateful death threat hadn’t elicited any clear answers either. They had a few notes from Lavik’s office as a basis for comparison, and a piece of paper on which they had made him write the same message. He had provided the sample without protest, pale but apparently uncomprehending. The graphologist had been noncommittal. He thought there might be a few similarities here and there, but had ultimately concluded that no definite resemblance could be established. At the same time he stressed that it didn’t preclude the possibility that it was Lavik who had penned the ominous note. He might have been playing safe by disguising his handwriting. A hook at the top of the T and a quaint curl on the U could be an indication of that. But as evidence, it was of no value at all.

She left the main trunk road at Sandefjord. The little holiday town looked less than appealing in the November mist. It was so quiet it seemed to be hibernating, with only a few hardy souls in winter clothes bracing themselves against the wind and rain gusting in almost horizontally from the sea. The gale was so strong that she had to grip the steering wheel extra tight several times as the squalls buffeted the car and threatened to blow it into the ditch.

A quarter of an hour later, on a winding, vertiginous country road, she saw the little flag. It was flapping ardently in red, white, and blue as if in stubborn homage to its native land, against a tree trunk apparently impervious to its agitation. That was no doubt one way to mark a forest track, but somehow she felt it was almost a desecration of the national flag to expose it like that to the forces of nature, so she stopped off to take it with her into the warm.

She had no difficulty finding her way. There was an inviting glow from the windows, in welcoming contrast to the desolate shuttered cottages nearby.

She hardly recognised her. Karen Borg was dressed in a shabby old tracksuit which made Hanne smile when she saw it. It was blue, with white shoulder inserts that met in a vee on the chest. She’d had one very similar herself as a child; it had served as playsuit, tracksuit, and even pyjamas before it finally wore out and proved impossible to replace.

On her feet Karen had a pair of threadbare woollen slippers with holes in both heels. Her hair was uncombed and she wore no makeup. The smart, well-dressed lawyer had gone to ground, and Hanne had to stop herself scanning the room in search of her.

“Sorry about my clothes,” said Karen with a smile, “but part of the freedom of being here is looking like this.”

Hanne was offered coffee, but declined. A glass of fruit juice would be nice, though. They sat for half an hour just chatting, then Hanne was shown round the cottage and duly expressed her admiration of it. She herself had never had any links with a place in the country; her parents had preferred to holiday abroad. The other children in the street had been envious, but she would much rather have had a couple of months in the country with a grandmother instead. She only had one grandmother, anyway, an alcoholic failed actress who lived in Copenhagen.

Finally they sat down at the kitchen table. Hanne took out the portable typewriter from its case and prepared to take the statement. They spent four hours on it. In the first three pages Karen described her client’s mental state, his relationship to his lawyer, and her own interpretation of what he would really have wished. Then followed a five-page account which was in outline the same as her first one. The papers were neatly signed in the bottom corner of each page and at the foot of the last.

It was well into the afternoon, and Hanne glanced at her watch before hesitantly accepting the offer of a meal. She was ravenous, and calculated that she would have time to eat and be back in town before eight o’clock.

The food wasn’t very sophisticated: canned reindeer-meatballs in gravy with potatoes and a cucumber salad. The cucumber didn’t go with it, Hanne thought to herself, but it filled her up.

Karen put on an enormous yellow raincoat and high green rubber boots to accompany Hanne to the car. They talked about the surroundings for a moment before Karen impulsively gave Hanne a hug and wished her good luck. Hanne grinned and in return wished her an enjoyable holiday.

She started the car, put on the heater and Bruce Springsteen at full blast, and bumped off down the rough track. Karen stood and waved, and Hanne could see the yellow figure getting steadily smaller in the mirror, until it disappeared out of sight as she rounded a bend. That, she thought to herself with a broad smile, that is Håkon’s great love. She felt certain of it.