The Son

6

Simon had his mobile pressed to his ear and his feet on the desk while he rocked back on the chair. It was an act the troika had perfected to such an extent that when they had challenged each other, the winner was whoever could be bothered to balance the longest.

‘So the American doctor didn’t want to give you his opinion?’ he said in a low voice, partly because he saw no reason to involve other members of the Homicide Squad in his personal life, and partly because this was how he and his wife always spoke on the phone. Softly, intimately. As if they were in bed, holding each other.

‘Oh, he does,’ Else said. ‘But not yet. He wants to look at the test results and the scans first. I’ll know more tomorrow.’

‘OK. How are you feeling?’

‘Fine.’

‘How fine?’

She laughed. ‘Don’t worry so much, darling. I’ll see you at dinner.’

‘All right. Your sister, is she. .?’

‘Yes, she’s still here and she’ll give me a lift home. Now stop fussing and hang up, you’re at work!’

He ended the call reluctantly. Thought about his dream in which he gave her his sight.

‘Chief Inspector Kefas?’

He looked up. And up. The woman standing in front of his desk was tall. Very tall. And skinny. Legs as thin of those of a daddy-long-legs stuck out from under a smart skirt.

‘I’m Kari Adel. I’ve been told to assist you. I tried to find you at the crime scene, but you disappeared.’

And she was young. Very young. She looked more like an ambitious bank clerk than a police officer. Simon rocked the chair even further back. ‘What crime scene?’

‘Kuba.’

‘And how do you know it’s a crime scene?’

He saw her shift her weight. Look for a way out. But there wasn’t one.

‘Possible crime scene,’ she then said.

‘And who says I need help?’

She jerked her thumb behind her to indicate where the order had come from. ‘But I think I’m the one in need of help. I’m new here.’

‘Fresh out of training?’

‘Eighteen months with the Drug Squad.’

‘Fresh, then. And you’ve already made it to Homicide? Congratulations, Adel. You’re either really lucky, well connected or. .’ He leaned back horizontally in the chair and wiggled out a tin of snus from his jeans pocket.

‘A woman?’ she suggested.

‘I was going to say clever.’

She blushed and he could see the discomfort in her eyes.

‘Are you clever?’ Simon asked, pushing a piece of snus under his upper lip.

‘I came second in my year.’

‘And how long are you planning on staying with Homicide?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘If drugs didn’t appeal to you, why would murder?’

She shifted her weight again. Simon saw that he had been right. She was one of those people who would make a brief guest appearance before disappearing up the building to the higher floors and up the ranks. Clever. Probably leave the police force altogether. Like the smart buggers at the Serious Fraud Office had done. Taken all their skills with them and left Simon in the lurch. The police force wasn’t a place you stayed if you were bright, talented, ambitious and wanted a life.

‘I left the crime scene because there was nothing to be found there,’ Simon said. ‘So tell me, where would you start?’

‘I would talk to his next of kin,’ Kari Adel said, looking around for a chair. ‘Map his movements before he ended up in the river.’

Her accent suggested she was from the eastern part of west Oslo where people were terrified that the wrong accent might stigmatise them.

‘Good, Adel. And his next of kin-’

‘-is his wife. His soon-to-be ex-wife. She threw him out recently. I’ve spoken to her. He was staying at the Ila Centre for drug addicts. Is it OK if I sit down. .?’

Clever. Definitely clever.

‘You won’t need to now,’ Simon said, getting up. He estimated her to be at least fifteen centimetres taller than him. Even so, she had to take two steps to one of his. Tight skirt. That was all good, but he suspected she would soon be wearing something else. Crimes were solved in jeans.

‘You know you’re not allowed in here.’

Martha blocked the access to the Ila Centre’s front door as she looked at the two people. She thought she had seen the woman before. Her height and thinness made her hard to forget. Drug Squad? She had blonde, lifeless hair, wore hardly any make-up and had a slightly pained facial expression that made her look like the cowed daughter of a rich man.

The man was her direct opposite. Roughly 1.70 metres tall, somewhere in his sixties. Wrinkles in his face. But also laughter lines. Thinning grey hair above a pair of eyes in which she read ‘kind’, ‘humorous’ and ‘stubborn’. Reading people was something she did automatically when she held the obligatory introduction interview with new residents to establish what kind of behaviour and trouble the staff could expect. Sometimes she was wrong. But not often.

‘We don’t need to come inside,’ said the man who had introduced himself as Chief Inspector Kefas. ‘We’re from Homicide. It’s about Per Vollan. He lived here-’

‘Lived?’

‘Yes, he’s dead.’

Martha gasped. It was her initial reaction when she was told that yet another man had died. She wondered if it was to reassure herself that she was still alive. Surprise came next. Or rather, the fact that she wasn’t surprised. But Per hadn’t been a drug addict, he hadn’t sat in death’s waiting room with the rest of them. Or had he? And had she seen it, known it subconsciously? Was that why the usual gasp was followed by the equally routine mental reaction: of course. No, it wasn’t that. It was the other thing.

‘He was found in the Aker River.’ The man did the talking. The woman had TRAINEE written on her forehead.

‘Right,’ Martha said.

‘You don’t sound surprised?’

‘No. No, perhaps not. It’s always a shock, of course, but. .’

‘. . but it’s par for the course in our line of work, yes?’ The man gestured at the windows in the building next door. ‘I didn’t know Tranen had shut.’

‘It’s going to be an upmarket patisserie,’ Martha said, hugging herself as if she were cold. ‘For the latte-drinking yummy mummies.’

‘So they’ve arrived here, too. How about that.’ He nodded to one of the old-timers who shuffled past on trembling junkie knees and got a measured nod in return. ‘There are many familiar faces here. Vollan, however, was a prison chaplain. The post-mortem report isn’t ready yet, but we found no needle marks on him.’

‘He wasn’t staying here because he was using. He helped us out when we had trouble with ex-offenders who were living here. They trusted him. So when he had to move out of his home, we offered him temporary accommodation.’

‘We know. What I’m asking is why you’re not surprised he’s dead when you know he wasn’t using. His death could have been an accident.’

‘Was it?’

Simon looked at the tall, thin woman. She hesitated until he gave her a nod. Then she finally opened her mouth. ‘We haven’t found any signs of violence, but the area around the river is a notorious criminal hot spot.’

Martha noticed her accent and concluded a strict mother had corrected her daughter’s language at the dinner table. A mother who had told her she would never find a decent husband if she spoke like a shop girl.

The Chief Inspector tilted his head. ‘What do you think, Martha?’

She liked him. He looked like someone who cared.

‘I think he knew he was going to die.’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Why?’

‘Because he wrote me a letter.’

Martha walked around the table in the meeting room which lay opposite the reception area on the first floor. They had managed to retain the Gothic style and it was easily the most beautiful room in the building. Not that there was much competition. She poured a cup of coffee for the Chief Inspector who sat down while he read the letter that Per Vollan had left for her at reception. His partner perched on the edge of a chair next to him, texting on her mobile. She had politely declined Martha’s offer of coffee, tea and water as if she suspected even the tap water here to be contaminated with undesirable microbes. Kefas pushed the letter across to her. ‘It says here he leaves everything he owns to the hostel.’

His colleague sent her text message and cleared her throat. The Chief Inspector turned to her. ‘Yes, Adel?’

‘You’re not allowed to say a hostel any more; it’s called a residential centre.’

Kefas looked genuinely surprised. ‘Why?’

‘Because we have social workers and a sickbay here,’ Martha explained. ‘That makes it more than just a hostel. Of course the real reason is that the word “hostel” now has unfortunate connotations. Drinking, brawling and squalid living conditions. So they slap some paint on the rust by renaming it.’

‘But even so. .’ the Chief Inspector said. ‘Was Vollan really going to leave everything he owned to this place?’

Martha shrugged. ‘I doubt he had much to leave. Did you notice the date under his signature?’

‘He wrote the letter yesterday. And you think he did that because he knew he was going to die? Are you saying he killed himself?’

Martha thought about it. ‘I don’t know.’

The tall, thin woman cleared her throat again. ‘Marital breakdown is not, as far as I know, an uncommon reason for suicide in men over forty.’

Martha got the feeling that the quiet woman more than just knew it; she had the exact statistics at her fingertips.

‘Did he seem depressed?’ Simon asked.

‘More low than depressed, I’d say.’

‘It’s not uncommon for a suicidal person to kill themselves as they come out of their depression,’ the woman said and sounded as if she was reading from a book. The other two looked at her. ‘The depression itself is often characterised by apathy and it takes a certain amount of initiative to commit suicide.’ A beep indicated that she had received a text message.

Kefas turned to Martha. ‘A middle-aged man is thrown out by his wife and writes something that could be seen as a farewell note to you. So why isn’t it suicide?’

‘I didn’t say that it wasn’t.’

‘But?’

‘He seemed scared.’

‘Scared of what?’

Martha shrugged. She wondered if she was creating unnecessary trouble for herself.

‘Per was a man with a dark side. He was very open about it. He said he became a chaplain because he needed forgiveness more than most.’

‘You’re saying he had done things not everyone would forgive him for?’

‘Things that no one would forgive him for.’

‘I see. Are we talking about the type of sins where the clergy seems to be over-represented?’

Martha didn’t reply.

‘Is that why his wife threw him out?’

Martha hesitated. This man was sharper than the other police officers she had met. But could she trust him?

‘In my job you learn the art of forgiving the unforgivable, Chief Inspector. Of course it’s possible that Per ultimately couldn’t forgive himself and that’s why he chose this way out. But it’s also possible that-’

‘-someone, let’s say the father of a child who had been abused, wanted to avoid pressing charges that would also stigmatise the victim. And, besides, the someone couldn’t be sure that Per Vollan would be punished and, in any case, whatever sentence he got wouldn’t be enough. So the someone decided to be judge, jury and executioner.’

Martha nodded. ‘It’s only human if someone hurts your child, I guess. Haven’t you ever come across cases in your work where the law is inadequate?’

Simon Kefas shook his head. ‘If police officers gave in to that kind of temptation, the law would be pointless. And I actually believe in the rule of law. Justice must be blind. Do you suspect anyone in particular?’

‘No.’

‘Drug debt?’ Kari Adel asked.

Martha shook her head. ‘I would have known if he was using.’

‘I’m asking because I’ve just texted an officer from the Drug Squad about Per Vollan. And he replied. .’ She took her mobile out of her tight jacket pocket and there was a clunk when a marble came out with it, hit the floor and started rolling eastwards. ‘Seen him talking to one of Nestor’s dealers sometimes,’ she read out loud while she rose and started looking for the marble. ‘Seen him buy a wrap, but not pay.’ Kari Adel put the phone back in her pocket and caught the marble before it reached the wall.

‘And what do you make of that?’ Simon asked.

‘That this building slopes towards Alexander Kiellands Plass. Probably more blue clay and less granite on that side.’

Martha chuckled.

The tall, thin woman smiled briefly. ‘And that Vollan owed money to someone. A wrap of heroin costs three hundred kroner. And that’s not even a full wrap, that’s just 0.2 gram. Two bags a day-’

‘Not so fast,’ Simon interrupted her. ‘Junkies don’t get credit, do they?’

‘Not usually, no. Perhaps he was doing favours for someone and was paid in heroin.’

Martha threw up her hands. ‘He wasn’t using, I keep telling you! Half my job is knowing if people are clean, OK?’

‘You’re right, of course, Miss Lian,’ Simon said, rubbing his chin. ‘Perhaps the heroin wasn’t for him.’ He got up. ‘Anyway, we’ll have to wait and see what the medical examiner says.’

‘Good idea of yours to text the Drug Squad,’ Simon said as he drove them down Uelandsgate towards the city centre.

‘Thank you,’ Kari said.

‘Nice girl, that Martha Lian. Have you come across her before?’

‘No, but I wouldn’t have kicked her out of bed if I had.’

‘What?’

‘Sorry, bad joke. You meant if I knew her from my time with the Drug Squad. I do. She’s lovely and I’ve always wondered why she works at the Ila Centre.’

‘Because she’s pretty?’

‘It’s a well-known fact that good looks improve the career prospects of people with only average intelligence and ability. Working at the Ila Centre isn’t a springboard for anything as far as I can see.’

‘Perhaps she thinks it’s a worthwhile job.’

‘Worthwhile? Have you any idea what they pay-’

‘Worth doing. Police work doesn’t pay very well, either.’

‘True.’

‘But it’s a good place to start your career if you combine it with a law degree,’ Simon said. ‘When will you finish the second level?’

Again he detected a hint of reddening on Kari’s neck and knew he had touched a nerve.

‘Right,’ Simon said. ‘Nice to have the use of your services. I expect you’ll be my boss soon. Or you’ll get a job in the private sector where salaries are on average one and a half times more for people with skills like ours.’

‘Perhaps,’ Kari said. ‘But I don’t think I’ll ever be your boss. You’re due to retire next March.’

Simon didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He turned left at Gronlandsleiret, towards Police HQ.

‘One and a half times your salary would come in very handy if you’re doing up a property. Flat or house?’

‘House,’ Kari said. ‘We plan on having two children and we need more room. Given the cost per square metre in central Oslo, you have to buy a place that needs doing up unless you inherit money. Both mine and Sam’s parents are alive and well; and besides, Sam and I agree that subsidy corrupts.’

‘Corrupts? Really?’

‘Yes.’

Simon looked at the Pakistani shop owners who had left their overheated shops and come out into the street where they chatted, smoked cigarettes and watched the traffic.

‘Aren’t you curious how I knew that you’re house-hunting?’

‘The marble,’ Kari said. ‘Adults with no children only have one of those in their pocket if they’re viewing old houses or flats and want to check if the floors are sloping due to subsidence so badly they’ll have to be taken up.’

She really was clever.

‘Just bear this in mind,’ Simon said. ‘If a house has been standing for 120 years, the floors should be a little crooked.’

‘Perhaps so,’ Kari said, leaning forward to look at the spire of Gronland Church. ‘But I like it when the floors are level.’

Simon started to laugh. He might grow to like this girl. He liked the floors level, too.