Fear Not Part 43

'It doesn't say anything about her here,' he said without looking up from the report, which was ill.u.s.trated with pictures of Marianne Kleive and Bishop Lysgaard. 'It doesn't mention Johanne at all.'

He exhaled and dropped the paper on the floor.

'I spoke to a ... Silje Srensen,' said Sigmund. 'She's with the Oslo police. She rang me at six o'clock. She'd tried to get hold of you, but with no luck.'

'Has everybody gone mad or what? I'm staying in a hotel for f.u.c.k's sake! This ...'

He reached the white, old-fas.h.i.+oned telephone in three strides. He picked up the receiver in one hand and the body of the phone in the other, and held it five centimetres from Sigmund's face.

'This is a telephone!'

'Calm down, Adam. Take it easy.'

'Take it easy! I don't want to f.u.c.king take it easy! I want to know what all this c.r.a.p is about, and why-?'

'Well, listen to me then! Listen to what I have to say instead of rus.h.i.+ng around like a lunatic. We'll get thrown out in a minute if you don't calm down.'

Adam took a deep breath, nodded and sat down heavily on the bed.

'Start talking,' he mumbled.

Sigmund clapped his hands almost silently.

'That's better. I don't know a great deal. Silje Srensen was just as furious as you about the fact that VG has got hold of this, and they've turned the whole of Grnlandsleiret upside down to try and find the leak. She did tell me that this does, in fact, involve six murders. Some artist who died around Christmas, apparently from a heroin overdose, turns out to have minute traces of curacit in his blood. We were lucky. Curacit is broken down incredibly fast, and the guy had already been cremated. However, because it was routinely regarded as a suspicious death, they had some of his frozen blood in the lab, and the curacit-'

'What?'

'Curacit. You know, it's a poison, a muscle relaxant that paralyzes the breathing-'

'I know perfectly well what curacit is! What I'm wondering is-'

'Just hang on, Adam. Listen to me. So this artist had been murdered. And he's also ... he was also gay. And then there was a young man who was killed in Sofienberg Park some time in November, and we all know what people get up to in Sofienberg Park at night, don't we?'

Without giving Adam time to respond, he went on.

'Then there was a woman everybody thought had died in an RTA, but on closer inspection it turned out that someone had tampered with the brakes of her car. And I'm sure you can guess what her preferences in the bedroom were!'

Adam merely stared at him with a resigned expression.

'That Silje Srensen really is paranoid,' Sigmund continued, unabashed. 'She called me from home. On her son's mobile. But whether those journalists have reliable sources or are bugging the police or whatever it is they might be doing, VG has named only three of the victims. The Bishop, Marianne Kleive and the kid in the water. I can never remember those Hottentot names.'

Adam felt so floored by the whole thing that he didn't even protest at this expression.

'Anyway, Srensen told me Johanne had come to see her with some questions and a theory relating to her research. That stuff she's doing on hate crime. Something that ... I don't know, actually. Anyway, her theory fitted in so well with the material Oslo are sitting on that they've now put together a team to work on a major investigation, with the Oslo police and NCIS collaborating. That's where we're going. And that's more or less all I know. Ss.h.!.+ News!'

'Ssh?' Adam repeatedly sourly. 'I haven't said a word!'

Sigmund turned up the volume.

TV2 led with the newspaper story.

They had obviously been short of time, because the report was ill.u.s.trated with archive clips. They hadn't even managed to find winter pictures; police HQ was bathed in suns.h.i.+ne, with people dressed in summer clothing going in and out of the main entrance. The reporter had nothing more to add to what had been in the newspaper.

'Ss.h.!.+' Sigmund said again as the camera showed a slim woman in uniform with gold stripes and two stars on her shoulders.

'We are unable to comment on the case at this stage,' she said firmly, turning away from the microphone.

It followed her.

'Can you confirm the information in today's edition of VG?' asked the journalist.

'As I said, I have no further comment on this matter.'

'When will you be informing the public about this story, which seems to be particularly serious and far-reaching?'

'As I said, I am unable to comment on-'

Sigmund switched off.

'Let's go,' he said, getting to his feet. 'I'm starting to get really curious about this whole thing. I'll fetch my bags and see you downstairs in two minutes. What's that, by the way?'

He nodded in the direction of the bedside table, where Adam had placed the photograph of the unknown woman.

'That's the photo I told you about,' he said.

'What photo?'

'The one that was in Eva Karin's room. We need to call in at the police station with it. I want to know who she is. They're probably best placed to find out.'

'How did you find it?' Sigmund asked.

'Long story.'

'Spare me the details. See you downstairs?'

Adam nodded. He remained sitting on the bed. He was finding it hard to digest everything he had heard in the past half-hour, and felt slightly dizzy. He couldn't remember ever being caught so off-guard. When he did eventually stand up, exhaustion forced him to take a step to one side to keep his balance.

The fact that VG knew significantly more than he did in a case he was investigating was a blow. Far worse was the knowledge that Johanne had gone to the Oslo police with information he didn't even know about.

Adam picked up his small suitcase and his coat and headed for the door. As it closed behind him he realized that the gnawing pain in his stomach wasn't due to hunger.

He felt humiliated by his own wife, and he couldn't even manage to feel angry any longer. He just had a pain in his stomach.

Just like when he was a little boy, ashamed of something he'd done.

Kristen Faber's secretary wasn't in the least ashamed of the fact that she occasionally made copies of doc.u.ments to take home. Her husband loved to hear about the cases she came into contact with, and sometimes they had great fun with a police interrogation where the suspect tried to wriggle out of things even when it was obvious he or she was guilty, or with a hopeless performance in court by some poor sod who couldn't afford a brief. She never kept the doc.u.ments for very long. They ended up on the fire as soon as the case was no longer exciting.

As far as the will from the big oak cupboard in the archive was concerned, it wasn't exactly for fun that she made a copy and popped it in her bag. On the contrary, her husband had grown very serious when she told him about the case during dinner the previous evening. He didn't know anything about poor Niclas Winter, but he had heard of the testator. He was very keen to take a look at the will, so this morning she had made two copies. Only one was placed in Kristen Faber's archive.

It couldn't do any harm if her husband took a little look.

She fastened the accompanying letter to the original will and slipped them both in an envelope. It had taken less than two minutes to establish that the inheritance fund was the right destination for such a doc.u.ment, and to make sure nothing went wrong she was going to take it to the post office and send it by registered mail. Best to be on the safe side in such matters. The court had once claimed that Faber had been late lodging an appeal, even though she was 100 per cent certain she had posted the papers in time.

Not that the will was as important as an appeal, but the dressing-down from her boss on that occasion had made an impression. There was going to be no doubt that this letter had been posted. She pulled on her coat, put the envelope in her bag and hummed a little tune as she locked the door and set off in the bright morning suns.h.i.+ne.

Sense and Sensibility.

FOLDER FOUND this morning. Had been borrowed by Special Needs teacher and put back in the wrong place. Sorry to have bothered you Live Smith Johanne read the text twice, not knowing whether to feel relieved or angry. On the one hand it was obviously a good thing that Kristiane's file had been found. On the other, it frightened her that the school had such inadequate routines when it came to handling sensitive material. As she locked the door of her office behind her it struck her that she ought to be delighted. If Kristiane's file really had simply been put in the wrong place, it ought to ease her anxiety that someone was watching her daughter.

She pushed her mobile into her bag and crept out of the building without being seen. It was only two o'clock and she couldn't concentrate on anything but trying to get hold of Adam. She still hadn't heard a thing, and he wasn't answering his phone.

She had lost count of how many times she had tried to call him.

Kristen Faber's secretary decided to ring through an order just to be on the safe side. Laksen's Delicatessen in Bjlsen was the best place for calves' liver, and her husband set great store by a good liver ca.s.serole for Sunday lunch. It had to be calves' liver, otherwise the flavour was too strong. They might still have dried stockfish, too, even if the season was over. Fish on Sat.u.r.day and beef on Sunday, she thought contentedly. The phone rang just as she was about to pick it up. She grabbed it quickly and reeled off the usual formula: 'Mr Faber's office, how may I help you?'

'h.e.l.lo, sweetheart!'

'h.e.l.lo yourself,' she said amiably. 'I was just about to ring Laksen's to order some stockfish and calves' liver, so we can have a lovely weekend.'

'Fantastic,' her husband said on the other end of the phone. 'I'm looking forward to it. Is Mr Faber there?'

'Kristen? You want to speak to Kristen?'

She couldn't have been more surprised if he'd suddenly appeared in front of her. Her husband had never set foot in the office, nor had he ever met Kristen Faber. The office was her domain. Since her husband's sight began to deteriorate and he took early retirement, he had suggested a couple of times that he might take a stroll down to the city centre to see what she got up to during the day. Out of the question, she said. Home was home, work was work. Admittedly, she enjoyed telling him what she'd been doing, and they laughed together at the doc.u.ments she sometimes took the liberty of showing him, but she didn't want any link between her husband and her rude, self-righteous boss.

'What for?'

'Well, it's ... There's something not quite right about that will you brought home yesterday.'

'Not quite right? What do you mean by that?'

She had read it aloud to him last night. He could still read, but the tunnel vision meant that he asked her to read to him more and more often these days. It was quite nice, actually. After the evening news she would read him bits and pieces from the newspaper, with pauses for major and minor discussions on the day's events.

'There's something ...'

Kristen Faber burst in through the door leading to the lobby.

'I need something to eat,' he puffed. 'The lunch break will be over in half an hour, and I've got to sort out some doc.u.ments. A baguette or something, OK?'

The secretary nodded, keeping her hand over the mouthpiece.

'I'll nip out right away,' she said.

As soon as his office door closed, she went back to her conversation.

'There's absolutely no need to speak to Kristen, darling.'

'But I have to-'

'Look, we'll talk about this when I get home, all right? I'm up to my eyes in work today. We'll have a chat this afternoon.'

She hung up without waiting for an answer.

As she pulled on her coat as quickly as possible, she felt a pang of guilt for once. Perhaps taking confidential papers home wasn't entirely legal. She had never really looked at it that way; after all, she had unrestricted access to all the papers here, and her husband could almost be regarded as a part of her after all these years.

However, it probably wasn't quite the right thing to do, she thought, picking up her bag before das.h.i.+ng off to Hansen's bread shop. At any rate, she didn't want any contact whatsoever between her husband and Kristen Faber.

Bjarne had a habit of letting his tongue run away with him.

'Have you been running, sweetheart? You're all sweaty!'

Johanne hugged her daughter, who flung her arms around her and didn't want to let go.

'All the way from Tsensenteret,' she said. 'And I had a really good week at Dad's. Did you manage OK without me?'

'I did,' nodded Johanne, kissing the top of her head. 'And how are you?'

The last remark was directed at Isak. He had put Kristiane's bag down on the hall floor and was standing with his hands in his pockets. He looked tired. His smile didn't quite reach his eyes, and he looked as if he couldn't decide whether to stay around or leave straight away.

'Not too bad,' he said hesitantly.

'Do you want to come in for a while?'

'Thanks, but ...'

He took his hands out of his pockets and gave Kristiane a hug. 'Could you pop up and see Ragnhild, chicken? I just want a word with Mum. Love you. Thanks for coming.'

Kristiane smiled, picked up her bag and dragged it up the steep staircase.

'I'm going out on the mountains at the weekend,' said Isak. 'Is it OK if I hang on to Jack?'

'Of course.'

The yellow mongrel sat down on the steps and shook his head.

'What is it?' asked Johanne. 'Is something wrong?'