Blessed Are Those Who Thirst E-Book

Anne Holt

• Herausgeber: Corvus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Hanne Wilhelmsen Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 341

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

In the second instalment of the Hanne Wilhelmsen series, the detective hunts down a serial rapist - but can she find him before a father devastated by an attack on his daughter takes the law into his own hands? 'Anne Holt is the Godmother of modern Norwegian crime fiction' Jo Nesbo The Oslo police are baffled. Crime scenes are being found covered with blood, but there is no victim. Only an odd series of numbers is left behind. When a girl is brutally raped in her apartment. Detective Hanne Wilhelmsen is charged with solving the case. Hanne quickly notices strange similarities with the blood-stained crime scenes. But the victim's father has started an independent hunt for the rapist...and Hanne will have to race against time to prevent a victim becoming a vigilante.

Leseprobe

PRAISE FOR

‘Step aside, Steig Larsson, Holt is the queen of Scandinavian crime thrillers...’ Red

‘Holt writes with the command we have come to expect from the top Scandinavian writers.’ The Times

‘If you haven’t heard of Anne Holt, you soon will...’ Daily Mail

‘It’s easy to see why Anne Holt, the former minister of justice in Norway and currently its bestselling female crime writer, is rapturously received in the rest of Europe...’ Guardian

‘Holt deftly marshals her perplexing narrative... clichés are resolutely seen off by the sheer energy and vitality of her writing...’ Independent

‘Her peculiar blend of off-beat police procedural and social commentary makes her stories particularly Norwegian, yet also entertaining and enlightening... reads a bit like a mash-up of Steig Larsson, Jeffery Deaver and Agatha Christie...’ Daily Mirror

Blessed Are Those Who Thirst

ANNE HOLT is Norway’s bestselling female crime writer. She spent two years working for the Oslo Police Department before founding her own law firm and serving as Norway’s Minister for Justice between 1996 and 1997. She is published in 30 languages with over 6 million copies of her books sold.

Also by Anne Holt

THE HANNE WILHELMSEN SERIES:

Blind Goddess

Blessed Are Those Who Thirst

Death Of The Demon

The Lion’s Mouth

Dead Joker

Without Echo

The Truth Beyond

1222

THE JOHANNE VIK SERIES:

Punishment

First published in the United States in 2012 by Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

Published in paperback in Great Britain in 2013 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright © Anne Holt, 1994 English translation copyright © 2012 by Anne Bruce Originally published in Norwegian as Salige er de som Tørster Published by agreement with Salomonsson Agency

The moral right of Anne Holt to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

The moral right of Anne Bruce to be identified as the translator of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Paperback ISBN: 978 0 85789 226 3 E-book ISBN: 978 0 85789 233 1

Printed in Great Britain.

Corvus An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd Ormond House 26–27 Boswell Street London WC1N 3JZ

www.corvus-books.co.uk

To Even, my friend and brother

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled.

—MATTHEW 5:6

Contents

SUNDAY, MAY 9

MONDAY, MAY 10

SUNDAY, MAY 16

TUESDAY, MAY 18

SATURDAY, MAY 22

SATURDAY, MAY 29

MONDAY, MAY 31

TUESDAY, JUNE 1

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2

THURSDAY, JUNE 3

FRIDAY, JUNE 4

SATURDAY, JUNE 5

SUNDAY, JUNE 6

MONDAY, JUNE 7

TUESDAY, JUNE 8

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9

THURSDAY, JUNE 10

SUNDAY, MAY 9

It was so early not even the devil had managed to put on his shoes. In the west, the heavens showed that intense hue only a Scandinavian sky in springtime is blessed with—royal blue on the horizon and lighter toward the meridian, before dissolving into a pink eiderdown where the sun was still lying lazily in the east. The air was invigorating, undisturbed by the dawn, with that amazing transparency possessed by radiant spring mornings at almost sixty degrees north. Although the temperature remained in single figures, everything indicated it would be another warm May day in Oslo.

Detective Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen wasn’t thinking about the weather. She was standing completely motionless, wondering what she should do. There was blood everywhere. On the floor. Across the walls. Even on the ceiling, dark spatters resembled the abstract pictures in some kind of psychological test. She tilted her head and stared at a splodge directly above her. It looked like a purple bull with three horns and deformed hindquarters. She stood motionless—a sign of indecision, but also an indication of her fear of sliding on the slippery floor.

“Don’t touch,” she warned brusquely, when a younger colleague, who had hair color to match the blood, made a move to lay his finger on one of the walls. A narrow crack in the ramshackle roof cast a dusty beam of light on the rear wall, where the blood was spread so generously it looked less like a drawing than a horrendously bad paint job.

“Go outside,” she ordered. Hanne sighed but refrained from commenting on the footprints the inexperienced police constable had scattered around large areas of the floor. “And try to walk in your own footprints on your way out.”

A couple of minutes later, she did the same herself, backward and hesitant. She continued to stand in the doorway, having sent the officer for a flashlight.

“I was just going for a piss,” wheezed the man who had called in the report. Obediently, he had remained standing outside the shed. Now he was hopping so agitatedly Hanne Wilhelmsen suspected he hadn’t been able to complete his mission an hour earlier.

“The lavatory is there,” he said, quite unnecessarily. The strong smell from one of Oslo’s all too many remaining outside toilets took the edge off the sickeningly sweet stench of blood. The door marked with a heart was right beside it.

“Well, off you go to the toilet,” she encouraged him in a friendly tone, but he didn’t hear her.

“I was going for a piss, you see, but then I saw the door in there was open.”

Now he pointed at the woodshed, taking a step backward, as though a hideous animal might thrust out its jaws at any moment and gobble up his whole arm.

“It’s usually closed. Not actually locked, but closed. The door is so heavy it stays open by itself. We don’t want stray dogs and cats making themselves at home in there. So we’re quite careful about that.”

A strange little smile spread across his coarse face. It occurred to Hanne that they looked after things even in this neighborhood; they had rules and kept order, even though the battle against decay was being lost.

“I’ve lived here in this block all my life,” he continued, with a touch of pride. “I notice when things aren’t as they should be.”

He glanced at the pretty young lady who didn’t look like any cop he had seen before, waiting for a scrap of recognition.

“Good stuff,” she praised him. “It was great you phoned to let us know.”

When he smiled, with his mouth open, Hanne was struck by how few teeth he possessed. He couldn’t be very old, perhaps fifty.

“I was absolutely terrified, you understand. All that blood . . .”

His head moved from side to side. It had been awful, being faced with such a diabolical sight.

Hanne could well appreciate that. Her red-haired colleague had returned with a flashlight. Gripping it with both hands, Hanne Wilhelmsen shone the beam of light systematically from side to side down over the walls. She scrutinized the ceiling as thoroughly as was possible from the doorway, and then zigzagged the ray of light across the floor.

The room was entirely empty. Not so much as a stick of firewood, only some odds and ends attesting that the shed had once been used for its original purpose, probably a long time ago. Once the flashlight had made contact with every single square meter, she ventured into the shed once more, carefully stepping on her own old footprints. She gave a hand signal that told her colleague not to follow. Right in the middle of the room, approximately fifteen square meters, she hunkered down. The beam of light stirred on the wall opposite, about a meter above the floor. From the doorway she had noticed something, perhaps letters, written in smeared blood, making the symbols difficult to decipher.

They weren’t letters. They were numbers. Eight digits, as far as she could make out: 92043576. The figure 9 was unclear and might perhaps be 4. The final digit looked like a 6, but she was not sure. Maybe it was an 8 instead. She straightened up and stepped back again into the daylight, now abundant. She heard a baby crying from an open window on the second floor and shuddered at the thought of children having to live in such a district. A Pakistani in a tram driver’s uniform emerged from the brick building, peering nosily at them for a moment before scurrying away from the entrance. She could see in the reflections on the highest windows that the sun had hauled itself up at last. Birds, the small gray ones that still managed to eke out a meager existence in the innermost center of the city, were chirping tentatively from a half-dead birch tree that was making a futile attempt to reach out toward the streaks of morning light.

“Bloody hell, what a terrible crime this must be,” the young constable commented as he spat, in a vain effort at ridding himself of the taste of sewage. “Something terrible must have happened here!”

He seemed happy at the thought.

“Yes indeed,” Hanne Wilhelmsen said softly. “Something serious may well have happened here. But in the meantime . . .”

She broke off and turned to face her colleague.

“At the moment, this isn’t a crime. For that, we need a victim. We haven’t seen a single trace of that. At the most, this is willful vandalism. But . . .”

She peered through the door again.

“Of course, something might turn up. Contact Forensics. It’s best to be on the safe side.”

She shivered slightly. It was due more to her speculation about what she had just witnessed rather than the fresh morning air. Pulling her jacket snugly around her, she thanked the toothless man one more time for alerting them before strolling on her own back the three hundred meters to Oslo police headquarters. When she crossed over to the other side of the street, into range of the morning sunlight, it grew warmer. A tumult of international women’s voices, morning shouts in Urdu, Punjabi, and Arabic, reverberated around the corners of the houses. A kiosk owner was going about his business, readying his sidewalk stand for another long working day, opening out the whole shebang with no consideration for either churchgoing or regulations about opening hours. He flashed a friendly white smile at her, holding out an orange and raising his eyebrows questioningly. Hanne Wilhelmsen shook her head and smiled in return. A gang of fourteen-year-old boys was clattering over the sidewalk with their blue Aftenposten newspaper delivery buggies in tow. Two veiled women hurried to some destination or other, eyes downcast. They walked in a large arc around the detective inspector, unused to seeing white women so early in the day. Otherwise, it was fairly deserted. In this weather, even Tøyen took on a conciliatory, almost charming character.

It certainly promised to be yet another beautiful day.

MONDAY, MAY 10

What on earth were you working on over the weekend? Don’t you think we have enough of a slog every day of the week?”

Police Attorney Håkon Sand was standing in the doorway. His jeans were new, and for once he was wearing a jacket and tie. His jacket was slightly too large and his tie was a touch too broad, but nevertheless he looked reasonably put together. Apart from the hemline on his jeans. Hanne Wilhelmsen couldn’t resist leaning in front of him, speedily tucking the superfluous centimeters inside so they couldn’t be seen.

“You shouldn’t walk about with the turn-up on the outside.” She gave a friendly smile and stood up. She smoothed her hand down his arm with a light, almost tender, movement.

“There. Now you’re fantastic. Are you going to court?”

“No,” replied the prosecution attorney, who, despite the well-meaning gesture, felt embarrassed. Why did the detective inspector have to draw attention to his lack of fashion sense? She could have saved herself the trouble of doing that, he thought, though he said something different.

“I’ve a dinner date right after work. But what about you, why were you here?”

A pale green folder hung poised in the air before landing precisely on Hanne Wilhelmsen’s blotter.

“I just received this,” he went on. “Strange case. There have been no reports of either dismembered people or animals in our area.”

“I did an extra shift in the crime section,” she explained, leaving the folder untouched. “They’re struggling with illness down there right now.”

The police prosecution attorney, a dark-haired and reasonably good-looking man whose temples were grayer than his thirty-five years would suggest, flopped onto the visitor’s chair. He removed his glasses and sat polishing them with the end of his tie. The spectacles did not become particularly clean, but the tie became decidedly more crumpled.

“The case has been assigned to the two of us. If there is a case, that is. There’s no victim, no one has heard anything, no one has seen anything. Odd. There are some pictures in there.”

He pointed toward the folder.

“I don’t need those, thanks.” She waved dismissively. “I was there. It really didn’t look very pretty.

“But you know,” she continued, leaning toward him, “if all of that turns out to be human blood, then there must have been two or three people killed in there. I’m inclined to think there are some young hooligans having some fun with us.”

The theory didn’t seem improbable. The Oslo police were in the middle of their worst spring ever. In the course of six weeks, three murders had been visited upon the city, and at least one of these seemed unsolvable. There had been no fewer than sixteen cases of rape reported in the same period, with seven of these becoming the object of enormous media attention. The fact that one of the victims was a member of Parliament for the Christian Democrats, on her way home from an evening committee meeting when she was brutally assaulted in the Palace Park, inflamed public disappointment in the lack of progress made by the police. Well aided by the tabloid press, the frustrated citizens of Oslo had started to protest against the Oslo police’s apparent inability to act. The elongated, curved building sat there at Grønlandsleiret 44, gray and unshakable, seemingly unmoved by all the merciless criticism. Its inhabitants arrived at work in the mornings with shoulders drawn up and eyes downcast. They went home again far too late each day, their backs bent and nothing more to show for their daily toil than still more confirmed dead ends. The weather gods played around tauntingly with intense summer temperatures. The awnings were pulled right down, in vain, over all the windows on the south façade of the enormous building, making it appear both blind and deaf. The interior remained just as stifling. Nothing helped, and nothing seemed to show the way out of a professional blind alley that simply increased with every new case entered into the huge data systems. They should be of assistance but instead appeared hostile, almost mocking, each morning when they spewed out their lists of unsolved cases.

“What a springtime,” Hanne Wilhelmsen said, sighing theatrically. With a look of resignation, she raised her eyebrows and contemplated her superior officer. Her eyes were not especially large, but they were amazingly blue, with a distinctive black edge around the iris making them appear darker than they were. Her hair was dark brown and quite short. From time to time she tugged at it absentmindedly, as though she actually wished it were long and thought it would hasten its growth if she helped it along a little. Her mouth was generous, with a cupid’s bow that didn’t simply dip down from the top but also met its twin from below, like a hesitant cleft lip that had changed its mind, thus forming a sensuous curve instead of a defect. Above her left eye she bore a scar parallel to her eyebrow. It was pale pink and not particularly old.

“I’ve never seen it like this. Though I’ve only been here for eleven years. Kaldbakken has been here for thirty. He hasn’t experienced anything like it, either.”

She pulled at her T-shirt and gave it a shake.

“And this heat doesn’t make it any better. The whole city is on the move every single night. A spell of rain right now would be just the thing. That would at least keep people indoors.”

They sat there for too long, talking about everything and nothing. They were friendly colleagues who always had something to talk about but who didn’t know very much about each other all the same. Other than that they both enjoyed their work, that they took it seriously, and that one of them was more competent than the other. That didn’t do much for the relationship between them. She was a highly skilled officer with a reputation that had always been good but following a dramatic case the previous autumn had now reached legendary heights. He had loafed around in the police station as a second-rate lawyer for more than six years, never outstanding, never brilliant. Still, he had built up a reputation for himself as both conscientious and hardworking. He too had played a decisive role in the same sensational case. His reputation was edging more in the direction of solid and dependable than what it had been before: rather uninteresting.

Perhaps they complemented each other. Perhaps it was more the fact they were never in competition that enabled them to work so well together. However, it was a curious friendship, restricted by the walls of the police station. Police Attorney Håkon Sand was genuinely sorry about that and several times had endeavored to alter the situation. Some time ago he had suggested in passing that they meet up for dinner. The rejection had been so blunt it would be a long time before he made the effort again. “Oh, well, we’ll let the blood-soaked woodshed lie. I’ve got other things to do.”

The police officer slapped a heap of files sitting in a tray beside the window.

“So have we all,” the attorney retorted, before walking the twenty meters along the corridor to return to his own office.

“Why have you never brought me here before?”

The woman sitting on the opposite side of the narrow table smiled reproachfully as she squeezed her companion’s hand.

“I didn’t really know whether you liked this type of food,” the man responded, clearly pleased at how successful the meal had been.

The Pakistani waiters, immaculately dressed and with diction indicating they had been born at Aker Hospital rather than a delivery room in Karachi, had amiably steered them through the menu.

“Slightly inconvenient location,” he added. “But otherwise it’s one of my favorite restaurants. Good food, top-notch service, and prices to suit a public servant.”

“So you’ve been here often.” She paused. “Who with, then?”

He didn’t answer but instead raised his glass to hide how mortified he was by the question. All his women had been here. The very short-lived, far fewer than he liked to consider, and the two or three he had endured for a few months. Every time he had been thinking of her. What it would be like to sit here with Karen Borg. And now they were sitting here.

“Don’t think about the ones who were first. Concentrate on being last,” he said with a grin after a moment’s thought.

“Elegantly put,” she replied, but her voice had adopted a trace of . . . not coldness, but a kind of coolness that always terrified him out of his wits. That he could never learn.

Karen Borg didn’t want to talk about the future. For almost four months she had been meeting him regularly, up to several times a week. They ate together and went to the theater. They went for walks in the forest, and they made love as soon as they had the opportunity. Which was not too often. She was married, so her apartment was out of the question. Her husband knew they were having an affair, she said, but they had decided not to burn their bridges until they were certain that was what they wanted. Of course they could go to his place, something he suggested every time they were together. But she turned him down flat.

“If I come home with you, then I’ve made a choice,” she declared illogically.

Håkon Sand believed the choice of making love with him was a far more dramatic decision than the choice of venue, but it was no use. The waiter appeared with the check twenty seconds after Håkon had dropped a hint. It was presented according to old-fashioned etiquette, neatly folded on a plate placed in front of him. Karen Borg grabbed it, and he couldn’t muster the energy to protest. It was one thing that she earned five times as much as he did and quite another to be continually reminded of that. When the AmEx gold card was returned, he got up and held her chair for her. The strikingly handsome waiter had ordered a taxicab, and she snuggled up to her lover in the backseat.

“I suppose you’re going straight home,” he said, a precaution against his own disappointment.

“Yes, it’s a working day tomorrow,” she confirmed. “We’ll meet up again soon. I’ll phone you.”

Once she was out the taxi door, she leaned back in again to give him a gentle kiss.

“Thanks for a lovely evening,” she said softly, smiling briefly as she withdrew from the cab once again.

Sighing, he gave the taxi driver a new address. It was situated in a completely different part of the city, allowing plenty of time to feel the sharp little stab of pain he always experienced after his evenings with Karen Borg.

SUNDAY, MAY 16

Well, that’s absolutely amazing.”

Håkon Sand and Hanne Wilhelmsen were in agreement after all. It was quite strange.

Rain was drizzling. It was welcome after the completely abnormal tropical heat of the past few weeks. The garage was of the open type, one story supporting another on pillars with several meters’ space between. No wall separated the weather from the few cars left behind in the cheerless building. Nonetheless, it didn’t seem that any of the blood had washed away.

“Nothing else? No weapon or anything? No young girl missing?”

It was the police prosecution attorney speaking. Håkon was wearing a jogging suit and Helly Hansen jacket, and yawning despite the violent scene around him. Blood was spattered across one corner on the first floor of the parking lot. He knew from bitter experience that blood had an ugly tendency to spread widely, but what he saw here had to have taken many liters.

“Good that you phoned,” he said, smothering a fresh yawn and glancing discreetly at his Swatch. It was half past five on Sunday morning. A car filled with celebrating students tore past, leaving the deafening blasts of a horn concerto in its wake. Then it was as quiet again as it always was after all the night owls had gone home to bed, safe in the knowledge no one needed an early rise.

“Yes, you had to see this. Fortunately there was a good pal of mine on duty, and she remembered I was involved in the first of these . . .”

Hanne Wilhelmsen didn’t quite know what to call these absurd cases.

“. . . these Saturday night massacres,” she concluded, after a brief pause. “I got here half an hour ago.”

The two men from Forensics were in full swing, taking samples and photographs. They worked quickly and with great precision, and neither of them uttered a word as they went about their business. Hanne and Håkon also remained silent for some considerable time. In the distance, the car full of students had encountered acquaintances, and the jangle of their horn broke the silence once again.

“This has to mean something. Look at that!”

Håkon Sand made an attempt to follow a straight line from the point of her finger toward the wall. The light was poor, but the numbers were outlined clearly enough once his attention was drawn to them.

“Nine-two-six-four-seven-eight-three-five,” he read aloud. “Does that mean anything to you?”

“Absolutely nothing. Other than it being the same number of digits as the last time, and the first two are the same.”

“Couldn’t it be a telephone number?”

“That area code doesn’t exist. I’ve considered that, of course.”

“National Insurance number?”

She didn’t answer.

“Of course not,” he brushed it aside himself. “There’s no such month as the ninetieth . . .”

“Besides, there’s either two digits too many or three too few.”

“But abroad, the date of birth is the other way around,” Håkon Sand recalled enthusiastically. “They begin with the year!”

“Right, well. Then we have a murderer who was born on the seventy-eighth day of the sixty-fourth month in 1992.”

An uncomfortable silence ensued, but Hanne Wilhelmsen was kindhearted enough not to let it last too long.

“The blood is being analyzed. Also, there must be fingerprints here somewhere. We’d better go home. I hope it was okay for me to phone. See you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? But it’s the seventeenth!”

“Bloody hell, right enough,” she said, stifling a yawn. “Personally, I boycott that day, but I don’t mind having a day off.”

“Boycott the seventeenth of May?” He was genuinely shocked.

“A day for regional costumes, flags, and other nationalistic nonsense. I prefer to plant up my window box.”

He didn’t quite know whether she was being serious. If this was true, she had told him something about herself for the very first time. That fact meant he was on cloud nine all the way home. Even though he himself adored the 17th of May.

TUESDAY, MAY 18

Norway’s National Day had been one of the good old kind. The sun had poured its warmth over the country and the bright green trees of springtime. The royal family stood steadfastly waving from their vast balcony. Tired, sullen children in mini–folk costumes with ice cream splashes trailed their little flags along the ground, despite the encouraging cheers of overeager parents. Hoarse, drunken students devastated everything in sight as though it were their last day on earth and their intention was to achieve the highest possible blood alcohol count on the road to the hereafter. The Norwegian people enjoyed themselves with their Constitution and lashings of eggnog, and everyone was in total agreement it had been a marvelous day.

Apart from the Oslo police. They saw everything most of the others were fortunate to avoid. Disorderly conduct, overintoxicated citizens, unruly teenagers, one or two drunk drivers, and a few instances of domestic disturbance: all of this was to be expected and so could be handled with ease. A brutal murder and five other stabbing assaults were above and beyond the norm. To top it all off, there were five new cases of rape. That year’s 17th of May would enter history as the toughest ever.

“I can’t understand what’s happening in this city. I just can’t fathom it.”

Chief Inspector Kaldbakken, in charge of A 2.11, Homicide Division, at Oslo police headquarters, had served longer than any of the others in the room. He was a man of few words, and those he uttered were usually incomprehensible mumbles. But this time they all understood.

“I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

The others stared into space, and no one said anything. They were all painfully aware of what the crime wave would mean.

“Overtime,” one of the male officers eventually muttered, his gaze fixed grimly on a wall collage, pictures from the previous year’s summer party. “Overtime, overtime. The wife’s as grouchy as an old crab.”

“Are there still funds in the overtime budget?” asked a young female officer with short blonde hair and vestiges of an optimistic view on life.

She didn’t receive an immediate answer, only a reproachful look from the superintendent that told the more experienced ones in the room what they all knew already.

“Sorry, folks, but if this continues, then holidays will have to be postponed,” he said.

Three of the eleven police officers present in the conference room had booked their vacations for August and September, and now they sent up a silent prayer of thanks for their own foresight. By that time it would probably have calmed down.

They divided the tasks as well as they could. There was not even any attempt to pay attention to how their previous caseloads looked. They were all in a similarly difficult position.

Hanne Wilhelmsen was spared the murder. To compensate, she was allocated two of the rape cases as well as three assaults. Erik Henriksen, the police constable with the ginger hair, would assist her. He appeared happy at the thought. Hanne gave a deep sigh, rising to her feet when the cases were distributed and wondering all the way back to her office where on earth she should start.

SATURDAY, MAY 22

The evening hadn’t advanced further than the Saturday TV documentary before Hanne Wilhelmsen nodded off. Her live-in partner, a woman of the same age, their birthdays only three weeks apart, hadn’t glimpsed her all week long. Even on Ascension Thursday, a public holiday, Hanne had disappeared at daybreak, returning home around nine o’clock to collapse into bed. Today they had made up for lost time. They slept late, rode the motorbike for four hours, and stopped at roadside cafés to eat ice cream. They felt like sweethearts for the first time in ages. Although Hanne had slept through a cheesy Saturday matinee while Cecilie prepared dinner, she had hardly finished devouring the food, and at most half a bottle of red wine, when she flaked out on the settee. Cecilie wasn’t sure whether she should be annoyed or flattered. Deciding on the latter, she spread a blanket over her partner and whispered in her ear, “You must be really sure of me, you know.”

The sweet scent of female skin and faint perfume kept her there. She kissed her gently on the cheek, letting the tip of her tongue move light as a feather across the fine hairs on the sleeping woman’s cheek as she made up her mind to wake her after all.

An hour and a half later, the phone rang. It was Hanne’s phone. They could tell by the tone. Cecilie’s phone had a ringing sound, Hanne’s a chime. That they had two telephones with separate numbers wounded Cecilie deeply. Hanne’s phone was never to be touched by anyone but herself, as no one from Oslo police headquarters was to know she shared a house with another woman. The phone system was one of the few incontestable rules on which their fifteen-year-long live-in partnership was founded.

It didn’t stop. If it had been Cecilie’s phone, they would have let it ring until it gave up. All the same, its insistent sound indicated it might be something important. Groaning, Hanne hauled herself up to stand naked in the doorway leading to the hallway, with her back to the bedroom.

“Wilhelmsen, go ahead!”

“Iversen, on duty, here. Sorry to phone so late . . .”

Hanne glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall, just visible from where she was standing. Well past midnight.

“No, it’s perfectly all right.” She yawned, shivering slightly in the faint draft from the hallway door.

“Irene Årsby felt it was appropriate to contact you. We have a new Saturday night massacre for you. It looks absolutely hellish.”

Cecilie crept up behind her to place a pink toweling dressing gown, adorned with a massive Harley-Davidson logo, over her shoulders.

“Whereabouts?”

“A workmen’s hut belonging to the Moelven company, beside the River Lo. It had been secured with a little padlock, but a toddler could’ve managed to get in if he wanted to. You’ve no idea what it looks like in there.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve some idea. Did you find anything interesting?”

“Nothing. Only blood. Everywhere. Do you want to see it?”

Detective Inspector Wilhelmsen wanted to see it. The blood-soaked scenes of nonexistent crimes were beginning to intrigue her profoundly. On the other hand, although Cecilie’s patience was well renowned, it was not inexhaustible. A line had to be drawn.

“No, I’ll content myself with the pictures this time. Thanks for phoning.”

“No bother!”

Just as she was about to replace the receiver, she changed her mind in a flash.

“Hello! Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“Did you notice if there was anything written in the blood?”

“Yes, in fact. A number. Several digits. Pretty illegible, but it’s been photographed from all angles.”

“Excellent. That’s actually quite important. Good night. And thanks again!”

“No problem!”

Hanne Wilhelmsen scuttled back to bed.

“Anything important?” Cecilie asked.

“No, only another of those pools of blood I told you about. Nothing serious.”

A few minutes later, Hanne Wilhelmsen was drifting somewhere in the borderland between dreams and reality, on the point of falling asleep, when Cecilie dragged her back.

“How long are we going to continue with this phone system of ours?” She spoke softly into space, as though she didn’t really anticipate a response.

It was just as well, for Hanne turned her back on her without uttering a word. Suddenly the quilts, which had been lying more or less on top of each other, forming a shared cover over two people who belonged together, were imperceptibly drawn in their respective directions. Hanne tucked the quilt comfortably around herself, still without a sound.

“I can’t understand this, Hanne. I’ve accepted it for many years. But you’ve always said that, someday, it would be different.”

Still Hanne Wilhelmsen lay there, saying not a word, curled in a position with her back displaying icy rejection.

“Two phone numbers. I’ve never met any of your colleagues. Neither have I met your parents. Your sister is just somebody you mention now and again in a childhood story. We can’t even spend Christmas together.”

Cecilie was fully animated now and raised herself slightly in the bed. It was more than two years since she had last mentioned this topic, and although she had very little belief she would achieve anything at all, she suddenly felt an incredible urgency to express her opinion. She still hadn’t resigned herself to this arrangement. She would never be content with the watertight bulkhead against everything that was Hanne’s life outside their flat. Gingerly, she placed a hand on Hanne’s spine, but removed it at once.

“Why are all our friends doctors and nurses? Why is it only me and my family we can associate with? God’s truth, Hanne, I’ve never even spoken to any policeman other than you!”

“It’s not ‘policeman,’” came the muffled sound from the pillows.

Cecilie again tried to place her hand on the back blocking her, and this time she didn’t need to pull it away. The entire body was shaking. Hanne Wilhelmsen had nothing to say. Remaining silent, Cecilie lay down beside her partner, pressing close to the sobbing woman, and decided there and then not to broach the subject again. At least not for many years.

SATURDAY, MAY 29

Later it struck her that he didn’t look too bad. Tall and blond. Somewhat broad shouldered. A dull worn-out lightbulb above the entrance door confirmed that his hair was drawn back over the temples and he was uncommonly tanned for that time of year, even considering the fine weather. The woman’s complexion was milky pale in the faint light, while he was bronze, as though the Easter ski season had just taken place.

She shrank from her own shadow and fumbled to find the keys in her voluminous fabric bag. He was paying careful attention with an interest she, strictly speaking, should have found worthy of note. It looked as though he had a wager with himself on whether she was capable of finding anything in all the jumble.

“‘Money’s not everything in this world,’ said the old man, when he looked into a lady’s handbag! Can you manage to find anything?”

She treated the guy to a weary smile. She couldn’t muster anything more. It was too late.

“Girls like you shouldn’t be out at this time of night,” he continued as she opened the door. He followed her inside.

“Sleep tight, then,” he said, and disappeared upstairs.

The mailbox was empty. She didn’t feel very well, either. She hadn’t had much to drink, only a couple of half liters, but there was something about smoky premises. Her eyes were stinging, and her contact lenses felt as though they were glued firmly to her eyeballs.

The entire block had gone to sleep; only the distant bass of a powerful stereo system in a neighboring apartment block vibrated inaudibly under her feet.

There were two security locks on the door. You couldn’t be careful enough—a single woman in the center of the city, her father reminded her often—and he had fitted them himself. She used only the one. A limit had to be placed on pessimism.

The warm, welcoming smell of home enveloped her as she stumbled across the threshold. When she was halfway through the door, he was there.

The shock was greater than the pain as she crashed to the floor. Behind her she heard the click of the lock. The cold, hard hand across her mouth paralyzed her completely. His knee pressed heavily and forcefully into the small of her back, and her head was yanked backward by the hair. Her back felt about to snap in two.

“Be really quiet, be a good girl, and everything will be fine.”

His voice was different from three minutes before. But she knew it was him. And she knew what he was after. A twenty-four-year-old girl in a rented apartment in Oslo city center didn’t have any valuables to speak of. Other than what he was looking for. She knew it.

But she didn’t fear it. He could do what he wanted. If only he didn’t kill her. It was death she was afraid of. Only death.

Everything went black because of the excruciating pain. Or was it perhaps because she hadn’t taken a breath? Slowly he released his grip on her mouth, while repeating his instruction to keep quiet. It wasn’t necessary. Her larynx had swollen into an enormous, aching, silent tumor, blocking everything.

Dear God, don’t let me die. Don’t let me die. Let him finish fast—fast, fast.

This was her single thought, churning around in her terrified brain like a maelstrom, over and over again.

He can do whatever he wants, but dear, dear God, don’t let me die.

The tears came unbidden, a silent trickle as though her eyes were reacting on their own initiative. They were acting automatically without registering that she was not actually crying. Suddenly the man stood up. Her spine protested as it fell into its original position, and she now lay flat on her stomach. But not for long. He grabbed hold of her head, one hand on her right ear, the other in her hair, and dragged her into the living room. The pain was overwhelming, and she tried to scramble after him. He was going too fast, her arms couldn’t manage to keep pace. Her neck stretched behind him in confusion, trying to avoid breaking right off. She blacked out again.

Dear God. Don’t let me die.

He didn’t switch on the light. A streetlamp directly outside the window afforded sufficient illumination. In the middle of the living room floor, he let go. Crouching in a fetal position, she began to cry in earnest. Quietly, but accompanied by sobs and shudders. She held her hands in front of her face, in a futile hope that the man would be gone when she removed them.

All at once he was upon her again. A cloth was forced into her mouth. The dishcloth. The pungent taste almost choked her. She retched violently, but there was no way out for what came up from her stomach. Then she lost consciousness.