– Of course not. It’s going to be published… She’s studying a group of young men who have been the subject of serious abuse.
– Is it possible one of them might have harmed her?
Dahlstrøm hesitated before answering: – When Mailin started this study a couple of years ago, she chose seven men who she was going to follow over a period of time. She was very careful to find victims who had not themselves become perpetrators.
He raised his coffee cup, changed his mind, put it down again. – What is it that enables a vicious circle of sexual violence and abuse to be broken? What makes some people choose to endure the pain inflicted on them without taking it out on other innocents? That is what she wants to study.
Liss thought this through.
– You can’t know for certain whether one of the seven she ended up with hasn’t abused someone else, she objected. – Even though they might deny it when asked.
– That is correct. Mailin can only relate to what they tell her about themselves, and to the fact that they have no criminal record. But we’ve reached the limit of what I can discuss with you, Liss. I hope you understand that.
– But you will go to the police with what you know, if any of her patients have threatened her?
– You can rest assured that I will do everything I can to prevent anything happening to Mailin…
– But she’s been missing for six days, Liss protested. – We can’t just sit calmly and wait.
– I’m not doing that, he assured her. – I’ve already spoken to the police, and I’ll speak to them again.
– I’ll have to do that too, she mumbled.
Dahlstrøm looked quizzically at her. Now you can say it; she heard the thought race through her. You have killed a person, Liss Bjerke.
– I am her sister, after all, she added quickly. – No one knows her better than me.
Dahlstrøm’s gaze was on her the whole time and took in everything. He wouldn’t have been in a moment’s doubt about what she ought to do… She had to get out of this chair now, before she started talking and was unable to stop.
8
IN THE EVENING, she took the bus out to Lørenskog. Had no other place to go. Tage had given her a spare key. He didn’t say anything, just put it into her hand as she was going out the door the day before.
She let herself in.
– Is that you, Tage? She heard her mother’s voice from the living room
Liss shuffled in. Her mother was sitting on the sofa, in exactly the same place as she had been a day and a half earlier. She had lit a candle; there was a pile of newspapers on the table in front of her, and she had a book in her hands.
– Are you hungry, Liss? I can heat something up for you.
Liss wasn’t hungry. She’d forced down half a kebab before heading for the bus. Didn’t want to do anything else but get up to her room and curl up in bed.
She sat in the chair at the end of the table.
– I am sorry, her mother said.
– For what?
Her mother put the book down. – I’m glad you’re here, Liss.
Liss gave a quick nod.
– But right at the moment it’s impossible to be happy about anything, her mother continued.
– I know.
– There are so many things I’d like to ask you about. About Amsterdam. About what you’re up to these days.
Liss got up, went out into the kitchen, put some coffee on. Returned with cups, glasses and a jug of water.
– Are those new clothes? Isn’t that something Mailin usually wears?
– Had to borrow some of hers. Didn’t have time to pack a change of clothing.
Her mother raised her hand and stroked the bottle-green cashmere cardigan. Maybe that was a smile moving in her face.
– How long can you stay? she asked.
Liss poured them both a glass of water. It was colder than ice. She emptied a whole glass, a thin string of pain flashed through her throat and down into her shoulder.
– I’m not leaving until we know.
Not until Mailin has been found, she added silently.
To stave off the silence, she said: – What are you reading?
Her mother picked up the book. – The Charterhouse of Parma.
She held it up in the air, as though to prove to Liss that a book with that title really did exist.
– Stendhal, she continued. – Always read Stendhal when I need to find a place to get away from it all.
Liss sat in Tage’s office, switched on the computer. He’d given her the password for the guest log-in.
She opened Google. In the search field she typed: manslaughter + range of sentence. Deleted it. Typed instead: death by water, the words Mailin had scribbled on the Post-it note pinned to the noticeboard in her office. 46,700 hits. Articles about poisoned water, Silicon Valley, and Shakespeare’s Ophelia. She was too restless to start sorting through the chaos and instead ran a search for Berger + Taboo. Over twelve thousand hits. Clicked into Wikipedia. Before calling himself Berger, the talk show host’s name was Elijah Bergersen, or Elijah Frelsøi. Studied theology. Formed the rock band Baalzebub in 1976; a career as a solo artist followed. A couple of hits in the mid-nineties. Later best known as a stand-up comedian, and most recently on television with a number of controversial productions.
She found a lot of comments on the talk show Taboo. An article in Vårt Land under the headline Time to set a limit claimed that Berger was a member of an international network whose aim was to destroy Christianity and replace it with Satanism. Something called The Magazine urged all Christians to boycott the companies that sponsored his TV shows. Morgenbladet had an article entitled ‘Berger – a child of his times’, which almost read like a tribute to the man behind Taboo:
A lot of players are still splashing around in the backwater following developments over the last decade which have opened up new doors in the field of comedy and driven out political correctness, but Berger is in a class of his own. Free of all inhibition, he uses himself and others, and in doing so breaks the boundaries that define the place of entertainment, the space between entertainer and audience. He curses his way out into the realities of everyday Norwegian life and grabs the sleepy consumers of culture by the balls. Hello – is there anyone out there?
She heard the car going into the garage, and shortly afterwards Tage out in the hallway. It was close to midnight. She switched off the computer, wandered out into the kitchen. He popped his head in.
– Hi, Liss. Has Ragnhild gone to bed?
She offered him a cup of coffee. As though she were the one who lived there.
– I can’t take caffeine any more, he said. – Especially not this late.
He got them both a beer and sat down at the table. – I’m worried about her.
– Mailin? said Liss, wilfully misunderstanding him.
– Yes, of course, naturally. But about Ragnhild too. I don’t know if she’ll be able to deal with it. If something really has happened. There’s always been something special between Ragnhild and Mailin.
He took off his glasses, rubbed fiercely at his eyes and peered across at her, near sighted as an old mole.
– Neither you nor I could ever occupy that sort of place.
He got his glasses back on to his nose again and glanced at the door before continuing: – Now and then, in the privacy of my own mind, it has occurred to me that it might have been too close. At least on Ragnhild’s part. But Mailin has done well. She seems more comfortable with herself than anyone else I know.
He drank straight from the bottle. Downed most of it in two deep swallows. – But, my dear Liss, if there is anything at all I can do for you…