She told him what Berger had said about their father.
– Mailin once mentioned to me that she hadn’t seen him for many years, Dahlstrøm observed. – Do you remember him?
Liss took a deep breath. – I remember almost nothing from my childhood. Isn’t that abnormal?
– There are great variations between how much we all remember.
– But to me it’s as though it’s been deleted, edited out. And then without warning something pops up.
Suddenly she began talking about the bedroom in Lørenskog. Mailin standing there in the dark, locking the door and creeping into bed beside her. The hammering on the door.
– Did she mention any of this to you?
– No, said Dahlstrøm. – We didn’t discuss our own possible traumas. I gathered that Mailin, like most of us, carried some kind of burden, and I did recommend that she go into therapy herself. She hadn’t got round to it, not yet.
He paused a moment before he said: – Tell me this about the bedroom again, in as much detail as you can.
Liss closed her eyes. Brought it back again. Mailin in the blue pyjamas, that could also be yellow, maybe several different episodes fused into one. Mailin with her arms around her. I’ll look after you, Liss. Nothing bad will ever, ever happen to you.
– She said something else… Something about Mother.
Liss switched off the light, listened into the darkness. Somewhere out there Mailin’s voice came back to her: Don’t tell anyone about this, Liss. Not even Mum. She won’t be able to take it if she finds out.
31
ODD LØKKEMO TURNED in to the petrol station at Kløfta. The gauge was only just down into the red, the reserve tank capacious, eight litres at least, and it was less than forty kilometres home. But the mere thought of running out along the E6 in the January dark was enough to make him shiver. Walking along an icy hard shoulder for several kilometres with an empty petrol can in his hand. The likelihood of it happening wasn’t great, he argued, but then the consequences of it doing so were all the greater. He’d been turning these thoughts over in his mind ever since Minnesund.
He checked his mobile before getting out. No messages. He’d sent two to Elijah announcing that he was on his way. At the very least he deserved a reply. Though never explicitly stated, there was a tacit agreement that he keep out of the way until he received a message that it was okay to come home. It was always like that on days when Elijah was due at the studio in the evening. He had to have the whole house to himself. Couldn’t stand the sight of anyone, especially not Odd. After the broadcast, things changed completely. Then he was like a complaining child who could never get enough attention and Odd was the most important thing in the world to him.
But it was probably not only on account of this evening’s Taboo that Elijah wanted him out of the house that afternoon. Odd was certain he was expecting a visitor. The same visitor who had been there so often over the past few weeks. Once they had shared secrets like this, but now Elijah had become more and more cranky about them and wanted to keep them all to himself.
Odd pushed the button to pay at the counter. Didn’t like using the credit card pumps. Often the receipt was missing, and that left him standing there not knowing how much had been withdrawn from his account. At last a vibration in his pocket. He almost hung the diesel pistol back in its cradle at once but overcame the impulse and continued to follow the rolling display, how many litres, how many kroner, the figures creeping slowly up towards a full tank, sixty litres, so slowly that the pump was clearly faulty; all the same, he forced himself to wait for the click inside the pistol, and even then he first washed the diesel smell off his hands in the shabby toilet, which had no paper towels, and toilet roll strewn across the floor all the way over to the washbasin, and picked up copies of VG and Dagbladet and a packet of salt pastilles, and paid the teenage girl, who didn’t look at him once – overlooked, invisible; when did that happen, Odd, when did people stop even looking at you? Only then did he pull out the phone and read the message from Elijah. Sat there staring at it. Don’t come for another hour and a half. He fought against a desire to call him. Rage at him that he had no right to stop him coming home whenever he wanted. It was just as much his home. It was his apartment… No, he would never sink to the depths of reminding Elijah who it was who owned the apartment. Last time he tried it, a few years back, Elijah moved out, and he had to beg him to come back again.
Odd switched on the coupé light, flipped through Dagbladet. He didn’t want to sit there with the engine idling and it soon grew cold inside the car. He strolled over to the café and took a seat at the window. Looked at VG, which he had already read. He’d been out and bought a copy that morning along with some croissants, and burst in on Elijah with it, sat on the edge of his bed and woken him up by shouting the headlines at him: Berger to reveal killer tonight on Taboo?
Odd was used to the way Elijah attracted publicity. The Taboo series was the most successful thing he had ever done. Not artistically, of course, but in commercial terms. Elijah had always been prepared to do anything at all to create publicity around his name. But using Mailin Bjerke as bait for an audience hungry for sensation, surely that was going too far, even for him? Elijah wouldn’t hear a word of it. This is not bait. This is the real thing. Even you, Odd, who think you know everything that’s going on, even you’ll get a shock.
He refused to say any more.
The time was 7.20 when Odd turned down Løvenskiolds Street. Cruising round the block in search of a parking space, he passed Elijah’s car in Odins Street and noted that Elijah hadn’t used it this evening either. Must have been at least a week since he’d last driven it, a relief bearing in mind the state he was in these days. They’d discussed selling the BMW. Make do with Odd’s Peugeot. It means something when two people have one car, thought Odd. Especially at a time like this.
He let himself in. Peered into the hallway. The smell of fresh bread made him feel happy. He’d prepared the dough this morning before going out, leaving Elijah to put it in the oven. The fact that he’d remembered to do it even on a day like this was heartening. In the bathroom, water was trickling from one of the bath taps. He went in and turned it, not that it made any difference. Stood there a moment, listening. It was not often this quiet in the apartment. In some ways it was good to come home to silence. It showed a kind of respect, like the way Elijah had warned him and asked him to stay out of the way. So he didn’t surprise him with one of his young lovers. A necessity of life was Elijah’s usual excuse. What about me? Odd had asked not long ago. Your job isn’t to keep me alive, Odd, but to make sure I die with at least a minimum of dignity. Then he’d laughed, the way he always did when things threatened to get serious.
Odd opened the door into the living room. Elijah was sitting in his office chair in the flickering light of the screen saver from his computer, his head thrown backwards. The rest of the room was in darkness. The thin Japanese silk dressing gown had slid open, revealing his chest and his naked lower half. Odd sighed as he thought how he would have to call the studio and inform them that there wouldn’t be any show this evening after all. Felt relief at the realisation that this time Elijah had gone too far, raising expectations he couldn’t meet. It was going to be embarrassing and humiliating.
He crossed the floor and bent to stroke Elijah on the cheek. Only then did he notice the wide-open eyes, the gaze fixed not on him but on infinite emptiness.