Dahlstrøm said you ended up with seven patients in your study, but in the draft outline I found in the office you wrote that there were eight young men. Didn’t Dahlstrøm say something about patients who had themselves become abusers were not to be part of it?
Mailin could have kept the CD in a safe place if she was afraid the information might end up in the wrong hands.
Why did you send it to me? What do you want me to do, Mailin?
Again she read the note taped to the CD case: Trust you, Liss.
You were due to meet Berger before Taboo was broadcast. You heard that he had committed offences. Does that have anything to do with the CD? Is Berger the person known as Jacket?
Did you talk to him about Father?
She had to show the CD to someone. Did Jennifer have a duty of confidentiality, or did she have to tell the police everything she found out? Liss visualised her handing the CD over to the detective chief inspector she had met that day at the police station… Trust you, Liss. Mailin trusted her. And why should the police be told about her patients now the investigation was over?
She put the CD back inside the envelope, took it up into the room she was borrowing, wedged it under the mattress. Made up her mind to talk to Dahlstrøm about it all. Visit him at his home again, maybe even do it tomorrow. He would know what she ought to do with this CD, if it was the right thing to hand it over to the police. And she had another reason for wanting to see him. Was already walking around discussing it with him in her thoughts.
She wandered back into Mailin’s room, opened the wardrobe in search of something to wear. Found a lacy blouse she would never have chosen herself in a shop. Lace suited Mailin, but not her. But tonight this was exactly the blouse she wanted to wear. And underwear Mailin had maybe been saving for a special occasion, because the price tag hadn’t even been removed. It was black and smooth and transparent. She put it on and looked at herself in the mirror beside the bed. The fasteners for the bra were at the front for easy opening, but of course it was too large, and she unfastened it and let it slip to the floor.
It was a long time since she had felt the thrill of seeing herself in a mirror wearing nothing but a string. Knowing that someone else would be seeing her standing like that in a few hours’ time… Berger’s voice: I know what happened, Liss. The words came tumbling through her and she had to sit down. The day after the funeral, Jennifer had rung. Liss asked her if it was true what the papers were saying, that Berger had killed Mailin. And not only her, but Jim Harris, who had seen something that day. Jennifer couldn’t tell her what they had found, but Liss gathered that the police now had evidence.
She couldn’t rid herself of the thought of that last visit to Berger, the smell of him as he squeezed himself against her. In the notebook she wrote: I will find your grave. Every night I will go there and push the stone over and trample down everything that grows there.
2
LISS WAS DRESSED, had put on her makeup and was on her way out when she received a text message. She froze halfway down the steps. The name of the sender was like an ill omen, and she didn’t breathe normally again until she had read it through.
Judith van Ravens sent her condolences. She had been reading the papers and thinking a lot about Liss and how she must be feeling, she wrote, though Liss didn’t find that particularly credible. A relief that the crime had now been solved, she went on. She was about to travel back to the Netherlands and wanted to get rid of the pictures she had kept. She was sending them now to Liss, so that she could decide whether to delete them or use them in some way. If necessary, Judith van Ravens was still prepared to make a statement to the police, she claimed, even though what she had to say had no bearing on the case.
Liss had her finger on the delete button, but changed her mind. Maybe these were the last pictures to be taken of Mailin. And even though they would perhaps remind her of the person who had asked to have them taken, she felt she had to keep them.
She opened the file, stood in front of the mirror in the hallway as the pictures were downloaded, slowly combing out her still-wet hair. It was the first time for several days, and each time the brush stuck, she had to tug so hard it sent shock waves across her scalp.
The figure of Mailin appeared on the screen as she exited the main entrance on Welhavens Street. Liss scrolled down to one of the close-ups, taken at a tram stop. Her sister was standing gazing upwards somewhere over the rooftops, as if she was looking for the source of the light. Liss had seen these pictures once before, on Zako’s mobile. She had a thought. Not so much a thought, more like a rush through the head. She scrolled back to the picture of Mailin in the gateway. On the next picture a figure appeared behind her; on the one after, he was standing beside her on the pavement. Liss’s arm sank down. In the mirror she saw her own eyes, the pupils so huge she could have disappeared into them.
Sometime later, he rang again. She was still sitting on the floor of the hallway. The ringing sound woke her from her trance.
– Has something happened?
– Yes, she said.
– When are you coming? I’ve been waiting three quarters of an hour.
– I’m not coming.
She didn’t feel the slightest trace of disappointment. He had said he had met Mailin only briefly. He had lied to her. People told lies almost all the time. Herself too, when necessary. Jomar Vindheim was no worse and no better than anyone else.
– You were at Mailin’s office. Two weeks or so before she went missing.
He didn’t answer.
– You’ve been there several times. You knew her.
If he’d spoken now, she could have ended the call and switched off her phone. But his silence provoked her. She could feel how the anger took possession of her, alarming because she didn’t know where it came from. She started calling him things she had no reason to. Accused him of being wicked, calculating, and stupid enough to think he could fool her. The whole thing took off and she lost control completely. Everything that had been bottled up, that she hadn’t realised she had suppressed. Somewhere deep in her thoughts, remote from the rage that swept over her in ever larger waves, was a hope that he would hang up so that he wouldn’t have to stand there and have all this shit pouring over him. But he didn’t hang up.
It petered out, like cramp after a physical effort. Presently she was able to compartmentalise her anger, divide it up into portions small enough to be choked back. Finally she sat there, trembling on some kind of brink, the first feeling to come to her would overwhelm her totally, whether it was the anger flaring up again, or the grief that would take hold of her. Only this time it would never let go again.
– I’m sorry, said Jomar.
The first thing that came to her was laughter. Started in her stomach and throat, then took possession of her whole body. There was no mirth in it. Just another expression of what raged inside her. She saw herself lying there in the hallway, skirt in a twist around her waist, her crotch showing behind some flimsy material, the make-up that must be running across the vacant gaze.
– It was stupid of me, he said, trying again, having heard the result of his previous effort. – I can explain.
And that was a quote too. Maybe it wasn’t possible to say anything that wasn’t a quote, she thought as she lay there.
– You don’t need to explain.
He ignored her. – I didn’t mean to lie to you, but you never asked, and I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. Maybe it was embarrassing. And once I hadn’t said anything the first time, it became impossible to talk about it later.