‘Death,’ the man said.
Maybe it was the sluggishness and the absence of fear that caused Markus not to raise a hand in defence when he saw the man lift his. Or maybe it was just automatic, the conditioned response of the boy who has learned that his father has the right to hit him. The man was holding something in his hand. Was it a... hammer?
Harry entered the bar, which — if the red neon letters over the door spelled the name — was simply called Bar. This was the third place he had tried, and it was indistinguishable from the other two: glossy, probably stylish and no doubt pricey. He scanned the room and spotted Røed seated at a table. In front of him, with his back to Harry, a man was sitting in a flat cap with his hand raised. He was holding something. Harry saw what it was and knew in the same instant what was going to happen. And that he was too late to prevent it.
Sung-min and Helge were standing next to the woman gazing down at the body.
She was somewhere in her sixties and had the hair, clothes and make-up of a hippy; Sung-min expected she was one of those women who turned up at music festivals featuring old acoustic heroes from the seventies. She had already been crying when they opened the door of the Forensic Medical Institute to her, and Helge had given her some paper towels which she was now using to wipe away tears and running mascara with.
Now that Helge had washed away all the coagulated blood, Sung-min could see that the face of the dead man was more intact than he had previously thought.
‘Take your time, fru Beckstrøm,’ Helge said. ‘We can leave you alone if you wish?’
‘No need,’ she sniffed. ‘There’s no doubt.’
The buzz of voices in Bar fell silent instantly and the customers turned in the direction of the sound. A bang as loud as a pistol shot. Half in shock, they stared at the man in the flat cap who had risen to his feet; some had picked up on the fact that the other person at the table was the property magnate, the husband of the woman found dead on Snarøya. In the silence they heard the man’s voice clear as a bell and saw him raise the hand with the blunt weapon.
‘I said death! I sentence you to death, Markus Røed!’
There was another loud bang.
They saw a tall man in a suit walking quickly towards the table. And as the man in the cap lifted his hand a third time, the tall man snatched the object from his grip.
‘It’s not him,’ fru Beckstrøm sobbed. ‘It’s not Dag, thank God. But I don’t know where he is. I’m beside myself with worry every time he disappears like this.’
‘There, there,’ Sung-min said, and wondered if he should place a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m sure we’ll find him. And we’re also relieved it’s not your husband. I’m sorry you had to go through this, fru Beckstrøm, but we just had to be certain.’
She nodded mutely.
‘That’s enough now, Judgement Dag.’
Harry pushed Beckstrøm back down into his chair and put the gavel in his own pocket. The two drunk men, Røed and Beckstrøm, gawped stupidly at each other, as if they had both just woken up and were wondering what had happened. The glass-topped table had a large crack in it.
Harry sat down. ‘I know you’ve had a long day, Beckstrøm, but you should contact your wife. She went to the Forensic Medical Institute to see if the body of Kevin Selmer was you.’
The defence lawyer stared at Harry. ‘You didn’t see him,’ he whispered. ‘He couldn’t handle the pain. He’d told them his stomach and head were hurting, but the doctor had just given him some mild painkillers, and when they didn’t work and no one came to help he bashed his head against the wall to knock himself unconscious. That’s how much pain he was in.’
‘We don’t know that,’ Harry said.
‘Yes,’ Beckstrøm said, his eyes now wet with tears, ‘we do, because we’ve seen this type of thing before. While his sort—’ he pointed a trembling finger at Røed, who was sitting with his chin on his chest — ‘don’t give a fuck about anyone or anything, they just want to be rich, and along the way they trample on and exploit anybody weaker in society, all those who never had the silver spoon they suck on. But the day will come when the sun will be turned into darkness, the great and terrible—’
‘Judgement Day, Judgement Dag?’
Beckstrøm glowered at Harry while looking like he was making a great effort to keep his head straight.
‘Sorry,’ Harry said, placing a hand on his shoulder. ‘Let’s do this another time. Right now, I think you need to call your wife, Beckstrøm.’
Dag Beckstrøm opened his mouth to say something but shut it again. Nodded, took out his phone, got to his feet and left.
‘You handled that well, Harry,’ Røed said clearly sloshed, almost missing the table as he put his elbows on it. ‘Can I buy you a drink?’
‘No thanks.’
‘No? Now that you’ve solved the case and everything? Or almost everything...’ Røed motioned to a waiter for another drink but he ignored him.
‘What do you mean by almost?’
‘What do I mean?’ Røed said. ‘Well, you tell me.’
‘Out with it.’
‘Or what?’ The tip of Røed’s tongue emerged, he smiled, and his voice became a hoarse whisper. ‘Or else you’ll put me in a chokehold?’
‘No,’ Harry said.
‘No?’
‘I can put you in a chokehold if you tell me.’
Røed laughed. ‘Finally, a man that understands me. It’s just that I have a little confession to make now that the case is solved. I lied when I said Susanne and I had sex on the same day as she was killed. I didn’t meet her at all.’
‘No?’
‘No. I only said it to give the police a plausible explanation as to why my saliva was found on her body. It was what they wanted to hear, and it was also going to save me a lot of trouble. The path of least resistance, you might say.’
‘Mm.’
‘Can we keep that between ourselves?’
‘Why? The case has been cleared up. And you hardly want it known you were screwing another woman behind your wife’s back?’
‘Ah,’ Røed said, and smiled. ‘I’m not worried about that. There are... other rumours to consider.’
‘Are there?’
Røed twirled the empty glass in his hand. ‘You know, Harry, when my father died, I was both devastated and relieved. Can you understand that? What a release it was to be rid of a man you didn’t want to disappoint for anything in the world. Because you know that sooner or later the day will come when you have to disappoint him, when he has to find out who you really are. And so you hope to be saved by the bell. And I was.’
‘Were you afraid of him?’
‘Yes,’ Røed said. ‘I was afraid. And I suppose I loved him too. But above all...’ he put the empty glass to his forehead, ‘...I wanted him to love me. You know, I would happily have let him kill me if I just knew that he loved me.’
42
Friday
Terry Våge blinked. He had slept poorly. And was in a bad mood. Anyway, no one liked press conferences that started at nine in the morning. Or perhaps he was mistaken, the other journalists in the Parole Hall looked annoyingly perky. Even Mona Daa — the seats next to her already occupied when he arrived — appeared wide awake and animated. He had tried to make eye contact but to no avail. None of the other journalists had paid any attention to him when he entered either. Not that he was expecting a standing ovation, but you would think that going into the woods in the middle of the night and running the risk of encountering a serial killer might garner you a modicum of respect. Especially when you came back alive with pictures that had been sold to media outlets and appeared all around the world. Happiness is short-lived, as they say. A real win would have meant his getting that exclusive interview, but that scoop had been snatched away at the last minute. So yes, he had more reason than the rest to be on bad form today. Moreover, Dagnija had called last night to say she couldn’t come at the weekend after all. When she told him she couldn’t make it — although he wasn’t convinced that she couldn’t — he had naturally grown keener and attempted to persuade her, which had ended in an argument.