Kaja opened the door, brushed a sun-bleached strand of hair from her face and folded her arms.
Even the woolly cardigan that was too big for her and the shabby felt slippers were the same.
“Harry,” she stated.
“You live within walking distance of my flat, so I thought I’d try calling round instead of ringing.”
“What?” She tilted her head to one side.
“That’s what I said the first time I rang your doorbell.”
“How can you remember that?”
Because I spent a very long time thinking about what to say and practising it, Harry thought, and smiled. “Memory like an elephant. Can I come in?”
He saw a hint of hesitation in her eyes, and it struck him that it hadn’t even occurred to him that she might have someone. A partner. A lover. Or some other reason to keep him on the other side of the threshold.
“If I’m not disturbing you, I mean?”
“Er, no, it... it’s just a bit of a surprise.”
“I could come back another time.”
“No. No, goodness, I said you could come anytime.” She stepped aside.
Kaja put a cup of steaming tea on the coffee table in front of Harry and sat down on the sofa, tucking her long legs beneath her. Harry looked at the book that lay open, spine up. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. He remembered something about a young woman who fell in love with a gloomy loner who was separated but who turned out to have his wife locked up in the attic.
“They’re not letting me investigate the murder,” he said. “Even though I’ve been ruled out as a suspect.”
“That’s standard procedure in cases like this, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know if there’s a set procedure for murder detectives whose wives have been murdered. And I know who did it.”
“You know?”
“I’m pretty certain.”
“Evidence?”
“Gut feeling.”
“Like everyone else who has ever worked with you, I have the greatest respect for your gut feeling, Harry, but are you sure it’s reliable when it comes to your own wife?”
“It isn’t just my gut. I’ve ruled out the other possibilities.”
“All of them?” Kaja was holding her cup without drinking it, as if she had made the tea mostly to warm her hands up. “I seem to remember having a mentor called Harry who told me that there are always other possibilities, that conclusions based on deduction have an undeserved good reputation.”
“Rakel had no enemies apart from this one. Who wasn’t actually hers, he’s my enemy. His name is Svein Finne. Also known as the Fiancé.”
“Who’s he?”
“A rapist and murderer. He’s called the Fiancé because he impregnates his victims and kills them if they don’t give birth to his child. I was a young murder detective, and I worked day and night to catch him. He was my first. And I laughed with joy when I put the cuffs on him.” Harry looked down at his hands. “That was probably the last time I felt so happy when I arrested someone.”
“Oh? Why?”
Harry’s eyes wandered across the beautiful, old, floral-patterned wallpaper.
“There are probably several reasons, and my self-awareness is pretty limited. But one reason is that as soon as Finne had finished his sentence, he raped a nineteen-year-old girl and threatened to kill her if she had an abortion. She had one anyway. A week later she was found lying on her stomach on a forest track in Linnerud. Blood everywhere, they were sure she was dead. But when they turned her over they heard a sound, a babyish voice saying ‘mama.’ They got her to hospital, and she survived. It wasn’t the girl talking. Finne had cut her open, inserted a battery-operated talking doll, and sewn her up again.”
Kaja gasped for breath. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m a bit out of practice.”
Harry nodded. “So I caught him again. I set a trap and caught him with his trousers down. Literally. There’s a photograph. Bright flash, slightly overexposed. Apart from the humiliation, I have personally been responsible for the fact that Svein Finne, the Fiancé, has spent twenty of his seventy-plus years behind bars. Among other things, for a murder he says he didn’t commit. So there’s the motive. That’s the reason for my gut feeling. Can we go out onto the terrace for a cigarette?”
They got their coats and sat down on the large, covered terrace that looked out onto a garden full of bare apple trees. Harry glanced up at the windows of the first floor in the neighbouring house on Lyder Sagens gate. There were no lights on in any of them.
“Your neighbour,” Harry said as he took out his cigarette packet. “Has he stopped watching over you?”
“Greger turned ninety a couple of years ago. He died last year,” Kaja sighed.
“So now you have to take care of yourself?”
She shrugged. There was a rhythm in the movement, like a dance. “I have a feeling someone’s always watching over me.”
“Have you got religious?”
“No. Can I have a cigarette?”
Harry looked at her. She was sitting on her hands. The way he remembered her doing because she got cold so quickly.
“You know we sat right here doing this years ago? Seven years? Eight?”
“Yes,” she said. “I remember.” She pulled one hand out from beneath her. Held the cigarette between her index and middle fingers as she let Harry light it. She inhaled and breathed out grey smoke. She handled the cigarette just as clumsily as she had last time.
Harry felt the sweet aftertaste of the memories. They had talked about all the smoking in the film Now, Voyager, about material monism, free will, John Fante and the pleasures of stealing little things. Then, as punishment for those pain-free moments, he started at the sound of her name and the knife was twisted again.
“You sound so certain when you say that Rakel had no enemies apart from this Finne guy, Harry. But what makes you think you know all the details of her life? People can live together, share a bed, share everything, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they share each other’s secrets.”
Harry cleared his throat. “I knew her, Kaja. She knew me. We knew each other. We didn’t have any sec—” He heard the tremble in his own voice and broke off.
“That’s great, Harry, but I don’t know what you want me to be here. Comforter or professional?”
“Professional.”
“OK.” Kaja put her cigarette down on the edge of the wooden table. “Then I’ll give you another possibility, just as an example. Rakel had embarked on a relationship with another man. It might be impossible for you to imagine that she would have gone behind your back, but believe me, women are better at hiding things like that than men, especially if they think there’s good reason to. Or, to be more accurate: men are worse at uncovering infidelity than women.”
Harry closed his eyes. “That sounds like a big—”
“Generalisation. Of course it is. Here’s another one. Women are unfaithful for different reasons than men. Maybe Rakel knew she needed to get away from you, but needed a catalyst, something to give her a push. Like a short-term fling. Then, once the fling had served its purpose and she was free from you, she finished with the other man as well. And bingo, you’ve got an infatuated, humiliated man with a motive for murder.”
“OK,” Harry said. “But do you believe that yourself?”
“No, but it just shows that there could be other possibilities. I certainly don’t believe the motive you’re trying to ascribe to Finne.”