– Have you read the paper, Axel?
– Sort of.
She was holding it in front of her as she came back into the room again.
– Did you see this about the woman missing in the Nordmarka?
He continued laying waste with the Buzz! control.
– Did you see who it is? she asked. – Hilde Paulsen, my physio.
Only now did he react, jumping to his feet, crossing to her. With narrowed eyes he read the story she was pointing to.
He called the police station, explained what it was about. A woman with a strong Stavanger accent came on the line. Her voice was also unusually loud.
– At what time of the day did you meet her?
Axel thought it over. He’d been up at Blankvann around 4.30. With the puncture it took him perhaps twenty minutes, maybe half an hour, to get down to Ullevålseter. He hadn’t checked the time again until he was at Sognsvann, when he noticed it was 6.15.
– And how did she seem? I mean, her mood.
Axel held the receiver well away from his ear.
– Nothing special. Just the usual good mood.
He knew what the policewoman was angling for, but he found it hard to believe that Hilde Paulsen’s disappearance had anything to do with her state of mind. A woman in a tracksuit, with walking poles. She’d stopped to discuss a patient with him. An old man with back pain was what was on her mind at that particular juncture. Not suicide.
12
Monday 1 October
RITA POURED COFFEE for them.
– She was going for a walk in the Nordmarka, she said as she sliced the macaroon cake she’d baked over the weekend. – And since then there’s been no sign of her.
Every Friday, and some Mondays, Rita served up a treat for lunch. On more than one occasion Inger Beate had taken Axel aside and asked how they could talk to her about it without hurting her feelings, because they couldn’t sit there forever stuffing themselves with cake. Axel had a good laugh at her worries and said it was up to each individual how to deal with that particular dilemma.
– Do any of you know who she is?
– Should we? asked Inger Beate, her mouth full of salad. Axel knew there was a case she wanted to discuss with him, but she wouldn’t bring it up as long as the student was sitting there. He’d have to call in and talk to her later in the day.
– You know her, both of you.
Inger Beate glanced over at Axel; he was looking the other way.
– About time you told us, Rita, she said, irritated.
– Hilde Paulsen, that physio from Majorstua.
– Really! exclaimed Inger Beate.
Rita held up the plate of macaroon cake and looked from one to the other.
– The police think she’s been murdered.
Axel turned abruptly to her.
– How do you know that?
– A friend of mine. Her daughter’s a journalist, works for VG. They know all that kind of thing there. The police seem to think that Hilde Paulsen met someone while she was out walking, or else someone was waiting for her up in the forest.
She shivered as she said it and nearly dropped the cake plate on to the table.
About four o’clock, Miriam knocked on Axel’s door.
– I’ve written up the journal notes.
He didn’t look up.
– The woman who was knocked down from behind, she reminded him. – Question of whiplash.
– I’ll have a look at it before I leave.
She didn’t move.
– You seem very preoccupied today.
He brushed the hair away from his forehead. Only now did he raise his eyes and look at her.
– Come in and sit down, he said finally.
She closed the door behind her.
– I’m sorry if you… he began. – What we were talking about on Wednesday.
Her eyes were bigger than he had remembered them, or was it just the make-up that created that effect. She was wearing a T-shirt under her doctor’s coat with big glitter-coated lettering across the chest.
– Is that some secret message on your top? he said, smiling.
She blushed and pulled the coat closed.
– Got it from a friend on my birthday. I didn’t have anything else clean.
– Let me see, he said.
Reluctantly she opened her coat. His gaze moved across the twisting letters.
– M-i-r-i-a-m, he read. – Today’s a good day, Miriam. For a cup of coffee, I mean.
Sitting in the back of the taxi he said:
– You’re right, I do have a lot on my mind today.
He leaned back into the soft seat.
– That missing woman. I met her the day she disappeared. Maybe I’m the last person to see her alive.
He didn’t say any more about it. Not until he was seated on the sofa in her apartment. Beyond the living room was a kitchenette, and in one corner an alcove where he presumed her bed was. While she laid out the cups and saucers, he told her about the meeting with the missing woman up in the Oslomarka. For some reason or other he repeated their conversation verbatim, as far as he could recall it, as well as the thought that had occurred to him: that not all women would dare walk alone in the forest in the evening. After that, he told her about the rest of his day.
Miriam served coffee from a cafetière. He took a sip. Blue Java, if he had to guess.
– This is good coffee. And I reckon I’m a connoisseur.
She was clearly preoccupied with what he had just been telling her.
– Before you met her, she said as she slipped into a chair on the other side of the table, – you took a swim in a tarn deep in the forest, and then you found that shelter made of spruce branches.
– I don’t know why I’m telling you all this, Miriam.
– There’s nothing to be worried about.
It was as though every little thing interested her. It gave everything he said a slightly different meaning than he gave it himself. At the same instant he thought about taking her up there. To the tarn and the twig shelter. He liked the thought of walking in the forest with her. He was about to say this, but restrained himself. Instead began talking about the life he would soon be going home to. Riding lessons, football practice, family dinners. Marlen and Tom, Daniel who had gone to New York to study, and Bie, who was a journalist on a fashion magazine she’d once edited. He told her all this to release the tension that had been building in him, and he could feel that it helped.
– You’re the type of person people open up to, Miriam. Tell you what, if you were in the police, you’d get plenty of confessions.
She looked up through the skylight.
– It’s always been like that. The stories I hear live on inside me. They can knock me out of my stride for a long time after.
– How is that going to affect your work as a doctor? You can’t let things get to you. If you do, you’ve no chance.
She blew on to her cup and took a sip.
– I’ll have to learn to live with it. Learn how to erect barriers. I think I’m getting better.
– At any rate, I’ll spare you the rest of my story, he said, putting down his cup and standing up.
He stopped next to the chair she was sitting in. She looked up. Her face was shadowed in the grey light falling from the window above. That yellowy green he’d noticed in her eyes earlier wasn’t visible now. For the first time he sensed that there was something else there, beneath her calm. Had probably noticed it already when she arrived in the morning. He hadn’t asked her a single question about her life. It was a matter of avoiding any openings that might turn her into something more than a young student he was in touch with for a few autumn weeks before disappearing from his life for good. He could feel he was almost back in control again and was determined not to let it go this time. All the same, he asked her:
– Has something happened?
She looked away.