24
Monday 15 October
THE COUPLE TRUDGING across the road by the entrance to Frogner swimming baths were deep into a juicy quarrel. The woman, who was small and round, with Rasta braids, stopped in the middle of the road. She wavered uncertainly on her high-heeled boots, as if she were trying to keep her balance on a pair of stilts.
– Then you can just go on your own, Jørgen, she snuffled. – I say fuck it if you’re going to be like that.
A vehicle of some kind swung out from the car park. The man grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to the pavement on the other side. The car swerved around them.
– Bloody hell, Jørgen. I’m not coming with you unless you get yourself thorted out.
– You want me to get thorted out? he said, mocking her lisp. He was tall, thin, with a bent neck. – You were the one got us kicked out.
– You’re so childish, she said.
He exhaled loudly.
– And where d’you think you’re going if you don’t come with me?
– What’s it got to do with you?
– Fuck, Millie, you’re nothing but a shagged-out whore. You’ve no idea how sick I am of you.
– Same to you. You don’t understand nothing. Just look at yourself.
– Look at me? What’s to look at me for?
She didn’t answer. A moment later she said:
– Okay then, but get me a taxi.
– I ain’t got no readies.
– Think I’m going to walk to Skøyen? In the middle of the night?
He belched. – Then you can sleep in the park.
She stopped in her tracks.
– I mean it, Jørgen, it’s past two o’clock.
– It ain’t that far. I’ve got a fix. After that you can sleep for the rest of the week.
She groaned, but let him guide her into the alley.
– I need to go to the toilet, she told him.
– Go ahead then.
He stopped and leaned up against a tree trunk, yelling after her as she disappeared down the slope: – You don’t need to go half a mile away just to have a piss. There’s no one around now, and even if there was, who’d stop just to get a look at your arse?
– Not having a piss, she muttered. – Big job.
– Christ, Millie, you really are fuckin’ tasty.
He stood there peering out into the darkness. For an instant it felt as though the huge tree was holding him. He pressed his cheek against the rough bark. Could just make out the high diving board over the baths at the other end of the hollow. He’d jumped from the five-metre board the summer he turned nine. Or ten. He needed a fix. Maybe he’d screw Millie afterwards. If he felt up to it. But she’d have to wash first. Christ. How many women would squat down and do a shite in Frogner Park in the middle of the night? It was always the same with Millie: if she had to do something, didn’t matter what it was, then it had to be done at once. No question of hanging on for five minutes.
Her scream was high and long drawn out. She often screamed, but never like this. His first thought was to get out of there. He couldn’t take any more bother with that woman. But something in the scream held him, made him move a step or two closer to the slope.
– What’s up? he shouted.
He could see her scrambling up the slope. He clambered down a couple of yards and held out his hand. Her jeans were round her thighs, her naked arse shining white in the darkness.
– What the fuck’s up with you, Millie? he chided her, but his voice was shaking.
She reached the top and clung on to him.
– Down there, she sobbed. – Something lying down there. I touched it.
25
IT WAS 3.30. DETECTIVE Chief Inspector Hans Magnus Viken stuffed the rest of a slice of Madeira cake into his mouth as he ran a red light in Alexander Kielland’s Place. He wasn’t hungry, but when he was dragged out of bed in the middle of the night, he had to put something in his stomach to stave off the heartburn. Once it got started it would keep up all morning, sometimes even last the whole day.
As he drove, he got himself ready. Went through his thoughts systematically. What he would do once he reached the crime scene. What he would look for. He was good at that kind of thinking. Keeping a cool head when things got hectic. Because that was what was happening now, he thought as he swallowed the rest of the coffee he had bought at the service station along with the slice of cake. Things were hectic. The press was there, the officer in charge had reported. In force. What else could be expected? A corpse found in the middle of town, so to speak. Judging by the description, he thought it might be related to a missing persons report. The Crime Response Unit had rung on Thursday evening. A call had gone out for a woman who had failed to return to her home in Vindern. She was seriously ill and probably depressed. The family were afraid she might have harmed herself. On the face of it, not a criminal matter. But he had asked to be kept informed of all missing persons reports. After the find up in the marka, he wasn’t the only one on edge.
A helicopter was circling above the park. It looked like VG, or one of the TV companies. He parked as close as he could to the road. The crowd was even worse than he had imagined. The two biggest newspapers naturally, but also two camera teams, one from TV2, the other with no visible logo. He pushed his way through and stepped over the crime-scene tape stretched across the end of the car park. There were two stands there, microphones that could pick up conversations a hundred metres away.
– Is it the missing woman who’s been found? someone shouted after him.
He raised both arms in dismissal as he walked on across the muddy grass. – All in due course, he grunted over his shoulder.
The first thing that struck him as he made his way down the slippery slope and saw the white-coated technicians moving slowly in the light from the lamps was that it looked as though a scene from a film was being shot. The sight of the twisted body lying among the dead nettles at the edge of the stream, with its face in the water, as though the last thing she had tried to do was crawl there to take a drink, reinforced the impression.
Nina Jebsen came over to him, handed him a pair of blue shoe covers. She was in uniform, he noticed, and her breath smelt of tobacco. A couple of weeks ago she’d announced that she’d finally managed to give up smoking.
– Cecilie Davidsen, said Viken, more as a statement of fact than a query.
– Looks pretty much like it. Hair colour and build are a match. And the clothes still on her fit with the description we have.
– Who found her?
– A couple on their way home. Dodgy types. They’re being questioned at Majorstua.
– Any of our people there?
– Arve’s in charge. Sigge’ll be here before six o’clock.
Viken crossed to the body, shone his torch down. Parts of the back were exposed between the ragged edges of the torn jacket. A broad track consisting of five deep scratches ran from the ribs diagonally up across the neck.
– How the hell? he muttered to himself. – How the hell? His stomach started to churn. He patted his pockets, looking for an antacid, found nothing.
– They’re frighteningly similar to the scratch marks on the woman up in the Nordmarka, Nina Jebsen commented from behind him.
He straightened up and took a couple of paces back, stepped into something sticky. He shone the beam downwards. Fresh faeces covered not only the plastic overshoes but also part of the tips of his shoes. He let out a string of curses and looked around for something to clean it off with.