He woke up. What do you want from me, Miriam? It was quiet in the room. It was morning: 5.30. Daylight coming in from the ceiling window. He’d been sleeping for three and a half hours. He felt rested. He sniffed down from her shoulder to her armpit. The sweat was acrid, herb-like. She lay with her back to him, her hand still around his genitals, and when he removed it she felt for them again, as though unwilling to let go. He pulled one of her arse cheeks aside and wriggled his way in between her thighs.
– What are you doing? she murmured, half asleep, and drew her knee up under her. He had to take hold of it and lift it before he could slip inside her. Then he just lay there, not moving.
– Aren’t you asleep? he whispered in her ear as she began to move her backside against his stomach.
– Yes, she grunted. – Don’t wake me.
He put a spoonful of strawberry jam on the crispbread, took a mouthful of coffee.
– Axel, she called from the sleeping alcove. – What did you do with my vest?
He finished chewing and swallowed.
– The one with your name on in red glitter? I’ve taken it. Need something to remind me of you.
The next moment she was standing in the doorway with a towel round her.
– I mean it, I can’t find it.
He realised that he was tapping his ring against the coffee cup.
Last time I saw it, you were using it to dry yourself with. Removing any last traces of me.
– I left it on the floor in the alcove; it isn’t there any more.
– Were you going to wear it today? With all those stains?
– You idiot, she scolded him. She came over to the table, put her arms around him and slid down on to his lap. – Do you have to go?
– Soon.
She leaned back and looked into his eyes.
– Will you come back?
On his way down the crooked and uneven staircase, he stopped outside the door of the downstairs flat. Miriam had been so upset that the neighbour’s daughter wasn’t allowed to live there any more. And the memory of that led him to thoughts of his own family. He’d sent a text to Bie. Explained that he’d been asked to cover for someone in Oslo. It was something that happened now and then. OK, she’d answered. Just those two letters. He read the hand-painted ceramic nameplate on the neighbour’s door: Anita and Victoria Elvestrand live here. It struck him that it would always hang there, regardless of whether the words written on it were true or not.
Out on the pavement he stood a moment and inhaled the October air that rushed towards him, dense with cool exhaust fumes. He glanced up at Miriam’s window on the fifth floor. Up at the grey-black sky above the rooftops. It was Thursday morning. As he walked towards where his car was parked, he thought: Tonight I must talk to Bie.
THAT SOUND YOU just heard was yourself sleeping. It’s Thursday morning. The time is 6.30. I’m sitting here with the morning paper and a cup of coffee. Like any average person who’s got up early and is about to set off for work. It was no more than three hours ago that I made this recording of you. Both of you. Played it back to myself lots of times while I’ve been sitting here. You’ve probably got up too. You’re tired because you slept badly last night. Lay there muttering and tossing and turning. Your bad conscience getting to you. That would be just like you. Tons of stuff in the papers about the woman they found in Frogner Park. I can just see your face when you found out who it was. The unease that makes you curdle inside. You still don’t know what this is about. But you hear a sound in the distance and it’s beginning to dawn on you that it’s coming closer. You’re a good listener. Which makes what you did even worse. There’s no way back now. No way back for me either after what I did back then. But now I’ve done something a lot worse, so it doesn’t matter any more.
She was different from the first one. It took a while for her to get scared. She seemed indifferent when she woke up and found herself taped up. Asked what I wanted with her. I told her straight away. She didn’t believe me. Mocked me and tried to make fun of me. But when we got there and I showed her what I had in mind, then she turned into a little child, just like the first one. Emptied all her orifices. Began to scream, too. I let her carry on until she was all screamed out. Then I told her when it was going to happen so she’d know exactly how much time she had left. By the time you hear this, I’ll have told you the same thing. How many hours and minutes before it happens.
I lay beside her all through that first night. Removed her stinking clothes. Didn’t touch her. Lay there in a semi-doze. Glanced at her now and then. I’d wrapped her in a woollen blanket so she wouldn’t get cold. Gave her water too. She wouldn’t have any food. She calmed down with me lying there. Started talking. That she was ill and going to have an operation. That she had a child. An eight-year-old daughter who was afraid to sleep alone. Would I let her go so she could get home and tuck in her daughter, who was lying in bed afraid? For a while I let her believe I would. Dried round her mouth with a damp cloth and stroked her cheek. And when she realised I was lying, she began to wail again. But she wasn’t angry. I could lie with my face pressed right up against her neck. She wanted me to.
I’ve killed twice. And still it’s not your turn yet. I’ve chosen the next one. The day has been appointed. I know already how I’m going to get her to come along with me. Know where she’ll be found. You’ll find her. But not everything will be planned beforehand. I don’t like things to be too neat. Chance has to be allowed to play its part. Things can go wrong. And if I’m caught, you’ll get away.
PART III
33
Thursday 18 October
NINA JEBSEN WAS at the office by about 7.30. There was a memo she wanted to have ready for the morning briefing, and a couple of witnesses she still had to contact, including the former NRK newscaster who was on the list of people observed on the way to Ullevålseter on the day Hilde Paulsen disappeared.
Once again she had to give up the attempt to get through to the TV celebrity. A secretary in the firm he was working for now claimed he was on holiday in Tanzania. The last time she’d tried, the day before, she’d been given a different explanation for why the man wasn’t there. Not that it surprised her: the person she was trying to get hold of belonged to that exclusive group of people who had acquired the right to be inaccessible, and made use of it.
The trip up to Åsnes in Hedmark the day before hadn’t resulted in much, but Viken might well ask for an account of even insignificant details and give her a hard time if she couldn’t provide it. She’d be able to describe a visit to the mongoloids at the care home. The conversation with the bitter old woman over a cup of even more bitter coffee. Before concluding her memo on the visit to Reinkollen, she opened the STRASAK database of convicted felons, ran a search for Roger Åheim, and came up with a hit. He owned a farm and also ran an Esso station at Åmoen in Åsnes county. In other words, the place where she’d asked for directions to Reinkollen. She recalled with distaste the young lout behind the counter, who’d confirmed every one of her prejudices about backwoods Norway. She checked the notes and discovered that the owner of the petrol station had to be the cousin whom Åse Berit Nytorpet’s husband had been out with.
She bent closer to the monitor, swiped the page and a list of criminal convictions appeared on the screen. Fifteen years previously this same Roger Åheim had served time for inflicting grievous bodily harm. Lower down the list she found two charges of rape. One was dismissed on the grounds of insufficient evidence. In the other, eleven years ago, a nineteen-year-old woman alleged that she had been abducted by the accused. She’d sustained slight injuries to her face and upper body. Roger Åheim claimed that the girl had gone with him of her own free will. It was one person’s word against another and the charge was dropped. Nina scrolled down further and came across a conviction from eight years ago on an environmental charge. Illegal lynx hunting. Roger Åheim insisted he had acted in self-defence, but no one believed he had been attacked by one of these notoriously timid creatures. He had also changed his story several times in the course of the trial.