– Dr Glenne, she said, interrupting. – I delayed as long as I could, but I can no longer keep this to myself.
Viken took a tape recorder out of the bottom drawer. It hadn’t been used for several years.
– Do you have any objection to my recording our conversation?
– Absolutely not, Detective Chief Inspector. On the contrary, I would like as many people as possible to know about this.
He puzzled about what she might mean, but let it go.
– Are we talking about a doctor named Axel Glenne, who runs a clinic in Bogstadveien?
– Yes.
– Are you a patient of his?
She confirmed this too.
– What is it you think we should know about him?
She thought for a moment, then said:
– I am not an informer. I don’t want anyone to think that.
He pushed the microphone over towards her.
– People who come to us are not informers, they are witnesses. We are completely dependent on people like you to do our job.
She closed her eyes. Emphasising every word, she said:
– Dr Glenne is a good doctor. Very good. But he is not the man people think he is.
She stopped.
– In what way?
– He has taken all the sins of the world upon his shoulders.
Viken moved his head from side to side but said nothing.
– He has saved many. He saved my husband from certain death.
– Your husband is ill?
She muttered something he didn’t catch; it sounded like ‘milky hell’, but he didn’t ask, afraid that she might follow up with the medical history of her entire family.
– I’m probably a little slow on the uptake, Mrs Lundwall, he said instead, – but I’m still not clear what it is you’ve come here to report.
Still she sat with her eyes closed. He saw that her jaw muscles were clenched.
– Dr Glenne has taken it upon himself to save the world from what is to come. I wanted to follow him, but I no longer believe that he is capable of it. I think he is just a human being, the same as you and me.
Viken started scratching his throat.
– He is a seducer, she said, opening her eyes again. She looked straight at him, an almost angry expression in her gaze.
– Does this mean, Viken asked, – does this mean that he has transgressed certain boundaries in his relationships with his patients?
She shook her head.
– Not his patients. But the people with whom he consorts are ruffians. And harlots.
Viken found the word quaint.
– You mean prostitutes?
– Call her what you will.
– Her? Are you talking about a particular woman?
Abruptly Solveig Lundwall rose to her feet.
– Now it is said. If you are looking for him, I know where he is to be found.
Viken stood up too, unsure whether to ask her to sit down again.
– Well we’re not looking for this Glenne. But there are still a couple of things in your statement…
– I have said what there is to say. The money is of no interest to me whatsoever. You may keep it.
Viken was astounded.
– The money?
Solveig Lundwall offered him her hand, and when he reluctantly took it, she bent suddenly towards him and kissed him on the cheek.
– The thirty pieces of silver, Caiaphas, she whispered in his ear.
Viken pulled back,blinking in confusion as he struggled to work out whether she had been mistaking him for someone else the whole time. She smiled, a strange flash in the eyes, and before he could recover himself, she had turned on her heels and was gone from the room.
He remained standing where he was, rubbing his cheek. Not until a couple of minutes later did he turn off the tape and sink down into his chair, still so nonplussed that he wasn’t even able to feel annoyed at having allowed a woman who was so obviously stark raving mad to slip through the filters and get all the way up to his office.
45
AXEL FOLLOWED A track at the upper end of Sognsvann. He kept off the marked paths. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want anyone to see him. He had just sent two text messages, one to Miriam, one to Bie. Now he turned off his phone.
It had been raining down in town. As he climbed higher through the forest, he saw that it had been falling as snow up there. The footpaths around Blankvann were covered in a thin white carpet that twinkled in the pale light. He picked up the indefinable scent of winter, though small, shrivelled clusters of blueberries still hung in among the heather. He came across a set of fresh tracks; they looked like elk. He’d spotted elk many times. Somewhere not far from here he had undressed Bie, and while he was taking her from behind against an upended pine trunk, a female elk came charging down the slope. It stopped two metres away, stood there swaying and staring, and for a moment looked as though it might attack. Then it turned away and disappeared, two calves following behind. Next day he told Ola what had happened. They’d been sitting in his office having a cup of coffee before the first patient arrived. Remember what I said in my best man’s speech? Ola had responded, with the most innocent smile in the world. There’s not an animal in the world that will attack you when you’re offering your devotions to Pan. Ola was the best friend he’d ever had. But he had never told even him the story of what had happened with Brede.
He came to a halt by the tarn. A mere two weeks ago he and Miriam had swum here. He could see her in his mind’s eye as she emerged from the water. The naked white body coming towards him. Half jokingly she had said she wanted to take him to the place she came from. To a house by the sea, far from the nearest town, which was called Kaunas.
He climbed over the top of the rise and down the other side. Approached the pine-branch shelter from below. Stood a while and studied it. No one there. He switched on the torch and peered in. An empty beer bottle on the rolled-up blanket, an opened packet of frankfurters, a newspaper. He opened it out. Dagbladet, two days old. Down at the bottom a picture of the detective chief inspector who had interviewed him: No new leads in the bear murders case.
Some distance away, on the far side of the hollow, he sat down in the damp moss, his back against a pine trunk. He sat without moving as the darkness wrapped itself around him. It was wildly unlikely that Brede would show up here, but Axel was absolutely certain that he would. He listened to the autumn evening. The rustling of the treetops. A plane on its way to Gardermoen. Silence afterwards. If anyone approached the shelter, he would hear them coming a long way off.
Half an hour past midnight. A wind had got up in the hollow behind him. The temperature was probably below zero. A half-moon slipped in and out of the clouds. He pulled his jacket tight around him, but it didn’t help. A few minutes later he got up and padded down to the shelter. Lay down inside with the mouldy-smelling woollen blanket wrapped around him. Through the rip in the plastic he looked up at a bare patch of black sky. Brede has been given enough chances to do the right thing, Axel. It doesn’t help him at all if you try to excuse what he’s done. Don’t send him away, please. He didn’t mean it. His father’s voice when he answers is controlled, but Axel can hear that there’s something smouldering in there, something that will explode if he makes a wrong move, and blow him to smithereens. He daren’t say any more. And then his father lays a hand on his shoulder. I appreciate your wanting to defend him, Axel. You’re a fine boy. You’ll always do the right thing. But you must understand, some things cannot be forgiven.
Brede, he thought as he lay there, it wasn’t me that wanted it to work out this way. And now as I lie here looking out into the dark, I sense the sheerness of that membrane that divides your life from mine. One more breath could turn me into you with no way back again.