Axel looked up and registered that they were just passing Dronning Park. The driver glanced at him in the rear-view mirror. She had heavy bags under her eyes and wore a perfume that smelled like mould.
– Tough start to the day, she said vaguely, not specifying whether she was referring to her own or her passenger’s day.
He grunted something or other and closed his eyes again to avoid any further encouragement. Another nine hours and his work day would be over. He would make it through. He’d had his own practice for twelve years. It was like playing the piano. Sometimes he had to improvise, but most of it he knew off by heart, no matter how tired he was. He’d lost count of the number of days he’d worked through with no sleep the night before. He could handle it. But on this morning it was something other than tiredness. Lise’s face. Unscathed at first glance, looking almost as though she were sleeping. Like Marlen’s face when he crept in in the dark and bent over her. Then shining the light, seeing the eyes… Her father had sat bent over on the sofa, staring at the table as Axel explained why he had come. Suddenly he jumped to his feet. Ingrid, should I wake her? Yes, Axel thought, it would be best to wake her. And directly afterwards the scream from the floor above that rose and swelled and filled the whole house and would not end. Ingrid Brodahl, whom he knew from parent-teacher evenings and had talked about school breakfasts with, and celebrations for National Day on 17 May, came rushing down the stairs in her pyjamas. She was still howling, and at that instant Axel regretted having gone there.
The taxi braked suddenly and he was thrown towards the front seat. The figure that had by the narrowest of margins avoided being tossed up on to the bonnet of the car skipped on across the road. The driver opened her window and gave the man an earful. From the pavement he turned and glared at her.
– Stop! shouted Axel as the driver started to accelerate through the traffic lights.
– What do you mean? she protested.
– Pull in to the side. Wait here.
He swung the door open, hurried back to the crossing. He saw him making his way down Sporveisgata.
– Brede! he shouted.
The man didn’t turn round. Axel started to run. The other man speeded up. There was less than thirty metres between them when he disappeared between two buildings. Axel reached the corner, ran into an empty courtyard. Stood there panting. Calm down, he warned himself. You’ve had one helluva night. No more now. Just get through it.
6
FOUR PATIENTS WERE sitting in the waiting room when he arrived, half an hour after he was due to see the first of them. He popped his head into the office. Rita was on the phone but put the call on hold and turned to him.
– So you’re alive, she exclaimed in the singing tones of her home town in the far north.
– Hard to say, he sighed. – How does it look?
– Alas, no cancellations, you’re too popular for that.
She got up, swayed over to where the coffee was simmering, poured a large mug and handed it to him.
– I’ve told people we’re going to be delayed. And I asked Inger Beate to take a couple of your patients before lunch if we’re still running late. She gave him a sympathetic maternal pat. – Don’t worry, Axel, we’ll get you through the day all right.
– What would I do without you? he said, smiling gratefully.
They weren’t just empty words. Rita looked after everything. She was firm when she had to be, friendly when she could be. Already he was dreading her going on holiday.
– And don’t forget the student, she chirruped.
– Damn, was that today?
Axel had once again agreed to take on a medical student in the practice. He liked being a supervisor, but on this particular morning his patience would probably not extend to pedagogic tribulations.
– I’ve told her she can use Ola’s room; that’s going to be vacant the whole time she’s here.
– She? Wasn’t it a male student?
– Apparently they arranged a swap. I left you a note about it yesterday.
He took a swig of coffee. Given the shape he was in, he would have preferred it if it had been a young man.
– Ask her to come in… No, give me five minutes and then ask her.
He slumped down into the chair, turned on his computer, stretched the skin of his face as far back as he could. He hadn’t seen Brede for twenty years. Didn’t even know if he was still alive. It had been weeks, maybe even months, since he’d last thought about him, not until his mother’s outburst the day before. It couldn’t have been Brede he saw. He’d chased after a guy who looked like him along Sporveisgata… He realised how exhausted he was. Maybe he should drop the duty-doctor stuff for a while. They didn’t need the money.
The hard disk creaked and whirred and struggled to get going. When the computer’s ready then I’ll be ready too, he thought. He stuffed the need to sleep into a cupboard, locked the door and threw away the key: I am no longer tired. There was a knock on the door. Damn, he’d forgotten already about the student. He jumped up, slapped his cheeks a few times. It’s show time, he said to himself in the mirror and called for her to come in.
She shut the door behind her. Her hand was narrow and warm. Miriam was the name. He didn’t catch the surname.
– I’ve met you before, she said.
He frowned.
– Just before the summer holidays. You gave lectures on cancer in general medicine. I spoke to you in several of the breaks.
– That’s right, he said. He’d lectured on the importance of being alert, not missing that one among all those who visited the doctor for some trifle or other who was actually seriously ill. – That’s right. Now let’s see the first patient. You can be a fly on the wall.
He didn’t like the expression and wrinkled his nose.
– And in due course, naturally, you’ll be working on your own.
He skipped the lunch break but managed to catch up with his appointments; no one had to wait more than half an hour. In the afternoon he had time to discuss some of the cases with the student. He was beyond tiredness by this time and just about running on empty. But he knew there was enough there for him to make it through the rest of the day. Fortunately the student turned out to be calm and relaxed. She was also very knowledgeable, and she asked good questions. She even knew a couple of things about leukaemia that he hadn’t caught up with yet, though he was careful not to let her know.
By quarter to four he was ready for the last patient. She’d been given an immediate emergency appointment. He read what Rita had written. Cecilie Davidsen. Anxious woman with lump in her breast.
He clicked into her notes. She’d been a patient of his for three years but had only been to the clinic once before, when she had flu and needed a sick note. She was forty-six years old, an air hostess; two grown children and an eight-year-old daughter.
– A woman who doesn’t go to the doctor about nothing, he said to the student. – All the more reason to be on the alert.
Cecilie Davidsen was tall and slender, her hair cut short with bleached strips. Axel recalled her at once. She removed her glove, offered him her hand and looked at him with a little smile, as though apologising for bothering him unnecessarily. But somewhere in that look he could see how uneasy she was feeling.
He asked her all the relevant questions, about breastfeeding and menstruation and when she had first noticed something in her breast.
– Let’s just have a look, shall we.
She unbuttoned her blouse. He had deliberately not asked her where she had felt the lump so that he could find it for himself. It was on the right-hand side, directly beneath the nipple. It was the size of an almond, irregular in shape and resistant to movement.