“I’ve heard many more rumors than I would care to share. This is a small town. But if you mean rumors about Anders then… no. Nothing like you’re suggesting.”
“Which is?”
“That the boy did something far more serious than letting himself be fooled into killing a cat.”
“Then I won’t disturb you any longer.”
“You’re not disturbing me at all. It’s nice to have visitors.”
As he followed her to the door, she noticed a large photograph of a woman in her fifties on the wall in the hall. From the woman’s glasses, she guessed the picture was taken in the seventies.
“My wife,” said Hansvold and nodded at the portrait. “Randi. Fabulous woman. She had her own way with Anders. Mrs. Mohaug always trusted Randi. When Anders was here, they could sit for hours doing jigsaw puzzles or playing canasta. Randi always let him win, as you would a child.”
“I suppose he was,” said Johanne, “in a way.”
“Yes. In a way he was just a little boy.”
He turned to face her again and stroked the ridge of his nose.
“But he was a man as well. A big, grown man. Don’t forget that.”
“I won’t,” said Johanne. “Thank you for your help.”
On the way back to Oslo she checked the voice mail on her cell phone. There were two messages from Adam, thanking her for last night and wondering where she was. Johanne slowed down and slipped in behind a truck, keeping a good distance. She played back the messages again. Could she detect something akin to irritation, or perhaps concern, in the last message? Johanne tried to decide whether she liked it or whether it annoyed her.
Her mother had called three times. She wouldn’t give up, so Johanne dialled the number immediately and stayed in the inside lane of the highway.
“Hi Mom.”
“Hello. How nice that you’ve called. Your father’s been asking for you, he…”
“Give him my love and tell him all he needs to do is call.”
“Call? You’re never at home, dear! We were starting to get quite worried, as we hadn’t hear from you, days after you’d gotten back from your travels and all that. Did you manage to visit Marion? How is she now, with the new…”
“I didn’t visit anyone, Mom. I was working.”
“Yes, but as you were over there, you might as well…”
“I actually have a lot to do right now. When I’d done what I had to do, I came home.”
“Of course. Good, dear.”
“You left a message on my voice mail. Several, in fact. Was there anything in particular?”
“Just wanted to know how you are and to invite you and Kristiane to supper on Friday. It would be good for you not to have to think…”
“Friday… Let me see…”
The truck was having problems getting up the long, gentle slopes to Karihaugen. Johanne moved out to the left and accelerated to pass it. She lost her earpiece.
“Wait,” she shouted into the air. “Don’t hang up, Mom!”
As she tried to catch the wire, she lost control of the wheel. The car swerved into the next lane and a Volvo had to slam on its brakes to avoid a collision. Johanne gripped the wheel with both hands, staring straight ahead.
“Don’t hang up,” she barked again.
Without taking her eyes off the road, she managed to fish up the earpiece.
“What happened?” screeched her mother at the other end. “Are you driving while talking on the phone again?”
“No, I’m talking on the phone while I’m driving. Nothing happened.”
“You’ll kill yourself that way one day. Surely it can’t be necessary to do everything at once!”
“We’ll come by on Friday, Mom. And…”
Her heart was thumping hard and painfully in her chest. She realized that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
“Do you think Kristiane could stay over until Saturday, mid-afternoonish?”
“Of course! Can’t you both stay the night?”
“I’ve got plans, Mom, but it would be…”
“Plans? On Friday night?”
“Can Kristiane stay over, yes or no?”
“Of course she can, dear. She’s always welcome. You too. You know that.”
“Yes. See you about six then.”
She quickly ended the call before her mother managed to say anything else. Johanne had no plans for Friday night. She had no idea why she’d asked. She and Isak had agreed that if they needed someone to babysit for Kristiane, they would always ask each other first.
She called her voice mail again. Adam’s messages had been deleted. She must have hit the button through force of habit. Lina had phoned while she was talking to her mother.
“Hi, it’s Lina. Just wanted to remind you about the book group on Wednesday. Your turn, you know. And God help you if you can’t make it. Just make something simple. We’ll bring the wine. We’ll be there about eight. See you, hon. Look forward to it.”
“Shit!”
Johanne was good at multitasking. She managed to cope every day because she could do lots of things at once. She could plan a birthday party for Kristiane while she did the laundry, at the same time as talking on the phone. She listened to radio programs while she read the paper and managed to digest the content of both. On the way to day care, she planned what they would have for supper and what Kristiane would wear the next day. She brushed her teeth and made oatmeal and read out loud for Kristiane-all at the same time. On the rare occasions when she was going out with other people, she dropped her daughter off at Isak’s or with her parents while she put on her makeup in the car mirror. That’s the way women were. Especially her.
But not at work.
Johanne had chosen to do research because she liked to study things in depth. But it was more than that. She could never have been a lawyer or a bureaucrat. Doing research allowed her to be thorough. To do one thing at a time. To cast a wide net, take time to find connections. Research allowed her to doubt, whereas her daily life demanded fast decisions and make-do solutions, compromises and smart shortcuts. In her work she had the opportunity to go over things again if she wasn’t satisfied.
But now everything was a mess.
When she had hesitantly agreed to research the possible miscarriage of justice against Aksel Seier, it was because it was relevant to her project. But at some point or another-she couldn’t pinpoint when-the case had started to develop a life of its own. It was no longer anything to do with her life at the institute, with her research. Aksel Seier was a mystery that she shared with an old lady whom she was drawn to but at the same time wanted to forget.
And then she had let herself get involved with Adam’s work.
I can cope with having lots of small balls in the air, she thought to herself as she turned off Tåsenlokket. But not big ones. Not at work. Not two demanding projects at the same time.
And not five ladies for dinner on Wednesday. She just couldn’t cope.
FORTY
It was only eleven o’clock in the evening on Monday, May 29, but Johanne had already been in bed for an hour. She should have been exhausted, but something was making her uneasy, keeping her awake, without her knowing what it was. She closed her eyes and remembered that it was Memorial Day. Cape Cod would have had its first real weekend of the summer season. Shutters would have been stored away. Houses aired. The Stars and Stripes would be flying from newly painted flagpoles; the red, white and blue national pride flapping in the wind while the sailboats cruised between Martha’s Vineyard and the mainland.
Warren would no doubt have been in Orleans and installed the wife and children for the summer, in the house with a view over Nauset Beach. The children must be grown up by now. Teenagers, at least. Without wanting to, she started calculating. Then she forced herself to think about Aksel Seier. She had a list of names of people who had worked in the Ministry of Justice in the period from 1964 to 1966 in front of her. It was a long list and it told her nothing. Identities. People. People she didn’t know and whose names meant nothing to her.