‘And there are a couple of other oddities. One of Gjerløw’s two laptops was completely clean. The one with the photographs. There wasn’t a single fingerprint or a speck of dust on it. The other one, a more recent model, was covered in grime. Plus Gjerløw sent a text message to a friend shortly before he died, saying he was busy playing a computer game. “Hate the graphics, but love the sound.”’
Bjarne looks at Henning for a few seconds, then he lowers his gaze.
‘I just don’t understand,’ he says and shakes his head.
‘What did Gjerløw do for a living?’
‘He was unemployed. Or he was at the time of his death.’
‘What kind of jobs did he used to do?’
‘Casual jobs. He had worked in a nursery school, for example, mostly here in Oslo. He also did a bit of removal work, I believe. He has a lorry driver’s licence and worked for Ringnes Brewery for a couple of months, delivering beer.’
Henning rests his chin in his hand.
‘And there’s something about that little boy that sends shivers down my spine,’ Bjarne continues.
Henning tries to visualise the killer, sees him lose his temper in Erna Pedersen’s room and smash a picture of her son’s family. He sees him go berserk in Johanne Klingenberg’s flat and smash the photograph of her godson.
And he remembers the emotions that welled up in him last night when he looked at the lovely picture of Jonas. The guilty conscience that nearly choked him, how he would never, ever, be able to bear having Jonas’s eyes look out at him from the wall. That could have been the reason why Gjerløw put up that school photo he was in on Erna Pedersen’s wall. Perhaps he wanted her to remember something. Perhaps he wanted her to feel guilty.
Henning shares his thoughts with Bjarne.
‘It’s possible,’ Bjarne admits. ‘But what would cause him to smash the other photo?’
‘Maybe he wasn’t angry with the people in the pictures. Then he would have hurt them instead. And the little boy couldn’t possibly have upset anyone, that goes without saying.’
Again Henning thinks about the information Bjarne has given him.
‘If you’re right in suggesting that Gjerløw had a particular relationship to the pictures, they might have represented something to him.’
‘Such as what?’
‘I’m not sure. Perhaps he was lonely? Didn’t you say that he hadn’t managed to have a family of his own?’
‘Yes?’
‘Then he might have been jealous. Otherwise why get mad at a picture of a happy family? He didn’t know them personally, did he?’
‘No, or at least we don’t think so. But don’t forget he smashed a photo of a little boy as well. Surely he can’t have been jealous of a toddler?’
Henning doesn’t reply immediately, but he is aware of a thought, an answer somewhere deep inside him that is just out of reach.
‘What if the little boy symbolised the same thing as the happy family?’ he says eventually.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Gjerløw had no children of his own. Perhaps he longed for one?’
‘So it’s not necessarily the boy himself who is the problem,’ Bjarne says. ‘It’s what he represents?’
Henning opens up his hands.
‘Why not?’
Bjarne sits in pensive silence for several seconds. Then his mobile rings. He picks it up. Henning studies his friend’s facial expression while he listens. His pupils start to expand. His mouth drops open.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘I’ll be there right away.’
He hangs up.
‘What was that about?’ Henning asks.
‘It wasn’t his blood,’ Bjarne says.
‘Whose blood?’
‘The blood Johanne Klingenberg found in her flat two weeks ago. It doesn’t belong to Markus Gjerløw. He’s a different blood type.’
Chapter 69
It’s about pulling yourself together. Finding a special room for grieving in your heart, but using the other rooms as well. Remembering that life must go on.
Emilie Blomvik spent the night in the freezing cold guest bedroom in the basement. She even managed to sleep for several hours. And when she was woken up by footsteps running across the parquet flooring above, the sound of her son’s pitter-patter as if he is incapable of doing anything at normal speed, she made up her mind. Enough is enough. Yes, you can feel sad, but don’t let grief eat you up.
So she went back upstairs and told Mattis that he could go to work today. He had been kind enough to take a day off to look after Sebastian and her – even though he had just been made partner. And she realised how good it felt to get back to normality. Make Sebastian’s packed lunch. Get him dressed. Sebastian, poor kid, knows nothing about what has happened; he knows nothing about death. But he knows his parents. And when one of them acts out of character, he can sense it. Of course he can.
Emilie finds him in his bedroom, subjecting Lightning McQueen to his usual brutal treatment. She smiles. Sebastian barely looks up when she says ‘hi’. There is a vroom. Then some screeching and crashing. Recently she has noticed that her son has started to close the door to his room. He wants to be alone. He opens it and he closes it. She hadn’t expected him to do that yet; after all he is only two and a half years old.
‘Right, I’m off,’ Mattis shouts out to them from the hallway.
‘Daddy is leaving now,’ she says to Sebastian. ‘Let’s go and say bye bye to him.’
Sebastian drops the car with a crash. Emilie is about to tell him not to treat his toys like that, but she stops herself. Today is not a day for rebukes. Today is all about the path of least resistance. Getting back on her feet.
They send Mattis off with hugs, kisses and waving. When the door slams shut, she asks Sebastian if he has had his breakfast yet. She gets a vigorous headshake by way of response.
‘Okay,’ she says, ‘then we’d better get you something to eat. What would you like?’
‘Cornflakes.’
‘Cornflakes it is.’
Emilie is heading to the kitchen via the living room when an object on the wall next to the stuffed reindeer head makes her stop. It’s a picture. A picture she hasn’t seen before. Two footprints in the sand, one halfway across the other, on pink photocopier paper. When did Mattis put that up? she wonders. And since when does he care about interior design? What on earth is the meaning of the two footprints in the sand? Could it be a subtle kind of marriage proposal?
There is something familiar about the image. She knows she has seen it before.
A long, long time ago.
A cold prickling begins in her neck and spreads to the rest of her body. She is about to fetch her mobile to call Mattis when her eyes are drawn to the front door.
She can hear footsteps outside.
Bjarne hurries out of Olympen and into the street where the wind takes hold of his jacket and flaps it open.
It wasn’t Gjerløw’s blood. The blood didn’t have to belong to Klingenberg’s killer, of course, but it was an obvious thought. According to the police report, Klingenberg hadn’t noticed any blood near the cat basket until the day her flat was broken into. She was adamant. And though the intruder might not be the same man who killed her, it’s likely. It’s much more than likely.
Markus Gjerløw didn’t kill Johanne Klingenberg.
And the squeaky clean laptop continues to trouble Bjarne. When they examined it they discovered that the computer’s serial number was registered to Markus Gjerløw and that he had bought it in Spaceworld twenty-six months ago. So far so good. Then they examined the second laptop, a computer of a more recent design that showed every sign of being in daily use. Why treat the two computers so differently? And why did Markus Gjerløw kill himself?