Shesat down where she had done the previous time, by the oval table with her legstucked underneath her on the sofa. Gunnarstranda walked over to the window andlooked out at the sun bed. 'Have I disturbed you?' he asked, taking hold of thepot with the bonsai tree on the window sill.
'I'moff sick,' she said.
'Anythingserious?'
'Justexhaustion.'
'Hasit anything to do with the murder – Katrine?'
'It'sa contributory factor.'
'Youwere good… I mean… you were close, weren't you?'
'That'sputting it mildly, yes.'
Thepoliceman was still holding the pot as he turned to her. 'This tree's dying,'he stated.
'Ifyou've got green fingers,' Sigrid Haugom sighed, 'perhaps you can save it forme.'
'Abonsai tree,' Gunnarstranda said, lifting the pot. 'A Japanese work of art. Itcan't have been cheap.'
'Itwas a present,' the woman on the sofa said. 'I never ask what presents cost.'
'Iwould guess it's more than a hundred years old,' the policeman surmised. 'Treeslike this one can grow to be five hundred years old, I've heard. I've seen afew and this one seems to be very, very old.'
'Weall have to die some time,' Sigrid Haugom said in a soft voice, breathing indeep. 'I apologize, but I can't get Katrine out of my head. I try, but I can'tdo it.'
'Imagineif this tree was really old,' Gunnarstranda said, humbled. 'Imagine it was twohundred years old. If so, it would have been tended by six, seven, maybe eightgenerations of gardeners.'
'Fantastic,'Sigrid said, uninterested.
Thepoliceman shrank back. 'Seven generations of gardening knowledge,' he saidbitterly. 'Two hundred years of care, right from the French Revolution untiltoday, a plant which as a result of careful nursing has managed to outliveMontesquieu, Napoleon, George Washington, Wedel Jarlsberg, BjornstjerneBjornson, Mussolini and Chairman Mao.' He put the plant back with a bang andsaid with emphasis: 'Until you were given it as a present and let it dry out onthe window sill!'
SigridHaugom looked at him in silence with raised eyebrows.
'Isaw the tree last time I was here,' the policeman said, crossing the floor andtaking a seat opposite her on the sofa. 'It was the one thing in this housethat didn't fit. The only unexpected artefact in this museum of lamps, signedby Louis Comfort Tiffany in person I have no doubt, of antiques, of Swissbells, old tables and Italian designer sofas. The rug on the floor over there,from my knowledge of rugs, I would guess was woven by Kashmiri children. Inoticed the cups you served the coffee in were made of Meissner china.' Hepointed to the left. 'Even down to the charming hammer shaft you or yourhusband placed next to the stove as an adornment. But in this conglomerate massof undefined taste and aspiring snobbery neither you nor your husband is capableof keeping an eye on what is happening on the window sill.'
'Isuppose not,' Sigrid Haugom said gently, perplexed by the policeman's outburst.'But then by a happy chance you have an eye for this kind of thing.'
'Thesight of that poor tree in the dried-out pot told me all I needed to know aboutyour character.'
'Ohyes?' Sigrid's voice had assumed a sharp edge of patrician arrogance.
'Thesucker that has brought me here today grows in the garden of a nursing home. Asucker on an otherwise very attractive ornamental rose, a sucker that resemblesa pale green spear planted in the ground in the middle of the lawn. Am I makingmyself clear?'
'Loudand clear,' Sigrid said with a dry voice, 'but I have no idea what you aretalking about.'
Gunnarstrandasmiled and stretched out his legs. He said, 'Isn't it the Chinese who have anexpression for everything?'
'Boundto be.'
'TheChinese would, I assume, have said something like: Though your eyes may haverested on the rose sucker you were unable to see.'
'As Isaid, I have no idea what you're talking about.'
'Imay not be that sure myself. The only thing I want is some answers to onequestion.'
'ThenI think you should ask it,' Sigrid said with a sigh.
'OnFriday, ten days or so ago, Katrine Bratterud called on a flat inUranienborgveien,' Gunnarstranda said. 'The flat is owned by a pensioner calledStamnes. In his time this man worked for child welfare. Once he had beenemployed by Nedre Eiker council where he handled casework including, amongstother things, the relocation of children. The reason Katrine visited him wasthat Stamnes knew details about her own adoption case more than twenty yearsago. Does that ring a bell, fru Haugom?'
'Hardly,'she said in a chilly tone.
'ThisStamnes still felt constrained by professional vows of client confidentiality,but in the end yielded to Katrine's questioning. The likelihood that he wouldbe able to help her was minimal. There were far too many relocations for that. However,he did remember her case. The reason he remembered hers in particular was thatit was connected with the very tragic circumstances that necessitated adoption.The child's mother had been strangled by an unknown assailant and the child'sfather was an absent sailor who was neither married to the child's mother norconsidered himself in a position to take care of the child. The little girl Wastherefore referred and given up for adoption. Stamnes told Katrine this. Hecouldn't remember the name of her father, just the name of her mother becauseit was all over the newspapers for ages at the time: Helene Lockert.'
Thepoliceman paused. In the silence that followed all that could be heard in theroom was the ticking of the antique clock.
'Katrinewas in a very special situation that night,' the policeman said in a low voice.'She was on the trail of her past, of where she belonged, where she came from.She was on the trail of understanding why she and the world were not inharmony. And what do you do in a situation like that? What is the logical thingto do or, perhaps better: What does it feel right to do? Would you tryto trace your father or your mother's family? I have no idea what Katrinewanted to do first, but I know she was doing something.
'Laterthat evening Katrine and Ole Eidesen met outside Saga cinema to see an actionfilm. This was to Ole's taste, but he told us Katrine was noticeably distantand unapproachable all evening. The day after, she went to work. Still shehadn't said anything to Ole about her big news. Why not? I wondered. I don'tknow the answer, but I think it was because Katrine had a lot to think about, aflood of thoughts swirling through her brain. One of the thoughts that botheredher was that she had bought information about Stamnes off an ex-boyfriend. Thisman, Raymond Skau, claims Katrine owed him ten thousand kroner in cash for theinformation. She didn't have the money. She still owed him ten thousand kronerand the money should have been paid the day before. I don't know what concernedher most: her biological mother's tragic fate or the sum of money she didn'thave. What we do know for certain is that at one o'clock Raymond Skau enteredher workplace to demand payment. She said, quite truthfully, that she couldn'tpay, which caused him to become violent and threaten her. He left the shopshortly afterwards. What we now know is that Katrine left at two o'clock andwent back to her flat where Ole Eidesen was waiting for her. He has since toldus she was still unapproachable and irritable. She wanted to be alone and spenthours in the bathroom. Until five or six in the afternoon. Then she rangaround. She made several calls, here too.'
'That'sno secret,' Sigrid said. 'I told you she rang, didn't I? She told me about thisman who attacked her.'
'Iremember,' Gunnarstranda said. 'But you didn't tell me about the wholeconversation, did you?
HeleneLockert had been about to get married,' he continued, 'but she never got thatfar. The man she was to marry is still alive. His name is Reidar Bueng and helives in the nursing home with the garden where a rose-sucker has shot out ofthe ground. I met him there and we had a chat.'
Gunnarstrandacoughed, once, and then again. He was hoping for a reaction to his longmonologue, but was disappointed. Sigrid Haugom watched him with large eyes, buta gaze that was turned inwards.