The Man in the Window (25 page)

Chapter 33

Manna in the Wilderness

    Gunnarstranda collected Tove Granaas at half past seven. He had decided in advance that he would not get out of the car. He had been quite precise about that on the telephone. He had said: 'Come down when you see the car in the drive.' Tove rented the first floor of a house in Sæter, a white detached Swiss-style chalet in the middle of a garden full of old apple trees which, as a result of incorrect and insufficent pruning, looked like piles of twigs on poles. Tove complained that the apples were always small and riddled with maggots. On trees like those, apples would be small and riddled with maggots. Gunnarstranda knew that. But of course he didn't say so. If he did, he would end up doing the pruning, for which he had neither the energy nor the enthusiasm. The house owners were a couple in their fifties: the kind who go caravanning along the Swedish coast and take an evening constitutional in matching barbecueing outfits. 'The woman runs and hides whenever I come home from work so that she doesn't have to greet me,' Tove had said. 'We've got nothing in common.'

    'Can you have a conversation?'

    'We talk when they increase the rent, but that's the husband's job. He hates it, but dare not fail her. The wife hides under the stairs before he rings, and as soon as I open the door, she starts prompting him. With all the whispering and hissing going on you would think someone had left a leaky bottle of pop out somewhere.'

    However eccentric the house owners were, Gunnarstranda had no desire to meet them. He was too old to wait outside a woman's door, ringing her bell like a schoolboy. But when he turned into the drive and raised his head he could see Tove standing in the window waving. Three minutes later she was in the car.

    Beneath them the town twinkled like the reflection of a starry sky as they drove around the bends in Kongsveien. Gunnarstranda switched on the radio. They were lucky with the programme producer - it was someone who liked quiet music. As they approached Ibsen multi-storey car park, Billie Holiday was singing 'I love you, Porgy', but once inside there was just noise coming from the loudspeakers.

    Tove glanced at him. 'You're the only person I know who does not have either a cassette or a CD player in their car,' she said.

    Gunnarstranda turned down the old car radio with its shiny knobs. 'I bought it in '72,' he said. 'Just because you change your car doesn't mean you have to change your radio.'

    As they strolled past a row of parked cars towards the lift Gunnarstranda said, 'The problem is there is no decent radio any more. Years ago you could read what was on in the newspaper and choose a programme. You could look forward to something special, a discussion presented by a writer you respected, or maybe a wonderful voice, like Aase Bye reading Hans E. Kinck's short story "White Anemones on the Mountainside".' He held the door open for her as they went in to the waiting area by the lifts. 'The thing is you used to be able to time your afternoon coffee so that you didn't miss grand radio moments,' he went on. 'But now it's all one big impenetrable barrage of sound. The radio announcers babble away about themselves, broadcast their ignorance diluted with pop songs, then they call it morning radio, afternoon on
z
or traffic round-up. But if there were a pearl in all of that, something worthy of a couple of moments' concentration, respect or reflection, it would pass you by - unless you were lucky enough to be sitting in your car at the exact moment it and the voice traversed the ether. But presumably it is just me who has been left behind.'

    'Presumably,' she smiled and went quiet when they were joined in front of the lifts by another couple. The lift door opened. All four went in. They exchanged a glance in the mirror.

    She staunchly hooked her arm through his as they strolled down Kristian IVs gate and went through the glass doors into Det Norske Teatret. They stood looking around the theatre foyer. 'We're early,' Gunnarstranda said.

    'Are you nervous?' she asked in a low voice - without letting go of his arm.

    'What?'

    'Are you nervous?' she repeated.

    Gunnarstranda coughed and studied himself in the mirror he was standing beside. 'Why do you ask?'

    'You seem stiff and a bit stand-offish.'

    'I'm not nervous.'

    'Is being with me unpleasant?'

    'No.' He cleared his throat and added: 'It's nice.'

    She let go of his arm and instead stood in front of him and angled her head. 'Shall we do something else? Cinema or a beer in a darkened pub?'

    'No, the theatre is fine. But perhaps we could talk about something else.'

    She hooked her arm under his and led him towards a group of unoccupied chairs in the foyer. She waved to another woman across the room. 'I haven't seen her for several years,' Tove whispered. 'This is where your old friends are - in the theatre. And I never knew.'

    'All grey hair in here,' he answered.

    'Your mind's elsewhere, isn't it!' she stated. 'What were you thinking about just then?'

    'Numbers and letters.'

    'Manna seeds?'

    'And that means?'

    'I'd like an aperitif,' she exclaimed. 'Could you get me a sherry?'

    He shuddered. 'I'll have red wine - can't stand sherry. What did you say about seeds?' He passed her his gloves and slid a hand in his inside pocket for his wallet.

    'Manna seeds,' she repeated and explained: 'I assume if they are sown, you get the bread that rained down on the Israelites in the wilderness.'

    'But what made you say that?'

    'It was what I was thinking when you said numbers and letters. My grandmother was very religious, you see. On top of the kitchen cupboard she always kept a bowl full of small bits of paper, thousands of them. There were numbers and letters printed on them: Ez 5,4 or Luk 8,iz. Quotations from the Bible, the Book of Ezekiel…'

    Gunnarstranda froze. 'Of course,' he whispered.

    'Yes, right - manna in the wilderness. The Bible quotation of the day. I think she was a Pentecostalist.'

    'From the Bible,' sighed Detective Inspector Gunnarstranda, slumping down onto the bench.

    'What's up with you?'

    'J for John. Nineteen, five.'

    'St. John's Gospel, chapter 19, verse 5,' Tove said with a mischievous smile. 'What happened to the sherry?'

    'Bristol Cream,' Gunnarstranda said, preoccupied. 'Do you like it?'

    She nodded. 'Whatever. I don't know any brandnames of sherry.'

    'Then let's go to the Library bar - in the Bristol Hotel - it's just across the street,' Gunnarstranda said gently. 'Then you can have the whole bottle if you want…'

    'One glass is enough,' she said. 'Why should we leave here?'

    'Because I want to get my paws on a Bible.'

    When, five minutes later in the Library bar at the Bristol Hotel, they discovered there wasn't a single seat free, Gunnarstranda began to stroke his lips nervously. 'Bloody hell,' he mumbled.

    'Relax,' she said with a smile.

    'I should…'

    'You've got a Bible at home, haven't you?' She turned to the window from where they could see the entrance to the theatre. 'I'm sure the play is as dull as ditchwater.'

    'What?
John Gabriel Borkman
? I thought Ibsen was right up your street?' he mumbled.

    'Not in our other Norwegian language,' she said. 'Translating Ibsen into nynorsk is the height of all that I consider idiotic in Norwegian culture.'

    She slipped her arm into his. 'Let's go to your place,' she said, meeting his eyes. 'If you dare.'

      While Gunnarstranda was searching for one of his three Norwegian Bibles on the shelving system he had made in the shoe cupboard in the hall, Tove was standing in the living-room doorway studying the TV with the screen facing the wall, the old botanical prints over the armchair, the old carved standard lamp and the wall itself, covered in books of various heights, hardbacks mixed with paperbacks, lots of magazines and pamphlets and books pushed in everywhere, making the shelf look like an overpopulated block of flats in a flamboyant ghetto. She read the spines, observed the portrait of Edel without a word and allowed her eyes to wander over to the goldfish bowl. 'So this is your pet?' she burst out.

    The Inspector had found two Bibles which he placed on the work desk under the window. He flipped through both before looking up. 'I haven't got any sherry,' he said. 'But I have some good whisky.'

    She turned, interested. 'Where?'

    'In the wooden chest.' He nodded towards the seaman's trunk by the fireplace.

    'Here?' She opened the lid and regarded the tightly packed bottles in the chest. 'You've got enough whisky,' she mumbled, lifting out one bottle after the other and reading the labels. 'Which one would you like?'

    'One that's already open,' Gunnarstranda answered, his finger following the lines in the bible. 'Luke… John,' he muttered.

    Tove decided on a quarter-full bottle of Ballantine's, went into the kitchen, found two tumblers and poured.

    Gunnarstranda took the glass she passed him, rapt in thought.

    'Here,' he said, pointing.

    'What does it say?'

    'Jesus and Pontius Pilate.'

    
'Skal
,' Tove said. 'To my grandmother.'

    'And Pontius Pilate,' Gunnarstranda added.

    Tove sighed, looking at the whisky tumbler with appreciation.

    'Pontius Pilate washes his hands - and the people put a crown of thorns on Jesus's head. The three crosses on the dead man's forehead. The Crown of Thorns! Red thread around the neck, the purple robe.' Gunnarstranda gazed into the distance, pensive, and asked: 'But why?'

    'You're the cop,' Tove said. She pulled books down from the shelf and studied the titles while he flicked through the Bible and read. After a while she poured herself another whisky and asked if he wanted any.

    Gunnarstranda peered up and shook his head. He hadn't touched his glass while he was reading. 'This is interesting,' he mumbled. 'There are four gospels. But there are only three that describe this precise incident. Luke is the odd one out…'

    He thumbed through to show her.

    'I believe you,' Tove said, taking another sip. 'Damned good whisky, this.'

    'Luke doesn't mention the incident at all, not the purple robe nor the crown of thorns nor the jeering. Luke brings in Herod instead. In general, Luke appears to be on the wrong track. Whereas the other three all agree that Jesus was given a purple robe…'

    'The red thread,' Tove interrupted. 'You've already said that.'

    Gunnarstranda nodded. 'Three of them also agree on the crown of thorns and Jesus being shown to the crowds to be mocked. But here John is the odd one out.' Tove peered into the bottom of the glass, to confirm that it was empty yet again. 'I think I'll have another,' she said, taking the bottle. '
Skal
,' she said.

    
Gunnarstranda raised his glass, sipped and read aloud:
'And the soldiers plaited a crown of thorns and put it on his head, and they threw a purple robe around him, and said "Hail, King of the Jews!" And they hit him in the face. Pilate therefore went out again and said to them, "Look, I bring him to you so that you may know I find no fault in him.'"
Gunnarstranda looked up and continued: 'Here's the relevant quotation, John, 19:5:
"Then Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And he said to them: See the man!'"

    Tove walked along the bookshelf with her glass in hand. Gunnarstranda stood up in his excitement and articulated his thoughts: 'Only John has that line. If there is a reason for the killer quoting John and not Mark, or Matthew, it must be because John has that phrase: "See the man!"

    Tove turned a fraction, a genial smile on her face, and sipped her whisky before returning to the bookshelf.

    'But then the question is…' the Inspector continued, concentrating, 'What does the phrase mean? And who said it?'

    'Pilate,' Tove answered. 'It's Pontius Pilate talking.'

    Gunnarstranda nodded. 'Pontius Pilate says he finds no fault in him, and then he shows the humiliated prisoner and says: See! See him!' Gunnarstranda frowned. 'But in grammar, if the pronoun
be
appears after the proper noun
Jesus
it would be normal to interpret the sentence as meaning it is the prisoner, Jesus, who utters the words.'

    'Right,' she said without a flicker of interest.

    'The question is: Who does the writer of this message identify with?!' Gunnarstranda read the quotation from the Bible again: '
Then Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And he said to them: See the man!
So it is not clear who says it or what it means.'