What Never Happens (22 page)

“Sit still.”

“The killer really has had so much luck,” he said thoughtfully. “If it really is one and the same man who is making his way through a list of Norwegian celebrities, he’s either planned it meticulously or been very lucky.”

“Not necessarily,” Johanne said and moved the clippers steadily over Adam’s left temple.

“Yes,” he said, stubbornly. “Yet again, he has managed to get to and from the scene of the crime without being seen. As things stand now—and we’ve got thirty men from Asker and Bærum doing a major door-to-door canvas. There’s plenty of evidence at the scene, and a lot of it is good enough to get a fairly detailed picture of what happened in the minutes before the murder. The murderer was waiting in the woods, let Vegard Krogh walk past on the path, then followed him, got him to turn around, and then knocked him down. But there’s nothing—”

The clippers cut into his skin.

“Ow! Be careful! And I said I didn’t want a buzz cut!”

“You’ll look great. What were you going to say?”

“We’re still pretty blank. No organic evidence. Difficult to conclude anything from the weight and size of the foot, except that the killer isn’t the lightest of people. He’s been lucky.”

She turned off the clippers. She stood behind him for a moment, thoughtful, without really focusing on anything.

“You don’t necessarily need to have luck. If you’re smart and careful, that might be enough. All the victims are public figures, more or less, and it is surprising . . .”

There was silence. The children were fast asleep. The neighbors had gone to bed. There wasn’t a sound from the garden or the street. No cats. No cars or drunk youths on the way to another party. The house was silent; the new extension had finally settled and no longer creaked at night. Even the King of America was sleeping soundly and silently.

“I was at Lina’s today,” she said eventually. “Our computer is hopeless, and Lina’s got broadband. It only took me a few minutes to find out that these victims, these”—she put down the clippers and squatted down in front of him—“these public figures really are public,” she said and put her elbows on his knees. “Truly. Victoria Heinerback’s homepages have remained unchanged since her murder, it’s—”

“Her family has no doubt had other things to think about.”

“I don’t mean to criticize,” she interposed. “The point is that her brother-in-law’s bachelor party—”

“Brother-in-law to be.”

“Don’t interrupt. There was a bit about the bachelor party with a link to Trond’s homepages, where the reader had access to a detailed itinerary! Anyone who wanted to could have found out that Victoria was likely to be at home alone that evening. Most people knew that she went to bed early, as she made such a fuss about it in all her interviews.”

“I’m not quite sure what you’re getting at. My hair must look pretty strange.”

“It’ll be fine.”

She stood behind him again and turned on the clippers.

“Fiona Helle was also pretty generous with her private life. She had told the whole world that she was alone every Tuesday. Vegard Krogh kept a blog, one of those incredibly self-centered things that the author thinks are interesting for the rest of the world. Yesterday he told his readers that he had to have supper with his mother because he owed her money. The revolting man really was a great—”

“What are you doing?” Adam turned around with a subdued cry. “I said not a buzz cut!”

“Oops,” Johanne said. “A bit short, maybe. Hang on a minute.”

She quickly made a few strokes with the machine from his neck up and over to his forehead.

“There,” she said with some doubt. “Now it’s even, at least. Can’t we just say it’s a summer cut?”

“In February? Let me see.”

She reluctantly passed him the mirror. His expression changed from disbelief to desperation.

“I look like a loaf of bread,” he wailed. “My head looks like a big loaf of white bread! I said not to cut it all off!”

“I didn’t cut it all off,” she said. “You look great. And now we have to concentrate.”

“I look like Kojak!”

“Do you think they lie a lot?” she asked, trying to sweep all the hair into a dustpan.

“Who?” he muttered.

“Celebrities.”

“Lie?”

“Yes. When they’re interviewed.”

“Well . . .”

“I’ve heard some people admit it. Or boast about it, depending on how you look at it. I fully understand if that’s the case. They create a pretend life that we can all be part of and then keep the real one to themselves.”

“You just said that they write everything about their lives on the Internet.”

“Bits of it. The safe things. It makes the lie more effective, I presume. Don’t know. Maybe I’m talking trash.”

She emptied the hair into a plastic bag, tied it up, and put it in the garbage can. Adam stayed sitting on the stool with the towel around his neck. The mirror was lying on the floor, facedown. There was a thin trickle of blood on his neck from a cut just behind his ear. Johanne moistened one of Ragnhild’s bibs and pressed it to the wound.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “I should have concentrated more.”

“What do you mean when you say you don’t necessarily need to be lucky?” Adam asked. “That this killer hasn’t just been lucky as hell?”

“A murder in itself doesn’t need much planning,” she said. “Unless you’re someone who will immediately be suspected, that is. If I want to kill someone who everyone knows I have a grudge against, I would have to think about it. Make sure I have an alibi, for example. That’s the biggest challenge.”

“A enormous one,” Adam nodded in agreement. “That’s why so few succeed.”

“Exactly. But bank robbery . . . then we’re talking about planning! Money is far better protected than people. A successful armed robbery depends on prior knowledge and meticulously planned logistics. Expertise. Modern weapons and other cutting-edge equipment. But humans, we’re so”—she put her hand on his head. The cropped hair felt terrific against her palm—“so vulnerable. A thin layer of skin. And inside we’re vulnerable too. A blow to the head, a knife in the right place. A push down the stairs. In fact, it’s strange that it doesn’t happen more often.”

“For a woman who I know has a good heart and who’s just had a baby, you’re painting a pretty grim picture,” he said and got up. “Do you really think that?”

“Yes. I said it just the other day. When Sigmund was here. The worst thing would be a murder without a motive. If we can’t catch him red-handed or he doesn’t slip up, he gets away with it.”

“I completely disagree with you,” Adam said, spitting out some hair while trying to scratch his back. “A murder also needs to be planned. Prior knowledge.”

She looked over at the bottle of wine. About a third full. She got a glass and poured herself some.

“Of course,” she agreed. “You’re right. It takes some skill. But that’s all. You don’t need much equipment, for example. None of the three victims has been killed with a gun, which you would have to get hold of and also leaves interesting traces. The most important thing is that you can pull out. Right up until the last second. If something goes wrong, something unexpected happens or disturbs you, you can calmly walk away without killing the person. Especially as you don’t need anyone else with you to commit murder. That’s a huge advantage. What one person knows, no one knows; what two people know, everyone knows.”

“Your mother,” Adam laughed and plopped down on the sofa.

“Mmm. Not everything she says is stupid.”

She followed suit and this time she sat next to him.

“It frightens me to think about the possibility that this person knows what they’re doing. A . . . professional.”

“Do they actually exist?” Adam asked. “Professional killers? I mean here, in Norway, in this part of the world?”

She tilted her head and sent him a look as if he had asked whether it was ever winter in Norway.

“Okay,” he muttered. “They exist. But would they not have a motive? A cause to fight for? Or some distorted reason, be it money or God’s will?”

For a moment, their eyes met. Then she leaned against him. He held her tight.

“What do you think about Mats Bohus?” she asked in a quiet voice.

“We have to find him.”

“But do you think he has anything to do with the murders?”

Adam sighed loudly. Johanne made herself more comfortable, pulled her legs up onto the sofa, and took a sip of her wine. He ran his fingers up her under arm.

“It’s easy to imagine that he might have been involved in Fiona Helle’s murder,” he said. “At least he has a motive. Possibly. We don’t really know enough about what happened when he contacted her. But what the hell would the guy have against Victoria Heinerback and Vegard Krogh?”

“Nemo,” said the nine year old in the doorway. “Me and Sulamit want to watch Nemo.”

“Kristiane,” Johanne smiled. “Come here. It’s night time, dear. We don’t watch movies in the middle of the night.”

“Yes we do,” Kristiane said and climbed up onto the sofa, forcing herself in between them. “Leonard says that Sulamit isn’t a cat.”

She hugged the fire engine to her body and kissed the ladder, which was broken.

“It’s up to you whether Sulamit is a cat or not,” Adam told her.

“Only me,” Kristiane nodded.

“But I do think that Leonard will think Sulamit is a fire engine. Is that okay with you?”

“No, cat.”

“Cat for you, fire engine for Leonard.”

“And cat for you,” Kristiane said and held the sad, wheelless toy up to Adam’s face. He kissed the hood.

“Now you have to go back to bed,” Johanne said.

“With you,” Kristiane replied.

“In your own bed,” Adam said. “Come along now.”

He lifted up the child, and the fire engine and disappeared. Johanne stayed on the sofa. Her joints ached with fatigue. She felt weaker than she had for ages. It was as if all the energy had drained out of her; the greedy baby’s mouth sucked out what little she had left after the birth, every four hours, all day and all night; the little bundle made her anxious and weak. Of course she should spend more time with Kristiane. But there wasn’t more time to be had.

Not even the nights were her own anymore.

Mats Bohus could feasibly have killed his biological mother.

But could he have killed the other two?

She should really get some sleep.

She drank some more wine. She held it in her mouth, let it run over her tongue, tasted it, then swallowed.

If Mats Bohus wanted to camouflage his mother’s murder, he had made a big mistake. He killed Fiona Helle first. The actual murder in a series of camouflage killings should never come first.

Elementary, she thought to herself. A beginner’s mistake. No skill.

The murderer was professional. Had insight.

Maybe not.

She had to sleep.

There was another case. Something similar. Somewhere in her brain’s hard disk was a story that she couldn’t locate.

All was quiet. She was missing something without knowing quite what.

Johanne fell asleep and was not disturbed by dreams.

Sigmund Berli emptied his fourth cup of bitter coffee in three hours. Not only was it bitter, it was also cold. He wrinkled his nose. A bag of gummy bears lay on the desk beside his screen. He popped three into his mouth and chewed slowly. The missus wasn’t happy that he was putting on weight. She should try sitting here at four in the morning, in front of a damned computer that didn’t want to tell him anything. The woman should try staying awake for twenty-four hours and then try to find some meaning in the columns, names, numbers, and flickering letters on a bright square screen that made his eyes water.

It was sometimes hard to find a wanted person. Even in a small country like Norway, there were plenty of places to hide. The Schengen Agreement meant that they now worked with police forces all over Europe, which helped when they were looking for someone. But then the Agreement also made it easier to cross borders, and thus the number of hiding places had mushroomed. A wanted person could escape. But an ordinary Norwegian, a Mats Bohus, a pure-blooded Norwegian with no criminal record, with a permanent address and personal identity number—they should be able to trace him in a couple of hours.

They’d been looking for nearly twenty-four hours.

Gone. The man had simply vanished.

When they finally managed to confirm that he had been last seen at his apartment in Louisesgate on January 20, the whole NCIS went into action. Adam was probably the only person who was allowed to go home. New baby and all that.

A stab of envy. A wisp of desire; Sigmund saw Johanne’s face reflected on the screen. He filled his mouth with three red gummy bears. The sugar hurt his teeth. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He grabbed his cup, even though he knew it was empty.

Foreigners, all these damned foreigners, they just came and went, in and out of Norway, as they pleased, as if they just came here to take a dump. They played with the police. If only people knew. Some people were starting to realize. Luckily. Foreigners.

But Mats Bohus?

Fiona Helle had been murdered on January 20. And since then, no one had seen him. Where the hell was he?

“Hallelujah, Sigmund!”

Lars Kirkeland was standing in the doorway with his shirt tails out and eyes red. He had a stupid grin on his face and thumped the door frame with his fist.

“We found the guy!”

Sigmund burst out laughing and clapped his hands a couple of times before stuffing the rest of the gummy bears in his mouth.

“Mmmm,” he said and chewed furiously. “We have to call Adam.”

She should have chosen another hotel. The SAS Hotel, for example, with its Arne Jacobsen design and discreet, cosmopolitan staff. Almost everything you needed was there under one roof, so she wouldn’t have needed to go out. Copenhagen was a Norwegian town, far too Norwegian, haunted by beer- drinking men in stupid hats and women with shopping bags and cheap sunglasses. Like shoals of fish, they streamed backwards and forwards over Rådhusplassen, driven by instinct, between Tivoli and Strøget, always Tivoli and Strøget, as if Copenhagen consisted entirely of a big park with a bar at one end and a dirty shopping street at the other.