What Never Happens (25 page)

“Stop treating me like an idiot.”

“That was certainly not the intention. If I’ve treated you like an idiot, I apologize.”

“You’re doing it again.”

“What?”

“That attitude. That ‘poor monster’ attitude. Cut it out.”

Stubo got up. Came over to the chessboard. The policeman was as tall as him. He moved the bishop.

“That’s wrong,” Mats said.

“Wrong? I’ll decide that.”

“No, it’s a set game. The opening of the—”

“Nothing is set in stone, Mats Bohus. That’s what’s so fascinating about all games.”

Mats let go of the door handle. His head hurt. He tended to get headaches about this time of day. When the place came alive, and there were too many people. The room was overcrowded. The lawyer was standing in a corner with his hands behind his back. He rose up on his toes and then down again. Up. Down. He reminded Mats more of a stressed policeman than a person who was there to help him.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” Mats said to Adam Stubo.

“I’m trying to have a conversation.”

“Bullshit. You’re trying to build up trust. Talking about harmless things to begin with. You want to create a relaxed atmosphere. Make me feel safe. Make me think that you’re actually trying to help me.”

“I am trying to help you.”

“Really? You’re going to arrest me. You think this pandering helps. Eventually you’ll get to the point. That guy there”—he pointed a stubby, fat finger in Sigmund Berli’s direction. Sigmund was sitting on a chair, repressing yawn after yawn—“he’ll probably turn out to be the bad guy. If your good-cop tactics don’t work. Pretty obvious, really.”

The policeman had a small cut just behind his ear. The scab looked like an A, as if someone has started to carve his name on his scalp, but then changed their mind.

“This is just a waste of time,” Mats Bohus said.

The rook’s embrasures were framed with silver. A miniature figure with a crossbow was kneeling down, aiming, in one of them. Mats poked the tiny soldier carefully.

“Don’t you remember what I said when you came?”

“Yes.”

“What? What did I say?”

Adam Stubo looked long and hard at the young man. It didn’t look as if he was thinking of leaving anymore. The door was still closed, and Mats Bohus was standing with his back to the others.

“You said that you didn’t regret it.”

“Exactly. And how do you interpret that?”

“As a confession.”

“Of what?”

“I’m not quite sure yet.”

“I killed her. That’s what I was talking about.”

The lawyer opened his mouth and took a step into the room as he raised his arm in warning. Then he stopped suddenly, his jaw shutting with an audible snap. Dr. Bonheur was sitting with his arms crossed, his face devoid of expression. Sigmund Berli looked as if he was about to get up but changed his mind and sank back into the chair with a grunt.

No one said anything.

Mats Bohus crossed the floor and sat down in the deep visitor’s chair. Adam followed him with his eyes. There was a strange aesthetic in the way the young man moved. He rolled. His flesh rolled forward, streamlined in waves, like a whale in the depths of the sea.

“I killed my mother.”

His voice was different now. His whole appearance was of a man who had just expended a huge amount of energy. The scar on his upper lip looked redder, tighter; he licked it with his tongue. His arms hung heavy on either side of the chair.

Everyone was still silent.

Adam sat down as well. He leaned over the desk.

Mats Bohus seemed younger than his twenty-six years. There was hardly any sign of stubble. His skin was smooth. No pimples, nor scars apart from the broad red stripe above his mouth. His eyes filled with tears.

“She didn’t want me,” he said. “She didn’t want me when I was born, and she didn’t want me now. In her programs . . . In interviews, she always said that nothing bad could come of families being reunited. Everyone else got Fiona Helle’s help. She only turned her back on me, her own son. She lied. She didn’t want me. No one wants me. I don’t want myself either.”

“Your mother wanted you,” Adam said. “Your real mother and father. They wanted you.”

“But they weren’t real, as it turned out.”

“You’re too intelligent to actually believe that.”

“They’re dead.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

Adam hesitated for a second before continuing, “The others, what about them?”

Mats Bohus was crying. Big, round tears hung on his lashes before breaking and running down his nose. He leaned forward slowly, brushed the papers and family photos from the desk, and buried his face in his arms. The glass of water fell on the floor without breaking.

“The others,” Adam Stubo repeated. “Victoria Heinerback and Vegard Krogh. What had they done?”

“I don’t want myself,” cried Mats. “I . . . don’t . . . want . . .”

“I don’t understand,” said Alex Bonheur, his voice sharp. “First of all, I must insist that this . . . hearing ends immediately. Continuing is not advisable. And”—he put his hand gently on Mats Bohus’s back. The young man responded with some loud sobs—“I don’t see how there can be any connection between—”

“I’m sure you understand,” Adam said calmly. “Even though Mats doesn’t read the papers, I’m sure you do. As you know, there have been several murders with similar features and—”

“There’s no question,” Dr. Bonheur said and sent a reproachful look to the lawyer, who was still standing there with his mouth open, not knowing what to say. “Mats Bohus has been here since January 21.”

Sigmund Berli was trying to think. His brain cells were asleep. He was so tired that he barely managed to get up, but he had to think and he burst out, “But the man’s here voluntarily. So he must be allowed to come and go as he pleases. Sometimes—”

“No,” Dr. Bonheur said. “He’s been here the whole time.”

An uncomfortable silence followed. The lawyer had finally managed to close his mouth for good. Sigmund held his hand up as if to protest but didn’t manage to say anything. Adam closed his eyes. Even Mats Bohus had stopped crying. Earlier they had heard footsteps going up and down the corridor, people talking, a very loud scream on the other side of the closed door. Now there wasn’t a sound.

It was Sigmund who finally ventured to ask the question, “Are you absolutely sure? One hundred percent sure?”

“Yes. Mats Bohus came to the hospital on January 21, at seven in the morning. And he has not been out since. I can vouch for that.”

Sigmund Berli had never felt so awake.

The TV was appalling on Saturday night, which worked out well for Johanne. Every now and then she drifted off but was woken abruptly by her own thoughts that mutated into strange dreams as she dozed.

Kristiane was staying with the neighbors. It was the first time she had stayed the night with a friend. Leonard had turned up with a written invitation on a piece of red construction paper, with big, bold letters. Kristiane’s bed-wetting and the fact that Sulamit had to be a cat before she could fall asleep went through Johanne’s mind. She hesitated.

“The fire engine can be a cat for tonight if that’s what matters,” Leonard said.

Gitta Jensen, who was standing halfway up the stairs, smiled.

“That’s true,” she said. “Leonard would really love Kristiane to stay. And what with Ragnhild and having to get up every night, we thought it might be nice for you too.”

“I want to,” Kristiane decided. “I’m going to sleep in the bunkbeds. On the top one.”

Kristiane was allowed to go, and now Johanne regretted it.

The girl could get so frightened. She was so wary of change. It had taken her months to get used to the new house. For a long time, she had woken up every night and looked for the grown-ups’ room where it had been in the old apartment, only to be confronted with a wall. Her disconsolate cries did not stop until she was allowed to sleep on a small mattress beside Adam’s bed.

Kristiane would wet the bed. Then she would be ashamed and sad. She had started to register what was going on around her recently and was more aware of her differentness. It was a step forward, but also incredibly painful.

For Johanne, at least.

Adam had called. He was brief. Said that he would be home late.

Johanne turned off the TV. But then it was too quiet, so she turned it on again. She strained to hear sounds from the apartment below. They must have gone to bed already. More than anything, she wanted to go down and get Kristiane. To have her on her lap, chatting about strange, harmless things. Put a night diaper on the nine-year-old, which was invisible and no one apart from Mommy knew. They could play chess, according to Kristiane’s rules, which meant that the knight was allowed to charge wherever it liked, and it was the only one that was allowed to eat pawns for dinner. They could watch a movie. Stay awake together.

Johanne was shivering. It didn’t help to snuggle up in a blanket. That morning, in a home that wasn’t her own, she had finally dared to peek into a room that had been closed for so long. She had been forced to do it. She didn’t want to. She felt humiliated and pathetic, and she was cold.

If only Adam would come home soon!

She held Ragnhild to her chest. She weighed nearly eleven pounds now, and her skin lay in small folds over her plump hands. Time passed so quickly. Her first dark baby down had almost disappeared, and it looked like she would have fair hair. She could hold her gaze now, and even though everyone said it was too early to tell, Johanne was sure that she would have green eyes. There was a shadow of Adam’s cleft in her chin.

If only he would come home. It was eleven o’clock already.

They were going to her parents’ house for a family meal tomorrow. Johanne didn’t know whether she’d be able to leave the house.

The noise of a door downstairs made Johanne instinctively hug Ragnhild closer. Her mouth slipped from the nipple, and she howled.

The rattling of keys. Heavy steps on the stairs.

At last she could tell Adam what they were up against.

One murderer.

A murderer who had killed and mutilated Fiona Helle, Victoria Heinerback, and Vegard Krogh. There was a monster out there. The incomprehensible outlines of a plan that for the moment told her little other than that the murders were carried out by one and the same man.

Adam stood in the doorway, his shoulders sloping under his coat.

“It was him. Mats Bohus. He’s confessed.”

“What?”

Johanne got up from the sofa. She was shaking and nearly dropped her daughter. Slowly, she sank back into the sofa.

“So . . . but . . . What a great relief, Adam!”

“He killed his mother.”

“And?”

“Fiona Helle, that is.”

“And . . .”

“There is no ‘and.’ No more.”

Adam pulled off his coat and dropped it on the floor. He went into the kitchen. Johanne heard the fridge door opening and closing. A can of beer being opened.

Adam was wrong, and she knew it.

“He killed the others as well, didn’t he? He—”

“No.”

Adam crossed the floor and stood behind the sofa, with one hand on her shoulders and the other around the beer can. He drank. His swallowing was audible, almost demonstrative.

“There is no serial killer,” he said and dried his mouth with the back of his hand before finishing the can. “Just a series of bloody killings. Must be contagious. I’m going to bed, honey. Exhausted.”

“But,” she started.

He stopped in the door and turned around.

“Do you want a hand with Ragnhild?”

“No, it’s okay. I’ll . . . But, Adam . . .”

“What?”

“Maybe he’s lying? Maybe he’s—”

“He’s not lying. So far, everything he’s told us matches the evidence we found at Fiona’s house. We managed to question him again this evening. Probably not advisable, in terms of his health, but . . . he knows details that haven’t been released. He had a clear motive. Fiona didn’t want to have anything to do with him. Like you said. She simply rejected him. Mats Bohus said she was repulsed by him. Repulsed, he repeated it again and again. He even”—Adam rubbed his face with his left hand and let out a great sigh—“kept the knife. The one he used to cut out her tongue. He killed her, Johanne.”

“But he might be lying about the others! He might have confessed about murdering his mother but lied about—”

Adam was still clutching the empty beer can.

“No,” he said. “I’ve never heard a better alibi. He hasn’t left the hospital building since January 21.”

He stared at the beer can in exasperation, as if he had forgotten that he’d crushed it. Distracted, he looked up and asked, “Were you going to say something?”

“What?”

Johanne put Ragnhild over her shoulder and pulled the blanket tighter around them both.

“You looked like you wanted to tell me something when I came in,” Adam said and gave a great yawn. “What was it?”

She had waited for him for hours, watched for him from the window, stared at the phone, looked at the clock. She had been impatient and anxious, longing to share the burden of what she had seen and remembered. But now it was only a coincidence, everything.

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

“Nothing,” she said. “It was nothing.”

“Okay, I’m off to bed then,” he said and left the room.

Sunday, February 22 had barely dawned. The streets were unusually quiet. Scarcely a pedestrian was to be seen on the main drag of Karl Johan, even though the clubs and the odd pub would be open for a few more hours. A snowstorm was blowing in from the fjord, thick and furious, discouraging people from looking for a new watering hole. Even the taxi line by the National Theater, which normally generated its fair share of fights and arguments, was almost empty. Just one young woman wearing far too short a skirt and bad shoes was leaning into the wind. She was stamping her feet and talking angrily into her cell phone.

“It’s easiest to drive down Dronning Maudsgate,” said one of the policemen as he put a piece of paper in his pocket.

“Isn’t it better to—”

“Dronning Maudsgate,” he repeated crossly. “Have I been driving these streets for years, or what?”