What Never Happens (28 page)

Bible then, Koran now.

Beautifully wrapped tongues. Then and now.

“Why was he killed?” was all he could think to say.

“A pastor who had his own wacky following believed that this local councilman deserved to die because he had encouraged ungodly racism. He got one of his followers to carry out the murder. A simpleton. Who just grinned throughout the court case, told them everything . . . or so we were told.”

“Racism,” thought Adam.

Victoria Heinerback was not a racist. Victoria Heinerback worked primarily with economics. They had hardly paid the issue any attention. They had looked for political motives: unpopular budget cuts and brutal power struggles. Racism was quickly dismissed as a motive, despite the Koran. The young party leader had avoided the issue and was smart enough to answer questions generally and harmlessly whenever forced into a corner by journalists who were not satisfied with platitudes about immigration costs and resource issues.

“But Victoria Heinerback did have several fellow party members,” Adam hesitated, “who might be accused of not liking our new countrymen.”

He hadn’t touched the coffee. He leaned forward over the coffee table. His hand was shaking.

“That’s two cases,” he said and left the cup where it was. “You said there were five.”

“A journalist was beaten to death,” continued Johanne. “He had uncovered a financial mismanagement case in a company on the East Coast, I can’t remember what it was about. The story cost him his life.”

“But he wasn’t killed by a . . . pen?”

“No.”

She gave a wan smile.

“A typewriter. A Remington, a huge, old-fashioned . . .”

Adam wasn’t listening anymore.

“A typewriter to the head,” he thought. “A pen in the eye. Two journalists, then and now, killed by the tools of their trade. Two politicians, then and now, crucified and desecrated with religious scripts. Two tongues. Two people accused of lying.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispered.

Johanne picked up a red rag doll from the shelf by the TV. It was missing an arm. Its face was dirty gray, and its red hair was as faded as its dress, almost pink after countless spins in the washing machine.

“I heard all this on a warm day in early summer many years ago,” she said, and ran her fingers down the doll’s absurdly long legs. “Each case individually is not that interesting. America’s criminal history is full of far more spectacular stories than that.”

All of a sudden, she threw the doll into the toy box.

“What’s interesting for us is that someone in this country is trying to emulate the series again. But we shouldn’t get bogged down in the past, we have to focus on . . . on Fiona Helle, Victoria Heinerback, and Vegard Krogh. On today. Our own murders. Don’t we?” Johanne paused.

He wanted to nod. He really wanted to smile and agree. What she had told him was useful enough, sketchy and imprecise though it was. It was sufficient.

They both knew that it was impossible.

She had told him an important story and at the same time had driven a wedge between them. He would use the next few days to put the heavens in motion, to trace every detail of the cases. He would get international organizations involved. They needed transcripts, judgments, hearings. They needed names and dates.

They needed Warren’s help.

“I think,” he said and hesitated for a moment before continuing, “I think that’s enough for this evening. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”

“I know,” she said and hunkered down. Jack had woken up and was rubbing against her. “We can’t do much good now. Go to bed.”

“Come with me.”

“There’s no point, Adam. Go to bed.”

“Not without you.”

“I don’t want to. Can’t.”

“Are you hungry?”

“I know that you’re going to talk to Warren. I understand that you need to.”

“Should I make an omelet?”

“You’re just like Mother. You think that food solves everything.”

She buried her nose in the warm, acrid smell of dirty dog and mumbled, “Don’t act as if I’m stupid, Adam.”

Again, he didn’t know what to say.

“Of course I realize what you have to do with the information I’ve given you,” she continued. “I’m not asking for fanfares for having dived back into a past I wanted to forget, but I would like some kind of respect. Just pretending that everything is fine and I’ve just told you a goodnight story, I think that’s . . . unfair.”

She lifted up the dog and hid her face in his fur.

“We should be happy,” he said. “We should be delighted about Ragnhild. About Kristiane’s progress. About each other. We get along well together, the two of us. The four of us. That morning, a month ago, feels like an age now, when Kristiane thought we’d gotten an heir to the throne, wasn’t I happy then? Satisfied? The baby was healthy. You were a bit anxious and very happy. I want to turn back time and forget everything that is alien and secret, that opens up this chasm between us. Your eyes were hostile, and now you’re slipping away from me.”

“Just keep me out of it,” Johanne said. “Do what you have to, but keep me out of it. Okay?”

He nodded.

Jack wriggled in her arms and wanted to get down.

“He doesn’t like being held,” Adam said.

“Is Mats Bohus definitely out of the question?”

“What?”

“Are you one hundred percent sure that Mats Bohus is not behind all the murders?”

“Yes.”

The King of America made a leap for it and landed on the floor with a dull thud. He whimpered a bit and then shot off into a corner with his tail between his legs.

“What can it be?” Johanne said and sat down on the other sofa.

“You mean who, don’t you?” he said in a flat voice.

“Well, both who and what.”

“I can’t bear this,” he said.

“What?”

“Your coldness.”

“I’m not cold.”

“Yes, you are.”

“You’re hopeless. You want me to be happy and warm and close all the time. That’s impossible. Grow up. We’re two adults with adult problems. It doesn’t mean something’s wrong.”

She said “doesn’t mean something’s wrong.” He’d wanted to hear “nothing’s wrong.” He folded his hands and studied his knuckles, which were white now. In fourteen months he would be fifty. The signs of age were getting clearer, the dry, loose skin on the backs of his hands, even when he curled his fingers.

“Do you think someone might be setting this up?” she asked, doubtfully.

“Oh, come on,” he mumbled and opened his right hand.

She looked at Jack, who was still turning in circles on his cushion, trying to settle down.

“Maybe there’s someone else outside who’s manipulating others to commit murder,” she said, mostly to herself, as if she was thinking out loud. “Someone who knows about these old stories and who, for some reason, is trying to re-create . . .”

The dog finally lay down.

“I’m going crazy,” she murmured.

“We’re going to bed,” Adam stated.

“Yes,” she said.

“You mentioned five,” he said.

“Five what?”

“Five murders. The lecture was about five murders. All examples of what Warren called . . . proportional revenge?”

“Retribution.”

“What were the last two cases?” he asked without looking up from his hand. Johanne took off her glasses. The room became fuzzy, and she cleaned her glasses with half-closed eyes.

“Who was killed?” he asked. “And how?”

“An athlete.”

“What happened to him?”

“He got a javelin through the heart.”

“A javelin . . . like the ones you throw?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“The killer was a competitor. He felt he’d been overlooked when one of the Ivy League schools awarded an athletic scholarship. Something like that. I can’t remember exactly. I’m exhausted.”

“So now all we can do is just sit tight,” he started. “Completely helpless . . . and wait for an athlete to be brutally murdered.”

She was still polishing and rubbing her glasses with the corner of her shirt, without purpose or reason.

“And the last one?” he asked almost inaudibly.

Johanne held her glasses up to the lamp and closed one eye. She squinted into the light through both lenses, several times. Then she slowly put the glasses back on. Shrugged her shoulders.

“You know what, I think I might actually try to get some sleep. It’s been—”

“Johanne,” Adam stopped her, then drank the rest of his coffee in one go.

The mug thumped down on the table.

A harsh light appeared on the ceiling. The beam wandered slowly from the kitchen to just above the door out to the south-facing balcony. The throb of an engine made the windowpanes vibrate.

“Garbagemen,” Adam said quickly. “So?”

If he hadn’t been so tired, he might have noticed that Johanne was holding her breath. If he had looked at her instead of going over to the window to check who was letting their engine idle in a residential area in the middle of the night, he might have noticed that her mouth was half open and her lips were pale. He would have seen that she was sitting tensely, with her eyes on the front door, then the children’s room.

But Adam was at the window, with his back to Johanne.

“Teenagers partying,” he said, peeved. “It’s only February. They don’t have their exams until May. They start earlier and earlier.”

He hesitated for a moment before going back to sit on the sofa opposite Johanne.

“The last one,” he insisted. “What happened in the last case?”

“He didn’t succeed. Warren included the example because—”

“Who did he try to murder, Johanne?”

She reached out for both cups and got up. He caught her as she passed.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “He didn’t succeed.”

The movement with which she broke free was unnecessarily harsh.

“Johanne,” he said, without following her. He heard the cups being put in the dishwasher. “You’re just being difficult now.”

“I’m sure.”

“Who did he try to kill?” Adam repeated.

He was surprised to hear the noise of the dishwasher. He pulled up his sleeve and looked at his watch. It was nearly half past one. Johanne was rummaging around in the drawers and cabinets.

“What are you doing?” he muttered as he went into the kitchen.

“Cleaning,” she replied tersely.

“Well,” he said and pointed at the clock, “I see that you’re getting used to living in a semidetached house.”

The cutlery drawer fell to the floor with a crash. Johanne bent down on her knees and tried to gather up the knives and forks, spoons and other gadgets.

“It was a family man,” she sobbed, “who was being investigated for insurance fraud in connection with a house fire. He . . . he set fire to the policeman’s home. The investigator’s home. While the whole family was sleeping.”

“Come here.”

He held her by the arms, firm and friendly, pulled her up. She resisted.

“No one is going to set this house on fire,” Adam said. “No one is ever going to set our house on fire.”

Twelve

F
or hundreds of years, people had walked the narrow streets between the low, crooked houses that clung together. Steps wound up narrow passages. Feet had trodden on the stone steps, in the same place, year after year, leaving behind a smoothly polished path that she crouched down to touch several times. The shiny hollows were cold against her fingers. She put her fingers in her mouth and felt the sting of salt on the tip of her tongue.

She leaned over the wall to the south. A grayish blue mist fused sea and sky. There was no horizon out there, no perspective, only an endlessness that made her dizzy. There was no wind, not even up here on the hilltop. A dank humidity swathed the medieval town of Eze. She was alone.

In summer this place must be unbearable. Even with shuttered windows and unwelcoming shop doors, closed for the winter, the signs of the summer season were obvious. Souvenir shops stood wall to wall, and on the few small squares that opened out in the heart of the town, she saw the scars from scraping chairs and countless cigarettes that had been stubbed out on the cobbles. As she walked by herself along the wall facing the sea, she imagined the sound of the summer hordes—chirruping Japanese and loud, red-cheeked Germans.

She was a veritable wanderer now. She had gradually discovered the old paths and found ways to avoid the main roads that were dangerous, with no sidewalks and a steady flow of roaring traffic.

Her new duffel coat was warm without being completely windproof. She had bought it in Nice along with three pairs of pants, four sweaters, a handful of skirts, and a suit that she wasn’t really sure she would dare to wear. When she came to France, just before Christmas, she only had two pairs of shoes with her. They were now in the trash can down on the street. Yesterday evening she had resolutely put them in a plastic bag and dropped them into the container, even though one pair was barely six months old. They were brown and solid. Sensible shoes, best suited for a middle-aged housewife.

The duffel coat was beige, and her Camper shoes were comfortable to walk in. The lady in the shop hadn’t so much as raised an eyebrow when she asked to try them on. A young boy sat beside her on one of the bright yellow ottomans and tried on the same shoes. When he caught her eye, he gave a friendly smile. Nodded in appreciation. She bought two pairs. They were very comfortable.

She walked.

Walking made it easier to think. It was during her long, slow walks along the sea, in the mountains and across the steep hillsides between Nice and Cap d’Ail, that she felt most acutely that her life had been injected with new vigor. Sometimes, often when she came home at night, she felt a tiredness in her muscles that was a wonderful reminder of her strength. She would take off her clothes and wander naked around the house, her reflection in the windows confirming the changes she was going through. She drank wine, but never too much. She enjoyed food, whether she made it herself or went to a restaurant where she was recognized, always recognized now, by polite waiters who pulled out her chair and remembered that she liked to have a glass of champagne before her meal.