She carried on down towards Rodeløkka. There had always been something about Mailin’s boyfriends. When she was younger, Liss had been obsessed with the need to find out about them. As if there was a code to them, something that told her what she should be looking out for herself. Once, perhaps in an attempt to crack this code, she’d allowed herself to be carried away. After that, she wanted to know as little as possible about her sister’s love life.
The house was away down at the end of Lang Street. She rang, waited, rang again. The front door wasn’t locked. She opened it and looked in. Light in the hallway and a staircase on the right.
– Hello?
She heard a door opening upstairs. He appeared at the top of the stairs. Then began descending towards her.
– Sorry, I was in the bathroom.
He stopped before he was all the way down. The eyes were quite large, the cheekbones high. His dark hair was longish and combed back. He gave a quick smile, came all the way down and held out his hand.
– Viljam.
He was quite a bit taller than her, but not particularly well built. She was surprised; she had imagined he would be like the person in the picture on Zako’s phone. But this wasn’t the man on his way out through the gate with Mailin.
He squeezed her hand, not hard, released it at once. He was unshaven, but his sideburns curved in a delicate bow towards the angles of his jaw and were symmetrically trimmed. It struck her that he was better looking than any of Mailin’s former boyfriends. He seemed calm, and was perhaps deliberately striving to maintain that calm. She never trusted her first impression of people she met. It was always accompanied by uncertainty, and often deceptive. She picked up a host of signals, full of contradictions and hidden significances. Being prepared was no help, she thought as Viljam walked in front of her down the hall. Most of what she picked up on she couldn’t think about until the encounter was over, and often not even then.
Liss looked round at the room. The ceiling was high, the room going halfway up into the next floor. The painting on the wall appeared to be of a winter landscape, snow through dark trees beneath a grey sky. Muted but full of light.
– Do you and Mailin own this house? she asked, though she knew the circumstances of how they came to be living there.
– Rent it cheaply, Viljam told her. – A friend of Linne’s working in the US on an open-ended contract. Not even certain he’ll come back. If he doesn’t, then it’s possible we’ll buy it.
He called her Linne. Liss had done the same when she was younger.
He took her upstairs and showed her around. The bedroom was in bright colours, with a solid double bed made of oak. There was a spare bed in an office. Liss tried to work out what was Mailin in the house. The bed and the dark brown leather furniture, the orchids on the windowsill in the living room, the painting, the piano.
Afterwards they sat in the kitchen, at a surface that stuck out from the wall and divided the room in two.
Viljam poured coffee from a cafetière.
– Keep expecting every moment that she’ll come in the front door, he said. – Kick the snow off on the threshold.
He sipped at his cup, looked away. Liss studied his hands. The fingers were long and thin. She glanced up at his profiled face against the afternoon light from the window. Thought of what Tage had said about Ragnhild’s reaction; that there was something about Viljam that gave her mother a funny feeling … These funny feelings of hers always filled the room with something floating and invisible; back home they used to swim in them all the time. Liss recalled why it was she had left, and would never come back.
– Mailin says you’re studying law. And that you also work.
He nodded. – The Justice Bus. Free legal aid for people who can’t afford to pay.
Was he trying to hide something? According to Tage, Viljam had been at work with some other students when Mailin disappeared. And the rest of that evening and night and the following day at the house in Lørenskog.
She swallowed some coffee. It was black and strong, just the way she liked it. – On the phone that day, you said that Mailin was going to call me.
Even in the light from the window his eyes were dark blue. She still didn’t know what she thought of him. Other than that he was good looking in an almost feminine way. As was usually the case with Mailin’s men.
– She said there was something she wanted to talk to you about. Don’t know what it was. Then she went out to the cabin.
– Just for one day? Liss could hear the scepticism in her own voice.
– She’s been spending a lot of time there recently. Working on a very demanding project. Part of her PhD. Says she thinks better out there. Nothing to disturb her. And on Thursday of course she was supposed to take part in
Taboo
.
Lisa could see her, sitting by the large French windows in the room at the cabin. View of a stretch of Morr Water between the trees.
– So that old rock-preacher Berger has turned himself into a talk show host, she remarked.
– You’ve never seen
Taboo
? Everybody’s talking about it.
– It’s years since I saw a Norwegian TV programme. I gather I’m missing something.
Viljam drained his coffee cup, poured them both refills.
– Read about it in a newspaper on the plane, she added. – Every week he discusses a new taboo which he claims we should get rid of. Smart guy.
Viljam took the bait. – Berger is an unscrupulous bastard who has discovered how much attention he can get just by digging in the dirt.
Liss wasn’t sure whether he sounded irritated or not.
– In the beginning he was untouchable, ostracised. Now he’s cool. Everyone who’s famous for being famous turns up on his show and yaps away with him.
– You mean Mailin?
He shook his head. – I was extremely surprised when she accepted the invitation. Then I realised it was for a reason. She wrote a piece for the newspapers about his show.
He pulled down a cutting from the cork noticeboard,
Berger – a hero for our times
. From
Aftenposten
, 1 December. – She discusses his project and shows what a narrow-minded idiot he really is.
Liss read the opening paragraph. Mailin could be absolutely ruthless when it came to something she disapproved of.
– She’s been working on incest and abuse and so on for years, Viljam continued. – You know that’s what her doctoral thesis is about? In Thursday’s programme Berger revealed that as a child he had had a relationship with an older man. It didn’t harm him in the slightest. Far from it: a relationship like that could actually be good for a child.
– I saw that in
VG
. A lot of very angry responses.
– He got in touch with Mailin a few weeks ago. She’s had several meetings with him. He claims that the taboo on paedophilia is against one of life’s natural expressions. He tries to promote himself as a kind of saviour. Everyone knows that he’s making a fortune out of the fact that people can never get enough of scandal. The more outraged viewers and Christians who threaten to boycott the channel – and best of all, the death threats – the better it is for his image and for the viewing figures.
Viljam got up and took a packet out of the freezer in the top of the fridge. – I’ll heat some rolls for us.
– Mailin would never let herself be used by a guy like that, said Liss. – She’s much too savvy.
Viljam opened the bag with a thin, curved knife. – Agreed.
She
was the one who was going to use
him
.
He put the rolls into the microwave. – She’s very careful about the oath of confidentiality and all that. But the day before she was due to go on
Taboo
, she mentioned something … something she’d found out. Something she was going to reveal in the programme. I’m not quite sure what.
He didn’t say any more.
– And Berger didn’t know about this? asked Liss.
– She told me she would give him a fair chance. She was going to arrange another meeting with him. Talk to him just before the broadcast. Give him the choice of whether to cancel it or not.
– But he didn’t cancel.
– On the contrary. He made fun of the fact that she’d withdrawn. Got a lot of bullshit off his chest. Not a word of explanation for why she wasn’t there.
– Presumably because he didn’t know that before the programme went out?
Viljam shrugged.
– At first I thought she’d changed her mind. That she’d decided after all not to give Berger cred by appearing on his show. But anyone who knows Mailin knows she’s not the type to drop out like that.
The rolls were thawed and ready; he took them out of the microwave, put them on a plate. Put out cheese and jam.
– After
Taboo
was over, I was certain she’d show up in Lørenskog. We sat there and waited, Tage, Ragnhild and I. Then we started ringing round. Later on that night we called the police. There was nothing they could do. Not until I called again the next day. They asked me to come in and give a statement.
Liss leaned forward across the table. – Did you tell them this about Berger and the meeting she was supposed to have with him?
Viljam sat back down in his chair. – Naturally. But they were more interested in hearing what
I
had been up to over the last twenty-four hours.
What she saw in his eyes then was fear. The partner is always the first to be suspected, she thought. Was Viljam the type of guy who could do something like that? What was
like that
? Suddenly she realised she was staring back at him with the same look of fear in her eyes. She excused herself, pushed aside the plate with the fresh warm roll, went out into the hallway and up the stairs.
As she bent double over the toilet bowl, she saw an image of Mailin’s naked body in the dark.
– She’s dead, she murmured. – Mailin is dead.
S
HE FOLLOWED
S
ANNER
Street in towards the city centre. The traffic approaching from the opposite direction created a film of dust and noise around her. She turned away by the bridge, took the path that ran alongside the river. Stopped and sat down on a bench. Light snow was falling, and in the dead grass two boys were chasing around after a ball. A woman in a turquoise outfit with her head covered in a shawl shouted something to them, something sharp and high pitched in a language Liss didn’t understand. The boys ignored her and raced off in the direction of the riverbank.
What was it about Viljam that gave Ragnhild her funny feeling? Was it anything other than jealousy because Mailin had chosen him? Viljam is more than just despairing, she thought. More than just afraid. Or was she imagining that? At times she was certain she could tell when people were lying to her. Wasn’t that just her imagination too?
As she walked on, it stopped snowing. Columns of light passed swiftly between the clouds, as though the sun were hurrying away. She carried on up to Our Saviour’s cemetery. She felt her phone vibrating. She saw it was Rikke and took the call.
– Liss, where are you? I’ve been trying to get hold of you for days.
– I’m in Oslo.
Before Rikke could ask, she told her about Mailin. Just a few words. Silence at the other end.
– I had to come home.
– First Zako and now your sister. It’s crazy.
– Have they got a cause of death for him yet?
– I was called in for an interview. Zako was at my flat directly before he went home that night.
She was probably afraid Liss was going to ask what they had been doing there.
– It’s okay, Rikke, you don’t have to tell me everything.
A wail from the other end. – I’ve been a real bitch, Liss. I understand if you’re mad at me.
– I’m not mad at you. What did the police say?
– They questioned me about everything. When he left, what we’d taken. If we’d had sex. If I went back to his place with him afterwards. It was pretty creepy. Is it my fault if he took too much? They asked about you too.
– What did you say?
– What could I say? I mean, you hadn’t seen him for over a week. That’s right, isn’t it?
– Yes.
– When are you coming back?
– Don’t know.
– I understand.
– What?
– How terrible it must be.
The main street entrance was locked. She looked down the list of names on the doorbells, found Mailin’s. Beneath it, another name she recognised. As the connection dawned on her, she turned, about to walk away. Waited a few seconds and then changed her mind and rang one of the other bells, marked
T. Gabrielsen
. A woman’s voice over the intercom asked who it was. Liss told her; there was a buzzing from the lock.
The stairwell smelt mouldy. The woodwork was worn and the paint flaking. A woman appeared from a door on the first floor.
– So you’re Liss. Mailin has told me about you. I’m Torunn. This is so awful. Not you coming here, of course. You know what I mean.
Liss didn’t answer. This Torunn, presumably surnamed Gabrielsen, was in her thirties. She came up to Liss’s chin. She was quite chubby. Her hair was shoulder length and pitch black, but in the roots its true grey was visible.
– Mailin’s office is on the second floor. Have you got a key? I’m expecting a client. Just say if there’s anything I can do to help.
As Liss was halfway up the stairs she continued: – Are you looking for anything in particular? The police have already been here. She shuddered, took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes.
– No, nothing special, said Liss. – Just want to see her office.
Just want to look for her
, she might have said. The woman nodded as though she understood.
On the second floor, Liss let herself into a room furnished as a waiting room. A sofa, some chairs, a radio on a table in the corner, poster art on the walls. Two doors leading out of it.
Pål Øvreby – Psychologist
, it said on one of them. Again she felt an urge to leave the place. A vague pain in the stomach, spreading down into her groin. Pål Øvreby isn’t going to decide what I do or don’t do, she thought, and turned away from his door.