Authors: Jorgen Brekke
“There’s something…” he said.
“What’s that?”
“The thing is,” he said, mustering up his courage, even though he knew he ought to leave it alone. He plunged ahead anyway. “The thing is, I might be the father of her baby.”
She didn’t say a word.
“Don’t misunderstand me. It happened before you came to Norway. I didn’t know you yet. And I was feeling confused after going back to work, especially after that insane case was foisted on me.”
“Confused?” she said, her voice ice-cold. “Were you confused when you met me too? It couldn’t have been more than a few days later.”
“No, I wasn’t confused when I met you. Or maybe I was, but our meeting each other has nothing to do with that feeling of confusion. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life than when we … when we…”
“Stop the car!”
“What?”
“Stop the car!”
“But why? Didn’t you hear what I just said? It didn’t mean anything.”
“The two of you are friends, Odd. She’s my best friend. And neither of you ever said a word about this to me.”
“Why would we want to tell you about something that was going to hurt you, when it’s of no importance whatsoever?”
“Stop the car,” she repeated.
This time he did as she said. He pulled into a bus stop near a café and stopped. She opened the door and got out.
“Go to work and don’t come home for a while,” she said. Her voice was about to break.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we went home together and talked this through?”
“I don’t want to talk,” she told him. “Christ, I hate talking!”
She’d switched to English. Then she slammed the car door.
He sat in the driver’s seat, watching her in the rearview mirror as she headed for the crosswalk near the park.
“Fuck!” he said out loud. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
A headache began deep inside his brain, the kind of headache that sounded like traffic blasting by at high speed, and it quickly spread.
His cell phone rang
just as he was pulling away.
It was Brattberg. “Professor Høybråten is on his way into the station,” she said. “We’d like you to be here when he arrives.”
Singsaker cleared his throat and said he’d get there as soon as he could.
* * *
“Jon Blund,” said Singsaker, giving Jan Høybråten his most penetrating stare.
Next to the professor sat Terje Bjugn, an older defense attorney. Singsaker knew him. Bjugn had once joined him and Jensen on a hunt. But he didn’t like to shoot, so he’d hadn’t gone again. He seemed cautious, always relaxed, and there was a sleepy glaze to his eyes, as if he spent too much time staring off into space. Yet Singsaker knew that the man had a sharp tongue, which he saved for appropriate occasions.
“Jon Blund?” Høybråten looked genuinely surprised by the way this interview was starting. He was sitting on a chair that was clearly not as comfortable as the one he was accustomed to. The interview room had sterile white walls and plain furniture. The table, with Singsaker on one side and the professor and his lawyer on the other, was from IKEA. Singsaker was startled to see a green potted plant standing in the corner behind Høybråten. It was new. Who had put it there? He had his suspicions, but then he started wondering how long it would last without any natural sunlight. The next instant the door next to the plant opened and Mona Gran came into the room.
“Yes, Jon Blund,” Singsaker repeated as his colleague sat down beside him. He was annoyed to see that she leaned forward to make sure that the tape recorder on the table was switched on. Which of course it was. He’d gotten more forgetful, but he wasn’t completely senile yet. He continued with his line of questioning.
“The ballad the music box plays was written by a composer who called himself Jon Blund.”
Høybråten stared at him. Singsaker stared back. He’d already noted that there was no sign of a bullet wound in the skin that was visible on Høybråten’s body. But the professor might still have a bandage somewhere under his clothing.
“Oh, of course. That’s why it sounded familiar. The ballad collection in the Gunnerus Library, right? Now I remember. How silly of me. Forgive me, but it’s been years since I last looked at the ballads, so I’ve forgotten the tune. Of course. Jon Blund. Sure. And I was correct about it being a lullaby, wasn’t I?”
“So it seems.”
“‘The Golden Peace.’ Isn’t that what it’s called? I remember it now. It’s a lovely ballad.”
“And apparently lethal,” said Singsaker.
Høybråten looked at him, and it was clear that he now recalled the poorly disguised accusations that Singsaker had voiced the last time they’d met.
Singsaker went on. “Isn’t it a little odd that you remember the tune only now?”
“Not really. I’ve never worked with the ballads in the Gunnerus Library. That’s mainly because very few of them have ever been set to music. The one you mention is an exception. I did see it several decades ago. But the tune didn’t stay with me. Not even a professor can remember everything.”
Singsaker studied him carefully and realized that he might be telling the truth.
“Don’t think that we’re just going to forget about your relationship with the girls in the choir, Professor Høybråten,” said Singsaker. “But we’re aware that you’ve come here voluntarily, and at this stage we are treating you as a witness. And I assume that your attorney has no objection to that. Am I right?”
Attorney Bjugn nodded a bit warily.
“Now that you evidently do remember certain things about the ballad, let’s follow that for a while. Can you tell us anything we don’t already know about Jon Blund?”
“Jon Blund is a pseudonym,” replied Høybråten.
“That much we do know,” said Gran. And Singsaker was relieved that she had chimed in. “What we want to know is whether you know anything about the man behind the name.”
“Not much, I’m afraid. But according to an old police log, someone with that name was murdered in Trondheim sometime in the 1760s. That’s why we believe that ‘The Golden Peace’ was written close to that time.”
“Is that the only source of information we have about Jon Blund?” asked Gran.
“Yes and no,” replied Høybråten.
“What do you mean by that?”
“A few years ago a letter was found in the wall of Ringve Manor when the section from the eighteenth century was being renovated. This letter was stolen almost immediately after it was discovered, and so no one has been able to study it properly. But it was said to be about Jon Blund.”
“And no one knows who stole the letter?”
“Not to my knowledge. But you police officers would know more than I do,” said Høybråten spitefully.
Singsaker stood up, having decided they’d followed the Jon Blund lead as far as they could go. There were other, more pressing reasons why they wished to speak to Høybråten.
“I don’t know whether you realize it, but as of last night we’re investigating the murder at Kuhaugen and the disappearance of Julie Edvardsen as one and the same case.”
“I see,” said Høybråten, displaying no sign of emotion.
“May I ask why?” asked Attorney Bjugn, clearing his throat.
“For the time being, we can’t divulge much information. What I
can
tell you is that last night there was a confrontation between the perpetrator and Julie’s parents, during which a wound of unknown severity was inflicted on the suspect. As a result, we now have an opportunity to check witnesses who are associated in some way with the case. We have DNA evidence from the perp, and we also know that he has a wound somewhere on his body. What we are hoping, professor, is that you will agree to see a doctor, who will examine you for wounds. It would be in your best interest, and it would greatly help us with the investigation,” Singsaker concluded, amused with his own diplomatic formulation of the request.
Høybråten cast an uncertain glance at Bjugn, who nodded almost imperceptibly.
“All right,” the professor said with a sigh. “If that’s all you need.”
Gran stood up and escorted Jan Høybråten to the doctor while Singsaker went back to his office.
“
Hi, this is Siri Holm
at the Gunnerus Library. I talked to you earlier about borrowing a police log from the 1700s. It’s rather urgent that I see it, but I understand if you feel uneasy about sending such an old document over here by messenger. If it suits you better, would it be possible for me to stop by the Dora to have a look at it there?”
Siri was sitting in her office on her day off. She yawned, partly because she was bored by her own formal tone of voice, and partly because it was now afternoon and she’d had only two cups of tea and nothing to eat all day.
“Ah, Miss Holm. I was actually just about to call you,” said a polite and gentle-sounding male voice on the phone. An archivist named Erik Nilsen was on the line.
The man she was talking to was sitting somewhere in the Dora. The building itself was a monstrous submarine bunker that the Germans had constructed during the war. With a roof and walls made of armored concrete more than ten feet thick, the structure was so massive that when the war ended, it proved impossible to demolish. It was said that blasting it apart would require so much dynamite that the whole town would be put at risk. And besides, it would be too costly. Instead, the building had been sold for one single krone. By now this investment had paid off, to put it mildly. The Dora was a protected landmark in the harbor area, and it was fully occupied. The enormous building housed, among other things, the National Archives of Trondheim and the University Library. Every time Siri talked to the people at Dora on the phone, it was like hearing a voice from the deep.
“I just talked to the police about it,” Nilsen replied.
“The police?” she repeated. “Don’t tell me. Has it been stolen?”
“It has. It was usually kept in a box in the archives. When I went to get it yesterday, I discovered that someone had taken it.”
“I thought this might happen,” she said. “Who has access to the archives?”
“Generally we allow access to anyone who wishes to use them. Mostly researchers, historians, and an author or two. Innocent people. But they all have to sign the register before they can gain access to our materials.”
“And of course you’ve already looked at this list of names to see who visited the archives lately, right?”
“Yes, I have.”
“Was there any particular name that struck you as—how should I say it?—a bit odd?”
“Yes, when you put it like that, there actually was one that I noticed.”
“Let me guess. Could it be Grälmakar Löfberg?”
“How did you know? Yes—he entered his name in the register several months ago. He may have been the one who took the logbook. There haven’t been many visitors since then, and none of them was interested in the police logs. I wasn’t working here when this guy arrived. But I think he might have been someone that the archivist on duty at the time knew, at least by sight, someone she trusted, and so she didn’t look at what name he wrote down. Nor did she check whether the contents were still in the box when he turned it in. So how do you know about the name?”
“We’ve had a visit from him over here too,” explained Siri Holm.
After finishing her conversation with Nilsen at the National Archives, she sat at her desk and pondered what she’d learned. I wonder if there’s a facsimile, she thought, or a secondary source. Now she wanted more than ever to find out what that police log said.
* * *
Gunnar Berg looked up with a start from his book when Siri opened his office door without knocking.
“Siri? What can I help you with?” he asked after collecting himself.
“I wanted to ask you about something, Gunnar.”
“Will it take long?”
“That depends. It has to do with a ballad and old police logbooks.”
Berg thought for a moment.
“This is definitely going to take a while,” he concluded. “I’m just about to pack up for the day. If you like, you could come along and we can talk on the way.”
She accepted the offer. This way she wouldn’t have to walk up the hills to get home from town.
* * *
Half an hour after Gran left the interview room with Professor Høybråten, she informed the investigative team that they no longer had a primary suspect in the case. Jan Høybråten had no gunshot wounds or any other injuries on his body that had punctured the skin.
“So that rules him out, right?” she asked her colleagues.
“We agree with Ivar Edvardsen that it’s almost certain that he confronted the man with the music box last night. And it’s just as certain that the man with the music box is our perpetrator. That’s the only thing that makes sense,” said Jensen.
After a brief meeting, Singsaker and Mona Gran were the only ones left, standing together in the corridor.
“Back to the drawing board,” he said with a sigh.
“I’m afraid so,” she replied.
“Did you put that potted plant in the interview room? You do know that there’s no natural light in there, and it’s going to die faster than you can say
greenhouse,
right?” he asked.
“Then it’s a good thing I bought it at the dollar store. It’s plastic.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No. Take a closer look next time, Chief Inspector.”
* * *
Gran headed for her office, while Singsaker decided to go outside. As he made his way downstairs, he realized that he was feeling pretty good. He was glad they had Gran on the team. They needed someone like her who could keep their spirits up. But when he stepped out into the sunlight, his good mood evaporated as he headed toward the canal bridge in Brattøra. Even though he’d tried not to get his hopes up, he had to admit that he’d been convinced there was a link between Høybråten and the killer. But now that theory had fallen apart, and they really had no leads whatsoever.
When he reached the canal on the other side of the street, he sat down on a bench. He started thinking about Felicia again.
Is it irrevocable, what happened between us? It can’t be. Can it?
He was immersed in these thoughts when his cell rang.