The Final Murder (15 page)

Trond Arnesen had made sure that the lights by the gate and in the porch were both working before he moved back to the small house that he would now inherit. His brother had offered to stay with him for the first few days. Trond said no. He didn’t want to make the transition to a life alone in stages. It was his home, even if he’d only moved in a couple of months ago. Vibeke was quite old-fashioned and had not agreed to living together until a date had been set for the wedding.

He tried to avoid the windows. He drew the curtains before it got really dark. The gaps threatening, black strips of emptiness.

The TV flickered but there was no sound. Vibeke had bought

him a 42-inch plasma screen for his birthday. Far too generous, they couldn’t afford it after all the work on the house. ‘So you can watch the football,’ she smiled, and opened an expensive bottle of champagne. He turned thirty that day and they had decided to make babies in the autumn.

He didn’t feel like watching TV, he was far too restless, but the silent people on the screen were a friendly presence. He had wandered from room to room for several hours now, sat down, touched

some object or other, got up, moved on, anxious about what he might find behind the next door. He felt safe in the bathroom. It had no windows and was warm, and at around six o’clock he had locked the door and stayed in there for about an hour. In desperation, he had taken a bath, as if he had to legitimize his need to

feel secure in a house that he, at that precise moment, half past ten on Monday the 16th of February, did not think he would be able to live in.

He heard a noise from outside.

It came from the back of the house, he thought, from the slope down to the small stream, fifty metres down the garden, where a picket fence marked the boundary to a disused scrap yard.

He froze, listening.

The silence was overwhelming. He couldn’t even hear the

usual clicking of the thermostat on the heater under the window.

Just his imagination, no doubt.

A grown man, he thought to himself in irritation, and took

down a random book from the shelf.

He looked at the title page. An author he’d never heard of.

Must be new. He put it back, horizontally across the top of the other books. It struck him that that sort of thing always annoyed Vibeke, so he took it out again to put it back properly between two books.

The noise had sounded like something breaking, now he heard

it again.

His brother had always called him a coward. That wasn’t true.

Trond Arnesen wasn’t a coward, he was just cautious. If his fifteenmonth-younger brother had climbed past him on trees, it was

simply because common sense told him that to climb any further was stupid. When his brother was seven and jumped from the roof of a four-metre-high garage with a parachute made from a sheet and four bits of rope, Trond stood on the ground and advised him not to do it. His brother broke his leg.

Trond was not a coward. He always assessed the consequences.

The fear that gripped him now had nothing to do with the

future. The unfamiliar taste of iron clung to his tongue, which immediately felt dry and too big. When the fear reached his

eardrums, he had to shake his head if he wanted to hear anything other than the blood pumping round his body.

He looked quickly round the room.

Vibeke’s furniture.

Vibeke’s things here and there. A copy of Her magazine with a Post-it to mark an article about young families struggling to find enough time to get everything done. A steel and plastic lighter he had given her for Christmas to show that she didn’t need to hide her cigarettes from him any more.

Vibeke’s things.

His home.

He was no coward. Although the sound had come from behind

the house, he now ran towards the front door without even looking out of the sitting room window to check if it was an animal, a confused elk or one of the many skinny feral cats.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he pulled open the front door.

‘Hallo,’ said an obviously startled Rudolf Fjord. ‘Hallo, Trond.’

He was standing with his foot on the first step up to the porch.

‘Hi,’ he said again, pathetically.

‘Idiot,’ hissed Trond. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing sneaking around in the garden like that? What the fuck are

you …’

‘I just wanted to see if anyone was home,’ Rudolf Fjord said.

His voice was louder now, but still feeble, as if he was trying to pull himself together without succeeding. ‘May I offer my condolences.’

Trond

Arnesen threw out his hands and went forward onto the

steps.

‘Condolences? You’ve come here at…’

With a swift movement he pulled up his left sleeve. His diving watch had still not reappeared.

‘.. . Bloody late on a Monday night,’ he continued furiously, ‘… to give your condolences’? Again! You’ve already done it! What the hell… You frightened… Just go!’

‘OK, OK, calm down.’

Rudolf Fjord had managed to pull himself together. He put out his hand in a conciliatory gesture, but Trond showed no signs of taking it.

‘I was just checking whether you were at home,’ Rudolf tried again. ‘I didn’t want to disturb you if you were already asleep.

That’s why I went round the house. But you’ve blacked out all the windows, so it was only when I saw a chink of light from the sitting room that I knew you were at home. I was just about to ring

the bell when…’

‘What d’you want? What the hell d’you want, Rudolf?’

Trond had never really liked Vibeke’s colleague. Nor had she.

The few times that he’d asked her about the man, she got a closed look on her face and said that he wasn’t to be trusted. She wouldn’t say any more. Trond didn’t know whether Rudolf Fjord was trustworthy or not, but he didn’t like the way the guy treated women.

Trond reckoned he was good-looking, tall, well built with a prominent chin and rather intense blue eyes. Rudolf used women.

Exploited them.

‘Like I said, I just wanted…’

‘I’ll give you one more chance,’ Trond was shouting now.

‘People don’t turn up to give their condolences in the middle of the night. You can’t pull the wool over my eyes. What do you want?’

‘I’d also thought,’ Rudolf Fjord started, and then looked as if he was literally trying to catch a word on the tip of his tongue. His eyes darted aimlessly round the garden. ‘I just thought I would ask you if I could look for some important papers Vibeke took home with her from the office. She was going to bring them back on the Monday, the one after she was murdered that is. I think…’

‘For God’s sake!’

Trond Arnesen was laughing now, a loud, joyless laughter.

‘Are you completely… stupid? Are you soft in the head or what?’

He laughed again, in desperation.

‘The police have taken all the papers. Are you… Don’t you understand anything? D’you have no idea of what happens when someone is murdered? Hm?’

He took a step forward and remained standing at the top of the steps. He covered his ears with his hands, as if trying to block out a catastrophe. Then he lowered his arms, took a deep breath and said:

‘Talk to the police. Good night.’

He went back into the house and was just about to shut the door when Rudolf Fjord leapt up the steps. He put his foot in the door to stop it from closing, his lower leg caught between the door and the frame. Trond stared at it. He was surprised by his own outburst of rage when he slammed the door shut with all his might.

‘Ow, shit, Trond! Ow. Listen … listen … ow!’

‘Move your foot,’ Trond said, and let go of the door for a

moment.

‘My laptop,’ Rudolf said and stuck his leg in the door a bit further.

‘And … and …’

Trond Arnesen didn’t back down. He had both his hands on the door handle.

‘Your leg will break soon,’ he said very calmly. ‘Move.’

‘I need those papers. And the laptop.’

‘You’re lying. The laptop was her own one. She got it from me.’

‘But the other one, then …’

‘There wasn’t another one.’

‘But…’

Trond gathered all his strength and pushed hard.

‘Ow! Oooowww! She’d also borrowed a book from me.’

His leg was badly twisted now. Trond stared at the black boot with fascination. The door was cutting into the leather just by the ankle.

‘Which book?’ he asked without looking up.

‘The latest one by Bencke,’ Rudolf groaned.

That at least was true. Trond had noticed the Ex Libris label and had been surprised that the two of them borrowed books from each other.

‘It’s disappeared,’ he said.

‘Disappeared?’

‘Jesus, Rudolf! The book’s not here and right now that’s the least of my worries. And yours for that matter! Buy a paperback.’

‘Let me go.’

Trond gave him a few centimetres slack. Rudolf Fjord edged

his leg out. He let out a pathetic whimper as he carefully tried to massage the blood back into his lower leg.

‘Good night,’ he said weakly.

He limped down the steps. Trond stood in the doorway and

watched him. The man nearly collapsed on the gravel driveway.

Rudolf Fjord looked pathetic as he limped out to the road, despite his broad shoulders and his expensive camel-hair coat. His car was parked some distance away. Trond could just see the roof, a silver disc under the street lamp, at the top of the hill. For a moment he felt sorry for him. But he didn’t know why.

‘Pathetic man,’ he said to himself, and realized that he was no longer scared of being alone.

Rudolf Fjord sat in the car until the windows steamed up.

Everything was quiet. His foot ached intensely. He didn’t dare take off his boot to see if there was any real damage, in case he couldn’t get it back on again. He tried to push down the clutch.

Luckily the pain was bearable. He’d been afraid he wouldn’t be able to drive.

At best, nothing would happen.

The police had the papers. They wouldn’t find anything. It

wasn’t what they were looking for.

Rudolf Fjord wasn’t even sure that there was anything to find.

Vibeke had never told him what she had seen. Her hints were

subtle, her threats vague. But she must have found something.

Rudolf Fjord had hoped he would find the house empty. He

couldn’t understand why, because now the whole venture seemed absurd. Breaking in was out of the question. He was neither

dressed nor equipped to break in to a house. Maybe he had hoped that they could have a rational conversation. That Trond would give him what he asked for, without asking any questions. That it would be possible to draw a line under the whole thing, the whole depressing, aggravating affair would be over for good.

He could feel the tiredness behind his eyes, which were dry

from lack of sleep.

He had never known that it was physically painful to be frightened.

Maybe

she just made it up.

Of course she hadn’t, he argued with himself.

His foot was getting steadily worse. He had cramp in his calves.

Frustrated, he wiped the condensation from the front screen and started the car.

At best, nothing would happen.

Three dull meetings were finally over. Adam Stubo sank into his chair and looked despondently at the pile of post. He quickly flicked through the letters and memorandums. Nothing urgent.

His hourglass was standing perilously near to the edge of the desk.

He carefully pushed it to a safer place. The grains of sand formed a silver peak in the bottom glass. He set the sand in motion and more and more grains moved faster and faster.

Time was running out.

That was becoming increasingly apparent with each day that

passed. No one said much. They all still had a false confidence and people still accepted overtime without any protest, but with waning enthusiasm. There were still moments of optimism among the investigators. After all, new discoveries were made every day, even though they proved to be insignificant later.

It couldn’t go on like this much longer.

Three weeks or so, Adam reckoned. Dissatisfaction would

spread fast once it took hold. He knew the score from earlier cases when no tangible evidence was forthcoming. Today it was exactly four weeks since Fiona Helle was murdered. After twenty-eight days of intense investigation, they should at least have an idea of a possible suspect, an indication of a possible killer, a hint, a direction to follow.

But there was nothing in the folders that lay on Adam Stubo’s desk. And soon people would get fed up. Despondency was seeping into the most recent case too, as if they all, despite repeated warnings not to, just assumed that Vibeke Heinerback had been killed by the same person as Fiona Helle and that the man had quite simply got away with it.

The cases wouldn’t be shelved. Of course not. But grumblings about resources, insufficient results and too much overtime would gradually turn into sharp protest. Everyone knew what no one dared to say: for every hour that passed, the solution to the murders was slipping away.

The NCIS probably had the most motivated staff in the country.

There was no doubt that it was the most competent. All of the investigators involved were therefore painfully aware of the depressing time-to-solution ratio.

Adam was dying for a cigar.

He picked up his phone and punched in a number that was

written on a scrap of paper at the bottom of the case board.

The urge for a cigar was stronger than it had been for a long time.

‘Bernt Helle? This is Adam Stubo from the NCIS.’

‘Hi,’ said the voice at the other end of the line.

Then it was quiet.

‘I hope that everything’s going well, given the circumstances.’

‘Yep.’

More silence.

‘I rang because there’s something I want to ask you, but I won’t keep you long,’ Adam explained, and pressed the conference call button before putting the receiver down and patting his breast pocket. ‘Just a minor detail, really’