The Final Murder (18 page)

They sat in silence. Adam scratched his neck. The desire for a cigar had returned. He swallowed and stared out of the window, distracted. The rain was drumming on the windowpane. A car had stopped. ‘Youths,’ he thought. The engine revved up again and again. Someone shouted something, the others laughed. A door slammed and the car jangled down the road and vanished.

Ragnhild was fast asleep. Jack trotted in from the hall. He stood for a moment with his head to one side, ears pricked, as if he couldn’t quite believe how quiet it was. Then he buried his snout in Adam’s lap and pawed his thighs.

‘Not the sofa,’ Adam mumbled. ‘Lie down on the floor. Down,

boy’

The dog appeared to shrug his shoulders and then crept lithely under the table and jumped up on to the other sofa, beside Johanne.

‘Can you get that kind of injury from rape or something like that?’ Adam eventually asked, without commenting on how badly trained the shitty-brown dog was.

‘Adam, really’

‘But…’

‘Imagine a birth. A child’s head. Why do you think women get torn?’

Adam stuck his fingers in his ears.

‘The answer is no,’ Johanne said. ‘Not from rape.’

‘But,’ Adam tried again and swallowed. ‘Wouldn’t a man …

Wouldn’t Bernt have noticed if…’

‘No,’ Johanne replied. ‘At least, that’s what Even said. Not necessarily.

Not during intercourse or… other such pleasure.’

He smiled.

‘Strange.’

She smiled back.

‘But it’s the truth.’

Jack growled in his sleep.

‘So, to sum up,’ Adam said and stood up again. He stroked his chin with his thumb and index finger. ‘We can confirm the following: Fiona Helle was pregnant twice. The first child was born

under circumstances which meant that she tore badly. It must have been a long time ago, as there is nothing to indicate that Bernt Helle knows anything about the child. And nor does anyone else. Fiona publicly expressed her delight at being a late first-time mother. She would hardly have dared to say something like that if there was anyone out there who knew …’

He went over to the window. He could feel the draught. He ran his finger around the window frame.

‘Damn me if it’s not blowing straight through the wall,’ he muttered.

‘We’ll have to get that fixed soon. Can’t be good for the

kids.’

‘A bit of draught just makes it cooler and fresher indoors,’

Johanne said, and waved her hand. ‘Carry on.’

‘No …’

He pulled and fiddled with the old-fashioned insulation tape that was about to fall off.

‘I just can’t believe that Bernt is a liar,’ he said slowly, and turned to face her again. ‘The guy’s behaviour has been fine throughout the investigation. Even though he’s no doubt sick and tired of our constant questions that never seem to come to anything, he always answers and does what we want him to. Answers

the phone. Comes to us when we ask him to. Seems to be well

adjusted and intelligent. So I’m sure he would have understood that information like that would be relevant for us. Wouldn’t he?’

Johanne wrinkled her nose.

‘Urn, yes,’ she said. ‘He probably would. I think we can at least assume that the child wasn’t born after they became a couple.

Gossip is rife in small places. They married quite quickly too, and I can’t imagine that a normal, if very young, couple would have any reason to hide a pregnancy. In fact, I think the answer to this mystery is simple. It must have been a very unwanted pregnancy, when she was very young.’

‘Please don’t say it was incest,’ Adam warned. ‘That’s all this case needs now’

‘Well, it certainly couldn’t have been Fiona’s father. He died when she was nine. And I think we can safely say that she wasn’t that young. But she must have been young enough to disappear or be sent away for a while without it causing a stir. Fiona was a teenager in…’ She mouthed the numbers as she calculated.

‘… At the end of the seventies,’ she finished. ‘She was sixteen in seventy-eight.’

‘That late,’ Adam said disappointed. ‘It wasn’t exactly a catastrophe to be a teenage mum then.’

‘Huh,’ exclaimed Johanne and rolled her eyes. ‘Typical man! I was terrified of getting pregnant before I was sixteen, and that was in the mid-eighties.’

‘Sixteen,’ Adam said. ‘Were you only sixteen…’

‘Forget it,’ Johanne swiftly interposed. ‘Can we just concentrate on the case?’

‘Yes … But sixteen …’ He sat down and scratched Jack behind the ear. ‘Fiona didn’t go abroad,’ he said. ‘Not for any length of time, anyway. I checked with Bernt. And I guess he would have known that. Even though not everyone I know likes to talk on and on about time spent studying abroad, I doubt that Fiona

would have kept her mouth shut about—’

‘Stop it,’ Johanne said, and leant over to him.

She kissed him lightly.

‘So, a child was born,’ she continued. ‘It isn’t necessarily relevant to the investigation, but, on the other hand, it does bear an uncanny resemblance to her programme …’

‘.. . That she presented so successfully for several years, and that gave her such a high profile.’

‘Adopted children and grieving mothers. Reunited or rejected.

That sort of thing.’

Jack lifted his head and pricked one ear. The house groaned in the strong wind. The rain was hurled against the window from the south. Johanne bent down over Ragnhild and tucked the blanket more snugly around the child, who slept on undisturbed. The

stereo clicked on and off by itself several times and the main light above the table flickered.

Then everything went dark.

‘Damn,’ said Adam.

‘Ragnhild,’ said Johanne.

‘Take it easy.’

‘That’s why I went to see Yvonne Knutsen,’ Johanne said in the dark. ‘She knows what happened. You can be sure of that.’

‘Presumably,’ Adam replied. His face was covered in great flickering shadows as he struck a match.

‘Maybe that’s why she didn’t want to speak to me,’ Johanne

mused. ‘Maybe the child has turned up, maybe…’

‘A lot of maybes there now,’ Adam pointed out. ‘Hold on a

minute.’

He finally managed to find a candle.

She followed him with her eyes. He was so lithe, despite his size. When he walked, he stepped heavily, as if he wanted to make a point of being so big. But as he crouched in front of the fireplace, tearing newspaper into strips, then reaching out for wood from the metal basket and building a fire, there was something light and easy about his movements, a fascinating softness in his solid body.

The flames licked the paper.

She clapped quietly and smiled.

‘I’ll cheat a bit, just to be on the safe side,’ he said, and pushed in a couple of firelighters between the wood. ‘I’ll just go down to the cellar for some more wood. Power cuts can last a while in weather like this. Where’s the torch?’

She pointed to the hall. He went out.

The flames crackled warmly and threw a golden-red light out

into the sitting room. Johanne could already feel the heat on her face. Once again she tucked the blanket in around her daughter and was grateful that Kristiane was at Isak’s. She took the woollen blanket that was lying over the back of the sofa and wrapped it around her legs, then leant back and shut her eyes.

Adam should talk to the doctor who was there at the birth. Or the midwife. They would both cite the duty of confidentiality, but would give in in the end. They always did in cases like this.

It would take time though, Johanne realized.

If there was actually a living adult descendant of Fiona Helle, they might be getting close to something that resembled a clue. A pretty flimsy one, to be sure, and it might lead to nothing. He or she wouldn’t be the first child in history born out of wedlock and adopted into a loving family. Probably a perfectly normal twenty something person - maybe a student, or a carpenter with a Volvo and two snotty children. Not a cold-blooded murderer with a need to avenge the rejection a quarter of a century earlier.

But when she died, Fiona’s tongue had been split and cut out.

The child was Fiona’s great lie.

Vibeke Heinerback had been nailed to the wall.

Two women. Two cases.

An illegitimate child.

Johanne sat up suddenly. She was just about to nod off when a feeling of deja vu ran through her again, the uncomfortable feeling that there was something important she couldn’t grasp. She

lifted Jack closer and laid her face on the dog’s fur.

‘Can we talk about something else?’ she asked when Adam

came back with his arms full of wood.

He put down the wood.

‘Of course we can,’ he said, and kissed her on the head. ‘We can talk about whatever you want to. The fact that I want a new horse, for example.’

‘New horse? I’ve said it a thousand times: no new horse.’

‘We’ll see,’ Adam laughed as he went out to the kitchen.

‘Kristiane’s on my side. And I’m sure Ragnhild is too. And Jack.

That’s four against one.’

Johanne wanted to respond to his laughter, but the feeling of unease still clung to her body, the remnants of a fleeting premonition of danger.

‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘You can just forget the horse.’

Eight

The storm had died down. The wind was still blowing strong,

but the clouds had opened to reveal light-blue stripes to the south. Old dirty snow lay compacted and rotting in gardens and by the roadside after the rain. Johanne tried to avoid the worst puddles as she manoeuvred the pram on the narrow pavement along

Maridalsveien. Heavy traffic and buses thundered past. She didn’t like it, so she crossed the road at Badebakken to cut down to the Aker River. Jack was pulling at the leash and wanted to sniff at everything.

The temperature was dropping and snow was forecast for the

evening. Johanne stopped and tightened her scarf, then carried on. Her nose was freezing. She sniffed. She should have put a hat on. At least Ragnhild was warm enough, snug in her Baby Grobag with a sheep fleece under her and extra woollen blankets on top.

When Johanne gently pulled back the edge of the bag, she could only just see her little face tightly tucked in. Her dummy was pulsing and Johanne could tell from the movements behind the thin, fine eyelids that Ragnhild was dreaming.

She sat down on a bench just by the nursery at Heftyel0kka

and let Jack off the leash. He shot off down to the river and barked at the ducks, which paid no attention to him. They just swam around in the open channels in the ice. The King of

America whimpered and barked and stuck an adventurous paw in the water.

‘Stop it,’ she muttered, scared of waking Ragnhild.

The cold wind ripped through her duffel coat, but she liked sitting here, on her own, rocking the pram, back and forth, back and forth with one hand. It was Tuesday the 17th of February. She could call at midday. In eight minutes, she discovered when she looked at her mobile phone. Fiona Helle’s best friend had said that she would be back in the office by then. She seemed puzzled, but happy to talk. Johanne had not introduced herself as a policewoman, but her vague phraseology might have given Sara

Brubakk the impression that her inquiry was of an official nature.

Not good.

It wasn’t like her. In fact, she wanted to pull out of the case, not get in any deeper, and certainly not using methods that verged on unacceptable.

Johanne blew her nose. She was getting a cold, as expected.

There were no people around. Then a jogger came puffing by

in a cloud of condensation. He nodded and smiled, but then

jumped when Jack came tearing out of some bushes and snapped at his heels.

‘Keep your dog on a leash,’ he shouted and raced on.

‘Come here, Jack.’

He wagged his tail as she tied him to the pram. Then he lay

down.

It was twelve o’clock. She dialled the number.

‘Hi, this is Johanne Vik,’ she started. ‘We spoke earlier this morning and

‘Oh yes, hallo again. Just a minute while I sit down. I’ve just got in the door and …’

Scraping. Scratching. A bang.

‘Hallo?’

‘I’m still here,’ Johanne confirmed.

‘There. That’s me ready. Now, how can I help you?’

‘I’ve just got a couple of questions about Fiona Helle’s time in secondary school. You were in her class, weren’t you?’

‘Yes. As I said when I was questioned, Fiona and I were at

school together from primary one. We were inseparable. Always friends. It’s just been so awful since … I couldn’t face coming back to work until a week ago, in fact. Got compassionate leave.

My boss is so …’

‘I understand,’ Johanne assured her. ‘And I definitely won’t keep you long. I just wanted to find out if Fiona was ever … away from school? For a long period of time, I mean.’

‘Away from school…’

‘Yes. Not just for a few days because she had a cold, I mean, something longer.’

‘She was away at Modum Bad in first year. For quite a long time.’

‘Sorry?’ Johanne wasn’t cold any more. She switched the phone to her right hand and asked again. ‘Sorry, what did you just say?’

‘Fiona had some kind of nervous breakdown, I think. It was

never really talked about. We were about to go back to school after the holidays. I remember I’d been in France all summer with my family, so I was really looking forward to seeing Fiona again.

We … She didn’t come. She was in hospital.’

‘At Modum Bad?’

‘Well … to tell the truth, I’m not sure. I’ve always just presumed it was Modum Bad because I didn’t know of anywhere else

you could go for that sort of thing. Breakdowns, I mean.’

‘How do you know it was a breakdown?’

Silence.

More scraping, not as loud this time.

‘Now that you ask,’ Sara Brubakk said slowly, ‘… I’m actually not sure about any of it. Except that she wasn’t there. For a long time. I seem to remember that she wasn’t back until after

Christmas. Or no … she came back just before. We always had a school show and started rehearsals at the beginning of December.’