Medusa (14 page)

– You must be a very happy man, Axel, he muttered. – You’ve been given the lot. There is no more than this.

Beneath the second book he found a stuffed A4 envelope. She’d written her name on this too with the same pen. It wasn’t sealed, and when he pulled out the flap he saw that it contained a pile of smaller envelopes. He still knew next to nothing about her, and didn’t want to know any more than that either. It was what had enabled him to keep control. It was what made it possible for him to sit there and think that he would never see her again. Let it pass, let her fade away almost to invisibility, and life could go on as before. It was Friday afternoon. He was looking forward to the weekend. Saturday was training with Tom’s football team, and Marlen’s riding lesson. In the afternoon he was planning a trip to Larkollen. Lay up the boat for the winter. Paint the veranda of the summer cabin. He’d try to get Tom to go along with him. Maybe stay overnight, just the two of them. Apart from that, there was nothing that had to be done. Except paint a few skirting boards, he suddenly remembered, and change the fan belt in Bie’s car.

He fumbled down inside the envelope, and was about to pull out the contents when he heard someone calling his name out in the corridor. He threw Miriam’s things back into the drawer.

Solveig Lundwall was standing outside the door of his office.

– Hi, Axel, she said as she saw him approaching, and he could tell straight away that she was still not well.

He let her in, asked how the time in the secure wing had been. It had been painful. She’d been strapped down.

– Really? he exclaimed.

She gave him a dark look.

– Do you think I’m lying, Axel?

– Of course not, I’m just surprised.

She sat there in front of him in her dark blue polo-neck pullover and grey skirt, face a little drawn but nicely made up. It wasn’t easy to imagine her screaming and foaming at the mouth in a restraining bed.

He checked her blood pressure and wrote out a prescription for her.

– These damn pills make me so fat, she complained. – I wish I could do without.

He could understand. Over the last year she’d put on something like ten kilos.

– Do you feel as though you’re in control again, Solveig?

– I’m afraid of going to sleep, because that’s when
those
thoughts come back.

– That you have to warn people about something?

– I can’t get rid of the thought that something awful is about to happen. There are so many signs.

He ran his hand across his hair.

– But the meaning of signs is dependent on how they’re interpreted, he said.

She sat there staring ahead into space.

– Last night I took the tram from Jernebanetorget. The man sitting beside me was reading
VG
. All that stuff about the woman eaten by a bear.

– She wasn’t exactly eaten, he reassured her.

– As I was about to get off the tram, this old lady comes over to me. I think she’s blind. Her eyes are as dull as pearls and still she’s staring directly at me, and then she says,
You’ve heard it too, I can see it in your eyes
, and she hands me a little piece of paper. And I get so scared, despairing too, but mostly scared.
You have the power
, she whispers before I manage to get off.

Axel could see the pulse beating in her throat.

– What did it say on the piece of paper?

Solveig glanced around the office before answering:

– Rev. 11:7.

He thought for a moment.

– Does it have anything to do with the Bible?

She dug her hand into her bag, drew out a small book and began to flip through it.

– The Book of Revelation.

She found the place and read:

–
When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them and kill them.

– I wish old ladies like that would leave you alone, said Axel. Solveig ignored him.

– I’ve been thinking about it all night. This is a warning, Axel. A number of terrible events are about to take place, and if I, and perhaps a few others, have understood this, then I must deliver a warning. That is what the old woman wanted me to know.

She said it with conviction, and Axel realised he would have to call Ullevål hospital and voice his concern about yet another patient who had been discharged too soon. He knew he ought not to enquire any further. And yet he said:

– Last time you were here … You said you’d seen someone up by Majorstuehuset. Someone who looked like me.

She stared down at the floor. It looked as though she hadn’t understood the question, and he was glad, at once regretting that he had asked it. Then she raised her eyes and looked at him.

– He hasn’t appeared since then, Axel. But he’s coming. Once all the evil has happened, he will return. I shall warn you. You will be the first to know, before all others.

As he was about to lock up the office, the phone rang. Not many people had his direct number. Miriam was one of them. An Oslo number showed up on the display. He picked up the receiver and spoke. A male voice at the other end introduced himself as Hendrik Davidsen, clearly accentuating the
d
in his first name.

– My wife is a patient of yours, he explained. – She had an appointment earlier today.

– That’s right, Axel said. – Cecilie Davidsen. She never came.

– That’s the reason I’m calling. No one has seen her. Not since yesterday afternoon.

Axel sat down in the chair.

– Really? Wasn’t she supposed to be at the hospital yesterday for an examination?

– Yes. She left the hospital at quarter past four. There’s been no sign of life from her since then. She’s never done anything like this before.

Hendrik Davidsen’s voice was calm and controlled, but Axel heard the break in it as he said ‘sign of life’.

– You’ve informed the police, presumably?

– They’ve sent out a missing persons report on her. Not much else they can do. Not at the moment …

Axel chose not to ask what ‘at the moment’ might mean in a situation like this. He informed Davidsen of his wife’s condition, but he was already familiar with it. Fortunately he made no mention of Axel’s coming to the house with the results of her lab test. But he did ask how his wife had reacted to the news, and Axel was careful not to say anything that might increase his fears. There was still reason to hope that nothing untoward had happened to her. More reason to hope than believe.

T
HE COUPLE TRUDGING
across the road by the entrance to Frogner swimming baths were deep into a juicy quarrel. The woman, who was small and round, with Rasta braids, stopped in the middle of the road. She wavered uncertainly on her high-heeled boots, as if she were trying to keep her balance on a pair of stilts.

– Then you can just go on your own, Jørgen, she snuffled. – I say fuck it if you’re going to be like that.

A vehicle of some kind swung out from the car park. The man grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to the pavement on the other side. The car swerved around them.

– Bloody hell, Jørgen. I’m not coming with you unless you get yourself thorted out.

– You want me to get
thorted
out? he said, mocking her lisp. He was tall, thin, with a bent neck. – You were the one got us kicked out.

– You’re so childish, she said.

He exhaled loudly.

– And where d’you think you’re going if you don’t come with me?

– What’s it got to do with you?

– Fuck, Millie, you’re nothing but a shagged-out whore. You’ve no idea how sick I am of you.

– Same to you. You don’t understand
nothing
. Just look at yourself.

– Look at
me
? What’s to look at me for?

She didn’t answer. A moment later she said:

– Okay then, but get me a taxi.

– I ain’t got no readies.

– Think I’m going to walk to Skøyen? In the middle of the night?

He belched. – Then you can sleep in the park.

She stopped in her tracks.

– I mean it, Jørgen, it’s past two o’clock.

– It ain’t
that
far. I’ve got a fix. After that you can sleep for the rest of the week.

She groaned, but let him guide her into the alley.

– I need to go to the toilet, she told him.

– Go ahead then.

He stopped and leaned up against a tree trunk, yelling after her as she disappeared down the slope: – You don’t need to go half a mile away just to have a piss. There’s no one around now, and even if there was, who’d stop just to get a look at your arse?

– Not having a piss, she muttered. – Big job.

– Christ, Millie, you really are fuckin’ tasty.

He stood there peering out into the darkness. For an instant it felt as though the huge tree was holding him. He pressed his cheek against the rough bark. Could just make out the high diving board over the baths at the other end of the hollow. He’d jumped from the five-metre board the summer he turned nine. Or ten. He needed a fix. Maybe he’d screw Millie afterwards. If he felt up to it. But she’d have to wash first. Christ. How many women would squat down and do a shite in Frogner Park in the middle of the night? It was always the same with Millie: if she had to do something, didn’t matter what it was, then it had to be done at once. No question of hanging on for five minutes.

Her scream was high and long drawn out. She often screamed, but never like this. His first thought was to get out of there. He couldn’t take any more bother with that woman. But something in the scream held him, made him move a step or two closer to the slope.

– What’s up? he shouted.

He could see her scrambling up the slope. He clambered down a couple of yards and held out his hand. Her jeans were round her thighs, her naked arse shining white in the darkness.

– What the fuck’s up with you, Millie? he chided her, but his voice was shaking.

She reached the top and clung on to him.

– Down there, she sobbed. – Something lying down there. I touched it.

I
T WAS
3.30. D
ETECTIVE
Chief Inspector Hans Magnus Viken stuffed the rest of a slice of Madeira cake into his mouth as he ran a red light in Alexander Kielland’s Place. He wasn’t hungry, but when he was dragged out of bed in the middle of the night, he had to put something in his stomach to stave off the heartburn. Once it got started it would keep up all morning, sometimes even last the whole day.

As he drove, he got himself ready. Went through his thoughts systematically. What he would do once he reached the crime scene. What he would look for. He was good at that kind of thinking. Keeping a cool head when things got hectic. Because that was what was happening now, he thought as he swallowed the rest of the coffee he had bought at the service station along with the slice of cake. Things were hectic. The press was there, the officer in charge had reported. In force. What else could be expected? A corpse found in the middle of town, so to speak. Judging by the description, he thought it might be related to a missing persons report. The Crime Response Unit had rung on Thursday evening. A call had gone out for a woman who had failed to return to her home in Vindern. She was seriously ill and probably depressed. The family were afraid she might have harmed herself. On the face of it, not a criminal matter. But he had asked to be kept informed of all missing persons reports. After the find up in the marka, he wasn’t the only one on edge.

A helicopter was circling above the park. It looked like
VG
, or one of the TV companies. He parked as close as he could to the road. The crowd was even worse than he had imagined. The two biggest newspapers naturally, but also two camera teams, one from TV2, the other with no visible logo. He pushed his way through and stepped over the crime-scene tape stretched across the end of the car park. There were two stands there, microphones that could pick up conversations a hundred metres away.

– Is it the missing woman who’s been found? someone shouted after him.

He raised both arms in dismissal as he walked on across the muddy grass. – All in due course, he grunted over his shoulder.

The first thing that struck him as he made his way down the slippery slope and saw the white-coated technicians moving slowly in the light from the lamps was that it looked as though a scene from a film was being shot. The sight of the twisted body lying among the dead nettles at the edge of the stream, with its face in the water, as though the last thing she had tried to do was crawl there to take a drink, reinforced the impression.

Nina Jebsen came over to him, handed him a pair of blue shoe covers. She was in uniform, he noticed, and her breath smelt of tobacco. A couple of weeks ago she’d announced that she’d finally managed to give up smoking.

– Cecilie Davidsen, said Viken, more as a statement of fact than a query.

– Looks pretty much like it. Hair colour and build are a match. And the clothes still on her fit with the description we have.

– Who found her?

– A couple on their way home. Dodgy types. They’re being questioned at Majorstua.

– Any of our people there?

– Arve’s in charge. Sigge’ll be here before six o’clock.

Viken crossed to the body, shone his torch down. Parts of the back were exposed between the ragged edges of the torn jacket. A broad track consisting of five deep scratches ran from the ribs diagonally up across the neck.

– How the hell? he muttered to himself. – How the hell? His stomach started to churn. He patted his pockets, looking for an antacid, found nothing.

– They’re frighteningly similar to the scratch marks on the woman up in the Nordmarka, Nina Jebsen commented from behind him.