What Never Happens (29 page)

Over the past few days, she had been filled with a sense of gratitude.

She had driven directly from Copenhagen, where she had left her car in an anonymous parking lot before taking the ferry to Oslo and back. Ferry passenger lists between Denmark and Norway were a joke. She traveled as Eva Hansen and stayed in her cabin. Both ways. Then after one night in a hotel, she managed to sit behind the wheel for thirty-five hours without ever really getting tired. She did feel a stiffness in her muscles and joints whenever she took a short break, small detours from the main road to fill the tank or to eat in a roadside café in a German village or along the Rhône. But she never felt the need for sleep.

She delivered the car back to the Moroccan waiter at the Café de la Paix. He was well rewarded for the hassle of renting the car in his name. He might not have entirely believed her explanation that she really needed a car but because she had a bad cold she wanted to avoid an unnecessary trip into Nice. But as he was going back to Morocco and a newly opened restaurant owned by his father, he accepted the money with a smile and no questions.

Then she walked home. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she fell into a dreamless slumber that lasted for eleven hours.

She had derived no pleasure from all those years of meticulous planning, gathering detailed information and doing painstaking research, other than that it was her work. It was necessary if she was to do the job she was paid for. She was good and had never been found out. No one could say that she made mistakes, was sloppy, or took shortcuts whenever she could.

Despite everything, she was grateful for those lifeless years.

They had given her knowledge and insight.

Even though the filing cabinet was in Norway, she could remember enough. The huge metal cabinet contained information about the people she had studied. Known and unknown. Famous people and celebrities, alongside the postman from Otta who always filled her mailbox with junk mail, despite the clear notice that it was not welcome. She registered people’s weaknesses and routines, observed their desires and needs, stowed their love lives, secrets, and movements in files, and stored it all in a huge gray metal cabinet.

She wasn’t sloppy. The secret of her trade was knowledge. Her memory never failed her.

All those living-dead years were not wasted. She was grateful for them now. She could assemble an AG-3 gun blindfolded and hotwire a car in thirty seconds. It would take her less than a week to get hold of a fake passport, and she had an overview of the Scandinavian heroin market that the police would envy. She knew people that no one else wanted to know; she knew them well—but none of them knew her.

It had gotten colder. An insidious wind blew down from the hills, dispersing the mist out at sea. The duffel coat was not protection enough, so she hurried down the mountain path. It was too cold to walk all the way back home. If the bus came when it was due, she would take it. If not, she could always treat herself to a taxi.

She had become more generous recently.

Suddenly a splash of color appeared in the sky to the north. A person swayed rhythmically from side to side under an orange paraglider. Another paraglider appeared over the top of the hill, red and yellow with green writing that was impossible to read. A sudden turbulence made the fabric flap. The glider lost its lift and dropped some fifty or sixty yards before the pilot managed to regain control and slowly cut down into the valley below her.

She followed him with her eyes and laughed softly.

They thought they were challenging fate.

Extreme sports had always provoked her, primarily because she thought the people who participated in them were pathetic. Of course, not everyone had been granted an exciting life. Quite the contrary. Most of the world’s six billion people, the greater part of the inhabitants of Europe and probably all of the Norwegian population, lived uneventful lives. Their fight for survival consisted of getting enough food to live, taking care of their children, finding a better job, or having the newest car in the neighborhood. Human existence was and would always be a mere bagatelle. The fact that depraved, spoiled young people found it necessary to defy death by jumping and diving from sheer rock faces at great speed was an expression of Western decadence that she had always scorned.

Loathed.

They suffered from ennui because they believed they deserved something else, something better than what life in fact was to most: an insignificant period of time between life and death.

“They think they can escape from the meaninglessness of life,” she thought to herself. “By throwing themselves over the edge of Trollveggen with a parachute made from unreliable fabric. Or crossing one of the poles. Climbing an unclimbable mountain. They want to go higher, further, and to more daring lengths. They don’t notice the boredom that constantly shadows them, gray and sneering. They don’t see it until they’ve landed, before they’re safely at home. So they repeat the exercise, do something different, more dangerous, more daring, until they either understand that they can’t outwit life or meet their death attempting to prove the opposite.”

The paragliders were nearly down now; they were aiming to land on a slope with long rows of dwarf vines. She thought she could hear them laughing. Only imagination, obviously, as the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, and the bottom of the valley was far away. But she could see the two pilots slapping each other on the back and jumping up and down with excitement. Two women came running up the terraced slope. They waved happily.

She still was disgusted by the way they played arbitrarily with death.

The only thing they risked was their lives.

Dying was nothing more than a pleasant end to the boredom. And dying also enhanced your reputation, as obituaries were full of praise, not truth. If you died young, life had not yet aged you, made you ugly, fat, or skinny. A person who doesn’t live to be old leaves behind a tragic memento: a glamorized, redeeming story where what was boring becomes exciting and what was ugly becomes beautiful.

She thought about Vegard Krogh and bit her tongue.

She didn’t want to read about him anymore. The articles were all lies. Journalists and acquaintances, friends and family all contributed to the image that was drawn of Krogh, the artist. An uncompromising and upright champion of what was genuine and true. A colorful spirit, a fearless soldier in the service of that great and incorruptible force, culture.

She swore out loud and started to run down the road. The bus was just pulling out from the bus stop on the main road but stopped when the driver saw her. She paid and plopped down into an empty seat.

She would be going back to Norway for good soon.

She had to leave the house in Villefranche. The lease had been extended until March 1, but not longer. In just over a week she would be homeless, unless she went home.

She pictured her apartment, tastefully decorated and far too big for one person. Only the steel cabinet in the bedroom broke with the soft style she had copied from an interior decor magazine. She’d bought most of the stuff at IKEA but had also come across a couple of the more expensive items at sales.

She somehow didn’t fit into her apartment in Norway.

She seldom had guests and didn’t need the space. When she was at home, she generally sat in the messy study and therefore didn’t really get much pleasure from the fact that the rest of the apartment was so tasteful. In fact, she had never really felt at home there. It was more like living in a hotel. On her many trips to Europe, she had always stayed in rooms that felt more personal, warmer and more comfortable than her own living room.

She didn’t fit in in Norway at all. Norway was not for people like her. She felt suffocated by its grand egalitarian philosophy, excluded by the narrow-minded, exclusive elite. Norway was not big enough for someone like her; she was not recognized for what she was and had therefore chosen to protect herself with the cloak of anonymity. Aloof. Invisible. They didn’t want to see her. So she wouldn’t show herself to them.

The bus rolled westward. The suspension was French and not good enough. She had to close her eyes so as not to feel sick.

To risk dying was no great feat. The danger they exposed themselves to, these mountaineers and air acrobats, solitary rowers in fragile boats crossing the Atlantic and motorcyclists performing death-defying stunts in front of audiences charged with the hope that something might go terribly wrong, was limited to the journey they each took, whether it lasted three seconds or eight weeks, one minute or maybe one year.

She was taking a gamble on life itself. The suspense of never landing, of never achieving her goal, made her unique. The risk increased each day, as she hoped it would and wanted it to. It was constantly there, intense and invigorating, the danger of being caught and exposed.

She leaned her forehead against the window. Evening was falling. The lights had been lit along the promenade below. A light rain darkened the asphalt.

There was nothing to indicate that they were getting closer. Despite the clues she had left, the obvious invitation in the pattern she had chosen, the police were still at a loss. It was so annoying and made her more determined to continue. Of course, the fact that the woman had just had a baby did upset the equation a bit. The timing was not optimal, she had already known that when she started, but there were limits to what she could control.

Maybe it would be a good thing to go home. To get closer.

Run a greater risk.

The bus stopped, and she got off. It was pouring rain now, and she ran all the way home. It was the evening of February 24.

Thirteen

M
aybe there’s someone behind it all who’s manipulating the situation,” said Adam Stubo as he tucked into his chicken in yogurt sauce. “That’s her latest theory. I’m not too sure.”

He smiled with his mouth full of food.

“How do you mean?” asked Sigmund Berli. “That someone’s getting other people to do the killing, or what? Duping them?”

He broke off a piece of naan bread, held it between his thumb and finger, and peered at it suspiciously.

“Is this some kind of bread?”

“Naan,” Adam replied. “Try it. The theory isn’t that stupid. I mean, it’s pretty logical. In a way. If we accept that Mats Bohus actually killed Fiona Helle but none of the others, then it’s plausible that someone is behind it all. Pulling the strings. An overriding motive, as it were. But at the same time . . .”

Sigmund chewed and chewed. Didn’t manage to swallow.

“For Christ’s sake,” whispered Adam and leaned over the table. “Pull yourself together. There’ve been Indian restaurants in Norway for thirty years! You’re behaving as if it’s snake meat you’re eating. It’s bread, Sigmund. Just bread.”

“That guy over there’s not an Indian,” his colleague muttered and nodded in the direction of the waiter, a middle-aged man with a trimmed mustache and a kind smile. “He’s a Paki.”

The handle of Adam’s knife came crashing down onto the table.

“Cut it out,” he hissed. “I owe you a lot, Sigmund, but not enough to accept that kind of crap. I’ve told you a thousand times, keep that goddamn—”

“I meant Pakistani. Sorry. But he is a Pakistani. Not an Indian. And my stomach can’t cope with things that are too spicy.”

He made an exaggerated face as he clutched his belly dramatically.

“You ordered mild food,” Adam growled as he helped himself to more raita. “If you can’t eat this, you can’t eat sausage and mashed potatoes. Bon appétit.”

Sigmund put a tiny bit on his fork. Hesitated. Cautiously put it in his mouth. Chewed.

“I just can’t figure it out,” Adam said. “It’s somehow so . . . un-Norwegian. Un-European. That anyone would think of using some poor bastard as a pawn in a killing game.”

“Now it’s you who should cut it out,” retorted Sigmund. He swallowed and took some more. “Nothing is un-Norwegian anymore. In terms of crime, I mean. The situation is no better here than anywhere else. And it hasn’t been for years. It’s all these”—he stopped himself, thought about it, and continued—“Russians,” he ventured. “And those fucking bandits from the Balkans. Those boys know no shame, you know. You can see the evil in their eyes.”

The expression on Adam’s face made him raise a hand.

“Describing reality is not racism,” he protested fervently. “Those people are just like us! Same race and all that. But you know yourself how—”

“Stop. There are no foreigners in this case. The victims are pure Norwegian. All of them fair, in fact. And the same is true of the poor bastard we’ve arrested on one count. Forget the Russians. Forget the Balkans. Forget”— he gave a sudden jerk and put his hand to his cheek, “sorry, bit my cheek,” he mumbled. “Hurts.”

Sigmund pulled his chair into the table. Put his napkin on his knee and picked up his knife and fork, as if he wanted to start the meal all over again.

“Have to admit, that lecture of Johanne’s is pretty freaky,” Sigmund said, unscathed by Adam’s reprimand. “A bit
X-Files
. Time warps and the like. What do you think?”

“Not much,” Adam admitted.

“So what, then?”

“It could just be a coincidence, of course.”

“Coincidence,” Sigmund snorted. “Right. Your wife sits over there on the other side of the world thirteen years ago and listens to a lecture about highly symbolic murders, and then the same method, exactly the same symbols, appear in Norway in 2004! Three times! Screw coincidence, I say. No way.”

“Well, then maybe you’ve got an explanation! I mean, you watch
X-Files
.”

“They’ve stopped making it. It got a bit too absurd toward the end.”

Adam helped himself to some more from the small iron pot. The rice stuck to the serving spoon. He shook it lightly. The white, sticky mass fell into the sauce with a splash. Red spots appeared on his shirt.

“I think there’s an evil bastard out there,” Sigmund said calmly. “An evil bastard who’s heard the same lecture. And enjoyed it. And toyed with the idea of playing with us.”