What Never Happens (38 page)

“And then we’re back to square one,” he said and rubbed his cheek in resignation. “Vegard Krogh was not famous.”

“He was famous enough,” she corrected him with great intensity. “There was enough commotion about his death, for goodness sake! Especially as he was number three in a series of celebrity murders. The murderer knew that. He knew that Vegard Krogh was sufficiently well known, and that was why he decided to forgo . . . randomization!”

“What?”

“Only a computer can achieve a completely random selection, Adam. We humans, we let ourselves be swayed, consciously or subconsciously. Vegard Krogh was chosen because he . . .”

Once again the look in her eyes became distant and dark. She pulled at a tangle of hair and chewed it. The commotion downstairs had died down a while ago. The children had been sent out to play in the rain. Adam could hear them in the garden.

“The murderer wanted him dead,” she said slowly. “The motive was first and foremost the game. The challenge of killing someone and getting away with it. But the murderer gave in to temptation this time. By choosing someone he wanted to get even with.”

“Everyone wanted to get even with Vegard,” Adam groaned. “And your profile doesn’t match any of the people we’ve come across, spoken to, or in any way suspected in connection with this case. And do you have any idea how many people that is? Do you know how many statements we’ve taken?”

“A lot, I guess.”

“Several hundred! Nearly a thousand statements. And not one of them, not a single witness, matches your description of . . . What shall we do? Where is he, what needs to be—”

“He won’t stop. Not yet. I guess we just have to wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“For—”

“The world’s best mommy,” shouted Kristiane.

She had her raincoat on, and her boots were soaking. They squelched as she ran over the floor and threw herself into her mother’s lap. Jack was in hot pursuit. He stopped in the middle of the floor, between the living room and open kitchen, and shook himself. A shower of water sprayed around him. Sand and fine gravel pattered down on to the parquet.

“The best dog in the world,” Kristiane said. “The best Kristiane. And Daddy. And Adam. And house. And—”

“Afternoon all! The door was open, so I just came up. Is her bag ready?”

Isak laughed and patted the eager, happy dog.

“I’ve been sailing,” he said, “so I’m just as wet as Kristiane. Great weather for sailing though! Cold as hell. Good wind. But then it started to rain. Shame. Come on then, princess! We’re going go-carting today! Won’t that be fun!”

He tracked his dirty shoes across the floor. Picked up the fire engine, gave a big smile, and put it in his pocket.

“Bye, Mommy! Bye, Adam!”

The girl danced after her father. Adam and Johanne sat in silence and listened to them rummaging around in her room. He put his hand on her thigh when she wanted to go in and help. Five minutes later, they heard Isak’s Audi TT accelerate powerfully down Haugesvei.

“I bet he forgot her pajamas and toothbrush,” Johanne said and tried to ignore Adam’s exasperated sigh when he answered.

“He can buy a toothbrush at any gas station, Johanne. And she can sleep in a T-shirt. Isak remembered Sulamit, and that’s what’s most important. Don’t make such—”

She got up suddenly and went to the bathroom.

“I’m boring,” she thought to herself and started to load the washing machine. “I’m unexciting and unsophisticated. I know. I’m responsible and very rarely spontaneous. I’m boring. But I certainly never get
bored
.”

The man sitting in the chair with a target pinned to his breast pocket with a safety pin was an unpopular star. His long hair was tied back in a ponytail. He had a widow’s peak that gave him a diabolical look. There was something primitive about the way his brows jutted out over his eyes; his eyebrows met in the middle, looking like a fat, hairy caterpillar was crawling across his face. His nose was straight, narrow, and sophisticated. His lips were full. An unbecoming goatee sprouted on his chin below his mouth. His tongue was just visible between his eye teeth, which had been filed into points. The corners of his mouth turned down in an unattractive grimace. Above his head, a zinc bucket was attached to the wall with a nail.

Håvard Stefansen was a professional biathlete. His greatest achievement as an adult to date was two individual silver medals in the world championships. He had won three world cup titles last season. And as he was only twenty-four, he was one of Norway’s great hopes for the Winter Olympics in Turin in 2006.

As long as he could control himself, the national team coach had publicly warned him only six weeks ago.

During the course of his first two seasons in the senior national team, Håvard Stefansen had been sent home from meets and competitions four times. He was an arrogant winner and an appalling loser. He usually openly slandered his competitors when he lost a race. He accused them of taking drugs. They cheated. He treated foreigners and his own teammates with contempt. Håvard Stefansen was rude and egocentric, and no one wanted to share a room with him. Which didn’t seem to bother him.

The public didn’t like him either, and he had never had personal sponsors. In his chosen sport, boasting and menacing tattoos were not common. When he raced, he was often met with boos or silence, and in some weird way, he seemed to get a kick out of that. His speed increased, and his shooting improved every month, yet he did nothing to change his terrible reputation.

Now it was too late.

It was the night of March 2, and the bull’s-eye on the target over his heart had been hit. His eyes were glassy. When Adam Stubo leaned over the body, he thought he saw slight bruising on the eyelids, as if someone had forced them open.

“He wasn’t killed in here,” said an officer from the Oslo police. His red hair was poking out from under the paper cap. “That seems fairly clear. He was stabbed in the back with a knife. While he was asleep, we assume. No indications of a struggle, but the bed is full of blood. The footprints are obvious out here. It looks like his clothes were just thrown on. We think he was killed in his sleep and then dragged out here, dressed, and arranged on the chair.”

“The bullet hole,” Adam muttered. He felt queasy.

“Lead pellet, sir,” the other replied. “He was shot with an air rifle. This is some kind of indoor shooting range.” He pointed to the target covering the top of the bucket. “For air guns only, of course. The pellets are caught in the bucket. Air rifles only make a ‘pff’ sound, which explains why no one heard anything. If the guy was alive when he was shot, it would presumably have hurt like hell, but nothing more. That, on the other hand . . .”

The policeman, who had just introduced himself as Erik Henriksen, pointed to Håvard Stefansen’s right hand. It was half open and resting on his groin. His index finger was missing. Only a ragged stump remained.

“His trigger finger,” Henriksen said. “And if you look over here . . .”

He went to the other end of the corridor, his paper overalls rustling as he moved. An air rifle was attached to a sawhorse with tape and rope. The barrel of the gun was balanced on a slanting broom handle. Håvard Stefansen’s finger was on the trigger of the gun, which was aimed at his heart. The finger was blue, and the nail was slightly too long.

“I have to leave,” Adam said. “I’m sorry, I just have to . . .”

“Even if this is our case,” Erik Henriksen said, “I thought it would be best if you guys had a look. It’s suspiciously like—”

“A sports celebrity,” Adam thought desperately. “That’s what we were waiting for. And I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t guard every sports celebrity in the country. Couldn’t raise the alarm. It would only have caused panic. And I couldn’t know anything for certain. Johanne believed and thought and felt, but we couldn’t be sure. What could I have done? What should I do?”

“How did the killer get in?” Adam forced himself to ask, determined to stick it out. “Break in? Window?”

“We’re on the fifth floor,” Henriksen pointed out with a hint of irritation. This NCIS guy was certainly not living up to his reputation. “But take a look at this.”

Although the apartment was in an old building, the front door looked new and had a solid, modern lock. Henriksen used his pen as a pointer.

“Old trick, really. A small piece of wood has been pushed into the keyhole and here . . .”

The pen moved over the spring bolt.

“It’s stuck,” he said. “Matches, presumably.”

“God,” Adam mumbled. “A simple old con trick.”

“At the moment, we’re assuming that the door was open when Håvard Stefansen was at home and awake. Somebody has tampered with the lock. The apartment is big enough for someone to go about their business out here while he was eating, for example. And as this is the top floor, there’s less risk of being seen.”

He put his pen back in the breast pocket of the white overalls.

“It’s uncertain whether Håvard Stefansen even tried to lock the door before he went to bed. A tough guy like him, with all these weapons in the house, maybe he wasn’t that bothered. But if he tried, it would have been difficult.”

“He’s getting bolder,” Adam managed to think to himself through his thumping headache. He narrowed his eyes. “He’s more and more daring. Has to have more. Like climbers who always have to go higher, steeper, to live dangerously. He’s getting there now. This victim must have been physically more powerful than him. But he knew that and took precautions. Killed Håvard Stefansen when he was asleep. A simple ambush. No sophisticated tricks. It didn’t matter to him. It’s us who are supposed to get the message. The outside world. Not the victim. He wants us to be shocked by this tableau: the marksman aiming at his own heart of steel. It’s us he wants to provoke. Us. Me?”

“The guy slept with a ponytail?” Adam asked, just to have something to say.

“Looks cool, dunnit!” Detective Sergeant Henriksen shrugged and added, “Maybe the killer put his hair in a ponytail to make him look . . . more like himself, kind of thing. Make the illusion stronger. And he succeeded, didn’t he? Fu—”

He stopped swearing just in time. Perhaps out of respect to the dead. A colleague stuck his head around the door from the stairs.

“Hi,” he whispered. “Erik, the woman’s here. The one who called us. She found the body.”

Erik Henriksen nodded and raised his hand to signal that he would be there in a minute.

“Have you seen enough?” he asked.

“More than enough,” Adam nodded and followed him out of the apartment.

A woman was standing on the landing. She was solid, with dark hair that fell in big, untidy curls. Her skin looked healthy and weatherworn. It was difficult to determine her age. She was wearing jeans and a chunky green sweater. The stair lighting reflected in her small glasses, which made it hard to see her eyes. Adam thought there was something familiar about her.

“This is Wencke Berger,” said the policeman who had just called them. “She lives downstairs. Was going up into the loft to put away some suitcases. The door was open, so she—”

“I rang the bell,” she took over. “When there was no answer, I took the liberty of going in. I guess you know already what I found. I called the police immediately.”

“Wencke Berger,” Erik Henriksen said and took off his comical paper cap. “Wencke Berger, the crime writer?”

She gave an inscrutable smile and nodded.

Not to Henriksen, who had asked the question. Nor was the smile intended for the uniformed policeman, who looked as if he was about to pull out a piece of paper and ask for an autograph.

It was Adam she was looking at. It was him she turned to, held out her hand, and said, “Adam Stubo, isn’t it? A pleasure to meet you, finally.”

Her handshake was firm, almost hard. Her hand was big and broad, and the skin was unusually warm. He let go quickly, as if he had burned himself.

Sixteen

T
he celebrity killer was a monster.

The press had calmed down when Fiona Helle’s murderer turned out to be a patient in a psychiatric hospital with a motive that most people could understand. For a while it seemed that the journalists had caught on to the idea that these might be copycat murders. That it perhaps wasn’t the work of a serial murderer, but rather a frightening constellation of individual, gruesome murders. When Rudolf Fjord chose to take his own life, the press had been surprisingly subdued, giving the tragic death sober coverage.

When Håvard Stefansen was found dead, sitting on a chair as a target in his own improvised shooting range, people in Norway went crazy.

Psychologists were pulled back into the picture. Along with private detectives and foreign police chiefs, researchers and crime analysts. Experts discussed and explained in column after column and on all the channels. Within twenty-four hours, the serial murderer was back on everyone’s lips. He was a monster. A twisted psychopath. Over the course of a few days, the celebrity murderer took on mythical proportions, with features akin to those found only in dark, gothic tales.

The royal family went abroad, and the palace couldn’t say when they were likely to return. Rumor had it that security at the Storting had been reinforced, but the head of security, tense and serious, refused to comment. Opening nights at the theater were cancelled. Planned concerts were shelved. A high-profile marriage between a well-known politician and a business tycoon was stopped three days before the wedding. It was postponed until the autumn, explained the somber bridegroom as he assured everyone that he and the bride were still madly in love.

Even ordinary people, most of whom had never had their name in the papers or their photo printed in a glossy magazine, threw away movie tickets and decided not to go out that weekend after all. A mixture of shock and curiosity, fear and tension, malice and genuine despair made people stick to those they knew.

It was safest.

Johanne Vik and Adam Stubo were also at home. It was now Thursday, March 4, and nearly half past eight in the evening. Ragnhild was asleep. The TV was on, with the sound turned down. Neither of them was watching.