Where Monsters Dwell (12 page)

“Are you there, Singsaker?” said Brattberg from somewhere far away.

“I’m here,” he said. “I’ll take it.”

“Are you sure you’re ready for something like this?”

“What I’m not ready for is to sit here staring at the wall,” he replied.

Brattberg suggested he take Mona Gran with him, a rookie officer who had started just before he got sick; he barely remembered her.

Wasn’t she the one who had danced wildly with Thorvald on the table at the Christmas party the night before he collapsed and was taken to St. Olav’s Hospital? In any case, she seemed sharp.

*   *   *

The Christmas party was not a topic of conversation on their way through the downtown area.

“A murder in the library! It’s almost like an Agatha Christie story.” Mona Gran was excited, and Singsaker wondered how many murder scenes she had been to.

“This will be real enough, I promise you,” he said. “But I agree that it certainly does sound incredible,” he added, thinking that he had assumed a much too stern tone. They were met outside the Gunnerus Library by two uniforms, who gave them a brief rundown of what they’d found; a dead body inside the book vault.

“The victim has been flayed. And it’s the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen,” one of the officers whispered to Singsaker. From his confidential tone, Odd assumed that they’d known each other before the operation.

As they talked, an elderly gentleman came outside to join them. The officer introduced the man as Per Ottar Hornemann, head of the library. They followed him up to the public area on the second floor.

“We have gathered the whole staff in Knudtzon Hall,” said Hornemann. “No one has been admitted to the offices or the book vault since we made the discovery. Jon Vatten here is in charge of security. He can show you the way, if you like.” He pointed at the security chief. It was Singsaker’s neighbor, who rode the dilapidated bike.

Another neighbor, and the case has hardly begun, he thought ironically. He instinctively had a desire to greet Vatten as an acquaintance but realized that he’d only seen him from a distance a few times. The man probably wasn’t aware that they had recently become neighbors. He extended his hand.

To his great surprise, Vatten said, “We meet again.”

Only three words and nothing more. Enough to catch him completely off guard. What the hell did he mean by that?

It occurred to him that he wasn’t really ready to start back to work. Jon Vatten recognized him. It even seemed that they knew each other fairly well. He hadn’t just seen him from his window. The two of them had spoken on some occasion, perhaps several times. And the way Vatten had said “we meet again” told him unequivocally that the security man did not find the encounter pleasant. So they must have met before in a professional capacity. People he met on the job were not always glad to see him again. It came with the territory. It was also part of his job to remember these people. Now he stood there wondering how many memories of acquaintances he might have left on the operating table.

“Yes, we meet again,” he said flatly, hoping to hide his confusion.

“What would you like to see first?” Vatten asked, obviously not wanting to elaborate on their previous contact.

“I think we should go straight to the crime scene,” said Chief Inspector Singsaker, relieved to escape the awkward situation.

*   *   *

Gunn Brita Dahle was lying on her stomach. Her head was missing. The skin had been flayed off the body above the waist. Next to the victim were two big plastic bags. Singsaker opened one to see what was inside. Fat. From under the skin. She must have had a lot of it. The bulk of the rest of her body indicated as much. The stench was unbearable. Mona Gran, who had accompanied him into the book vault, had turned away and taken a few steps back. He was pretty sure she was looking for a toilet, or at least a wastebasket, where she could throw up. The entire floor inside the vault was covered in blood, apart from a small area by the door where Singsaker was standing, blue plastic booties over his shoes. He turned to Jon Vatten, who was standing right behind him and staring dejectedly at the floor.

“Did you find her here like this?” he asked, glancing again at the grotesque corpse, blood vessels and muscles exposed.

“We haven’t touched anything in here,” replied Vatten.

“All right, then. I want you to return to the others. Knudtzon Hall, you called it?” he asked, knowing quite well that it was.

“Yes, that’s the showpiece of the building, re-creating Knudtzon’s personal library of rare books and art,” Vatten explained.

“Knudtzon’s personal library. I see,” said Singsaker. “Go there, and I’ll be down soon.” He thought hard. “One thing before you leave. Have you noticed if anything is missing from the vault?”

“I haven’t had time to think about that, to tell the truth,” said Vatten.

“Could you take a quick look? You know what’s supposed to be in here, right?” He studied him carefully.

“Yes, I do,” said Vatten firmly.

Singsaker watched as Vatten inspected the shelves. He was very thorough. Not once did he stop and look down at the body. Finally, he said: “No, everything seems to be in its place.”

“I see,” said Singsaker. “There’s one more thing,” he added, and was just about to ask him where in the hell they’d met before. “As head of security, do you oversee who opens and closes the vault?”

“I have one of two codes to the vault, so anyone who wants to go inside has to talk to me. The second code is kept by one of the librarians. Gunn Brita was actually the one who knew what it was. The codes are secret and aren’t given to anyone else. The only person who can enter without telling me is Hornemann. He knows both of the codes.”

“So the big question is,” said the chief inspector, examining Vatten closely, “How did the victim and the murderer get into the vault without help from you or Hornemann?”

Vatten stared him straight in the eye and answered, “I’ve been wondering that myself.”

Singsaker couldn’t interpret his expression. He could be a good liar, but he could also be completely innocent.

“How long do you think she might have been in here?” he asked.

“I was here with Gunn Brita on Saturday morning. And she had no plans to come back. She was supposed to start a new job today.”

“I see. But in theory she could have come back anytime after that, correct? Maybe she forgot something and came to get it, let’s say on Sunday. Is it possible she knew the other code? Do you ever stand close enough when you open the vault that she might have seen you enter the code and memorized it?”

“That’s possible, sure, but I’m careful about shielding the keypad when I type it in,” said Vatten. “As far as I know, she hadn’t turned in her card key yet, so she might have come back here on Sunday. If she used a card key in any of the outside doors to the library, we’ll see it in the log.”

“When did people arrive this morning?”

“I was here at seven,” said Vatten. “Most people show up between seven and nine.”

“And the body was found just before you called the police at ten thirty?”

“That’s correct.”

“And it’s quite certain that the body was here for several hours without anyone noticing the smell?”

“The book vault is climate-controlled and sealed to maintain optimum humidity for the books. Not a drop of moisture or, for that matter, a molecule of odor could escape through this door.”

“I understand,” said Singsaker, surprised at the security man’s academic mode of speaking. There was also something about his slouching, washed-out appearance that indicated Vatten had more education than security training.

“Let’s say that she was lying in here from Saturday morning until early Monday morning. Don’t you think it’s odd that no one reported her missing? Didn’t she have any family?” he asked, playing dumb.

“A husband and children. But they were apparently at their cabin all weekend.”

“In that case they should have reacted when they came home Sunday evening,” said Singsaker.

“Well, that’s something you’ll have to ask them about.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Her husband is an archaeologist. He works at the Science Museum in the building next door. His name’s Jens Dahle,” said Vatten, stepping out of the book vault.

Maybe it was being in the same room with a stinking and decomposing corpse for so long that did it, but Vatten seemed shaken.

Singsaker thanked Vatten for his cooperation. He didn’t regret detaining the man in the same room as the body, even though it was beyond the limit of responsible police work. So he let Vatten return to the others.

Then he was alone. He was never enthusiastic about murder scenes. Although he had taught himself to switch off his emotions and not think about the fact that a human life had ended in this very spot, he never managed to escape the sense that there was something insistent about every murder. Murder was a form of human expression that humanity could do without. It was always messy, foul smelling, and disgusting. When he saw a dead body, he always thought about the murderer and asked: Jesus Christ, you motherfucker, couldn’t you have told us this some other way?

Only the gods knew what the killer was trying to tell them with the murder of Gunn Brita Dahle. This murder didn’t resemble any he had seen before. He thought about TV crime shows and psychotic murderers, serial killers, people who killed for the hell of it, people who didn’t think that death itself was enough but who somehow had to make a drama out of the act of murder. This looked like a murder in which the act was the actual motive. But above all it made him think of hunting.

His colleague Thorvald Jensen usually enticed him to go hunting with him in the fall. Singsaker was no hunting enthusiast, but Jensen was good at convincing him, and aquavit tasted especially good in the autumn woods. That’s why he went along. He had seen carcasses of deer and moose hanging from thick branches, skinned and ready to be butchered. What surprised him was how much a human body resembled an animal once the head was removed and the skin flayed off. Gunn Brita Dahle looked like a hunting kill lying there, except that she hadn’t been hung up and there was no moss or heather for the blood to seep into. She lay in a pool of blood that covered every square inch of the floor inside the book vault except right where Singsaker was standing.

His phone rang. He was too lost in his own thoughts to look and see who it was before answering. He assumed it was one of his colleagues at the station.

“It’s Lars,” said a voice that should have been more familiar.

“Lars?” he repeated blankly.

“Yes, Lars, your son.” An indignant silence followed.

“Oh! I was out of it. First day back on the job.”

“Is everything all right?” Lars asked, trying to sound cheerful.

“If you’re asking about the tumor, then yes. If you mean the rest of my life, I’m not so sure.”

He sensed that Lars wanted to say that his life would have been much better if Odd had managed to have a minimum of contact with his immediate family. But he was too cautious to say that. That was how he’d always been: plenty to complain about, but few complaints actually voiced. Many times Odd thought that Lars let him get away with things too easily. If his son had demanded more, he would have received more. But Odd knew that it was wrong to put the blame on him.

He turned away from the body and peered into the waiting room outside the book vault. An image of Lars as a little boy appeared in his mind. He was lying in bed, asleep. Singsaker had come home too late to tell him a good-night story; he’d always made up these stories as he went along, but they both enjoyed them tremendously. He knew that Lars lay awake as long as he could the nights he was gone, because their good-night stories were the best times they had together. Whenever he pictured Lars as a little boy, he was always sleeping, but with his face turned toward the door, as if he had fallen asleep while staring at it. As the years passed, the worst thing about this image was that this was the way he still thought of his son. As a little boy who had fallen asleep waiting for his father to come home. He had grown up. He had studied to be an engineer, got married, had kids. But none of that had really sunk in for Singsaker. Lars’s life was something he heard about on the phone. In his mind his son was still a little boy who had missed his good-night story.

“I’m calling because we’re planning the christening.” It dawned on him that Lars and his wife had had another boy, at just about the same time Singsaker had gone under the knife.

“I see,” he said.

“We really want you to come this time,” said Lars.

“When is it?” he asked, turning back toward the corpse. He had no idea if this case would allow him to get away for a whole weekend to go to Oslo, where Lars and his family lived.

“That’s why I’m calling. Before we decide, we wanted to check with you. You’re usually the one with the tightest schedule.”

“No, you shouldn’t worry about that. Schedule the christening whenever it suits you.”

“All right, but we really hope you can come,” said Lars faintly and without much hope.

“I’ll come,” he said. Then they hung up.

*   *   *

Singsaker went to look for Mona Gran, who had left the immediate crime scene. As he walked, he took out his phone and called Brattberg. He got her voice mail. That must mean she was on the toilet, which might take a while. Some things he did remember from before. Thorvald Jensen, on the other hand, picked up after the first ring.

“Are you at the station?” Singsaker asked.

“I just got in. I don’t think there’s much in the rumors about that pastor. How about you? I heard you went to the library. Is it big?”

“It’s big. We need more people, a whole bunch of techs, everybody who’s on duty.”

“That big a case, huh?” replied Jensen.

“We also need people to do interviews.”

“We’ll be there soon.”

“Great. One more thing. Find out everything you can about a man named Jon Vatten.”

There was a pause. Then Jensen said, “You’re pulling my leg, right?”

Singsaker groaned before replying. This was Thorvald. It would be hard to fake his way out of this.