KATRINE BRATT WAS BENT OVER HER COMPUTER WHEN Harry poked his head in.
‘Find any matches?’
‘Nothing much,’ Katrine said. ‘All the women had blue eyes. Apart from that they’re all quite different in appearance. They all had husbands and children.’
‘I have somewhere we can begin,’ Harry said. ‘Birte Becker took Jonas to a doctor close to the king’s cows. That has to be the royal Kongsgården estate in Bygdøy. And you said the twins were at the Kon-Tiki Museum after a visit to the doctor’s. Also Bygdøy. Filip Becker didn’t know anything about the doctor, but Rolf Ottersen might.’
‘I’ll call him.’
‘Then come and see me.’
In his office Harry picked up the handcuffs, put one round his wrist and smacked the other against the table leg while listening to his voicemail. Rakel said Oleg was bringing a pal along to Valle Hovin. The message was unnecessary. He knew it was a reminder in disguise, in case Harry had forgotten the whole thing. To date, Harry had never forgotten an arrangement with Oleg, but he accepted these little nudges which others might have taken as a declaration of mistrust. Indeed,what was more, he liked them. Because it said something about what kind of mother she was. And because she disguised the reminder so as not to offend him.
Katrine walked in without knocking.
‘Kinky,’ she said, nodding towards the table leg Harry was cuffed to. ‘But I like it.’
‘Single-handed speed-cuffing,’ Harry smiled. ‘Some crap I picked up in the States.’
‘You should try the new Hiatt speedcuffs. You don’t even need to think whether you’re going to approach from the left or the right, the cuff arm will close around your wrist whatever, so long as you get a clean hit. And then you practise with two sets of cuffs, one round each wrist, so that you have two attempts at hitting.’
‘Mm.’ Harry unlocked the handcuffs. ‘What’s on your mind?’
‘Rolf Ottersen hasn’t heard of any doctor’s appointment or any doctor in Bygdøy. In fact, they have their own doctor in Bærum. I can ask the twins if either of them remembers the doctor, or we can ring the surgeries in Bygdøy and check ourselves. There are only four of them. Here.’
She put a yellow Post-it on his desk.
‘They aren’t allowed to disclose names of patients,’ he said.
‘I’ll talk to the twins when they’re back from school.’
‘Wait,’ Harry said, lifting the telephone and dialling the first number.
A nasal voice answered with the name of the surgery.
‘Is Borghild there?’ Harry asked.
No Borghild.
At the second number an equally nasal answermachine said that the surgery only received calls during a restricted two-hour period, and this had passed some time ago.
Finally, at the fourth attempt, a chirpy, almost laughing voice gave him what he had been hoping for.
‘Yes, that’s me.’
‘Hello, Borghild, this is Inspector Harry Hole, Oslo Police.’
‘Date of birth?’
‘Sometime in spring. I’m calling about a murder case. I assume you’ve read the papers today. What I want to know is whether you saw Sylvia Ottersen last week?’
There was silence at the other end of the line.
‘One moment,’ she said.
Harry heard her getting up, and waited. Then she was back. ‘I’m sorry, herr Hole. Information about patients is confidential. And I think the police know that.’
‘We do. But if I’m not mistaken, it’s the daughters who are patients, not Sylvia.’
‘Nevertheless. You’re asking for information which indirectly might reveal the identies of our patients.’
‘I would remind you that this is a murder investigation.’
‘I would remind you that you can come back to us with a search warrant. We might perhaps be more guarded with patient information than most, but that’s the nature of our work.’
‘Nature of your work?’
‘Our areas of expertise.’
‘Which are?’
‘Plastic surgery and specialist operations. See our website – www.kirklinikk.no.’
‘Thank you, but I think I’ve learned enough for the time being.’
‘If you say so.’
She put down the phone.
‘Well?’ Katrine asked.
‘Jonas and the twins have been to the same doctor,’ Harry said, leaning back in the chair. ‘And that means we’re in business.’
Harry could feel the adrenalin rush, the trembling that always came when he got first scent of the brute. And after the rush came the Great Obsession. Which was everything at once: love and intoxication, blindness and clear-sightedness, meaning and madness. Colleagues spoke now and then about excitement, but this was something else, something special. He had never told anyone about the Obsession or made any attempt to analyse it. He hadn’t dared. All he knew was that it helped him, drove him, fuelled the job he was appointed to perform. He didn’t want to know any more. He really didn’t.
‘And now?’ Katrine asked.
Harry opened his eyes and leapt off his seat. ‘Now we’re going shopping.’
The shop Taste of Africa was situated close to the busiest street in Majorstuen, Bogstadveien. But unfortunately its location fourteen metres down a side street meant that it was still on the periphery.
A bell rang as Harry and Katrine entered. In the muted lighting – or to be more precise: the lack of lighting – he saw brightly coloured coarse-weave rugs, sarong-like materials, large cushions with West African patterns, small coffee tables that looked as if they had been carved straight out of the rainforest, and tall thin wooden figures representing Masai tribesmen and a selection of the savannah’s best-known animals. Everything seemed carefully planned and executed: there were no visible price tags, the colours complemented each other and the products were placed in pairs like in Noah’s ark. In short, it looked more like an exhibition than a shop. A somewhat dusty exhibition. This impression was reinforced by the almost unnatural stillness after the door closed behind them and the bell stopped ringing.
‘Hello?’ called a voice from inside the shop.
Harry followed the sound. In the darkness at the back of the room, behind an enormous wooden giraffe and illuminated only by a single spotlight, he saw the back of a woman who was standing on a chair. She was hanging up a grinning wooden black mask on the wall.
‘What is it?’ she said without turning.
She gave the impression she was conditioned to expect the unexpected, not customers though.
‘We’re from the police.’
‘Oh, yes.’ The woman turned and the spotlight fell on her face. Harry felt his heart stop, and he automatically took a step back. It was Sylvia Ottersen.
‘Something wrong?’ she asked with a frown between the lenses of her glasses.
‘Who … are you?’
‘Ane Pedersen,’ she said, instantly twigging the obvious reason for Harry’s perplexed expression. ‘I’m Sylvia’s sister. We’re twins.’
Harry began to cough.
‘This is Inspector Harry Hole,’ he heard Katrine say behind him. ‘And I’m Katrine Bratt. We were hoping to find Rolf here.’
‘He’s at the funeral parlour.’ Ane Pedersen paused, and at that moment all three of them knew what the others were thinking: how do you actually bury a head?
‘And you’ve stepped into the breach?’ Katrine rallied.
Ane Pedersen smiled briefly. ‘Yes.’ She stepped down from the chair with care, still holding the wooden mask.
‘Ceremonial or spiritual mask?’ Katrine asked.
‘Ceremonial,’ she said. ‘Hutu. Eastern Congo.’
Harry looked at his watch. ‘When will he be back?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Any guesses?’
‘As I said, I don’t –’
‘That really is a beautiful mask,’ Katrine interrupted. ‘You’ve been to the Congo, and you bought it yourself, didn’t you.’
Ane sent her a look of amazement. ‘How did you know?’
‘I can see by the way you’re holding it, not covering the eyes or mouth. You respect the spirits.’
‘Are you interested in masks?’
‘Sort of,’ Katrine said, pointing to a black mask with small arms at the side and legs hanging underneath. The face was half human, half animal. ‘That’s a Kpelie mask, isn’t it.’
‘Yes, from the Ivory Coast. Senufo.’
‘A power mask?’ Katrine ran a hand over the stiff, greasy animal hair hanging off the coconut shell at the top of the mask.
‘Wow, you do know a lot,’ Ane said.
‘What’s a power mask?’ Harry asked.
‘What it says,’ Ane answered. ‘In Africa masks like these are not just empty symbols. A person wearing this type of mask in the Lo community automatically has all executive and judicial power bestowed upon him. No one questions the authority of the wearer; the mask confers power.’
‘I saw two death masks hanging by the door,’ Katrine said. ‘Very beautiful.’
Ane smiled in response. ‘I have several of them. They’re from Lesotho.’
‘Can I have a look?’
‘Of course. Wait here a moment.’
She was gone, and Harry looked at Katrine.
‘I just thought it might be useful to have a chat with her,’ she said, to answer his unspoken question. ‘ To check if there were any family secrets, you understand?’
‘I understand. And you’d do that best on your own.’
‘You’ve got something to do?’
‘I’ll be in my office. If Rolf Ottersen turns up, remember to get a written statement waiving patient confidentiality.’
By the door, as he left, Harry cast a glance at the human faces, leathery, shrunken and frozen in a scream. He assumed they were imitations.
Eli Kvale trundled her shopping trolley between the shelves of the ICA supermarket at Ullevål Stadium. It was huge. A bit more expensive than other supermarkets, but with a much better selection. She didn’t come here every day, only when she wanted to make something nice. And tonight her son, Trygve, was coming home from the States. He was in his third year of economics at a university in Montana, but didn’t have any exams this autumn and was going to study at home until January. Andreas would drive straight from the church office to pick him up at Gardemoen Airport. And she knew that by the time they were home they would be deep in conversation about fly fishing and canoe trips.
She leaned over the freezer and felt the cold rise as a shadow passed her. And without looking up she knew it was the same one. The same shadow that had passed her when she was standing by the fresh-food counter, and in the car park when she was locking the car. It meant nothing. It was just the old stuff surfacing. She had come to terms with the fact that her fears would never quite let go, even though it was half a human life away now. At the checkout she chose the longest queue; her experience was that this was generally the quickest. Or at least she thought it was her experience. Andreas believed she was mistaken. Someone joined the queue behind her. So there were more mistaken people, she noted. She didn’t turn round, just thought the person must have been carrying a load of frozen goods: she could feel the cold on her back.
But when she did turn round, there was no longer anyone there. Her eyes wanted to scour the other queues. Don’t start, she thought. Don’t start this again.
Once outside, she forced herself to walk slowly to the car, not to look around, to unlock the car, put in the shopping, sit down and drive off. And as the Toyota slowly crawled up the long hills to the duplex flat in Nordberg, her mind was on Trygve and the dinner that had to be ready the moment they came in through the door.
Harry was listening to Espen Lepsvik on the telephone and gazing up at the photographs of dead colleagues. Lepsvik already had his group assembled and was asking Harry for access to all the relevant information.
‘You’ll get a password from our IT boss,’ Harry said. ‘Then you go into the folder labelled “The Snowman” on the Crime Squad network.’
‘The Snowman?’
‘Got to be called something.’
‘OK. Thanks, Hole. How often do you want reports from me?’
‘Just when you’ve got something. And, Lepsvik?’
‘Yes?’
‘Keep off our patch.’
‘And what exactly is your patch?’
‘You concentrate on tip-offs, witnesses and ex-cons who might be possible serial killers. That’s where the brunt of the work lies.’
Harry knew what the experienced Kripos detective was thinking: the shit jobs.
Lepsvik cleared his throat. ‘So we agree there is a connection between the disappearances?’
‘We don’t have to agree. You follow your instincts.’
‘Fine.’
Harry rang off and looked at the screen in front of him. He had gone on to the website Borghild had recommended and seen pictures of female beauties and male-model types with dotted lines on their faces and bodies suggesting where their perfect appearance could still – if desired – be adjusted. Idar Vetlesen himself was smiling at him from a photograph, indistinguishable from his male models.
Under the picture of Idar Vetlesen there was a résumé of diplomas and courses with long names in French and English which, for all Harry knew, could have been completed in two months, but still gave you the right to add new Latin abbreviations to your doctorate. He had googled Idar Vetlesen, and come up with a list of results from what he thought were curling competitions, as well as an old website from one of his previous employers, Marienlyst Clinic. It was when he saw the name beside Idar Vetlesen’s that he thought it was probably true what people said: Norway is such a small country that everyone is, at most, two acquaintances from knowing everyone else.
Katrine Bratt came in and plumped down onto the chair across from Harry with a deep sigh. She crossed her legs.
‘Do you think it’s true that beautiful people are more preoccupied with beauty than ugly people?’ Harry asked. ‘Is that why the good-looking are so fixated on their appearance?’
‘I don’t know,’ Katrine said. ‘But there’s a kind of logic to it, I suppose. People with high IQs are so fixated on IQs that they have founded their own club, haven’t they. I suppose you focus on what you have. I would guess you’re fairly proud of your investigative talent.’
‘You mean the rat-catching gene? The innate ability to lock up people with mental illnesses, addiction problems, well under average intellect and well above average childhood deprivation?’
‘So we’re just rat-catchers then?’
‘Yep. And that’s why we’re so happy when once in a blue moon a case like this lands on our table. A chance to go big-game hunting, to shoot a lion, an elephant, a fucking dinosaur.’
Katrine didn’t laugh. On the contrary, she nodded her head gravely.
‘What did Sylvia’s twin sister have to say?’
‘I was in danger of becoming her best friend,’ Katrine sighed, folding her hands over a stockinged knee.
‘Tell me.’
‘Well,’ she began, and Harry noticed his ‘well’ in her mouth, ‘Ane told me that both Sylvia and Rolf thought that Rolf had been the lucky one when they got together. While everyone else thought the opposite. Rolf had just finished qualifying as an engineer at the Technical University in Bergen and had moved to Oslo and a job with Kværner Engineering. Sylvia was apparently the type who wakes up every morning with a new idea about what she’s going to do with in her life. She had taken half a dozen quite different foundation courses at university and had never been in the same job for more than six months. She was stubborn, hot-headed, spoilt, a declared socialist and attracted by ideologies that preached the obliteration of the ego. The few girlfriends she had manipulated, and the men she was involved with left her after a short while because they couldn’t take it. Her sister thought that Rolf was so deeply in love with her because she represented his absolute opposite. You see, he had followed in his father’s footsteps and become an engineer. He came from a family that believed in the unseen charitable hand of capitalism and middle-class happiness. Sylvia thought that we in the Western world were materialistic and corrupt as human beings, that we had lost touch with our real identity and the source of happiness. And that some king in Ethiopia was the reincarnated Messiah.’
‘Haile Selassie,’ Harry said. ‘Rastafarian beliefs.’
‘No flies on you.’
‘Bob Marley records. Well, that may explain the link with Africa.’
‘Maybe.’ Katrine shifted position in her chair, her left leg crossed her right now, and Harry directed his gaze elsewhere. ‘Anyway, Rolf and Sylvia took a year off and travelled around West Africa. It turned out to be a road to Damascus for them both. Rolf discovered that his vocation was to help Africa get back on its feet. Sylvia, who had a big Ethiopian flag tattooed on her back, discovered that everyone looked out for themselves, even in Africa. So they started up Taste of Africa. Rolf to help a poor continent, Sylvia because the combination of cheap imports and government support seemed like easy money. She had the same motive when she was caught with a rucksack full of marijuana at customs, returning from Lagos.’
‘There you go.’
‘Sylvia was given a short conditional sentence because she was able to sow seeds of doubt. She said she didn’t know what was in the rucksack, she had brought it with her as a family favour for a Nigerian living in Norway.’
‘Mm. What else?’
‘Ane likes Rolf. He’s kind, thoughtful and has boundless love for the children. But apparently he’s quite blind in all things Sylvia. Twice she fell in love with other men and left Rolf and the children. But the men left her and both times Rolf happily took her back.’
‘What was her hold over him, do you think?’
Katrine Bratt mounted a smile tinged with sadness and gazed into the air as her hand stroked the hem of her skirt. ‘The usual, I would guess. No one can leave someone they have good sex with. They can try, but they always go back. We’re simple souls like that, aren’t we.’
Harry nodded slowly. ‘And what about the men who left her and didn’t come back?’
‘Men are different. Over the course of time some of them suffer from performance angst.’
Harry eyed her. And decided not to pursue that subject.
‘Did you see Rolf Ottersen?’
‘Yes, he arrived ten minutes after you left,’ Katrine said. ‘And he looked better than last time. He’d never heard of the plastic surgery clinic in Bygdøy, but he signed the declaration of consent to waive doctor–patient confidentiality.’ She left the folded sheet on his desk.
An ice-cold wind blew over the low stands at Valle Hovin where Harry sat watching the ice skaters gliding round the circuit. Oleg’s technique had become more supple and effective in the last year. Every time his friend accelerated to pass him, Oleg sank lower, dug in harder and calmly sailed off.
Harry rang Espen Lepsvik and they caught up on each other’s news. Harry found out that a dark saloon car had been seen entering Hoffsveien late on the night Birte disappeared. And it had returned the same way not long afterwards.
‘Dark saloon,’ Harry repeated with a grim shiver. ‘Sometime late that night.’
‘Yes, I know it’s not a lot to go on,’ Lepsvik sighed.
Harry was stuffing the phone in his jacket pocket when he sensed that something was obscuring one of the floodlights.
‘Sorry I’m a bit late.’
He looked up into the jovial, smiling face of Mathias Lund-Helgesen.
Rakel’s envoy took a seat. ‘Are you a winter sportsman, Harry?’
Harry noticed that Mathias had this direct way of looking at you with an expression that was so intense it gave you the feeling he was listening even when he was talking.
‘Not really. Bit of skating. And you?’
Mathias shook his head. ‘But I’ve decided that the day my life’s work is done and I’m so ill I no longer want to live, I’ll take the lift up to the top of the ski-jump tower on that hill there.’
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder and Harry did not need to turn. Holmenkollen, Oslo’s dearest monument and worst ski jump, could be seen from everywhere in town.
‘And then I’ll jump. Not on skis but from the tower.’
‘Dramatic,’ Harry said.
Mathias smiled. ‘Forty metres free fall. Over in seconds.’
‘Not imminent, I trust.’
‘With the level of anti-Scl 70 in my blood, you never know,’ Mathias laughed grimly.
‘Anti-Scl 70?’
‘Yes, antibodies are a good thing, but you should always be suspicious when they appear. They’re there for a reason.’
‘Mm. I thought suicide was a heretical notion for a doctor.’
‘No one knows better than doctors what diseases involve. I agree with the stoic Zenon who considered suicide a worthy action when death was more attractive than life. When he was ninety-eight years old he dislocated his big toe. This upset him so much that he went home and hanged himself.’
‘So why not hang yourself instead of going to all the trouble of climbing to the top of Holmenkollen ski jump?’
‘Well, death should be a sort of homage to life. Anyway, I have to confess that I like the idea of the publicity that would come in its wake. My research attracts very little attention, I’m afraid.’ Mathias’s jolly laughter was slashed to pieces by the sound of swift-moving skate blades. ‘By the way, I’m sorry I bought new speed skates for Oleg. Rakel didn’t tell me hat you had planned to buy a pair for his birthday until afterwards.’
‘No problem.’
‘He would have preferred to have them off you, you know.’
Harry didn’t answer.
‘I envy you, Harry. You can sit here and read the paper, make a call on your phone, talk to other people, for him it’s good enough that you’re just here. When I cheer and shout and encourage him and do everything the manual says a good father should do, he just gets irritated. Did you know that he polishes his skates every day because he knows that you used to do that? And until Rakel demanded that skates had to be kept indoors, he insisted on leaving them outside on the steps because you once said that skate steel should always be kept cold. You’re his role model, Harry.’
Harry shuddered at the thought. But somewhere deep inside – no, not even that far – he was pleased to hear this. Because he was a jealous bastard who would have liked to imprecate a mild curse on Mathias’s attempts to win over Oleg.
Mathias fidgeted with a coat button. ‘It’s strange in these divorce-ridden times with children and their deep awareness of their origins. The way a new father can never replace the real one.’
‘Oleg’s real father lives in Russia,’ Harry said.
‘On paper, yes,’ Mathias said with a crooked smile. ‘But not in reality, Harry.’
Oleg sped past and waved to the two of them. Mathias waved back.
‘You’ve worked with a doctor called Idar Vetlesen,’ Harry said.
Mathias eyed him with surprise. ‘Idar, yes. At Marienlyst Clinic. Goodness, do you know Idar?’
‘No, I was googling his name and found an old website listing doctors employed at the clinic. And your name was there.’
‘That’s a few years ago now, but we had a lot of fun at Marienlyst. The clinic was started at a time when everyone believed that private health enterprises were bound to make a lot of money. And closed down when we saw things were not like that of course.’
‘You went bust?’
‘I think downsized was the term used. Are you a patient of Idar?’
‘No, his name came up in connection with a case. Can you tell me what kind of person he is?’
‘Idar Vetlesen?’ Mathias laughed. ‘Yes, I can say quite a bit about him. We studied together and hung around in the same crowd for many years.’
‘Does that mean you no longer have any contact?’
Mathias shrugged. ‘I suppose we were quite different, Idar and I. Most people in our crowd saw medicine as … well, as a calling. Apart from Idar. He made no bones about it. He was studying medicine because it was the profession that commanded most respect. At any rate, I admire his honesty.’
‘So Idar Vetlesen was preoccupied with earning respect?’
‘There was money too, of course. No one was surprised when Idar took up plastic surgery. Or that he ended up at a clinic for a select clientele comprising the rich and famous. He had always been attracted by that sort of person. He wants to be like them, to move in their circles. The problem is that Idar tries a bit too hard. I can imagine that these celebrities smile to his face, but behind his back they call him a clinging, pretentious jackass.’
‘Are you saying he’s the kind who would go to great lengths to achieve his goals?’
Mathias mulled this over. ‘Idar has always searched for something that could bring him fame. Idar’s problem is not that he isn’t energetic, but that he’s never found his mission in life. The last time I spoke to him he sounded frustrated, depressed even.’
‘Can you imagine him finding a mission that would bring him fame? Something outside medicine perhaps?’
‘I haven’t thought about it, but maybe. He’s not exactly a born doctor.’
‘In what way?’
‘In the same way that Idar admires the successful and despises the weak and infirm. He’s not the only doctor to do so, but he’s the only one to say so outright.’ Mathias laughed. ‘In our circle, we all started as out-and-out idealists who at some point or other became more preoccupied with consultant positions, paying off the new garage and overtime rates. At least Idar didn’t betray any ideals; he was the same from the off.’
* * *
Idar Vetlesen laughed. ‘Did Mathias really say that? That I haven’t betrayed any ideals?’
He had a pleasant, almost feminine face, with eyebrows so narrow that one might have suspected him of plucking them, and teeth so white and regular that one might have suspected they were not his own. His complexion looked soft and touched up; his hair was thick and rippled with vitality. In short, he looked several years younger than his thirty-seven.
‘I don’t know what he meant by that,’ Harry lied.
They were each ensconced in a deep armchair in the library of a spacious white house, built according to the old, august Bygdøy style. His childhood home, Idar Vetlesen had explained as he guided Harry through the two vast, dark lounges and into a room whose walls were lined with books. Mikkjel Fønhus. Kjell Aukrust. Einar Gerhardsen’s The Shop Steward. A broad range of popular literature and political biographies. A whole shelf of yellowing issues of The Reader’s Digest. Harry hadn’t seen a single copy published since 1970.
‘Oh, I know what he meant,’ Idar chuckled.
Harry had an inkling what Mathias had implied by the two of them having a lot of fun at Marienlyst Clinic: they probably competed to see who could laugh the most.
‘Mathias, the saintly bugger. Lucky bugger, more like. No, by Christ, I mean both.’ Idar Vetlesen’s laughter pealed out. ‘They say they don’t believe in God, but my God-fearing colleagues are terrified moral strivers accumulating good deeds because deep down they’re petrified of burning in hell.’
‘And aren’t you?’ Harry asked.
Idar elevated one of his elegantly formed brows and eyed Harry with interest. Idar was wearing soft, light blue moccasins with loose laces, jeans and a white tennis shirt with a polo player on the left. Harry couldn’t remember which brand it was, only that for some reason he connected it with bores.
‘I come from a practical family, Inspector. My father was a taxi driver. We believe what we can see.’
‘Mm. Nice house for a taxi driver.’
‘He owned a taxi company, had three licences. But here in Bygdøy a taxi driver is, and always will be, a plebeian.’
Harry looked at the doctor and tried to determine whether he was on speed or anything else. Vetlesen was sitting back in his chair in an exaggeratedly casual fashion, as though keen to hide a restless or excited state. The same thought had gone through Harry’s mind when he had rung to explain that the police wanted answers to a few questions and Vetlesen had extended an almost effusive invitation to his home.
‘But you didn’t want to drive a taxi,’ Harry said. ‘You wanted … to make people look better?’
Vetlesen smiled. ‘You could say that I offer my services in the vanity market. Or that I repair people’s exteriors to soothe the pain inside. Take your pick. Actually I don’t give a damn.’ Anticipating a shocked reaction from Harry, Vetlesen laughed. When this did not materialise, Vetlesen’s expression took on a more serious aspect. ‘I see myself as a sculptor. I don’t have a vocation. I like to change appearances, to shape faces. I’ve always liked that. I’m good at it, and people pay me for it. That’s all.’
‘Mm.’
‘But that doesn’t mean that I’m without principles. And patient confidentiality is one of them.’
Harry didn’t answer.
‘I was talking to Borghild,’ he said. ‘I know what you’re after, Inspector. And I understand that this is a grave matter. But I can’t help you. I’m bound by my oath.’
‘Not any longer.’ Harry told the folded sheet of paper out of an inside pocket and placed it on the table between them. ‘This statement, signed by the father of the twins, exempts you.’
Idar shook his head. ‘That won’t make any difference.’
Harry frowned in surprise. ‘Oh?’
‘I can’t say who has been to see me or what they’ve said, but I can say in general that those who come to a doctor with their children are protected by the oath of client confidentiality, even with respect to their spouse if they so wish.’
‘Why would Sylvia Ottersen hide from her husband the fact that she’s been to see you with her twins?’
‘Our behaviour may seem rigid, but do remember that many of our clients are famous people who are exposed to idle gossip and unwanted press attention. Go to Kunstnernes Hus on a Friday evening and have a look around. You have no idea how many of them have had bits trimmed here and there at my clinic. They would swoon at the very idea that their visits here might become public knowledge. Our reputation is based on discretion. If it should ever come out that we are sloppy with client data, the consequences for the clinic would be catastrophic. I’m sure you understand.’
‘We have two murder victims and one single coincidence,’ Harry said. ‘They’ve both been to your clinic.’
‘That I neither will nor can confirm. But let us suppose for the sake of argument that they have.’ Vetlesen twirled a hand through the air. ‘So what? Norway is a country of few people and even fewer doctors. Do you know how few handshakes we all are from having met each other? The coincidence that they have been to the same doctor is no more dramatic than that they might have been on the same tram at some point. Ever met friends on a tram?’
Harry couldn’t think of a single occasion. First off, he didn’t take the tram that often.
‘It was a long trip to be told that you won’t tell me anything,’ Harry said.
‘My apologies. I invited you here because I assumed that the alter native was the police station. Where, right now, the press is scrutinising the comings and goings day and night. Yes, indeed, I know those people …’
‘You are aware that I can get a search warrant which would render your oath of confidentiality null and void?’
‘Fine by me,’ Vetlesen said. ‘In that case the clinic will be on the side of the angels. But until then …’ He closed an imaginary zip across his mouth.
Harry shifted in his seat. He knew that Idar knew he knew. To get the courts to waive the oath of confidentiality, even for a murder case, they would need clear evidence that the doctor’s information would be of significance. And what did they have? As Vetlesen himself put it, a chance meeting on a tram. Harry felt a strong need to do something. To drink. Or to pump iron. With a vengeance. He breathed in.
‘I’m still obliged to ask you where you were on the nights of the 2nd and the 4th of November.’
‘I was counting on that,’ Vetlesen smiled. ‘So I had a think. I was here with … yes, and here she is.’
An elderly woman with mousy hair hanging like a curtain around her head entered the room with mousy steps and a silver tray bearing two cups of coffee, which rattled ominously. The expression on her face suggested she was carrying a cross and a crown of thorns. She cast a glance at her son who jumped up in a flash and took the tray.
‘Thanks, Mother.’
‘Tie your shoelaces.’ She half turned to Harry. ‘Is anyone going to inform me who comes and goes in my house?’
‘This is Inspector Hole, Mother. He’d like to know where I was yesterday and three days ago.’
Harry stood up and stretched out his hand.
‘I remember, of course,’ she said, giving Harry a resigned look and a hand covered in liver spots. ‘We watched that discussion programme featuring your curling friend. And I didn’t like what he said about the royal family. What’s his name again?’
‘Arve Støp,’ Idar sighed.
The old lady leaned over towards Harry. ‘He said we should get rid of the royals. Can you imagine anything so dreadful? Where would we have been if it had not been for the royal family during the war?’
‘Right where we are now,’ Idar said. ‘Seldom has a head of state done so little during a war. And he also said that broad support for the monarchy was the final proof that most people believe in trolls and fairies.’
‘Isn’t that dreadful?’
‘Veritably, Mother.’ Idar smiled, placing a hand on her shoulder and catching sight of his watch at the same time, a Breitling, which seemed large and unwieldy on his thin wrist. ‘My goodness me! I have to go now, Hole. We’ll have to hurry this coffee along.’
Harry shook his head and smiled at fru Vetlesen. ‘I’m sure it’s delicious but I’ll have to save it for another day.’
She heaved a deep sigh, mumbled something inaudible, took the tray and shuffled out again.
When Idar and Harry were in the hall, Harry turned. ‘What did you mean by lucky?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You said Mathias Lund-Helgesen wasn’t just a saintly bugger, he was lucky, too.’
‘Oh that! It’s this bit of stuff he’s fixed himself up with. Mathias is generally pretty helpless in this area, but she must have been with a couple of bad’uns in her life. Must have needed a God-fearer like him. Well, don’t tell Mathias I said that. Or, by the way, even mention it.’
‘By the way, do you know what anti-Scl 70 is?’
‘It’s an antibody in the blood. May suggest the presence of scleroderma. Do you know someone who’s got it?’
‘I don’t even know what scleroderma is.’ Harry realised he should let it go. He wanted to let it go. But he couldn’t. ‘So Mathias said she had been with some bad’uns, did he?’
‘My interpretation. St Mathias doesn’t use expressions like bad about people. In his eyes, every human has the potential to become a better person.’ Idar Vetlesen’s laughter echoed through the dark rooms.
After Harry had said his thank-yous, put on his boots and was standing on the step outside, he turned and watched – as the door slid to – Idar sitting bent over, tying his shoelaces.
On the way back, Harry rang Skarre, asked him to print out the picture of Vetlesen from the clinic website and go over to the Narcotics Unit to see if any of the undercover guys had seen him buying speed.
‘In the street?’ Skarre asked. ‘Don’t all doctors have that kind of thing in their medicine cabinets?’
‘Yes, but the rules governing the declaration of drug supplies are now so strict that a doctor would rather buy his amphetamines off a dealer in Skippergata.’
They rang off, and Harry called Katrine in the office.
‘Nothing for the moment,’ she said. ‘I’m leaving now. You on your way home?’
‘Yes.’ Harry hesitated. ‘What do you think the chances are of the court ruling that Vetlesen can waive his Hippocratic oath?’
‘With what we’ve got? Of course, I could put on an extra short skirt, pop over to the courthouse and find a judge of the right age. But, to be frank, I think we can forget it.’
‘Agreed.’
Harry headed for Bislett. Thinking about his flat, stripped bare. He looked at his watch. Changed his mind and turned down Pilestredet towards Police HQ.
It was two o’clock in the morning as once again Harry had Katrine, drowsy with sleep, on the phone.
‘What’s up now?’ she said.
‘I’m in the office and have had a look at what you’ve found. You said all the missing women were married with children. I think there could be something in that.’
‘What?’
‘I have no idea. I just needed to hear myself say that to someone. So that I could decide if it sounded idiotic.’
‘And how does it sound?’
‘Idiotic. Goodnight.’
Eli Kvale lay with her eyes wide open. Beside her, Andreas was breathing heavily without a care in the world. A stripe of moonlight fell between the curtains across the wall, on the crucifix she had bought during her honeymoon in Rome. What had woken her? Was it Trygve? Was he up? The dinner and the evening had gone just as she had hoped. She had seen happy, shiny faces in the candlelight, and they had all talked at the same time, they had so much to tell! Mostly Trygve. And when he talked about Montana, about his studies and friends there, she had stayed quiet just looking at this boy, this young man who was maturing into an adult, becoming whatever he would become, making his own life. That was what made her happiest: that he could choose. Openly and freely. Not like her. Not on the quiet, in secret.
She heard the house creaking, heard the walls talking to each other.
But there had been a different sound, an alien sound. A sound from outside.
She got out of bed, went over to the window and opened the curtains a crack. It had snowed. The apple trees had woollen branches and the moonlight was reflected on the thin white ground covering, emphasising every detail in the garden. Her gaze swept from the gate to the garage, unsure what it was she was looking for. Then it stopped. She gave a gasp of surprise and terror. Don’t start this again, she told herself. It must have been Trygve. He’s got jet lag, hasn’t been able to sleep and has gone out. The footprints went from the gate to right under the window where she was standing. Like a line of black dots in the thin coating of snow. A dramatic pause in the text.
There were no footprints leading back.