Anne Holt - The Blind Goddess

Håkon began to doubt whether Hanne deserved her reputation as a stickler for the rules. The method of interrogation she’d outlined was definitely not in the book. He was even more in doubt about the legality of threatening it.

“You have the right to a solicitor; the State will pay,” he reminded him, as if to compensate for any possible illegality.

“I don’t want a solicitor!” he exploded.

He took one last puff on his cigarette before stubbing it out emphatically and saying it again, “I don’t want a solicitor. I’ll be better off without one.”

He threw a questioning, half-imploring look across at the pack of cigarettes on the table. Hanne Wilhelmsen nodded, and handed him both the cigarettes and the matches.

“So, you think it was me. Well, you may be right.”

That was that. The man’s basic needs had been satisfied at last: a shower, some breakfast, a drink, and a couple of cigarettes. Showing all the signs of having talked as much as he was going to, he slid forward in the chair and slumped back with a distant look in his eyes.

“Okay, then.” Detective Inspector Wilhelmsen seemed fully in command of the situation. “Perhaps I should continue,” she said, starting to turn over the pages of the rather slim file of papers beside the typewriter.

“So we found this repulsive-looking corpse. He had no documents on him, and his face had gone before him, so to speak, wherever it was he was going. But our man in the patrol car was fairly well acquainted with the drugs scene here in the city. The clothes, body, and hair were sufficient. Revenge killing, he thought. A not unreasonable assumption, it seems to me.”

She linked her fingers and put her hands behind her head. She massaged her neck with her thumbs as she looked the Dutchman straight in the eyes.

“I think you killed the guy. We’ll know better tomorrow, when the results come back from Forensics. But lab technicians can’t tell me why. That’s where I need your assistance.”

The appeal seemed to be in vain. The man didn’t move a muscle, he just retained his remote, slightly mocking smile, as if he had the upper hand. There he was mistaken.

“To be frank, I think it would be more sensible of you to give me that assistance,” the Inspector went on. “Maybe you did it on your own. Maybe it was to order. Perhaps you were even forced into it. And that might have a decisive impact on what happens to you.”

She paused in her steady stream of words, lit a new cigarette, and stared him in the face. He went on sitting there displaying absolutely no intention of talking. Hanne heaved a sigh and switched off the typewriter.

“It’s not up to me to determine your sentence. If you’re guilty, that is. But it could definitely be to your advantage if I was able to say something positive about your willingness to cooperate and so on when I have to testify in court.”

Håkon recognised the feeling from when he was a child and had been allowed to watch a detective story on television. He would be dying to go to the loo, but didn’t dare say so for fear of missing something exciting.

“Where did you find him?”

The Dutchman’s question took Håkon completely by surprise, and he noticed for the first time a hint of uncertainty in the Inspector’s face.

“Where you killed him,” she replied, with exaggerated slowness.

“Answer me. Where did you find the guy?”

Both police officers hesitated.

“By the River Aker at Hundremanns Bridge. As you well know,” Hanne said, holding him steadily in her gaze so as not to miss even a flicker of reaction in his expression.

“Who found the body? Who reported it to the police?”

This time Hanne Wilhelmsen’s hesitation created a vacuum that Sand was sucked into.

“It was someone out for a walk. A lawyer, a friend of mine in fact. Must have been a dreadful experience.”

Hanne was livid, but Håkon realised it too late. He hadn’t picked up on her warning gesture as he started to speak. He flushed deeply at her fierce look of reproof.

Van der Kerch stood up.

“I would like a lawyer after all,” he declared. “I want that woman. If you get her here, I’ll think about talking, at any rate. If I can’t have her, I’d rather have ten lonely years in prison at Ullersmo.”

He went across to the door unbidden, stepping over Håkon Sand’s legs, and waited politely to be taken back to his cell. Hanne Wilhelmsen escorted him, without a backward glance at her red-faced colleague.

The coffee had been drunk. It hadn’t been particularly good, even though it was freshly made. Decaffeinated, Håkon Sand explained. There were six cigarette stubs in a tawdry brown and orange ashtray.

“She was bloody mad at me afterwards. Understandably so. It’ll be some time before I’ll be allowed to be present at an interrogation again. But the man won’t be budged. It’s you or no one.”

He seemed no less exhausted now than when Karen Borg had arrived. He was massaging his temples and running his fingers through his hair, which was now quite dry.

“I asked Hanne to give him all the counterarguments. She says he remains adamant. I’ve kept well out of it. It’ll smooth things over a bit if I can get you to help us.”

Karen Borg sighed. For six years of her life she’d done little else but favours for Håkon Sand. She knew she wouldn’t be able to refuse this time either. But she would play hard to get.

“I’m only agreeing to have a talk with him. I’m not promising anything,” she said curtly, and stood up.

They went out the door, she first, he following. Just like the old days.

The young Dutchman had insisted on speaking to Karen Borg, with a vague intimation that he would open up to her. But that seemed to have been forgotten now. He looked full of bile. Karen Borg had moved over to Håkon Sand’s chair, and Håkon had discreetly withdrawn. The lawyers’ room in the custody suite was a miserable place, so in justified apprehension that she might renege on her promise to talk to the young Dutchman, he’d put his own office at her disposal.

Their suspect should have been handsome, yet was somehow unprepossessing. An athletic body, fair hair that looked as if it might have been expensively styled a month or so back. His hands were delicate, almost feminine. Did he play the piano? A lover’s hands, Karen thought, with no idea of how she was going to deal with the situation. She was used to boardrooms, meeting rooms with heavy oak furniture, airy offices with curtains costing five hundred kroner per metre. She could tackle men in suits with fashionable or garish ties, and women with briefcases and Shalimar perfume. She knew all about the laws relating to shares and the formation of companies, and only three weeks ago had earned herself a nice 150,000 kroner fee for checking over a comprehensive contract for one of her biggest clients. It hadn’t involved much more than reading five hundred pages of contractual agreements, ensuring they contained what they purported to, and writing “OK” on the cover. That worked out to 75,000 kroner per letter.

The prisoner’s words were obviously just as valuable.

“You asked to speak to me,” Karen Borg began. “I don’t know why. Perhaps we could take that as our starting point?”

He measured her up with his eyes, but maintained his silence. He kept tilting his chair backwards and forwards; up and down, up and down. That sort of thing put Karen Borg on edge.

“I have to say I’m not the right kind of lawyer for you. I know a few suitable people, and I can make some phone calls and get you a top lawyer in a matter of moments.”

“No!”

The front legs of the chair hit the floor with a crash. He leant forward, looked directly at her for the first time, and said it again.