Anne Holt - Fear Not

‘I’m absolutely fine. And thank you for Ida’s Christmas present – much appreciated. And how about you? How are you?’

Hanne Wilhelmsen must have been given a crash course in normal good manners for Christmas, Johanne thought.

‘OK, more or less. But you know how it is. I’ve got my hands full. Adam’s in Bergen practically all week at the moment, so most of the stuff involving the kids lands on my shoulders.’

There was complete silence at the other end of the line. Hanne evidently hadn’t got very far in her course.

‘I won’t take up too much of your time,’ Johanne said quickly. ‘I just wondered if you could help me with something.’

‘Like what?’

‘I need… I need to talk to a reliable person in the Oslo police. Preferably someone who works in violent crime and vice. Someone with a bit of authority.’

‘Me six years ago, in other words.’

‘You could say that, but I-’

‘Why are you asking me? Surely Adam can help you?’

Johanne gained some time by taking a sip of coffee.

‘As I mentioned, he’s in Bergen,’ she said eventually.

‘There are telephones.’

‘Yes, but-’

‘Is it something to do with Kristiane?’

Hanne laughed. She actually laughed, Johanne thought with increasing amazement.

‘Not really, but…’

Yes, she thought.

I don’t want to talk to Adam yet. I don’t want any critical questions. I refuse to answer all his objections, all his counter-arguments. Kristiane must be protected if it’s at all possible. I want to find out about this for myself first.

‘He just has this tendency to assume I’m…’

‘Moderately hysterical?’

Once again that same light, unaccustomed laugh.

‘A bit too quick to assume that something’s wrong,’ Hanne clarified. ‘Is that the problem?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Silje Sørensen.’

‘What? Who?’

‘Talk to Silje Sørensen. If anyone can help you, it’s Silje. I have to go now. I’ve got a lot to do.’

‘A lot to do?’

The thought that Hanne Wilhelmsen had a lot to do in her self-imposed exile in her luxury apartment was absurd.

‘I’ve started doing a bit of work,’ she explained.

‘Work?’

‘You have a very odd way of speaking on the telephone, Johanne. You keep coming out with individual words followed by a question mark. Yes, I’ve started working. For myself. On a small scale.’

‘Doing… doing what?’

‘Call round one day and we’ll have a chat. But now I really do have to go. Ring Silje Sørensen. Bye.’

Silence. Johanne couldn’t quite believe what she’d heard.

Her friendship with Hanne Wilhelmsen had come about by chance. Johanne had needed help with one of her projects, and had sought out the retired, taciturn inspector. In some strange way she had felt welcome. They didn’t meet often, but over the years they had developed an unassuming, careful friendship, completely free of any demands or obligations.

Johanne had never heard Hanne like this.

She was so taken aback that she hadn’t even asked who this Silje Sørensen was. She was annoyed with herself, until she remembered reading about her in the paper. She was responsible for the investigation into the murder of Marianne Kleive.

Perfect.

It was probably still too early to get hold of her. Adam was rarely at work before 8.30, and she presumed the same applied to senior officers in the Oslo police district.

And so she stayed where she was, cradling her coffee cup in her hands as she waited for the daylight, wondering what on earth had happened to Hanne Wilhemsen.

‘What’s happened?’ Astrid Tomte Lysgaard whispered as she opened the door and saw Lukas standing outside.

It was only eleven o’clock and he should have been at work. He looked as if he’d just found out that someone else had died.

‘I’m really ill,’ said Lukas, almost tottering into the hallway. ‘Throat. Temperature. I need to lie down.’

‘You scared me,’ said Astrid, clutching at her chest with her slender hands before reaching out to stroke his cheek. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘I’m just ill,’ he said curtly, turning away. ‘I feel rotten.’

‘That’s what happens when you spend all evening out there in the garage. Obviously, you’re bound to come down with something.’

He didn’t even look at her as he headed for the living room. It suited him perfectly if she blamed his evenings working in the damp garage. He wasn’t particularly keen on telling her about his idiotic scramble over the roof of his father’s house in the ice-cold January rain. He was even less keen to explain that he’d spent more than fifteen minutes sitting in a barely warm car, soaking wet and frozen to the marrow while Adam Stubo told him off.

‘Have we got any Alvedon?’ he said pathetically. ‘And Coke? Have we got any Coke?’

‘Yes to both. I bought some Alvedon yesterday after I-’

She broke off.

‘The Coke’s in the fridge,’ she said instead. ‘And there’s some Alvedon in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Would you like a hot-water bottle?’

‘Yes please. I feel absolutely…’

It wasn’t necessary for him to go into any more detail about his condition. His eyes were red and his skin paler than the time of year warranted. His nostrils were inflamed and caked in snot, and his lips were dry and flaky. There was a thick white coating at the corners of his mouth, and when she moved towards him to get out a glass, Astrid was struck by a sour, tainted smell coming from his mouth.

‘You’re not very good at coping with illness, Lukas.’

She ventured a smile.

His back radiated self-pity as he shambled towards the stairs.

She followed him into the bathroom. As he fumbled with the lock of the medicine cabinet she let the water run for a while, so that it was really hot by the time she filled the hot-water bottle.

‘To be perfectly honest, Lukas,’ she said, ‘you’re not actually dying. You need to pull yourself together.’

Without replying he pushed three tablets out of their foil packaging, placed them in his mouth and swilled them down with half a bottle of Coke. His face contorted in a grimace of pain as he swallowed. He started to undress as he walked, leaving a trail of clothes behind him along the landing and into the cool bedroom. He sank down on the bed as if he had used up the very last of his strength, pulled the covers right up to his chin and rolled over on his side.

‘Here’s your hot-water bottle,’ she said. ‘Where would you like it?’

He didn’t answer.

‘Lukas,’ she said hesitantly. ‘There’s something I want to talk to you about.’

Yesterday she had refrained from asking who the woman in the photograph in the drawer was. She had been on the point of asking several times, but other things kept on coming up. All the time. The kids. Dinner. Homework. That eternal bloody garage. When the two of them were alone at last and it was gone half past ten, Lukas insisted on watching a TV programme about a tattoo parlour in Los Angeles. Astrid had gone up to bed and fallen asleep before he joined her.

Today it had struck her that she should have asked him anyway. She had allowed everything else to get in the way, because she was ashamed at having opened his drawer without permission. She was annoyed with herself. She had nothing to be ashamed of; looking for tablets that were responsibly locked away lay well within the parameters of the permissible.

‘I feel absolutely terrible,’ came a whimper from beneath the covers.

‘I just want to ask you something,’ she said firmly.

‘Oh, Astrid… I’m losing my voice! Can I have some warm milk with honey in it? Please?’