Anne Holt - 1222

‘Sit down,’ I said, not quite as pleasantly as earlier.

‘Why did you lie?’ he asked brusquely.

‘I didn’t lie.’

‘You did. You denied that Cato Hammer had been murdered.’

‘No, I didn’t, in fact. When you… aired your suspicions I asked you why you thought he had been murdered. I denied nothing.’

He sat down hesitantly. It seemed as if he were trying to reconstruct the conversation we had had before the fourteen-year-old in red started screaming about her macabre discovery in the delivery bay. He must have had a good memory, because he seemed noticeably less reproachful when he sighed, leaned forward with his forearms resting on his knees, and started again:

‘I know who murdered Cato,’ he said so quietly that I only just heard him. ‘And keeping that knowledge to myself is a great trial.’

I was a police officer for more than twenty years. I haven’t worked it out, but since I was involved with murder investigations for the majority of those years, I am unlikely to be exaggerating if I say that I have dealt with something like two hundred such cases. In almost every one, someone like Roar Hanson pops up. Someone who claims that he knows. Not infrequently it’s the perpetrator himself, trying to make himself immune from suspicion, a tactic so stupid that there ought to be a warning notice about it on anything that could possibly be used as a murder weapon. I have yet to meet an investigator who doesn’t immediately turn his or her attention to the person who maintains that he knows. People should also remember the ninth commandment. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

Roar Hanson didn’t look as if he were bearing false witness.

On the contrary, he was showing all the signs of spiritual torment. His skin was damp and sickly grey, and his hair was so greasy that it was plastered to his scalp in lank strands. His eyes were red-rimmed and watery, although I couldn’t decide whether he was actually crying. He let his head droop between his shoulders. Anyone else would no doubt have laid a consoling hand on his back. Instead I moved away a fraction.

‘I should have done something back then,’ he said.

He paused.

‘What?’ I said as indifferently as I could manage.

‘I should have…’

Suddenly he straightened up. He rubbed the back of his hand across his lips. It didn’t help a great deal. He still had a thick white deposit at both corners of his mouth.

‘It was when the two of us were working in the Public Information Service. I mean, Cato was…’ He took a deep breath and held it as if he needed to brace himself. ‘I really can’t understand why I didn’t raise an objection at the time. Why I didn’t do anything. And Margrete… I can’t bear it. Of course I couldn’t have known, but it seemed so… unthinkable that he would… You are a police officer, aren’t you? Is it true what they’re saying?’

The Public Information Service?

For meat and poultry? Fruit and vegetables?

I had no idea what he was talking about. In my eyes he looked as if he were about to tip over into some kind of paranoid psychosis; he had started looking around as if he thought somebody was about to attack him the whole time. Since the closest people were sitting several metres away from us and were involved in a noisy game of Trivial Pursuit, it was quite comical. Sometimes he struck himself hard on his injured shoulder, as if pain could be driven out by pain. Since it was impossible to make any sense of his disjointed narrative, I decided it was appropriate to lie.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘What people are saying is true. I am with the police. You can talk to me.’

‘Do you believe in vengeance?’

‘What?’

Roar Hanson leaned even closer. I could feel small, sour puffs of his breath on my face. I didn’t blink, but tried to lock his eyes with mine.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked slowly.

‘Do you think it’s ethically defensible to avenge a great injustice?’

As I searched for the answer he wanted, I saw Adrian coming towards us. His cap was pulled so far down that I couldn’t see his eyes at all. Since I had realized long ago that he and Roar Hanson weren’t exactly fond of each other, I raised a warning hand to make him stay away.

It didn’t work.

‘Why the fuck are you sitting here?’

Adrian thumped the priest on the shoulder. I didn’t even have time to protest before the boy hissed:

‘Stop bothering Hanne, OK!’

‘Adrian,’ I said sharply. ‘He’s not bothering me! Go away!’

It was too late. Roar Hanson got up slowly, like an old man. He blinked a couple of times and a controlled, composed expression came over his face. The smile he managed to force was so strained that his lips disappeared between his teeth.

‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘You can’t…’

He didn’t hear me. I didn’t take my eyes off him until he set off up the stairs, and disappeared.

‘Why did you do that?’ I said to Adrian, trying not to sound as livid as I felt. ‘That’s the second time you’ve disturbed… destroyed a conversation I was having with that man!’

‘But I… I thought

It was only a few hours since Adrian had been a weeping little boy. When he came strolling across the floor to face up to the priest, he had regained something of the truculent, aggressive persona he wore as a disguise. Now he seemed completely helpless once again, utterly incapable of grasping my lack of gratitude.

‘Yes, but…’ he stammered. ‘But… I th… I thought…’

‘Thought? Yes, what do you actually think? That I’m completely helpless? And what exactly have you got against that man? Has he done something to you? Have you done something to him ?’

There were too many questions for Adrian.

He went off without saying a word.

When I think back, I can see that lives could probably have been saved if the boy hadn’t come along and interrupted Roar Hanson’s incoherent story.

But of course I didn’t know that at the time.

Fortunately for Adrian, I have to add. I was already so furious with the boy that I didn’t even realize where he’d gone.

I tried to get to sleep. Perhaps I tried too hard. For several hours I had longed for this moment, when I would be left alone in the lobby. Berit had found me sheets and blankets and a pillow, and I had counted on falling asleep the moment the three Germans, very reluctantly and with snivelling protests, were packed off to bed by the staff at midnight. The bar had closed at ten. Mikkel’s gang had started throwing paperback books soaked in beer onto the crackling fire down in Blåstuen. They managed to create quite a lot of grey, acrid smoke before three of the staff came rushing in and stopped them. The beer taps were then turned off immediately.

Sleep just would not come.

I was comfortable. The sofa was nice and firm, and long and wide enough so that I could turn over without too much trouble. The bedclothes smelled faintly of chlorine and apples. My eyes closed, but still the pictures in my mind’s eye kept me awake.

Not only had I decided to leave the murder of Cato Hammer alone until the weather improved and the police were able to take over what was essentially a fairly simple case, even if it was quite tragic, I had in fact also managed to persuade Berit, Geir and Magnus Streng that this very temporary suspension was the only sensible course of action. A murderer among us was bad enough; we didn’t want to frighten him or her unnecessarily.