Anne Holt - 1222

Kari Thue had not frightened Cato Hammer.

At least not then.

It must have been someone else.

There were far too many people to choose from. And of course Cato Hammer’s change of mood didn’t necessarily have anything whatsoever to do with the fact that he was murdered a few hours later.

I was stuck, and wearily tossed the pen aside.

There was a gentle tap on the door.

‘Am I disturbing you?’ said Magnus, and came in without waiting for an answer. ‘So this is where you are, is it?’

There was no reason to answer either question.

‘I’m feeling much better,’ he said mildly, and sat down. ‘She’s a marvellous woman, that Berit Tverre. She finds solutions to most things. What are you doing?’

‘Trying to think.’

‘I see! That can be difficult. Particularly under circumstances like these.’

‘Yes,’ I said, although I wasn’t sure what circumstances he meant.

He took out his thick horn-rimmed glasses and perched them on his nose.

‘What have we here,’ he said. ‘A… timeline, I imagine.’

He leaned forward and peered at it. Then he clicked his tongue, which was obviously one of his many little habits.

‘So you noticed it too.’

‘What?’ I asked.

‘This…’

He smiled and took his glasses off again. The lenses were so sticky I felt like grabbing them and cleaning them.

‘This change of mood,’ he went on, put his glasses down on the desk. ‘Cato Hammer was cheerful and exhilarated from the time we arrived at the hotel. But he was taciturn and serious when he came back to the information meeting.’

‘Came back? From the hobby room, you mean?’

‘Yes, he was in there most of the time. But not all the time. Me, I was running about all over the place!’

His index finger waved about in the air.

‘We had a lovely little chat, you and I! I offered you some wine, but you were determined to stick to your vow of sobriety!’

‘I haven’t made any vow of -’

‘And then I went down to the hobby room. Hammer was there. Full of energy, I have to say. He had a voice, that man. And good humour, thank heavens. Perhaps a little too much good humour and eagerness to get involved. But then he left us. I had just bid six spades, and was sure of taking the game. Later, when I got back to the lobby, Cato Hammer wasn’t there either. He arrived just before the information meeting began. But then this building has countless rooms, so he could have been absolutely anywhere.’

‘Did you ever speak to him?’

‘No, I didn’t, actually. As I mentioned to you during our little session when we were… viewing the body… he was my patient. Something I would never have told you if the man hadn’t been dead. In such extraordinary circumstances, I must add. I have developed the habit of never speaking to my patients when I meet them outside the surgery, unless they speak to me first. It’s simply a matter of discretion. Respect for patient confidentiality.’

‘And he never did that? He never spoke to you?’

‘No. He didn’t even say hello. Perhaps he didn’t recognize me.’

I pretended to yawn. For a long time.

‘I’m sure he recognized you,’ I said eventually, biting my lower lip so hard I could taste the sweetness of blood on my tongue.

Magnus shook his head, lost in thought.

‘Hello,’ I said tentatively.

A deep, wide furrow appeared down the centre of his forehead. He took a deep breath as if he were about to say something, but then sat in silence with his thought, unsure if he should share it.

‘One could of course ask oneself,’ he said at last, ‘why I noticed that Cato Hammer’s mood in particular had altered.’

His eyes fascinated me. His unusual facial features drew the attention away from the fact that his eyes were actually beautiful, and such a deep blue shade that they were almost indigo.

‘Then I’ll ask the question,’ I said. ‘Why did you notice that Cato Hammer’s mood in particular had altered?’

‘Well,’ he said with a smile. ‘Let me explain. I noticed because I know something about him.’

I nodded and waited.

‘I know that Cato Hammer’s temperament, this keen commitment he shows in public, has’ – he fiddled with his glasses and searched for the right words – ‘has an excessive level of tolerance and openness towards more or less everything and everybody. I know it isn’t entirely genuine. In many ways he was a considerate man. And over-scrupulous, in the sense that he could be tormented by a guilty conscience. As to whether he really was a good person…’

His index finger rasped against his cheek, where the stubble had started to form strange, patchy patterns on his skin.

‘To tell the truth, I’m not entirely convinced that he was.’

I wasn’t sure whether I should say anything, or just wait for him to go on.

‘Of course you have to be very careful with things like that. Very careful.’

He gave me a quick look, as if it were me he was warning.

‘Judging other people, I mean. Particularly on inadequate grounds, such as those I have. Cato Hammer came to see me three, four times before I realized that all those vague illnesses he kept complaining about were the expression of a very disturbed psyche. Very disturbed indeed. So I referred him to someone else.’

His face broke into a smile.

‘But I’ve told you all this before.’

‘Why do you doubt his goodness?’

‘Can I use this cup?’

His hand closed around an unwashed coffee cup; I had no idea who had used it before. I shrugged my shoulders; he placed it under the dispenser and filled it right up to the brim.

‘What does being a good person involve?’ he asked, rolling his eyes to take the sting out of the banal aspect of his question. ‘Does it involve doing good? Or, since we human beings are permanently wired to care about ourselves and our offspring, is it more a question of the ability to be aware of our inadequacies and deplore our faults? To take responsibility for the fact that we can’t manage to be good, I mean. In other words, is goodness an indication of our willingness to engage in an eternal struggle against the ego, or is it only the victor, the person who has already defeated his egoism, who can call himself good?’

I wasn’t really with him. Perhaps I was too tired. Or perhaps I just thought he was talking absolute rubbish.

‘I don’t really know,’ I mumbled. ‘But what was Cato Hammer’s problem?’

‘He had done something evil,’ said Magnus, stretching.

The tone of his voice had changed. It grew deeper, and he was speaking directly to me now, not to himself or to an imaginary, more philosophically inclined listener than I had managed to appear.

‘What?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said briefly. ‘We never got that far. But he was a tormented person. It only took a few conversations with him for me to realize that he was weighed down with deep feelings of guilt. Which is in itself an indication that he had a conscience, at least. But he never did anything about it.’

‘How can you be sure of that?’

‘Good question.’

He leaned back in his chair with both hands around the coffee cup.

‘I definitely got the impression,’ he said, considering his words carefully before proceeding. ‘I definitely got the impression that he was guilty of something that was punishable by law. Since he had so much exposure in the media, you and I and everybody else would have known about it if he had admitted to such a thing. Even a speeding fine would have ended up on the front pages. Deduction, in other words. Drawing a conclusion on my part. He has never come to terms with himself. And yet he set up this facade of an abundance of love. Something doesn’t match. That’s why I noticed that sudden seriousness when he came back from the information meeting. It was almost…’