Ю Несбё - The Kingdom

‘But he’s still a teetotaller,’ said Olsen, showing that at least he was following my train of thought. ‘Not everyone starts fucking his own daughter when things begin to go a little wrong for him.’

‘Or purchase morning-after pills once a week,’ I said.

‘Maybe it’s because he doesn’t want his wife to get pregnant again. Or maybe the daughter’s having it away with some lad and Moe is just a concerned father.’ I heard Olsen take a drag on his cigarette in there. ‘He doesn’t want her on anything more permanent, because then he’s worried she might start having it away all the time with whoever. Moe’s a Pentecostal, you know.’

‘I didn’t know that, but that doesn’t exactly diminish the possibility of a little incest.’

I sensed a reaction beneath the coffin lid when I used the i-word.

‘If you’re going to make a serious accusation like that you should have a bit more to go on than the person in question buying contraception,’ said Olsen. ‘Do you?’

What could I say? That I had seen the shame in his eyes? A shame so powerful that for me it was stronger proof than anything?

‘So now you know,’ I said. ‘I suggest you have a chat with the daughter.’

Maybe I should have dropped the ‘suggest’. Maybe I should have known it sounded as though I was telling Olsen how to do his job. On the other hand, maybe I knew all this and went ahead and did it anyway. Whatever, Olsen’s voice went up a semitone and a decibel.

‘And I suggest you leave this to us, although I can tell you straight off we’ll probably go on prioritising more pressing cases.’ His tone of voice left room for my name at the end of his sentence, but he left it there. Churning through his brain was probably the thought that if I later turned out to be right and the sheriff’s office had done nothing then it would be easier for him if he could claim the tip-off that came in was anonymous. Anyway, I fell for it.

‘And what pressing cases might that be?’ I asked, and could have bitten my tongue off.

‘None of your business. In the meantime I suggest you keep this small-town gossip to yourself. We don’t need that type of hysteria here.’

I had to swallow and before I could say anything else John Denver was back.

I stood up and went back into the salon. Grete and her customer had moved to the washbasin where they were rinsing her hair and chatting away. I thought they always washed your hair before they cut it, but this here was clearly something different, some sort of chemical warfare was being waged against the hair, at any rate there were several tubes on the rim of the basin and they were too busy to notice me. I picked up the remote that was next to the door. Looked like Olsen had ten minutes to go. I pressed an upward-pointing arrow until the display showed twenty. Pressed the key above FACIAL TANNER and a display appeared showing a scale with one dot. Three taps on the arrow and it was on maximum. Those of us who work in the service industries know how important it is for people to feel they’re getting value – and plenty of it – for their money.

As I passed Grete and the customer I picked up the words: ‘…jealous now, because of course he was in love with his little brother.’

Grete’s face stiffened when she noticed me, but I merely nodded and pretended not to have heard.

Out in the fresh air I thought how this was like a fucking repeat. Everything had happened before. Everything would happen again. And with the same result.

NOT EVEN THE VILLAGE’S ANNUAL fete ever attracted such a crowd. We’d placed six hundred chairs in the main function room at the village hall and still some people had to stand. I turned in my seat and looked towards the back of the hall, pretending to be looking out for someone. Everyone was there. Mari with her husband Dan Krane, who was scanning the place himself with his journalist’s eye. Willum Willumsen the used-car dealer with his tall, elegant wife Rita, who towered a full head above him even when they were seated. The new chairman Voss Gilbert, who also refereed Os Football Club’s home games, not that it seemed to do any good. Erik Nerell with his very pregnant wife Thea. Sheriff Kurt Olsen too, his scorched face glowing like a red lantern. His hate-filled gaze met mine. Grete Smitt had brought along Mr and Mrs Smitt, I could just see them shuffling speedily across the car park on their way in. Natalie Moe was sitting between her parents. I tried to catch her father’s eye, but he had already looked away. Maybe because he suspected I knew. Or maybe because he knew that everyone knew that his roofing business had gone bust and that if he invested in the hotel project it would be an insult to every one of his creditors in the village. But he could probably get away with just turning up at the meeting. Most of those present had probably come out of curiosity, not out of any desire to invest. Yes, Jo Aas the old council chairman hadn’t seen the place so packed since the seventies, when Preacher Armand was making the rounds. Aas was standing at the podium looking out at the gathering. Tall, and thin and skinny as a flagpole. His upward-arching birch-white eyebrows seemed to reach higher and higher with each passing year.

‘There was a time when entertainment such as talking in tongues and the healing of the sick and lame was every bit as popular as the films on show at the village cinema,’ said Aas. ‘And what’s more it was free.’

The laughter duly came.

‘Now you haven’t come here to listen to me, but to one of our own homecoming sons, Carl Abel Opgard. I don’t know whether his sermon will bring salvation and life everlasting to the village, you’ll have to make up your own minds about that. I have agreed to introduce this young man and his project because this village, at this moment in time, in the situation in which we find ourselves, should welcome any and every fresh initiative. We need new thinking. We need commitment. But we also need old thinking. The thinking that has stood the test of time, and has enabled us to go on living out here in these barren but beautiful villages. And so I ask you to listen with a mind both open and fair to a young man who has proved that a simple farm boy from these parts can also succeed in the big wide world. Carl, the stage is yours!’

Thunderous applause, though it was noticeably muted by the time Carl reached the podium and was probably more for Aas than him. Carl was wearing a suit and tie, but he’d taken off the jacket and rolled up his sleeves. He’d modelled the outfit at home, asked for our opinions. Shannon wondered why he wouldn’t wear the jacket, and I explained it was because Carl had seen American presidential candidates trying to be folksy when addressing factory workers on the campaign trail.

‘They wear windjammers and baseball caps,’ said Shannon.

‘It’s a question of finding just the right balance,’ said Carl. ‘We don’t want to seem stuffy and pompous, we’re from round here, after all, where people drive tractors and walk around in rubber boots. But at the same time we need to appear serious and professional. You don’t turn up for a confirmation here not wearing a tie, and if you do it’s obvious you don’t get it. That I have a jacket, but have taken it off, is a way of signalling that I respect the task ahead and take it seriously, at the same time as I’m keen, fired up, ready to get cracking.’

‘Not scared to get your hands dirty,’ I said.

‘Exactly,’ said Carl.

On the way out to the car Shannon had whispered to me with a chuckle in her voice: ‘You know what, I thought the expression was to get dirt under your nails. Is that completely wrong?’

‘Depends what you were trying to say,’ I answered.