He takes a deep breath in the bathroom, where the air is still warm and moist after the shower he took half an hour ago. Shaving cream and a razor lie next to the sink which now has a rim of stubble and foam.
Before he leaves, he checks that everything he needs is in place in his pockets. The most important thing you need to bring is your head, Jarle Hogseth used to say. That may be true, Henning thinks, but it’s not a bad idea to pack some tools as well. He needs to keep his wits about him now, even though he has made good use of them recently. He has reviewed every conversation and every encounter. Dr Helge and 6tiermes7 have both provided invaluable help and pieces for the jigsaw, but he doesn’t know if it’s enough.
He hopes to know the answer in a couple of hours.
*
Ris Church was consecrated in 1932. It is a beautiful stone church in Roman style. The church bells, all three of them, are already tolling when Henning arrives by taxi. He gets out and mixes with the mourners.
He enters the church and is given an order of service leaflet with Henriette Hagerup’s name and smiling face on the cover. He recognises the photograph. It was displayed on Henriette’s shrine outside the college last week. He remembers thinking that she looked intelligent. He takes a seat on a pew right at the back and refrains from staring at the mourners. He doesn’t want to look at anyone or talk to anyone. Not yet.
The ceremony is beautiful, dignified, subdued and sad. The vicar’s monotonous voice fills the church, accompanied by suppressed sniffling and silent weeping. Henning tries not to think about the last time he was in church, the last time he heard people mourn the loss of a child, but the thoughts are impossible to block out. Even when the vicar is speaking, he can hear the tune of ‘Little Friend’.
Fifteen minutes into the ceremony, he gets up and leaves. The atmosphere, the smell, the sounds, the black clothes, the faces, everything takes him two years back in time, to when he sat in another church, at the front, wondering if he could be put back together, if he would ever be human again.
He hasn’t moved on, he realises, as he comes out into the porch. He dreads to think about what lies ahead, his future, the unfinished business he has been too traumatised to face. But now that he knows his brain is working again, he can ignore it no longer. I can’t let it go, he thinks, I need to do something about the gnawing in my chest, this nagging clockwork which ticks away inside me; it will never release me and let me be swallowed up in the peaceful ground and close my eyes with a feeling of completion.
Because I know I’m right.
He loosens his tie a little as he comes outside and feels the fresh wind on his face. He steps away from the entrance. The vicar’s voice carries right through the open doors. A gardener is tidying up a nearby grave and making it look nice. Henning wanders around the graves. The grass is newly mown, its colours lush and green, and all shrubs are trimmed meticulously.
He strolls to the back of the church, where the gravestones are lined up like teeth. He thinks it has been a long time since he last visited Jonas, but pushes the thought aside when he sees her.
Anette is standing in front of the rectangular hole in the ground, where Henriette Hagerup will be laid to rest. Even now, Anette is carrying her backpack. A sudden onset of nerves sweeps through his body as he decides to join her. There is no one around. She is wearing a black skirt and black blazer over her blouse, which is also black.
Anette turns as he approaches from behind.
‘So you couldn’t stand it inside, either?’ she says and flashes him a smile.
‘Hi, Anette,’ he says, stops next to her and looks down into the hole.
‘I hate funerals,’ she begins. ‘I think it’s better to say goodbye like this, out here, before the hysteria begins.’
He nods. Neither of them speaks for a while.
‘I hadn’t expected to see you here,’ she says, finally looking at him. ‘Dull day was it?’
‘No,’ he replies. ‘I’m right where I need to be.’
‘What do you mean?’
He takes a step closer to the edge of the hole and looks at it again. He is reminded of Kolbein Falkeid’s poem, which Vamp set to music: When evening falls, I quietly embark and my lifeboat is lowered six foot down.
Twenty-three years, he thinks. Henriette Hagerup only lived for twenty-three years. He wonders if she had time to feel that she had had a life.
He sticks his hand into his jacket pocket.
‘You thought you had remembered everything,’ he says, meeting Anette’s eyes. Her cautious smile melts into an uneasy twitch in the corner of her mouth. He can see his words have taken her by surprise. Good, he intended them to. He waits until the dramatic effect is complete.
‘What?’
‘I couldn’t understand why you suddenly became so helpful and obliging. You drove me up to Ekeberg Common, right in the middle of a rainstorm. At that point, Stefan’s death wasn’t public knowledge. But you knew about it. You knew because you were the last person to see him alive. You knew because you talked him into taking his own life.’
She raises her eyebrows.
‘What the hell are you — ’
‘You suffer from epilepsy, don’t you?’
Anette shifts her weight from one leg to the other.
‘Can I have a look in your backpack?’
‘What — no.’
‘Epileptics are often prescribed Orfiril. I bet you have Orfiril in there,’ he says, pointing to her backpack. ‘Or perhaps you’ve run out?’
She doesn’t reply, but sends him a look that suggests he has wounded her deeply.
‘Orfiril tablets look just like this,’ he says and pulls out a bag of Knott from his suit pocket. He takes out a small, white pastille and holds it up.
‘Stefan had already let the cat out of the bag to his parents. You were going to prison for a long time, both of you. You saw a chance for Stefan to take all the credit. Or was that your plan all along?’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘I stepped on one of these, when I found Stefan dead in his bed,’ he says, and shows her the sweets. ‘Orfiril mixed with alcohol is a lethal cocktail. But the only one who took Orfiril was Stefan. You swallowed a fistful of sweets. Yum. After all, you enjoy eating them all at once. The only problem with Knott is that sometimes they fall out of the bag or you spill some when you’re trying to swallow a handful.’
Anette shakes her head and holds up her hands.
‘This is beyond me. I’m leaving.’
‘I know why you gave me a lift to Ekeberg Common,’ he says, following her. She turns and stares at him again. ‘You were nervous. You knew that Stefan had blabbed, you were scared he might have told his parents what really happened, revealed the name of his partner in crime. You couldn’t ask Stefan about it that afternoon — he would have twigged that you were up to something — that the suicide pact wasn’t genuine, at least not as far as you were concerned. That’s why you offered to drive me: it gave you a reason to be there and find out how much his parents knew. That’s why you appeared in the tent.’
Anette puts her hands on her hips. She is about to say something, but she stops.
‘And what a performance,’ he continues. ‘You realised that Ingvild didn’t know who you were. You were safe. And you knew that Ingvild had been raped, because Stefan had told you. You also knew that she had taken self- defence classes, that she had a stun gun and that she had been trained to react defensively if someone approached her from behind. Like you did in the tent. Such a compassionate gesture, placing your hand on her back, near her throat, to show kindness, but you did it because you knew what Ingvild would do, she would stun you and surely there can be no better way to remove suspicion from yourself than by becoming the next victim, even if you survive.’
Anette averts her eyes. He can tell from looking at her that it is true, though she hides it well. He is convinced she has been to the Foldviks’ flat more than once. That’s why she closed the curtains. She knew how it was overlooked from the street, from the flats opposite, and she also knew that the Foldviks had nosy neighbours. Every time a front door was opened, Mrs Steen’s curtains would twitch. That was why the front door was almost closed, but not shut. So no one would see or hear her.
Anette scratches her cheek and flicks aside strands of hair that have flopped into her eyes. Henning
