Norwegian by Night

Anything else, at any rate.

She opens the front door to the building and proceeds past the crime scene to the left, up the staircase to the second floor where the woman lived with her son. She steps through the tape, unlocks the front door, and goes inside. Sigrid removes her shoes, turns on the lights, and visits each room, looking for anything interesting — anything that might not have appeared in her report.

According to the rental agent, the apartment occupies sixty-seven square metres. From the front door there is a short entry hall, with a bathroom straight ahead. The bedroom is to the left, and she goes there first.

The apartment, which has been officially taped off, given its centrality to the investigation, has already been closely examined by Tomas and a new forensic specialist named Hilde. Thus far she’d been doing a good job, despite a nervous sort of officiousness that comes with too much respect for authority, which can interfere with one’s work with data — not good for a forensic specialist.

Sigrid has a folder containing copies of the photos taken here at the scene, and summaries of the reports already filed, which were thorough enough. But Sigrid wants to see it all for herself — to get a feel for the space where this small family of two once shared each other’s company, talked of small things, enjoyed small pleasures.

The medium-sized bedroom has a queen-size bed pressed into the far corner, and a single pushed into the opposite corner. The beds are unmade. The room is untidy, but not unclean. To the right of the hall is a very thin galley kitchen that has not been renovated since the 1970s. The cabinets are cheap, and there is a small, two- person table at the far end where Sigrid presumes the mother and son would eat together and talk about his school days. There are dishes in the sink, and the table is flimsy. But the surface is clean.

The second door on the right leads to the living room.

Her officers seem to have done well. She kneels on the carpet to look closely for footprints from standard- issue boots, but does not see any. Petter and the boys don’t seem to have tracked in any dirt either. There are numbers on items all around the room, and it all looks familiar from the photos.

The bathroom contains only female and child products. The larger containers — shampoo, bubble bath, talcum powder — are from the bargain end of the cost spectrum. The smaller ones are higher-end samples. In a basket there is a pile of perfume testers that have been torn from women’s magazines.

Behind the toilet, there is very little grime and little dust. The soap dish had been rinsed after its last use. There is a plastic bin of Q-tips with the lid removed, and a boy’s toothbrush in fairly new condition. The paste has been consistently squeezed from the bottom.

In the kitchen, there is no candy and only one box of sugary cereal. There are no soft drinks, but lots of fruit-flavoured syrups. There is some pasta and tomato sauce. In the freezer, there’s an inexpensive ice-cream and one pint of Haagen-Dazs cookies & cream.

Sigrid reaches in and takes it out. It is almost full. There are five small valleys that have been dug out by an experienced hand. By someone who loves this, but can’t afford the luxury, and so takes it with discipline and solitary pleasure as her son eats the other stuff.

She places it back in the freezer.

You were a good mother, and you loved your son. Whatever else, this is true.

Sigrid puts her shoes back on, turns out the lights, and closes the door behind her — feeling, though, as if she’s forgotten to do something.

The staircase is made of treated hardwood. The edges are worn from hundreds of people having stepped on them thousands of times since the building was restored in 1962, when it was converted from a cooperative into condominiums.

She turns on the landing, and steps down the second flight to visit the crime scene itself. The names ‘Rhea Horowitz’ and ‘Lars Bjornsson’ are on the black plastic-insert above the door bell.

The police seal is broken. Sigrid removes her hand and stares at the door handle. She stares at it for quite some time.

The door should be closed. If any of her officers were posted inside, she’d have been notified.

Did she not post a guard at the door? There are officers in a van outside watching the premises, but no one directly at the door. This might have been a good idea, in retrospect.

There are some plausible explanations for the door being open.

Perhaps the old man has returned. One assumes he has a key. Or perhaps the whole family has returned. They shouldn’t have. But people act impulsively. It is illegal to enter a crime scene, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Given what’s happening to them all, it would be understandable if not permissible. Or there has been someone else in the flat.

Or there is someone in the flat right now.

She shakes her head. She knows right away that her father would never approve of this. Not only the action, but the logic that supports the action.

There’s also a possibility that the landlord is in there right now, wearing women’s undergarments. There’s a further possibility that a drug addict is stealing jewellery. There’s a possibility that a boatload of recent Chinese immigrants without a television are watching Russia vs Finland at hockey and placing bets over beer.

You have no idea what’s behind that door. You can’t just pick the options within your field of vision. Reality comes from everywhere. At best, you can narrow down the likelihoods. But in the end, it’s not a matter of deduction. It’s a matter of fact. One bullet will kill you if you’re stupid or unlucky. So at least don’t be stupid.

This is what her father would say.

Sigrid removes her radio from her belt and calls in the intrusion. She does this very quietly. The radio crackles and then returns to silence.

Sigrid presses her ear to the door and listens.

She just isn’t sure. She stands outside the door for a few minutes, playing with things on her utility belt. She’s always liked the utility belt. It carries a lot of weight, but rests rather nicely on her hips.

The button on the mace has a nice crisp click to it. The handcuffs don’t jiggle, but rather stay snug in the black pouch. Everything is well designed. These are the little things that people do to make the world a bit better, but for which they never receive thanks.

If she had a gun, it would really throw off the weight. She figures that’s why the cowboys tie it to their thighs.

‘Right. That’s it.’

Sigrid opens the door widely, but doesn’t step in.

The crime scene is familiar to her. It has been described in all the poorly spelled reports she’s received. She has seen dozens of photos, and watched a video walk-through that they have started using. One industrious cadet has even rendered it in a CAD program so they can walk through it and imagine scenarios.

But she has not experienced the apartment before. The murder scene. There is no explaining why we see things differently in person, but we do. She travelled to Florence once. She saw the David, a figure so visually familiar, but in person it left her speechless.

The floors have been refinished with wide Danish planks. Walls have been knocked down, creating a cavernous space through the living room and kitchen, which is tastefully appointed in stainless steel and maple. There’s an oversized American refrigerator and an island in the middle with a grill. The stove is fuelled by natural gas. This is a rarity in Oslo, as the city is not equipped for it. Lars must go trekking out every few months for a new blue canister.

Sigrid does not step in. Instead, with the door open, she steps back and looks through the space along the hinges for anyone who might be standing there with a knife.

She looks at her watch. She has been standing in the hall for eight minutes. It is, she thinks, long enough.

Sigrid steps into the room. It feels as though she is drawn in by a whisper from the dead and the promise of a revelation.

She removes her shoes in the hall and flicks on all the lights as she passes them, surveying the room. It is fresh, bright, and feels lived in by people who are worldly and cosmopolitan. Also somewhat foreign. There is a wine rack of some twenty bottles, with the reds higher up than the whites. Four different olive oils sit beside the stove.