‘There’s no end to days like today.’
Now it was Adam’s turn not to say anything.
‘A meeting in ten minutes,’ Warren insisted. ‘Salhus, you and me. No one else.’
‘I don’t know how many times I have to explain to you that this is a police investigation,’ Adam said in exasperation. ‘The Chief of Police or one of his people has to be there too.’
‘If you say so,’ Warren said crisply. Adam could just imagine him shrugging his shoulders with indifferent arrogance.
‘Shall we say quarter past eleven, then?’
‘Come to Police HQ. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Then we can see if the Chief of Police is about, and whether Peter Salhus is available.’
‘They should be,’ Warren said and hung up.
Adam sat there and stared at the phone. The display panel went dark after a few seconds. He felt a peculiar rage. His stomach was acid and painful. He was ravenous and furious. For a start, it was he who had every reason to be angry with Warren, but the American had still managed in some way to manipulate the situation so that Adam was inferior. It seemed that Warren believed absolutely that he was not dependent on anyone, just like his country, and therefore had no reason to be ashamed of being caught lying outright.
Adam’s phone rang again.
He swallowed when he saw Johanne’s name flashing in blue on the display. He let it ring four times. His eardrums were ringing; he could feel his blood pressure rising. He tried to keep his breathing even and pushed the green icon.
‘Hi,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘You’re calling late.’
‘Hi,’ she said, equally softly. ‘How are you?’
‘OK, I guess. Exhausted, of course, but then we all are.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Where are
‘Adam,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I’m really sorry about this morning. I was just so hurt and sad and angry and-’
‘It’s all right. The most important thing is that I know where you are. And when you’re coming home. I can come and collect you in… an hour or so. Maybe two.’
‘No, you can’t.’
‘I’ll-’
‘It’s eleven o’clock already, Adam. You know what happens when you wake Ragnhild in the middle of the night.’
Adam pressed his thumb against one eye and his index finger against the other. He said nothing. Red circles and spots danced around in the empty blackness behind his eyelids. He felt heavier than ever, as if the surplus fat in his body had turned to lead. The bench hurt his back and his right leg was about to fall asleep.
‘Please just let me know where you are,’ he said.
‘I simply can’t do that.’
‘Ragnhild is my daughter. It’s my right and my duty to know where she is. At all times.’
‘Adam-’
‘No! I might not be able to force you to come home, Johanne, and you’re right, it would be stupid to wake Ragnhild in the middle of the night, but… I want to know where you are!’
The drake woke up and flapped its wings. A couple of the other ducks joined in.
‘Something has happened,’ Johanne said. ‘Something that-’
‘Are you both OK?’
‘Yes,’ she answered swiftly and clearly. ‘We’re both fine. But I can’t tell you where I am, no matter how much I might want to. OK?’
‘No.’
‘Adam-’
‘It’s out of the question, Johanne. You and I are not like that. We don’t just disappear with the children and refuse to tell the other where we are. That’s just not us.’
She was silent on the other end.
‘If I say where I am,’ she said eventually, ‘can you promise to believe me and not try to come and find me before I say you can?’
‘To tell you the truth, I’m getting a bit fed up with all these promises you keep asking me to make,’ he said, trying to keep his pulse slow. ‘Adult life is not like that! Shit happens and things change. You can’t just make a promise and…’
He stopped when he realised that Johanne was crying. Her quiet sniffs made scratching noises on the phone and he felt an icy finger run down his spine.
‘Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?’ he asked, holding his breath.
‘Something has happened,’ she sobbed. ‘But I’ve promised not to say anything. It’s nothing to do with Ragnhild or me, so you can…’
She was overcome with tears. Adam tried to get up from the bench, but his right leg had now gone to sleep. He pulled a face, supported himself on the back of the bench and got up after a fashion so he could shake some life into his dead leg.
‘My love,’ he said gently. ‘I promise. I promise I won’t come to find you until you say I can, and I promise I won’t ask any more questions. But where are you?’
‘I’m at Hanne Wilhelmsen’s,’ she said and sobbed. ‘In Krusesgate. I don’t know the number, but I’m sure you can find out.’
‘What… what the hell are you doing with-’
‘You promised, Adam. You promised not to-’
‘OK, OK,’ he said quickly. ‘That’s fine.’
‘Night night, then.’
‘Good night.’
‘Bye.’
‘Bye.’
‘Love you.’
‘Mmm.’
He stood with the phone against his ear for a long time once she had hung up. There was a light drizzle in the air. His leg was still buzzing with pins and needles. The duck family had set off for a swim; they didn’t dare to have him nearby any more.
Why do I always let myself be taken in? he asked himself, and started to hobble towards the ruins of Maria Church, over the wet, newly cut grass. Why is it always me who has to back down? Always! For everyone!
XXVIII
‘Here? This door here?
DI Silje Sorensen stared at the terrified thirty-year-old and tried to hide her irritation. ‘Are you certain that it was this door?’
He nodded frantically.
She could, of course, understand the man’s fear. He was originally from Pakistan, but was a Norwegian citizen now. All his papers were in order, as far as he was concerned. But that was not the case for the young Pakistani woman whom he had recently married. She had been deported from Norway as a teenager for having stayed illegally in the country. A year later she was arrested at Gardermoen, carrying false papers and a neat little consignment of heroin in her luggage. She had pleaded that she had been forced to do it by the dealers, who would now kill her, and unbelievably she got away with simply being deported again, this time for ever. However, it didn’t stop her father from getting her married to a second cousin with a Norwegian passport. She had been smuggled
