Small Keys, Big Rooms
‘Good grief,’ said Adam Stubo, stopping dead in the doorway. ‘Did I wake you up?’
Lukas Lysgaard blinked and shook his head.
‘No,’ he mumbled. ‘Or rather, yes. I hardly slept last night, so I sat down here and…’
He raised his head, smiling wanly. Adam hardly recognized him. The broad shoulders were drooping. His hair was getting greasy, and he had dark, puffy bags around his eyes. A blood vessel had burst in his left eye, staining it bright red.
‘That’s understandable,’ said Adam, pulling out a chair on the opposite side of the table.
Lukas Lysgaard shrugged his shoulders. Adam didn’t really know whether it meant he didn’t care whether Adam understood or not, or if it was a kind of apology for the fact that he had fallen asleep.
‘The wolves are out,’ Adam said as he sat down. ‘After all, it was only a matter of time before the press found out.’
The other man nodded.
‘Have they been after you already?’ Adam asked, glancing at the clock which showed that it was a few minutes after half past eight.
The man nodded dully.
‘Anyway, I’m very grateful to you for coming in,’ said Adam, gesturing with one hand. ‘I see my colleague has taken care of the formalities. Has anyone offered you something to drink? Coffee? Water?’
‘No thanks. Why are you actually here?’
‘Me?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you mean?’
Lukas leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk.
‘You work for NCIS.’
Adam nodded.
‘NCIS is no longer what it was.’
‘No.’
Adam couldn’t understand what the man was getting at.
‘As far as I understand it, NCIS exists primarily to combat organized crime. Do you think it was the Mafia that killed my mother?’
‘No, no, no!’
For a brief moment Adam thought the man was serious. A humourless, almost imperceptible smile made him change his mind.
‘The very best resources have been allocated to this enquiry,’ he said, pouring himself a coffee from a Thermos. ‘Including me. How’s your father?’
No reply.
‘My intention is to give you some information to begin with,’ said Adam, pushing a thin file across the desk.
Lukas Lysgaard showed no sign of wanting to open it.
‘Your mother died of a stab wound. To the heart. This means that she died very quickly.’
Adam watched the other man’s face, looking for any indication that he ought to break off.
‘She had no other injuries apart from a few grazes, which in all probability are due to the fall itself. Therefore it seems likely that she did not offer any form of resistance.’
‘She was…’ Lukas raised a clenched fist to his mouth and coughed. ‘She was sixty-two years old. You can hardly expect her to put up much resistance when some man attacked her.’ He coughed again, then quickly added: ‘Or woman. I assume that happens from time to time.’
‘Absolutely.’ Adam nodded and stroked his cheek, wondering whether he ought to take back the untouched file. The silence between them went on for just a little bit too long. It became embarrassing, and Adam realized that Lukas Lysgaard’s fairly unfriendly attitude had hardly changed over the past twenty-four hours. He was staring at the desk with his arms folded.
‘My wife is a criminologist,’ Adam said suddenly. ‘And a lawyer. And she’s studied psychology as well.’
Lukas at least looked up, a furrow of surprise creasing his brow.
‘She’s quite a lot younger than me,’ Adam added.
Neither the most reluctant witness nor the most hostile thug could manage to remain unmoved when Adam started talking about his family for no particular reason. It seemed so unprofessional that the person being interviewed was annoyed, surprised, or quite simply interested.
‘She sometimes says…’ Adam picked up his cup and took a slow, noisy slurp. ‘She would rather her nearest and dearest died after a long, painful illness than as the victim of a crime, however quick it might be.’
As he spoke he felt the usual pang of conscience as he misrepresented Johanne, saddling her with views she didn’t hold. It disappeared when he saw Lukas’s reaction.
‘What does she mean…? What do you mean by that? It’s terrible to wish something like that on someone you love, and-’
‘It is, isn’t it? I agree with you. But what she means is that the family of someone who has been the victim of a crime is subjected to a detailed investigation, and that can be a terrible strain. When someone dies of other causes, then…’
Adam held up his hands, palms facing outwards.
‘… then it’s all over. The family is overwhelmed with sympathy, and no one asks questions. Quite the reverse, my wife stubbornly maintains. A death from natural causes has the effect of laying to rest any secrets the family might have. However, when the deceased is the victim of a crime…’
He shook his head ruefully and stuck an imaginary key in an imaginary keyhole.
‘Everything has to be brought out into the open. That’s what she means. Not that I agree with her, as I said, but she is right to a certain extent. Don’t you think?’
Lukas peered at him without giving any indication of whether he agreed or not. Adam held his gaze.
‘I assume,’ Lukas said suddenly, leaning across the desk, ‘that what you’re trying to tell me is that there are secrets in my family that could explain why my mother was stabbed and murdered out in the street!’ His voice cracked at the end of the sentence. ‘That she’s the guilty party, somehow! That my mother, the kindest, most thoughtful…’
His voice broke and he started to cry. Adam sat motionless with the coffee cup in his right hand and a pen balanced between the index and middle fingers of his left hand.
‘I don’t think my mother had any secrets,’ said Lukas in despair, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘Not my mother. Not her.’
Still Adam said nothing.
‘My mother and father loved each other more than anything in the world,’ Lukas went on. ‘They’ve had their disagreements, just like everyone else, but they’ve been married since they were nineteen. That’s…’ He sobbed as he worked it out. ‘That’s more than forty years! They’ve been married for more than forty years, and you come along claiming there are all these secrets between them! It’s… it’s…’
Adam made a few brief notes on the pad in front of him, then pushed it away so that it fell on the floor. When he picked it up, he put it back on the table face down.
‘You’ve got a nerve,’ Lukas said harshly. ‘Insinuating that my mother-’
‘I apologize if that’s the way you see it,’ Adam said. ‘That wasn’t my intention. But it’s very interesting that you immediately defend your parents’ marriage when I talk in completely general terms about the fact that everyone has experiences they don’t want to share with other people. Something they’ve done. Something they haven’t done. Something that might have made them enemies. Something that has harmed others. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that…’
He let the sentence dangle in the air in the hope that it was sufficiently vague.
‘My parents don’t have any enemies,’ said Lukas, clearly making an effort to pull himself together. ‘On the
