The Vik-Stubo family had never had curtains in the living room. It didn’t bother them that people could look in from the street, and the room felt lighter for it. However, she had recently begun to imagine something hanging there, something not too heavy. Something to stop passers-by from looking in. The people she didn’t know, but who were out there. The rational part of her brain knew that a man by a garden fence, a friendly man in a toy shop and a missing file didn’t exactly constitute stalking. But her gut feeling said something completely different.
Angrily, she started sweeping the snow off her car with her bare hands. Her fingers quickly grew stiff with cold, but she didn’t stop until the car was completely clear. Then she started kicking away the compacted pile left by the snowplough. Her toes were sore and her ankles ached by the time she finally decided it would be possible for her to get the car out.
She flopped down on the driver’s seat, stuck the key in the ignition and turned it. She pulled out much too quickly into the road, driving over all the snow she hadn’t cleared away. She skidded and shot off, travelling at twice the speed limit. At the first junction she realized what she was doing, and slammed the brakes on just in time to avoid a collision with a lorry coming from the right.
She sat there leaning forward, her hands resting on the wheel. The adrenaline made her brain crystal-clear. She could plainly see how absurd it was to think anyone would be interested in watching a fourteen-year-old girl from Tasen.
As soon as she put the car back in gear once more, she felt less worried.
‘You mustn’t worry because there isn’t enough to do,’ the secretary said sweetly, handing Kristen Faber a file. ‘If a client doesn’t turn up, it gives you time to do so many other things. Tidying your desk, for example. It’s rather a mess in there.’
The solicitor grabbed the file and opened it as he headed for the door of his office. A miasma of sweat, aftershave and neat alcohol lingered in the air around the secretary’s desk. She opened a drawer and took out an air-freshener spray. Soon the smell of last night’s boozing mingled with the intense perfume of lily of the valley. She sniffed the air and pulled a face before putting away the aerosol.
‘Hasn’t he even called?’ shouted Kristen Faber, before a coughing fit saved her the trouble of replying. Instead she got to her feet, picked up a steaming cup of coffee from a low filing cabinet behind her and followed him into his office.
‘No,’ she said when he had finished spitting phlegm into an overflowing waste-paper basket. ‘I expect something came up. Here. Drink this.’
As Kristen Faber took the cup, he almost spilled the coffee.
‘This fear of flying is too bloody much,’ he muttered. ‘Had to drink all the way back from fucking Barbados.’
The secretary, a slim, pleasant woman in her sixties, could well imagine that there had been a great deal of fucking in Barbados. She also knew he hadn’t restricted his drinking to the duration of the flight.
She had worked for Kristen Faber for almost nine years. Just the two of them, plus one part-timer. On paper they shared the offices with three other solicitors, but the way the rooms were divided meant she could go for days without seeing the others. Faber’s office had its own entrance, reception and toilet. As his office was quite spacious, she rarely had to organize coffee and mineral water in the large conference room they all shared.
Twice a year, in July and at Christmas, Kristen Faber took a holiday. Along with a group from his university years – all men, all divorced and well off – he travelled to luxury destinations in order to behave as if he were still twenty-five. Apart from his financial position, of course. He came back in the same state every time. It took him a week to get back to normal, but then he didn’t touch a drop until it was time for the next trip with the lads. The secretary assumed he suffered from a particular type of alcoholism. But she could live with it.
‘Was the flight on time?’ she asked, mainly for something to say.
‘No. We landed at Gardermoen two hours ago, and if it hadn’t been for this appointment I would have gone home to have a shower and change my clothes. Fuck.’ He sipped at the black coffee. ‘Could I have a drop more, please? And I think you could postpone my two o’clock. I have to…’
He raised his arm and sniffed at his armpit. Salty sweat rings were clearly visible against the dark fabric of his suit. He recoiled.
‘Pooh! I have to go home!’
‘As you wish,’ said the secretary with a smile. ‘You have a client at three o’clock as well. Will you be back by then?’
‘Yes.’ He glanced at his watch and hesitated briefly. ‘I’ll tell you what. Postpone my two o’clock until half past, and then the three o’clock can wait a little while.’
She fetched the coffee pot and put down a little dish of chocolates. He was already busy leafing through some papers, and didn’t say thank you.
‘Bloody man,’ he mumbled, glancing over the documents in the thin file. ‘He was adamant he needed to see me as soon as I got back.’
The secretary didn’t reply, and went back to her own office.
This headache was killing him. He stuck his thumb in one eye and his index finger in the other. The pressure didn’t help at all. Nor did the coffee; the combination of caffeine and alcohol was giving him palpitations.
The tray containing ongoing cases was overflowing. When he put the latest file on top, it slid off and fell on the floor. He got up crossly and retrieved it. He thought for a moment, opened a drawer and slipped the file inside. Then he closed the drawer and left the room.
‘Shall I ring this…?’ The secretary was looking at the diary over her half-moon glasses. ‘Niclas Winter,’ she went on. ‘To arrange another appointment, I mean. As you say, he did make an enormous fuss and-’
‘No. Wait until he rings us. I’ve got enough to do this week. If he can’t even be bothered to cancel, then tough.’
He picked up the large suitcase which he had thrown down when he arrived, and disappeared without closing the door behind him. He hadn’t asked his secretary one single question about how her Christmas had been, visiting her children and grandchildren in Thailand. She sat there listening to his footsteps on the stairs. The suitcase bumped on every step. It sounded as if he had three legs and a limp.
Then, at last, there was silence.
The heavy snow muffled every sound. It was as if the peace of Christmas still lay over the area. Rolf Slettan had chosen to walk home from work, even though it took an hour and a half to get from the veterinary surgery on Skoyen to the house on Holmenkollen Ridge. The pavements were almost a metre deep in soft snow, and for the last two kilometres he had been forced to walk in the narrow track left in the middle of the road by the snowplough. The few cars that came slithering along from time to time forced him to clamber up on to the still- white mounds of snow at either side. He was breathing heavily, and soaked in sweat. Even so, he began to run when he reached the final stretch.
From a distance the house looked like a scene from a film about the Nazis. The white cap of snow hung down over the edges of the portico, partly hiding the rough-hewn text:
He stopped in the turning area outside the portico. Marcus probably wasn’t home yet. A layer of virgin snow some ten centimetres deep revealed that no one had come or gone for quite some time. Little Marcus had gone home with a classmate, and wouldn’t be back until about eight o’clock. The house was dark and silent, but several wrought-iron exterior lights provided a welcoming glow, making the snow sparkle. The turf roof was buried in snow. The dragons sticking out their tongues looked as if they might take off at any moment on their new white wings.
He was brushing the snow off his trouser legs when a tyre track caught his attention. A car had turned in and swung in a wide circle in front of the portico. It couldn’t have been long ago. Crouching down, he could still make out the tyre pattern. Someone had probably pulled in to give way to oncoming traffic, he thought. As he stood up
