‘And how is my favourite girl?’ Sigmund interrupted.
Adam’s colleague had been steadfastly in love with Johanne for several years, and that clearly hadn’t changed. It normally blossomed only in the form of sheer delight every time he saw or spoke to her. After a few drinks he might come out with clumsy compliments and the odd unwelcome fumble. On one occasion Johanne had slapped him hard across the face when he had grabbed her breast after getting roaring drunk on his hosts’ cognac. For some bizarre reason she still seemed to like him, somehow.
‘Fine,’ said Adam. ‘Call round some time.’
‘Great! What about this weekend? That would fit in really well-’
‘Ring me when you’ve got something new,’ Adam broke in. ‘Got to go. Bye.’
Just as he was about to end the call he heard Sigmund’s electronically distorted voice: ‘Hang on! Don’t go.’
Adam put the phone to his ear again.
‘What is it?’
‘I just wanted to say that not all the letters are about gay stuff.’
‘No?’
‘Some are about abortion.’
‘Abortion?’
‘Yes, the Bishop was pretty fanatical about it, you know.’
‘But what are they writing? And more to the point, who’s writing?’
Sigmund had finally finished eating.
‘It’s all a bit of a mixture. Anyway, those letters aren’t as aggressive. More kind of bitter. There’s one from a woman who wishes she’d never been born. Her mother was raped, and because she was so young at the time, she didn’t dare say anything until it was too late. Everything went wrong for the kid from the day she was born.’
‘Hm. A person who complains to the Bishop about the fact that she actually exists?’
‘Yep.’
‘But what did she actually want?’
‘She wanted to try to convince the Bishop that abortion can be justified. Something along those lines. I don’t really know. A lot of the letters are from total nut jobs, Adam. I agree with you – I don’t think we should take too much notice of them. But since we haven’t got much else to go on, we need to have a closer look at them. Are you coming up here soon?’
Adam clamped the phone between his head and shoulder. Opened the drawer, grabbed one of the chocolate bars and tore off the wrapper.
‘Not until next week, probably. But we’ll talk before then. Bye.’
He put down the phone and broke the bar into four pieces. Slowly he began to eat. He let every piece lie on his tongue for ages, sucking rather than chewing. When he had finished one piece, he picked up the next. It took him five minutes to enjoy every last bit, and he finished off by licking his fingers clean.
His mood improved. His blood sugar rose and he felt clear-headed. When he realized a few seconds later that he had just consumed 216 empty calories he was so upset that he grabbed his coat and switched off the light. It was Wednesday 7 January, and seven days on starvation rations was enough for this time.
He would allow himself a decent dinner, anyway.
Rage
At around dinner time on 9 January the doorbell rang at a grey-painted house on Hystadveien in Sandefjord.
Synnove Hessel was lying on the sofa. She was in a state somewhere between sleep and reality, in a haze of melancholy dreams. She couldn’t sleep at night. The darkest hours felt both interminable and wasted. She couldn’t search for Marianne when everyone else was asleep and everything was closed, but at the same time it was impossible to get any rest. The days just got worse and worse. From time to time she dozed off, as she had now.
There wasn’t much else to do.
Their joint bank account hadn’t been touched. Synnove hadn’t yet managed to gain access to Marianne’s account. She had contacted every hospital in Norway, but without success. There were no more friends to ring. Even the most casual acquaintances and distant relatives had been asked if they had heard anything from Marianne since 19 December. Two days ago Synnove had gathered her courage and finally phoned her in-laws. The last time she heard from them had been a terrible letter they had sent when it became clear that Marianne was going to leave her husband to move in with a woman. The call had been a waste of time. As soon as Marianne’s mother had realized who was calling she launched into a venomous, two-minute tirade before slamming the phone down. Synnove didn’t even have time to tell her why she was calling.
And Marianne was still missing.
Synnove had hardly eaten for a week and a half. She had spent the days after Marianne’s disappearance searching for her. At night she went for long, long walks with the dogs. Now she didn’t even have the energy for that. For the last two days they had had to make do with the dog run in the garden. Yesterday evening she had forgotten to feed them. When she suddenly remembered, it was two o’clock in the morning. Her tears had frightened the alpha male, who had whimpered and paced around, demanding lots of attention before he was prepared to touch his food. In the end Synnove had crawled into one of the kennels and fallen asleep there with Kaja in her arms. She had woken up stiff with cold half an hour later.
The doorbell rang again.
Synnove didn’t move. She didn’t want visitors. A lot of people had tried, but not many had got past the door.
Ding-dong.
And again.
She got up awkwardly from the sofa and folded the woollen blanket. She massaged her stiff neck as she shuffled towards the door, ready to convince yet another friend that she wanted to be alone.
When she opened the door and saw Kjetil Berggren standing there, she felt dizzy with relief. They had found Marianne, she realized, and Kjetil had come here to give her the good news. It had all been a terrible misunderstanding, but Marianne would soon be home and everything would be just like before.
Kjetil Berggren’s expression was so serious. Synnove took a step backwards into the hallway. The front door opened wider. There was a woman standing behind him. She was probably around fifty, and was wearing a winter coat. Around her neck, where everyone else would have had a scarf to keep out the bitter January cold, she was wearing a priest’s collar.
The pastor was just as serious as the police officer.
Synnove took another step back before sinking to her knees and covering her face with her hands. Her nails dug into her skin, making blood-red stripes on both cheeks. She was howling, a constant, desperate lament that was like nothing Kjetil Berggren had ever heard before. Only when Synnove started banging her head on the stone floor did he try to lift her up. She hit out at him, and sank down once more.
And all the time that dreadful howling.
The intense sound of pain made the dogs in the backyard answer her. Six huskies howled like the wolves they almost were. The desolate chorus rose up to the low clouds, and could be heard all the way to Framnes on the other side of the grey, deserted, wintry fjord.
A siren sliced through the steady hum of the traffic as they stopped for a red light at a junction. In the rear- view mirror Lukas could see a blue flashing light, and he tried to manoeuvre the car closer to the pavement without encroaching on the pedestrian zone. The ambulance, travelling far too fast, came up on the outside of the
