Dreamless (29 page)

“Do you know what a perp like him could do in half an hour? He knows we’re after him. He’s desperate.”

“Fifteen minutes,” said Brattberg. “Don’t go in alone. I’m sending backup.”

Singsaker ended the call and walked toward the house. Even fifteen minutes seemed like an eternity. Maybe the killer had seen his car from the window and saw him get out. Singsaker didn’t even want to think about what the man might do if he panicked. By the time he reached the front door, he’d made up his mind.

I’ll just give the door a try, he thought. Reaching for the handle, he gave it a tug.

The door wasn’t locked, and it swung open.

*   *   *

Julie was filled with a wild and irrational hope. He’ll go past my door and back up the stairs, she thought. And he forgot to lock the door. She listened to his footsteps shuffling along the basement floor.

But suddenly he stopped and came back to her door. Slowly he opened it and again stepped inside.

“Come with me,” he said in a flat voice.

He grabbed her by the hair and dragged her into the other storage room. There he let her go, and she sank to the floor, sobbing. At that moment she almost wished he would kill her. She didn’t know if she could take any more. But then she saw the stun gun in his hand, and she realized that he planned to keep her alive a while longer.

When he spoke, there was an eerie calm in his voice.

“I need to sleep,” he said. “But first we need to move.”

He shifted the Taser to his left hand, closed his eyes for a second, and then aimed it at her.

That was when she heard it. Wasn’t that a noise upstairs? Someone opening the door? Footsteps crossing the floor? Had someone come into the house? Or was she hallucinating? She wanted to scream. Maybe she could warn them.

But before she could do that, the shock hit her.

*   *   *

Chief Inspector Singsaker paused to look through the open door, thinking about what he’d found the last time he’d entered a room uninvited.

No flies here, he thought. That’s something at least. Then he stepped inside and studied the entry hall. Someone had clearly fixed things up. The wardrobe, with its sliding door, and the newly painted whole walls made the place seem perfectly normal. But the living room in Heimdal had done the same thing. He sniffed at the air, drew it deep into his lungs. There was no stench of a corpse here, but he wasn’t sure that the police dogs, who could smell death even weeks later, would have agreed. Then he moved farther into the house.

He quickly discovered that the remodeling hadn’t made much progress. The kitchen cabinets were probably from the eighties or even older. The kitchen table was filled with clutter. Three freshly cut slices of bread had been left untouched. Next to them was an old laptop, and the monitor was on. If the computer had any screen savers, they hadn’t yet appeared, which might indicate that the laptop had been in use only moments ago. He noticed that the
Adresseavisen
Web site was on the screen, displaying the article about Heimdal.

Beside the laptop was a glass containing a clear liquid. At the bottom hovered two pale membranes. Singsaker had an idea of what they might be, and he suddenly felt nauseated, almost like a young, inexperienced policeman looking at his first murder victim. There was something appalling and yet very sad about the two vocal cords, as if they wanted to tell him something about the meaningless deeds they had witnessed, and about the life that had been lost because of them. But they were no longer capable of uttering a sound.

The final things he saw on the table removed any doubt that he was right. A cell phone and a Visa card belonging to Silje Rolfsen. Singsaker quickly surveyed the rest of the room. He reluctantly had to admit to himself what he was doing. He was making sure that Felicia hadn’t been here, that she had merely run away from him. Thankfully, he saw no sign of her.

He left everything where it was and went into the living room. There he found the same clutter. And the rest of the house was the same, but he found no indication that anyone was home.

Only the basement remained. He went downstairs without hearing a sound or seeing any other sign of life. When he opened the door to a storage room, he saw bloodstains on the floor. Then he opened the next door, and there he saw Julie Edvardsen. He had found her, but the girl didn’t move. Was she dead?

Singsaker ran to her and frantically tried to find the pulse in her neck.

Suddenly it felt like an enormous beast had launched itself at the back of his neck. His whole body tensed into a huge knot of muscles as fifty thousand volts coursed through him.

Then he fell on top of her and lay still.

*   *   *

When he opened his eyes, Brattberg was leaning over him.

“They’re gone. The man and the girl,” said Singsaker. “You got here too late. Am I right?”

Brattberg nodded.

“I told you not to go in alone,” she said, keeping her voice so low that the officers waiting outside the storage room couldn’t hear.

Her words held no reproach. Singsaker wasn’t stupid. He knew he had acted unprofessionally and that Brattberg had every reason to reprimand him. But he knew she wouldn’t do that until the case was solved. Then he could expect a shower of criticism, but most likely he would not be suspended for insubordination. Besides, they both knew that no one could rebuke Singsaker better than he could himself. And no one other than Brattberg and Singsaker would ever know what they had said on the phone right before he entered the house. He was also sure about one other thing. Neither of them could have predicted the result of his actions. There was always the chance that he might have been able to rescue the girl. If things had turned out differently, his action would have been viewed as the only right thing to do.

He rubbed the back of his neck, which felt unusually soft and tender.

What he’d meant to say to Brattberg was not that his colleagues had arrived too late.

I was the one who got here too late, he thought. I could have stopped him two days ago if I’d followed up on what Fredrik Alm told me instead of going after Høybråten. Not that I could have guessed that shoveled snow would be so important to the case, but somebody should have checked out the tip. If it weren’t for this miserable head of mine, Julie Edvardsen would now be safe.

31

So they were back
to square one.

“He has nowhere else to hide,” said Jensen, trying to be optimistic.

They were standing outside in the neatly shoveled driveway. It had started snowing again, and soon all of Jonas Røed’s work would be in vain. Singsaker had given a brief report about his entry into the house and how he’d been assaulted by Røed, who had apparently been hiding behind the door, waiting for him. Now the police officers were considering how to proceed.

“No place to hide, and yet he’s gone,” said Singsaker.

“We’ll find him,” said Brattberg.

“But will we find the girl?”

“Let’s hope so.” Brattberg turned to look at the house.

“At least we’ve learned a few more things,” Jensen interjected. “First of all, we’ve confirmed that he actually does own a car, an old red Saab 9000. The neighbor claimed that Røed rarely used it, but apparently he drove it into town this morning.”

“I saw it. The car was parked here when I arrived,” said Singsaker, and then he described what it looked like.

“Which means that he might have taken her with him, and theoretically they could be anywhere,” said Brattberg. “We need to send out an APB to all police patrols in the whole district to be on the lookout for this car.” She got out her cell.

“To think that he was right here all along. It’s no more than fifty yards from where we found Silje Rolfsen. He’s been right under our noses the whole time. He could have strolled across the street to the woods, carrying her over his shoulder, for God’s sake,” said Jensen. “No wonder there weren’t any traces of a parked car.”

While Jensen spoke, Brattberg called headquarters and swiftly issued orders.

Singsaker sighed heavily, lost in his own thoughts, as she ended the call.

“Grongstad has also found a number of interesting documents in Heimdal,” she told her colleagues as she put away her phone. “One of them is an old broadsheet, apparently the original that was stolen from the Gunnerus Library. That might give us some insight into the way Røed thinks. Could you get your friend at the library to have a look at it so we can confirm that it’s genuine? I’ve got it in the car.”

Singsaker went with Brattberg, who gave him the broadsheet. Then he got into his own car. His head was pounding as if his brain, not his heart, was what pumped the blood through his body. He castigated himself. He should have known that Røed would be inside the house. He thought of the freshly sliced bread on the kitchen table, and the PC, which had been on.

But now the man had escaped. Once again they were one crucial step behind him. And the only hope they had now was that Julie Edvardsen wasn’t dead. Singsaker hadn’t felt a pulse, but he supposed she’d been struck by the stun gun, just as he’d been. Røed still had her, and Singsaker could only hope she was still alive.

But where was he? They’d found his two hiding places. Where would he go now? Singsaker stared blankly at the broadsheet that Brattberg had given him. He could feel his pulse hammering in his temples. It was the pulse of a hunter. His deepest instincts told him that he should get out of the car and race through the streets on foot until he found Røed and could wrap his hands around the neck of that perverse curator from the Ringve Museum. Jonas Røed had tricked the police into thinking he was an innocent professional whose only obsession was music boxes. Røed had sent Singsaker on a wild-goose chase, hunting down Høybråten. And he had stood behind the door, waiting for Singsaker, who had assumed the house was empty. Singsaker felt like running until he tasted blood in his mouth, until his throat bled dry.

There was only one thought that calmed him down. Røed had more than enough to keep him busy with Julie. The theories that had made Singsaker believe that Felicia had somehow landed in the middle of this mess had turned out to be nothing but irrational worries. There’d been no trace of her in either of the places where Røed lived. Singsaker now had to accept that Felicia had simply left him. That was a fact. Still, it was hard for him to acknowledge that he’d turned the situation into something even more gruesome. Now he understood what else Dr. Nordraak had been trying to tell him. He was a police officer with a particularly strong character trait. He was actually able to think very clearly. As this dawned on him, he began to focus his attention on the broadsheet. I don’t understand him, Singsaker thought, and I can’t go running after him. Maybe that’s what he wants. So I have to do what I’m good at. And then he realized that Brattberg was right: The broadsheet could be their key.

*   *   *

Felicia Stone opened her eyes and peered over the duvet. She looked around the apartment. It was good to be with family, she thought. She noticed that her headache was starting to subside, along with the dizziness. She’d been far away, but now she was finally home. Her head was clear, and she knew what she wanted to do.

She wondered whether she should phone Odd. Tell him where she was, what she’d been doing, and what she was thinking.

No. She wasn’t ready for that. She got up unsteadily.

I wonder if there’s any food in this house.

*   *   *

“It’s a beautiful print,” said Siri Holm, putting on a pair of white gloves before she picked up the broadsheet that Singsaker had brought her.

Singsaker hadn’t thought of it that way, but now that she mentioned it, he could see that the broadsheet was truly one of a kind. He stood behind her and read over her shoulder. The title, “The Golden Peace,” was printed in big Gothic letters and underneath were the words that made the greatest impression on him: “Dreams Re-create the World Each Night.”

What if that’s actually true?
he wondered.

At the very bottom, the last line read: “I promise slumber and dreams to everyone who listens to me.”

Were these the words that had become ingrained in the insane mind of Jonas Røed?

The background was a lovely picture showing a musician holding some sort of stringed instrument in his hands. He was surrounded by a group of people, all of whom were sleeping.

“Jon Blund,” Singsaker said.

“One and the same,” Siri Holm said with a laugh. “And look at the date.”

Singsaker saw the date under the title. It said: 3 July 1767.

“What about it?” he asked.

“It’s the same date as the first published issue of
Adresseavisen.
The Winding print shop must have been busy that day. This print would have been expensive. And I doubt whether the publisher earned much from it.”

“Do you mean Jon Blund?” asked Singsaker.

“Yes, or whoever had it printed in Jon Blund’s name.”

“We still don’t know who he was, do we?”

“No, but the answer must be in that police log or in the letter that was stolen. Has either of them turned up at the home of the killer?”

“I’m not sure. But I’ll let you know if we find them.”

“Odd,” said Siri. She put the broadsheet down on the table and her face took on an usually serious expression. “You need to tell me where Felicia is. I haven’t been able to reach her by phone.”

Singsaker looked at her and at her belly under the pale sweater. Was she starting to show? Then he glanced around the room. He hadn’t been inside the Gunnerus Library since last fall. He wasn’t especially happy about being back here, but he could handle it.

He gathered his courage, and then told her everything. When he was finished, Siri gave him a look that was a mixture of gravity and astonishment.

“I certainly didn’t see that coming,” she said. “Did you really think you were the father?”

“I’m not?”

“No. Don’t you think I would have told you if you were?”

Singsaker paused to consider. Then he said, “Well, I really did think I was.” He knew that she was the sort of woman that took a lighthearted view of many things that others took seriously. But friendship was a different matter. “I know you would have told me. The truth is that I just couldn’t keep this idiotic secret any longer, so I guess I decided to seize the opportunity to ease my guilty conscience when we figured out you were pregnant.”