The Final Murder (40 page)

Henriksen, pointed to Havard Stefansen’s right hand. It was half open and resting on his groin. His index finger was missing. Only a ragged stump remained.

‘His trigger finger,’ Henriksen said. ‘And if you look over

here…’

He went to the other end of the corridor, his paper overalls rustling as he moved. An air rifle was attached to a sawhorse with tape and rope. The barrel of the gun was balanced on a slanting broom handle. Havard Stefansen’s finger was on the trigger of the gun, which was aimed at his heart. The finger was blue and the nail was slightly too long.

‘I have to go out,’ Adam said. ‘I’m sorry, I just have to …’

‘Even if this is our case,’ Erik Henriksen said, ‘I thought it would be best if you guys had a look. It’s suspiciously like …’

‘A sports celebrity,’ Adam thought desperately. ‘That’s what we were waiting for. And I couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t guard every sports celebrity in the country. Couldn’t raise the alarm. It would only have caused panic. And I couldn’t know anything for certain. Johanne believed and thought and felt, but we couldn’t be , sure. What could I have done? What should I do?’

‘How did the killer get in?’ Adam forced himself to ask, deter’

mined to stick it out. ‘Break in? Window?’

‘We’re on the fourth floor,’ Henriksen pointed out, with a hint ^ of irritation. This NCIS bloke was certainly not living up to his reputation. ‘But take a look at this.’

Although the flat was in an old building, the front door looked new and had a solid, modern lock. Henriksen used his pen as a pointer.

‘Old trick, really. A small piece of wood has been pushed into the keyhole and here …’

The pen moved over the spring bolt.

‘It’s stuck,’ he said. ‘Matches, presumably’

‘God,’ Adam mumbled. ‘A simple old con trick.’

‘At the moment, we’re assuming that the door was open when

Havard Stefansen was at home and awake. Somebody tampered

with the lock. The flat is big enough for someone to get on with their business out here while he was eating, for example. And as this is the top floor, there’s less risk of being seen.’

He put his pen back in the breast pocket of the white overalls.

‘It’s uncertain whether Havard Stefansen even tried to lock the door before he went to bed. A tough guy like him, with all these weapons in the house, maybe he wasn’t that bothered. But if he tried, it would have been difficult.’

‘He’s getting bolder,’ Adam managed to think to himself

through his thumping headache. He narrowed his eyes. ‘He’s

more and more daring. Has to have more. Like climbers who

always have to go higher, steeper, to live dangerously. He’s getting there now. This victim must have been physically more powerful than him. But he knew that and took precautions. Killed Havard Stefansen when he was asleep. A simple ambush. No symbolism, no sophisticated tricks. It didn’t matter to him. It’s us who are supposed to get the message. The outside world. Not the victim.

He wants us to be shocked by this tableau: the marksman aiming at his own heart of steel. It’s us he wants to provoke. Us. Me?’

‘The guy slept with a ponytail?’ Adam asked, just to have

something to say.

‘Looks cool, dunnit!’

Detective Sergeant Henriksen shrugged and added:

‘Maybe the killer put his hair in a ponytail, to make him look. more like himself, kind of thing. Make the illusion stronger. And he succeeded, didn’t he? Fu …’

He stopped swearing just in time. Perhaps out of respect to the dead. A colleague stuck his head round the door from the stairs.

‘Hi,’ he whispered. ‘Erik, the woman’s here. The one who

called us. She found the body’

Erik Henriksen nodded and raised his hand to signal that he

would be there in a minute.

‘Have you seen enough?’ he asked.

‘More than enough,’ Adam nodded, and followed him out of

the flat.

A woman was standing on the landing. She was solid, with dark hair that fell in big, untidy curls. Her skin looked healthy and weatherworn. It was difficult to determine her age. She was wearing jeans and a chunky green sweater. The stair lighting reflected in her small glasses, which made it hard to see her eyes. Adam thought there was something familiar about her.

‘This is Wencke Bencke,’ said the policeman who had just

called them. ‘She lives underneath. Was going up into the loft to put away some suitcases. The door was open, so she …’

‘… I rang the bell,’ she took over. ‘When there was no answer, I took the liberty of going in. I guess you know already what I found. I rang the police immediately’

‘Wencke Bencke,’ Erik Henriksen said, and took off his comical paper cap. ‘Wencke Bencke, the crime writer?’

She gave an inscrutable smile and nodded.

Not to Henriksen, who had asked the question. Nor was the smile intended for the uniformed policeman, who looked as if he was about to pull out a piece of paper and ask for an autograph.

It was Adam she was looking at. It was him she turned to, held out her hand and said: ‘Adam Stubo, isn’t it? A pleasure to meet you, finally.’

Her handshake was firm, almost hard. Her hand was big and y’ “toad and the skin was unusually warm. He let go quickly, as if he had burnt himself.

The celebrity killer was a monster.

The press had calmed down when Fiona Helle’s murderer

turned out to be a patient in a psychiatric hospital, with a motive that most people could understand. For a while it seemed that the journalists had caught on to the idea that these might be copycat murders. That it perhaps wasn’t the work of a serial murderer, but rather a frightening constellation of individual, gruesome murders.

When Rudolf Fjord chose to take his own life, the press had

been surprisingly subdued, giving the tragic death sober coverage.

When

Havard Stefansen was found dead, sitting on a chair as a

target in his own improvised shooting range, people in Norway went mad.

Psychologists were pulled back into the picture. Along with private detectives and foreign police chiefs, researchers and crime

analysts. Experts discussed and explained in column after column, and on all the channels. Within twenty-four hours, the serial murderer was back on everyone’s tongue. He was a monster. A twisted

psychopath. Over the course of a few days, the celebrity murderer took on mythical proportions, with features akin to those found only in dark Gothic tales.

The royal family went abroad and the palace couldn’t say when they were likely to return. Rumour had it that security at the Storting had been reinforced, but the head of security, tense and serious, refused to comment. First nights at the theatre were cancelled.

Planned concerts were shelved. A high-profile marriage

between a well-known politician and a business tycoon was

stopped three days before the wedding. Postponed until the

autumn, explained the sombre bridegroom, and assured everyone that love was still blooming.

Even ordinary people, most of whom had never had their name

in the papers or their photo printed in a colour magazine, threw away cinema tickets and decided not to go out that weekend after all. A mixture of shock and curiosity, fear and tension, malice and genuine despair made people stick to those they knew.

It was safest.

Johanne Vik and Adam Stubo were also at home. It was now

Thursday the 4th of March and nearly half past eight in the

evening. Ragnhild was asleep. The TV was on, with the sound

turned down. Neither of them was watching.

They had barely spoken to each other for two days. Both of

them carried a fear that was too great to share with the other. The murderer had chosen an athlete this time. Only one case remained from Warren Scifford’s lecture on Proportional Retribution, and Johanne and Adam conversed with a stiff and false friendliness.

Life in the semidetached in Tasen was hectic as everyday activities helped to disguise the fear.

For a while at last.

Adam was putting up the shelves in the bathroom. They had

been stored in the cupboard for half a year now. Johanne expected to hear Ragnhild crying at any minute; his hammering would

wake the dead. But she couldn’t face talking to him. She sat on the sofa and turned the pages of a book. It was impossible to read.

‘Tonight’s evening news has been extended by an hour,’ said a very faint voice on the TV

Johanne found the remote control. The voice got louder. The

opening music and graphics rolled.

The presenter was dressed in black, as if he was going to a

funeral. He didn’t smile as he usually did at the start of the programme.

Johanne couldn’t remember ever having seen the

long-serving presenter wear a tie.

The chief of police was also dressed for the occasion. The

already slim woman had lost a lot of weight over the past few weeks and her uniform hung off her. She sat straight and tense on her chair, as if on duty. For once she had problems giving a clear answer to the questions she was asked.

‘Adam,’ Johanne called. ‘You should come and see this.’

Angry hammering from the bathroom.

‘Adam!’

She went to get him. He was down on all fours, trying to separate two shelves.

‘Bloody hell,’ he said tersely. ‘These bloody instructions are all wrong.’

‘There’s a special programme about your case,’ Johanne told

him.

‘It’s not my case. I don’t own it.’

‘Don’t be silly. Come on. Come and watch it. The shelves

won’t run away’

He put the hammer down.

‘Look,’ he said, ashamed, and pointed at the floor. ‘I smashed one of the tiles. Sorry. I didn’t think…’

‘Come on,’ she said curtly and went back into the sitting room.

‘… we do of course have a number of leads in this case,’ said the chief of police on the screen. ‘Or cases, I should perhaps say.

However, they are not explicit and it will take some time to sort this out. We’re looking at a complex web of events.’

‘Leads,’ Adam muttered. He had followed Johanne into the sitting room and slumped down in the other sofa. ‘Show me them,

then. Show me your leads!’

He wiped his face with a corner of his shirt and grabbed a lukewarm can of beer from the table.

‘Can you understand that people are worried?’ asked the presenter as he leant forward and opened his arms in despair.

‘Terrified! Following four horrific murders? And the investigation seems to have come to a complete standstill^

‘I must correct you there,’ the chief of police said, and coughed into her hand. ‘We’re talking about three cases. The murder of Fiona Helle has been solved, according to the police and the authorities. Some investigation still needs to be carried out, but a charge will be made shortly …’

‘Three cases,’ the presenter interrupted. ‘OK. And what leads do you have for those three cases?’

‘I’m sure you understand that I can’t give out any more details about an ongoing investigation. The only thing I can say this evening is that we are drawing on considerable resources…’

‘Understand!’ the presenter exclaimed. ‘You ask for our understanding, when you seem to have no answers at all. People are

barricading themselves in their homes, and …’

‘He’s frightened,’ Adam said, and drank the dregs of the flat beer. ‘He never gets angry. Isn’t it more his style to wheedle and entice? To smile and let people make a fool of themselves?’

Johanne answered by turning up the volume even more.

‘He’s terrified,’ Adam muttered. ‘Him and a couple of thousand other Norwegians who live vicariously through that box.’

He pointed at the TV with the empty can.

‘Shh.’

‘Come over here.’

‘What?’

‘Can’t you come over here and sit beside me?’

‘I…’

‘Please.’

The chief of police was finally allowed to go. While they

swapped interviewees in the studio, they tried to run a report from the building where Havard Stefansen had been found murdered

two days earlier. The film got stuck. The panning shot from the entrance to a window on the fourth floor froze in mid-swing and became an unfocused still of a woman peering out from behind a curtain on the second floor, with a shocked expression. The sound was fuzzy. Something beeped. Suddenly the presenter was back on the screen.

‘We apologize for the technical problems,’ he coughed. ‘But

now I think we’re…’

‘We’ll always be lovers,’ murmured Adam, and smelt her hair; she had curled up beside him and pulled a blanket over them

both.

‘Maybe,’ she said, and stroked his arm. ‘As long as you promise never to do any more DIY.’

‘Welcome to the programme, Wencke Bencke.’

‘What?’ Adam sat up.

‘Shh!’

‘Thank you,’ said Wencke Bencke, without a flicker of a smile.

‘You are the author of no less than seventeen crime novels,’ the presenter introduced her. ‘All of which are about serial killers. You are deemed to be something of an expert in the field, and have gained widespread recognition for your thorough preparation and extensive research. Also within the police, as we found out today.

Now, you were originally a lawyer, isn’t that so?’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ she replied, still serious. ‘But there’s not much of the lawyer left in me now. I’ve been writing novels since 1985.’

‘We are particularly pleased to welcome you on the programme tonight, as it is actually twelve years since you gave an interview here in Norway. But it is, of course, the current tragic circumstances that have brought you here. All the same, I would like to

start by asking a somewhat light-hearted question: how many

people have you killed over the years?’

He leant forward in anticipation, as if he expected her to share a huge secret.

‘I don’t know any more,’ she said, and smiled. Her teeth were unusually white and even for a woman who must be in her mid