The Final Murder (41 page)

forties. ‘I’ve lost count. After all, quality is more important than quantity, even in my field. I concentrate on the details, not the numbers. I get my… pleasure from finding original twists, if you like.’

She pushed her fringe away from her forehead, but it just fell back immediately.

Johanne managed to free herself from Adam’s arms. He was

about to strangle her. He had just got hold of the Dagbladet paper that was lying on the table He looked

at something and then

dropped it on the floor. She turned round towards him and asked-

‘What is it?’

… and you found the most recent victim, the TV droned,. who was your closest neighbour. In your view, as an expert, what might lie behind.

‘What’s wrong, darling?’

… the wish to be seen as something other than …

‘Adam!’

His skin was sweaty. Grey.

‘Adam,’ she screamed and fell off the sofa. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

… more like cases from other countries. Not just the US, but also the UK and in Germany we know …

Johanne lifted her hand. Hit. The sound of her palm against his cheek made him look up at last.

‘It’s her,’ he said.

.. . be cautious about jumping to conclusions about…

‘It’s her,’ he repeated. ‘That woman.’

‘What’s wrong, Adam?’ Johanne screamed. ‘I thought you were

having a heart attack! I’ve told you a thousand times that you need to lose weight and cut out sugar and …’

… bearing in mind that “I’ve been abroad for the past few months and only followed the case on the Internet and in the occasional newspaper, I would say that…

‘Have you gone mad?’ Johanne exclaimed. ‘Have you gone

stark raving mad? Why would

He was still pointing at the TV screen. The colour was returning to his face. His breathing had slowed. Johanne turned slowly back to the TV.

Wencke Bencke wore frameless glasses. The reflection of the

sharp lights in the studio made it hard to see her eyes. Her suit was a touch too tight, as if she had bought it in the hope of losing some weight. There was a small brooch on the collar. A thin gold chain shone round her neck and she had a good colour for the time of year.

‘I don’t hold out much hope of that,’ she answered to a question that Johanne had not heard. ‘The police don’t seem to have a clue, so I find it hard to imagine that the likelihood of the murders being solved is anything but slim.’

‘Do you really believe that?’ the presenter asked, with a gesture that invited a full reply.

‘I don’t understand,’ Johanne said, and turned around again to try to get Adam’s attention.

‘Be quiet,’ he said. ‘Let me hear what she has to say!’

‘Well, I’m afraid that’s about all we have time for,’ the presenter said. ‘But in the light of the recent tragic events, I must ask in closing whether you ever get tired of it? Of thinking up murders and crimes for entertainment?’

Wencke Bencke straightened her glasses. Her nose seemed too

small for her broad face and her glasses kept threatening to fall off.

‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I do get tired of it. Sick and tired of it, sometimes. But writing crime is the only thing I can do. I’m getting older and …’

She waved a stubby finger and looked into the camera.

Suddenly her eyes were visible. They were brown and sparkled with a smile that made her cheeks split into two deep dimples.

‘… obviously the pay is fantastic, which helps.’

‘Wencke Bencke, thank you very much …’ Click.

Johanne put down the remote control.

‘What do you mean?’ she whispered. ‘You gave me such a

fright, Adam. I thought you were about to die.’

‘It’s Wencke Bencke. She killed Vibeke Heinerback,’ he said, squeezing the beer can with both hands. ‘She killed Vegard

Krogh. And she killed her neighbour, Havard Stefansen. She’s the celebrity killer. She has to be.’

Johanne sank down onto the coffee table. The house was quiet.

Not a sound could be heard from outside. The neighbours downstairs were away. Johanne and Adam were alone and a light was

turned off in the house over the road.

Suddenly crying could be heard from the children’s room; the piercing, vulnerable cry of a six-week-old baby.

Wencke Bencke walked slowly through the swing doors at the

reception of NRK TV. It was a chilly March evening with a cutting wind. When she looked up, she saw Venus twinkling against

a patch of deep-blue sky between scudding dark clouds. She

smiled at the journalists and let the photographers take yet more pictures before getting into the taxi and telling the driver her address.

Everything was different now. The difference was greater than she had ever hoped for. She’d noticed it at Gardemoen airport the previous Friday, when, with a broad smile, she thanked the air hostess for a pleasant trip. Whereas before she used to walk with a rounded back and heavy steps, she now stood up straight. She sauntered down the endless corridors with a tax-free bag swinging from her hand. She looked up and out. Noticed all the details of the beautiful building, the enormous limewood beams and the

colour play of the artwork by the stairs down to the arrival hall.

She waited patiently for her luggage and chatted with a red-haired child who poked her PC with curiosity. She smiled at the child’s father and straightened the lapel of the new Armani coat she had bought in Galeries Lafayette in Nice, which made her look as new as she actually felt.

She was strong.

And supremely confident.

She had made a decision many years ago when she delivered her first manuscript and discovered that this was something she could do. She would become an expert in crime. A specialist in murder. Literary critics were an unreliable tribe. The reasoning of the media was predictable and petty: they would build you up, only to pull you down. Her editor had warned her about it, way back then. Looked at her with indescribably sad eyes, as if by making her debut as a crime writer Wencke Bencke had stepped into purgatory. And so she decided then and there: She would never read a review.

And she would never, ever, make a mistake.

She would devise perfect plots. She would never misjudge the effect of a weapon. She would learn all there was to know about the human anatomy, about stab wounds and punches, bullet

wounds and poison. Investigations and tactics. Chemistry, biology, psychology. She would build up an understanding of the business of crime, from the big powerful organizations down to the pathetic junkies who sat at the very bottom of the ladder, holding out a hand: Can you spare any change?

She hadn’t managed to keep the first promise.

She read the reviews as soon as they came out.

But no one could say that Wencke Bencke didn’t know what

she was talking about.

And no one did.

She had studied and read constantly since 1985. Done field

studies. Travelled. Observed and researched. And eventually she realized that theory could never surpass practice. She had to look to real life. The fictional universe wasn’t concrete enough. Real life was full of details and unexpected turns. Just sitting at a desk, it was hard to imagine the multitude of seemingly insignificant, trivial events that could in fact be decisive in a murder case.

She started to catalogue real people.

Her archive dated back to 1995. She had needed a principal of a children’s home and a policeman with a threadbare reputation for a book she was going to write. She was shocked at how easy it was to find them. Surveillance was boring, naturally, with hours of waiting and unimportant observations. Her notes were dry and dispassionate.

But it was easier to write.

The reviews were positive. Book number eight was received

with considerable enthusiasm, as her first book had been. A

couple of critics remarked that Wencke Bencke was fresher than she had been for a long time, almost revitalized.

They were wrong.

She was more bored than

ever, She lived in a parallel world.

She catalogued other people’s lives without ever taking part. Her archive grew. She bought a steel cabinet, a fireproof device that was installed in the bedroom.

Sometimes she would sit in bed at night and read through a file.

Often she got irritated. People led such similar lives. Work and children, infidelity and drink. There were renovation projects and divorces, financial problems and jumble sales for the football team. Whether they were politicians or dentists, rich or on the dole, men or women, the people she observed were all so bloody similar.

‘I am unique,’ she thought to herself, and settled back in the comfortable taxi seat. ‘And now they can see me. Finally I’m being seen for what I am. An extraordinary expert. Not someone who publishes a book like handing in an exam every autumn, for bitchy comments. I can. I know. I do.

‘He saw me. He was frightened. I could tell, the way he withdrew his hand and looked away. They see me now, but not like I

see them. Not the way that I see her. Her file is fat. It’s the biggest file I have. I have watched her for a long time and I know her.

‘They see me now and there’s nothing they can do.’

‘Take a look at this.’

Adam held up page five of the day’s edition of Dagbladet for her to see. He was still pale, but he didn’t look fatally ill any more.

‘Wencke Bencke,’ said Johanne. She was walking around the

room with Ragnhild over her shoulder. ‘And?’

‘Look at the pin. On her lapel.’

She carefully passed the baby over to him, took the newspaper and went a few steps closer to the lamp.

‘It all fits,’ he said, rocking Ragnhild. ‘Too much of your profile fits. Wencke Bencke really does have crime as her profession. An internationally acclaimed crime writer! Superior to most when it comes to serial killers. Eccentric and difficult, if we’re to believe the portraits that they’ve managed to put together, even though she doesn’t speak to Norwegian journalists. Until now, that is.

Something must have changed. She’s been a loner for a long time.

Just like you said. Just how you put it in your profile.’

Ragnhild’s eyes were heavy. He stroked her forehead and said: ‘Look at her pin.’

The picture in Dagbladet was not particularly flattering. Wencke Bencke was just about to say something: her mouth was open and her eyes wide behind her glasses, which were perched on the end of her snub nose. But the outlines were sharp. The pin on the author’s left lapel was clear.

‘She knew who I was,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘It was me she was interested in.’

‘This is worse than you think.’

‘Worse …’

‘Yes.’

‘What d’you mean?’

She went into the bedroom without answering. He heard her

rummaging around in the big chest of drawers. A cupboard door banged. The steps went further, into the closet, he guessed.

‘Look.’

She had found what she was looking for. She took Ragnhild

from him and put her down on her back under a baby gym on the floor. She gurgled and reached for the colourful figures. Johanne handed him the arch-lever file she had been looking for. It was white, with a big circular logo on the front.

‘The FBI logo,’ he said, and wrinkled his brow. ‘Of course I recognize it. I’ve got a poster of it in my office. That’s my point, that’s why I…’

He pointed to the photograph in Dagbladet.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but that’s why it’s worse than you think.’

She sat down beside him, on the edge of the sofa.

‘Americans love their symbols,’ she said, and straightened her glasses. ‘The flag. The Pledge of Allegiance. Their monuments.

Nothing is arbitrary. This blue…’ She pointed to the emblem’s background colour.’.. . Symbolizes justice, along with the scales in the top centre of the emblem. The circle contains thirteen stars to represent the thirteen original American states. The red and white stripes here are from the flag. Red stands for courage and strength. White for purity, light, truth and peace.’

‘They obviously think that courage and strength are more

important than truth and peace,’ Adam observed, ‘I think there are more red stripes than white.’

Johanne couldn’t bring herself to smile.

‘It’s the same in the Stars and Stripes,’ she said. ‘One red stripe more than white. The toothed edge round the emblem

symbolizes the challenges the FBI faces and the organization’s strength.’

Ragnhild wriggled and kicked. The wooden figures banged

against each other. Adam scratched his neck and mumbled:

‘Impressive, but I don’t see what you’re driving at.’

‘You see these two branches?’

She ran her finger along some branches on each side of the

innermost, red and white shield.

‘Laurels,’ she told him. ‘With a magnifying glass, you can count exactly forty-six leaves, the number of states in the USA in 1908, when the FBI was founded.’

‘I’m still very impressed,’ Adam said. ‘But…’

‘Now look at this.’

She held the newspaper photograph of Wencke Bencke up to

the light.

‘Her pin. The laurels. You see?’

‘They’re not laurels.’

He narrowed his eyes.

‘No,’ she confirmed.

‘Are they feathers?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Feathers instead of laurels. Why?’

‘They’re eagle feathers,’ she told him.

‘Eagle feathers?’

‘Who used eagle feathers?’

‘The native Indians.’

‘Chieftains.’

‘Chieftains,’ he repeated lamely, confused.

Johanne walked over to Ragnhild. She gently lifted her up and put her across her shoulder. She breathed in the scent of soap and poo. A sludgy brown stain was spreading over the baby’s romper leg. She held her tight.

‘The Chief,’ she said. ‘Warren Scifford. A group of students got those pins made. A hundred or so. All hell broke loose when it was discovered. You don’t muck about with the FBI heraldry. The pins became quite valuable after a while. People wore them on the inside of their jacket collars. A sort of membership badge, a sign that you were in the inner circle. One of Warren’s disciples. He…