Where Monsters Dwell (11 page)

Each morning was like
waking up after an operation. At first everything was a fog. Or maybe like a viscous sea, where everything was white and still. The landscape of death. Then things grew a little sharper. The lamp with the floral shade, hanging from the ceiling but not switched on, the nightstand with a stack of
Missing Persons
magazines and a nonfiction book written by a Swedish police officer. On top of the stack lay the cell phone. Odd Singsaker hated it, just as he did everything on which he was dependent. But when it lay quite still and motionless, as it did now, it didn’t bother him much.

Before the brain tumor, he always used to start his day with a shot of Rød Aalborg aquavit. It had to be at room temperature to get the most out of the spicy flavoring. After the operation, when he was declared healthy again, he had increased his morning dose to two shots. He still liked to drink his aquavit the Danish way, with herring and rye bread. Singsaker thought it was an excellent way to start the day. The water of life and the silver of the sea. Today he was supposed to return to his job as chief inspector at Trondheim police headquarters. But the bottle of aquavit was empty, the last pieces of herring were resting dully at the bottom of the jar, and the rye bread had gone stale. If he were still on sick leave, it would have been time to go shopping. But now he would have to begin the day on an empty stomach. Not a good start for what would turn out to be a crash landing in reality.

On his way out the front door he glimpsed the neighbor who lived across the street, who came out of the portal riding a very expensive but dilapidated Cervelo racing bike. Who would let such a costly bike fall into disrepair like that? Singsaker wondered. Perhaps something had happened to his neighbor, some sort of crisis in the man’s life, something so devastating that he had become indifferent to things he once cared about.

Singsaker didn’t really know him, although they had met long before the brain tumor, before his memory went bad. The neighbor didn’t glance in his direction; he just rode off, lost in his own world, and heading toward Asylbakken.

On the short stretch from the apartment to Bakkegate, Singsaker walked past another neighbor, Jens Dahle, who was washing his car in the autumn sunshine. Dahle was the only person he ever talked to along this stretch. They had never talked about anything personal. Just small talk. He hadn’t told Dahle that he was newly divorced. Or that his wife, Anniken, whom he had regarded his whole life as the better person, told him that she had found someone else—two weeks before he went in for surgery. It was an operation in which the chances were fifty-fifty. The surgeons would either be able to remove the whole tumor or they might kill him in the attempt.

Anniken told him that she’d been seeing a master mason from Klæbu for a long time, and that she didn’t want to keep it a secret any longer. Odd had no choice but to accept her feelings. Most likely the brain tumor had been affecting his personality for more than two years. Though it wasn’t the only thing to blame, it had contributed to making him peevish and difficult to live with. Thinking about the way he had treated his wife then, it was a wonder she hadn’t left him earlier. Instead she had taken a lover, a mason, and Odd Singsaker would be the first to admit that she deserved every one of the mortar-moist caresses the man had given her.

Anniken hadn’t intended to leave him. Instead she had broken things off with the mason. She said she wanted to save their marriage. Her somewhat faulty logic probably went something like this: Honesty would destroy the tumor infecting their marriage. Then the two of them would fight the real tumor, the one growing in his brain. And eventually, not too long from now, everything would be fine again. He didn’t believe it. She couldn’t save him. Nor was she to blame for what had happened. He never believed that the tumor in his head was anything but a manifestation of cells going berserk. It was not a result of dishonesty or an ailing marriage, nor could it be cured by a good one. He understood why Anniken had been unfaithful, and maybe even halfway forgave her, but it wasn’t possible for him to get beyond her confession. It merely made him see clearly what had been sneaking up on him ever since he heard the diagnosis months earlier. He had to get through this headache by himself. It was simply a matter of directing his forces where they were needed most. He would have to move out and live alone.

So that was what he did. But now, after a successful operation, he wasn’t sure that it had made any difference. The tumor had been cut out of his head by surgeons whose hands didn’t shake. Anniken had visited him several times after the operation. She had brought flowers and tea, and aquavit the last time, a sure sign that she counted on him coming back to her soon.

Jens Dahle knew nothing about this. Odd Singsaker talked to him about the weather, the Rosenborg Ballklub team, and car wash detergent. The last topic seemed to interest Dahle the most. No wonder, considering he washed his car at least once a week, always doing a careful job. It could take him hours. Sometimes Singsaker would go downtown while Dahle was at it and return before he was done. As a policeman he felt that this type of knowledge—what he knew about a neighbor’s car-washing habits—was often more revealing than the most intimate details about a person.

Today Dahle remarked that his car was extra dirty. Singsaker had stopped, mostly so as not to seem unfriendly, although he really didn’t have time to chat. Dahle had been away at his cabin with the kids all weekend and hadn’t come home until after his wife had left for work in the morning. As far as Singsaker could recall, his wife worked at the Gunnerus Library.

“The narrow cart path that leads from the highway to the cabin turns into a big mud bath in the fall. It’s better when the frost sets in and there’s some snow on it,” Jens Dahle said with a smile.

Singsaker looked up to catch his eye. Dahle was over six foot seven and particular about his appearance, always wearing a shirt and tie, even when he washed the car. Singsaker knew that he was an archaeologist, and it amazed him that somebody so tall and fond of nice clothes would choose such a profession. He couldn’t imagine him kneeling in a fire pit from the Stone Age, picking out remnants of charcoal. But that probably wasn’t what he did, anyway. Jens Dahle had a position at the Science Museum, where he sat safely ensconced behind a desk. Singsaker assumed that with a job like that he could easily take Monday morning off to wash his car. As he said good-bye, without mentioning where he was off to, it occurred to him that he knew a great deal more about Jens Dahle than the archaeologist knew about him. Singsaker didn’t think he’d even told him that he was a cop.

Moving faster and taking longer strides than he had for the past few months, he walked down Bakkegate and across the bridge to the center of town. He was wearing a parka with a black turtleneck underneath, and jeans. After a weekend of rain, it was a clear day. On the other side of the bridge he turned right, taking the sidewalk on the same side as Olavshallen, then continued across the Brattør canal to arrive at police headquarters. It looked the same as it had when he left it on a cold day last December. The headquarters had been designed in the same quasi-maritime style as most of the buildings around Beddingen, a sort of conglomerate of oil-drilling platforms, shipyards, and the big ferries to Denmark. In the midst of everything stood a gray concrete tower with the word
POLICE
written on it in huge, bold type. This was the new battleship of the Trondheim police. He had never felt at home here. But he’d never felt at home in the old building either, so it didn’t really matter. He was out of breath when he stepped inside the service entrance, and he felt a faint prickling just above his hairline at the site of the surgery scar.

The day before he had talked to Gro Brattberg on the phone. She was the leader of the violent crimes and vice team, and his boss. Brattberg told him that his old office was still waiting for him. It seemed strangely quiet in the corridors. He tried to remember if it was always that quiet, and was shocked to realize how little he actually remembered from the last time he was here. But maybe that wasn’t so strange, when he thought about it. The whole year before he was diagnosed and went on sick leave, he had felt lethargic and suffered from bouts of dizziness, foggy vision, brightly colored hallucinations, and a constant buzzing sensation behind his eyes that not even a whole bottle of Rød Aalborg could cure.

It wasn’t until he reached the administrative wing that he realized things might be worse than he feared. It was as quiet as a murder scene. All the offices on the way to his own were empty. The whole wing seemed deserted. When he opened the door to his office, he stopped and gaped. Then he forced himself to smile. How could he have run out of aquavit on a day like this? He had feared a welcoming committee. What he got was a whole convention.

Everyone in violent crimes and vice had squeezed into his office; even people who weren’t on duty had dropped by to say hello. As he stood in the doorway, people from other departments crowded around in the corridor, including crime scene technicians and officers from the traffic police. The only one missing was the police chief herself, Dagmar
Ø
verbye, but hardly anyone ever saw her. Witty tongues had begun to call her “The Phantom Ghost.” But thanks to people like Gro Brattberg, this leadership model functioned all right. Actually, Singsaker doubted there would have been room for
Ø
verbye if she’d decided to show up. She was a solidly built woman, and the hallway behind him was crowded. People had somehow figured out how to sneak up on him from behind, and he stood there wondering whether an experienced policeman like himself should be embarrassed at being caught unawares like this. But the worst thing had to be that he felt so touched. Somewhere in all the crap he’d been through with the operation, weeks of hospital smells, gallons of sweat on the sheets, nice nurses, and dreams about his own corpse, the control he used to have over his emotions had disappeared. Odd Singsaker was now easily moved. The tiniest thing could make him break down in tears; even silly sitcoms could make him laugh like a kid.

He stood there looking at all the friendly faces, the banner saying
WELCOME BACK
hanging from the front of his desk, the flowers on the shelf by the wall, and Gro Brattberg, who stood fumbling with a piece of paper on which she had obviously scribbled some words of welcome. He knew there was really no way out. His Adam’s apple swelled like a mushroom in water, and the tears began running down his cheeks. This was the first time any of the people in the room had seen him cry, and many of them had known him for over thirty years. Several of them came over and gave him a hug, also something new and untried, and it did nothing to quell his tears. Thorvald Jensen came over and placed a hand on his shoulder to lean over and give him a manly hug with no actual skin contact. That was when Singsaker understood that his job would never be the same as it had been when he left with a tumor the size of a golf ball inside his head. Chief Inspector Odd Singsaker, the laconic, pensive investigator with the cynical comments, was gone. No one in the room knew who would replace his old persona. All they knew was that things were not going to be like they were before. And maybe that was just as well.

*   *   *

Fortunately, things got back to normal fairly quickly. Gro Brattberg gave her speech. Singsaker received a gift, a Moleskine notebook (he had almost forgotten that he swore by these legendary notebooks). Everybody had a piece of cake. Then there were more hugs before they all went into the conference room and started work with a brief report on a quiet night. Most of the team members had assignments they were working on: a serious domestic dispute; a suspicion of sexual abuse in a church congregation; a teenage gang that had beaten up a boy the same age, or “happy slapping,” as they called it. Odd was going to spend the day getting organized and making phone calls. Brattberg, who was aware that Singsaker wasn’t satisfied unless he was working on a specific case, promised that she’d update him on the church case if it turned out there was anything to it.

Finally alone in his office, Singsaker sat down and leafed through the notebook he’d received, wondering what differentiated a Moleskine from other notebooks. Had these books ever made him a better detective? From the advertising material included with the book, it appeared that great writers such as Hemingway had used them. Something told him that he had known this, but now it was forgotten and no longer made any difference. He did need a notebook, however, so it would do. That was when he started to think about his neighbor with the dilapidated Cervelo bicycle. The two of us just stopped caring, he thought.

After paging through the empty notebook, he went to the canteen and bought a dry rusk, a hard, twice-baked biscuit, with ham and cheese. Back in his office, he ate it slowly as he thought about herring, rye bread, and aquavit. Then the phone rang. It was Brattberg.

“Hey, I promised you something to work on,” she said, pausing for effect. “But what sort of shape are you in?”

“I’ve been declared fit to work,” he said. “I’m here to do my job.”

“I could send Jensen, but he’s still with the pastor.”

“Just get to the point,” he replied. “I’m here to work.”

“A few minutes ago Operations received a report of a murder. At the Gunnerus Library.”

“Jesus, inside the library itself?”

“Yes, in the book vault, as a matter of fact.”

“Has it been confirmed?”

“We have people on their way over there to secure the scene. I’ll have confirmation soon.”

“Who reported the killing?”

“A man named Hornemann, head of the library.”

“And the victim?”

Brattberg hesitated before she answered. He could hear her shuffling through her papers.

“Gunn Brita Dahle,” she said at last.

He sat there without saying anything. Gunn Brita Dahle was the wife of Jens Dahle. He had just talked to him this morning on the way to work. The man had shown no sign of grief as he washed his car, believing that his wife had gone to work before he came home from the cabin. Or? Right away the detective in him took charge. How carefree had Jens Dahle actually been? Wasn’t it a little odd that he hadn’t called his wife to tell her that he was home? But maybe he had. Maybe she’d unplugged her phone, the way people occasionally do at work. It was too early to jump to conclusions. He was in the unusual situation of having unknowingly spoken with the victim’s husband after the crime was committed. It gave him the opportunity to evaluate Dahle with the eyes of an impartial witness. And his impression this morning had not been that he was talking with a killer. Jens Dahle had seemed like a relaxed and content family man with plenty of time to wash his car.