Medusa (27 page)

N
NINA
J
EBSEN PARKED
on the pavement. A constable was still standing in the entrance to the block in Helgesens gate. He was a few years younger than her, tall and muscular, with fair hair. Built like an athlete, she thought. She exchanged a few words with him before heading up to the attic flat. The security tape outside the door had been removed. She rang the bell. It took almost a minute for Miriam Gaizauskaite to open up. Her face was pale and drawn. She tried to smile when she saw Nina.

– I wasn’t expecting you just yet, she said.

Nina sat on the sofa and looked around the flat. The walls were painted a peach white; the curtains were red with a motif of tulips. A few plants with drooping heads stood on the windowsill.

Miriam emerged from the kitchen carrying coffee cups and a bowl of fruit. Nina helped herself to an apple. She was hungry, but she could hold out until lunch if she had enough coffee.

– As I mentioned, there are one or two things I’d like to talk to you about. We could have done it on the phone, but we find we often get better results face to face.

– I’ve already given a statement, Miriam said.

– Yes, you’ve already helped us a lot, Nina replied encouragingly as she took a bite from the apple. – Don’t you have lectures today?

Miriam looked up through the skylight.

– Couldn’t face going.

– I understand. But it’s probably not such a good idea to sit here thinking too much.

– Two good friends of mine have already called to tell me off. I’ll get going again tomorrow.

Nina looked at her. Miriam had large dark eyes and a fine, high forehead on which tiny wrinkles appeared and as suddenly disappeared again. Her nose was quite long, but narrow and straight. She could feel that she liked her, and reminded herself not to let it affect her judgement.

– You said that you heard someone down in the yard on Monday morning. You were lying awake and the time was a couple of minutes past five. Did you hear the gate once or twice?

Miriam thought about it.

– Just once.

– Did you hear anyone talking?

– No.

Nina waited a moment before saying:

– You can trust us, Miriam. Don’t be afraid to tell us what you know.

– I’ve got nothing else to say. Nothing new.

She got up, disappeared out into the kitchen and returned with a cafetière full of coffee.

– Good coffee, Nina said after taking a sip. She added: – You said you were alone all evening yesterday.

Miriam gave a slight nod.

– But that doesn’t appear to be the case.

She was startled.

– What do you mean?

– Our technical investigators found a footprint out in the corridor, in the blood on the floor. Where someone stepped in their stockinged feet.

Nina noticed how Miriam was holding on tightly to the arms of her chair.

– They found traces of the same sock in your flat. In the hallway, here in the living room, and over to the alcove.

Without waiting for her reaction, Nina took a sheet of paper from her pocket, unfolded it and laid it on the table in front of Miriam.

– The man delivering the newspapers met someone going out as he was on his way in. He gave us a description, which our artist has used. Look at it carefully, see if you can connect it with someone you might have seen before.

Miriam sat there looking at the drawing. Nina saw a quiver run down her neck, and her pupils grew even wider. Here it comes, she thought, just as Miriam buried her face in her hands and her whole body began to shake.

Viken’s office door was ajar. Nina Jebsen burst in, knocking as she closed it behind her. Viken was seated at his computer. He looked up at her over the top of his rectangular glasses.

– Good to see you, Jebsen.

He pointed to the chair on the other side of the desk.

– Just by the way, I have no objection to people knocking on the door
before
they come barging in.

– Of course, I’m sorry. She took out her notebook, flipped through it. – Thought this might interest you. I had another talk with Miriam Gaizauskaite.

– You look like you just won first prize in the office cake lottery.

– Miriam has been on a placement at a clinic this autumn, she said, blushing slightly. Viken felt certain it was because he had mentioned cakes. – Care to guess who her supervisor was?

Viken’s jaws began to work.

– You don’t mean …

She didn’t let him finish.

– Dr Axel Glenne. Who we know for sure was the last person to talk to Hilde Paulsen. And was Cecilie Davidsen’s doctor. We both agreed that was a little odd in itself.

– A bit tricky, certainly, Viken observed, not quite sure where he had picked up that particular expression.

– But that isn’t all.

He was curious now, took off his reading glasses and placed them on the desk.

– Glenne was at Miriam Gaizauskaite’s place on Monday night.

– I’ll be damned. Are you sure?

– He’s spent the night with her twice before, she said triumphantly. – On Tuesday morning he left her flat at about five. According to Miriam, he was the one who found the body outside the door.

Viken let out a long, slow breath, like the sound of air being squeezed from an old rubber mattress.

– The man at the gate, he said. – The description from the newspaper delivery man, it fits. Bloody hell, Jebsen, I think we’re beginning to get somewhere here. Let’s bring him in.

– I rang the clinic, she told him. – He’s off sick and hasn’t been there this week.

– Then let’s try his home. He turned back to his computer.

– I’ve rung there too. No one picks up. But his wife answered when I called her on her mobile.

Viken shot a smile at her that was a mixture of surprise and appreciation.

– He hasn’t been home since Monday morning. He’s called her a couple of times. She says she has no idea where he is.

Viken was on his feet instantly.

– Top marks, Inspector Jebsen. A-plus. I’ve said all along this has something to do with Dr Glenne.

T
HE WOMAN WHO
opened the door was slim and of medium height. She might have been over forty, but she looked younger. Partly because her dark hair was combed forward in a style that seemed very modern to Viken, but above all because of the shape of her face. High cheekbones that kept the skin in place when it might have started to sag.

– Mrs Glenne, I presume? Sorry for disturbing you, he said, surprised at his own instinctive courtesy towards her.

She offered him her hand, and he shook it, surprising himself again. He didn’t often shake hands with witnesses he was about to interview.

– Vibeke Frisch Glenne, she said, her handshake firm, with no sign of nervous damp in the palm.

Viken ushered Norbakk forward.

– This is Sergeant Arve Norbakk.

As she greeted his colleague, Viken noticed that her slanting eyes opened wider.

– Eh … I believe we’ve met before, she said, her skin turning a shade darker under the suntan.

– We chatted in town one evening earlier this autumn, Norbakk explained with his boyish smile. – At a club. Smuget, wasn’t it?

Viken had a quick think and concluded that it wasn’t a disadvantage for his colleague to have met the lady before. If she responded to Norbakk the way most women did, it meant they would both be well received.

Vibeke Glenne led the way into the living room. It was large and bright, with windows facing east and west. Two enormous paintings hung on the wall, neither one of them depicting anything in particular, but the colours were bright, and they looked expensive.

She gestured towards the leather armchairs.

– Do sit down, I’ll get some coffee.

A girl of about eight or nine peeked in at them.

– Hello, said Norbakk. – Are you the one called Marlen?

– Blimey, said Viken. – Have you studied the whole family tree already?

– Didn’t you see the sign on the door? Norbakk winked.

– You’re not wearing uniforms, the little girl stated. She was fair haired, her face round; she didn’t look like her mother at all.

– Makes no difference, we’re still real, Norbakk countered, producing his badge.

Marlen shuffled over to him and he gave it to her.

– Can you see that’s me?

The girl stared at the card, then up at his face. She gave a sudden shy smile, and Viken was surprised to note that Norbakk, who was quiet and reserved, seemed to have a way with children too. All the better, because he himself certainly didn’t. What he did have was a sense of where people stood. Interpreting the code developed by each individual. Norbakk’s was a touch more encrypted than most, thought Viken. But he was well on the way to cracking it.

Vibeke Glenne returned with a pot of coffee and small gold-rimmed cups on a tray, along with a plate of biscuits that looked home-made.

– Mrs Glenne, as I explained to you on the telephone …

She interrupted. – I understand why you’re here. But that’s about all I understand. Marlen, go down to your room.

– She isn’t disturbing us, Viken assured her, registering the little girl’s miffed expression. Psychologically speaking it would be an advantage to have the child there, he reasoned.

– She can come up later if there’s anything you want to ask her.

Once the daughter had marched out with her haughty princess’s neck, Vibeke Glenne added: – I want to protect the children as much as possible. For a moment her voice seemed uncertain. – Though I don’t quite know what it is I’m protecting them
from
…

She sat upright, looked as though she were making an effort to pull herself together.

– You surely can’t believe that Axel has anything to do with these murders.

Viken said, in his most neutral tone: – It’s not our job to believe, Mrs Glenne. We leave that to the priests.

It was a phrase he had reeled off many times in the past. A slight movement of her face was enough to assure him that she took his point and was not offended.

– We simply note that nothing has been heard from him. Not to frighten you, Mrs Glenne, but let me remind you that three people have recently gone missing in Oslo. All three were later found dead.

Vibeke Glenne’s face turned grey.

– So you have not seen your husband since Sunday?

– Monday morning. He was up even earlier than usual, I think. He was gone by the time I got up, at around seven.

Norbakk made a note.

– How would you describe him? Viken wanted to know.

For a moment she looked surprised.

– Describe?

Viken didn’t answer, gave her time.

– He’s hard working, clever, a good father. Someone you can trust. I would say he is strong.

Viken was tempted to inform her that this trustworthy man had recently spent the night with a young female student in her flat, but decided not to. He might need to spring the information later as a surprise.

– I’d like to ask you about the Thursday thirteen days ago, he said instead. – Was your husband at home in the afternoon and all through the evening?

She thought about this.

– He goes for a bike ride in the marka every Thursday afternoon. I’ll check to see if anything special happened that evening.

She disappeared out into the kitchen, returning straight away with a calendar, flipped back through it.

– He’s written ‘office work’ here. He often stays late at the office in the evenings after he’s back from his bike ride. Applications, social security forms, things like that. That’s all I know.

– When did he come home?

– I pick Marlen up at the riding school on Thursdays. We’re home by eight thirty. I don’t think Axel was home by then that Thursday. Why that day in particular?

Viken waited before replying.

– That was the evening one of the victims disappeared. You perhaps know that she was a patient of your husband’s?

Vibeke jumped up from her chair.

– But this is insane. Do you know how long I’ve lived with him? Twenty-three years. If he was mixed up in anything, I would have known it. You can be a hundred per cent certain of that.

Just the same way you can be certain he’s a man you can trust, Viken thought with a sour smile on his lips.

– Of course, he said. – We don’t doubt that you know him better than anyone else. Can I just use your toilet?

She accompanied him out into the corridor. Viken turned and gave a sign to Norbakk, indicating that he should carry on going through the points they had agreed on earlier in the car.

They came into a large hall with light marble tiling on the floor. Two of the walls were almost covered by mirrors. This must be the hall of mirrors, Viken joked to himself. The toilet was in a corridor leading off it. He locked the door behind him. Having emptied his bladder, he washed his hands. He glanced over at the shelf below the mirror. A tube of toothpaste. Toothbrushes in a mug hanging on the wall. A packet of paracetamol, sticking plasters, some theatrical make-up for kids. The gentry each have their own bathroom, of course, he realised. He sent a text message to Norbakk:
Try to get a look at the other bathroom. Probably upstairs.
On more than one occasion he had lectured younger colleagues on precisely this subject: living rooms show how people want to be seen in the eyes of others; bathrooms will always tell you something about what lies behind the facade.

As he was letting himself out, he heard a familiar sound coming from a half-open door on the other side of the corridor. He peeked in. A teenager was seated on the edge of his bed, strumming on an electric guitar. A small amplifier stood on the floor in front of him.

– Practising? Viken asked.

The lad didn’t seemed surprised to see him standing there. He nodded and carried on plucking away at the strings.

– You play in a band?