Sohlberg and the Gift (17 page)

Internet searches on his cell phone revealed that one member of the panel in charge of psychiatric reports worked at the University of Oslo’s medical school just a few miles north of Embassy Row. He called the doctor’s office number and the secretary confirmed that the doctor would be there that afternoon.

Perfect!

Sohlberg turned on his car’s siren and lights and raced off to the University of Oslo Medical School’s Institute of Clinical Medicine. The always impatient Sohlberg got even worse when it came to driving in traffic. Whether in his own personal car or in a police vehicle Sohlberg aggressively tailgated slower cars and honked his horn all the time. He only felt comfortable driving among other frenzied drivers in New York City and Mexico City. He loved how everyone in New York and Mexico blared their horns and roared off as soon as the light turned green. A marked police car was a heaven-sent to Sohlberg. Blaring sirens and flashing lights meant that Sohlberg could force other drivers to open a path for him. He speeded north on Kristinelundveien and shot through the Ring Two Highway which led him straight to the massive campus of the Ullevål University Hospital.

He found Dr. Bergitta Nansen at her third floor office. He smelled her cloy perfume—
Joy
by Jean Patou—long before he reached her book-lined den inside the enormous five-floor pink stone building of the Institute of Clinical Medicine. Her credentials included a thriving private practice that treated the children of the wealthy upper classes of Oslo. In other words she mostly treated children and teenagers who are ruined by the troika of affluence: absentee parents; boredom from excessive idleness; and, toxic relationships and lifestyles promoted by the gutter culture of modern society. In addition to her teaching position she served as the Director of the Psychosis Research Center. The PRC studied the many varieties of psychosis by grouping them into major types. The Center had become world-famous for its thematically-organized psychosis research.

He knocked on the half-open door. The petite 44-year-old doctor smiled and said, “Come in.”

Dr. Bergitta Nansen reminded him of a raven. She wore an all-black uniform from head to toe. Jet black hair covered her head with a page boy cut. Dark eyeliner and even darker mascara highlighted her pale face. Black stilettos and black leg tights led to a black micro mini-skirt that ended in a black leather blouse. She perched bird-like on a stool next to one of the book-crammed shelves of her claustrophobic and narrow office. A delicate piercing graced her beaked nose with a discrete dot of gold. Her office was books wall-to-wall and books floor-to-ceiling. Most of the book titles seemed to be on homicidal and other psychotic violence. Sohlberg felt he had come to the right place and the right person.

“I’m Chief Inspector Sohlberg.”

“Aha. Very good,” she said without any surprise or curiosity as to the purpose of his visit. She slid off the stool and into the desk chair. Aromatic tobacco smoke wisped up from the bowl of a very long stem pipe that she cradled on her right hand. Sohlberg later found out that her pipe from France was a Butz-Choquin in the churchwarden style. “I’m glad you’re here Chief Inspector.”

“Really?”

“I’ve never had a cop for a client. Who referred you?”

 “No one. I—”

“Please sit down. Would you like some tea or coffee?”

“No. Thank you. I—”

“Don’t. Please. Don’t. There’s no need to explain
why
you’re here. It’s obvious you’re troubled. Deeply troubled . . . and impatient. And you’re a very angry man. Very very angry. Your eyes. They speak volumes.”

Sohlberg was about to dismiss her diagnosis with sarcastic words. Instead he smiled. Dr. Nansen made him extremely uncomfortable with her ability to look right through his meek and mild facade. Try as hard as he could Sohlberg could not hide the anger that he still felt against his dead wife Karoline for her careless and inexplicable and fatal mistake of not properly tying herself to the climbing rope. He cleared his throat and said:

“I just came here to ask you a few questions.”

“If that’s the way you want to play this then that’s fine. Just fine. I also want to ask you a few questions.”

“But—”

“Communication is a two-way street. Okay?”

The force of her intelligence and personality threatened to overwhelm him in the most pleasant if not seductive manner. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Her exotic and enticing perfume fragrance reached out across the desk to embrace and seduce him.

“Maybe you can help me Doktor.”

“I can try.”

“But before you help me I need some questions answered.”

“Like I said . . . I’m game if you are. Go ahead. Ask me.”

“I’m interested in an old criminal case. The court found the defendant insane from psychosis. I’d like to read the report from the psychiatrists.”

“That’ll be in the courthouse files.”

“It’s not.”

“Did you try contacting the doctors who wrote the report?’

“Dead ends.”

“Oh . . . I see . . . you’re here because you think that either we treated the patient at the Psychosis Research Center . . . or that I was on some panel of the Board of Forensic Medicine that reviewed the report.”

“Bingo . . . the latter.”

“You’re sure that I was on the panel?”

“Yes. . . .”

“Who was the defendant?”

“Ludvik Helland. Charged with murdering his wife.”

She nodded and sucked long and hard on her pipe. After a long minute she exhaled a large savory cloud that filled the room with intoxicating smells of Black Cavendish blend from America. The tobacco was soaked with a considerable amount of vanilla and a hint of chocolate. Sohlberg felt a pang of hunger and what felt like a guilty conscience over what Fru Sohlberg would say if she could see him now inside Dr. Nansen’s office.

“Oh . . . yes,” said the doktor casually. “I remember. The heiress.”

“Exactly.”

“Hhhmmmm . . . I know the doktor who is treating her husband. If you like I can arrange a meeting with him.”

“Oh really? . . . With Ludvik Helland?”

“Actually . . . with Helland’s psychiatrist. He’d have to approve any visit with Helland.”

“Yes . . . I’d like that.”

“Okay . . . So what else do you want?”

“A copy of the report.”

“Can’t find it anywhere else?”

“Nope.”

She smoked again and exhaled. This time she blew three perfectly round smoke-doughnuts up into the air. Her throaty laugh sent chills down Sohlberg’s spine. He hated it and would never admit it but he found her extremely attractive if not downright desirable. He started to get up off his chair to leave the scene of his temptation when she suddenly chirped:

“Sit. I have a copy. I kept one . . . although one of your police colleagues kept pestering me for my copy.”

“You remember who did the pestering?”

“A pest.”

“Named Ivar Thorsen?”

“Something like that. Looked like a cockroach.”

Sohlberg smiled and simply said, “Doktor . . . can I borrow your report?”

“No. But I will give you a copy . . . to keep.”

“Thank you. Thank you very much.”

“Now it’s your turn to do me a favor.”

“Yes. But you need to know that I don’t believe in psychiatry or psychiatrists.”

“Neither do I.”

“Oh.”

“Freud was for the most part a . . . charlatan. A fraud.”

“Freud a fraud?”

“Only Jung got it right.”

He shrugged. Psychiatry was an subject of which he had little knowledge and he wanted to keep it that way especially with the mental and sexual trap that he sensed in Dr. Nansen. She exuded an intense primal sexuality. Wanting to get away from her as quickly as possible he said:

“I’d like to get the report as soon as possible . . . now please.”

“That’s fine. But before I get you a visit with Helland’s doktor . . . and before I give you the report . . . I’d like us to engage in some psychological nudity.”

“Us? Or do you mean
me
? . . . I’m not sure that I want to do any psychological stripping just so I can get a visit with Ludvik Helland . . . or a look-see at his report.”

“But sir . . . you started peeling off your garments the moment you stepped inside my office . . . first of all you’re clearly a man on a mission . . . you barged in here and practically demanded the report from me . . . you have a uniform . . . a badge . . . that’s the perfect Jungian archetype for the
Hero On A Mission
. . . Odysseus . . . Jason . . . Who knows? . . . You may even be an epitome.”

Sohlberg shook his head.

“What I want Chief Inspector . . . is . . . to see you stripped down to your core . . . so I can study the complex . . . your core pattern of emotions and memories and ideas and desires of your unconsciousness and how they are organized around a common theme.”

“Doktor . . . what in the world are you talking about?”

“Your common theme . . . what drives you.”

“My job dives me.”

“Wrong. Something much deeper in you drives you . . . something deep in your subconscious. . . . Is it guilt? . . . Or do you have a hero complex . . . a man who must save lost kittens and puppies and many damsels in distress?”

“Nonsense.”

“You see? Your response tells me that you’re a man who takes from women but does not like to give back. You want a report from me that you can’t find anywhere else. Obviously it’s very important for you. And yet you call my probing questions nonsense. . . . You’re a man who feels that women impose on you . . . and so do friends and children and family members. You feel that all of us impose on you . . . and your time . . . and your career. . . . You’re a lonely man who’s also a loner . . . despite outward shows of caring and affection you’re a man who deep down jealously guards his selfishness . . . his ego.”

Sohlberg laughed but nervously. She had him: she knew him inside out. A tactical retreat could save him from being dissected so grossly. He offered her a bone:

“Alright . . . you’ve got me. I plead guilty. You got a peep show into my soul. Now can I get the report?”

Dr. Nansen opened a desk drawer. She took out a fat manila envelope that had the label
Application for Clinical Trial
in large black letters. She threw the envelope at him and said:

“Fill out the questionnaire. I expect it back here within seven days. After I and my doctoral thesis students review your responses you can start coming once a week to receive treatment from me.”

“Where? . . . At the Psychosis Research Center? . . . Do you think I’m psychotic?”

“I don’t know. . . . You’re putting the cart before the horse . . . aren’t you? . . . I haven’t diagnosed you yet. And . . . no . . . you’re not a patient at the Center. You’re a patient at my Clinical Diagnosis Group . . . where I teach students from real-life patients that I’m diagnosing and treating. So . . . your first appointment will be on the fifteenth of January.”