Sohlberg and the Gift (2 page)
Read Sohlberg and the Gift Online
Authors: Jens Amundsen
Tags: #Crime, #Police Procedural, #Mystery, #Thriller, #Suspense
Chapter 8/Åtte
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, OR
SEVEN DAYS AFTER THE DAY
Chapter 9/Ni
WEDNESDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 10,
OR EIGHT DAYS AFTER THE DAY
Chapter 10/Ti
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, DECEMBER 10,
OR EIGHT DAYS AFTER THE DAY
Chapter 11/Elleve
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11,
OR NINE DAYS AFTER THE DAY
Chapter 12/Tolv
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12,
OR TEN DAYS AFTER THE DAY
Chapter 14/Fjorten
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 14,
OR TWELVE DAYS AFTER THE DAY
Chapter 15/Femten
MORNING OF MONDAY, DECEMBER 15,
OR THIRTEEN DAYS AFTER THE DAY
Chapter 16/Skesten
AFTERNOON AND EVENING OF MONDAY,
DECEMBER 15, OR THIRTEEN DAYS
AFTER THE DAY
PART ONE: PROMISES TO KEEP
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep . . .
And miles to go before I sleep.
— Robert Frost [
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
, 1923]
Any man who is going to get rich can’t obey the rules
all
the time.
— Howard Hughes, Texas tycoon [1905 – 1976]
Prologue
Mist. Fog. Nothingness. The world dissolved. Chemical nirvana. A rainbow river of pills. Blue. Red. Yellow. Pink. White. The blue is the worst. It’s called The Hammer. One hour to go before The Hammer does its deed. One hour.
How can you save your life by writing down a few words during that precious hour?
A one-page letter. One hour. One page. ALL must be put down on the lined paper. The basic essentials of my predicament must be written down. ALL must be expressed. Succinctly. Brief and to the point. And in the most interesting manner.
I must be tantalizing.
Is that a word?
I’m forgetting words. I used to be a poet. A singer songwriter. A troubadour.
The envelope and the stamp. The address. Yes. They are all in fine working order. It’s taken days and days to get them ready. All has been prepared for this day. This hour. This letter. My passport to freedom. My baby. I’m writing her a letter. Lonely days will be gone. And I’ll be going home.
A sentence. Then another. A paragraph?
The music floats into the air.
The Letter.
Joe Cocker singing.
The pills float all around. A galaxy of shapes. Round. Oblong. Triangular.
Blue. Red. Yellow. Pink. White.
Will blue win today?
The Hammer thinks so. The Hammer says so.
So much to say. So little time left.
The poet Neruda:
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Long ago a poster with the poet’s words once graced my bedroom wall. The Pablo Neruda poster. My hip hippie days. Pretending to be a poet. A long time ago. Long gone. Love is short. Forgetting so long—an eternity.
Write the saddest lines. Thus saith the poet Neruda.
Do it.
Just do it.
The winged goddess. I hear the shuffle of her wings.
Nike of Love. Nike of Death.
My baby. I’ve got to get back to her. The insanity of my endeavor. Save my life so I can find The One and slice her beating heart out of her ribcage.
I will not be denied.
There will be blood.
There must be blood.
The music notes float up in the air with the pills. They mate and merge and the notes fly about in red and white and blue and pink and yellow. A whirlpool of whole notes and half notes and quarter notes. Flats and sharps shoot out everywhere like sparkling stars. The thirty-second notes and sixty-fourth notes leap about like wild horses running with their manes streaming in the air.
I tried to end it all. But I remember everything.
Long ago an old guitar from a pawn shop graced a wall by my bed. The guitar under the Pablo Neruda poster. My hip hippie days. Pretending to be a poet and a singer songwriter after I came back from my high school’s exchange program with that nice family in Nashville. After the USA I wanted to be a troubadour. An outlaw. A Johnny Cash.
Hurt.
I am hurt. I will hurt.
The pain. It’s all I got.
The Hammer begins to obliterate everything little by little. A memory here. A memory there.
The One. Everything begins and ends with her. My alpha. My omega.
I will make her hurt.
There will be blood.
There must be blood.
Janne here I come.
There will be blood.
There must be blood.
When the winter winds blow
And the snow begins to fall.
There will be blood.
There must be blood.
Janne I've been so blue
Since I've been away from you.
There will be blood.
There must be blood.
I can't wait to get going.
Janne! Here I Come.
Right back where I started from.
That last night. Our last. So promising. Meeting at the abandoned warehouse on Midsummer’s Eve. Crumbling walls crusted with mold. Exposed brick. Shafts of half-light falling through rips on the rooftop. Stains dark and brooding everywhere. Filth smeared everywhere. Floors covered with debris large and small. Doorless doorways opened to more doorless doorways.
Janne laughs. How would you like those two.
She points at two women nearby. Kissing. They open their blouses and keep fondling and open-mouth kissing each other.
She laughs and points. I want to see you and those two.
You like to see.
Yes. I like to see. A woman can like to see. I first want to see you with these two.
A threesome.
Three comes before four.
A foursome.
Stop talking. Take them here. Now. Three now. Four later.
The two women stop their devouring and move towards me. The Unrebuked Devourer and his night spawn grasp me. My belt unbuckles. We moan and writhe.
She laughs. Yeah Baby. Show me what you got with these girls. Show me you got what it takes. Then I’ll be yours. All yours. We’ll go over to my place when you’re finished here. All four of us. All night long.
The two women push me down on a pile of slimy wood slats and rats scurry about.
The rank gutter smells.
The ruins of my life. The ruin of my mind.
Chapter 1/Én
MORNING OF THE DAY, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2
Sohlberg replayed the conversation with his morning visitor over and over in his mind. He was to do that many more times throughout his life.
“Hei . . . can I help you?”
“I’m Astrid Isaksen. Are you Sohlberg?”
“Yes.”
“I want justice.”
A stunned Sohlberg was left momentarily speechless by his young ash-blonde visitor. The vernal beauty smiled. His eyes locked into the enormous gray-blue eyes which glittered unnaturally.
“I said I want justice.”
“That’s not for me to give.”
“You won’t know until you try. Will you? . . . That’s what my grandmother always tells me.”
“Justice . . . I can’t give you justice . . . no more than I can give you liberty . . . or truth . . . or integrity. . . . Those things I have no control over.”
“But—”
“Look here young lady . . . I can’t give you those things . . . you . . . you have to get them for yourself . . . earn them for yourself. I have no power in those areas. None. I only work on homicides and major crimes.”
“Homicide? Major crimes? That’s all you do?”
”Yes.”
“Then tell me this . . . why was Chief Inspector Nygård kicked off the Janne Eide case? That’s a mighty peculiar turn of events.”
After a long silence she again said:
“Then tell me this . . . why was Chief Inspector Nygård kicked off the Janne Eide case?”
Sohlberg surprised himself when he abruptly replied:
“I don’t know. . . . I’ll look into it.”
And that was the end of their conversation. She smiled her brilliant perfect teeth at him and left his office as suddenly as she had appeared. The apparition of her youth and beauty beguiled him. In hindsight he should have followed her. But he didn’t because her taunting questions had left him in a daze—as mentally incapacitated as if she had used a stun gun on him with a 3 million volt discharge.
Chief Inspector Harald Sohlberg vaguely remembered the gruesome murder of Janne Eide. The case had been a media sensation three years ago. But the public had felt a sharp letdown with the quick capture of her murderer and his equally speedy plea of insanity. All this had come as a disappointing anticlimax to every tabloid’s promise of an
insider’s look
at the tawdry lifestyles of the rich and famous. The expected scandal among the wealthy elites never materialized.