Fear Not Part 27

'What the ... ?'

She couldn't marshal her thoughts.

'A punter who pays for s.e.x, and a possible murderer,' she began, the words coming out in a staccato rhythm. 'Of the male gender. Going around. Pulling young lads. In the middle of Oslo.'

She swallowed and moistened her lips with her tongue.

'With a membership badge of the Norwegian Women's Public Health a.s.sociation clearly visible on the lapel of his jacket. What the h.e.l.l is going on? Is he taking the p.i.s.s or what?'

Knut Bork picked up the drawing and walked over to the notice-board by the window. He pinned it up and took two steps back. He stood there for a while, his head tilted to one side, then he suddenly turned to Silje and nodded.

'Perhaps that's exactly what he's doing, Silje. Perhaps this guy is trying to take the p.i.s.s.'

When the man on the phone said he was from the police, Marcus Koll Junior thought for a confused moment that someone was trying to play a joke on him. When he realized a few seconds later that he was mistaken, he got up and started pacing back and forth across the living room. To begin with he was concentrating so hard on sounding unconcerned that he didn't grasp what the man was actually saying.

They couldn't possibly know anything.

It was simply unthinkable, he tried to convince himself.

He stopped by the big windows looking south.

The sloping garden was lit up. Fir trees heavy with snow were an almost fluorescent ice-blue against the dense darkness beyond the fence. Low cloud hid the city and the fjord. From where he was standing, the world beyond his own domain did not exist.

Except on the telephone.

'I'm sorry,' said Marcus, trying to put a smile into his voice. 'I wonder if you could possibly go over that again? The connection isn't very good.'

'The information,' the voice said, clearly impatient. 'You called us on Monday with information about that series of break-ins.'

A faint puff of wind brought the snow cascading down from the nearest tree. The dry crystals sparkled in the lamplight. Right down at the bottom of the garden stood two tall pine trees with bare, erect trunks and rounded crowns, like soldiers standing to attention on sentry duty.

Marcus tried to absorb the feeling of relief.

He'd been right. Of course they didn't know anything There was no cause for alarm.

'Oh,' was all he said, swallowing. 'I don't think that was me.'

'Aren't I speaking to Rolf Slettan?' said the voice at the other end of the phone. 'On 2307****?'

'No,' said Marcus, concentrating on breathing calmly. 'He's my husband. Rolf. He was the one who called you. My name is Marcus Koll. As I said when I answered the phone.'

There was silence for a couple of seconds.

That brief moment of silent confusion, thought Marcus. Or disgust. Or both. He was used to it, just as everyone grows used to a stigma when they have carried it for long enough. Before little Marcus started school, Marcus Koll Junior had persuaded Dagens Naeringsliv to do a profile on him, pointing out that he was the only gay man with a husband and a child on the list of the hundred wealthiest people in the country. He hoped that little Marcus would be protected by the fact that everyone knew, and didn't need to whisper. That he wouldn't need to deal with it all later, when they found out.

It occurred to him several weeks later that not everyone read Dagens Naeringsliv.

'Oh yes,' the voice at the other end of the line said eventually. 'Is ... is he at home? Rolf Slettan?'

'Yes, but he's just putting our son to bed.'

This time the silence lasted so long that Marcus thought they'd been cut off.

'h.e.l.lo?' he said loudly.

'Yes,' said the man. 'I'm here. Could you ask him to ring me? The information he gave has just been left lying around here, and I've got a couple of questions I'd like to-'

'Is it the number that came up on the display?' Marcus interrupted.

'Er ... yes, that's fine. Tell him to ask for Constable Pettersen. Is he likely to ring this evening?'

'I wouldn't have thought so,' said Marcus. 'We have plans for this evening. But of course, if it's important I can ask him to call you. In half an hour or so.'

'That would be great, if you could. There was another break-in last night, and it would be-'

'Certainly. I'll tell him.'

He ended the conversation without any further farewell phrases, and put the phone down on the coffee table. It struck him that the room was too dark. He slowly walked around, from one source of light to the next, until the room was so well lit that the view of the garden almost disappeared in the sharp contrast between outside and inside.

Rolf had told him about the tyre tracks by the gate. To begin with Marcus had been surprised, almost annoyed that Rolf was getting so worked up about the fact that someone had pulled into the small area by the side of the road. It wasn't fenced off, and was a natural place to give way to oncoming traffic. Since the snow had started falling heavily after New Year, he had seen tracks there all the time.

It wasn't until Rolf had the chance to explain more clearly that Marcus was prepared to discuss the matter. He had to admit that it seemed strange for someone to stay there for a while, as the varying depth of the tracks and the number of cigarette b.u.t.ts seemed to indicate. When Rolf stubbornly maintained that the same car had been parked further up the road while he was examining the tracks by the gate, and had taken off as soon as he showed interest in it, Marcus fell silent.

Rolf's strong feeling that someone had been watching them fitted all too well with his own growing sense of unease. More and more often he caught himself looking over his shoulder for something, although he didn't know what it was. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say he was looking for someone. Up to now he hadn't been able to put his finger on anything concrete, but ever since before Christmas the impression that he had a living shadow had grown stronger and stronger. Only after New Year had he realized that the panic attack that had almost brought him to his knees four days before Christmas, after remaining at bay for many years, was not only due to the pangs of conscience with which he had been wrestling.

It was as if someone were keeping an eye on him.

The problem, as Marcus Koll Junior saw it, was that this surveillance presumably had nothing whatsoever to do with gangs of thieves and a spate of housebreaking.

If someone were spying on him, of course.

'No,' he said out loud, and sat down in the armchair again.

It was bound to be his imagination.

It had to be his imagination.

He was easily frightened at the moment, much too easily frightened, and Rolf's observations could just as easily be linked to a couple of young lovers who had stopped for a cuddle. A kiss and a smoke. Or perhaps a responsible driver who had stopped to answer his mobile.

The doorbell rang.

The babysitter, he thought, and closed his eyes.

It was ten o'clock, and he was really too tired to go out.

In three months and five days it would be ten years since his father's death.

Marcus Koll opened his eyes, stood up and tugged hard on both his earlobes to perk himself up. The doorbell rang again. As he crossed the living room he decided that 15 April would be the day when all his troubles would come to an end. Despite the fact that the date had lost its original significance, he would still use it as a milestone in his life: 15 April would be the turning point, and everything would be the way it had been before. If he could just get there. The house on the ridge would once again become a fortress; his secure framework around his family, far beyond his father's dominion.

It was a promise he made to himself, and for some reason it made him feel a little bit better.

Before the Day Dawns.

Johanne felt remarkably contented when the alarm clock rang at the early hour of five-thirty on the morning of Monday, 12 January. At first she couldn't work out why she was being woken up so early, and lay there in that pleasant no-man's-land between dream and reality, while Adam hurled himself at the wretched thing and silenced it. The dry warmth beneath the covers made her draw them more closely around her. When Adam lay down again with a groan she wriggled up against his back.

'I've got to go,' he murmured. 'The plane to Bergen leaves in two hours.'

'Ragnhild's asleep,' she whispered. 'Kristiane and Jack are at Isak's. Can't you stay for quarter of an hour?'

It cost him his breakfast, and as he sat in the car on the way to Gardermoen just after six-thirty, late and with grumbling pains in his stomach, he almost regretted it.

Johanne, on the other hand, felt better than she had for a long time. The evening with Karen Winslow had gone on until three o'clock on Sat.u.r.day morning. It would have been even later if Karen hadn't had to drive a good 200 kilometres to Lillesand the following day. Adam had taken Ragnhild to visit his son-in-law and his grandson Amund on Sat.u.r.day morning, and stayed out all day. Johanne had slept for longer than she could ever remember. After a long breakfast and three hours with the Sat.u.r.day papers, she had driven to Tyenbadet and swum 1,500 metres. In the evening Sigmund Berli had called round. Uninvited. He had brought pizza and warm beer. The unwelcome guest gave Johanne a good excuse to go to bed before ten o'clock.

It had done her good.

She was still feeling happy after meeting up with her old friend. Ragnhild had gone to bed too late on the Sunday, and she had finally reached the age where she caught up on some lost sleep the following day. Johanne ambled around in Adam's huge pyjamas, made a big pot of coffee and settled down on the sofa with the laptop on her knee. Her teaching commitments hadn't yet started post-Christmas, and she had decided to spend the day at home. She would leave Ragnhild to sleep until she woke up, despite the fact that the woman who ran the nursery got annoyed if she wasn't dropped off before ten.

Johanne checked her e-mail; she had nine new messages. Most of them were of no interest. One was from the police. She glanced through it quickly, and realized immediately that it was the same message Adam had received on Sat.u.r.day morning about the murder of Marianne Kleive. The police had obtained a complete guest list from the wedding reception at the Continental, and were making routine enquiries as to whether any of the guests had noticed anything that might be relevant to the case. Johanne deleted the message straight away. Adam had already replied for both of them, besides which she wanted to devote as little thought as possible to that terrible evening when Kristiane had almost been hit by a tram.

Karen Winslow had already replied to the question Johanne had sent the previous day. She pulled the blanket more tightly around her and opened the message as she sipped the scalding hot coffee.

Dear Johanne, It was so great to see you! A wonderful evening and an interesting(!) walk through the city! Meeting your husband was fantastic, and I have to say my own man has one or two things to learn from him. His warmth and generosity when we showed up in the middle of the night exceeded all expectations.

I'm writing you from Oslo Airport. The wedding was unbelievable, but the drive to and from Lillesand a nightmare.

As we agreed, I'll fill you in on some of the most relevant parts of our research / intelligence as soon as I can. Just to respond to the questions in your message of this morning: the name 'The 25'ers' is based on the sum of the digits in 19, 24 and 27 (did I tell you that?). Our theory is that the numbers 24 and 27 point to St Paul's Epistle to the Romans, chapter 1 verses 24 and 27. Look it up yourself. The number 19 is claimed to have a somehow 'magical' significance in the Koran. It's too complicated to explain here, but if you google 'Rashad Khalifa' you'll figure it out. If our numerologists are correct, the name 'The 25'ers' is quite scary ...

They're calling my flight now, so I'll have to run.

And don't you forget you and your family have PROMISED to come visit us this summer!

All the best and a big hug,

Karen.

Johanne read through the message again. She needed a printout to remember the strange references. The printer was in the bedroom. As she opened the door the closed-in smell of sheets, sleep and s.e.x hit her. Adam refused to sleep with the window open when the mercury dropped below minus five. Quickly she linked the computer to the printer. When the rasping sound told her that the doc.u.ment was being printed, she went over to the window and threw it wide open.

She closed her eyes against the fresh, cold air.

The Bible, she thought.

She wasn't even sure if they had one, but she knew there was a copy of the Koran in Adam's bookcase. He insisted on having a bookcase of his own in the bedroom, five metres of shelving containing an absurd mixture of books. The Book Club's splendid series on holy scriptures stood alongside reference books on weapons, huge works on heraldry, almost twenty books about horses and bloodlines, an ancient edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, plus everything that had ever been drawn and published by Frode verli. Leaving the window open, she crouched down in front of the bookcase on Adam's side of the double bed. The Koran was easy to find: its spine was adorned with gold leaf and Oriental patterns. The book standing next to it was so worn that the spine was missing. When she carefully took it out, the covers felt soft with age.

The Bible.

Slowly she opened it. There was ornate handwriting on the flyleaf: To Adam from Grandma and Granddad, 16 September 1956. She quickly worked out that it must have been the day of his christening; Adam was born on Midsummer's Eve that same year.

She half-closed the window and tucked both books under her arm. With the printout in one hand and the laptop in the other, she went back to the sofa.

She saw that Adam's Bible was the old translation. She found Paul's Epistle to the Romans, and ran her finger down the page.

24. Wherefore G.o.d gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness: to dishonour their own bodies among themselves.

She stopped.

... to dishonour their own bodies among themselves ...

'Presumably that means they had s.e.x with one another,' she murmured, before her eyes found verse 27.

... And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their l.u.s.ts, one towards another: men with men, working that which is filthy and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error.

Even though she basically understood what it meant, she closed the tattered book and pulled the laptop on to her knee. She should have thought of this in the first place, instead of rooting around in Adam's bookcase. She had done something similar only once before, and he had been cross for hours afterwards.

It took her two minutes to find the same text on the Internet, but in the new translation.

Therefore G.o.d gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to s.e.xual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.

Much clearer, she thought, with a slight shake of her head.

Verse 27 was also clearer when clothed in more modern language.

In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with l.u.s.t for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Johanne regarded herself as an agnostic. For her that was just a more elegant word for 'indifferent'. However, she had to deal with believers in her work and always tried to do so with due respect. Apart from a brief flirtation with religion in her teens, faith in G.o.d had never really interested her.

Until now.

Over the past few months she had been forced to develop a relationship with various religions on the most intense level. Texts such as the ones she had just read didn't frighten her in themselves. As a researcher and a non-believer, she looked at them within the historical context and found them quite interesting. However, taken literally with relevance to people living in 2009, she thought Paul's words were appalling.

If Karen and the APLC were right, and the name 'The 25ers' really could be traced back to these verses, then they must be an organization working directly against h.o.m.os.e.xuals and lesbians. Without paraphrasing. No church group. No religious community.

A pure hate group.

If ultra-conservative Christians really had joined up with radical Muslims in a new organization of their own, there was every reason to believe that their hatred was more violent than any she had spent the last few months examining more closely.

She read the last line again: ... received in themselves the due penalty for their error.