Fear Not Part 37

'Not really, but ...'

Yes, she thought.

I don't want to talk to Adam yet. I don't want any critical questions. I refuse to answer all his objections, all his counter-arguments. Kristiane must be protected if it's at all possible. I want to find out about this for myself first.

'He just has this tendency to a.s.sume I'm ...'

'Moderately hysterical?'

Once again that same light, unaccustomed laugh.

'A bit too quick to a.s.sume that something's wrong,' Hanne clarified. 'Is that the problem?'

'Maybe.'

'Silje Srensen.'

'What? Who?'

'Talk to Silje Srensen. If anyone can help you, it's Silje. I have to go now. I've got a lot to do.'

'A lot to do?'

The thought that Hanne Wilhelmsen had a lot to do in her self-imposed exile in her luxury apartment was absurd.

'I've started doing a bit of work,' she explained.

'Work?'

'You have a very odd way of speaking on the telephone, Johanne. You keep coming out with individual words followed by a question mark. Yes, I've started working. For myself. On a small scale.'

'Doing ... doing what?'

'Call round one day and we'll have a chat. But now I really do have to go. Ring Silje Srensen. Bye.'

Silence. Johanne couldn't quite believe what she'd heard.

Her friendship with Hanne Wilhelmsen had come about by chance. Johanne had needed help with one of her projects, and had sought out the retired, taciturn inspector. In some strange way she had felt welcome. They didn't meet often, but over the years they had developed an una.s.suming, careful friendship, completely free of any demands or obligations.

Johanne had never heard Hanne like this.

She was so taken aback that she hadn't even asked who this Silje Srensen was. She was annoyed with herself, until she remembered reading about her in the paper. She was responsible for the investigation into the murder of Marianne Kleive.

Perfect.

It was probably still too early to get hold of her. Adam was rarely at work before 8.30, and she presumed the same applied to senior officers in the Oslo police district.

And so she stayed where she was, cradling her coffee cup in her hands as she waited for the daylight, wondering what on earth had happened to Hanne Wilhemsen.

'What's happened?' Astrid Tomte Lysgaard whispered as she opened the door and saw Lukas standing outside.

It was only eleven o'clock and he should have been at work. He looked as if he'd just found out that someone else had died.

'I'm really ill,' said Lukas, almost tottering into the hallway. 'Throat. Temperature. I need to lie down.'

'You scared me,' said Astrid, clutching at her chest with her slender hands before reaching out to stroke his cheek. 'You look as if you've seen a ghost.'

'I'm just ill,' he said curtly, turning away. 'I feel rotten.'

'That's what happens when you spend all evening out there in the garage. Obviously, you're bound to come down with something.'

He didn't even look at her as he headed for the living room. It suited him perfectly if she blamed his evenings working in the damp garage. He wasn't particularly keen on telling her about his idiotic scramble over the roof of his father's house in the ice-cold January rain. He was even less keen to explain that he'd spent more than fifteen minutes sitting in a barely warm car, soaking wet and frozen to the marrow while Adam Stubo told him off.

'Have we got any Alvedon?' he said pathetically. 'And c.o.ke? Have we got any c.o.ke?'

'Yes to both. I bought some Alvedon yesterday after I-'

She broke off.

'The c.o.ke's in the fridge,' she said instead. 'And there's some Alvedon in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Would you like a hot-water bottle?'

'Yes please. I feel absolutely ...'

It wasn't necessary for him to go into any more detail about his condition. His eyes were red and his skin paler than the time of year warranted. His nostrils were inflamed and caked in snot, and his lips were dry and flaky. There was a thick white coating at the corners of his mouth, and when she moved towards him to get out a gla.s.s, Astrid was struck by a sour, tainted smell coming from his mouth.

'You're not very good at coping with illness, Lukas.'

She ventured a smile.

His back radiated self-pity as he shambled towards the stairs.

She followed him into the bathroom. As he fumbled with the lock of the medicine cabinet she let the water run for a while, so that it was really hot by the time she filled the hot-water bottle.

'To be perfectly honest, Lukas,' she said, 'you're not actually dying. You need to pull yourself together.'

Without replying he pushed three tablets out of their foil packaging, placed them in his mouth and swilled them down with half a bottle of c.o.ke. His face contorted in a grimace of pain as he swallowed. He started to undress as he walked, leaving a trail of clothes behind him along the landing and into the cool bedroom. He sank down on the bed as if he had used up the very last of his strength, pulled the covers right up to his chin and rolled over on his side.

'Here's your hot-water bottle,' she said. 'Where would you like it?'

He didn't answer.

'Lukas,' she said hesitantly. 'There's something I want to talk to you about.'

Yesterday she had refrained from asking who the woman in the photograph in the drawer was. She had been on the point of asking several times, but other things kept on coming up. All the time. The kids. Dinner. Homework. That eternal b.l.o.o.d.y garage. When the two of them were alone at last and it was gone half past ten, Lukas insisted on watching a TV programme about a tattoo parlour in Los Angeles. Astrid had gone up to bed and fallen asleep before he joined her.

Today it had struck her that she should have asked him anyway. She had allowed everything else to get in the way, because she was ashamed at having opened his drawer without permission. She was annoyed with herself. She had nothing to be ashamed of; looking for tablets that were responsibly locked away lay well within the parameters of the permissible.

'I feel absolutely terrible,' came a whimper from beneath the covers.

'I just want to ask you something,' she said firmly.

'Oh, Astrid ... I'm losing my voice! Can I have some warm milk with honey in it? Please?'

For a while she stood there, trying to work out what she actually felt.

Exhaustion, she thought. Irritation, perhaps.

Anxiety.

'Of course,' she said wearily. 'I'll go and get you some milk and honey.'

She closed the door quietly behind her and went down to the kitchen. By the time she got back with the drink, Lukas had fallen asleep.

'There you go,' said Silje Srensen, handing Johanne a cup of hot chocolate. 'I get a bit boss-eyed from all the coffee I drink, so I keep some of this in reserve.'

'Thanks,' said Johanne. 'And thank you for seeing me at such short notice.'

'I was curious!'

Silje Srensen's laugh was somehow out of proportion with her slender body.

'I've heard of you and read about you,' she continued, 'but I'm also happy to see anyone Hanne Wilhelmsen sends in my direction. How is she, by the way?'

Johanne opened her mouth to reply, then changed her mind. Hanne wouldn't like being talked about.

'Oh, you know,' she said with a shrug, hoping that the noncommittal response would make Silje Srensen change the subject. Actually, she ought to be doing that.

'The thing is,' she said, clearing her throat, 'I don't really know where to start.'

'No?'

'I'm a criminologist and I work-'

'As I said,' Silje interrupted her, 'I know who you are. Is it OK if I call you Johanne?'

'Of course. I'm working on a research project on hatred at the moment.'

'Interesting.'

It almost looked as if she meant it. Her gaze was direct and she shook her head as if to clear her mind.

'Hate crime,' Johanne corrected herself. 'The National Police Board has asked me to undertake a major investigation into hate crime.'

Silje Srensen blinked. She put her cup down on the desk and slowly pushed it away. Her eyes narrowed and the tip of a pink tongue flicked across her lips.

'I see.'

'Attacks on individuals where the crime is motivated by-'

'I'm well aware of what hate crime is.'

Silje Srensen had a bad habit of interrupting, Johanne thought.

'Of course,' she nodded. 'Of course you are.'

They sat like that for a surprisingly long time. In silence, each waiting for the other to say something. Johanne tried to guess how old Silje Srensen might be. She must be younger than her, but not much. Thirty-five, perhaps. Maybe even younger. She was well-groomed and smartly dressed without seeming out of place in this environment.

Dainty, thought Johanne. She had never felt dainty in her entire life.

Silje's hands were slender and her nails so perfectly manicured that Johanne hid her own by putting down her cup and sliding her hands under her bottom.

'Are you looking at hate crimes directed against one particular group, or are you looking at the bigger picture?'

Silje was leaning forward, her elbows resting on the desk.

'The thing is,' Johanne said, taking a deep breath. 'I think I need to start from the beginning. Can you spare half an hour to listen to a very strange story?'

A large diamond on the ring finger of Silje Srensen's left hand sparkled in the bright light as she made a generous and inviting gesture.

'Fire away,' she said. 'I'm all ears.'

Johanne knocked back the rest of her hot chocolate and started to tell her story, unaware that she now had a large, brown, seriously unflattering milk moustache.

Adam still hadn't heard anything from Johanne, and it worried him. He was back in his hotel room picking up some notes he had forgotten when the temptation to lie down for a few minutes grew too much. Deep down he suspected he had left the papers behind on purpose. Lunch at the hotel was significantly better than anything the Bergen police had to offer, and since it was included in his full board he didn't even feel guilty.

Except when it came to the chocolate pudding.

He had eaten two helpings, and a slight feeling of nausea persuaded him that he really did need just a tiny little rest. He kicked off his shoes and threw himself on the bed. It was a bit too soft, particularly lying on top of the covers, but if he could just find the right position he would fall asleep.

He didn't want to sleep.

He wanted to get hold of Lukas.

Ever since the episode on the roof it was as if the guy was playing cat and mouse with him. Adam had decided not to disturb Astrid unnecessarily after their melancholy encounter out in Os. Therefore he had only called Lukas on his mobile, but it always went straight to voice-mail. Lukas never called him back. In the end Adam had rung the university, but they seemed to have virtually no idea where Lukas might be. He was clearly being given considerable leeway after his mother's tragic death.

Adam's eyes closed.

The fact that Johanne hadn't called worried him. She had sounded so peculiar on the phone last night.

He sat up abruptly.

He didn't have time for this.