Synnøve didn’t move. She didn’t want visitors. A lot of people had tried, but not many had got past the door.
Ding-dong.
And again.
She got up awkwardly from the sofa and folded the woollen blanket. She massaged her stiff neck as she shuffled towards the door, ready to convince yet another friend that she wanted to be alone.
When she opened the door and saw Kjetil Berggren standing there, she felt dizzy with relief. They had found Marianne, she realized, and Kjetil had come here to give her the good news. It had all been a terrible misunderstanding, but Marianne would soon be home and everything would be just like before.
Kjetil Berggren’s expression was so serious. Synnøve took a step backwards into the hallway. The front door opened wider. There was a woman standing behind him. She was probably around fifty, and was wearing a winter coat. Around her neck, where everyone else would have had a scarf to keep out the bitter January cold, she was wearing a priest’s collar.
The pastor was just as serious as the police officer.
Synnøve took another step back before sinking to her knees and covering her face with her hands. Her nails dug into her skin, making blood-red stripes on both cheeks. She was howling, a constant, desperate lament that was like nothing Kjetil Berggren had ever heard before. Only when Synnøve started banging her head on the stone floor did he try to lift her up. She hit out at him, and sank down once more.
And all the time that dreadful howling.
The intense sound of pain made the dogs in the backyard answer her. Six huskies howled like the wolves they almost were. The desolate chorus rose up to the low clouds, and could be heard all the way to Framnes on the other side of the grey, deserted, wintry fjord.
A siren sliced through the steady hum of the traffic as they stopped for a red light at a junction. In the rear-view mirror Lukas could see a blue flashing light, and he tried to manoeuvre the car closer to the pavement without encroaching on the pedestrian zone. The ambulance, travelling far too fast, came up on the outside of the queue and almost ran over an old man who walked straight in front of Lukas’s big BMW X5. He was obviously deaf.
‘That was close,’ Lukas said to his father, staring at the bewildered pedestrian until the cars behind him started sounding their horns.
Erik Lysgaard didn’t reply. He was sitting in the passenger seat, as silent as always. His clothes were now clearly too big. The seat belt made him look flat and skinny. His hair stuck out from his scalp in miserable, downy clumps, and he looked ten years older than he was. Lukas had had to remind his father to have a shower that morning; a sour smell had emanated from his body the previous evening when he reluctantly allowed himself to be hugged.
Nothing had changed.
Once more Lukas had insisted on taking his father back to his home in Os. Once more Erik had protested, and, as before, Lukas had eventually won. The sight of their grandfather had frightened the children yet again, and a couple of times Astrid had been on the point of losing her composure.
‘We need to make some plans,’ said Lukas. ‘The police say we can hold the funeral next week. It’ll have to be quite a big occasion. There were so many people who were fond of Mum.’
Erik sat in silence, his face expressionless.
‘Dad, you need to make some decisions.’
‘You can sort it all out,’ said his father. ‘I don’t care.’
Lukas reached out and turned off the radio. He was gripping the wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white, and the speed at which he travelled along the last section of Årstadsveien would have cost him his licence had there been a camera. The tyres screeched as he turned left into Nubbebakken, crossing the oncoming traffic before slamming on the brakes.
‘Dad,’ he said, almost in a whisper. ‘Why has one of the photos disappeared?’
For the first time in the entire journey his father looked at him.
‘Photos?’
‘The photos in Mum’s room.’
Erik turned away again.
‘I want to go home.’
‘There have always been four photographs on that shelf. They were there when I was at the house the day after Mum was murdered. I remember, because that detective went in there by mistake. One of the photographs isn’t there any more. Why not?’
‘I want to go home.’
‘I’ll take you home. But I want an answer, Dad!’
Lukas banged his fist on the wheel. Pain shot up his arm, and he swore silently.
‘Take me home,’ said Erik. ‘Now.’
The coldness in his father’s voice made Lukas keep quiet. He put the car into gear. His hands were shaking and he felt almost as upset as when the police came to tell him that his mother was dead. When they pulled into the small area behind the open gate of his father’s house a few minutes later, he could clearly see the beautiful woman in the missing photograph in his mind’s eye. She was dark, and although the picture was black and white, he thought she had blue eyes. Just like Lukas. Her nose was straight and slender, like his, and her smile clearly showed that one front tooth lay slightly on top of the other.
Just like his own teeth.
Not enough of her clothing was visible to enable him to guess when the photo was taken. He hadn’t seen it until he was a teenager. Now that he had children of his own and had become aware of how observant children are, he had worked out that it couldn’t have been on display when he was younger. Once he had asked who she was. His mother had smiled and stroked his cheek and replied: ‘A friend you don’t know.’
Lukas stopped the car and got out to help his father into the house.
They didn’t exchange a word, and avoided looking at one another.
When the door closed behind Erik, Lukas got back in the car. He sat there for a long time as the wet snow obscured the windscreen and the temperature inside the car dropped.
His mother’s friend looked an awful lot like him.
‘She looks just like you! The spitting image!’
Karen Winslow laughed as she took the photograph of Ragnhild. She held it at an angle to avoid the reflection of the overhead lights, and shook her head. Ragnhild was lying in the bath with shampoo in her hair and a giant rubber duck on her tummy. It looked as if she was being attacked by a bright yellow monster.
‘So she’s the youngest,’ she said, handing back the photograph. ‘Have you got a picture of the older one?’
The photograph had been taken the previous Christmas.
Kristiane was sitting on the steps in front of the house on Hauges Vei, her expression serious. For once she was looking straight into the camera, and had just taken off her hat. Her thin hair was sticking out in all directions with static electricity, and the background light from the pane of glass in the door made it look as if she had a halo.
‘Wow,’ said Karen. ‘What a beautiful child! How old is she? Nine? Ten?’
‘Nearly fourteen,’ said Johanne. ‘It’s just that she’s not quite like other children.’
It was surprisingly easy to say.
‘What’s wrong with her?’
‘Who knows?’ said Johanne. ‘Kristiane was born with a heart defect, and had to undergo three major operations before she was one year old. Nobody has really managed to find out whether the damage was done then, or whether it’s an impairment she was born with.’
Karen smiled again and examined the photograph more closely. Looking at her old college friend reminded Johanne of how many years had passed. Karen had always been slim and fit, but now her face was thinner, more strained, and her black hair was streaked with grey. She had started wearing glasses. Johanne thought this must be recent, because she kept taking them off and putting them back on all the time, and she didn’t really know what to do with them when she wasn’t using them.
It was almost eighteen years since they last met, but they had recognized one another straight away. Johanne had been given the longest hug she could remember when Karen got out of the taxi outside Restaurant Victor on Sandaker, and as they walked inside she felt happy.