Karen smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear. She glanced up at the ceiling; it looked as if she was contemplating something.
Hamar Hospital. Mia guessed they must be near Hamar. Karen Nylund’s father had murdered her mother. The police had done nothing. That explained her hatred of the police.
‘Am I allowed to ask questions?’ Mia said.
‘Everything is allowed,’ Karen laughed. ‘Everything is allowed in this game!’
‘Except swearing,’ Mia said, forcing out another smile; she hoped it looked genuine.
‘That’s right.’ Karen giggled. ‘We don’t like that.’
‘What did you call her?’ Mia said.
‘Who?’
‘The baby from the maternity ward.’
Karen had stopped smiling.
‘Margrete,’ she said.
‘Beautiful name,’ Mia said.
‘Yes, it is, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, very beautiful. Was that her room?’
She nodded in the direction of the monitor.
‘Yes,’ Karen said forlornly. ‘Or no, it wasn’t as nice as that. That was where it was, but I had a new one built. The old one became so sad.’
‘What happened to her?’
‘Oh no, my turn, my turn.’
Mia took her eyes off the screen. She couldn’t bear to watch it. Marion was lying on the bed, wearing a white doll’s dress with lace.
‘He bled to death inside.’ Karen smiled.
‘Who?’
‘The one we never mention. I put rat poison in his food. After the police said that my mum had run away I had to cook for all three of us. It was fun watching him die. We watched him, my sister and I. He bled from his mouth, from everywhere. It was really good to watch. A red-letter day, you could say. Almost like Christmas.’
‘Where did you bury him?’ Mia said, trying her hardest not to look at the screen.
Focus, now, Mia, focus.
‘Right behind the outdoors lavatory.’ Karen smiled again. ‘Stinky, stinky, filthy, filthy, filthy. Very apt. Are you sure you don’t want some cake?’
‘Maybe later.’ Mia smiled.
‘It’s very good.’ Karen nodded and disappeared inside her own head for a moment.
‘Malin Stoltz.’
‘Oh, you mean Maiken?’
‘Two different-coloured eyes? Malin?’
‘Maiken.’ Karen nodded. ‘Poor Maiken. She’s as mad as a hatter, did you know? But together we made loads of money.’
Slowly, it began to dawn on Mia how everything was connected.
‘Through the church?’
Karen Nylund smiled and clapped her hands again.
‘Well done, Mia. Clever girl. You’ve no idea how easy it is to make old ladies give all their money to Jesus when they think they’re about to die.’
She laughed briefly.
‘The church got sixty per cent, we got forty. A fair deal, in my opinion. That’s a lot of money, Mia. Do you know how much money that is?’
‘No,’ Mia said.
‘It’s a lot.’ Karen winked at her. ‘Let’s put it this way, this is not my real home.’
‘But she didn’t know anything about Margrete or the other girls?’
‘Oh no.’ Karen laughed. ‘Maiken is proper crazy, no doubt about it, but much too soft for anything like that. That stupid friend of hers, Roger Bakken, at least I could use him for something. He could never make up his mind whether he was a man or a woman – a bit bizarre, really, people like that are always weak, easy to manipulate.’
‘Wow, that’s quite a scam,’ Mia said. ‘Working with the church. Clever, really – everyone’s a winner.’
‘Yes, they are, aren’t they?’ Karen said proudly.
‘So what happened to her?’ Mia continued.
‘Who?’
‘Margrete. The baby?’
Karen fell silent for a moment before she replied.
‘I was hit by a car. I broke my foot and both arms,’ she said, pressing her lips together. ‘I was admitted to hospital.’
‘For a long time?’
Karen nodded silently.
‘I can’t blame them either,’ she said, putting on her smile again. ‘The old people, I mean. Giving away their money. They lie there all alone. Their body is packing up. They look back on their lives and they have regrets. Oh, they have so many regrets, Mia. I have seen them. Heard them talk. About all the things they wish they had done differently. Worried less about other people. Put themselves first. Travelled more, had more fun, explored the world. They’re all terrified. They have fear in their eyes – it’s extreme, Mia, you should have seen some of them. They realize that they have made mistakes. They panic. They hope for another go. They want to buy their way to a second chance. I can’t blame them, really. How does it feel to be about to die, Mia?’
‘Are you going to kill me?’ Mia said.
Karen looked at her strangely.
‘Yes, of course I am. Why do you ask?’
‘Why me?’
‘Have you really not worked that out? And here was I thinking you were so clever.’
‘No, I haven’t worked it out,’ Mia said quietly.
‘No, you haven’t, because I’m smarter than you.’
Karen smiled triumphantly and clapped her hands again in a childish fashion.
‘I killed a dog, did you know? So that the girls would have someone to play with. Wasn’t that nice?’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Mia mumbled.
‘That’s because you’re stupid.’ Karen Nylund smiled.
‘Yes, you’re smarter than me.’
‘That’s right, I am.’
‘So why are you going to kill me?’
‘Do you not know? Do you really not know?’ The woman with the strawberry-blonde hair smiled.
‘No.’
‘Do you want me to tell you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Because you killed my sister,’ Karen said, and disappeared into the kitchen.
Chapter 80
The first time Liv-Hege Nylund sniffed glue was in a back alley in Hamar when she was thirteen years old. She had dropped out of school ages ago: she hadn’t liked it there, studying wasn’t for her she hadn’t liked the people either; and, anyway, no one cared about where she was. Her sister, Karen, used to care; she was ten years older than Liv-Hege and had always looked after her while they were growing up in Tangen, in a small house far away from other people. Their father had been a bully. Physical and psychological abuse had characterized life for the two sisters and their mother, who had finally vanished from the surface of the earth. Young Liv-Hege had witnessed things her mind and her body could not process. The cloth with the glue had offered her a much-needed break from reality. While Karen had been around, life had been easier. Going to school. Looking after herself. Believing she was going to be all right. But once their parents were gone, Karen had grown so strange, and her personality changed. She lost her temper at the slightest provocation. Without warning, she would laugh out loud at things that weren’t funny. Liv-Hege remembered a bird that had crashed into the living-room window. She had picked up the bird, brought it inside and tried to keep it alive in a small cardboard box lined with cotton wool. One day after the school bus had dropped her off she had come back to discover Karen in the kitchen; she had a saucepan of water on the stove and was watching the screaming little bird being boiled alive. She had turned to Liv-Hege with huge grin on her face. As if she enjoyed watching the bird die. Their mother had worked at Hamar Hospital and Karen had been allowed to come with her to work. What their mother hadn’t known, was that Karen had stolen medication. She had shown Liv-Hege a box in the attic once when they were home alone: syringes and vials and jars of pills with all sorts of strange names. Liv-Hege didn’t know what her sister intended to use it all for, but it was most likely to kill someone. Karen enjoyed killing.
Liv-Hege, however, wanted only to forget. The glue-soaked cloth was merely the start of the journey, which had only one destination. To begin with, Liv-Hege had hitchhiked from Tangen into Hamar, but that soon stopped and she no longer went home. She and her mates would sniff glue at Domkirkeodden and sleep rough under the bushes. They took poppers and heart medication and slept on benches and in stairwells. They stole food and spent most of their time trying to get high. The more often Liv-Hege got high, the harder it was to stay clean. During the first few years she had been clean for days at a time, sometimes even weeks, but now being high was a constant. A destructive, downward spiral she could not escape. Liv-Hege was traumatized by her childhood experiences, suffered from chronic anxiety and had no hope of ever seeing reality as other people did. No expectations of a good life. A safe life. A house. A job. A family. Children. Holidays. Not a chance. Soon, Liv-Hege had only one goal. The next fix. And the fix after that, and then the next one. She had boyfriends, but they weren’t important. A guy who offered her a bed and some weed. Another one who let her shower and gave her alcohol.