Mona Daa couldn’t help smiling. Sweet. For a moment an idea flashed through her head, of them taking a picture of the psychologist biting his wife’s neck to illustrate the case, but that would obviously be taking it too far, too much slapstick for a serious murder story.
‘My editor would probably prefer to have you on your own,’ she said.
‘I understand, I just had to ask.’
‘I’ll stay here and write, then maybe we can get it up on the website before we leave. Have you got Wi-Fi?’
She got the password, freudundgammen, and was already halfway through by the time she saw the camera flash out on the field.
The unofficial explanation of why she avoided recordings was that they were incontrovertible evidence of what had really been said. Not that Mona Daa ever consciously wrote anything that contradicted what she believed her interviewee had meant. But it gave her the freedom to emphasise certain points. Translating quotes into a tabloid form that the readers would understand. And would click to read.
PSYCHOLOGIST: VAMPIRIST CAN WIPE OUT WHOLE CITIES!
She glanced at the time. Truls Berntsen had said he’d call at ten o’clock if anything new had cropped up.
‘I don’t like science-fiction films,’ said the man sitting opposite Penelope Rasch. ‘The most irritating thing is the sound as the spaceship passes the camera.’ He pursed his lips and made a quick whooshing sound. ‘There’s no air in space, there’s no sound, just complete silence. We’re being lied to.’
‘Amen,’ Penelope said, and raised her glass of mineral water.
‘I like Alejandro González Iñárritu,’ the man said, raising his own glass of water. ‘I prefer Biutiful and Babel to Birdman and The Revenant. I’m afraid he’s getting a bit mainstream now.’
Penelope felt a little shiver of pleasure. Not so much because he had just mentioned both her favourite films, but because he had included Iñárritu’s rarely used middle name. And he had already mentioned her favourite author (Cormac McCarthy) and city (Florence).
The door opened. They had been the only customers in the neglected little restaurant he had suggested, but now another couple walked in. He turned round. Not towards the door to look, but away from it. And she got a couple of seconds in which to study him unobserved. She had already noted that he was slim, about the same height as her, well mannered, nicely dressed. But was he attractive? It was hard to say. He certainly wasn’t ugly, but there was something slippery about him. And something made her doubt he was as young as the forty years he claimed to be. His skin looked tight around his eyes and neck, as if he’d had a facelift.
‘I didn’t know this restaurant was here,’ she said. ‘Very quiet.’
‘T-too quiet?’ he smiled.
‘It’s nice.’
‘Next time we can go to this place I know that serves Kirin beer and black rice,’ he said. ‘If you like that.’
She very nearly squealed. This was fantastic. How could he know that she loved black rice? Most of her friends didn’t know it even existed. Roar had hated it, he said it tasted of health-food shops and snobbery. And, to be fair, those were both fair accusations: black rice contained more antioxidants than blueberries and was served alongside the forbidden sushi that was reserved for the emperor and his family.
‘I love it,’ she said. ‘What else do you like?’
‘My job,’ he said.
‘Which is?’
‘I’m a visual artist.’
‘How exciting! What …?’
‘Installations.’
‘Roar – my ex – he was a visual artist too, perhaps you know him?’
‘I doubt it, I operate outside conventional artistic circles. And I’m self-taught, so to speak.’
‘But if you can make a living as an artist, it’s odd that I haven’t heard of you. Oslo’s so small.’
‘I do other things to survive.’
‘Such as?’
‘Caretaker.’
‘But you exhibit?’
‘It’s mostly private installations for a professional clientele, where the press aren’t invited.’
‘Wow. It sounds great that you’re able to be exclusive. I told Roar that he ought to try that. What do you use in your installations?’
He wiped his glass with a napkin. ‘Models.’
‘Models as in … living people?’
He smiled. ‘Both. Tell me about yourself, Penelope. What do you like?’
She put a finger under her chin. Yes, what did she like? Right now she had a sense that he had covered everything.
‘I like people,’ she said. ‘And honesty. And my family. Children.’
‘And being held, tight,’ he said, glancing over at the couple who were sitting two tables away from them.
‘Sorry?’
‘You like being held tight, and playing rough games.’ He leaned across the table. ‘I can see it in you, Penelope. And that’s fine, I like that too. This place is starting to get a bit crowded, so shall we go back to yours?’
It took Penelope a moment to realise that it wasn’t a joke. She looked down and saw that he had put his hand so close to hers that their fingertips were almost touching. She swallowed. What was it about her that meant she always ended up with nutters? It was her friends who had suggested that the best way to get over Roar was to meet other men. And she had tried, but they were either bumbling, socially inadequate IT nerds where she had to do all the talking, or men like this one, who were only after a quick shag.
‘I think I’ll go home alone,’ she said, and looked around for the waiter. ‘I’m happy to settle up.’ They had barely been there twenty minutes, but according to her friends, that was the third, and most important, rule of Tinder: Don’t play games, leave if you don’t click.
‘I can manage two bottles of mineral water,’ the man smiled, and tugged gently at his pale blue shirt collar. ‘Run, Cinderella.’
‘In that case, thank you.’
Penelope picked up her bag and hurried out. The sharp autumn air felt good against her warm cheeks. She crossed Bogstadveien. Because it was Saturday night the streets were full of happy people and there was a queue at the taxi rank. Which was just as well – the price of taxis in Oslo was so high that she avoided them unless it was pouring with rain. She passed Sorgenfrigata, where she had once dreamt that she and Roar would some day live in one of the lovely buildings. They had agreed that the flat didn’t need to be more than seventy or eighty square metres in size, as long as it had been recently renovated, the bathroom at least. They knew that it would be incredibly expensive, but both her and Roar’s parents had promised to help out financially. And by ‘help out’ they obviously meant paying for the whole flat. She was, after all, a recently qualified designer on the hunt for a job, and the art market hadn’t yet discovered Roar’s immense talent. Except that bitch of a gallery owner who had set her trap for him. After Roar moved out, Penelope had been convinced that he would see through the woman, realise she was a wrinkled puma who just wanted a young trophy boyfriend to play with for a while. But that hadn’t happened. On the contrary, they had just announced their engagement in the form of a hideous art installation made of candyfloss.
At the metro station in Majorstua Penelope took the first train heading west. She got off at Hovseter, known as the eastern edge of the west side of the city. A cluster of apartment blocks and relatively cheap flats where she and Roar had rented the cheapest they could find. The bathroom was disgusting.
Roar had tried to console her by giving her a copy of Patti Smith’s Just Kids, an autobiographical account of two ambitious artists living on hope, air and love in New York in the early 1970s, and who obviously end up making a success of things. OK, they lost each other along the way, but …