Sunset Boulevard and Singin’ in the Rain while more recent films on the shelf beneath had a surprising new leader: Toy Story 3 . Shelf number three was devoted to the CDs that for sentimental reasons she hadn’t given to the Salvation Army even though she had copied them onto her hard drive. She had narrow taste in music: exclusively glam rock and progressive pop, preferably British and often of the androgynous variety: David Bowie, Sparks, Mott the Hoople, Steve Harley, Marc Bolan, Small Faces, Roxy Music, with Suede as a contemporary bookend.
The chemistry teacher was having one of the recurrent arguing-with-the-wife scenes. Katrine put the DVD player on fast forward while ringing Beate.
‘Lønn.’ The voice was high-pitched, girlish almost. And the response revealed no more than was necessary. In Norway, didn’t answering with the surname imply there was a bigger family, that you had to specify which Lønn you wanted? However, in this case, Lønn was just Beate Lønn, the widow, and her son.
‘Katrine here.’
‘Katrine! It’s been a long time. What are you doing?’
‘Watching TV. And you?’
‘Being beaten at Monopoly by this young man. Comfort eating. Pizza.’
Katrine racked her brain. How old was her son now? Old enough to beat his mum at Monopoly anyway. Another reminder how terrifyingly fast time went. Katrine was about to add she was comfort eating as well. Cod heads. But remembered it had become a cliché among women, a kind of ironic, quasi-depressed phrase single girls were expected to use rather than telling it like it was: that she didn’t think she could live without total freedom. Over the years she had sometimes thought she should contact Beate just for a chat. Chat the way she used to do with Harry. She and Beate were both unattached police officers in their thirties, they had grown up with policemen as fathers, they were of above-average intelligence, realists without illusions or even the desire for a prince on a white charger. Well, maybe the horse, if it would take them where they wanted to go.
They could have had so much to talk about.
But she had never got round to ringing. Unless it was about work, of course.
They were similar in that respect as well.
‘I’m ringing about one Valentin Gjertsen,’ Katrine said. ‘Deceased sex offender. Do you know anything about him?’
‘Hang on,’ Beate said.
Katrine could hear a flurry of fingers on a keyboard and noted another thing they had in common. They were always online.
‘Ah, him,’ Beate said. ‘I’ve seen him a few times.’
Katrine realised that Beate had his picture on the screen. They said that Beate Lønn’s fusiform gyrus, the part of the brain that recognises faces, contained all the people she had ever met. In her case, the line ‘I never forget a face’ was quite literally true. It was said she had been examined by brain researchers as she was one of the thirty-odd people in the world who were known to have this ability.
‘He was questioned about the Tryvann and Maridalen cases,’ Katrine said.
‘Yes, I can recall that vaguely,’ Beate said. ‘But I seem to remember he had alibis for both.’
‘One of the people in the house where he lived swore he’d been at home on the nights in question. What I’m wondering is if you took his DNA?’
‘I can’t imagine we would do that if he had an alibi. In those days, analysing DNA was a complicated and expensive process. At most it would have been done for prime suspects, and only then if we had nothing else.’
‘I know, but once you got your own DNA-testing department at the Institute you started checking the DNA on cold cases, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, we did, but in fact there were no biological traces at Maridalen or Tryvann. And if I’m not mistaken, Valentin Gjertsen received his punishment, with interest.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, he was killed.’
‘I knew he was dead, but not . . .’
‘Yes, indeed. While serving his sentence at Ila. He was
The chemistry teacher was having one of the recurrent arguing-with-the-wife scenes. Katrine put the DVD player on fast forward while ringing Beate.
‘Lønn.’ The voice was high-pitched, girlish almost. And the response revealed no more than was necessary. In Norway, didn’t answering with the surname imply there was a bigger family, that you had to specify which Lønn you wanted? However, in this case, Lønn was just Beate Lønn, the widow, and her son.
‘Katrine here.’
‘Katrine! It’s been a long time. What are you doing?’
‘Watching TV. And you?’
‘Being beaten at Monopoly by this young man. Comfort eating. Pizza.’
Katrine racked her brain. How old was her son now? Old enough to beat his mum at Monopoly anyway. Another reminder how terrifyingly fast time went. Katrine was about to add she was comfort eating as well. Cod heads. But remembered it had become a cliché among women, a kind of ironic, quasi-depressed phrase single girls were expected to use rather than telling it like it was: that she didn’t think she could live without total freedom. Over the years she had sometimes thought she should contact Beate just for a chat. Chat the way she used to do with Harry. She and Beate were both unattached police officers in their thirties, they had grown up with policemen as fathers, they were of above-average intelligence, realists without illusions or even the desire for a prince on a white charger. Well, maybe the horse, if it would take them where they wanted to go.
They could have had so much to talk about.
But she had never got round to ringing. Unless it was about work, of course.
They were similar in that respect as well.
‘I’m ringing about one Valentin Gjertsen,’ Katrine said. ‘Deceased sex offender. Do you know anything about him?’
‘Hang on,’ Beate said.
Katrine could hear a flurry of fingers on a keyboard and noted another thing they had in common. They were always online.
‘Ah, him,’ Beate said. ‘I’ve seen him a few times.’
Katrine realised that Beate had his picture on the screen. They said that Beate Lønn’s fusiform gyrus, the part of the brain that recognises faces, contained all the people she had ever met. In her case, the line ‘I never forget a face’ was quite literally true. It was said she had been examined by brain researchers as she was one of the thirty-odd people in the world who were known to have this ability.
‘He was questioned about the Tryvann and Maridalen cases,’ Katrine said.
‘Yes, I can recall that vaguely,’ Beate said. ‘But I seem to remember he had alibis for both.’
‘One of the people in the house where he lived swore he’d been at home on the nights in question. What I’m wondering is if you took his DNA?’
‘I can’t imagine we would do that if he had an alibi. In those days, analysing DNA was a complicated and expensive process. At most it would have been done for prime suspects, and only then if we had nothing else.’
‘I know, but once you got your own DNA-testing department at the Institute you started checking the DNA on cold cases, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, we did, but in fact there were no biological traces at Maridalen or Tryvann. And if I’m not mistaken, Valentin Gjertsen received his punishment, with interest.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, he was killed.’
‘I knew he was dead, but not . . .’
‘Yes, indeed. While serving his sentence at Ila. He was
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