I Will Miss You Tomorrow Page 2

  ‘What’s that got to do with me?’ I squeeze my eyelids shut and twist my face away from the piercing light.

  ‘If you’d just let me finish,’ Ulf continues, before exhaling loudly. ‘You see, Anniken Moritzen is one of my patients. She needs …’ Again he hesitates, taking a deep breath before he continues: ‘They need help. Their son has disappeared.’

  ‘I’m not a private investigator.’

  ‘No, God forbid,’ Ulf wheezes. ‘But Anniken is a friend and I don’t know how much I can do for her in this situation. Besides, you and Arne have this shared past, one that you can’t escape, no matter what, and now he’s asked to be allowed to speak to you. I think you owe him that much?’

  The pain is pressing against the skin on my face, my eyes and the outer layer of my brain. ‘Please,’ I groan through gritted teeth. ‘Not today, not now.’

  ‘Talk to them. Hear what they have to say.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  Ulf sighs again. ‘You’ve drawn your lot, Thorkild, gone down into the cellar and come back up again. A changed man.’ He gasps for breath as he stubs out his cigarette. Half-smoked, spoiled. ‘Don’t let that bedsit become your new prison cell. You need to get out, talk to people and find out who you want to be in this new life of yours, beyond the prison walls.’

  ‘I know,’ I whisper, sinking into the sofa again. I open my eyes, force my gaze to confront the glowing light that fills the room, and hold it there until my eyes are brimming.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘That I know.’

  ‘Sure?’ Ulf Solstad drops his voice to a more therapeutic level. ‘OK,’ he says when I don’t respond. His breathing is quieter now. ‘Then you can pop in afterwards, and we can take a look at those medicines of yours at the same time. Will you do that? Will you?’

  Ulf Solstad’s third attempt to smoke the perfect cigarette would have to be made in splendid isolation.

  CHAPTER 3

  Arne Villmyr stands beside Anniken Moritzen, who is seated in an office chair with her hands folded on the desk in front of her. Behind them, three floor-to-ceiling windows frame the Forus landscape with its roaring motorways and industrial buildings. Arne is dressed with the same good taste as the first time I met him almost four years ago in his villa at Storhaug Vest, but his hair has grown thinner and his face paler.

  ‘Thorkild Aske?’ Anniken Moritzen enquires, without rising from her chair.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply, and take a reluctant step closer.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ she answers, joylessly. I detect apathetic contempt as she finally offers me her hand to shake: I observe that the right-hand corner of her mouth refuses to respond to the smile impulse and remains paralysed. The outcome looks more like a sneer than anything else.

  Arne Villmyr makes no move to return the gesture when I stretch out my hand to shake his.

  ‘I have a picture of him.’ Anniken Moritzen produces a photograph from one of the desk drawers.

  ‘That’s nice,’ I venture, leaning towards her and using both hands to pick up the photograph so that it doesn’t slip between my fingers and fall to the floor.

  ‘It was taken five months ago when we visited my parents in Jutland.’ Anniken speaks in a sort of upper-class accent, making no secret of her Danish origins. She’s in her mid-fifties, I’d guess, dressed in a dark blue jacket and matching skirt, with a white blouse, its two top buttons left open. It strikes me that she must be a whole head taller than her ex-husband.

  ‘It looks like a great place for a child to grow up.’

  She looks at me as if about to say that she knows what I’m getting at, but lets it pass. ‘It’s the last picture I have of him.’ She lingers over the image, which shows her in her parents’ garden, barbecuing food and drinking lemonade. Her son Rasmus is tending the barbecue, dressed in a pair of red Liverpool football shorts, flip-flops and a white chef’s hat. He is tanned and has an athletic build. His grandfather is toasting the unseen photographer with a dram while Anniken Moritzen sits smiling in a chair.

  ‘Rasmus and some of his school friends spent the past year travelling round the world in a yacht.’ Anniken looks dreamily at the back of the photo as she talks, as if to soak the last dregs of energy out of the memory it prompts. ‘But after a trip to northern Norway, he hit upon the idea of turning a former conference centre in a lighthouse there into an outdoor activity hotel.’

  ‘Activity hotel?’

  ‘Wreck diving, harpoon fishing and so on. Rasmus says it’s very popular overseas.’

  ‘How old is he?’ I ask, even though I already know. On the bus to Forus, I found a report in an online Tromsø newspaper about a missing 27-year-old man, assumed to have perished in a diving accident not far from the village of Skjellvik in Blekøyvær district.

  ‘Our Rasmus is twenty-seven.’

  ‘And when did he go there?’

  ‘Anniken bought the place for him to use last summer,’ Arne says. Behind him, the sea breeze has begun to tug at the rain clouds. Silvery shades of grey scud in a south-westerly direction.

  Anniken nods without looking at either of us. ‘The entire little island and its lighthouse have been left abandoned since the former conference centre went bust back in the eighties. Rasmus went up immediately afterwards with a few of his friends to help him with the renovations until the holidays were over.’

  ‘When did he go missing?’

  ‘The last time I spoke to him was on Friday, five days ago. The police found his boat yesterday morning, so they believe he went out diving on either Saturday or Sunday.’

  ‘And you?’ I glance up at Arne Villmyr, who is staring vacantly ahead, like a soldier at attention, while the rain has begun to tap against the windows at his back.

  Arne shakes his head gently just as the heavens open above us with a resounding crash and sheets of water start to pour down the glass.

  ‘They don’t have much contact,’ Anniken answers, pressing her arms to her sides, as if finding herself suddenly out there in the downpour.

  ‘Was he alone when he disappeared?’ I ask, my gaze shifting to the grey tones beyond the windowpane.

  ‘Yes, for the past month he’s been there on his own.’

  ‘Why do the police believe he drowned?’ A bit more, Thorkild, I intone to myself, deep down. Just a few more questions, and then you can go home.

  ‘When they found the boat, the diving gear was gone. Rasmus was in the habit of going out to the skerries beyond the lighthouse to dive when he had spare time. On Friday he said he wanted to go out diving that weekend if the weather was good enough.’

  ‘Have you any reason to think anything else might have happened to him, or that this isn’t a diving accident?’

  ‘No.’ Irritation is etched on her face. Probably I’m interrupting her at the same point as everyone else she has spoken to since her son disappeared.

  I feel an impulse to go over and give her a shake, tell her she has to wake up, stop dreaming. It’s leading her nowhere. These dreams we dream with our eyes wide open.

  ‘I went up there as soon as I got no answer. I felt something was wrong.’ Anniken Moritzen turns to face her ex-husband. ‘I told you that, didn’t I? He would have returned my call. He always phones back.’

  Arne puts his hand carefully on her shoulder and gives a silent nod.

  ‘But the weather was stormy up there,’ she continues. ‘The local police chief and his assistant refused to take me out to the lighthouse and treated me like a hysterical nuisance they could just show to a hotel room in Tromsø, a hundred kilometres away, while they went on sitting there in their offices without lifting a finger. No one would help me, no one would do anything. They’re just sitting there, do you understand? They’re just sitting there doing nothing while my boy is somewhere out on the sea, needing help!’ She sobs bitterly. ‘That’s why I came home again, Arne,’ she whispers, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘Because you said you’d find someone who could help us. Someone
who would listen. Do you remember that? You promised to find somebody who could help us.’

  Arne closes his eyes and keeps them like that as he nods, over and over again. Anniken Moritzen turns to me once more. ‘You, Aske.’ She takes a deep breath and wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘They’ll talk to you. I know that. You’ll be able to find him,’ she says, smiling warmly at what this fantasy conjures up inside her mind. Hugs to herself the illusion that there is still time. ‘Yes, you’ll be able to find Rasmus for me.’

  Once again I lower my gaze to the man in the photograph. When I was the same age as Rasmus, I was a chief inspector of police in Finnmark and spent my time dissuading drunken snow-scooter drivers from shooting road signs in the area to smithereens. ‘I’m not a detective,’ I begin to say, putting the photograph down on the desk in front of me.

  ‘We’ll pay you,’ Arne Villmyr interjects. ‘If you’re worried about the money side of things.’

  ‘It’s not that—’ I’m going to say that it’s too late. That no one can disappear at sea under such circumstances and then return again almost a week later. But Arne Villmyr has already let go of the chair’s back and is on his way around the desk.

  ‘Come on,’ he says, grabbing my upper arm. He points brusquely at the door. ‘Let’s take this conversation outside.’

  We leave Anniken Moritzen and step out into the corridor, all the way along to the lift.

  ‘So,’ he says, releasing my arm when we get there. He presses the lift button and turns to face me. ‘Now it’s just the two of us again.’

  ‘Listen—’

  ‘My son is dead,’ Arne Villmyr says calmly as he adjusts his tie. ‘There’s nothing to investigate,’ he continues, when he’s finished fiddling. He looks at me. ‘What you have to do is go up there, find his dead body and bring it home.’

  ‘My God,’ I exclaim, spreading my arms in dismay. ‘How am I supposed to do that?’

  ‘Swim, dive, jump through red-hot rings of fire, I don’t give a shit how you do it. I lost Rasmus when I left my family years ago. But he can’t just vanish as if he has never existed. We need a grave to visit.’ Arne’s jaw muscles tense and his eyes harden. ‘And I’ve convinced myself you’re the person who can give us that. Call it payback for an old debt, call it whatever the fuck you like, just find him.’

  ‘Arne,’ I venture. ‘Please. What happened with Frei, you can’t use that, now. Not in this way—’

  ‘That’s enough, Thorkild,’ he says, just as unruffled and steady as before, although the tightness in his jawline is still there. ‘You’re not to speak about her,’ he goes on. ‘Not yet. Not until you’ve found Rasmus and brought him home again. Afterwards, you can crawl back down into the hole you came from and do whatever you like with the rest of your life. But until then: you search and I pay. Got that?’

  The lift has already come up and disappeared down again when Arne turns to stalk back to Anniken Moritzen’s office. He stops in front of the door with his back to me. ‘Give us a grave, Aske,’ he says as he puts his hand on the door handle. ‘Yet another grave. Is that so damned much to ask?’

  CHAPTER 4

  My bedsit is always at its greyest in the evening. The faint streetlight filtering in only emphasises the deathly pallor that fills the room. Outside I can hear rain trickling through the gutters and the roar of cars driving to and fro across the suspension bridge linking the city and Grasholmen, Hundvåg and the islands beyond.

  I am lying on the sofa. In the background, the radio is crackling in time to the gurgle of the coffee machine, Leonard Cohen’s hoarse voice whispering out. Early on in my course of treatment, Ulf suggested I should listen to music after my evening dose to soothe my brain against insomnia.

  Rolling over on to my side, I turn my face to the darkness and the chair between the wall and the kitchen corner, and hear a sound from there. ‘Frei,’ I gasp, and surface at the same moment that Cohen’s voice sounds again like a melodious cello chord.

  The room smells suddenly earthy and dank. I crawl cautiously off the sofa and get to my feet. Inside my body, I feel an acute tingling begin. Anticipation, delight at what is about to occur.

  I cross to the chair and stretch out my hand to the darkness before me at the same time as the radio crackles once again, before the music fades, to be replaced by a rasping background noise that blends with the autumn rain outside.

  We dance, close in tune with the hum of the fridge in the cramped bedsit kitchenette. No music, no light, just the murmur of the rain and the fractured sky above us. I no longer notice my cheek burning with pain. Our bodies sway gently from side to side.

  ‘I never thought I’d see you again,’ I sob convulsively, and the tears in my damaged tear ducts finally break free.

  Her wild blonde hair has lost all its colour and gloss. The scent of unknown plant extracts, herbs and vanilla is gone, replaced by a raw stench of sterilising soap and cold earth. The fragrance of her, of us, has vanished, washed away by the time we have spent apart.

  ‘But you’re back.’ I hold her fingers in mine, draw her body closer and try to bury my face in her hair, inhaling again and again before her head falls heavily on my chest. ‘Come,’ I sigh with exhaustion, encircling her waist with my arm, and pull her body closer to mine.

  We stagger across to the sofa bed, where I haul back the blanket and drape it like a cape over my shoulders before climbing in. I notice I am shivering as her cold body meets mine.

  Shivering with happiness.

  CHAPTER 5

  My first day with Frei, Stavanger, 22 October 2011

  I had recently returned to my job in Internal Affairs in Bergen after almost an entire year in the States. Since I’d been issued an assignment in Stavanger, I found myself on the steps outside a villa on the western side of the city’s Storhaug district, where I was to meet a lawyer connected with one of two cases I was in the city to investigate.

  The first of these concerned a possible breach of professional secrecy, allegedly committed by a court employee in connection with a compensation case involving two foreign oil companies based in the city. The other was far more serious. A police officer at Stavanger police station had been reported by a colleague for a number of violations of the criminal code and the law relating to weapons. I had arranged an interview with the accused officer later that week.

  ‘Who are you?’ a voice behind me suddenly enquired as I made to ring the doorbell. The sun was shining and the air mild, although autumn had already left its mark on the leaves in the trees. I wheeled around. Her eyes were narrow and bright and her oval face crowned by a halo of curls.

  ‘Thorkild Aske,’ I answered, taking a step to one side. ‘And who are you?’

  ‘Frei,’ she said, walking up the steps to stand beside me. She was in her early twenties and looked as tall as me. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I have an appointment right now, at five o’clock, with Arne Villmyr. Does he live here?’

  ‘Are you from the police?’

  ‘In a way.’

  Frei put her hand on the railing and leaned back as she scrutinised me with a passionate, youthful gaze that made me want to turn away in shame at my own age and physical inadequacy.

  ‘In what way, then?’

  ‘I work for Police Internal Affairs, we’re the ones who …’

  She shot me a crooked smile before I managed to finish my sentence, and pushed the door open with her free hand. ‘So what are you actually doing here at Uncle Arne’s? Is he going to be arrested?’

  ‘As I said, I—’

  ‘Frei? Is that you? Hurry on in and close the door behind you,’ a man’s voice sounded from inside the house. ‘I think we’ve got a wasps’ nest under the verandah, and I don’t want those horrible creatures crawling into the living room.’

  My eyes glanced up at the sky before coming to rest on Frei again. She had kicked off her sandals in the hallway and was sauntering barefoot to the living room at the end of a brig
ht corridor.

  ‘There’s a man here,’ she said, just loudly enough so that I could hear her. ‘Some kind of policeman who wants to talk to you …’

  THURSDAY

  CHAPTER 6

  The sight that greets me in the mirror in the mornings looks like a spectre from the underworld. My complexion is wan and grey from lack of sunlight and vitamins. My eyes are shrunken, with curved purple semicircles beneath and swollen eyelids that never open more than halfway.

  I wash my face and run wet fingertips over the half-moon-shaped scar below my eye, following the line down to the ragged pattern in the middle of my cheek, touching every single crater and blemish. The pain strikes almost at once.

  ‘I can’t,’ I whisper to the face in the mirror as I fumble with the pack of individual doses that contains my morning medicine. ‘He should have known better. I’m not ready.’

  After I’ve taken my pills, I get dressed and cross to the window, tugging back the blanket-curtain to look out. It’s one of those days – the sun not shining, and everything a pale bluish-grey, as if the light in the sky refuses to switch on.

  I’m about to turn away when I catch sight of a man in a helmet wearing a snug T-shirt and cycling shorts making his way towards the bedsit building. Stopping outside the entrance and getting off his bike, he glances up at the window where I’m standing, and takes out his mobile phone. Ulf Solstad, about six foot four in height, is powerfully built and his head is almost completely bald, but for a ponytail of thick, red hair, tied in a kind of samurai style.

  I drop the corner of the blanket and retreat to the sofa just as my phone starts ringing.

  ‘Good morning, Thorkild,’ Ulf says, sounding slightly out of breath, when I finally answer. ‘Anniken Moritzen phoned me a short time ago. She says she’s received a message from you.’

  ‘Yes.’ I sink on to the sofa and try to focus on the tingling in my cheek, to push it to the front of the pain queue and let it take control of the moment. ‘I can’t go.’