Medusa Read online

  Se Meg, Medusa © Cappelen Damm AS, 2007, 2011

  English translation © 2015 Robert Ferguson

  The right of Torkil Damhaug to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Published by agreement with Cappelen Damm AS, Akersgata 47/49, Oslo, Norway

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2015

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  eISBN: 978 1 4722 0684 8

  Cover design by www.asmithcompany.co.uk

  Cover photograph by David Clapp/Getty, Figure by Ibai Acevedo/Getty

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About Torkil Damhaug

  About the Book

  Praise

  Dedication

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part II

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Part III

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Part IV

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Part V

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  About Torkil Damhaug

  Torkil Damhaug studied literature and anthropology in Bergen, and then medicine in Oslo, specialising in psychiatry. Having worked as a psychiatrist for many years, he now writes full time. In 2011 Torkil’s third Oslo Crime Files novel, FIRERAISER, won the Riverton Prize for Norwegian crime fiction – an accolade also awarded to Jo Nesbø and Anne Holt – and his books have been published in fifteen languages. He lives with his wife and children near Oslo.

  There are four deeply dark thrillers to discover in Torkil Damhaug’s Oslo Crime Files series: MEDUSA, DEATH BY WATER, FIRERAISER and CERTAIN SIGNS THAT YOU ARE DEAD.

  About the Book

  A woman vanishes from a forest near Oslo. Days later her body is found, seemingly mauled and maimed by a bear. When another woman is reported missing and then found dead with the same scratches and bites, police find the link between them is local doctor, Axel Glenne.

  Forensics reveal the women were murdered and a net of suspicion tightens around Axel, who is convinced his twin brother Brede is responsible. No one has seen him for years and if Axel is to prove his innocence, he needs to find Brede. And fast. But there isn’t a single photograph of the brothers together and neither Axel’s wife nor his children have ever met a man called Brede …

  Praise for International Bestseller

  ‘Exciting, original and disturbing’ VG

  ‘Damhaug has now taken his place in the top ranks of Norwegian crime fiction writers’ Aftenposten

  ‘One of the best-written and nerve-wracking works of crime fiction in a long time’ Dagens Næringsliv

  To M

  TODAY I BECAME a thief. I’ve stolen before, but today I became a thief. People who know about such things say it’s the autumnal equinox today so that’s probably a good day on which to become a thief. Everything hangs in the balance before the darkness begins to take over. It wasn’t planned. I only plan the most necessary things. The rest just has to take care of itself. I was passing a shop and a Dictaphone caught my eye. I stopped and went back and entered the shop. The boy behind the counter seemed dull and uninterested. I got him to go looking for something I didn’t need. Then opened the box and stuffed the Dictaphone into my pocket. Not until I was back out on the street did I know what I would be using it for. And when you hear this, you’ll know too. Because one day you’ll hear exactly what I’m saying now. I don’t know yet how it’ll happen but I can see you in my mind’s eye lying there, listening to my voice, completely unable to turn away. You can throw letters away, or burn them. You can forget about me and tell yourself I’m dead even though you know I’m alive somewhere out there. But you will hear my voice and then you’ll remember everything you’ve said to me, and everything I’ve said to you.

  Once you told me about those twins. You read so much and knew so much and wanted to share everything with me who hardly ever read. Was one of them named Castor? We were sitting in the classroom before the others came in when you told me about them. Castor and Pollux, that was their names. They were inseparable. And instead of going to heaven, one of them chose instead to go to hell, where the other one had ended up. To be with him. You’ve forgotten that you told me this but I don’t forget.

  This is a good Dictaphone. You can delete and change things and insert individual words anywhere you like just by pressing a few buttons. But I don’t use them. I’m saying this to you, and you shall hear it exactly as it is, with no polishing and no frills. It’s the thought of this that makes me feel calm and excited at the same time. That you will know what you have done.

  PART I

  1

  Monday 24 September

  THE WOMAN SAT motionless with her back to the window. Her arms hung straight down. Her pale grey face seemed frozen. She was dressed in green trousers and blouse, with a jacket the same colour loose over her shoulders. Her cheekbones were high and prominent and her eyes still greeny blue, but now the iris was narrowing inside a milky white rim. Outside, the wind lifted a bare birch branch behind her head.

  Suddenly she glided her tongue over her teeth before opening her mouth and fixing her gaze on her visitor.

  – I’ve been waiting all day, she said. – About time someone from the police could be bothered to turn up.
/>
  She stood up, tottered across the floor on her high-heeled sandals and checked that the door was closed behind him, came tripping back and sat down in the other chair, the one next to the writing desk. In flashes she still had that energetic way of moving, and she brushed a lock of her perm from her forehead with a gesture he knew well.

  – The reason I have asked you to come … She interrupted herself, again went across the floor, opened the door and peered into the corridor outside.

  – I don’t trust anyone in this place, she declared, closing it with a bang that was perhaps intended to underline what she said. Back in the brown leather chair, she smoothed her trousers over her knees.

  – I’ve been waiting all day, she said again, now in a despairing voice. – I’ve got a missing person to report. The police must do something soon.

  Her visitor was a man in his forties. He was wearing a hand-made suit, with a pale grey shirt underneath it. It was open at the neck, not that this made him look any the less well dressed.

  – I came as quickly as I could, he said, and cast a glance at the clock.

  – It’s about my husband, the woman went on. – He didn’t come home last night.

  – I see, the visitor answered, and sat on the side of the bed, directly opposite her.

  – He’s very particular always to let me know. But I haven’t heard a thing from him. Now I think something terrible has happened.

  She moistened her dry upper lip with her tongue and smiled bravely.

  – Do you know what the worst thing is?

  The visitor passed his hand across her shortish hair, obviously recently cut. He knew what was coming.

  – The worst thing is … The woman groaned as she opened her eyes wide, as though afraid.

  – Have you had enough to drink today? the visitor interjected with what seemed like genuine concern. – I think you’re thirsty.

  She didn’t seem to hear what he said.

  – The Gestapo, she whispered as her eyes filled with tears. – I don’t think my husband will come back again ever.

  The visitor remained sitting with his mother for almost three quarters of an hour. He poured her orange juice from a carton on the bedside table and she emptied two glasses. Having expressed her fear, she was finished with it this time around and opened a copy of Allers. It had been there on the table the last time he’d visited, a week earlier, and all the weeks before that. She didn’t say another word, as though she was completely engrossed by this single page she happened to have opened the magazine at. Now and then she looked over in his direction, her gaze diffuse, a slight smile playing about her mouth; she seemed to have descended once again into that remote calm that spread through her more deeply with every passing week, killing off everything else. He’d remembered to buy Dagbladet on the way and now leafed through it. When there was a knock on the door and the nurse came in with her medication – a man with greying hair, possibly a Tamil – he quickly got to his feet and gave his mother a hug.

  – I’ll come back again soon, he promised.

  – Judas, she hissed, her eyes transformed into glowing embers.

  He swallowed his surprise, struggled not to laugh. She raised the half-full glass of juice, looked as though she were about to throw it in his direction.

  – No, Astrid, the nurse scolded and took the glass from her.

  She stood up and shook her fist.

  – Brede is evil, she shouted. – It wasn’t the Gestapo, it was Brede who shot.

  The nurse got her down in her chair again. She continued to gesture with her arms.

  – Twins, that’s one too many kids, that is. But you wouldn’t have a clue what I’m taking about, a Negro like you.

  The visitor glanced at the nurse and shook his head apologetically. The nurse opened the dosage box.

  – Negroes are from Africa, he said with a broad smile and handed her the juice glass.

  She swallowed one of the tablets.

  – Because you are Brede, aren’t you? she said, peering in confusion at the visitor.

  – No, Mother, I’m not Brede. I’m Axel.

  He knocked on the charge nurse’s door and entered the office. When she saw that it was him, she swung her chair round from the computer desk and gestured with her hand towards the sofa.

  – Sit yourself down a moment.

  She was in her thirties, tall and athletic, with a face that he found attractive.

  – Mother seems much more disturbed these days.

  The charge nurse gave a quick nod.

  – She’s been talking a lot about the war recently. Of course everyone here knows who Torstein Glenne was, but is there anything in all this about the Gestapo?

  Axel pointed to the plastic plate of Maryland cookies on the table.

  – Mind awfully if I take one? I missed lunch today.

  He said no thanks to offers of coffee and blackcurrant juice, and was amused by the nurse’s further attempts to make up for her initial lack of hospitality.

  – It is true that the Gestapo were after my father, he confirmed as he munched away. – He managed to cross the border into Sweden at the last moment. But Mother knew nothing about it at the time. It was fourteen years before she met him. She was four years old.

  The charge nurse struggled to fasten her smooth hair at the neck in a hair band.

  – It’s tremendously useful to know things like that. She’s always very uneasy whenever there’s anything about war on the TV. Recently we’ve had to switch off when the news comes on. By the way, who is Brede?

  Axel Glenne brushed the biscuit crumbs from his lapels.

  – Brede?

  – Yes. Suddenly Astrid has started saying lots of things about this Brede. That he isn’t to come here, that she doesn’t want to see him any more and God knows what else. She actually gets quite worked up about it. When she’s really in a state we have to give her a Murelax. Of course we don’t know if this Brede really exists, so it isn’t easy for the nurses to know what to say.

  – Brede was her son.

  The charge nurse’s eyebrows shot up under her fringe.

  – You have a brother? I had no idea. There’s never been anyone else but you come to visit. And sometimes your wife, and the children.

  – It’s been more than twenty-five years since Mother last saw him, said Axel.

  He stood up and rested his hand on the doorknob to indicate that the conversation was over.

  2

  FROM THE BACK seat of the taxi he called Bie again. She still didn’t answer and he sent her a text saying he would be late. It was Monday, football practice and violin lesson. Bie was going out this evening, but she’d have time to drive to the violin lesson first. Picking up afterwards was his responsibility.

  The ship’s bell had already started ringing as the taxi turned into Aker Brygge. He had a few notes in his card-holder and paid cash, didn’t have time to wait for the receipt, scrambled aboard just as the barrier was about to be lowered. He wouldn’t be home until close on 6.30; Tom would have to go to practice by himself, if he could be bothered. He felt a twinge of guilt and send him a message too.

  He knew a lot of the other passengers, perhaps even most of them. But this particular evening he made his way quickly through the salon and settled out on deck. It was warm for late September. A thin, creamy layer coated the sky above the fjord, the evening sun still visible behind it. He heard the echo of a voice in his thoughts: his mother calling him Judas. His mother thinking he was Brede, and being angry with him.

  A group of men in dark suits were gathered around the peace torch at the end of the quay. One of them raised a hand as the ferry glided past, and from where Axel Glenne stood by the railings aft, it looked as though he were putting it into the flame.

  The house was empty when he got home. Only now did he remember it was half-term holiday. On the kitchen worktop was a note from Bie. Marlen is spending the night at Natasha’s. Tom will be home before ten. Spaghetti in the microwave. Be b
ack late. B. Alongside she’d drawn a little heart, from which something red dripped. A tear maybe; it was definitely not blood she had in mind.

  He sat down at the kitchen table, listened to the silence in this house in which he had grown up. He still got that feeling when he was alone here, a sudden urge to do something naughty. When he was a child, it might be to go poking around in the kitchen cupboard, or in the drawer of his father’s bedside table, where there was always a magazine with pictures of nude women, or else to go up into the loft and do the most forbidden thing of all: take one of Colonel Glenne’s pistols from the drawer in the box room where his uniforms still hung … Actually, Brede was the only one who dared do that.

  After the spaghetti, he wandered out on to the terrace. The sun had set behind the hills above Asker. There was a touch of cold in the air; it was clear and sharp to breathe in. Bie hadn’t replied to his message and he didn’t know where she was, and this thought was calming: that she lived her own life and he didn’t need to know what she was doing at every moment.

  He sat down with his back to the empty house. It was full of their presence; he felt it even more strongly than usual. It was as though Bie were padding about in there, whispering to her orchids, or else was curled up on the sofa with a book. Tom sat playing in his room, the guitar plugged in to the little amplifier, and down in the basement Marlen was holding a meeting with Natasha and the other members of her club. Daniel was there too, even though it was now almost two months since he’d left for New York to study.

  Axel was forty-three. He had always had the feeling of being on a journey. Was this his destination, this terrace with its view across the fjord to the distant hills on the other side, this presence of other people who were not there but who would presently enter the house and call to him, and when he answered they would find him out here, and he would hear in their voices that they were glad he was home? He would ask Marlen to show him her maths test, and when she asked him how he thought she had done, he would say, Well, I expect you got over half of them right, and she would nod and keep her lips pressed together and try to hold out as long as she could before telling him her result. And when she couldn’t contain herself any more and was forced to tell him, he would shout out, What are you saying? I just can’t believe it, so that she would have to run off and fetch her satchel and get the book out and open it for him, and he would shake his head in disbelief and ask how on earth she had managed it. And Tom would lounge in the door opening, Hey, Dad, and wonder why he hadn’t been home to drive him to football practice so that he wouldn’t have to cycle, but wasn’t so bothered that he wouldn’t ask him to come to his room and listen to a new riff with him, singing along in his hoarse adolescent voice.