Certain Signs that You are Dead Read online

  Sikre Tegn På Din Død © Cappelen Damm AS, 2013

  English translation © 2015 Robert Ferguson

  Excerpt from ‘Quietness’ by Rumi from Essential Rumi © 1995 Coleman Barks

  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 0690 9

  Cover design © www.asmithcompany.co.uk

  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

  Acknowledgements

  Part I: 7–13 June 2014

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part II: 13–15 June 2014

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Part III: 15 June 2014

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Part IV: 15–17 June 2014

  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 V: 18–19 June 2014

  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

  Epilogue

  Keep reading for Medusa

  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

  In Akershus University Hospital, a patient disappears into thin air. That evening, his body is found in a basement box-room, his throat cut.

  When retired forensic pathologist Jennifer Plåterud is called in to examine the dead man, she has no idea how closely she is involved in the murder herself. In the merciless light of summer, she is gradually forced to make connections she would have preferred to ignore.

  Praise for International Bestseller

  ‘Nothing is as it seems in this sleek and cunning thriller’ Mark Sanderson, Evening Standard

  ‘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

  Acknowledgements

  Researching for a novel is one of the most pleasurable aspects of the work involved. Wherever I have travelled, I have been made welcome, and people have shared their valuable time with me to illustrate things and answer my questions. Help like this has been a great encouragement.

  Shahram Shaygani advised me with his insights on Iran and how Iranian refugees typically react to their first encounter with Norway. Mahmood Shaygani shared his knowledge of Rumi’s life and poetry, and Joakim Palmkvist his expertise concerning the Malmö gangs. With Tobias Barkman, he is the author of The Mafia wars: nine murder victims and the city they lived in. Jeff Miller illuminated various aspects of mixed martial art and submission wrestling. Christoffer Tonning and Therese Ahlberg offered advice on Swedish matters.

  Thanks to Ying Chen, Cecilie Arntsen and Bente Johansen at the pathology department of Akerhus University Hospital, Petter Arlo and Anders Damhaug of the hospital portering staff, and Robertino Ivanov of the security service. And thanks to Mona Hertzenberg and Tom Danielson of the Romerike district police force.

  Thanks also to Rebecca and Joachim Damhaug.

  And last but not least, to Helen Damhaug for all her help along the way.

  My father killed three times. The last time I saw it happen. He had sent me on ahead to the shop to buy a newspaper, a loaf of bread and an ice cream. But when I put the money down on the counter, I was told it wasn’t enough, the price of bread had gone up. I ran back to ask my father which I should choose, the bread or the ice cream. Questions like that used to make him laugh out loud. I caught sight of him just inside the park gates. He was standing by the cedar tree and looking round, but he didn’t see me. He started to walk across the grass. As I set off after him I saw that he was carrying his gun. I had played with it several times; he kept it in a drawer in his bedroom. Now he was holding it in his hand, behind his back. The man waiting by the rose bushes noticed me, he recognised me and smiled. I remember that. I had just turned eight. The man was holding a paper bag in one hand, I remember that; it was light brown. The way my father moved his arm as he pointed the gun at him, I remember that. Not a single sound, apart from maybe a tiny click. But the man is still looking at me as a small flower appears on his forehead. It buds and grows. No one shoots better than Father, I remember thinking. And then the man shakes, twists, falls face down into the bush. That’s what I remember most clearly, how the sharp thorns tore open his cheeks.

  What makes you think of that now?

  Maybe because I’m sitting looking out the window, I can see a part of the street down there. Children passing by. Roughly about the age I was.

  From the expert witness’s notes, 1 August 2014

  PART I

  7–13 June 2014

  1

  One half of her face was in shadow, divided by the light that fell through the room from the open window. He raised himself up on his elbows to get a better look at her. The eyes were closed, she wasn’t moving, had been lying like that for a long time. A lock of hair had separated itself and lay across the cheek that was in the light and had an area of thin, tiny scars. He raised his hand to lift the hair back into place, but st
opped midway through the movement, resisting the temptation to touch her. Instead he moved his gaze down her neck and the shoulder with the tattoo, a small figure; it might have been a letter from some foreign alphabet. He’d asked her about it but got no answer.

  A slight movement in the thin curtains, a touch of wind through the warm room. She breathed slowly and deeply, the way she did when she was sleeping. But maybe she was lying there and knew he was looking at her. Her breasts moved in a way that suggested as much, raised up a little too high each time she breathed in. Carefully he transferred his weight to his left arm so that he could turn and let his gaze take in the rest of her naked body, all the way down to the feet that were so small and narrow; around one ankle the gold chain he had given her.

  And at the sight of those feet the thought suddenly that it could end here, that there was no need to go on. The indistinct sense that there was nothing better up ahead, nothing that could equal this particular moment, and that in going on he would only lose it again, like when you let go of a balloon filled with helium and watch it vanish up into the clouds.

  He extricated himself from the foam mattress, the hollows made by his palms and his knees gradually disappearing. She liked this mattress, it was one of the first things she said after she came home with him the first time. She’d sat down on it, obviously enjoying the way it shaped itself around her body. It was the evening they met each other. He’d been at Togo with Siri and a couple of her friends from med school. Later on that evening an old friend showed up, and with him the woman now lying in his bed. For some reason he had got to his feet the moment he saw her, almost offered her his hand as though they were at a reception and she was the one everyone had been waiting for. For a second or two she had looked into his eyes, then turned away with a smile that he was unable to interpret.

  He and Siri had been together a year that night at Togo; they had probably gone there to celebrate. She wasn’t jealous, constantly assured him that she trusted him and had no need to keep tabs on everything he got up to.

  But at a certain point this new woman had gone to the toilets, which were down in the basement. He waited half a minute before getting up and following after her. Counted the fourteen steps down the black stone staircase. Suddenly it was as though he could hear his own footsteps with astonishing clarity through the buzz of talk and the electronic distortion of the djembe drums. His bladder was almost empty, and he finished quickly, washed his hands, quick look in the mirror, used a paper towel to open the door the way Jenny had taught him to when he was four or five, something he still did when he had to use public toilets.

  The ladies’ toilet was directly opposite. She emerged at the same moment, that same smile as when he first said hello to her, but this time she didn’t turn away, she stood there looking straight at him.

  – Sigurd Woods, that’s your name, isn’t it?

  When he nodded, she repeated the name as though testing out the sound of it. He had never heard it said that way before. She must be from somewhere in the south of Sweden, where Zlatan and Timbuktu had grown up, but he didn’t ask, didn’t want to appear curious. As she was about to turn away, he held a hand out, touched her bare shoulder with the other, as a way of showing her she could go first.

  Then she put her arm around his waist, pressed herself up against him as they walked the few paces to the stone staircase.

  – And your name is Katja, he said, to regain his composure.

  In the afternoons, the bedroom lay bathed in sunlight. It made its way through the tree crowns in the back yard and the heat inside could become tropical. Sigurd Woods got up and switched on the ceiling fan; it turned slowly a couple of times before accelerating and filling the air with a deep murmur. If Katja had opened her eyes now, perhaps she would be looking at him from behind as she lay there in his bed. Our bed, he corrected himself. Said it aloud in a low voice, to hear what it sounded like. Three weeks ago, when she arrived with her bag, he’d said it was stupid to waste thousands on a box room in Tøyen that she had to share with lots of other people. As though it was all about the money. A few days later she’d let herself in carrying two large suitcases.

  He stood there looking at the branches of the huge oak tree. Imagined what he looked like to Katja, his silhouette in the sunlight, the broad back, the biceps. Even when she wasn’t there, he would sometimes try to see himself with eyes that might be hers.

  The phone on the table started blinking. It was Jenny. He did nothing, knowing that the call would be followed by a message. When it arrived, he waited a minute before reading it. His mother wanted to talk to him. He knew what it was about.

  As he turned back towards the bed and saw that Katja was indeed lying there watching him, he realised what he had to do. Sooner or later the two of them would have to meet, she and Jenny. It was a ritual they had to go through. It had become necessary to reveal more of himself, like where he came from. It also meant Katja telling him more about herself. In the early days, it was part of the excitement to know as little as possible about each other. She appeared from somewhere or other to stand in front of him that night at Togo, went ahead of him down to the basement, as though knowing that he would follow her. But now that phase was drawing to a close. She lived with him, he needed to know more about her, a sort of map to relate to. For the time being it was a simple sketch, with a few details prominently marked. She had grown up in Malmö, was a couple of years older than him, had worked as a model, wanted out of it, which was why she had come to Oslo, city of opportunities as she had several times referred to it, without a trace of irony in her voice. One twilight evening in the bedroom she had revealed that she was adopted, and he had expected to hear more. But each time he approached anything to do with family, she placed a finger over his lips, or turned away with the same smile she had given him that first evening at Togo.

  He stepped across the room, stood in front of her beside the bed; she stretched, touching him at the conclusion of the movement, acted surprised at his reaction to the touch.

  – Let’s go for a ride, he said as he glided down on to her, grinning as he noticed the idiotic and unintentional pun.

  The previous year, Jenny had moved away from the farm and into a small apartment at the hospital where she worked. Sigurd helped her; it had to be him, otherwise his father might have ended up doing it, in spite of the fact that Jenny’s moving out had crushed him. Sigurd had been expecting it for years, but it seemed to hit his father like a bolt of lightning.

  Sigurd had made four or five trips, taking clothes and personal possessions, kitchen equipment, but no furniture. Jenny intended to buy everything new. He’d assembled it all for her, and connected up the washing machine, the TV and the stereo. Jenny couldn’t thank him enough for all his help; she seemed to take it as a statement of support for her decision to leave his father. That wasn’t the case, but he didn’t make an issue of it.

  Nor had he revealed how he felt about the new man in Jenny’s life. On the two or three occasions when they had met, he had been polite but without showing any particular interest in who the man was. The fact that it was he who opened the door to his mother’s flat when they arrived that evening didn’t surprise him at all.

  – Hi, Sigurd, said his mother’s partner and held out his hand.

  Sigurd took it and shook it, a little harder than he usually did, remembering as he did so that this Zoran was a man who lived through the work of his hands, and that to damage them would have a dramatic effect on his life.

  – This is Katja, he said, ushering her in front of him in through the tiny hallway.

  As the two of them shook hands, he studied Zoran’s face. A friendly, relaxed expression. Definitely the type she would like.

  The muted sound of music from the living room, someone laughing out loud. He had been prepared to find Zoran there, but not other guests. Just then Jenny emerged from the bathroom. She had a new hairstyle, the bleached hair hanging in a bob on each side, shorter at the back. She brighte
ned as she saw him, until she realised he had someone with him.

  – This is Katja, Sigurd said again, and this time studied his mother’s face. It had always been easy to read. She blushed, and a muscle above her brow bulged and flickered.

  – Jennifer Plåterud, she said quickly. People she liked called her Jenny, and for a moment or two Sigurd wondered whether she would invite Katja to do so.

  She didn’t know about Katja. Over the last four weeks, Sigurd had spoken to his mother less frequently than usual on the phone. The last time he had hinted that he and Siri were no longer seeing as much of each other, and Jenny had reacted with surprise. What are you saying, and surely you can’t mean it, and but she’s so nice.

  The two of them had hit it off at their very first meeting, and soon it was obvious that Jenny felt a closer bond to Siri than Sigurd ever had. It wasn’t just that Siri was studying medicine and could share the codes and secrets of the profession with his mother; there was something in the way they talked together, not least when talking about him, as though they were joint owners of something, some rare object, or a holiday home.

  It wouldn’t be like that with Katja. And bringing her here, on Jenny’s birthday, was a pretty dubious idea, he didn’t need to read his mother’s face to realise that.

  – You’ve got guests, he said. – We won’t stay long.

  It looked as if she was still struggling to get over her shock. She tidied the two bobs of her newly cut hair behind her ears and they immediately sprang free again.

  – Now don’t be so silly, she said. – Zoran. She turned to him. – This is … was it Kaja?

  Zoran smiled with his whole face. He was two heads taller than her, taller than Sigurd too, with cropped greying hair and a powerful jawline.

  – Katja, he corrected her. – I’ve just said hello to her.

  For a moment they stood there looking at each other, mother and son, each with a new lover. There was a break in the music from the living room; no one spoke. Sigurd usually brought flowers on his mother’s birthday, but on this occasion he had not done so.