E-Book, Englisch, Band 3, 288 Seiten
Reihe: Hanne Wilhelmsen Series
Holt Death of the Demon
Main
ISBN: 978-0-85789-234-8
Verlag: Corvus
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
The chillingly gripping scandi noir from the 'godmother of modern Norwegian crime fiction' Jo Nesbo
E-Book, Englisch, Band 3, 288 Seiten
Reihe: Hanne Wilhelmsen Series
ISBN: 978-0-85789-234-8
Verlag: Corvus
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
ANNE HOLT is Norway's bestselling female crime writer. She spent two years working for the Oslo Police Department before founding her own law firm and serving as Norway's Minster for Justice between 1996 and 1997. She is published in 30 languages with over 6 million copies of her books sold.
Weitere Infos & Material
2
It was a beautiful villa. Although the funds for renovation had not extended to a more reverential restoration—they had simply replaced the original eight-paned windows by H Windows with crossbars attached—the house and its spires towered imposingly over nearly four acres of ground. The brick walls were painted beige, but with decorative timber in green, in the Swiss style. Two entire large floors had been divided five years previously, with two living rooms, a conference room, kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, and a room they named the library, though in fact it was a kind of records room, on the ground floor. On the upper floor there were six bedrooms for the children, but several of them were double rooms and a couple of the single rooms were now pressed into service as homework rooms and common rooms. In addition, there was a staff bedroom. At the end of the corridor, to the right of the staircase, lay the director’s office. Immediately across the hall was an enormous bathroom with a bathtub, as well as a smaller one with a shower and toilet. In addition to the good use of space on these two floors, there was an entire basement and a spacious, high-ceilinged attic. Following a fire inspection a few years earlier, ladders were installed at the windows at either end of the corridor, and there was a fire rope in every bedroom.
The youngsters loved fire drills. All except Kenneth. And now Olav. The former sat in the middle of the corridor, crying and clinging to the wall-mounted fire extinguisher. Olav stood with his legs apart, truculent, with his bottom lip more prominent than ever.
“No fuckin’ way,” he said petulantly. “No fuckin’ way am I going down that rope.”
“The ladder, then, Olav,” Maren offered. “The ladder’s not so scary. Also, you must get rid of that swearing very soon. You’ve been here for three weeks already, and your entire allowance is disappearing because of that!”
“Well then, go on, Olav.”
It was Terje who was prodding him in the back. Terje was in his thirties and, on paper at least, the assistant director.
“I’ll go right in front of you. Underneath you, in a way. So if you fall, I’ll be there to catch you. Okay?”
“Not fuckin’ likely,” Olav said, taking a step back.
“Ten kroner says the idiot doesn’t dare,” Glenn shouted from outside the window, having already climbed up and down four times.
“What will you do if the place starts to burn down?” Terje asked. “Are you going to burn to death?”
Olav stared at him maliciously.
“You couldn’t care less about that! Mum lives in a concrete apartment block. I could just move there, for instance.”
Shaking his head, Terje gave up and let Maren take over with the stubborn child.
“What is it you’re frightened of?” she asked quietly, indicating they should move into Olav’s room.
He reluctantly shuffled after her.
“I’m not frightened.”
He flopped onto the bed so it groaned audibly, and Maren found herself checking the solidity of the furniture before sitting down beside him.
“If you’re not scared, then what’s holding you back?”
“I just can’t be bothered. I’m not scared.”
From the corridor they could hear Kenneth sobbing bitterly through the excited yelling and Tarzan howls of the other youngsters as they swung on the ropes.
She was no saint. The dumbest things she knew were expressions such as “I’m so fond of children.” Children were like adults: some were enchanting, some were charming, others were scum-bags. As a professional foster worker, she thought that no one could identify when she did not like a child. She did not treat individuals alike, as individuals were not alike, but she was fair and did not have favorites. There was a subtle balance there she was proud of, but Olav something to her.
No one had managed to break through to him since he arrived. All the same, there was something about his expression as he sat there, like a dressed Buddha trying to appear angry but actually only being sad; there was something about his entire macabre figure that drew her to him. In defiance of the ban on making physical contact, she calmly stroked his hair, and he allowed her to do so.
“What is it with you, little Olav?” she said quietly, caressing him again.
“I’m not exactly little, you know,” he responded, but she sensed the hint of a smile in his voice.
“Just a bit,” she said, laughing. “Sometimes, anyway.”
“Do you like working here?” he asked suddenly, pushing her hand away from his head.
“Yes. I like it very, very much. I couldn’t imagine working anywhere else in the whole wide world.”
“How long have you been here?”
“About three years . . .”
Hesitating, she added, “Since I left college. School of Social Work. Almost four years. And I’m going to be here for many, many years to come.”
“Why don’t you go and have some children of your own instead?”
“I might well do that someday as well. But that’s not why I work here, of course. Because I don’t have children of my own, I mean. Most people who work here do have children of their own.”
“How many pages are there in the Bible?” he asked abruptly.
“The Bible?”
“Yes, how many pages has it got? There must be fuckin’ lots! Look how thick it is!”
He grabbed the Bible that was lying on the bedside table, as on every bedside table, and slapped it over and over again against his thigh before handing it to her.
Maren began to flick through it.
“You can have a look at the last page,” he suggested. “You don’t need to count them, you know.”
“One thousand two hundred and seventy-one pages,” she concluded. “Plus a few pages of maps. And you . . . I mean what I said about that swearing of yours. Shall we try the fire ladder now?”
He stood up, and the bed sighed in relief.
“Now I’m going down. The stairs.”
There was nothing further to discuss.
Olav longed for home. It was like a craving in his body, something he had never felt before. He had never been away for so long. He tried to shrink the hole in his stomach by breathing hard and fast, but that only made him dizzy. His entire body ached. Then he attempted to take deep breaths again, but the craving, the painful hole, returned. It was enough to make him cry.
He did not know if it was his mum or the apartment or the bed or his belongings that he missed. He did not think too deeply about it either. It was one big jumble of loss.
He wanted to go home but he was not permitted to leave. He had to stay there for two months before he would be allowed a home visit, they had told him. Instead, his mum came to visit him twice a week. As if his mum had anything to do with the foster home. He saw the other children staring at her and the twins laughing every time she appeared. Kenneth was the only one who spoke to her, but then he did not have a mum at all, poor soul, so he was probably envious. An ugly and horrible mum was better than none at all.
She was able to stay there for two hours each visit. For the first hour, everything went well. They chatted a little, perhaps went for a walk around the neighborhood. Twice they had gone to a café and eaten cakes. It was a long walk, however, so on that visit the excursion had consumed almost all their time. The one occasion they had returned half an hour late, Agnes had scolded his mum. He saw that his mum was sorry, although she did not say anything. So then he had vandalized his cloakroom peg, and Agnes had been furious with him as well.
When the first hour had passed, it was more difficult to think of anything. Agnes suggested his mum should help him with his homework, but that was something she had never done before, so he was not thrilled with that. Instead they spent most of the time sitting in his room, without saying very much at all.
He longed to go home.
He was hungry.
He was always, always hungry. It had become much more agonizing since he had arrived at the foster home, where they did not give him enough food. Yesterday he had wanted a third serving of meatballs with...
