Night Read online

  Contents

  Also by Bernard Minier

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prelude

  Kirsten

  1. Mariakirken

  2. 83 Souls

  3. Telephoto Lens

  Martin

  4. Thunderstruck

  5. In a Region Close to Death

  6. Awakening

  7. Séfar

  8. Night-time Visit

  Kirsten and Martin

  9. It Was Still Dark Out

  10. Group

  11. Evening

  12. Evening 2

  13. Dream

  14. Saint-Martin

  15. School

  16. Return

  17. Footprints

  18. Strong Sensations

  19. Bang

  20. Gold Dot

  21. Belvedere

  22. Facial Composite

  Martin

  23. Mother Nature, That Bloodthirsty Dog

  24. The Tree

  25. An Encounter

  Gustav

  26. Contacts

  27. An Apparition

  28. The Chalet

  29. Ruthless

  30. A Strange Pair

  31. Abandon All Pride, Oh Ye Who Enter Here

  32. The Fair-Eyed Captive

  33. Poker Trick

  34. Food

  35. Bile

  36. H

  Martin and Julian

  37. A Child Makes You Vulnerable

  38. A Wolf Surrounded by Lambs

  39. Margot

  40. Two Down

  41. Trust

  42. Alps

  43. Getting Ready

  44. The Bait

  45. Dead or Alive

  46. Dead Man

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Footnote

  Also by Bernard Minier

  The Frozen Dead

  A Song for Drowned Souls

  Don’t Turn Out the Lights

  www.mulhollandbooks.co.uk

  First published as Nuit in France in 2017 by XO Éditions

  First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Mulholland Books

  An imprint of Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © XO Éditions 2017

  Translation copyright © Alison Anderson 2019

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

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 473 67817 0

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.hodder.co.uk

  For Laura Muñoz,

  This novel that is also hers

  For Jo (1953–2016)

  Who rides there so late through the night dark and drear?

  The father it is, with his infant so dear

  ‘The Erl-King’, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,

  Trans. Edgar Alfred Bowring

  One other time.

  It was still night.

  Yves Bonnefoy

  Prelude

  She checks her watch. It will be midnight soon.

  A night train. Night trains are like rifts in space-time, parallel worlds: the sudden suspension of life, the silence, the immobility. Drowsy bodies; somnolence, dreams, snoring … And then the regular clatter of wheels on rails, the speed carrying bodies forward – every life, with its past and future – towards an elsewhere that is still hidden in the gloom.

  Because who knows what might happen between point A and point B?

  A tree across the line, a passenger with evil intentions, a sleepy driver … She thinks about it, not really worrying, more for something to do. She has been alone in the carriage since Geilo and – as far as she can tell – no one has boarded since. This train stops everywhere. Asker. Drammen. Hønefoss. Gol. Ål. Sometimes it stops at stations where the platform has vanished beneath the snow, stations reduced to one or two symbolic outbuildings, like in Ustaoset, where only one person got off. She can see lights in the distance, utterly insignificant in the vast Norwegian night. A few isolated houses.

  There is no one in the carriage: it’s Wednesday. During the winter, from Thursday to Monday the train is almost full, mainly with young people and Asian tourists, because it stops at the ski resorts. In the summer, the 484-kilometre Oslo–Bergen line has the reputation of being one of the most spectacular in the world, with 182 tunnels, viaducts, lakes and fjords. But in the middle of the Nordic autumn, on a freezing night like this, in the middle of the week, there is not a soul. The silence that reigns from one end of the central aisle to the other is oppressive. As if an alarm had emptied out the train without her knowing.

  She yawns. In spite of the blanket and the eye mask at her disposal, she cannot get to sleep. From the moment she leaves her house she is always on the lookout. It’s because of her job. And this empty train is hardly conducive to relaxation.

  She listens carefully. She can hear no voices, not even the sound of someone stirring, a door closing or luggage being moved.

  Her gaze lingers over the empty seats and the dark windows. She sighs and closes her eyes.

  The red train burst out of the dark tunnel, like a tongue lapping at the icy landscape. Slate blue of night, opaque black of the tunnel, bluish whiteness of the snow and the slightly darker grey of the ice. And then suddenly this bright red – like a spurt of blood flowing all the way to the end of the platform.

  Finse station. Altitude 1,222 metres. The highest point on the line.

  The station buildings were caught in a carapace of snow and ice, their roofs covered with white eiderdowns. One couple and a woman were waiting on the platform beneath the yellow lamps.

  Kirsten drew away from the window and everything outside fell back into the darkness, eclipsed by the lighting inside the carriage. She heard the door sigh and glimpsed movement at the end of the carriage. A woman in her forties, like her. Kirsten went back to her reading. She had managed to sleep for only an hour, even though she had left Oslo over four hours ago. She would rather have flown, or booked a sleeper, but her boss had handed her a ticket for the night train. Just a seat, in view of the budgetary cuts. The notes she had taken over the phone were now displayed on the screen of her tablet: a body found in a church in Bergen. Mariakirken: Saint Mary’s church. A woman killed on the altar, among all the items of worship. Amen.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  She looked up. The woman who had boarded the train was standing next to her, smiling, with her luggage in her hand.

  ‘Do you mind if I sit across from you? I won’t be a bother, it’s just that … Well, an empty train at night. I don’t know, I’d feel safer.’

  Yes, she did mind. She gave a half-hearted smile.

  ‘No, no, I don’t mind. Are you going to Bergen?’

  ‘Uh … yes, yes, Bergen. You too?’

  She went back to her notes. The guy from Bergen hadn’t exactly been talkative on the phone. Kasper Strand. She wondered if he was as off-hand with his own investigations. According to what he�
��d told her, night had been falling when a homeless man walking past the Mariakirken heard shouting inside the church. Instead of going to investigate, he had thought it wiser to turn tail, and he practically collided with a passing patrol. The two cops wanted to know where he was going and why the hurry, so he told them. Kasper Strand reported that the two officers on patrol had been openly sceptical (she thought she could tell, from his intonation and certain allusions, that the police were well acquainted with the homeless man), but it was cold and damp that night, and they were bored stiff; even the icy nave of a church would be better than the wind and rain ‘from the open ocean’. (That was how Kasper Strand put it – a poet in the police force, she mused.)

  She hesitated to play the little film Strand had sent her, the video taken in the church, because of the woman now sitting opposite her. Kirsten sighed. She had hoped the woman would doze off. Kirsten shot her a furtive gaze. The woman was staring at her, a little smile on her lips; Kirsten couldn’t tell whether it was friendly or mocking. Then her gaze focused on the screen of the tablet and she frowned, clearly trying to make out what was written there.

  ‘Are you in the police?’

  Kirsten repressed a burst of anger. She studied the little icon in the corner of her screen: a lion and a crown, with the word POLITIET underneath. Then looked up at the woman, her expression neither hostile nor friendly. At police headquarters in Oslo, Kirsten Nigaard was not known for her warmth.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which branch, if it’s not indiscreet?’

  Here we go, she thought.

  ‘Kripos.’1

  ‘Oh, I see; well, no, no, I don’t see. It’s a strange sort of job, isn’t it?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘And you’re going to Bergen for … for …’

  Kirsten was determined not to make it easy for her.

  ‘For … well, you know, a … crime – that’s it, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her tone was curt.

  Perhaps the woman realised she had gone too far. ‘Forgive me, it’s really not my business.’ She motioned towards her suitcase. ‘I have a thermos full of coffee. Would you like some?’

  Kirsten hesitated.

  ‘All right,’ she replied eventually.

  ‘It’s going to be a long night,’ said the woman. ‘My name is Helga.’

  ‘Kirsten.’

  ‘So, you live alone and you’re not seeing anyone at the moment, right?’

  Kirsten gave her a cautious look. She had said too much. Without realising it, she had allowed Helga to worm things out of her. This woman was even nosier than a journalist. As an investigator, Kirsten knew that even in the most ordinary interpersonal relations, when you were listening to someone, it always had something to do with a search for truth. It occurred to her that this Helga woman would have excelled at interviewing witnesses. Initially this made her smile. She knew Kripos officers with less talent for interrogation. But now she had stopped smiling. Now, Helga’s nosiness was starting to get on her nerves.

  ‘Helga, I think I’m going to try to get some sleep. I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow. Or rather, today,’ she said, checking her watch. ‘There are only two hours left to Bergen.’

  Helga gave her a funny look and nodded.

  ‘Of course. If that’s what you want.’

  Her abrupt tone was disconcerting. There was something about this woman, Kirsten thought, something she hadn’t noticed at the start but which now seemed perfectly obvious: she liked to get her own way; she didn’t like others to stand up to her. She clearly had a low tolerance for frustration, a tendency to get carried away, Kirsten concluded. She remembered her classes at police college and the attitudes one was supposed to adopt in response to this or that personality type.

  She closed her eyes, hoping this would put an end to the discussion.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Helga suddenly.

  She opened them.

  ‘I’m sorry I disturbed you,’ Helga repeated. ‘I’ll go and sit somewhere else.’ She sniffed and gave a condescending little smile, her pupils dilated.

  ‘You must not make friends easily.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘With your nasty character. The way you give people the brush-off, your arrogance. It’s no wonder you’re on your own.’

  Kirsten stiffened. She was about to reply when Helga got up abruptly and reached up to the overhead rack for her bag.

  ‘I’m sorry I disturbed you,’ she barked again as she moved away.

  Perfect, thought Kirsten. Find another victim.

  She had nodded off. In her dream, an insinuating, venomous voice was whispering in her ear, ‘Biitch, ssstupid biitch.’ She woke up with a start. And gave another start when she saw that Helga was right next to her. In the adjacent seat. Her face angled over Kirsten’s, peering at her, like a researcher studying an amoeba under a microscope.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  Did Helga really say that? Bitch? Did she actually say it, or was it just in her dream?

  ‘I just wanted to tell you to go fuck yourself.’

  Kirsten felt a surge of dark anger, as black as a storm cloud.

  ‘What did you say?’

  At 7.01 the train pulled into Bergen station. Ten minutes late, which is nothing for the NSB, thought Kasper Strand, stamping his feet on the platform. It was pitch black and on days like today when the weather was overcast it would stay pitch black until nine o’clock in the morning. He saw her alight from the train and step onto the platform. She looked up and immediately spotted him, with only a handful of people there at this early hour.

  Cop, he read in her gaze, when it settled on him. And he knew what she was seeing: a somewhat oafish, poorly shaven policeman with thinning hair and a paunch, owing to the can of Hansa pressing against his old-fashioned leather jacket.

  He walked up to her. Trying not to look at her legs. He was somewhat surprised by her outfit. Beneath her winter coat with its fur-lined hood, already fairly short to begin with, she was wearing a strict skirt suit, flesh-coloured tights, and heeled boots. Was this the fashion in the Oslo police this year? He could picture her leaving one of the conference rooms at the Radisson Plaza near the central station, or a DNB Bank building. She was undeniably pretty, in any case. He reckoned she must be in her forties.

  ‘Kirsten Nigaard?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She gave him her gloved hand and he hesitated to squeeze it, it was so soft.

  ‘Kasper Strand, Bergen police,’ he said. ‘Welcome.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I hope the trip was not too long?’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘Did you get some sleep?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Follow me.’ And he held out a red fist towards the handle of her bag but she motioned with her chin that it was all right, she would rather carry it herself. ‘We’ve got coffee at the police station. And there’s bread and cold meat and fruit juice, and some brunost. After that we’ll get to work.’

  ‘I’d like to see the crime scene first. It’s not far from here, if I’m not mistaken?’

  He raised an eyebrow and rubbed his six-day beard.

  ‘What, now? Right away?’

  ‘If you don’t mind.’

  Kasper tried to hide his annoyance, but he wasn’t very good at that game. He saw her smile. A smile without warmth, not aimed at him, but that no doubt was to confirm some thought she’d had about him from the start. Well fuck that.

  Scaffolding and a huge tarpaulin hid the big luminous clock dedicated to the glory of the Bergens Tidende. The most important newspaper in the west of Norway would no doubt run the murder in the church as its lead story this morning. In the main hall they turned to the right, walked past the Deli de Luca and entered the damp, windy corridor leading to the taxi rank. Not a single taxi in sight, as usual, despite the half-dozen or so customers who were waiting, getting splattered by horizontal rain. He had
parked his Saab 9-3 on the other side of the street, on the cobblestones. There was something undeniably provincial about these modest gardens and buildings. Or at least what Oslo people would mean by ‘provincial’, anyway.

  He was hungry. He had spent all night beavering away with the rest of the Hordaland investigation team.

  When she flopped down in the seat next to him, her dark coat opened and her skirt rode up, revealing her lovely knees. Her blonde hair tangled in rebellious curls on her collar, but elsewhere it was straight, divided by a sharp parting on the left-hand side.

  There was nothing natural about her blondness: he could make out dark roots and eyebrows, which were tweezed thinner. Her eyes were so blue as to be disturbing; her straight nose was on the long side, and her lips were thin but finely drawn. And there was a beauty spot on the tip of her chin, slightly to the left.

  Everything about her face said determination.

  A woman in control, calm and obsessive.

  He had known her for only ten minutes but he was surprised to find himself thinking that he wouldn’t like to have her as a partner. He wasn’t sure he could put up with her personality for long, or with constantly having to avoid looking at her legs.

  KIRSTEN

  1

  Mariakirken

  The nave was dimly lit. Kirsten was surprised that they let the candles go on burning near the crime scene, which was cordoned off by a length of orange and white tape that barred access to the sanctuary and the choir.

  The smell of hot wax tickled her nostrils. She took a metal box from her coat; inside were three little pre-rolled cigarettes. She placed one between her lips.

  ‘You’re not allowed to smoke in here,’ said Kasper Strand.

  She shot him a smile, not saying a thing, and lit the thin, uneven tube with a cheap lighter. Her gaze swept over the nave and came to rest on the altar. The corpse was gone. As was the white linen that must have covered the altar; she pictured the cloth, stained with brown streaks and large spots that had become thick and stiff on drying.

  Kirsten had not attended mass since childhood, but she recalled that when the priest came in to celebrate mass he would bend down and kiss the altar. Once the service was over, before leaving the church, he would kiss it again.