Blessed Are Those Who Thirst by Anne Holt Read Free Book Online Page A

once, though. Yesterday.”
    Attorney Løvstad nodded encouragingly.
    “My role is really somewhat limited. I’ll act as a kind of link between you and the police. If there’s anything you’re wondering about, then you just get in touch with me. The police will continue to keep me informed. They’re not usually very conscientious about that, but you’ve been very fortunate with your investigating officer. She usually follows things up.”
    Now they were both smiling.
    “Yes, she seems nice,” her client acknowledged.
    “And then I’ll help you with compensation.”
    The young woman looked bewildered. “Compensation?”
    “Yes, you’re entitled to compensation. Either from the rapist, or from the state. There are special arrangements for that sort of thing.”
    “I’m not interested in any kind of compensation!”
    Kristine Håverstad was taken aback by her own extreme reaction. Compensation? As though anyone at anytime could give her a sum of money large enough to make amends for all the unpleasantness and wipe out that horrific night that had turned her whole life upside down. Money?
    “I don’t want anything!”
    If her tear ducts hadn’t been completely exhausted, she would have started to weep. She did not want money. If she could make a choice, she would want to have a video player with her life available on a recording. She would then rewind the days and go home to her father last Saturday instead of being destroyed in her own apartment. But she did not have the choice.
    Her bottom lip, and then her entire chin, was shaking uncontrollably.
    Her final words were spat out like tainted food.
    “Easy there.”
    The lawyer leaned forward, across the enormous desktop, and caught her eye.
    “We can talk about all this later. Maybe you’ll still feel the same about it then, and in that case no one will force you, of course. Perhaps you’ll change your mind. We’ll leave it for now. Is there anything you need help with at the moment? Anything at all?”
    The tall, slender woman gazed at her victim support counsel for several static seconds. Then she couldn’t endure any more. She stretched out across the desk with her arms around her head. Her hair fell forward to hide her face. She sobbed for half an hour of tearless grief while the lawyer could do nothing other than stroke her client on the back and whisper words of reassurance.
    “If only someone could help me,” gasped the young woman. “And if only someone could help my dad.”
    At long last she sat up again.
    “I don’t really want anything to do with the police. I’m not bothered whether they capture the man who did it. All I want . . .”
    She was overcome by sobs again, but this time she remained upright.
    “I just want some help. And somebody to help my father. He doesn’t speak to me. He’s around me all the time, doesn’t know what he can do to help, but he . . . he says nothing. I’m afraid he might . . .”
    Then she was overcome again. After another quarter of anhour, for the very first time in her relatively short legal career, Linda Løvstad had to call an ambulance to come and collect her client.
    *   *   *
    They hadn’t much faith in the drawing but had printed it regardless. This had led to something, at least, and now they had more than fifty tip-offs about named persons. Perhaps that was precisely because the sketch was so devoid of character: indistinct features, a vague face, a shadow picture with no identity.
    Detective Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen held out the newspaper on outstretched arms, tilting her head.
    “It could be anyone at all,” she declared. “With a bit of imagination, it might be four or five different men I know.”
    Squinting, she turned her head to the other side.
    “It looks like you, Håkon! It damn well looks like you too!”
    She laughed and let him tear the newspaper out of her hands.
    “It most certainly does not,” he protested, feeling insulted. “I don’t have such a