Sample translation - Hidden under snow by Hilde S. Palladino

Represented by CAPPELEN DAMM AGENCY Contact: foreignrights@cappelendamm.no

SOMETHING COMPLETELY UNIQUE IN THE NORWEGIAN CRIME ARENA It’s a rare thing for the world to stop while reading a manuscript sent in by an unknown yet hopeful debutant. But when I read Hidden under snow, that’s exactly what happened. Here, there was something completely unique, something I’d been searching after in the Norwegian crime arena. Finally, Hilde S. Palladino’s crime debut is ready to be shared with more readers.

What really sets Hidden under snow apart is that Palladino masters the art of mixing psychological insight with the thriller’s fast pace. All the while doing a fascinating deep dive into the human mind. How can the past shape us even if we cannot remember it? Hilde S. Palladino entertains while sharing sharp psychological observations.

In Bjørk Isdahl, Hilde S. Palladino has created a main character that I hope everyone will come to love as much as I do. Bjørk has lost her job in KRIPOS— the National Bureau of Crime Investigation—as a behavioral specialist and criminal profiler, and is now working as therapist for an anger management group. She has a big heart for society’s weaker people, but

struggles to trust in others. It is like she was born skeptical. She’s a complex and fascinating character. We’re also introduced to a rough Oslo, where the city’s brutal, shady sides occupy the background of the novel in a realistic and convincing way.

This is a mystery that will entrance its readers, and it is with good reasons that this debut and its unwritten sequel sold to Germany even before the manuscript was fully written. Since then, the Danish rights have also been sold, after two of their readers separately declared it one of the best crime novels they had read in the past year.

Anja Rålm Anja Rålm

EDITOR Cappelen Damm Publishing

HIDDEN UNDER SNOW

– A character-driven psychological crime fiction novel

After a possibly wrongful profiling with fatal consequences, psychological profiler Bjørk Isdahl at the Oslo Police force is placed on indefinite leave.

Following a mysterious phone call, Bjørk witnesses her former client Azora committing a brutal suicide. On Azora’s person, the police find a photography of Bjørk with the note «I know why you have nightmares». Bjørk has indeed been plagued by terrible nightmares for years – nightmares which she has never mentioned to a living soul. So how could Azora possibly know about them, and why was she carrying a photo of Bjørk as she fell to her death?

Both the Oslo police and Bjørk herself must now search for the connection between her and Azora. The connection is closer to Bjørk’s personal life than she could ever have imagined. Bjørk will have to use everything she knows from psychological profiling, even profiling herself, to clear herself of suspicion.

A rough and dark Oslo specked with light-sensitive affairs and agents serves as a realistic backdrop for this psychological crime novel: A fascinating deep dive into the repressed memories of human minds, exploring how the past and our upbringing shapes us and leaves behind scars – even when what happened is long beyond our recall.

Hidden under snow is the first novel in a planned series about Bjørk Isdahl. As the first novel ends, Bjørk has just uncovered a dark, tragic past, that will surely affect her future.

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HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

HILDE S. PALLADINO (b. 1968) is a former student of Norway’s Crime Writer’s School and lives between Oslo and Bali. Self-employed, she runs various companies’ social media channels. Hidden under snow is her first crime novel.

Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 5

THE CAST HIDDEN UNDER SNOW BJØRK ISDAHL Bjørk Isdahl is a strong-willed woman with a hidden past. She has studied criminology, majoring in behavioral science, and was hired as a consultant at KRIPOS (the National Bureau of Crime Investigation). In a messy case she wrongfully accused a suspect of murder, and the man killed himself.

Bjørk was suspended from her job, and still feels tremendous guilt for his suicide. The only work she feels competent doing is leading an anger management group for men. Since her childhood, Bjørk has had terrible nightmares. She grew up with loving parents and don’t understand the nightmares, nor her unwillingness to have children. She is about to unravel her dark past.

AZORA Azora is a long-time drug addict and formerly a patient of the rehabilitation center Bjørk had her internship at. She has tried to seek out Bjørk a few times, without success. In her own way, she is 6

HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

trying to help Bjørk understand the true nature of their shared past. When she calls Bjørk late one night and says ‘I know why you have nightmares’, she sets in motion her own death.

ABSALON Bjørk’s former partner in KRIPOS is a modern viking. Tall, with red hair and beard, he is also very knowledgeable and just. The embodiment of integrity. He really cares about Bjørk, and secretly wants to see her back on the force.

When she asks for help, he has a hard time saying no, even though it sometimes means he is acting in opposition to the police force.

KRISTIAN Bjørk’s former boyfriend is a steady, nice guy with lots of respect for Bjørk. He still loves her and secretly wants her back, but can’t deal with her constant willingness to put herself in harmful situations.

He understands that Bjørk is

pushing him away, and after fighting against it he is now finally understanding that Bjørk doesn’t share his dreams of a normal family with regular jobs, children and cozy cottage in the mountains.

CHARLIE Charlie is a long-time drug addict and homeless roaming the streets of Oslo. He comes across as a nice and generally happy-go-lucky guy, but has taken some very bad choices in his life and is now paying the ultimate price. He was one of Azora’s few friends and is genuinely sad that she is dead. He wants to help Bjørk figure out what happened to her, but is well aware of the forces of the Oslo criminal underworld. He chooses to keep a low profile and only gives Bjørk information when she pushes for answers.

HERDIS Bjørk’s only real friend is a single mother with four kids. She works in a warehouse, is a heavy smoker, and is generally quite happy with her ordinary life. She’s the only one that hasn’t gravitated away from Bjørk over the years, and although she urges Bjørk to go back to Kristian and get a regular job, she always respects Bjørk’s decisions.

LINNEA

Linnea runs a small non-profit aid program for the homeless, to provide them with food, clothes and sanitary items. She meets Bjørk at Azoras funeral. When Bjørk later ask Linnea about Azora she warns Bjørk about not getting involved, as Oslo’s criminal world is a place where no one is to be trusted and people will kill you if you get too close. Linnea is the one ESPEN person Bjørk feels she can open up Azora’s uncle is a deep-sea diver on to, one that will truly understand an oil-rig, and has primary custody her. They discuss traumas, Bjørk’s for his son. He has helped Azora hesitance to have kids and who with money and support over the could have killed Azora. years, but also played a role in introducing her to drugs. He feels bad about not doing enough when his sister, Azora’s mother, and her husband disappeared.

Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 7

SYNOPSIS HIDDEN UNDER SNOW Bjørk Isdahl is a behavioral specialist and former criminal profiler at KRIPOS – The Norwegian National Criminal Investigation Service. As the reader meets her, she is leading a men’s anger management class.

She is fresh out of a relationship, while struggling with feelings of guilt after an inmate committed suicide while she was profiling him.

She is now suspended from her post at KRIPOS. Bjørk also feels guilt pertaining to the death of her parents.

One late night, she receives a phone call from a female drug addict with whom she crossed paths a few years back. The woman is called Azora and claims that she knows why Bjørk is suffering from nightmares. When Bjørk reluctantly agrees to see her, she is witness to Azora falling from a rooftop and dying instantly. Later, as the police pay a visit to Bjørk, she understands that they suspect her involvement in Azora’s death – a murder?

Bjørk needs to find out what happened to Azora, and what this has to do with Bjørk herself. How could Azora know about the nightmares?

Bjørk has never told anyone. At Azora’s funeral service, she meets Azora’s uncle Espen, and Linnea, a young girl working for the nonprofit organization The Street Helper. Linnea and Bjørk experience a burgeoning friendship, and Bjørk confides in Linnea that she is pregnant. Linnea tells her that Azora experienced identical nightmares to those Bjørk is having. Bjørk starts to realize that there’s a true connection here. What is it that she can’t remember?

One day, Bjørk receives a phone call from a lawyer, with the message that she’s inherited a house after her sister, Azora Strand. Bjørk is

8 HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

informed that she was adopted, and that the two girls were placed on witness protection because their biological parents had disappeared.

They were criminals who abused their children. It’s assumed they ran off to Germany. Now, Bjørk has to sort out the threads of her past, and find out who killed Azora to avoid prison herself.

Bjørk goes to the abandoned house. The bedrooms remain intact. In Azora’s bedroom, black charcoal drawings cover the walls and ceiling.

Bjørk recognizes the forest and the tarn from her nightmares. The same landscape is right behind the house. She heads to the tarn, gets stuck in the mud, experiences hypothermia and discovers the remains of a human.

Regarding Azora’s murder, the evidence points towards Bjørk. She is placed in custody, but soon released. She goes back to the house, to find her biological uncle Espen waiting for her. He threatens her, demanding she explains what happened to her sister. Bjørk can’t recall. Linnea turns up, and Espen dies in the ensuing fight. Bjørk then discovers that Linnea is Azora’s killer. She understands that Azora was Linnea’s mother, and that she hurt her as a child. Learning that Azora was pregnant again, Linnea wished to stop the child from sharing her destiny. She knows that Bjørk is her aunt, and wants to kill Bjørk’s unborn child as well, convinced that violence is hereditary.

Bjørk neutralizes Linnea and calls the police.

Bjørk deciphers the drawings in Azora’s old bedroom. Bjørk can recall spying on her mother one night and witnessing her shoot and kill their father. Later, seeing her mother in a fight with Azora and a gun on a nearby table, Bjørk was scared. She picked up the weapon and killed their mother. Finally, Bjørk recalls how the biological parents abused her and her sister. As punishment, the girls were put out in the snow until they fainted from cold exposure. Their shared nightmares are about what they experienced.

Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 9

CONTACT INFORMATION Hidden under snow is represented by Cappelen Damm Agency.

For more information about this novel, please send us an e-mail at: foreignrights@cappelendamm.no www.cappelendammagency.no

«It’s not until you start running from yourself that the devil pulls on his boots.»

INGVAR AMBJØRNSEN – Natten drømmer om dagen

[SAMPLE TRANSLATION]

HIDDEN UNDER SNOW CHAPTER 1–7 Translation © Kari Dickson Translation Grant Support received from NORLA

Everything I fear appears, in vivid detail. The chain that holds me, the revolting stench, the snow that covers my head, shoulders and legs.

A scream forces its way up my throat.

Let me go!

It is just a thought.

Let me go!

No reaction, not even a glance in my direction. Only the shadow that vanishes into the storm.

Hope fades. The snow falls. Filling the spaces around me until everything is white. Terrified, I pull at the chain, try to break lose. Gag, struggle, cough until I black out. Nothing works. There’s no help to be had. I have to sit here until I’m collected, until I wake up under warm blankets.

A branch snaps, I lift my head. A deer bounds off, then there’s a loud bang.

The mist gathers on the water, the pictures blend together. The bang, the black mark on the breast, the animal collapses and dies. Sinks down into the bog and disappears.

Everything ceases to be. Only the snow remains. Bitter and biting, evil and nasty.

1 It’s late in the evening when she calls. Her voice has the unmistakable hoarseness of someone who has done drugs for too long.

‘It’s me,’ she says.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Me.’ A sigh. ‘Azora.’

It takes a few seconds for an image of her to click into place in my mind. I stifle a groan, and a chill run over my shoulders.

‘What the ... How ...`?’ Those words, the friendly but firm ones, are no longer as ready on my tongue.

‘Need to meet you,’ she says. ‘Now.’ I shake my head, even though she can’t see me. ‘Sorry, it’s late, and ...’

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HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

‘Girls stick together, don’t they?’

‘No, no, forget it.’

‘Listen to me, please ...’

There has to be a way to stop this. I could end the conversation, get an ex-directory number, which I should have done ages ago, and hope that she forgets me. That would be the easiest solution. But her voice is so insistent, she’s frustrated that I don’t understand.

‘Can’t protect you any longer,’ she says.

I let out a deep sigh and roll my eyes. This is precisely one of the reasons why I stopped working with drug addicts. Constructed realities. Paranoia. The same old crap in new clothes. It was too much.

‘Please ...’ she begs, mumbles an address I don’t recognise.

Her vulnerability claws at my boundaries. The woman clearly has more problems than she can deal with. But I know what will happen if I let her in, I’ll be sucked into her delusions. And then I’ll struggle to escape. I somehow have to get her to understand that she can’t call me anymore.

‘No,’ I say, and allow the silence between us to grow. Hope that she’ll understand that I mean it, then, just as I’m about to hang up, she clears her throat.

‘I know why you have nightmares.’

The blood drains from my head, words escape me. With unsteady steps, I cross the room to the window. Stare out at the park where the bare trees stand upright like soldiers on parade.

‘Grønland,’ she says. ‘Are you coming?’

I take a deep breath. Press my lips together as she repeats the address.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’ll come.’

I have to put a stop to this, once and for all.

Memories from the rehab clinic swarm for attention as I get Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 15

out a thick woolen sweater, my parka and boots. Remember how hard life had been for some of the girls. That the clinic didn’t always make things easier. And then Azora, who I never fully understood.

However much I want them to, her words won’t leave me, and suddenly, all the problems from back then are foremost in my mind.

But obviously it’s nonsense that she knows why I have nightmares.

How could she possibly know, when I don’t even know myself.

I walk down to Grønland, where the majority of addicts hang around. The area was supposed to be an exotic oasis in the heart of the city, but the artists, creatives and cultured tourists are few and far between. Nor are there many stockbrokers and welfare clients happily rubbing shoulders, as was hoped. Instead, broken shop fronts, whores, junkies and Romanis crowd the spaces between the few cool bars. It’s as if the neighborhood was intentionally selfharming.

I go into a shop to ask for directions. There’s a man standing in front of the cabbage, sweet potatoes and ginger. He looks a bit like an insect, with a narrow face and darting eyes. Seems ready to run if needs be. He’s wearing a worn jumper over his kurta and trousers, and has a scarf wrapped round his neck so tightly that it looks like he’s trying to strangle himself. He follows me out of the shop and points to a side street.

‘Grey stone building, with a curved passageway round to the back.’

It’s not hard to find. A dirt-coloured building with a solid wooden front door that gives away nothing about what kind of firms have offices inside. Only floor numbers are given on the bells, not names.

Unwelcoming blinds shut out the world. I steel myself as I walk towards the curved passageway, then slip round to the back.

A dull light from one of the offices spills out into the courtyard.

Discarded pallets stand piled up against a wall. A rusty bike, a fridge, 16

HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

a broken desk, and a skip, where all of it should presumably have been dumped. There’s a fire escape on the outer wall, with a metal gate about halfway up. The air is unfamiliar. Bitter sweet, with an after scent of burnt plastic. I look around, run my fingers through my hair. Azora is not here.

I’m annoyed that I allowed myself to be lured out, check my phone to see if she’s called again, or left a message that I haven’t seen.

Nothing. She probably forgot as soon as she rang off, lost herself in a high minutes later. I can just see her: thin and indifferent, on a filthy sofa. Her face devoid of personality, her sunken eyes unnaturally far back in their sockets. Why the hell did I agree to meet her? I turn on my heel and am about to leave, but then change my mind. People like her don’t have it easy. It won’t kill me to wait a little longer.

Remnants of the day’s downpour still linger in the air, the mist hangs heavy over the rooftops. I start to walk back and forth, pull my parka tighter around me, rub my hands together and blow into them. How I hate this time of year. If Azora’s not here in the next ten minutes, I’m leaving.

Then I curb my irritation, roll her name around my mouth.

The gravel and rotten leaves scratch under the soles of my boots.

Was she christened Azora, or was it just what she called herself`? I can’t remember. Have to admit that I haven’t really given her much thought over the years. It’s not so strange, really, that she managed to get hold of my phone number. After all, in my face has been on the front page of every newspaper in the country more times than I can count in the past year – the most hated woman in Norway.

I suddenly get the feeling that I’m being watched. I can’t put my finger on it, but I glance up at the office windows and feel the hairs rise on my neck. Turn around, and squint up at the roofs, follow the edge all the way round. Is she up there? I immediately imagine I can see a shadow, but it’s probably no more than reflections in the Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 17

mist. Maybe it’s a cat, or possibly some pigeons settling for the night.

My pulse rate increases all the same. I shouldn’t be here. Not in this neighbourhood, not alone. And certainly not at this time of night.

When the light in the window is switched off, the courtyard is engulfed in darkness. I take a few steps back, notice that my legs are a bit wobbly and the sweet smells even more sickly. I hear the sound of car tyres on wet tarmac in the distance. I keep my eyes trained the top of the building. There’s no movement up there now. Just the metallic grey mist swirling.

I wait.

Listen.

Get ready to leave.

Then I get that feeling again, that someone’s watching me. Did they trick me into coming here so they could rob me? Is someone out to get me after everything that happened last year? I scan the office windows, one by one, looking for silhouettes. Get out my mobile phone, decide that Azora’s not coming. Look up at the roof one last time, as I listen for signs that I’m not alone.

I’m on my way back towards the curved passage when I hear it. The scream rends the night, and my body. An inhuman scream, full of fear, followed by a faint rush of air. From above. I don’t have time to think about what’s happening, just spin round and look up.

And see a body falling, rotating, and crashing to the ground only a few metres from me.

2 The police arrive almost immediately. I sit crouched some way up the street, it feels like all the blood has left my body. The sound of the skull hitting the asphalt is on a loop in my head when the two scene of crime officers, a man and a woman, come over to me. They’re 18 HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

wearing short black jackets and black trousers. I must have given them my name, or maybe they already know who I am, because they address me by my full name.

‘Bjørk Isdahl,’ the woman says. ‘Was it you who called?’

I shake my head. Can’t for the life of me understand why Azora wanted me to see her take her own life.

‘It wasn’t you?’

‘Huh?’ I focus on the officers again.

‘Was it you who found the body?’

The words swell in my throat. ‘She jumped.’

‘You saw it?’

I stare into space. The sight of the body in free fall, the sound that refuses to be silent. I shake my head again, look straight ahead until I realise I have to pull myself together.

‘Yes, I saw her fall.’

‘I understand,’ the woman says. ‘Do you live nearby? Work here?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I came to meet her.’

‘You knew the deceased?’

‘I had a placement in a rehab clinic some years ago. The Wheel of Life. She was there for a period, and rang me earlier this evening.’

‘So you can identify her?’ the woman asks.

‘Azora – that’s what she was called. Don’t know her surname.’

‘What did she want?’

The man has hunkered down beside me. His kindness makes me think how mean I was to Azora. She must have heard my exasperation. How unwilling I was to meet her. Could I not have been a bit nicer?

I try to explain to the officers why I agreed to meet her.

‘Wanted to stop her before things escalated.’

They both give me an understanding nod, note down my Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 19

contact details and help to call a taxi. I don’t go home, but ring Kristian instead. Explain what’s happened so he doesn’t think it’ll be just another night of arguments.

When I get up to his flat, he puts his arms around me, runs one hand down my spine to my lower back, holds me tight for a long time. I bury my face in his chest, cling to him. Long to stay like this all through the night. No talk, no opinions, no accusations or blame. Just to stand here wrapped in each other’s warmth and smell.

My eyes are wet when he extricates himself from my arms.

It’s as though all the emotions of the past year have been released and pour out. The tears fall and my shoulders shake. I bend over and undo my boots, take off my coat, wipe my face on the tissue that Kristian passes to me. He guides me into the living room, settles me on the sofa and wraps a blanket around me. He goes into the kitchen, makes me a cup of tea, puts it in my hands, then pours himself a glass of red wine.

He fits so well into this flat; he was always too big in mine.

Filled the rooms in an almost clumsy way. He suits the high ceilings and classical furniture, all as black as his hair, like a styled photograph. I’m horrified to find myself having such trivial thoughts when I’ve just seen a woman kill herself. I force myself to focus on Kristian who sits down in the chair opposite me.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

I drink the warm tea. The taste of camomile helps my muscles relax. I finally find a kind of peace and start slowly to tell him about the evening. I repeat over and over what Azora said, what I thought, what I did. Kristian listens patiently. Every so often he asks a question, but for the most part, he just listens.

‘I don’t understand,’ I say, eventually. ‘I mean, she phoned me.

Wanted to talk. Why kill yourself then?’

‘She doesn’t sound entirely reliable.’

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I tilt my head to one side. ‘Maybe not, but she said she had something important to tell me. And it sounded like she meant it.’

He looks at me in surprise. ‘But you didn’t know her.’

I think about previous conversations with her. Have never told Kristian about those episodes, but now it all comes out.

How unhappy I was in the placement. My guilt for saying no to a permanent job, even though they needed people. And then this woman. Who wouldn’t give up.

‘It became such a problem that I couldn’t face working with addicts. Well, not just because of her, but ...’

‘I understand,’ Kristian says. He shifts in the chair, leans forwards and puts both hands around his wine glass.

‘To begin with, it was as though she couldn’t quite place me,’ I say. ‘Then suddenly one day she said she’d known me as a child.’

‘But it wasn’t true?’

I put my cup down on the table, pushed it towards the centre.

‘She could have been anyone, above me at school. Or a neighbour I didn’t remember. Definitely a few years older. I never found out, so I guess it wasn’t true.’

We sit without saying anything for a while. I pull the blanket tighter around me. We’re well-suited in that sense, Kristian and I. Silence has never bothered us.

‘And what about you, how are you?’ he asks, after a while. ‘In general, I mean ...’

I pick up my cup again, take a drink before I answer. Try to hold back what I know he doesn’t want to hear, then force a note of triumph into my voice, when I do finally answer. ‘Got a meeting with Abs next week.’

He gives a small nod. Puts down his glass of wine, which he’s barely touched. ‘You’re going back?’

‘Hope so.’

Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 21

‘Are you sure that’s wise?’

The question annoys me even though I was expecting it. ‘Why do you ask?’

He puts up his hand. ‘I’m just saying that ...’

‘You’ve seen what being at home for a year has done to me.’

I feel a lump in my throat. I struggle to hold his gaze. ‘You’ve said yourself that ...’

‘They should have given you compensation.’

‘I let an innocent man die, Kristian. You don’t get compensation for that, normally it’s prison.’

He groans. ‘Stop. He was a suspect. You didn’t ...’

‘Because I said he was guilty.’

He sends me a sceptical look and says nothing for a while.

Pretends to search for words, deep inside. ‘I don’t know, but I thought that it took more than a statement from one person to get someone sent to jail. You have to stop seeing it as your mistake.’

I twist, unfold myself from the blanket, as though I’m getting ready to leave. ‘Have we not gone over this enough? Jens Ellingsen died. It was my fault.’

He holds his tongue, but there’s a trace of something I can’t quite grasp in his dark eyes. I know that he loves me, that he wants me to stay here tonight. He may not have said so, but I know that he wants us to find a way forward together. The only thing is he hates my work, both the job I have now and the one I want to go back to.

Thinks they’re destroying me. Once upon a time that wasn’t so far from the truth, but now I’ve got things under control again.

‘Sorry,’ he says, without looking at me.

‘For what?’

He looks up. ‘You’ve experienced something awful and all I can do is ...’

He stops, rubs his face, stands up and goes into the kitchen.

22

HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

I stare at the empty space he leaves behind, listen to my heart beat.

I could stay the night. Feel his heat beside me, let him inside me.

Fall asleep to his breathing in my ear, with his dark arms wrapped around me. I feel a ripple of desire through my body, but then it’s interrupted by a sound – the terrible sound of a skull exploding.

It’s probably better that I sleep at home.

‘What is it?’ Kristian asks.

He’s standing in front of me, with a raised eyebrow. A tender smile, as though he’s read my thoughts. Suddenly I get the same feeling that I had when I was waiting for Azora. That I’m being watched.

‘It’s probably nothing ...’

‘You sure?’

‘I just wonder if she maybe wasn’t alone up there.’ I feel my throat tighten when I say this.

Kristian looks at me. I know what he’s thinking. He wants a stable partner, who can be a good mother to his future children. Not someone who drags death and shame home with them.

‘Was it perhaps just an accident?’

When I don’t answer, he continues: ‘You know I only want your best. Know that I think you’re the smartest, most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.’

‘But ...?’

‘I can’t be with someone who seeks out this sort of thing.’

‘So we shouldn’t have police then?’ I say, and feel my heckles rising. ‘Or perhaps they just shouldn’t have families?’

‘You know that’s not what I mean.’

I know, but now I’m just angry. ‘Some of us actually want to make the world a better place.’

‘And kill yourself while doing it,’ he mutters, to himself more than me.

Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 23

I make no comment.

‘Why is your job more important than our relationship?’ he asks. ‘I just don’t understand ...’

‘Kristian ...’

He gestures for me to stop. Stares at the floor, then looks at me again, as though he’s expecting a sensible answer.

What can I say? That I’ve never wanted a family? That I’m not sure if I want children? Of course I can’t say that, because then he’ll think that our relationship has been a lie, and it hasn’t. The only thing I can say, the only thing that makes any sense, is the truth that’s been burned into me. That nothing will ever be the same when you’ve caused someone else’s death.

The ineptitude that I’ve felt in the last couple of hours suddenly becomes acute. ‘Well, I guess that’s it then,’ I say.

‘Your work means more than our relationship?’

There’s nothing more to say. I turn my head, stand up quickly and go out into the hall. Start to put on my jacket and boots. Kristian doesn’t try to stop me. Doesn’t beg me to stay. As I close the door behind me, I feel a burning under my eyelids, and I know that the past few weeks have simply been a long goodbye.

3 ‘Who wants to start?’

Marcos puts his hand up, as he always does.

‘Want to lose control,’ he says, ‘so I can smash someone in the face.’

I look through my notes from the last meeting. It’s three days since Azora died and I’ve barely slept. The few hours’ sleep that I’m managed to get have been filled with nightmares, and strangely 24

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enough, not about her. I don’t see a body falling, a head smashing on the ground, a pool of blood spreading out over the asphalt. It’s the same nightmare that I’ve had for as long as I could remember. The forest, the deer, the small lake. Being suffocated by snow.

I look at the four of them. The room is nice, with comfortable chairs and a sofa that I got free from Finn.no. The men are sitting as comfortably as they might in each other’s sitting rooms, chatting about day to day things. My job is to get them to open up about the reason why they’re here, and to give them the tools to make different choices.

Marcos is a thin man, originally from Brazil, with a strong accent and a voice that doesn’t sound scary at all. But he has a restraint order and is not allowed to see his ex-wife, as he beat her regularly when they were married, broke her cheekbone, nose, collar bone and fingers. I don’t say anything, just run my eyes around the group, notice that Tore is nodding. The movement is almost imperceptible. He’s ashamed to admit it, but the feeling that Marcos is describing is so familiar that his body can’t help but respond. Gaute sniggers. He’s a good deal younger than the others, and tries to make up for it by pretending to be calm, but the rubber band that he snaps against his fingers shows that he needs a distraction. Reza’s face shows nothing. He also recognises himself in the description, but seldom gives away what’s going on inside. He’s good at keeping control in situations like this. Makes you wonder why he can’t control himself when it really matters.

‘Is the ‘someone’ anyone in particular?’ I ask, to steer the conversation towards actual circumstances. I try to sound gentle and understanding.

I’ve thought about calling Kristian a few times, to see if we could meet, but not acted on it. I’m too much of a coward, and have decided to talk to Abs first. Once I get my old job back and everything has settled, I can contact Kristian again.

Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 25

Marcos’ mouth and nose pull back into a snarl. I’ve noticed a twitch in his face before: he blinks twice with the same eye when he’s about to talk about something difficult. Sometimes the right, sometimes the left. I haven’t worked out if there’s a system to it.

‘Filho da puta,’ he grunts, balling his hands as he speaks. ‘My boss ... my brother-in-law. Ex-brother-in-law. Just them really, this week.’

He leans back on the chair, tries to look relaxed. I’ve forgotten what I asked. A particular person, yes. That was it.

Anger can be as addictive as drugs. The buzz of adrenaline and dopamine pumping through your veins is exciting. It makes you feel alive, makes you want more. I suspect that Marcos’ problems began long before he got married.

‘But so far you haven’t punched anyone in the face?’ I ask. ‘This week?’

‘Not this week.’ He forces a half-grin, and his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. He knows it’s wrong, this rage, and no laughing matter when he takes it out on others, but this is a safe space. He knows that too.

I don’t let his grin affect me. ‘What is about your boss?’ I ask.

Marcos straightens his back; another brief snarl.

‘Goes around thinking he’s so bloody smart,’ he says. Then he shrugs. ‘Had enough.’

‘Whenever there’s been a situation, how long does it take before you feel your anger?’

‘With my boss? Before I even go to work, I think.’ He glances over at Tore, who has a complicit look in his eyes.

I sit up. Tore is the only one in the group I find problematic.

He showed up a few months ago, a mature man, probably in his fifties, copywriter. Silver hair, handsome. Divorced, three grown-up children, and always seems to meet beautiful, younger women. The relationships don’t last. The reason for this, according to him, is that 26

HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

they can’t take his Latin temperament. I still remember what I wrote down after my first hour with him – ‘carries his anger like a trophy.’

I have my pen and paper ready, but don’t make many notes. A thought has become lodged in my mind, and I can’t shake it. Did I see two people up on the roof that evening?

‘So you start the day angry?’ I say to Marcos.

‘Eh, kind of ...’

‘Before your boss has said anything.’

Blink, blink. Telltale sign. ‘Said something the day before.’

‘You’re angry before you even meet your boss in the morning, and yet he’s the one who’s made you angry?’ The question is meant to be provocative. Not everyone might think it’s the best way to deal with four men who are known to have a short fuse. But I trust the process.

‘Know what’s going to happen,’ Marcos says, and looks at the others.

Reza plucks at the hairs on his shower arm. Gaute snaps his rubber band.

‘You want to be one step ahead?’ I say.

Marcos gives me a thumbs-up.

‘Why?’ I want to dig deeper into the reason why Marcos thinks he needs to take his anger home with him.

‘Puh, don’t know,’ he says, and twists his upper body. ‘Better to be prepared.’

‘So you let your boss control you at home in the kitchen as well?’

It’s a mean thing to say, I know, but for many, it’s a wake-up call. Anger is often about the fear of losing control, or the feeling of being treated unfairly. When the person then sees that they’re relinquishing responsibility, allowing the other person to dictate their emotions, it often prompts a change.

‘You mean ...?’ I can see that Marcos is thinking now, know that he’s one of the ones who really want to change their behaviour.

Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 27

‘Idiotas with power make me mad, you know.’

‘Could you have refused to invite anger in this morning?’

‘Eh ...?

‘Well ...?’

‘Trick question?’

‘What do the rest of you think?’ I ask, and look at each of them. ‘Is it a trick question?’

Tore put ups his hand. ‘In theory, everyone can stop the anger as soon as it starts.’

‘In theory?’

‘Well, if it was that easy, we wouldn’t be sitting here, would we?’

‘So it’s not easy?’ I ask, making sure that my voice doesn’t sound patronising.

‘That’s my normal, now,’ Reza says.

‘Same here.’ Gaute snaps his rubber band. ‘Sometimes it feels like I’ve forgotten what it feels like not to be angry.’

Hollow laughter from the others, a normal reaction in this situation. These are serious matters. Most people know when they’re on a slippery slope and have to turn things around.

‘Do we have to accept all our emotional triggers?’ I ask, rhetorically.

‘Or are they just so familiar that we don’t know anything else? Some people grow up with anger all around them. Maybe there was so much shouting at home that you came to expect it. But what is the most extreme consequence of your anger? How far will it push you?’

‘All the way,’ Reza says. ‘Straight to hell.’

I take a deep breath, and feel my own anger. Humiliation does that to people. The journalists who hung around outside my flat for weeks broke me completely. It was more than I could cope with. I refused to go out in daylight, and ordered takeaways for months.

But the worst thing was knowing that I would never get my job back, never have the life I wanted.

28 HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

And now Absalon had opened a door.

‘Who are we then?’ I ask, ‘if we allow ourselves to be pushed into hell?’

Tore looks at me, cocksure. ‘Someone who’s capable of terrible things.’

I shudder as it dawns on me: he likes it, likes to think of himself as being capable of terrible things.

I look him straight in the eye. ‘But there’s also a kind of strength in recognising that,’ I say, ‘being able to think of yourself as a person who chooses not to do terrible things. Chooses not to be ruled by anger. But instead chooses to be a stronger man.’

Tore gives me a look that say, ‘game to you.’ We finish up. I watch him leave with the others. He’s no different from them, and yet at the same time another kettle of fish altogether. I start to wonder if I should ask him to leave the group, or if he’s the one who’ll kick-start my career again.

Before I write up my notes, I do an exercise that helps me to uncover any subconscious thoughts about the men and their situations. I draw them, or rather, I draw caricatures of them. I let my pen move intuitively on the paper without looking down. I generally don’t look to see what I’ve drawn until I’ve finished. Sometimes it’s furry pussycats, other times it’s screaming demons. The caricatures are thrown in the bin afterwards. It’s not likely the men would appreciate how I portray them.

Today I’m struggling to keep my mind focused. What did Azora want to talk about? Why was I so horrible to her on the phone? I tussle with the feeling that there were more people up on the roof.

Realise that her death has triggered memories of the case I was involved in a year ago. The National Criminal Investigation Service had Jens Ellingsen under investigation, on suspicion of raping and killing several young girls. I was hired as a consultant, a profiler, and Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 29

Ellingsen ticked all the boxes. So I advised that he was arrested. By the time the DNA results came through that showed that it wasn’t him, it was too late. He committed suicide in his cell.

If I hadn’t been so sure of myself, he might still be alive today.

I look down at my notepad, see what I’ve drawn: Tore as Phantom of the Opera, with half his face hidden by a white mask.

I tear up the drawing, throw in the bin. Tidy up, wash our cups and turn off the coffee machine. There’s a breeze outside when I lock up and walk into the night. My feet resound on the pavement, drowning out the constant hum of the city. I’m not normally afraid of the 30-minute walk home, even though the city is quiet and dark, but this evening, I walk faster. Fumble with my keyring. Pure instinct makes me splay my keys between my fingers, like a Wolverine hand.

As I cross the road, I quickly glance over my shoulder. See a car driving slowly towards me, force myself to breathe deeply. My heart is pounding. I walk even faster, and then I hear footsteps. They’re some way behind me. Moving at the same pace. When I speed up, so do they. I run over the pedestrian crossing further down the street, even though it’s still a red man. A car toots at me, but I pay no attention. The front door to my stair is only a block away.

I don’t hesitate for a moment at the front door, don’t miss the lock with my key. As soon as I’m in, I close the door behind me and make sure that it’s locked. Stand quietly for a moment and listen for the steps outside. Feel foolish when I realise it was only my imagination.

The sound of a skull hitting the asphalt follows me up the stairs and into the flat, into the bathroom. Echoes in my mind as I undress and step into the shower. The water is so hot that it almost scalds me, I let it run over my shoulders, arms and back. Helps me find a kind of equilibrium again. I lift down the showerhead and adjust the water temperature. Crouch down, wash between my legs, then check the floor of the cabinet. Two weeks overdue. And a month too late.

30 HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

4 The next morning, I wake up gasping for air. I sit up and discover that I’ve fallen asleep on the sofa, with all my clothes on. I blink my eyes, remember that I watched a documentary about how the West is actively blocking access to medicine in Africa. That it was past three o’clock the last time I looked at my mobile.

The grey light from the curtainless windows tells me that it’s no longer morning. Before I’ve had time to rouse myself properly, the doorbell rings and I stumble out to open the door. Two uniformed police officers are standing outside.

‘Bjørk Isdahl?’ It’s the woman who speaks. She has golden skin, hair I could kill for and eyes like a Spanish senorita. A couple of steps behind her stands a man, who is a few years older, with a posture that speaks of everything he’s not achieved in life.

We stand staring at each other for a moment, the threshold like a barrier between us.

‘Yes, that’s me.’ I hear a tremor in my voice, and tilt my head in an attempt to hide the fact that I’ve just woken up.

The woman introduces them both, but I don’t catch their names.

‘Can we come in for a moment?’ She’s firm in a kind of ‘you really want to be friends with us’ way, and has the tiniest twitch in her left cheek when she speaks.

I study their ID cards. ‘What’s it about?’

‘I think perhaps it’s best if we come in.’

I reluctantly step to one side, let them come in without taking off their boots and look pointedly at the October dirt they leave on the newly washed floor. The officers don’t seem to notice, their eyes scanning the small bunker I call home. The table covered in circular stains from cups and glasses, the TV I inherited from Mum and Dad, the shelves I bought at a jumble sale. The woman stops by a couple Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 31

of books by the psychoanalyst Sándor Ferenzci, nods to herself, then touches the spine of one about Charles Manson.

‘So, why are you here?’ I ask, even though I could hazard a guess.

Suddenly feel painfully aware of what I must look like. Hair sticking out in all directions, dark bags under my eyes. A mixture of adversity and old mascara.

They take their time, walk ahead of me into the kitchen. The woman looks out of the window, then turns slowly back towards me.

‘It’s about Azora Strand.’

As I thought. I’m about to ruffle my fringe, but have trained myself not to do it, as everyone thinks it’s a sign of uncertainty.

‘I don’t have anything more to add,’ I say.

‘No, no, we just wanted to talk a little about the evening she died.

Could we maybe go through the sequence of events again?’

I press a finger against the corner of each eye. I know how these things work. They want me to repeat the story several times so they can check that all the versions are the same, and then take me off the list. So I tell them again that she called me, what she said, that I agreed to go and meet her.

The male officer pulls out a stool from under the table and sits down with his knees out and feet planted on the floor.

‘And that was it?’

‘Yes.’ ‘Let me get this straight, you went to meet a woman you didn’t know, who was a drug addict, late in the evening in one of the worst part of town?’

He has a mechanical manner of speaking and reeks of a meal he probably shouldn’t have eaten before going to work. A thousand tiny ants crawl up my arms when I realise he doesn’t believe me.

‘That’s right,’ I say, my voice flat, now that he’s sown a seed of doubt.

32 HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

‘And earlier in the evening?’

I turn towards the coffee machine, get out the coffee and a filter, pour in some water. Lean back against the counter while it percolates. I could tell the truth. That for the past year I’ve generally been at home on my own and felt sorry for myself. That it’s only in the past few weeks that I’ve only started to meet people again. That I’ve pushed my lovely boyfriend away. But I don’t say any of that, they know who I am. The way the man furrows his brow reveals that he knows only too well what I did, and despises me for it.

The woman tightens her jaw, another slight spasm in her cheek.

‘Where were you earlier in the evening?’

‘Here.’

‘And she rang completely out of the blue?’

‘That’s rights.’

‘And you didn’t know her?’

Before I can stop myself, I let out a deep sigh. Tell them again about the rehab clinic. Get out a cup, pour myself a coffee without offering them one. They’re making me nervous. Try to work out the real reason for their visit. There’s more to it than getting me to repeat my statement.

‘Did you speak to anyone else during the evening?’ It’s the woman again.

‘What do you mean?’

I hold the cup on one hand to look more relaxed, not close to my body. I feel a drop of sweat run from my neck down between my breasts and resist the urge to wipe it dry.

‘Did you have any other conversations?’

‘With the police.’

‘And earlier in the evening?’

‘What’s that got to do with the case?’

‘I know it seems a bit strange,’ the woman says, and looks at me Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 33

as though we were friends, ‘but it’s important that we have all the details.’

‘It doesn’t seem strange at all,’ I say, lifting my chin in defiance.

‘As you probably now, I’m a behaviour analyst. I’ve worked for the police.’

They exchange glances. Most people in the police regard profilers as no more than a step up from psychics. I remember it surprised me when I started to work for the NCIS, whereas most of my colleagues were surprised that I’d even been recruited. It’s not usual to use people like us here, mainly because there’s a generally held belief that studying criminal behaviour is best suited to serial killers and arsonists, and we don’t have many of them in Norway. However, the man who thought the police needed someone like me onboard, Absalon Lund – a mountain of a man with a great beard and red hair – believed in me. He knew that I was good at seeing the things that people wanted to hide, and we made a damn good team.

The woman softens her approach. It’s a tactic, but she tries, I’ll give her that. ‘Do you know what, let’s start again.’ She looks at the coffee machine. ‘That coffee smells good. Could I have a cup?’

Somewhat begrudgingly, I pour a cup and hand it to her.

‘All I’m asking for is a favour,’ she says. ‘That you answer our questions.’

I realise that we’ll be here forever if I don’t give in.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I was at home the whole evening, alone. Problems with my friends? No. Do I drink? No. In fact, I went teetotal when I understood what alcohol does to your body. When she called, I had no desire at all to go out, but I felt sorry for her. I’ve worked with drug addicts. Not many people care.’

The man flushes. ‘But you do?’

‘So tell me,’ I say, putting my cup down on the counter and crossing my arms. ‘What is this all about?’

34 HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

The woman looks me straight in the face. ‘A photograph has been found.’

There’s a hammering in my chest. That’s not good, can’t possibly be good.

I hold my breath as she takes a plastic envelope out from inside her jacket. In it there’s a photograph of a woman with her blonde hair in a ponytail. She’s sitting on her own on the roof of the opera house, and is wearing a blue summer dress and classic Dr. Martens.

There’s a takeaway coffee beside her and she’s staring out over the fjord. The woman in the photograph is me.

‘Okay, so she’s been stalking me,’ I say, and think that the picture must have been taken last summer. ‘As I said ...’

‘Turn it over,’ the woman interrupts.

My movements are hesitant, but I turn it over. Read the sentence that has been scribbled across the back.

I know why you have nightmares.

‘That’s nonsense,’ I say, as everything starts to spin.

One of the officers speaks, but I can’t discern which one. ‘Are you sure you didn’t know each other better than you’re saying?’

I am sure. Azora didn’t know me, and I’ve never spoken to anyone other than those closest to me about my nightmares.

5 ‘Maybe it’s a chemical imbalance in my brain?’

I’m sitting with my psychologist, a slim Korean lady with a sharp bob, who was recommended by the police for cases like mine. She can reputedly drill confidence into even the most crushed souls, but so far, we have not had a breakthrough.

‘A chemical imbalance? Why do you think that?’ She smoothes Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 35

down her burgundy, jersey dress before taking a seat, then crosses her legs. She’s good at the theory, but her controlled movements remind me of most other herd animals. Well practised in primal instincts, but never ruled by them.

‘I’ve read that hormones can influence your dreams and ...’ It strikes me that missed periods could be a sign of one such imbalance.

Have my nightmares got worse because I’m possibly pregnant?

‘The dreams have become more frequent?’ my psychologists says, like an echo of my own thoughts.

I nod. ‘Nearly every night recently. It’s exhausting.’

‘Any changes in your routine?’

I don’t want to mention Azora, can’t face explaining what happened again, not yet.

‘It’s the first anniversary of the Ellingsen case, could that be why?’ I ask.

‘You’ve been frozen out by the entire country. How does that feel?’

She strokes her notepad, puts it down in her lap and presents the words as questions that could well have been written there.

I don’t even need to think. ‘Like I deserve it.’

It has always astonished me that the room smells of nothing. That she has no smell. Therapy rooms should of course be neutral, as should the therapist, but I miss a smell, something to focus on.

‘He chose to commit suicide,’ the psychologist says, pulling me out of my thoughts about non-existent smells.

‘Because I branded him a murderer.’

‘And what would the consequences have been if he wasn’t detained?’

‘There were people who loved him, a wife and a daughter.’

‘And what if he hadn’t been detained?

This is a sore point for me, and one that I’ve had to face since I started coming here.

36 HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

‘We would never be sure.’

‘And you – what would the consequences have been for you?’

We’ve spoken about this several times. My answers vary. I could say that I was forced to make a decision, that we had to catch the man who had raped and killed two girls as fast as possible. But the truth is that it might then seem that I didn’t trust my own abilities.

‘No matter what one does, there are always consequences,’ I say.

The psychologist straightens her notepad. Her slender hand moves slowly as she writes. Or is she drawing like I do? Is there a hyena emerging on the page? Or a slippery octopus that reaches out in all possible directions? Maybe she’s just doodling and thinking about supper.

‘I thought someone was following me on the street a couple of days ago,’ I say, mostly to move the subject on from Ellingsen, but it’s also a kind of masochism. I want to know if she thinks there’s something wrong with me.

‘And was there?’

That’s how fast her doubt crept in.

‘Probably not,’ I say, and straighten up. ‘But you’ve already decided that.’

‘What makes you think so?’

I could swear she makes herself more stupid than she actually is.

If I behaved like that with my group, they’d thump me.

I start to sound like a bolshy child. ‘I’ve been seeing you for ten months.’

‘What I’d like to establish,’ my psychologist says, with absolute calm, not wanting to be drawn into my theory, ‘is whether you are in real danger or not, and if the police should be notified, or ...’

‘Or whether I’m sick,’ I goad her. ‘Is that what you’re trying to say?

Is that what you’ve written in your bloody book?’

‘Do you mean sick, as in ...’

Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 37

‘Is there something wrong with me?’ I spit. ‘I’ve met so many sick people. Most of them don’t even realise. Blame it on all kinds of other things.’

We sit in silence for a while. I wait for the truth to hit me like a punch in the stomach.

‘You’re not the first one from the police to sit here consumed by guilt for the loss of another person’s life, far from it,’ she says.

I deflate.

‘It will always a risk in your profession. And when it comes to investigations, you’re placed in an almost impossible situation. Clues run out, witnesses don’t remember everything. They distort what they’ve seen, are influenced by other events, things that they’ve read.

Despite what people think, your memory is seldom reliable.’

I rub my face. Breathe deep into my lungs. ‘And yet we’re dependent on witnesses, alibis, character descriptions.’

‘You know how difficult it is,’ she says. ‘Even the brightest in the class get it wrong sometimes. You based your decision on other peoples’ observations as well, don’t forget that. The man in the street.’

‘Mmm ...’

‘Can’t you just accept that?’

I can’t. Feel like an idiot for letting myself get wound up. Again.

‘I can ask the doctor to give you a prescription ...’ The psychologist hesitates, knows there’s not much point in suggesting it. I only take chemical substances when absolutely necessary.

Without waiting for an answer, she says: ‘Have you started meditating again?’

‘Trying,’ I say, close my eyes, feel the ache behind my eyelids.

‘Exercise?’

‘Here and there.’

‘You said that you sometimes draw caricatures of the men your group,’ she says, suddenly changing the subject again.

38 HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

I open my eyes. ‘Yes ...’

‘But they never see the drawings?’

‘Of course not.’

‘What do you think would happen if they did?’

I squirm on my chair. ‘Depends on the drawing.’

‘Might they be offended then? If it was a less flattering portrayal, shall we say?’

‘Guaranteed.’

The psychologist doesn’t even raise an eyebrow when she then asks: ‘What interests me is why you don’t even take the chance?’

My heart rate increases, she’s sees right through me. Who I am, what I am.

‘I-I don’t know,’ I stammer.

‘Do you know what I think?’ she says.

Silence.

‘I think you want to be punished.’

6 When my hour is up, I go down to Grønland, back to the dirtcoloured building.

I stop abruptly as soon as I see him, realise how vulnerable I am, there on my own. There’s a man standing to the right of the container, with dirty jeans and bent knees. Staring at the black stain on the ground. He straightens his beanie with slow-motion movements.

I approach him tentatively. When I’m almost beside him, he shuffles to the side and holds up his arms as if to protect himself.

I show him my hands. ‘Sorry.’

His neck is as sinewy and wrinkled as an old woman, his eyes the colour of diluted anti-freeze, but his face is like that of an overgrown Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 39

child. How old is he? 35? 65?

I nod at the dark patch. ‘Did you know her?’

His head bobs and dances in every direction.

‘My condolences,’ I say, for want of anything more personal.

He stares down at the ground again, studies the stain. His face expressing shifting emotions in the evening light. I start to hold out my hand in introduction, but then let it drop. Feel ashamed that I’m just like everyone else. We see drug addicts and homeless people as extras in the cityscape, transparent shadows who are somehow separate from the world of ordinary people.

In the end I say: ‘My name’s Bjørk.’

He looks at me with suspicion. ‘Charlie.’

‘Did you hang out together?’ I ask, and note that I’m rather pathetically looking for words that might sound more streetwise.

He nods, drags his feet back a few steps, stops. I looked around, as though it’s the first time I’ve been here. Stare up at the roof, try to capture the mood from when I was here last.

‘What was she doing here?’ I ask.

Charlie lifts an arm, but doesn’t stretch it out fully. His hand creeps up his body, as though he doesn’t want to take up too much room, until one of his fingers points to the fire escape.

‘Slept on the roof,’ he says, revealing his crooked, yellowed teeth.

‘On the roof? Why there?’

‘Warm air ... and less chance of being robbed.’

I shudder when I hear this, pull my scarf into my chin.

‘She rang me,’ I say. ‘But died before I could meet her.’

Charlie studies my face, as though he doesn’t quite believe me. It’s the first time our eyes meet and then only for a split second, and I get the feeling that I shouldn’t be here. I try to caste my mind back to the conversation with Azora. Was there any fear in her voice? Despair?

Why was it so important to meet me that same evening? I remember 40

HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

something else, which lingers at the back of my mind. Her death cry.

Would you scream like that if you’d decided to jump?

‘Do you know if anything was bothering her?’ I ask.

‘Nah, living on the street, what would that be?’

My cheeks burn. ‘Point taken,’ I say. ‘What I mean is ... was there anything in particular? Was she afraid of anyone?’

It’s as though he doesn’t hear me. With slow movements, he takes a roll-up from under his hat, and lights up. The flame fills his face the shadows.

‘Don’t need to answer that.’

‘No, guess not,’ I say. ‘Just wanted to find out a bit more about who she was, what she was like.’

‘Good,’ he says, eventually, and takes a drag on the cigarette.

Holds it between his thumb and forefinger, so it’s sheltered in the cup of his hand.

‘Good? In what way?’

‘Well, lively.’

Charlie’s not very forthcoming, but I can’t say I blame him. When someone interrogates him like this, it’s probably not because they wish him well. He looks up at the roof, is clearly restless, spits to the side.

I’m trained to work with drug addicts and have plenty of experience, but to be frank, a career as profiler was far more attractive. To able to read someone’s character from the scene of a crime, to see patterns in criminal activity, to be able to predict a murderer’s next move. All far more interesting than helping people who nine times out of ten didn’t care.

‘The funeral’s tomorrow,’ Charlie says. ‘You coming?’

The funeral. The word fills my mouth like a bitter taste. I haven’t been inside a church since my parents died three years ago. Haven’t been to their grave either. I do everything I can to avoid being Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 41

reminded of the terrible sight of those two coffins.

They had an unusual marriage, Mum and Dad. A happy marriage that lasted for nearly thirty years. I once came home and they didn’t notice; I heard them arguing. I stood in the porch listening to their voices, stunned. I had never heard them so angry before. The memory still makes me hold my breath. I crouched down among the shoes and boots, and only managed to pull myself together when they saw me. We never talked about the episode, and I never heard them shout at each other again. Sometimes I wonder if that was when my nightmares started. The time I realised that my parents were ordinary people.

Charlie is waiting for my answer, whether I’m going to the funeral or not. He’s smoked the roll-up down to his fingers, and throws the butt on the ground, then stamps his feet.

‘Of course,’ I say, but doubt that I’ll go.

‘Was she having problems with anyone in your circles?’ I ask, thinking again that there may have been someone else up there.

Some kind of druggie conflict.

Charlie shrugs and twists, hikes up his trousers. ‘Always something.’

‘Was she scared of anyone?’

‘Nothing she would have killed herself for,’ he says. ‘She would’ve done that long before, otherwise.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The nights,’ Charlie says.

‘The nights?’

‘They were worst.’

‘Why?’ I ask, even though it’s not hard to imagine.

‘She had really bad nightmares. They did her head in, sometimes she said she couldn’t take anymore.’

That’s like a punch in the solar plexus.

42

HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

‘Do you know what they were about?’ I ask. My voice is hoarse and I immediately regret asking, because I’m not sure I want to know the answer.

‘Snow,’ he says. ‘She had really horrible dreams about snow.’

The light around us changes, I try to remember how to speak.

Not only had Azora written on the back of a photograph, she also had nightmares about snow. That couldn’t be a coincidence. Could it? Could a serious drug addict, who was barely in touch with reality, have had the same dreams as me?

No, of course that wasn’t true. We didn’t have the same dreams.

Winter is always the worst time of year for the homeless and drug addicts. And yet I wonder if I might have misunderstood, because now I remember that night at the clinic. When Azora disappeared and we looked everywhere. It wasn’t unusual for patients to vanish – withdrawal is worse than anyone can imagine. We found her in the end, not far from the clinic. One of the nurses and I followed her footsteps in the snow, into the forest. She was sitting against a tree, in only a nightdress, suffering from exposure.

Charlie stares at me, is about to grab my arms, but I back away.

Walk towards the staircase that leads up to the roof. He stands watching me. Then he lifts two fingers to his forehead in a kind of salute and reverses back into the curved passageway.

The gate, some way up, is locked. I put my foot on the mesh and pull myself over. The metal creaks and is wet and slippery, but it’s quite easy to climb over. Though someone who was drugged up might find it harder. I wonder how Azora managed.

I hunker down on the other side, make myself smaller, and look at the offices directly opposite. There’s light in several of the windows, but only one is open. There’s a woman inside tapping on a keyboard. I can almost hear the keys rattle like chattering teeth. My body responds instantly and I start to shake. What am I doing? I’m not a forensics Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 43

expert, I have no right to be here. And to make matters things worse, the two officers seemed to think I had something to do with her death, so anything I do now will only corroborate their suspicions.

My temples are throbbing. I was in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Just like Ellingsen.

And now I’m back, where it all happened.

There are a thousand reasons why this is a bad idea, but I can’t help myself. I have to find out what happened to Azora. What she knew about my nightmares. And if this is where Azora spent her nights, I might find some important clues.

I bend down and tiptoe slowly up the steps, looking over at the woman in the office every now and then to check she hasn’t seen me. She doesn’t even lift her eyes. Just brushes her hair back behind her ear, gaze fixed on the screen. Suddenly I hear the sound of a guitar. Melancholy notes, like a wordless expression of what hangs unanswered in the air. I stop, swallow. Any moisture in my mouth has evaporated. I’ll phone Abs in the morning. If he still has a bad conscience, he bring the meeting forwards. If he still cares, I’ll ask about Azora.

At the top of the staircase, I stop and stand completely still. The roof area is bigger than I expected, and I can see straightaway that Azora did not fall by accident. A chest-high wall runs round the edge of the roof on three sides. And there’s a dirty painted wall on the fourth side, to the next building. A wooden table and benches are stacked up in a corner. The terrace is obviously used by the staff in summer. Loud office parties, women in beautiful summer dresses, confident young men in fitting shirts. Fluted glasses and big smiles. I can almost smell the cigar smoke.

There’s an extraction fan to the left of the steps, a big, grey metal box that hums interminably. I approach with caution. The monotone hum swallows any sounds from the street below. The guitar music 44

HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

has also stopped. There’s a piece of torn cardboard on the ground below the box, damp and worn. What did Azora do on the nights when it was too wet to sleep without cover?

I stand in front of the fan and let the warm air brush my face like a spring breeze. Survey the city, there’s Oslo Plaza and the post office building, standing up over the rooftops like two illuminated fingers.

Azora didn’t fall, she jumped, or was pushed.

The metal box shakes when I haul myself up onto it. And sighs when I crawl onto the narrow wall. I crouch down, feel my stomach knot, my body sway. Rock towards the courtyard below. Towards the container, the rubbish, the asphalt that will split my head open if I fall. I keep my breathing steady, know that my movements have to be controlled. If I stand up, I cannot hesitate.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve thought there was something wrong with me, that I’m not like everyone else. Everything changed when Kristian came into my life. My elation was compounded when Abs offered me a place with them. But happiness is not a natural state, or so they say, sooner or later, the shit hits the fan. And I’m not immune to that.

I sit crouched down on the wall for a while. Feeling miserable, but realise that I’m not thinking rationally. Then, with my arms stretched out, I position my feet under my shoulders, find my balance and stand up. Carefully I lean forwards, in the full knowledge that a gust of wind might catch my parka at any moment and knock me over. I can feel my heart trembling, and yet I have not felt so alive for a year. As long as I accept this fear, I’ll survive. Most people don’t understand that. Which is what makes being alive so damn hard.

Sirens scream through the night. My eyes cloud and I whimper.

It’s not only the sound of the skull that’s burned into my memory, I can’t erase Azora’s scream. There was nothing sad about it, it was not Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 45

the cry of someone who’s decided to end their life. It was surprised, terrified. I know that now. If Azora had decided to commit suicide, she would not have screamed like that.

She didn’t fall, didn’t jump. She was pushed down from the wall.

I wobble, but manage to regain my balance and jump down onto the metal box and then the roof. I squat down on the cardboard until my breathing is steady again. Then I pushed the cardboard to one side, and with the torch on my mobile phone, look at the concrete and discover scratchings everywhere, stars, figures and words. But also names: Espen, Charlie, Evelyn. Some clear, others scratched out and impossible to read. The scribbling of a drug addict. I take pictures of it all before I turn off the torch, take a few deep breaths and close my eyes.

My name is not there.

As I sit there and allow the dark to swallow me, I unleash feelings I have scarcely dared to acknowledge in recent months. The loneliness that envelopes me. Kristian, who I’ve pushed away. My mum and dad who are dead. People who hate me. The lives I have ruined. And yet – what right do I have to complain? After all, I have a warm flat to hide in, and Azora spent her nights here, alone. When it was too cold, she may not have noticed the faintly illuminated night sky.

I won’t only call Absalon tomorrow, I’ll buy a pregnancy test and ring Kristian. We should finish this properly.

Only when my fingers are freezing and I feel that it has started to rain do I open my eyes. Stare at the jumble of benches and tables in the corner. Register something, at first I’m not sure what, but then as I focus on the space between the planks, I become increasingly certain. There’s something there. Eyes? An animal? The fear gathers in me, makes me hesitate, and I remember the feeling of being watched. And yes, I’m not alone, I’m convinced of it now. There’s a person sitting huddled under the table, by the wall.

My thoughts race wildly, my very being in chaos. My instinct is to 46

HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

jump up, but I force myself to remain seated, control my breathing.

Look down at the cardboard, not towards the tables. Maybe the person doesn’t know that I’ve seen them.

I only saw the eyes, as though they were separated from the person. I don’t dare meet them. Is it someone who wants to take over Azora’s space, now that she’s gone, or is it the person who helped her over the edge?` I have two choices: run, or saunter down the stairs as if I didn’t have a care in the world. If I run, I’ll have a head start, but the gate will slow me down and the steps are slippery. And the person would know that I’ve seen him.

No point in procrastinating, I can’t stay here. I put my hand down on the cardboard and, resisting the urge to look over at the tables, carefully push myself up. My boots scrape on the concrete as I walk slowly towards the fire escape. I can’t know for sure that the person won’t charge for me. But I take the chance and move with deliberation. I don’t start to run until I’m halfway down the steps.

7 Herdis talks and talks. Bla, bla, bla,, Rumba. Bla, bla, bla, voted out. The only time she’s been quiet since I got here over an hour ago, is when she stops to take a drag on her cigarette. All the words and smoke make me nauseous, but I’m happy to be here. It always feels good to visit Herdis and the children. The smell of baking cuts through the cigarettes, as she updates me on what normal people care about. Being with Herdis reminds me that I do actually friends, that there is another life. A world I can be part of whenever I want.

But it also reminds me of why I don’t want children. It’s not that I don’t like her little ones, I just have no patience with snot and Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 47

whining. Want to use my life to do things that really matter to me.

Herdis of course thinks that I don’t know what I’m missing, but I reckon I’ve got a pretty good idea. The family life is not for me.

She looks over at me with her wise eyes. I’m scared she’ll see that I’ve missed my period, mothers seem to know instinctively. Every time she opens her mouth I’m convinced she’s going to ask. But she doesn’t, and I don’t mention it, because then she won’t stop until I’ve promised to keep the baby.

I lean even further back into the soft sofa, tuck my feet under my bum, and wallow in warm-coloured cushions. I feel my muscles relax, my mind let go, even though I know my clothes will stink of cigarettes for ages. For a while, I even manage to block out Azora’s dead body and the sound of her skull.

‘Shit, I’ve forgetten to take them out!’ Herdis jumps up from the sofa and disappears out into the kitchen.

‘I’ve made Veslemøy’s cupcakes,’ she says when she comes back with a plate full of calories.

‘Mum’s?’ I ask, trying to keep my voice steady.

‘Yes, you remember she gave me the recipe, the ones with chocolate chips?’

I don’t, but I’m not surprised. Unlike me, Mum was a great cook. I can just picture her in her shining, clean kitchen, with her apron on and hands full of flour. She always had warm cakes and encouraging words to offer whenever anyone had been horrible to me. It’s a wonder that I wasn’t a dough ball at school.

As soon as Herdis has put the plate down, she takes two cupcakes in her hand and sinks back into the sofa.

‘If only a man could satisfy me as fast as carbohydrates can, I might be able to stick to the diet I’m always talking about,’ she sighs, and licks off the icing sugar with sound effects worthy of children’s TV. I pretend that I’m too full to eat, but she forces me to take a cake.

48 HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

‘Does it taste like your mum’s?’

‘Mum didn’t sprinkle hers with cocaine,’ I say and blow a cloud of icing sugar into the air.

‘Makes up for the calories,’ says Herdis with a wink, and then breaks into loud, warm laughter.

We have a lot of fun together, Herdis and I, constantly trying to outdo the other with witty comments and jokes. I’d forgotten how good it feels, even though it’s actually not that long since we last saw each other. She was one of the few people who remained constant when everything fell to pieces, and I love her for it.

‘So tell me,’ she says, once she has gorged on sugar bombs and I, for once, have eaten a whole cupcake. She snuggles down beside me.

‘How are you, really?’

The “really” means that she wants the truth, not standard answers about everything being just fine.

Before I even manage to open my mouth, she puts a hand on my arm. ‘Have you heard from Kristian?’

I stop her right there. ‘I don’t want to talk about him.’

‘Okay, okay, just thought ...’

‘No.’ ‘I know we’ve talked about it before, but honestly, I don’t understand ...’ She searches for the right word. ‘And don’t give me all that guff about falling for real men who hunt, you don’t even eat red meat.’

I pretend to hear a noise from the children’s room, stretch my neck and tilt my head, and pray that Herdis will go in to check. She doesn’t budge. I open my mouth to say something, could give her the classic lie: that I only fall for bad boys, not the nice, kind ones.

Could say that he’s too boring.

‘He’s not the rock I need right now,’ I say, lifting my chin. ‘My priority is getting my life back in order again.’

Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 49

Herdis scoffs at me. ‘That sounds like something your psychologist might say.’

She’s right. Together with my psychologist, I’ve decided to cut any negativity from my life, to start exercising again and get back into the healthy lifestyle that I know is good for me.

‘And anyway, he wants ...’

Herdis finishes my sentence. ‘... an ordinary life with two point five kids, a dog and a cabin in the mountains. And you don’t.’

I feel my cheeks flush. Why can’t she just drop it? Why can’t she see the reality? That I can’t deal with the numbness I feel after pushing away the only man I’ve ever loved?

‘Don’t split up with Kristian,’ Herdis says, suddenly. ‘We all know you love each other.’

Her message is clear, and to my surprise, I don’t protest. We do love each other. But what if that’s not enough?

According to Herdis herself, she’s a very ordinary person who has never really experienced much pain. It’s as if her goal in life is get through it as quickly as possible, preferably without being noticed.

Sometimes I can’t help thinking that her perfect imperfection is a ploy.

We sit in silence for a while. I sip my tea, take another cupcake.

Then I tell her about Azora and my visit from the police.

Herdis listens, wide-eyed. The expression on her face is somewhere between “wtf” and “what have you gone and got yourself involved in now”.

‘She jumped right in front of you?’

‘It’s like there’s a bond between us.’

Herdis groans. ‘I don’t understand ... why do the police think you had anything to do with her death?’

‘I’m not sure that they think anything, but they have check all leads,’ I say, but can hear myself how unconvincing I sound.

Herdis lights another cigarette. ‘Jesus, that’s awful.’

50

HIDDEN UNDER SNOW – Hilde S. Palladino

I shrug, and omit to mention that I’ve just come from the building where she fell. And nor do I say anything about the person under the table.

‘Your problem is that you hide away from society, but seek out shit,’ Herdis says. ‘You need to get a proper job again. And I know that you’re smart enough to take your pick, but sometimes it’s hugely liberating just to move boxes from one shelf to another. How are you managing financially?’

‘Fine,’ I lie. I bought my flat with what I inherited from my parents, and all I have to live off now is the pay from my angry men’s group.

I give Herdis’ hand a gentle squeeze. ‘Abs has been in touch.’

‘Oh. And are you going back?’

‘Hope so,’ I say. ‘If not, I’ve still got my group, and I can develop it.’

‘Ah yes, your group,’ Herdis sighs. ‘Spending the evening alone with three angry men. Who does that voluntarily?’

‘Me, and there’s four of them now. Got another one a few months ago. Interesting case.’

‘Right.’

I can’t say much to Herdis about Tore. Any information about the men is of course confidential. But it does puzzle me that he turned up without a referral from a doctor or other practitioner. That he’s paying for it himself. He doesn’t even seem to see his ‘situation’, as he calls, as a problem.

‘I suspect he’s actually proud of the fact he’s doing anger management therapy,’ I say.

‘In what way?’

‘Well, it makes him a tough man with loads of testosterone, who’s also able to recognise his problems.’

‘I suppose you could look at it like that,’ Herdis says. ‘Still, I don’t like the fact that you sit there with those men, unprotected.’

‘I’m not exactly defenceless,’ I say with a wink and flex my biceps.

Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 51

‘Have done the police self-defence training. And remember that I did kick-boxing for a while.’

Herdis purses her lips.

‘And anyway, I like being with them,’ I say. ‘I like my group of men who can’t quite get their lives together.’

Fortunately, Herdis says nothing and we drop the subject. She gets up, nods towards the children’s bedroom and goes in to check they are asleep. She comes back out with an armful of ipads that she dumps on the dining table. She picks up her mobile phone, swipes it as she crosses the floor. Just as she’s about to sit down, she stops and stands there staring at her phone. The smile on her face fades.

She looks at me, then back at her phone. Doesn’t raise her eyes when she says: ‘You ...’

‘What?’ My temples are throbbing, like an omen. ‘Herdis, what is it?’

She plumps down beside me, hands me the phone, which shows a Facebook page. I stopped using social media when the Ellingsen case was at its most intense, and have not started again since.

‘It looks like you.’

The picture is dark and grainy, taken from a distance. But there I am, up on the roof where I was only a couple of hours ago, holding my parka tight around my body, my hair over my shoulders. It was posted by a group that called itself “Keep Our City Safe”. I scan what’s written under the photograph. Naturally, it’s about Azora’s death and speculates that it may have been murder.

It feels like a kick in the stomach, I stare at the picture for a moment, bewildered. Is someone trying to make a link between Azora and Ellingsen’s suicides and blame me?

Herdis looks at me skeptically. ‘What were you doing there?’

‘I wanted to get a feeling for the place,’ I say, and hear how ridiculous that sounds. I’m shaking when I hand the phone back to her.

‘There’s almost a hundred comments ...’

52

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‘I can’t bear to read them,’ I say, and think about everything the internet trolls wrote a year ago. ‘Can you close it?’

‘But what if you’re named? You should report it to the police.’

‘And tell them I’ve contaminated a potential crime scene?’

‘Well, it might be wise, if they’re going to find your DNA there.’

I’ve thought about that, but I’m not worried. The police would never use the resources needed to gather DNA somewhere like that.

Not for a drug addict.

A metallic taste spreads in my mouth and I realise that I’ve bitten the inside of my lip. I try to visualise the shadow under the table. It must be pure chance that he was there, anything else is impossible.

I know I should contact the people behind the Facebook group, and demand that they remove the photograph, but then it would be difficult to deny afterwards that it’s me.

When I say goodbye to Herdis a while later, she promises to contact the Facebook group. She begs with me to call for a taxi, but I need the walk home. Walking the streets at night has always calmed me.

From Herdis’ flat, I walk alongside the sports stadium to the end of the street. The rain glitters like insect wings in the floodlights, but makes the rest of the area even darker. When a man appears some way behind me, I feel my heart jump. He’s walking in the same direction, on the other side of the street, and doesn’t seem to be in hurry. It worries me. Should he not be keen to get out of the rain?

Instead he saunters along the pavement, in dark clothes with his hat pulled well down over his head.

Typical autumn clothes. Keep calm.

Probably just some guy on his way home from a party.

I sprint over the road, and immediately regret it. He must have twigged that I’m frightened, and some men find that exciting. They feed on other people’s fear.

Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 53

The Facebook picture. Why didn’t I read the comments? Was my name mentioned? I look nonchalantly over my shoulder. Is there anything familiar about him? Is he one of the people who hates me?

I hurry past black trees and battered containers. Past a carpark that stinks of rubbish and piss. A smashed shop window acts like a mirror. I glance to the side, try to see the man in dark clothes, but can’t. As I turn the corner down towards the park, I catch something moving out of the corner of my eye. All I need to do is turn round and look. But I don’t want to turn round, can’t turn round, and nothing irritates me more.

I hear music from somewhere above. A melancholy voice fills the night. I lift my head. A woman is sitting in a window smoking. Face to the rain, hair blowing in the wind. She doesn’t notice me, but I feel a safety in her presence and stop. Turn round, look in every direction.

The man has disappeared.

I bend forwards, stand with my hands on my thighs and breathe deeply. Look up at the woman, deeply grateful for people who smoke.

Then I straighten my back and walk in time to the music.

I haven’t gone far when there’s a vibration in my pocket. The display shows an unknown number.

‘Hello ...?’

Nothing but the faint echo of my own footsteps on the other end.

And the melancholic music.

My heart hammers up into my throat, I hear loud footsteps behind me. I bolt, slip on the wet pavement, put out a hand to steady myself on a car that’s parked half on the pavement, but don’t fall. Then, at last, I see the park, not far to go now. Just need to cut across the playground.

The one that’s surrounded by trees. I realise that’s where he wants me.

In the dark.

The ground is slippery underfoot, but I manage to stay upright. He’s catching up. My arms are pumping. I get out my keys as I run and grip them in my hand. Hold them so tight that the metal digs into my palm.

54

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Don’t feel any pain. When I reach the end of the park, my body musters all its strength. I turn the corner to my building, storm the final stretch to the entrance and let myself in.

The door clicks shut behind me. I stagger up the stairs to my flat.

As soon as I’m through the door, I sink to the floor. Hold my head in my hands and try to stop the hallway from spinning. My lungs are burning. Breathe. Breathe. I prick my ears, listen for any sounds, any signs that someone is coming up the stairs. But there’s no unusual noises. Just the neighbors talking and the sigh of old pipes.

I exhale, feel my heartbeat slowing.

The photograph on Facebook pops up in my mind again. There was something odd about it, and now it dawns on me. The angle wasn’t right. It couldn’t have been the person under the table who took it.

Hilde S. Palladino – HIDDEN UNDER SNOW 55

HIDDEN UNDER SNOW IS THE FIRST BOOK IN A PLANNED SERIES Represented by CAPPELEN DAMM AGENCY For more information about this novel, please send us an e-mail at: foreignrights@cappelendamm.no