Free Dreamless by Jorgen Brekke Page B

was because his life had been turned upside down in so many ways during the past year and that one more silly whim didn’t really make any difference. Jensen had told him that he’d always been an avid open-air bather but that for a long time he’d dreamed of also being an ice bather, so he might as well get started before it was too late. Jensen was two years younger than Singsaker, so he too was approaching sixty. Singsaker had never had enough imagination to swim in the winter. He alternated between reproaching and admiring his friend—all depending on whether it was before or after their weekly swim—for this ice-cold lunacy.
    He rubbed his body with the towel, the feeling starting to return to his skin. After a while he wrapped the towel around his waist, and together the two middle-aged policemen went back to the locker room. Singsaker was tall and rail-thin, even though he never worked out and only went hiking on the rare occasions when Jensen persuaded him to join him for a hunting expedition. Jensen, who was a real outdoorsman, had a solid paunch he’d never been able to shed, no matter how many heath-covered slopes he hiked in the fall.
    Their old, naked bodies reminded Singsaker of two Roman citizens on their way out of the frigidarium, the cold section of the Roman baths. But the locker room of the swim club in Trondheim was about as different as you could get from Thermae Agrippae. While they got dressed, he thought about how nice a steam bath would have felt. But Jensen was in the conservative group of the swim club, those who probably would have chained themselves to the locker room to prevent the construction of anything like that. It was only because Jensen was a member of the club’s hard-core group that they were allowed to borrow the key in the wintertime. The club was actually only open in the summer. Ice bathing was viewed with a certain skepticism by anyone other than the most dedicated open-air bathers in Trondheim.
    Afterwards Singsaker locked the door to the swim facilities. Jensen was a clever one. He had let Odd keep the only key to the building, but several weeks passed before Singsaker understood why. If he had the key, he would have to show up. He couldn’t use some pretext to get out of swimming, because if he didn’t come, Jensen couldn’t swim either. His colleague was a master at combining cynicism with friendship.
    Together they walked from the pier to the police station. Jensen was on duty, but Singsaker had the day off. He couldn’t say that he envied his colleague, since a pall had hovered over the department for the past few days.
    Grongstad’s prediction that they’d find very little evidence at the crime scene was correct. There was no organic material that might have given them DNA of anyone besides the victim. The heavy snowfall had effectively erased all footprints, and because of the cold weather, the killer had probably been bundled up and wearing gloves. Not even a partial fingerprint had been found on the music box. The truth was that they had almost nothing to go on.
    In his final autopsy report, Dr. Kittelsen had confirmed that the victim had been severely beaten. She died when her throat was cut.
    Singsaker, alone now, trudged along and crossed the bridge over to Bakklandet. He enjoyed walking through his city. It made him feel like a civilian, one of the people whose safety he had dedicated his life to protecting.
    One time, a colleague from Bergen who had spent a few years working Homicide, had told Singsaker that the citizens of Bergen were patriotic but that those who lived in Trøndelag had a reason for their patriotism. He may have just been trying to ingratiate himself, but he did have a point. The people of Trøndelag were always the best, whether it was soccer, skiing, music, research, or merely being Norwegian. They were people who made their dreams come true. But Singsaker was a homicide detective. He knew that people’s nightmares were just as awful