Murder in a Dream

Hallvar sat in his office, browsing the police file of suspects and cursing his brain for not remembering anything regarding the incident. The doctors told him the blow to his head was severe - it gave him a concussion, after all - and that it might take time for his memory to come back. If it did at all.

“Hall?”

Without turning his eyes from the computer screen, he waved a hand. “Come in, Sigfride.”

His assistant walked into the office, placing a hand on Hallvar’s shoulder. “How are you?”

“Still can’t remember anything,” he said, scanning the faces of every known criminal in Norway. He recognized a few of them, having captured them himself, but none rang a bell as to whom might have killed two of his friends and placed one in a coma.

“He’s got to be here somewhere…”

“Hall, you should rest,” Sigfride said, placing a cup on his desk. Steam rose from it, spreading an invigorating scent of coffee. “We are looking into every possible avenue.”

“I have to regain my memory,” he said, scrolling further. He had to. It was the only way. He must have seen the killer, just before the hit on the head knocked him out cold. His mind held the only real evidence they had.

The only evidence to help turn suspicion off of Hallvar himself.

Sigfride sighed and retracted her hand. “We talked to Olaf, the studio owner, again. He said he left the place early that evening and didn’t see anyone but you and your friends coming in. Nobody else was scheduled for practice either. The single security camera caught no one else entering the building.”

“That camera’s position is awkward,” Hallvar said, rubbing his eyes. He hadn’t slept in a day. He didn’t like what sleep brought. “The killer could have entered through the back or by the window. Did Olaf tell you about his back door? How he’s too cheap to have it repaired? Anyone could enter…”

In fact, could the man himself be responsible? He did complain often about the noise of Hallvar and his band playing. Even though they paid to rent his studio for practice.

“Hall, I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you. I know how close you were with them, how much music meant to you. I hope that Bjarke makes it. And I hope you get some rest.”

Hallvar sighed and listened to Sigfride’s footsteps leaving the office. The cup of coffee rested on the desk, smelling heavenly. He turned to say thank you, but his assistant was gone. Instead, he noticed the pictures on the office walls.

His formal detective license, a photo with the whole police department for Christmas two years ago, and a framed picture of him and his three friends playing live at a local festival.

Two of them were dead now, one in a coma, the result of some lunatic bursting into the studio, and killing everybody. Hallvar himself survived by sheer luck, it would seem.

I’ll find out who did this, he thought, turning back to the screen, and no law or moral code can save them from me when I do.

He spent the rest of the night searching through the files, as well as his memory, both seemingly void of the information he sought.

Eventually, sleep caught up with Hallvar. And with it, came the nightmare. Each night since the incident, he had been having roughly the same dream. It was almost as if his mind was trying to tell him through dreams what he couldn’t remember consciously. 

Hallvar got to relive the murder of his friends every night for the past two weeks. He got to see every bloody detail, but never the killer’s face. That detail always eluded him. And with each dream, he thought he was getting closer to the truth. Each time the nightmare would reveal a bit more of what happened.

That was if his mind wasn’t just making everything up out of trauma. In the dream, he was often in the killer’s shoes, after all. But he could never see his face.

This night, the dream started as usual. Right in the middle of it and from the point of view of the killer. Hallvar saw himself - as the murderer- picking up his guitar and crushing his friend’s head with it. They were in the middle of practice and were stunned at the sudden outburst of violence by the intruding killer. Before anyone could react, Hallvar smashed the heads of all three of his band colleagues with his own guitar. Then the dream shifted, where he could see outside from himself, how he got hit on the head too by a figure without a face. The prosecutor then ran away, and when Hallvar wanted to follow, the figure disappeared into the shadows. 

Hallvar woke up, sweating and breathing heavily. He looked around and noticed he had fallen asleep in his office. The place was dark, no light coming from the hallway - everyone must have left already. 

He grabbed a pen and paper and wrote down everything he could remember from the dream, recording every detail. The drawer by his desk was filled with accounts from his dream and he used them to correlate the event, searching for consistent patterns and hints. As incredible as it seemed, his dreams were the only clues he had - but he couldn’t share them with his colleagues. They would never take it seriously.

“The killer used my guitar,” Hallvar murmured, comparing tonight’s dream with the others. “But the last thing I remember was playing on my guitar. Then, nothing. So whoever did it, I must have trusted them, to let them have my guitar…” 

The evidence found at the crime scene clearly pointed at Hallvar’s guitar as the murder weapon. It had blood and tissue of all four of them on its body, all found on one side, suggesting that the killer used it as a club to repeatedly strike at each one. The guitar’s body was solid steel and hard plastic, and it cracked under the brutal hits but did not break apart, surprisingly. So the killer must have known how strong the instrument was, so he could perform precise strike with it and not have it break in the middle of his assault - that would create an opening for the others to defend themselves.

The only person that Hallvar would entrust his instrument to, and who would know so much about it, other than his band friends, was Olaf himself. The studio owner. Hallvar even once took lessons from the man, who showed him a few tricks on the guitar from his hay day as a roadie.

It wasn’t rational to think that Bjarke would take the guitar, kill the other two, attempt to kill Hallvar, and then knock himself out - how would he do that? 

And it was just as absurd to think that Hallvar himself did it, as was the unspoken suspicion. How would he swing the guitar at himself, knocking himself out with it? The angles didn’t match. But the blood and the concussion did. Somebody else must have been present there that night and the more Hallvar thought about it, the more he suspected Olaf. 

The studio was his.

He had access to the camera, the band knew and trusted him.

He did complain about the noise.

But was that reason enough to attempt a quadruple homicide? Or was there something else, a form of jealousy against Hallvar and the band? Olaf did say that he never had a chance to be in a band, but that it was his greatest wish…

Hallvar checked the clock. It was something past three A.M. He considered, looking at the photo of him and his friends. 

Then, he left his office.

Olaf’s house was next to his studio - it was part of the same building complex, just on the other side, so the owner had privacy as well as quick access to the place. Hallvar sat in his car, parked outside the man’s house. 

There was a light turned on inside.

Olaf was the one that found us, Hallvar thought. He came into the studio and called the police.

In the report, the man said he had heard shouts and how the music suddenly stopped, so he had gone to check.

The more Hallvar considered the more sense it made. The man pretended to have stumbled upon the murder scene, to have an alibi.

Hallvar waited in his car, considering whether he should confront the man. Considering, if he could even do it. As he waited outside of Olaf’s house, the pain in his head from the blow returned. Hallvar took some painkillers and watched the window, wanting to catch Olaf in some act that would rat him out.

In a whirlwind of thoughts and with a headache pounding, Hallvar must have fallen in a pill-induced sleep, as suddenly his mind was back at the incident. 

This time, he saw more of it.

“That sounds terrible, Hall,” Bjarke said, grimacing on the drums. “Are you sure you can play the guitar, mate?”

Hallvar ignored the remark and focused on playing the solo. They were working on a new song and it was a pain to get it right.

“Sounds to me like he’s butchering somebody,” Demas, the bassist commented. “Must be the stress at work, I reckon?”

They laughed, typical guy-talk. Hallvar tried his best but failed. His fingers were just too slow, the solo too technical and complex. His mind was sluggish, indeed from stress at work. There was a dangerous killer on the loose and they had finally gotten a lead.

Hallvar just wanted to relax and let go for a few hours with his buddies. But all he could think of was the brutality of the recent murders.

“Hey, we’re going to get something to eat,” Bjarke said. “You want something, Hall?”

“No,” Hallvar said. “I’m good.” He just wanted to get the damn solo right.

“Alright, then,” Bjarke said. “But don’t you try and steal my rolls when we come back!”

They left. Hallvar kept practicing.

Then, Olaf entered the studio.

“Hey, mate,” the older man said, wearing his long grey hair in a tail. “Sound like you’re having some trouble.”

“Yeah,” Hallvar said. “I can’t do this transition here. It’s too fast for me.”

Hallvar showed what he meant, by playing the part at half-speed. Olaf nodded.

“I see. Can I try?”

“Sure,” Hallvar sighed. He handed the man his guitar. “Knock yourself out.”

“I’ll knock you out, with my veteran skill,” the man said and took the guitar.

The dream then changed to Hallvar being in the killer’s shoes and butchering everybody, until seeing himself in third person again, being hit by some man with no face. Hallvar ran after the man and this time, he caught him in a corner. 

The man had long hair…

Hallvar jolted awake. He was sitting in his car, parked outside of Olaf’s home. The light in the house had turned off.

It’s him, he thought, breathing heavily. He did it.

Hallvar got out of the car and walked to the studio entrance. He had the key as he and his friends were regulars. It was the little hours of the morning and there was nobody outside, not even a stray dog. Hallvar unlocked the door and removed the police tape, entering the crime scene.

He knew that the studio and Olaf’s house were connected by a passage, for practicality. Hallvar used the light on his phone to make his way through the dark interior. 

If it really was you, Olaf…

Hallvar hurried through the passage, entering the man’s living quarters. He’d been there once or twice when Olaf invited them over for a drink. Building his alibi. Plotting, even then.

Hallvar crossed the living room and climbed the stairs to the man’s bedroom. He didn’t think of what his plan was, he just wanted to have a look at the man, to see his murderous face. As he came to the bedroom, where he saw the light coming before, Hallvar paused.

He heard weeping from inside.

His heart pounded like a drum and he burst into the room.

“Feeling guilt for what you did?”

The man, lying under the blankets, jumped up in shock. Hallvar turned on the light and noticed he had taken out his gun on instinct. Olaf gazed at him with wide eyes, red, as if from crying.

“What…”

“Don’t deny it, you did it,” Hallvar shouted, his hand trembling. “I saw you, it was you!”

The man’s face was twisted in a mixture of shock and fear. “What are you talking about?”

“I saw you in my dream,” Hallvar said. “You took my guitar and-”

The man was crying. There were candles placed on his window sill, alongside pictures of Hallvar and his friends. The two that had been killed had a rosary around them.

He was... grieving?

“What’s all this?” Hallvar asked, pointing at the pictures.

“They were my friends too,” Olaf said. “Your band reminded me of when I was young…” His gaze focused on the gun in Hallvar’s hands. “You think I did it.”

It wasn’t a question, but a statement. One in which Hallvar wasn’t so sure anymore.

“I-” he looked into the man’s eyes and saw sadness underneath all the shock. And betrayal.

“I can’t prove it, Hall,” Olaf said, sniffing. “But by God, I’m not the man you should be pointing that gun at.”

“Who then?” Hallvar shouted. “Who did it? Who killed my friends and nearly killed me?” He pointed the gun at the man’s head.

Olaf began weeping. “The guitar was in your hands when I found you…”

“Yes, the killer wanted to confuse the forensics by framing one of us.”

“No one else came or left the studio, Hall.”

“What are you saying?”

Olaf glanced at the gun again, then at Hallvar. “Are you here to kill me too?”

Hallvar balked. Olaf pissed himself, a dark spot appearing on the bedsheets. The man was genuinely afraid of him.

Hallvar suddenly felt deep shame and he lowered the gun, running out of the room, and out of the house. 

No, it can’t be, he thought. If Olaf didn’t do it, who then?

He started the car and drove back home, where he took a bottle of scotch and began drinking. He demanded from his mind to remember all of it, to remember things clearly, without dreams and illusions. His head began hurting but he didn’t take the pills; they would only distract his mind.

Hallvar emptied the bottle and paced around his room until he collapsed in a corner and wept for his friends. Once again, sleep took over, his body and mind exhausted.

This time, the dream picked off as his friends returned with the food. 

“Where have you been?” Hallvar asked. They were gone for nearly two hours.

Bjarke giggled like a schoolgirl. “We went to get food.”

They all had red faces and were snickering like teenagers.

“Have you been smoking weed?”

“Um, nooo,” Demas said. They snickered some more.

Hallvar sighed. “We were supposed to practice tonight.”

“You should chill, detective,” Oyolf, their lead singer said. “You can’t play that guitar anyway.” He turned to the other two. “Hey, maybe we should cut his hair. If he can’t play, then he’s not a true metal fan and shouldn’t have long hair.”

The three laughed, obviously talking gibberish.

But Hallvar, being frustrated by his stressful job, having to deal with murderers and psychopaths all day long, just wanted to lose himself in the music with his friends. But for some reason couldn’t get the creative juices flowing, and had enough.

Something snapped.

He grabbed his guitar and began playing.

The guys turned to him. “Whoa, look at Hall. He’s on fire!”

Hallvar played the solo with fury. He struck every note on the spot.

“Yeah, man, that’s the thing!”

Then he came to the hard part. He followed Olaf’s instructions and sailed through it, racing to the finale.

“Seems Hall’s been practicing while we were smoking!”

Hallvar’s muscles tensed as he got to where he always failed. He struck the notes one by one, the pick flying over the strings, but his fury was too much. 

He broke a string. And the guys giggled.

Hallvar smacked Bjarke straight in his laughing face with the guitar. The man fell over, like a chopped log.

Then, he hit Demas, who was too stoned to register what was going on. Hallvar repeatedly hit the man’s head until it cracked and the guitar strings vibrated from the impact, playing a sinister echo.

Oylof wanted to run away, but Hallvar chopped him down by hitting his side first and then smashing the man’s head.

Breathing heavily, feeling all his frustration boiling in him, Hallvar screamed and headbanged into the guitar’s body repeatedly, until he collapsed to the floor, unconscious.

The dream shifted outside himself and he could see Olaf stumbling upon the aftermath, mortified.

Hallvar jumped up on his feet as the doorbell rang. His fists were clenched as though he still held the guitar and he breathed heavily, confused. He was at home. He just woke up from a dream.

Someone was at the door.

Did I really kill them?

Hallvar ran a hand through his sweaty hair and walked to the door. He took one deep breath and opened it.

It was Sigfride with two other officers by her side, Hallvar’s colleagues.

“Hall?” she said, her voice painful.

“Yeah?” he groaned.

“Bjarke woke up. We have some questions.”