Nemesis

They sat in silence for a long while.

'You still don't look as if you believe me entirely,' Raskol said finally.

'Does that matter?' Harry asked.

Raskol smiled. 'How do you know Anna didn't love you?' he asked.

Harry shrugged.

***

Handcuffed to each other, they walked through the Culvert.

'Don't assume that I know who the robber is,' Raskol said. 'It could be an outsider.'

'I know,' Harry said.

'Good.'

'So, if Anna is Stefan's daughter and he lives in Norway, why didn't he go to the funeral?'

'Because he's dead. He took a tumble from a roof they were doing up several years ago.'

'And Anna's mother?'

'She moved south to Romania with her sister and brother when Stefan died. I don't have her address. I doubt she has one.'

'You told Ivarsson the reason the family didn't go to the funeral was that she had brought shame on them.'

'Did I?' Harry could see the amusement in Raskol's brown eyes. 'Would you believe me if I said I was lying?'

'Yes.'

'But I wasn't lying. Anna had been disowned by the family. She no longer existed for her father. He refused to mention her name. To prevent marime. Do you understand?'

'Probably not.'

They walked into the police station and stood waiting for the lift. Raskol mumbled something to himself before he said aloud: 'Why do you trust me, Spiuni?'

'What choice do I have?'

'You always have a choice.'

'More to the point is: why do you trust me? The key you got from me may be like the one you were sent for Anna's flat, but I might not have found it in the murderer's house.'

Raskol shook his head. 'You misunderstand. I don't trust anyone. I only trust my own instinct. And it tells me you aren't a stupid man. Everyone has something they live for. Something which can be taken away from them. You, too. That's all there is to it.'

The lift doors slid open and they stepped inside.

***

Harry studied Raskol in the semi-darkness. He sat watching the video of the bank raid with his back erect and palms pressed together, not a flicker of an expression. Not even when the distorted sound of gunfire filled the House of Pain.

'Do you want to see it again?' Harry asked as they came to the final images of the Expeditor disappearing up Industrigata.

'Not necessary,' Raskol said.

'Well?' Harry said, trying not to sound excited.

'Have you got any more?'

Harry had a feeling bad news was on the way.

'Well, I have a video from the 7-Eleven diagonally opposite the bank, where he kept a lookout before the raid.'

'Put it on.'

Harry played it twice. 'Well?' he repeated as the snowstorm raged across the screen in front of them.

'I know he's supposed to be behind other raids and we could have watched them, too,' Raskol said, looking at his watch. 'But it is a waste of time.'

'I thought you said time was the only thing you had enough of.'

'An obvious lie,' he said, standing up and proffering his hand. 'Time is the only thing I haven't got. You'd better put the cuffs back on, Spiuni.'

Harry cursed to himself. He slapped the handcuffs on Raskol and they shuffled sideways between the table and the wall to the door. Harry grabbed the door handle.

'Most bank robbers are simple souls,' Raskol said. 'That's why they become bank robbers.'

Harry stopped.

'One of the most celebrated bank robbers in the world was the American Willie Sutton,' Raskol said. 'When he was arrested and taken to court, the judge asked him why he robbed banks. Sutton answered: Because that's where the money is. It's become a standing expression in everyday American English and I suppose it's meant to show us how brilliantly direct and easy language can be. To me, it just represents an idiot who got caught. Good bank robbers are neither famous nor quotable. You've never heard of them because they've never been caught. Because they are not direct and simple. The one you're looking for is one of them.'

Harry waited.

'Grette,' Raskol said.

***

'Grette?' Beate stared at Harry with her eyes popping out of her head. 'Grette?' The vein on her neck was swollen. 'Grette has an alibi! Trond Grette is an accountant with bad nerves, not a bank robber! Trond Grette…is…is…'

'Innocent,' Harry said. 'I know.' He had closed the office door behind him and sunk deep into the chair in front of the desk. 'But we're not talking about Trond Grette.'

Beate's mouth closed with an audible, wet click.

'Have you heard of Lev Grette?' Harry asked. 'Raskol said he had only needed the first thirty seconds to know, but he'd wanted to see the rest to be sure because no one has seen Lev Grette for several years. According to the latest rumour Raskol had heard, Grette was living somewhere abroad.'

'Lev Grette,' Beate said, and her gaze wandered into the distance. 'He was such a wonder boy. I remember my father talking about him. I've read reports of robberies he was suspected of having been involved in when he was just sixteen. He was a legend because the police never caught him, and when he disappeared for good, we didn't even have his fingerprints.' She looked at Harry. 'How could I be so stupid? Same build. Similar features. Trond Grette's brother, isn't it.'

Harry nodded.

Beate knitted her brows. 'But that means Lev Grette shot his own sister-in-law.'

'It makes a few things fall into place, doesn't it.'

She nodded slowly. 'The twenty centimetres between the faces. They knew each other.'

'And if Lev Grette knew he had been recognised…'

'Of course,' Beate said. 'She was a witness. He couldn't take the risk that she would give him away.'

Harry got up. 'I'll ask Halvorsen to brew up something really strong for us. Now let's have a look at the video.'

***

'My guess is that Lev Grette didn't know that Stine worked there,' Harry said, his eyes on the screen. 'The interesting thing is that he probably recognises her and still chooses to use her as the hostage. He must have known she would recognise him close up, by the voice, if nothing else.'

Beate shook her head in incomprehension as she absorbed the pictures of the bank concourse where everything was temporarily quiet, and August Schulz, with shambling gait, was in mid-trek. 'So why did he do it?'

'He's a pro. Doesn't leave anything to chance. Stine Grette was doomed from this moment on.' Harry freeze-framed the moment when the robber had come in the door and scanned the room. 'When Lev Grette saw her and knew there was a chance he could be identified, he knew she had to die. So he might just as well use her as the hostage.'

'Ice cold.'

'Minus forty. The only thing I don't quite see is why he's prepared to go as far as murder to avoid recognition when he's already wanted for other bank jobs.'

Weber came in with a tray of coffees.

'Yes, but Lev Grette is not wanted for any robberies,' he said, balancing the tray until it was on the coffee table. The room looked as if it had been decorated once in the fifties and then remained untouched by human hand. The plush chairs, the piano and the dusty plants on the windowsill radiated an eerie stillness. Even the pendulum of the grandfather clock in the corner swung soundlessly. The white-haired woman with the beaming eyes in the framed glass on the mantelpiece laughed without sound. The stillness which seemed to have entered when Weber was widowed eight years ago had silenced everything around him; it would even be difficult to get a note out of the piano. The flat was on the ground floor of an old apartment block in Tшyen, but the noise of the cars outside merely emphasised the silence. Weber sat down in one of the wing chairs, cautiously, as though it were a display item in a museum.