Nemesis

'We never found any concrete evidence that Grette had been involved in any of the robberies. No statement from witnesses, no grasses had anything on him, no fingerprints and no other forensic leads. The reports only confirm that he was a suspect.'

'Mm. So, provided Stine Grette didn't report him, he was a man with a clean sheet?'

'Right. Biscuit?'

Beate shook her head.

It was Weber's day off, but Harry had insisted on the telephone that they had to talk immediately. He knew Weber was reluctant to receive visitors at home, but that couldn't be helped.

'We talked to the duty officer at Krimteknisk to compare the prints on the Coca-Cola bottle with the prints from earlier raids Lev Grette was suspected of carrying out,' Beate said. 'Nothing.'

'As I said,' Weber said, checking the lid of the coffee pot was on properly, 'Lev Grette's prints were never found at a crime scene.'

Beate thumbed through her notes. 'Do you agree with Raskol that Lev Grette is our man?'

'Well, why not?' Weber started pouring the coffee.

'Because he never used violence in any of the raids where he was a suspect. And because she was his sister-in-law. Murdering because you might be recognised-isn't that a rather feeble motive for murder?'

Weber stopped pouring and looked at her. He glanced quizzically at Harry, who shrugged his shoulders.

'No,' he said. And continued to pour. Beate flushed a deep red.

'Weber comes from the classical school of detection,' Harry said almost apologetically. 'His opinion is that murder by definition excludes rational motives. There are just degrees of confused motives, which can at times resemble reason.'

'That's how it is,' Weber said, putting down the coffee pot.

'I wonder,' Harry said, 'why Lev Grette left the country if the police had nothing on him anyway.'

Weber brushed invisible dust off the arm of the chair. 'I don't know for sure.'

'For sure?'

Weber pressed the thin, fragile porcelain coffee-cup handle between a large, fat thumb and a nicotine-stained index finger. 'There was a rumour going round at the time. Nothing we had any faith in. Allegedly, he wasn't fleeing from the police. Someone had heard the last bank job hadn't gone according to plan. Grette had left his partner in the lurch.'

'In what way?' Beate asked.

'No one knew. Some thought Grette had been the getaway driver and had driven off when the police arrived, leaving the other man in the bank. Others said the raid had been a success, but Grette had cleared off abroad with all the money.' Weber took a sip and lowered the cup with care. 'The interesting side to the case we're talking about now is perhaps not the how, but the who. Who was this second person?'

Harry searched Weber's eyes. 'Do you mean it was…?'

The veteran forensics expert nodded. Beate and Harry exchanged glances.

'Fuck,' said Harry.

***

Beate kept an eye on the traffic to the left, waiting for a gap in the stream of cars from the right in Tшyengata. The rain beat down on the roof. Harry closed his eyes. He knew if he concentrated he could make the swish of passing cars become waves beating against the bows of the ferry as he stood in the breeze gazing down at the white froth, holding his grandfather's hand. But he didn't have time.

'So Raskol had unfinished business with Lev Grette,' Harry said, opening his eyes. 'And picks him out as the robber. Is it really Grette in the video or is it just Raskol getting his own back? Or yet another of Raskol's tricks to fool us?'

'Or as Weber said-just a rumour,' Beate said. The cars continued to pass from the right as she impatiently drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.

'You may be right,' Harry said. 'If Raskol wanted to get his own back on Grette, he wouldn't have needed police help. Supposing they're only rumours, why pick out Grette, if Grette didn't do it?'

'A whim?'

Harry shook his head. 'Raskol is a strategist. He doesn't pick out the wrong man without a good reason. I'm not sure the Expeditor was working solo here.'

'What do you mean?'

'Perhaps someone else planned the robberies. Part of a network importing arms. The getaway car. Undercover flat. A cleaner, who spirits away the clothes and weapons afterwards. And a launderer, who launders the money.'

'Raskol?'

'If Raskol wanted to distract our attention from the real guilty party, what better than to send us off on a search for a man whose whereabouts no one knows, who is dead and buried or who has settled abroad under a new name, a suspect we'll never eliminate from our inquiries? By selling us a long-term lemon he can have us chasing our shadows instead of his man.'

'So you think he's lying?'

'All gypsies lie.'

'Oh?'

'I'm quoting Raskol.'

'He's got a good sense of humour then. And why shouldn't he lie to you, if he's lied to everyone else?'

Harry didn't answer.

'At last a gap,' Beate said, lightly touching the accelerator.

'Wait!' Harry said. 'Turn right. To Finnmarkgata.'

'Right,' she said, dismayed, and turned into the road in front of Tшyen park. 'Where are we going?'

'We're going to pay Trond Grette a visit at home.'

***

The net in the tennis court had been removed. And there was no light in any of the windows in Grette's house.

'He's not at home,' Beate concluded after ringing twice.

The neighbour's window opened.

'Trond's in alright,' came the trill from the woman's wrinkled face, which Harry thought even browner than the last time they had seen it. 'He just won't open up. Keep your finger on the bell, then he'll come.'

Beate pressed the button and they could hear the terrorising ring inside the house. The neighbour's window closed and immediately afterwards they were looking into a pale face with two bluish-black bags beneath unresponsive eyes. Trond Grette was wearing a yellow dressing gown. He looked as if he had just got out of bed after sleeping for a week. And it hadn't been enough. Without a word, he raised his hand and waved them in. There was a flash of sunlight as it caught the diamond ring on the little finger of his left hand.

***

'Lev was different,' Trond said. 'He tried to kill a man when he was fifteen.'

He smiled into space, as though recalling a dear memory.

'We seemed to have been given a complete set of genes to share between us. What he didn't have, I had-and vice versa. We grew up here in Disengrenda, in this house. Lev was a legend in the area, but I was just Lev's little brother. One of the first things I can remember was from school when Lev was balancing on the school roof in the break. That was four floors up and none of the teachers dared to bring him down. We stood below cheering while he danced around with his arms out to the side. I can still see his body against the blue sky. I wasn't frightened for a moment; it didn't even occur to me that my brother might fall off. I think everyone felt like that. Lev was the only one who stood up to the Gausten brothers from the flats in Traverveien, even though they were at least two years older and had been in a youth detention centre. Lev took Dad's car when he was fourteen, drove to Lillestrшm and came back with a bag of Twist which he'd nicked from the station kiosk. Dad didn't know anything about it. Lev gave me the sweets.'

Trond Grette seemed to be trying to laugh. They had sat down around the table. Trond had made cocoa. He had poured the cocoa powder from a tin he had stood staring at for a long time. Someone had written COCOA on the metal tin with a felt pen. The handwriting was neat, feminine.

'The worst thing was that Lev could have done well for himself,' Trond said. 'His problem was that he tired of things so quickly. Everyone said he was the greatest football talent there had been in Skeid for many years, but when he was selected for the national boys' team he didn't even bother to turn up. When he was fifteen he borrowed a guitar and two months later he was performing his own songs at school. Afterwards he was asked by a guy called Waaktar to join a band in Grorud, but he turned him down because they weren't good enough. Lev was the type who can do everything. He could have got through school as easy as you like if he'd done his homework and hadn't skived so much.' Trond gave a crooked smile. 'He paid me in stolen goods to copy his handwriting and do his essays for him. At least his mark in Norwegian was in safe hands.' Trond laughed, but was soon serious again. 'Then he got sick of the guitar and began to hang out with a gang of older boys from Еrvoll. Lev never seemed to think there was any danger in letting go of what he had. There was always something else, something better, something more exciting around the next bend.'