‘Have you got the time for it?’
‘I need some distraction.’
He looked at her. Was about to say something, then changed his mind. Nodded. ‘OK.’
They went up a staircase and down a corridor to the offices.
‘I can hear you’ve nicked bits of Ståle Aune’s psychology lectures,’ Katrine said. As usual she had to jog to keep up with Harry’s giant strides.
‘I nick as much as I can. After all, he was the best.’
‘Like “deranged” being one of the few words in medicine which is exact, intuitively comprehensible and poetic all at once. But precise words always end up on the scrapheap because stupid professionals think linguistic obfuscation is best for patients’ welfare.’
‘Yep,’ Harry said.
‘That’s why I’m no longer a manic-depressive. Not borderline, either. I’m bipolar type II.’
‘Two?’
‘Do you understand? Why doesn’t Aune lecture? I thought he loved it.’
‘He wanted a better life. Simpler. More quality time with his nearest and dearest. A wise decision.’
She eyed him. ‘You should persuade him. No one in society should be allowed to stop using such a superior talent when there is most need for it. Don’t you agree?’
Harry chuckled. ‘You’re not going to give up, are you? I think there’s a need for me here, Katrine. And the college won’t contact Aune because they want to see more uniformed lecturers, not civilians.’
‘You’re wearing civvies.’
‘And that’s my point. In fact, I am no longer in the police force, Katrine. It was a choice. Which means that I, we, are in different places now.’
‘How did you get that scar on your temple?’ she asked and noticed Harry almost imperceptibly but instantly flinch. Before he could answer a sonorous voice in the corridor called out.
‘Harry!’
They stopped and turned. A short, bulky man with a full red beard came out of one of the doors and approached them with an uneven rolling gait. Katrine followed Harry as he went to meet the older man.
‘You’ve got a visitor,’ the man roared long before they had reached a normal speaking distance.
‘Indeed,’ Harry said. ‘Katrine Bratt. This is Arnold Folkestad.’
‘I mean you have a visitor in your office,’ Folkestad said, stopping to take a couple of deep breaths before passing Katrine a large, freckled hand.
‘Arnold and I co-lecture on murder investigation,’ Harry said.
‘And since he’s been given the entertaining side of the subject, naturally he’s the more popular of us two,’ Folkestad growled. ‘While I have to bring them down to earth with methodology, forensics, ethics and regulations. The world is unjust.’
‘On the other hand, Arnold knows a bit about pedagogy,’ Harry said.
‘The whelp’s making progress,’ Folkestad chortled.
Harry frowned. ‘This visitor, it’s not. .?’
‘Relax, it’s not frøken Silje Gravseng, just old colleagues. I gave them some coffee.’
Harry eyed Katrine sharply. Then he turned and marched towards the door. Katrine and Folkestad watched him leave.
‘Er, did I say something wrong?’ Folkestad asked in amazement.
‘I know this might be construed as a pincer movement strategy,’ Beate said, lifting the cup of coffee to her mouth.
‘Do you mean by that it’s not a pincer movement?’ Harry said, leaning back on his chair as far as it was possible to go in the tiny office. On the other side of the desk, behind the towering piles of paper, Beate Lønn, Bjørn Holm and Katrine Bratt were squeezed into chairs. The round of greetings was soon over. Brief handshakes, no hugs. No clumsy attempts at small talk. Harry Hole was not the type. Harry Hole was the type to get to the point. And, of course, they knew he already knew what that was.
Beate took a sip, winced inevitably and put the cup down with a disapproving mien.
‘I know you’ve made up your mind not to do any more active investigation,’ Beate said. ‘And I also know you have better reason than most. The question, however, is whether you can make an exception here or not. You are, after all, our sole specialist in serial killings. The state invested money and trained you with the FBI-’
‘-which, as you know, I paid back with blood, sweat and tears,’ Harry broke in. ‘And not just my own blood and tears.’
‘I haven’t forgotten that Rakel and Oleg ended up in the firing line on the Snowman case, but-’
‘The answer’s no,’ Harry said. ‘I’ve promised Rakel that none of us will go back there. And for once I intend to keep a promise.’
‘How’s Oleg?’ Beate asked.
‘Better,’ Harry said, keeping a weather eye on her. ‘As you know, he’s in a detox clinic in Switzerland.’
‘I’m glad to hear that. And Rakel got the job in Geneva?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does she commute?’
‘Four days in Geneva, three at home. It’s good for Oleg to have his mother close by.’
‘I can understand that,’ Beate said. ‘In a way they’re out of every firing line there, aren’t they? And you’re alone during the week. Days when you can do what you like.’
Harry laughed quietly. ‘My dear Beate, perhaps I didn’t make myself clear enough. This is what I want. To lecture. To pass on my knowledge.’
‘Ståle Aune’s with us,’ Katrine said.
‘Good for him,’ Harry said. ‘And for you. He knows as much about serial murders as I do.’
‘Sure he doesn’t know more?’ Katrine said with a hint of a smile and a raised eyebrow.
Harry laughed. ‘Nice try, Katrine. OK. He knows more.’
‘My God,’ Katrine said, ‘what’s happened to your competitive streak?’
‘The combination of you three and Ståle Aune is the best possible start for this case. I have another lecture, so. .’
Katrine slowly shook her head. ‘What’s happened to you, Harry?’
‘Good things,’ Harry said. ‘Good things have happened to me.’
‘Message received and understood,’ Beate said, getting up. ‘But I’d still like to ask if we can consult you now and then.’
She saw he was going to shake his head. ‘Don’t answer no,’ she hastened to add. ‘I’ll ring you later.’
In the corridor, three minutes later, as Harry was striding towards the auditorium, where the students had already gathered, it struck Beate that perhaps it was true, perhaps the love of a woman could save a man. And she doubted in this case that another woman’s sense of duty would be enough to whisk him back into the jaws of hell. But that was her task. He had looked shockingly healthy and happy. She would so much have liked to let him go. But she knew they would soon reappear, the ghosts of colleagues that had been killed. And she formulated the next thought: they won’t be the last.
She rang Harry as soon as she was back in the Boiler Room.
Rico Herrem woke with a start.
He blinked in the darkness until his eyes could focus on the white screen three rows in front of him, where a fat woman was sucking off a horse. Felt his racing pulse slow down. No reason to panic, he was still in Fiskebutikken; it was just the vibration of a new arrival that had woken him. Rico opened his mouth and tried to inhale some oxygen from the air that stank of sweat, tobacco and something that might have been fish, but wasn’t. It was forty years since Moen’s Fiskebutikk had sold the original combination of relatively fresh fish over the counter and relatively fresh porn mags under the counter. After Moen had sold up and gone into retirement — so that he could drink himself to death more systematically — the new owners had opened a twenty-four-hour cinema in the basement showing straight porn. But when VHS and DVDs had taken their customers they specialised in procuring and showing films you couldn’t get online, at least not without the police knocking at your door.
The sound was on so low Rico could hear the wanking in the darkness around him. He had been told that was the idea, that was why the sound was on so low. He had long grown out of the boyhood fascination with group wanking, that wasn’t why he was sitting here. It wasn’t why he had headed here straight after his release, sat here for two solid days, broken only by emergency trips to eat, shit and get more booze. He still had four Rohypnol pills in his pocket. He had to make them last.