‘Hm, I hear you,’ Katrine said. ‘Unless my memory’s playing tricks on me, the Krimteknisk boss — who on occasion needs to test evidence outside of the Evidence Room’s opening hours — has her own key.’
Beate groaned aloud.
‘I promise there won’t be any trouble,’ Katrine hastened to add. ‘Listen, I’ll pop round to yours now, borrow the key, find the gum, cut off a tiny chunk, put everything back nicely and tomorrow morning the chunk’s tested at the Institute. If they ask, I’ll say it’s for another case. Yes? OK?’
The head of Krimteknisk weighed up the pros and cons. It wasn’t hard. It wasn’t OK at all. She took a deep breath.
‘As Harry used to say,’ Katrine said. ‘Just get the ball, for Christ’s sake.’
Rico Herrem lay in bed watching TV. It was five o’clock in the morning, but he had lost track of time and couldn’t sleep. The programme was a repeat of one he saw yesterday. A Komodo dragon was lolloping across a beach. The long lizard tongue flashed out, swept round and was retracted. It was following a water buffalo it had given an apparently harmless bite. Had been following it for several days. Rico had turned down the sound so that all that could be heard was the wheeze of the air-conditioning unit which couldn’t make the hotel room cold enough. Rico had already felt the sniffles coming on the flight. Classic. Air conditioning and summer clothes on the way to a hot country, and the holiday becomes a headache, a runny nose and a high temperature. But he had time; he didn’t have to go home for a long while. Why should he? He was in Pattaya, the paradise of all pervs and criminals on the run. Everything he wanted was here, outside his hotel door. Through the mosquito net by the window he could hear the traffic and voices gabbling away in a foreign language. Thai. He couldn’t understand a word. He didn’t need to. Because they were there for him, not vice versa. He had seen them when he was driven here from the airport. They lined up outside the go-go bars. The young. The very young. And further down the alleys, behind the trays they sold chewing gum from, the much too young. But they would still be there when he was back on his feet. He listened for waves breaking, even though he knew the cheap hotel he had moved into was a long way from the beach. But they were out there as well. Them and the scorching hot sun. And the drinks and the other farangs who were there on the same mission as him and could give him some tips about how to go about things. And about the Komodo dragon.
Last night he had dreamt about Valentin again.
Rico stretched out his hand for the bottle of water on the bedside table. It tasted of his own mouth, death and contagion.
He had been given two-day-old Norwegian newspapers with the Western breakfast he’d hardly touched. There hadn’t been anything about Valentin being arrested yet. It wasn’t difficult to surmise why. Valentin wasn’t Valentin any more.
Rico had wondered whether he should tell them. Ring, get hold of that policewoman, Katrine Bratt. Tell her he had changed. Rico had seen that down here you could get that kind of thing done for a few thousand Norwegian kroner at one of the private clinics. Ring Bratt, leave an anonymous message that Valentin had been seen near Fiskebutikken and that he’d had comprehensive plastic surgery. Without asking for anything in return. Just to help them catch him. To help him sleep at night without dreaming about him.
The Komodo dragon had crouched a few metres from the waterhole where the water buffalo had settled down in the cooling mud, apparently unaffected by the three-metre-long, carnivorous monster just lying in wait.
Rico could feel the nausea rising and swung his legs out of bed. His muscles ached. Jesus, this was full-blown flu.
When he returned from the bathroom it was with bile acid still burning in his throat and two decisions made. He would visit one of those clinics and get himself some of that strong medicine they wouldn’t give you in Norway. The second was that when he had it and felt a bit better, he would ring Bratt. Give her a description. So that he could sleep.
He turned up the volume with the remote control. An enthusiastic voice explained in English that it had long been thought that the Komodo dragon killed through the bacteria-infected spit that was injected into the victim’s bloodstream with a bite, but now it had been discovered that in fact the poison in the lizard’s glands stopped the victim’s blood from coagulating so it slowly bled to death from what seemed to be an innocent wound.
Rico shivered. Closed his eyes to sleep. Rohypnol. The thought had occurred to him. That this wasn’t flu at all, but withdrawal symptoms. And Rohypnol was probably something they had on the room-service menu here in Pattaya. His eyes opened wide. He couldn’t breathe. For a moment in sheer, utter panic, Rico writhed around as if fighting an invisible attacker. It was just the same as at Fiskebutikken; there was no oxygen in the room! Then his lungs got what they wanted, and he fell back onto his bed.
He stared at the door.
It was locked.
There was no one else here. No one. Just him.
20
Katrine walked up the hill under cover of night. A wan, anaemic moon hung low in the sky behind her, but Police HQ’s facade didn’t reflect any of the little light the moon cast, it swallowed it like a black hole. She glanced at the compact, professional wristwatch she had inherited from her father, a fallen policeman with the fitting nickname of Iron Rafto. A quarter past eleven.
She tugged open the front door of Police HQ with its strange, staring porthole and hostile weight. As though the suspicion started right here.
She waved in the direction of the duty officer, who sat hidden on the left, but could see her. And unlocked the door to the atrium. Walked past the unmanned reception desk and went over to the lift, which she took down to the lower ground floor. Exited and crossed the concrete floor in the meagre light, hearing her own footsteps as she listened for others.
During the day the iron door to the Evidence Room opened on to a counter. She fished out the key Beate had given her, put it in the lock, twisted and opened. Stepped inside. Listened.
Then she locked the door behind her.
Switched on the light, lifted the hinged section of the counter and advanced into the darkness, which was so dense the torchlight seemed to need time to bore its way through, to find the rows of broad shelves filled with boxes made of frosted plastic through which you could only just make out the objects inside. The person in charge must have had an orderly mind because the boxes were lined up on the shelves with such precision that the short sides formed an unbroken surface. Katrine strode along reading the case numbers stuck to the boxes. They were numbered chronologically from the far left of the room inwards, where they took the place of evidence from time-restricted cases once the stored material was returned to the owners or destroyed.
She had almost reached the end of the middle row when the torch beam fell on the box she was after. It was on the lowest shelf and scraped against the brick floor as she pulled it out. She whipped off the lid. The contents tallied with the report. An ice scraper. A seat cover. A plastic bag containing some strands of hair. A plastic bag containing some chewing gum. She put down the torch, opened the bag, removed the gum with tweezers and was about to cut off a bit when she felt a draught in the clammy air.
She looked down at her forearm, which was caught in the torchlight, and saw the shadow of fine hairs standing up. Then she raised her eyes, grabbed the torch and shone it at the wall. Beneath the ceiling there was an inset hatch fan. But as it was only inset it was unlikely it could have caused on its own what she was fairly certain was a movement in the air.
She listened.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just the throbbing of blood in her ears.