‘What are you doing here so late?’ Harry asked.
‘I’ve been doing some training in the fitness room.’ She pointed to the rucksack on the floor and flexed her right arm. A pronounced biceps muscle appeared. He remembered the combat instructor mentioning something about her flooring several of the boys.
‘Training on your own so late?’
‘Got to learn as much as I can. But perhaps you could show me how to bring down a suspect?’
Harry looked at his watch. ‘Tell me, shouldn’t you be. .?’
‘Asleep? I can’t sleep, Harry. I just think about. .’
He looked at her. She pouted. Placed a finger against her bright red lips. He could feel a certain irritation mounting. ‘It’s good you use your brain, Silje. Keep doing it. And I’ll keep. .’ He pointed to the pile of papers.
‘You haven’t asked what I think about, Harry.’
‘Three things, Silje. I’m your lecturer and not your confessor. You’ve no business to be in this wing without an appointment. And to you I’m Hole, not Harry. OK?’ He knew his voice had been sterner than necessary, and when he looked up again he discovered her eyes were big and round with disbelief. She dropped the finger from her lips. She dropped the pout as well. And when she spoke again her voice was hardly more than a whisper.
‘I was thinking about you, Harry.’
Then she laughed a loud, shrill laugh.
‘I suggest we stop right there, Silje.’
‘But I love you, Harry.’ More laughter.
Was she high? Drunk? Had she come straight from a party perhaps?
‘Silje, don’t. .’
‘Harry, I know you’ve got obligations. And I know there are rules for lecturers and students. But I know what we can do. We can go to Chicago. Where you did the serial killer course. I can apply to do it and you can-’
‘Stop!’
Harry heard his shout echo down the corridor. Silje had hunched up as if he’d hit her.
‘Now I’ll accompany you to the door, Silje.’
She blinked at him in astonishment. ‘What’s the matter, Harry? I’m the second-best-looking girl in the year. I could have whoever I want in this place. Including the lecturers. But I’ve saved myself for you.’
‘Come on.’
‘Do you want to know what I’ve got under my dress, Harry?’
She put a bare foot on the desk and opened her thighs. Harry was so quick she didn’t have a chance to react when he knocked her foot off the desk.
‘No one puts their feet on my desk except me, thank you.’
Silje crumpled. Hid her face in her hands. Ran them over her head, as though she wanted to creep into a hiding place under her long, muscular arms. She cried. Sobbed quietly. Harry let her sit like this until the sobbing had subsided. He was about to put his hand on her shoulder, but then changed his mind.
‘Listen, Silje,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’re on something, I don’t know. That’s fine. Happens to all of us. This is my suggestion: you go now, we pretend this never happened and neither of us breathes a word about it ever again.’
‘Are you afraid someone will find out about us, Harry?’
‘There is no us, Silje. And listen to me. I’m giving you a chance here.’
‘Are you thinking that someone will find out that you’re shagging a student?’
‘I’m not shagging anyone. I’m thinking of your own good.’
Silje lowered her arm and raised her head. Harry was shocked. Her make-up had run like black blood, her eyes had a wild gleam to them and the sudden hungry-predator grin made him think of an animal he had seen on one of those nature programmes.
‘You’re lying, Harry. You’re shagging that bitch. Rakel. And you don’t think about me. Not the way you say, you hypocritical bastard. But you do think about me, all right. Like a piece of meat you can shag. Like you’re going to shag.’
She had slid off the desk and taken a step towards him. Harry sat there, sunk in his chair with his legs stretched out in front of him, as always. He was looking up at her with this sense that he was part of a scene that was going to be acted out, no, had already been acted out, for Christ’s sake. She stretched forward, gracefully, her hand rested on his knee, she stroked upwards, up over his belt as she leaned over him and her hand disappeared under his T-shirt. The voice purred: ‘Mmm, nice six-pack, teacher.’ Harry grabbed her hand, twisting her wrist round as he shot out of the chair. She screamed as he forced her arm up behind her back and pushed her head down towards the floor. Then he turned her towards the door, grabbed her rucksack and shoved her out of the room and down the corridor.
‘Harry!’ she groaned.
‘This hold is called the half-nelson, or by many, the police grip,’ Harry said without stopping, propelling her down the stairs. ‘Handy to learn for the exam. That is, if you get as far as the exam. Because I hope you realise you’ve put me in a position where I’ll have to report this.’
‘Harry!’
‘Not because I feel I’ve been harassed particularly, but because I question whether you have the psychological stability to work in the police force, Silje. I’ll leave it to the authorities to evaluate. So you’ll have to convince them that this was just a bit of a slip-up. Does that sound fair to you?’
He opened the front door with his free hand, and as he shoved her out she swung round and eyeballed him. It was a glare of such naked fury and ferocity it confirmed what Harry had been thinking for a while about Silje Gravseng. She was not someone who should be given police powers and unleashed on the general public.
Harry watched her as she tottered through the gate, across the square to Chateau Neuf, where a student was having a smoke and a break from the dull pounding of the music inside. He stood leaning against a street lamp, wearing an army jacket, Cuba 1960 style. Watched Silje with studied indifference until she’d passed, whereupon he turned and stared after her.
Harry stood in the corridor. Cursing loudly. Felt his pulse slowing. Took out his phone, rang one of the contacts from a list which was so short some people were entered with only one letter.
‘Arnold here.’
‘This is Harry. Silje Gravseng just turned up at my office. This time it went too far.’
‘Oh yes? Spill the beans.’
Harry gave his colleague the edited highlights.
‘This is not good, Harry. Worse, maybe, than you imagine.’
‘She might have been on something. Looked as if she’d come from a party. Or she just has problems controlling her impulses. But I need some advice here about what to do. I know I ought to report it but-’
‘You don’t understand. Are you still down by the front door?’
‘Yes. So?’ Harry said, surprised.
‘The guard must have gone home. Can you see anyone else?’
‘Anyone else?’
‘Anyone?’
‘Well, there’s a guy in the square outside Chateau Neuf.’
‘Would he have seen her leave?’
‘Yes.’
‘Perfect! Go over to him now. Talk to him. Get his name and address. Keep him occupied until I come and pick you up.’
‘You what?’
‘I’ll explain later.’
‘Am I supposed to sit on the back of your bike?’
‘I have to confess I have a kind of car here somewhere. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’
‘Good. . er, morning?’ Bjørn Holm mumbled. He peered at his watch, but wasn’t sure if he was still in dreamland.
‘Were you asleep?’
‘No, no,’ Bjørn Holm said, leaning back against the headboard and pressing the phone to his ear. As though it would bring her even closer.
‘I just wanted to tell you I’ve got a bit of the chewing gum stuck under Anton Mittet’s car seat,’ Katrine Bratt said. ‘I reckon it’s the murderer’s. But of course it’s a long shot.’
‘Yes,’ Bjørn said.