‘No, Rakel.’
‘So what are you telling me, Harry?’
‘Are you sure you want to know, Rakel? Really?’
She looked at Harry hard without answering.
Harry waited. Stared out of the window. Saw the silhouette of the ridge surrounding this quiet, secure town where nothing happened. Which was actually the edge of a dormant volcano, where the town had been built. Depending on how you looked at it. Depending on what you knew.
‘No,’ she whispered in the darkness. Taking his hand and putting it to her cheek.
It was easy to live a happy life of ignorance, Harry thought. It was just a question of repression. Repressing an Odessa lying, or not lying, locked in a cupboard. Repressing three murders that were not your responsibility. Repressing the image of the hate-filled eyes of a rejected student with a red dress pulled up over her waist. Wasn’t it?
Harry stubbed out his cigarette.
‘Shall we go to bed?’
At three o’clock in the morning Harry woke with a start.
He had dreamt about her again. He had gone into a room and found her there. She was lying on a filthy mattress on the floor, cutting up the red dress she was wearing with a big pair of scissors. Beside her was a portable TV broadcasting her and what she was doing with a two-second delay. Harry looked around, but he couldn’t see a camera anywhere. Then she placed one shiny blade against the inside of her white thigh, opened her legs and whispered:
‘Don’t do it.’
And Harry fumbled behind him and found the handle of the door that had closed after him, but it was locked. Then he discovered that he was naked and was moving towards her.
‘Don’t do it.’
It sounded like an echo from the TV. A two-second delay.
‘I just have to get the key,’ he said, but it sounded like he was talking underwater, and he knew she hadn’t heard. Then she put two, three, four fingers inside her vagina, and he stared as the whole of the slim hand slipped inside. He took another step towards her. Then the hand came back out holding a gun. Pointed at him. A shiny, dripping gun with a cable leading back inside her like an umbilical cord. ‘Don’t do it,’ she had said, but he was already kneeling in front of her, leaning forward. Felt the gun, cool and pleasant, against his forehead. And then he whispered:
‘Do it.’
24
The tennis courts were unoccupied as Bjørn Holm’s Volvo Amazon pulled up in front of Frogner Park and the police car by the main gate.
Beate jumped out, wide awake despite having slept hardly a wink. It was hard to sleep in a stranger’s bed. Yes, she still thought of him as a stranger. She knew his body, but his mind, habits and thinking were still a mystery she wondered whether she had enough patience or interest to explore. So every morning she woke in his bed, she asked herself the question: are you going to carry on?
Two plain-clothes policemen leaning back against the car straightened and came to meet her. She saw two uniformed officers sitting in the front seats of the car and another man in the back.
‘Is that him?’ she asked, feeling her heart beat wonderfully fast.
‘Yes,’ said one of the plain-clothes men. ‘Great police sketch. He’s the spitting image.’
‘And the tram?’
‘We sent it on, it was packed to the brim. But we took one woman’s details as there was a bit of drama.’
‘Oh?’
‘He tried to make a run for it when we showed our ID and said he had to come along with us. He leapt into the aisle and grabbed a pram to block our way. Yelled for the tram to stop.’
‘A pram?’
‘Yes, you can’t believe it, can you? Bloody criminal.’
‘I’m afraid he’s committed worse.’
‘I mean, taking a pram on the tram during the morning rush hour.’
‘OK. But then you arrested him?’
‘The baby’s mother screamed and held onto his arm so that I could get a punch in.’ The policeman showed the bleeding knuckles on his right fist. ‘No point brandishing a shooter when this works, is there?’
‘Good,’ Beate said, trying to sound as if she meant it. She bent down and looked into the back of the car, but all she could see was a silhouette beneath the reflection of herself in the morning sun. ‘Can someone lower the window?’
She tried to breathe calmly as the window slid soundlessly down.
She recognised him at once. He didn’t look at her, he stared straight ahead, stared into the Oslo morning with half-closed eyes, as though still in the dream he hadn’t wanted to wake up from.
‘Have you searched him?’ she asked.
‘Close encounter of the third kind,’ the plain-clothes man grinned. ‘No, he didn’t have a weapon on him.’
‘I mean, have you searched him for drugs? Checked his pockets?’
‘Well, no. Why would we?’
‘Because this is Chris Reddy, also known as Adidas, several convictions for selling speed. He tried to run, so you can bet your life he’s got something on him. So strip him.’
Beate Lønn straightened up and went back to the Amazon.
‘I thought she did fingerprints,’ she heard the plain-clothes man say to Bjørn Holm, who had come to join them. ‘Not that she recognised junkies.’
‘She recognises anyone who’s ever been in Oslo Police archives,’ Bjørn said. ‘Look a bit closer next time, OK?’
When Bjørn got in the car and glanced at her, Beate knew she looked like a grumpy old cow, with her arms crossed, fuming as she stared ahead.
‘We’ll collar him on Sunday,’ Bjørn said.
‘Let’s hope so,’ Beate said. ‘Everything set up in Bergslia?’
‘Delta’s done a recce and found their positions. They said it was simple with all the forest around. But they’re in the neighbouring house as well.’
‘And everyone who investigated the original crime has been informed?’
‘Yes. Everyone will be near a phone all day and report in if they receive a call.’
‘That goes for you too, Bjørn.’
‘And you. By the way, why wasn’t Harry on that case? He was an inspector in Crime Squad then.’
‘Mm, he was indisposed.’
‘On the booze?’
‘How are we using Katrine?’
‘She’s got a position in Berg Forest, with a good view of the house.’
‘I want regular mobile contact with her all the time she’s there.’
‘I’ll tell her.’
Beate glanced at her watch. 09.16. They drove down Thomas Heftyes gate and Bygdøy allé. Not because it was the shortest way to Police HQ, but because it was the most scenic. And because it killed some time. Beate glanced at her watch again. 09.22. D-Day in two days. Sunday.
Her heart was still beating fast.
Was already beating fast.
Johan Krohn kept Harry waiting in reception the usual four minutes past the time of the appointment before coming out. Gave a couple of obviously superfluous messages to the receptionist before directing his attention to the two people sitting there.
‘Hole,’ he said, fleetingly studying the policeman’s face to diagnose mood and attitude before proffering his hand. ‘You’ve brought your own lawyer, have you?’
‘This is Arnold Folkestad,’ Harry said. ‘He’s a colleague, and I’ve asked him to join me so that I have a witness to what is said and agreed.’
‘Wise, very wise,’ said Johan Krohn, without anything in his tone or expression suggesting he meant it. ‘Come in, come in.’
He led the way, looked quickly at a surprisingly petite, feminine wristwatch and Harry took the hint: I’m a busy lawyer with limited time for this relatively minor matter. The office was executive size and smelt of leather, which Harry assumed came from the bound chronological volumes of Norsk Rettstidende filling the shelves. And a perfume he recognised. Silje Gravseng was sitting in a chair, half turned towards them, half turned towards Johan Krohn’s massive desk.
‘Endangered species?’ Harry asked, running a hand across the desk before taking a seat.