‘Stand here,’ Valentin said, pointing to a No Parking sign with a mountain bike locked to the post.
Harry stood by the post. His shirt had become sticky and the pain throbbed in his side with a pulse of its own. The knife pressed into his back. He heard keys and the rattle of a bike lock. The sirens were approaching. Then the knife was gone. But before Harry could react and jump away, his head was dragged backwards as something was clamped around his neck. Sparks appeared in his eyes as his head smacked against the post and he gasped for air. The keys rattled again. Then the pressure slackened and Harry instinctively raised his hand, inserted two fingers between his throat and whatever was holding him. Bloody hell.
Valentin swung out in front of him on his bike. Put the goggles on, saluted him with two fingers to his helmet and pushed down on the pedals.
Harry watched the black rucksack disappearing down the street. The sirens couldn’t be more than two blocks away. A cyclist passed by. Helmet, black rucksack. One more. No helmet, but a black rucksack. One more. Shit, shit, shit. The sirens sounded as if they were in his head. Harry closed his eyes and thought about the old Greek logic puzzle where something is approaching, a kilometre away, half a kilometre, a third of a kilometre, a quarter, a hundredth, and if it is true that a sequence of numbers is infinite, it will never arrive.
32
‘So you just stood there, fastened to a post with a bike lock around your neck?’ Bjørn Holm asked, in disbelief.
‘A sodding No Parking sign,’ Harry said, looking down at the empty coffee cup.
‘Ironic,’ Katrine said.
‘They had to send someone to get bolt cutters.’
The Boiler Room door opened and Gunnar Hagen marched in. ‘I’ve just heard the news. What’s going on?’
‘Patrol cars are in the area looking for him,’ Katrine said. ‘Every single cyclist is being stopped and searched.’
‘Even though he must have got rid of his bike by now and is in a taxi or on public transport,’ Harry said. ‘Valentin is many things, but not stupid.’
The Crime Squad boss threw himself onto a chair out of breath. ‘Did he leave any clues?’
Silence.
He looked in surprise at the wall of accusatory faces. ‘What’s up?’
Harry coughed. ‘You’re sitting on Beate’s chair.’
‘Am I?’ Hagen jumped up.
‘He left his tracksuit top,’ Harry said. ‘Bjørn’s handed it to Krimteknisk.’
‘Sweat, hair, the whole salami,’ Bjørn said. ‘Reckon we’ll have it confirmed in a day or two that Paul Stavnes and Valentin Gjertsen are one and the same.’
‘Anything else in the top?’ Hagen asked.
‘No wallet, mobile, notebook or calendar showing plans for future murders,’ Harry said. ‘Just this.’
Hagen automatically took it and looked at what Harry had passed him. An unopened little plastic bag containing three Q-tips.
‘What was he going to do with these?’
‘Kill someone?’ Harry suggested laconically.
‘They’re for cleaning your ears,’ Bjørn Holm said. ‘But actually they’re for scratching your ears, right? The skin gets irritated, we scratch even more, there’s more wax and all of a sudden we have to have more Q-tips. Heroin for the ears.’
‘Or for make-up,’ Harry said.
‘Oh?’ Hagen said, studying the bag. ‘By which you mean. . he wears make-up?’
‘Well, it’s a mask. He’s already had plastic surgery. Ståle, you’ve seen him close up.’
‘I haven’t thought about it, but you may be right.’
‘You don’t need much mascara and eyeliner to achieve a difference,’ Katrine said.
‘Great,’ Hagen said. ‘Have we got anything on the name Paul Stavnes?’
‘Very little,’ Katrine said. ‘There’s no Paul Stavnes on the national register with the date of birth he gave Aune. The only two people with the same name have been eliminated by police outside Oslo. And the elderly couple who live at the address he gave have never heard of any Paul Stavnes or Valentin Gjertsen.’
‘We’re not in the habit of checking patients’ contact details,’ Aune said. ‘And he settled up after every session.’
‘Hotel,’ Harry said. ‘Boarding house, hospice. They’ve all got their guests registered on databases now.’
‘I’ll check.’ Katrine swivelled round on her chair and began to tap away on her keyboard.
‘Is that kind of thing on the Internet?’ Hagen asked in a sceptical tone.
‘No,’ Harry said. ‘But Katrine uses a couple of search engines you’ll wish didn’t exist.’
‘Oh, why’s that?’
‘Because they have access to a level of codes that mean the best firewalls in the world are completely useless,’ Bjørn Holm said, peering over Katrine’s shoulder, to a clicking landslide of keystrokes, like the feet of fleeing cockroaches on a glass table.
‘How’s that possible?’ Hagen asked.
‘Because they’re the same codes the firewalls use,’ Bjørn said. ‘The search engines are the wall.’
‘Not looking good,’ Katrine said. ‘No Paul Stavnes anywhere.’
‘But he must live somewhere,’ Hagen said. ‘Is he renting a flat under the name Paul Stavnes? Can you check that?’
‘Doubt he’s your run-of-the-mill tenant,’ Katrine said. ‘Most landlords vet their tenants these days. Google them, check the tax lists anyway. And Valentin knows they would be suspicious if they couldn’t find him anywhere.’
‘Hotel,’ said Harry, who had got up and was standing by the board where they had written what had seemed to Hagen at first sight like a chart of free associations with arrows and cues until he had recognised the names of the murder victims. One of them was referred to only as B.
‘You’ve already said hotel, my love,’ Katrine said.
‘Three Q-tips,’ Harry went on, leaning down to Hagen and retrieving the sealed plastic bag. ‘You can’t buy a packet like this in a shop. You find it in a hotel bathroom with miniature bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Try again, Katrine. Judas Johansen this time.’
The search was finished in less than fifteen seconds.
‘Negative,’ Katrine said.
‘Damn,’ Hagen said.
‘We’re not done yet,’ Harry said, studying the plastic bag. ‘There’s no manufacturer’s name on this, but usually Q-tips have a plastic stick and these are wooden. It should be possible to track down the suppliers and the Oslo hotels receiving the supplies.’
‘Hotel supplies,’ Katrine said, and the insect-like fingers were scam-pering again.
‘I have to be off,’ Ståle said, getting up.
‘I’ll see you out,’ Harry said.
‘You won’t find him,’ Ståle said, outside Police HQ, looking down over Bots Park, which lay bathed in cold, sharp spring light.
‘We, don’t you mean?’
‘Maybe,’ Ståle sighed. ‘I don’t exactly feel I’m making much of a contribution.’
‘Contribution?’ Harry said. ‘You got us Valentin all on your own.’
‘He escaped.’
‘His alias is out in the open. We’re getting closer. Why don’t you think we’ll catch him?’
‘You saw him yourself. What do you think?’
Harry nodded. ‘He said he went to you because you’d done a psychological assessment of him. At the time you concluded he was of sound mind in a legal sense, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, but, as you know, people with serious personality disorders can be convicted.’
‘What you were after was extreme schizophrenia, psychosis, at the time of the act and so on, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘But he could have been a manic-depressive or a psychopath. Correction, bipolar II or a sociopath.’
‘The correct term now is dissocial.’ Ståle accepted the cigarette Harry passed him.
Harry lit them both. ‘It’s good he goes to you even though he knows you work for the cops. But that he continues even after realising you’re involved in the hunt for him?’