‘Internationals,’ Bjørn said.
‘What about them?’ Harry asked, heading for the bathroom, his flies already half undone.
‘International matches are subject to FIFA rules and regulations,’ Bjørn said. ‘Hooliganism.’
‘Of course,’ Harry shouted from behind the bathroom door. ‘Well done, Bjørn!’ Then the door slammed.
‘What?’ Katrine shouted. ‘What are you on about?’
‘CCTV,’ Bjørn said. ‘FIFA requires match organisers to film the spectators in case there are any disturbances. The ruling came in during the wave of hooliganism in the 1990s to help the police find the troublemakers and charge them. They film the stands throughout the match with high-definition cameras so that they can zoom in and identify every single face. And we’ve got the seating area, row and seat number of where Valentin sat.’
‘Didn’t sit!’ Katrine shouted. ‘He’s not allowed to be on any bloody footage, all right? Or we’ll be back to square one.’
‘They may of course have deleted the images,’ Bjørn said. ‘There wasn’t any trouble during the match, and I’m sure the data-archiving directive states how long they’re allowed to keep-’
‘The data-archiving directive. .’
‘If the images are stored electronically then all they have to do is press Delete for the files to disappear.’
‘Trying to remove files permanently is like trying to remove dog shit from your trainers. Difficult. How do you think we find child porn on computers pervs have handed in voluntarily, thinking they’ve got rid of the lot? Believe me, I’ll find Valentin Gjertsen if he was at the stadium that evening. What was the assumed time of death for Erlend Vennesla?’
They heard the toilet flush.
‘Between seven and half eight,’ Bjørn said. ‘In other words, right at the start of the game, after Henriksen equalised. Vennesla must have heard the cheering up in Maridalen. It’s not far from Ullevål, is it?’
The bathroom door opened. ‘Which means he could have made it to the match after the murder in Maridalen,’ Harry said, doing up the last button. ‘Once he was in the stadium he could have done something that people around him would remember. Alibi.’
‘Valentin was not at the match,’ Katrine said. ‘But if he was I’ll watch the sodding video from start to finish and time him if he so much as lifts his bum off the seat. Alibi, my arse.’
There was a silence hanging over the large detached houses.
The silence before the storm of Volvos and Audis returning home after working for Norway Ltd, Truls Berntsen thought.
He rang the bell and looked around.
Nicely established garden. Well looked after. You probably had time to do that if you were a retired Chief of Police.
The door opened. He looked older. The same sharp blue eyes, but the skin around his neck was a little looser, his back not quite as straight. He was simply not as impressive as Truls remembered him. Perhaps it was just the faded casual clothes; perhaps that’s how it is when your job doesn’t keep you on your toes any more.
‘Berentzen, Orgkrim.’ Truls held up his ID in the certain knowledge that if the old boy really read Berntsen he would think that was what he heard as well. Lies with backup. But the Chief nodded without looking. ‘I think I’ve seen you before. How can I help you, Berentzen?’
He gave no indication that he was going to invite Truls in. Which was fine by Truls. No one could see them and there was minimal background noise.
‘It’s about your son, Sondre.’
‘What about him?’
‘We’re running an operation to catch Albanian pimps, and for that purpose we’ve been keeping an eye on movements in Kvadraturen and taking pictures. We’ve identified a number of cars seen picking up prostitutes and we’re intending to bring the owners in for questioning. We’ll offer them reduced sentences if we can act on information they give us about the pimps. And one of the cars we’ve photographed belongs to your son.’
The Chief of Police raised his bushy eyebrows. ‘What’s that? Sondre? Impossible.’
‘I thought so too. But I wanted to confer with you. If you think this must be some misunderstanding, that the woman he picks up is not even a prostitute, we’ll shred the photo.’
‘Sondre is happily married. I brought him up. He knows the difference between right and wrong, believe me.’
‘Of course, I just wanted to be sure that this is how you see the matter as well.’
‘My God, why would he buy. .’ The man in front of Truls was grimacing as if he had been chewing a rotten grape. ‘. . sex in the street? The danger of infection. The children. No, no, no.’
‘Sounds like we agree there’s no point following this up. Even though we have reason to suspect that the woman is a prostitute, your son may have lent his car to someone else. We don’t have a photo of the driver.’
‘So you don’t even have any proof. No, you’d better just forget this one.’
‘Thank you. We’ll do as you say.’
The Chief of Police nodded slowly while carefully studying Truls. ‘Berentzen at Orgkrim, did you say?’
‘Correct.’
‘Thank you, Berentzen. You officers are doing a good job.’
Truls beamed. ‘We do the best we can. Have a good day.’
‘What was that you said again?’ Katrine said, staring at the black screen in front of her. In the world outside the Boiler Room, where the air was thick with evaporating human being, it was afternoon.
‘I said there was a good chance the images of the crowds had been deleted because of the data-archiving directive,’ Bjørn said. ‘And as you can see, I was right.’
‘And what did I say?’
‘You said that files are like dog shit on trainers,’ Harry said. ‘Impossible to remove.’
‘I didn’t say impossible,’ Katrine said.
The four members of the team sat around Katrine’s computer. When Harry had rung Ståle and asked him to join them, Ståle had sounded relieved more than anything else.
‘I said it was difficult,’ Katrine said. ‘But as a rule there’s a mirror image of them somewhere. Which a clever computer man will be able to find.’
‘Or woman?’ Ståle suggested.
‘Nope,’ Katrine said. ‘Women can’t park, they don’t remember football results and they can’t be bothered to learn the fiddly bits on computers. For that you need weird men with band T-shirts and minimal sex lives, and it’s been like this ever since the Stone Age.’
‘So you can’t-’
‘I keep trying to explain that I’m not a computer specialist, Ståle. My search engines searched the files of the Norwegian Football Association, but all the recordings had been deleted. And I’m afraid that from here on in I’m no use.’
‘We could have saved ourselves a bit of time if you’d listened to me,’ Bjørn said. ‘So what do we do now?’
‘I don’t mean I’m no use for anything,’ Katrine said, still addressing Ståle. ‘You see, I’m equipped with a few relative virtues. Such as feminine charm, unfeminine get-up-and-go and no shame. Which can give you an edge in nerd land. The guy who showed me these search engines also got me in with an Indian IT man, known as Side Cut. And an hour ago I rang Hyderabad and put him on the case.’
‘And. .?’
‘And here’s the footage,’ Katrine said, pressing the return button.
The screen lit up.
They stared.
‘That’s him,’ Ståle said. ‘He looks lonely.’
Valentin Gjertsen, alias Paul Stavnes, was sitting in front of them with his arms crossed. He was watching the match without any visible interest.
‘Goddamn!’ Bjørn cursed under his breath.
Harry asked Katrine to fast-forward.
She pressed a button and the crowd around Valentin Gjertsen began to move jerkily as the clock and the counter in the bottom right-hand corner raced forward. Only Valentin Gjersten sat still, like a lifeless statue amid a swarm of life.
‘Faster,’ Harry said.