‘You’re beautiful, Mummy,’ Oleg whispered.
Rakel closed her eyes. Both side windows were rolled down and the wind brushed against her hair and skin as Harry carefully steered the Escort through the bends on the way down Holmenkollen. The faint smell of washing-up liquid lingered. Rakel moved the sun visor down to check her lipstick and noticed that even the little mirror on the inside had been buffed up.
She smiled at the thought of the first time they had met. He had offered to drive her to work and she had had to help push the car to get it started.
It was incredible really that he still had the same unroadworthy vehicle as then.
She observed him out of the corner of her eye.
And the same sharp bridge of the nose. And the same gently curved, almost feminine lips that contrasted with the other hard masculine features. And the eyes. He could hardly be called good-looking, not in the classical sense. However, he was – what was the word? – real. Real. It was his eyes. No, not his eyes. The expression in his eyes.
He turned towards her as if he could hear her thoughts.
He smiled. And there it was. The childlike softness in his eyes. The boy sitting behind them and laughing at her. There was a certain ingenuousness about the way he looked at her. An uncorrupted sincerity. Honesty. Integrity. It was a look you could rely on. Or you wanted to rely on.
Rakel smiled back.
‘What are you thinking about?’ he asked and had to get his eyes back on the road.
‘This and that.’
She had had plenty of time to think over the last few weeks. Time enough to realise that Harry had never made her a promise he hadn’t kept. He had never promised that he would not go to pieces again. He had never promised that work would not continue to be the most important thing in his life. He had never promised that it would be easy with him. All these were promises he had made to himself. She could see that now.
Olav Hole and Sis were standing at the entrance waiting for them when they arrived at the house in Oppsal. Harry had talked so much about it that Rakel occasionally felt that it was her who had grown up there in the small house.
‘Hi, Oleg,’ Sis said, looking adult and big-sister-like. ‘We’ve made meatballs.’
‘Have you?’ Oleg pushed impatiently at the back of Rakel’s seat to try to get out.
On the way back Rakel leaned her head back in her seat and said that she thought he was good-looking, but that he shouldn’t let it go to his head. He replied that he thought she was better looking and that she could let it go to her head as much as she liked as far he was concerned. When they reached the slopes of Ekeberg and Oslo lay below them, she saw black Vs intersecting the sky beneath.
‘Swallows,’ Harry said.
‘They’re flying low,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t it mean that it’s going to rain?’
‘Yes, rain is forecast.’
‘Oh, that’ll be wonderful. Is that why they’re out flying, to tell everyone?’
‘No,’ Harry said. ‘They’re doing a more useful job than that. They’re clearing the air of insects. Pests and so on.’
‘But why are they so busy? They seem almost hysterical, don’t they?’
‘It’s because they haven’t got much time. The insects are out now, but when the sun goes down the hunt for pests has to be over.’
‘ Is over, you mean?’
She turned towards him. He was staring ahead, lost in thought.
‘Harry?’
‘Yes. Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was gone there for a minute.’
The audience for the play had assembled in the now shaded square in front of the National Theatre. Celebrities were making conversation with celebrities while journalists were swarming around and cameras were whirring. Apart from rumours about some summer romance, the topic of conversation was the same for everyone: the previous day’s arrest of the Courier Killer.
Harry’s hand lay lightly against the small of Rakel’s back as they rushed towards the entrance. She could feel the heat from the tips of his fingers through the thin material. A face appeared in front of them.
‘Roger Gjendem from Aftenposten. Sorry, but we’re conducting a survey about what people think about the capture of the man who kidnapped the woman chosen to play the lead this evening.’
They stopped and Rakel noticed that the hand on her back was suddenly no longer there.
The journalist’s rictus smile was there, but his eyes were roaming.
‘We’ve met before, Inspector Hole. I work on crime reports. We chatted a couple of times when you returned after the case in Sydney. You once said that I was the only journalist who reported what you said accurately. Do you remember me now?’
Harry studied Roger Gjendem’s face thoughtfully and nodded.
‘Mm. Finished with crime?’
‘No, no!’ The journalist shook his head energetically. ‘I’m just standing in. National holidays. Could I have a comment from Harry Hole, the policeman?’
‘No.’
‘No? Not even a couple of words?’
‘I mean, no, I’m not a policeman,’ Harry said.
The journalist seemed taken aback.
‘But I saw you…’
Harry quickly panned around him before leaning forwards.
‘Have you got a business card?’
‘Yes…’
Gjendem passed him a white card with the blue Gothic letters of Aftenposten on; Harry put it in his back pocket.
‘The deadline’s eleven o’clock.’
‘We’ll see,’ Harry said.
Roger Gjendem stood still with a puzzled expression on his face as Rakel went up the steps with Harry’s warm fingers back in position.
A man with a large beard was standing by the entrance smiling at them through tear-stained eyes. Rakel recognised the face from the newspapers. It was Wilhelm Barli.
‘I’m so glad to see that you’re here together,’ he boomed and opened his arms. Harry hesitated, but was caught.
‘You must be Rakel.’
Wilhelm Barli twinkled at her over Harry’s shoulder as he hugged the tall man like a teddy bear he had lost and found again.
‘What was that?’ Rakel asked when they had found their seats in the fourth row.
‘Male affection,’ Harry said. ‘He’s arty.’
‘Not that. All that stuff about you not being a policeman.’
‘I did my last day’s work as a policeman yesterday.’
She stared at him. ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘I did say something. In the garden that time.’
‘And what are you going to do now?’
‘Something else.’
‘What then?’
‘Something completely different. A friend has made me an offer and I have accepted. I hope I’m going to have better times. I can tell you more about it later.’
The curtain went up.
There was a roar of applause as the curtain fell and it continued with undiminished vigour for almost ten minutes.
The actors came out and went back in consistently new formations until there were no rehearsed moves left and they just stood and received the applause. Shouts of ‘Bravo’ reverberated around whenever Toya Harang stepped forward to bow yet again, and in the end everyone who had had any connection with the performance was called up onto the stage and Toya was embraced by Wilhelm Barli, and tears were flowing both in the cast and in the audience.
Even Rakel had to take out her handkerchief as she squeezed Harry’s hand.
‘You look weird,’ Oleg said from the back seat. ‘Is something up or what?’
Rakel and Harry twisted their heads round in unison.
‘Are you friends again? Is that it?’
Rakel smiled. ‘We’ve never fallen out, Oleg.’
‘Harry?’
‘Yes, boss?’ Harry looked in the mirror.
‘Does that mean that we can go to the cinema again soon? To see boys’ films?’
‘Maybe. If it’s a decent boys’ film.’
‘Oh yes,’ Rakel said. ‘And what will I do?’
‘You can play with Olav and Sis,’ Oleg enthused. ‘It’s really cool, Mummy. Olav taught me how to play chess.’