He didn't know why, but he felt he was being observed. No, not observed, he had been discovered, caught. Someone knew he was there, but they may not have seen him. His eyes searched the illuminated fence for possible alarms. Nothing.
He walked along two lines of containers before finding one that was open. Entered the impenetrable darkness and instantly knew this was no good; he would freeze to death if he slept here. Closing the door behind him, he felt the air move, as though he was standing in a block of something that was being transported.
There was a rustling sound as he stepped onto sheets of newspaper. He had to get warm.
Outside, he again had the feeling he was being observed. He went over to the hut, grabbed hold of one of the boards and pulled. It came away with a bang. He thought he glimpsed something move and whirled round. But all he could see was the glimmer of lights from inviting-looking hotels around Oslo Central Station and the darkness in the doorway of his lodging for the night. After wrestling off two further boards, he walked back to the container. There were prints where the snow had drifted. Of paws. Big paws. A guard dog. Had they been there before? He broke chunks off the boards which he placed against the steel wall inside the entrance to the container. He left the door ajar in the hope that some of the smoke would filter out. The box of matches from the room in the Hostel was in the same pocket as his gun. He lit the newspaper, put it under the wood and held his hands over the heat. Small flames licked up the rustred wall.
He thought about the waiter's terror-stricken eyes looking down the barrel of the gun as he had ransacked his pockets for change. That was all he had, he had explained. It had been enough for a burger and an underground ticket. Not enough for a place to hide, keep warm or sleep. Then the waiter had been stupid enough to say the police had been alerted and were on their way. And he had done what he had to do.
The flames lit up the snow outside. He noticed more paw-prints outside the door. Odd that he hadn't seen them when he first went to the container. He listened to his own breathing and its echo in the iron box where he was sitting, as though there were two of them inside, while following the prints with his eyes. He stiffened. His prints crossed the animal's. And in the middle of his shoe print he saw a paw mark.
He yanked the door to and the flames went out in the muffled thud. Only the edges of the newspaper glowed in the pitch dark. His breathing was heavy now. There was something out there, hunting him, it could smell him and recognise his smell. He held his breath. And that was when he knew: that the something hunting him was not outside. That it was not an echo of his breathing he could hear. It was inside. As he made a lunge for his gun in his pocket he caught himself thinking it was strange it hadn't growled, hadn't made a sound. Until now. And even that was no more than the soft scraping of claws on an iron floor as it launched itself. He just managed to raise his arm before the jaws snapped around his hand and the pain caused his mind to explode in a shower of fragments.
Harry scrutinised the bed and what he assumed was Tore Bjorgen.
Halvorsen came over and stood beside him: 'Sweet Jesus,' he whispered. 'What is going on here?'
Without answering him, Harry unzipped the black face mask the man in front of him was wearing and pulled the flap to one side. The painted red lips and make-up around the eyes reminded him of Robert Smith, the singer with The Cure.
'Is this the waiter you talked to in Biscuit?' Harry asked, looking round the room.
'I think so. What on earth is this get-up?'
'Latex,' Harry said, running the tips of his fingers over some metal shavings on the sheet. Then he picked up something beside a half-full glass of water on the bedside table. It was a pill. He studied it.
Halvorsen groaned. 'This is just sick.'
'A kind of fetishism,' Harry said. 'And actually no sicker than you enjoying the sight of women in miniskirts and suspenders or whatever gets you going.'
'Uniforms,' Halvorsen said. 'All kinds. Nurses, parking wardens. ..'
'Thank you,' Harry said.
'What do you think?' Halvorsen asked. 'Suicide pills?'
'Better ask him,' Harry said, picking up the glass of water and emptying the contents over the face below. Halvorsen stared at the inspector open-mouthed.
'If you hadn't been so full of prejudice you would have heard him breathing,' Harry said. 'This is Stesolid. Not much worse than Valium.'
The man on the bed was gasping for air. Then the face contracted and was seized with a fit of coughing.
Harry sat on the edge and waited for a pair of terrified, though still tiny, pupils to succeed in focusing on him.
'We're policemen, Bjorgen. Apologies for bursting in like this, but we were led to believe you had something we wanted. Which you no longer have, it seems.'
The eyes in front of him blinked twice. 'What are you talking about?' a thick voice said. 'How did you get in?'
'Door,' Harry said. 'You had another visitor earlier this evening.'
The man shook his head.
'That's what you told the police,' Harry said.
'No one has been here. And I have not rung the police. My number is ex-directory. You can't trace it.'
'Yes, we can. And I didn't say anything about you ringing. You said on the phone you had chained someone to the bed and I can see bits of metal from the bed rails here on the sheet. Looks like the mirror out there has had a pasting, too. Did he get away, Bjorgen?'
The man gawked from Harry to Halvorsen and back.
'Did he threaten you?' Harry spoke in the same low monotone. 'Did he say he would be back if you said a word to us? Is that it? You're frightened?'
The man's mouth opened. Perhaps it was the leather mask that made Harry think of a pilot who had strayed off course. Robert Smith adrift.
'That's what they usually say,' Harry said. 'But do you know what? If he'd meant it, you'd be dead already.'
The man stared at Harry.
'Do you know where he went, Bjorgen? Did he take anything with him? Money? Clothes?'
Silence.
'Come on. This is important. He's hunting a person here in Oslo he wants to kill.'
'I have no idea what you're talking about,' whispered Tore Bjorgen without taking his eyes off Harry. 'Would you please go now?'
'Of course. But I ought to point out that you risk being charged for giving refuge to a murderer on the run. Which the court may, in a worst-case scenario, regard as being an accessory to murder.'
'Based on what evidence? Alright, maybe I did ring. I was kidding. Wanted a bit of a laugh. So what?'
Harry got up from the bed. 'As you like. We're going now. Pack a few clothes. I'll send a couple of guys to pick you up, Bjorgen.'
'Pick me up?'
'As in arrest.' Harry motioned to Halvorsen that they were going.
'Arrest me?' Bjorgen's voice was thick no longer. 'Why? You haven't got a bloody thing on me.'
Harry showed what he was holding between his thumb and first finger. 'Stesolid is a prescription drug like amphetamine and cocaine, Bjorgen. So unless you produce a prescription I'm afraid we'll have to arrest you for possession. Two years' custodial sentence.'
'You're joking.' Bjorgen hauled himself up in bed and made a grab for the duvet on the floor. Only now did he seem to be aware of the outfit he was wearing.
Harry walked to the door. 'I quite agree with you, Bjorgen. In my personal opinion, Norwegian legislation is much too harsh on soft drugs. For that reason, under different circumstances, I might have turned a blind eye. Goodnight.'
'Wait!'
Harry stopped. And waited.
'His b-b-brothers…' Bjorgen stammered.
'Brothers?'
'He said he would send his brothers after me if anything happened to him in Oslo. If he was arrested or killed, however it happened, they would come for me. He said his brothers like to use acid.'