‘Hm. Is it him?’
‘Is it who?’
‘You know who I mean.’
‘I’ll answer that if you give me an honest answer – have you missed it?’
‘Missed what, Svein?’
‘Having a playmate who’s up to your level? Like you had with me?’
The man in the shadows leaned forward, into the light from the window near the top of the wall, and Harry heard Wyller’s breathing speed up behind him. The bars laid strips of shadow across a pockmarked face with leathery, red-brown skin. It was covered with wrinkles, so deep and close together that they looked as if they’d been carved by a knife, right down to the bone. He had a red handkerchief tied round his forehead, like a Native American, and his thick, wet lips were framed by a moustache. His tiny pupils sat within brown irises, and the whites of his eyes looked yellow, but he had the muscular, sinewy body of a twenty-year-old. Harry did the maths. Svein Finne, ‘the Fiancé’, had to be seventy-five now.
‘You never forget your first. Isn’t that right, Hole? My name will always be at the top of your list of achievements. I took your virginity, didn’t I?’ His laugh sounded like he was gargling with gravel.
‘Well …’ Harry said, folding his arms. ‘If my honesty is the price for yours, then the answer is that I don’t miss it. And that I’ll never forget you, Svein Finne. Or any of the people you maimed and killed. You all visit me fairly regularly at night.’
‘Me too. They’re very faithful, my fiancées.’ Finne’s thick lips slipped apart as he smiled, and he put his right hand over his right eye. Harry heard Wyller step back and hit the door. Finne’s eye stared at Wyller through the hole in his hand that was big enough to hit a golf ball through. ‘Don’t be scared, son,’ Finne said. ‘It’s your boss you should be frightened of. He was just as young as you are now, and I was already lying on the ground, unable to defend myself. Even so, he held his pistol to my hand and fired. Your boss has a black heart, lad. Remember that. And now he’s thirsty again. Just like him out there. And your thirst is like a fire, that’s why you have to quench it. And until it’s quenched, it’ll keep growing, devouring everything it comes into contact with. Isn’t that right, Hole?’
Harry cleared his throat. ‘Your turn, Finne. Where’s Valentin hiding?’
‘You lot have been here to ask about that before, and I can only repeat myself. I barely spoke to Valentin when he was here. And it’s been almost four years since he escaped.’
‘His methods resemble yours. Some people claim that you taught him.’
‘Nonsense. Valentin was born ready-taught. Believe me.’
‘Where would you have hidden, if you were him?’
‘Close enough to be in your sights, Hole. I’d have been prepared for you this time.’
‘Does he live in the city? Move about the city? New identity? Is he alone or is he working with anyone else?’
‘He’s doing it differently now, isn’t he? Biting and drinking blood. Maybe it isn’t Valentin?’
‘It’s Valentin. So how do I catch him?’
‘You don’t catch him.’
‘No?’
‘He’d rather die than end up here again. His imagination was never enough for him, he had to do it.’
‘Sounds like you do know him after all.’
‘I know what he’s made of.’
‘The same as you? Hormones from hell.’
The old man shrugged. ‘Everyone knows that moral choice is an illusion, it’s only the chemistry of the brain that directs your and my behaviour, Hole. Some people’s behaviour gets diagnosed as ADHD or anxiety and is treated with drugs and sympathy. Others are diagnosed as criminal and evil and are locked up. But it’s the same thing. An unholy mixture of substances in the brain. And I agree that we should be locked up. We rape your daughters, for God’s sake.’ Finne let out a rasping laugh. ‘So clear us off the streets, threaten us with punishment so we don’t head off in the direction the chemicals in our brain would otherwise tell us to go in. But what makes that pathetic is that you’re so weak that you need a moral excuse to lock us up. You create a history of lies about free will and some sort of divine punishment that fits into a system of divine justice based on some unchanging, universal morality. But morality can hardly be unchanging or universal, it’s entirely dependent upon the spirit of the age, Hole. Men fucking men was completely OK a few thousand years ago, then they were put in prison, and now politicians go on parades with them. Everything gets decided according to what society needs or doesn’t need at any given time. Morality is flexible and utilitarian. My problem is that I was born in an age and in a country where men who scatter their seed so wantonly are undesirable. But after a pandemic, when the species needs to get back on its feet again, Svein “the Fiancé” Finne would have been a pillar of the community and a saviour of humanity. Don’t you think, Hole?’
‘You raped women and made them give birth to your children,’ Harry said. ‘Valentin kills them. So why don’t you want to help me catch him?’
‘Am I not being helpful?’
‘You’re giving me general answers and half-baked moral philosophy. If you help us, I’ll put in a good word to the parole board.’
Harry heard Wyller shuffle his feet.
‘Really?’ Finne stroked his moustache. ‘Even though you know I’d start raping again as soon as I got out? I appreciate that it must be very important for you to catch Valentin, seeing as you’re prepared to sacrifice so many innocent women’s honour. But I don’t suppose you have a choice.’ He tapped his temple with one finger. ‘Chemistry …’
Harry didn’t respond.
‘Well, then,’ Finne said. ‘To start with, I’ll have served my sentence on the first Saturday of March next year, so it’s too late to get a reduction that makes much difference. And I was taken outside a couple of weeks ago, and you know what? I wanted to get back here. So, thanks but no thanks. Tell me how you’re doing instead, Hole. I heard that you got married. And have a bastard son, yes? Do you live in a safe place?’
‘Was that all you had to say, Finne?’
‘Yes. But I shall follow your collective progress with interest.’
‘Me and Valentin?’
‘You and your family. Hope to see you in the welcoming committee when I’m released.’ Finne’s laugh turned into a wet cough.
Harry stood and gestured to Wyller to bang on the door. ‘Thanks for sparing some of your precious time, Finne.’
Finne raised his right hand in front of his face and waved. ‘See you again, Hole. Nice to be able to talk about f-future plans.’
Harry saw his grin flit back and forth behind the hole in his hand.
15
SUNDAY EVENING
RAKEL WAS SITTING at the kitchen table. The pain, drowned out by the noise and distraction of urgent jobs, became harder to ignore whenever she stopped. She scratched her arm. The rash had barely been noticeable yesterday evening. When the doctor asked if she was urinating regularly she had answered yes automatically, but now that she was more aware of it, she realised that she had hardly peed at all in the past couple of days. And then there was her breathing. As if she was out of shape, and she definitely wasn’t.
There was a clatter of keys at the front door and Rakel stood up.
The door opened and Harry came in. He looked pale and tired.
‘Just popped in to change clothes,’ he said, stroked her cheek and carried on towards the stairs.
‘How’s it going?’ she asked as she watched him disappear upstairs to their bedroom.
‘Good!’ he called. ‘We know who it is.’
‘Time to come home, then?’ she said half-heartedly.
‘What?’ She heard footsteps on the floor and knew he’d taken his trousers off, like a little boy or a drunk man.