by Jo Nesbo
“Ornamentation on the handle. Anything there?”
“Nho thought the knife might be from the north, from the mountain tribes in Chiang Rai province or around there. Something to do with the inset pieces of colored glass. He wasn’t sure, but in any case it wasn’t the standard kind of knife you can buy in shops here, so we’re sending it to an art history professor at Benchamabophit Museum tomorrow. He knows all there is to know about old knives.”
Liz waved, and the waiter came and ladled some steaming coconut soup from a tureen.
“Watch out for the little white guys. And the little red ones. They’ll burn you up,” she said, pointing with a spoon. “Oh, and the green ones, too.”
Harry stared with skepticism at the different substances floating around in his bowl.
“Is there anything here I can eat?”
“The galanga roots are OK.”
“Have you got any theories?” Harry asked in a loud voice to drown her slurping.
“About who the murderer could be? Yes, of course. Lots. Firstly, it could be the prostitute. Or the motel owner. Or both.”
“And what would the motive be?”
“Money.”
“There was five hundred baht in Molnes’s wallet.”
“If he took out his wallet in reception and Wang saw he had a bit of money, which is pretty likely, the temptation may have been too much for him. Wang wouldn’t have known that the man was a diplomat and that there would be such a big stink.”
Crumley held her fork up in the air and leaned forward excitedly.
“They wait until the ambassador’s in the room, knock on the door and stab him with the knife when he turns his back. He falls forward on the bed, they empty his wallet, but leave the five hundred so it won’t look like robbery. Then they wait three hours and call the police. And Wang is bound to have a friend in the force who’ll make sure everything runs smoothly. No motive, no suspect, everyone keen to sweep an incident involving prostitution under the carpet. Next case.”
Harry’s eyes suddenly bulged out of his head. He grabbed the glass of beer and put it to his mouth.
Crumley smiled. “One of the red ones?”
He got his breath back.
“Not a bad theory, Inspector, but there’s a flaw,” he gasped in a throaty voice.
She frowned. “What’s that?”
“Wang keeps a private guest book, probably crammed with names of politicians and civil servants. Each visit is logged along with the date and time. To have some defense, if anyone should make a fuss about his establishment. But when there’s a visitor whose face he doesn’t recognize he can hardly ask for their ID. So what he does is join the guest outside under the pretext of making sure there’s no one else in the car, right, to find out who he is.”
“Now I don’t follow you.”
“He writes down the plate number, OK? Then he checks it afterward against the register. When he saw the blue plates on the Mercedes he knew at once Molnes was a diplomat.”
Crumley studied him thoughtfully. Then she swung around to the adjacent table with her eyes open wide. The couple jumped in their chairs and busily concentrated on their food.
She scratched her leg with a fork.
“It hasn’t rained for three months,” she said.
“Sorry?”
She waved a hand for the bill.
“What’s that got to do with the case?” Harry asked.
“Not a lot,” she said.
It was almost three in the morning. The noise from the city was muted by the regular hum of the fan on the bedside table. Nevertheless, Harry could hear the odd heavy lorry driving over Taksin Bridge and the roar of a solitary riverboat setting off from one of the piers on the Chao Phraya.
As he’d unlocked the door to the flat he had seen a red flashing light on the telephone and after pressing a few buttons he’d listened to two messages. The first was from the Norwegian Embassy. Tonje Wiig, the chargé d’affaires, had a very nasal voice and sounded as if she was either from Oslo West or had a strong desire to live there. She told Harry to present himself at the embassy the next day at ten, but then changed the time to twelve as she discovered she had a meeting at a quarter past ten.
The other message was from Bjarne Møller. He wished Harry luck, no more than that. It sounded as if he didn’t like talking to answerphones.
Harry lay on the bed blinking into the darkness. He hadn’t bought the six-pack after all. And the B12 shots were still in his suitcase. After bar-hopping in Sydney he had taken to his bed with no feeling in his legs, but one vitamin shot and he had got up like Lazarus. He sighed. When was it he had actually decided? When he was told about the job in Bangkok? No, it was before that. Several weeks ago he had set a deadline: Sis’s birthday. God knows why he had taken the decision. Perhaps he was just sick of not being present. Days came and went without him noticing. Something like that. He was tired of the discussion about why old Bardolph didn’t want to drink now. When Harry took a decision it was unshakable; it was inexorable and final. No compromises, no prevarication. “I can stop any day I like.” How often had he heard men at Schrøder’s trying to convince themselves that they weren’t long-term full-blooded alkies? He was as full-blooded as any of them, but he was the only one he knew who could actually stop whenever he wanted. The birthday wasn’t for a few weeks, but as Aune had been right about this trip being a good starting point Harry had even brought it forward. Harry groaned and rolled over onto his side.
He wondered what Sis was doing, if she had dared to venture out in the evenings. If she had rung Dad as she had promised. And if she had, if he’d managed to talk to her, beyond answering with a yes or a no.
Three o’clock passed, and even though it was only nine in Norway he hadn’t slept much over the last thirty-six hours and ought to have fallen asleep without a problem. However, every time he closed his eyes he had the image of a naked Thai boy illuminated by headlamps on his retina, so he preferred to keep them open for a while longer. Perhaps he should have bought the six-pack after all. When he did finally drop off, the morning rush hour over Taksin Bridge had already started.
8
Saturday, January 11
On the seventeenth floor, behind an oak door and two security checkpoints, Harry found a metal sign bearing the Norwegian lion. The receptionist, a young, graceful Thai woman with a small mouth, even smaller nose and two velvety brown eyes in a round face, bore a deep frown as she studied his ID card. Then she lifted the telephone, whispered three syllables and put it back down.
“Miss Wiig’s office is the second on the right, sir,” she said with such a beaming smile Harry considered falling in love on the spot.
“Come in,” Harry heard, after knocking on the door. Inside, Tonje Wiig was bent over a large teak desk, obviously busy making notes. She looked up, put on a light smile, raised a lean body dressed in a white silk suit from her chair and walked toward him with an outstretched hand.
Tonje Wiig was the opposite of the receptionist. A nose, mouth and eyes fought for room in a long face, and the nose appeared to carry the day. It was like a big tuber, but at least ensured there was a bit of space between her large, heavily made-up eyes. Not that Miss Wiig was ugly, no, some men might even claim the face had a certain classical beauty.
“So nice that you’re finally here, Officer. Shame that it’s in such sad circumstances.”
Harry had barely touched her bony fingers before they were withdrawn.
“We’d very much like to put this case behind us as fast as possible,” she said, rubbing one nostril carefully so as not to smudge her makeup.
“I appreciate that.”
“These have been difficult days for us, and it might sound heartless, but the world goes on and so do we. Some people believe that all we do is attend cocktail parties and enjoy ourselves, but nothing could be further from the truth, I can tell you. At this very moment I have eight Norwegians in hospital and six in prison, four of them for possession of
narcotics. Have you seen the prisons here? Dreadful. Verdens Gang rings every day. It turns out that on top of everything else one of them is pregnant. And last month in Pattaya, a Norwegian man died after being thrown out of a window. Second time in a year. Terrible fuss.”
She shook her head in despair.
“And if someone loses their passport do you think they have travel insurance or money for a new ticket home? No, we have to take care of everything. So, as you know, it’s important we get things moving here.”
“It’s my understanding that you’re in charge now that the ambassador is dead.”
“I am the chargé d’affaires, yes.”
“How long will it be before a new ambassador is appointed?”
“Not long, I hope. Usually it takes a month or two.”
“They’re not concerned that you’re left shouldering all the responsibility?”
Tonje Wiig gave a wry smile. “That wasn’t what I meant. In fact I worked here as the chargé d’affaires for six months before they sent Molnes. I’m just saying I hope there will be a permanent arrangement as soon as possible.”
“So you’re counting on becoming the new ambassador.”
“Well.” She smiled mirthlessly. “That wouldn’t be unnatural. But you never know with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I’m afraid.”
A shadow stole in and a cup appeared in front of Harry.
“Do you drink chaa ráwn?” Tonje Wiig asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, my apologies,” she laughed. “I forget so quickly that others are new here. Black Thai tea. I have afternoon tea here, you see. Even though, strictly speaking, it should be after two o’clock according to English tradition.”
Harry said yes, and the next time he looked down someone had filled his cup.
“I thought that kind of tradition died with the colonialists.”
“Thailand has never been a colony,” she smiled. “Neither of England nor of France, as its neighbors were. The Thais are very proud of that. A bit too proud, if you ask me. A bit of English influence never hurt anyone.”
Harry picked up a notepad and asked if the ambassador might conceivably have been embroiled in anything dubious.
“Dubious, Hole?”
He explained in concise terms what he meant by “dubious,” that in seventy percent of murders the victim was involved in something illegal.
“Illegal? Molnes?” She shook her head energetically. “He isn’t … wasn’t the type.”
“Do you know if he could have had any enemies?”
“Can’t imagine he would. He was very well liked. Why do you ask? Surely this can’t be an assassination?”
“We know very little at the moment, so we’re keeping all lines of inquiry open.”
Tonje Wiig explained that Molnes had gone straight to a meeting after lunch on the Tuesday he died. He hadn’t said where, but this was not unusual.
“He always had his mobile phone with him, so we could get in touch if something came up.”
Harry asked to see his office. Tonje Wiig had to unlock two further doors, installed “for security reasons.” The room was untouched, as Harry had requested before he left Oslo, and it was a mess of papers, files and souvenirs which hadn’t been put on shelves or hung on walls yet.
The Norwegian royal couple peered down majestically at them over the piles of paper and out of the window overlooking a green space that Wiig told him was Queen Sirikit Park.
Harry found a calendar, but there weren’t many notes on it. He checked the day of the murder. Man U, it said—Manchester United, unless he was much mistaken. Perhaps a football match he wanted to see, Harry thought, dutifully going through some drawers, but he soon realized one man searching the ambassador’s office without knowing what he was looking for was a hopeless task.
“I can’t see his mobile phone,” Harry said.
“As I mentioned—he always carried it with him.”
“We didn’t find a mobile at the crime scene. And I don’t think the murderer was a thief.”
Tonje Wiig shrugged. “Perhaps some of your Thai colleagues ‘confiscated’ it?”
Harry chose not to respond and instead asked if anyone had rung him at the embassy on the day in question. She was doubtful, but promised to look into it. Harry had a last look around the room.
“Who was the last person to see Molnes in the embassy?”
She tried to recall. “It must have been Sanphet, the chauffeur. He and the ambassador were very good friends. He’s taken this badly, so I gave him a few days off.”
“Why wasn’t he driving the ambassador on the day of the murder, if he’s a chauffeur?”
She shrugged again. “I wondered the same. The ambassador didn’t like driving in Bangkok on his own.”
“Mm. What can you tell me about the chauffeur?”
“Sanphet? He’s been here for as long as anyone can remember. He’s never been to Norway, but he can reel off all the towns. And the kings. Yes, and he loves Grieg. I don’t know if he has a record player at home, but I think he has all the records. He’s such a sweet old man.”
She angled her head and revealed her gums.
Harry asked if she knew where he could find Hilde Molnes.
“She’s at home. Dreadfully upset, I’m afraid. I think I would advise you to wait a bit before you talk to her.”
“Thank you for your advice, frøken Wiig, but waiting is a luxury we cannot afford. Would you be so kind as to ring her and tell her I’m on my way?”
“I understand. Sorry.”
“Where are you from, frøken Wiig?”
Tonje Wiig looked at him in surprise. Then she gave a strained chuckle. “Is this supposed to be an interrogation, Hole?”
Harry didn’t answer.
“If you absolutely have to know, I grew up in Fredrikstad.”
“That’s what I thought I could hear,” he said with a wink.
The spry woman in reception was leaning back in her chair and holding a bottle of perfume to her nose. When Harry discreetly cleared his throat she gave a start and laughed in embarrassment with her eyes full of water.
“Sorry, the air in Bangkok is very bad,” she explained.
“I’ve noticed. Could you give me the chauffeur’s telephone number?”
She shook her head and snorted. “He hasn’t got a telephone.”
“OK. Has he got a place to live?”
It was meant as a joke, but he could see from her face that she didn’t appreciate it. She wrote down the address and gave him a tiny parting smile.
9
Saturday, January 11
A servant was standing at the door as Harry walked up the drive to the ambassador’s residence. He led Harry through two large rooms, tastefully furnished in cane and teak, to the terrace door, which opened onto the garden behind the house. The orchids sparkled in yellow and blue, and butterflies fluttered past like colored paper under large willow trees offering shade. They found the ambassador’s wife, Hilde Molnes, by an hourglass-shaped swimming pool. She was sitting in a wicker chair wearing a pink robe, a matching drink on the table in front of her, and sunglasses which covered half her face.
“You must be Detective Hole,” she said in a Sunnmøre accent. “Tonje said you were on your way. A drink, Detective?”
“No, thank you.”
“Oh, you must. It’s important to drink in this heat, you know. Think of your liquid levels even if you aren’t thirsty. Here you can dehydrate before your body tells you.”
She removed her sunglasses, and Harry saw, as he had guessed from her raven-black hair and dark skin, that she had brown eyes. They were lively but red-rimmed. Grief or the preprandial drink, Harry thought. Or both.
He estimated her age at mid-forties, but she was well kept. A middle-aged, slightly faded beauty from the upper-middle classes. He had seen them before.
He sat down in the other wicker chair, which wrapped itself around his body as if it had known he was coming.
“In that case I’ll have a glass of water, fru Molnes.”
She informed the servant and sent him off.
“Have you been told that you can go and see your husband now?”
“Yes. Thank you,” she said. Harry noticed a curt undertone. “Now they let me see him. A man I’ve been married to for twenty years.”
The brown eyes had turned black, and Harry reflected that it was probably true that lots of shipwrecked Portuguese and Spanish sailors had drifted ashore on the Sunnmøre coast.
“I’m obliged to ask you some questions,” he said.
“Then you’d better do it now while the gin’s still working.”
She swung a slim, sun-tanned leg over her knee.
Harry took out a notepad. Not that he needed any notes, but it meant he wouldn’t have to look at her while she answered. As a rule it made talking to next of kin easier.
She told him that her husband had left home in the morning and had not mentioned anything about coming home late, but it was not unusual for something to crop up. When it was ten in the evening and she still hadn’t heard from him she had tried calling, but she didn’t get an answer from either the office or his mobile phone. Nevertheless, she hadn’t been worried. Just after midnight Tonje Wiig had called and said her husband had been found dead in a motel room.
Harry studied Hilde Molnes’s face. She spoke with a firm voice and without any dramatic gestures.
Tonje Wiig had given Hilde Molnes the impression they didn’t know what the cause of death was yet. The next day the embassy had informed her that he had been murdered, but as regards the cause of death instructions from Oslo imposed absolute silence on all of them. That included Hilde Molnes, even though she was not employed by the embassy, because all Norwegian citizens can be forced to maintain silence if state security considerations demand it. She said the latter with deep sarcasm and raised her glass to a skål.
Harry just nodded and took notes. He asked if she was sure he hadn’t left his mobile phone at home, to which she answered she was. On an impulse he asked what kind of mobile phone he had and she replied that she wasn’t sure, but thought it was Finnish.