by Jo Nesbo
Harry nodded.
“Well, Norway is negotiating with the Thai authorities, and in the meantime, I’m conducting a highly unofficial investigation. We have enough to arrest him, but we have to wait. If we arrest him now we would reveal that we’ve been looking into the case illegally on Thai territory, and that is politically unacceptable.”
“So who are you working for?”
Løken splayed his palms. “The embassy.”
“I know that but who do you take orders from? Who’s behind all this? What about parliament? Do they know?”
“Are you sure you want to know so much, Hole?”
The intense eyes met Harry’s. He was about to say something, but held back and shook his head.
“Tell me who the man in the photo is then.”
“I can’t. Sorry, Hole.”
“Is it Atle Molnes?”
Løken stared at the table and smiled. “No, it isn’t the ambassador. He was the prime mover in this case.”
“Is it—?”
“As I said, I don’t have any reason to tell you now. If our cases turn out to be connected it may be a matter for discussion, but that’s up to our superiors to decide.” He got up. “I’m tired.”
“How did it go?” Sunthorn asked when Harry was back in the car.
Harry asked him if he could bum a cigarette and hungrily inhaled the smoke into his lungs.
“Didn’t find anything. Waste of a trip. My guess is the guy’s clean.”
Harry sat in his flat.
Once he’d got back from Løken’s apartment, he had spoken to his sister on the phone for almost half an hour. That is, she did most of the talking. It is unbelievable how much can happen in a life in little more than a week. She said she had called their father and that she was going over for dinner. Meatballs. Sis was going to cook, and she hoped her father would open up a bit. Harry hoped so too.
Afterward he flipped through his notebook and rang another number.
“Hello?” a voice said at the other end.
Harry held his breath.
“Hello?” the voice repeated.
Harry rang off. There had been something verging on pleading in Runa’s voice. He really didn’t have a clue why he had called her. A few seconds later the telephone peeped. He lifted the receiver and waited to hear her voice. It was Jens Brekke.
“I’ve got it,” he said. The voice was excited. “When I took the lift from the car park to the office I bumped into a woman on the ground floor. She got out on the fourth. And I think she’ll remember me.”
“Why’s that?”
There was a slightly nervous chuckle. “Because I asked her out.”
“You asked her out?”
“Yes, she’s one of the girls who work for McEllis. I’ve seen her a couple of times before. We were the only two in the lift and her smile was so sweet I couldn’t restrain myself.”
There was a pause.
“You remembered that now?”
“No, now I remembered when it happened, after I’d accompanied the ambassador to his car. For some reason I imagined it had happened the day before. But then it struck me she had got into the lift on the ground floor and that must mean I was coming from lower down. And I don’t usually go to the underground car park.”
“So what did she say?”
“She accepted, and I regretted it at once. It was just a flirtation, so I asked for her card and said I’d ring one day so that we could agree on a date. That hasn’t materialized of course, but I’m pretty sure she won’t have forgotten me.”
“Have you still got her card?”
“Yes, isn’t that great?”
Harry deliberated. “Listen, Jens, that’s all well and good, but it isn’t that easy. You still don’t have an alibi. Theoretically, you could have taken the lift back down. You might have just picked up something you left in your office, right?”
“Oh.” He sounded puzzled. “But …”
Jens stopped and Harry heard a sigh.
“Hell, you’re right, Harry.”
Harry hung up.
34
Sunday, January 19
Harry woke with a start. Above the monotonous hum coming from Taksin Bridge he heard the roar of a riverboat starting up on Chao Phraya. A whistle sounded and the light made his eyes smart. He sat up in bed, buried his face in his hands and waited for the whistle to stop until he realized it was the telephone. Reluctantly he lifted the receiver.
“Did I wake you?” It was Jens again.
“Never mind,” Harry said.
“I’m an idiot. I’m so stupid I don’t know if I dare tell you this.”
“Then don’t.”
Silence except for the click of a coin being pressed into a machine.
“I’m joking. Come on.”
“OK, Harry. I’ve been lying awake all night and thinking, trying to remember what I was doing while I was in the office that night. You know, I can remember to the decimal currency transactions I made several months ago, but I’m not capable of remembering simple, factual things while I’m in prison with a murder sentence hanging over me. Can you understand that?”
“That might be the reason why. Haven’t we been through this before?”
“OK, well, this is what happened. You remember I said I’d blocked my calls when I was in the office that night? I was lying there thinking that was Sod’s Law. If it had been connected and someone had called I would have had it on the recorder and could have proved where I was. And with this one you can’t mess around with the time either, as the park attendant did with the video.”
“What’s your point?”
“I remembered, thank God, that I could ring out even if I’d blocked incoming calls. I rang our receptionist and got her to go up and check the recorder. And, you know, she found a call I’d made, and then I remembered the whole thing. At eight I phoned my sister in Oslo. Beat that!”
Harry had no intention of trying.
“Your sister can give you an alibi and you really didn’t remember?”
“No. And do you know why? Because she wasn’t at home. I just left a message on her answerphone to say that I’d rung.”
“And you didn’t remember?” Harry repeated.
“Christ, Harry, you forget that kind of call before you’ve even put the phone down, don’t you. Do you remember all the calls you’ve made when there was no answer?”
Harry had to concede he was right.
“Have you spoken to your lawyer?”
“Not today. I wanted to tell you first.”
“OK, Jens. Call your lawyer now and I’ll send someone up to your office to verify what you’ve said.”
“This kind of recorder is valid in law, you know.” There was a strained tone to his voice.
“Relax, Jens. Not much longer. They’ll have to let you go now.”
The receiver crackled as Brekke breathed out. “Please say that again, Harry.”
“They’ll have to let you go.”
Jens laughed a strangely dry laugh. “In which case, I’ll treat you to a meal, Harry.”
“You’d better not.”
“Why’s that?”
“I’m a policeman.”
“Call it an interview.”
“I don’t think so, Jens.”
“As you wish.”
A bang came from the street below, perhaps a firework or a puncture.
“I’ll think about it.”
Harry cradled the receiver, went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. He asked himself how it was possible to spend so long in tropical climes and still be so pale. He had never liked the sun particularly, but it hadn’t taken this long to tan before. Perhaps his lifestyle over the last year had put paid to his pigment production? He threw cold water in his face, thought of the swarthy drinkers at Schrøder’s and looked in the mirror again. Well, at any rate the sun had given him a port wine nose.
35
Sunday, January 19
“We’re
back to square one,” Liz said. “Brekke’s got an alibi and we have to forget Løken for the moment. Oh, and a giant psychopath who tried to kill a visiting officer is on the loose.” She tipped her chair back and studied the ceiling. “Any suggestions, folks? If not, this meeting is over, you can do what the hell you like, but I’m still short a few reports and I’m counting on seeing them by early tomorrow at the latest.”
The officers shuffled out of the door. Harry stayed put.
“Well?”
“Nothing,” he said with an unlit cigarette bobbing up and down in his mouth. The inspector had imposed a smoking ban in her office.
“I can see there’s something.”
A faint smile curled the corners of Harry’s mouth. “That was what I wanted to know, Inspector. That you can see there is something.”
She had a serious wrinkle between her eyebrows. “Let me know when you have something to tell me.”
Harry took out his cigarette and put it back in the packet. “Yes,” he said, getting up. “I’ll do that.”
* * *
Jens leaned back in his chair and smiled, his cheeks flushed, his bow tie glittering. He reminded Harry of a birthday boy.
“I’m almost glad I was locked up for a while. It makes you appreciate the simple things so much more. Like a bottle of Dom Perignon 1985, for example.”
He snapped his fingers at the waiter, who hurried over to the table, lifted the dripping champagne bottle out of the cooler and filled his glass.
“I love it when they do that. Makes you feel like Superman. What do you say, Harry?”
Harry fingered the glass. “Fair enough. Not my thing actually.”
“We’re different, Harry.”
Jens made this declaration with a smile. He seemed to have filled out his suit again. Or else he had just changed into an almost identical one. Harry wasn’t sure.
“Some people need luxury like others need air,” Jens said. “An expensive car, nice clothes and a bit of good service are simply a must for me to feel, well, for me to feel that I exist. Can you understand that?”
Harry shook his head.
“Mmm.” Jens held the champagne glass by the stem. “I’m the decadent one of the two of us. You should trust your first impressions. I am a sack of shit. And for as long as there is room for us sacks of shit in this world I intend to continue being one. Skål.”
He savored the champagne in his mouth before swallowing. Then he grinned and groaned with delight. Harry had to smile and raised his own glass, but Jens gave him a look of disapproval.
“Water? Isn’t it time you began to enjoy life, Harry? You really don’t have to be so strict with yourself.”
“Sometimes you do.”
“Rubbish. All humans are basically hedonists, some just take longer to realize it. Have you got a woman?”
“No.”
“Isn’t it about time?”
“Certainly is. But I can’t see what that has to do with enjoying life.”
“True enough.” Jens peered into his glass. “Have I told you about my sister?”
“The one you rang?”
“Yes. She’s single, you know.”
Harry laughed. “Don’t imagine you owe me a debt of gratitude, Jens. I didn’t do much, apart from getting you arrested.”
“I’m not joking. Wonderful girl. She’s an editor, but I think she works too hard to have time to find herself a man. She also frightens them away. She’s like you, strict, a mind of her own. By the way, have you noticed that that’s what all Norwegian girls say after they’ve won some Miss Something-Or-Other award when they have to describe themselves to journalists: that they’ve got a mind of their own? Minds of their own seem to be two a krone.”
Jens looked pensive.
“My sister took my mother’s name when she came of age. And when she came of age, she did it with a vengeance.”
“I’m not so sure your sister and I would be a great match.”
“Why not?”
“Well, I’m a coward. What I’m looking for is a self-effacing woman in a social profession who is so beautiful no one has dared tell her.”
Jens laughed. “You can marry my sister with a clear conscience. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like her; she works so hard you won’t see much of her anyway.”
“So why did you ring her at home and not at work? It was two in the afternoon when you called.”
Jens shook his head. “Don’t tell anyone, but I can never keep track of the time differences. Whether I have to add or subtract hours, I mean. It’s very embarrassing. My father says I’m pre-senile. Says it comes from my mother’s side.”
He hastened to add, with an assurance to Harry, that his sister didn’t show any signs of the same, more the opposite.
“That’s enough, Jens. Tell me more about yourself. Have you begun to think about marriage?”
“Shh, don’t say things like that. The word alone gives me palpitations. Marriage …” Jens shuddered. “The problem is that, on the one hand, I’m not cut out for monogamy, but on the other I am a romantic. Once I’m married I can’t mess around with other women. Do you know what I mean? And the thought of never having sex with any other women is quite overwhelming, don’t you think?”
Harry tried to be empathetic.
“Suppose I do actually go out with the girl from the lift, what do you think would come of it? Utter panic, right? All that just to prove to myself that I’m still capable of taking an interest in another woman. Bit of a failure really. Hilde is …” Jens searched for the words. “She has something I haven’t found with anyone else. And believe me, I have looked. I’m not sure I can quite explain what it is, but I don’t want to lose it because I know it could be difficult to find again.”
Harry thought that was just as good a reason as any he had heard. Jens rolled the glass between his fingers and gave a lopsided smile.
“Being held on remand must have really got to me because I don’t normally talk about these things. Promise you won’t tell any of my friends.”
The waiter came over to the table and beckoned to them.
“Come on. It’s already started,” Jens said.
“What’s already started?”
The waiter led them to the back of the restaurant, through the kitchen and up a narrow staircase. Washtubs stood stacked up on top of one another in the corridor and an old woman in a chair grinned at them with black teeth.
“Betel nuts,” Jens said. “Dreadful habit. They chew them until the brain rots and their teeth fall out.”
Behind a door Harry heard voices yelling. The waiter opened it, and then they were in a large windowless loft. Twenty to thirty men stood in a cramped circle. Hands were gesticulating and pointing while dog-eared banknotes were counted and passed between them at dizzying speeds. Most of the men were white, some of them in light-colored linen suits.
“Cockfighting,” Jens explained. “Private arrangement.”
“Why’s that?” Harry had to shout to be heard. “I mean, I’ve read that cockfighting is still legal in Thailand.”
“To a certain extent. The authorities have allowed a modified form of cockfighting in which the claw is tied to the back of the foot so that they can’t kill each other. And the time is restricted. It’s not a fight to the death. This one is run on old rules, so there’s no limit to the stakes. Shall we go closer?”
Harry towered over the men in front of them and could easily see into the ring. Two cocks, both brownish-red and orange, strutted around with their heads wagging, apparently uninterested in each other.
“How are they going to make them fight?” Harry asked.
“Don’t worry. Those two cocks hate each other more than you and I ever could.”
“Why?”
Jens looked at him. “They’re in the same ring. They’re cocks.”
Then, as if at a signal, they went for each other. All Harry could see was fluttering wings and flying straw. Men were screaming in a frenzy, and some
of them were jumping up and down. A strange bittersweet smell of adrenalin and sweat spread through the room.
“Can you see the one with the comb cut in the middle?” Jens said.
Harry couldn’t.
“It’s the winner.”
“How can you see that?”
“I can’t. I know. I knew before the fight.”
“How …?”
“Don’t ask.” Jens grinned.
The screams died. One cock was left in the ring. Some men groaned, one man in a gray linen suit had thrown his hat to the ground in frustration. Harry watched the cock dying. A muscle twitched beneath the feathers; then it was motionless. It was absurd; it had looked like a sort of romp, a mass of wings, legs and screaming.
A bloodstained feather sailed past his face. The cock was lifted out of the ring by a man in baggy trousers. He looked as if he was going to burst into tears. The other cock had resumed its strutting. Harry could see the split comb now.
The waiter came over to Jens with a wad of banknotes. Some of the men glanced toward him, some nodded, but no one said anything.
“Don’t you ever lose?” Harry asked when they were back in the restaurant again. Jens had lit up a cigar and ordered a cognac, an aged Richard Hennessy 40%. The waiter had to ask for the name twice. It was hard to grasp that this Jens was the same man Harry had comforted on the phone the night before.
“Do you know why gambling is an illness and not a profession, Harry? It’s because the gambler loves risk. He lives and breathes for that quivering uncertainty.”
He puffed out the smoke in broad rings.
“With me it’s the other way around. I can go to extremes to eliminate risk. What you saw me win today covers my costs and all my effort, and that’s no small amount, believe you me.”
“But you never lose?”
“It gives a reasonable return.”
“A reasonable return? You mean enough for gamblers sooner or later to be forced to hock everything they have.”
“Something like that.”
“But isn’t some of the charm of gambling lost if you know the result?”
“Charm?” Jens held up the wad of money. “I think this has enough charm. It can provide me with this.” He spread an open palm around him.