Cockroaches

by Jo Nesbo

  He looked at the floor.

  The blood formed a coagulated black halo where his head had been. That was all. He had shot himself through the mouth. Harry saw that the crime scene people had chalked the spot where the bullet had entered the double bamboo wall. He imagined how Klipra would have lain down, twisted his head and looked at her, perhaps wondering where she was before pulling the trigger.

  He went outside and found where the bullet exited. He peered through the aperture and looked straight at the painting on the opposite wall. Still life. Strange, he had thought he would be looking down at the silhouette of Klipra. He continued toward the place where they had been lying in the grass the day before, stamping hard so as not to bump into reptiles, and stopped by the house of spirits. A small, smiling Buddha figure with a globular stomach took up most of the space, along with some withered flowers in a vase, four filter cigarettes and a couple of used candles. A little white cavity at the back of the ceramic figure showed where the bullet had struck. Harry took out his Swiss army knife and prized out a deformed lump of lead. He looked back at the house. The bullet had traveled in a straight horizontal line. Klipra had of course been standing when he shot himself. Why had he thought he had been lying down?

  He walked back to the house. Something wasn’t right. Everything seemed so nice and tidy. He opened the fridge. Empty, nothing to keep two people alive. A vacuum cleaner fell out and hit his big toe when he opened the kitchen cupboard. He swore and heaved it back in, but it rolled out again before he could close the door. Looking closer, he saw a hook for storing the vacuum.

  A system, he thought. There is a system here. But someone has been meddling with it.

  He removed the beer bottles from the top of the freezer and opened it. Pale, red meat shone up toward him. It wasn’t wrapped, just stowed in large pieces, and in some places the blood had frozen into a black membrane. He lifted a piece out, examined it before cursing his own morbid imagination and putting it back. It looked like standard, straightforward pork.

  Harry heard a sound and whirled around. A figure froze in the doorway. It was Løken.

  “Jesus, you startled me, Harry. I was sure the place was empty. What are you doing here?”

  “Nothing. Sniffing around. And you?”

  “Just wanted to see if there were any papers we could use on the pedophile case here.”

  “Why’s that? That case must be done and dusted now he’s dead, isn’t it?”

  Løken shrugged. “We need solid evidence that we did the right thing as there’s no doubt our surveillance will come under the spotlight now.”

  Harry looked at Løken. Did he seem a touch tense?

  “For Christ’s sake, you’ve got the photos. What better evidence could you find?”

  Løken smiled, but not enough for Harry to see his gold tooth. “You may be right, Harry. I’m probably just a nervous old man who wants to be absolutely sure. Have you found anything?”

  “This,” Harry said, holding up the lead bullet.

  “Hm.” Løken, inspected it. “Where did you find it?”

  “In the spirit house over there. And I can’t work out why.”

  “Why not?”

  “It means Klipra must have been standing when he shot himself.”

  “So?”

  “Then blood would have been spurting all over the kitchen floor. But there’s no blood coming from him except for where he was lying. And even there there’s not a lot.”

  Løken held the bullet between his fingertips. “Haven’t you heard of the vacuum effect in suicide cases?”

  “Explain.”

  “When a victim lets the air out of his lungs and closes his mouth around a gun barrel there will be a vacuum, which means the blood will run into the mouth instead of out of the exit wound. From there it runs into the stomach and leaves behind these small mysteries.”

  Harry looked at Løken. “That’s news to me.”

  “It would be boring if you knew everything at the age of thirty-something,” Løken said.

  Tonje Wiig had rung to say that all the big Norwegian newspapers had phoned and the more bloodthirsty of them had announced their imminent arrival in Bangkok. In Norway, the headlines were focusing for the moment on the daughter of the recently deceased ambassador. Ove Klipra was, despite his status in Bangkok, an unknown name at home. It was true that Kapital had interviewed him a couple of years ago, but as neither Per Ståle Lønning nor Anne Grosvold had had him as a guest on their shows, he had escaped public attention.

  “The Ambassador’s Daughter” and the “Unknown Norwegian Magnate” had both been reported shot dead, most probably by intruders or prowlers.

  In Thailand, however, photos of Klipra were plastered across the newspapers. The Bangkok Post journalist questioned the police’s theory about a prowler. He wrote that you couldn’t rule out the possibility that Klipra had murdered Runa Molnes and afterward committed suicide. The newspaper also speculated freely on what consequences this might have for the BERTS transport project. Harry was impressed.

  However, both countries emphasized that information released by the Thai police had been very sparing.

  Harry drove up to the gate of Klipra’s residence and sounded his horn. He had to admit that he had begun to like the big Toyota Jeep. The guard came out and Harry rolled down the window.

  “Police. I rang you,” he said.

  The guard gave him the obligatory guard’s look before opening the gate.

  “Could you unlock the front door for me?” Harry asked.

  The guard jumped onto the running board and Harry felt his eyes examining him. Harry parked in the garage. The guard rattled his bunch of keys.

  “The main door’s on the other side,” he said, and Harry almost let slip that he already knew. As the guard inserted the key into the lock and was about to twist it, he turned to Harry. “Haven’t I seen you before, sir?”

  Harry smiled. What could it have been? The aftershave? The soap he used? Smell is said to be the sense the brain remembers best.

  “Very unlikely.”

  The guard returned the smile. “Sorry, sir. Must have been someone else. I can’t tell the difference between farangs.”

  Harry rolled his eyes, but then he stopped in mid-roll. “Tell me, do you remember a blue embassy car coming here just before Klipra left?”

  The guard nodded. “No problem remembering cars. That was a farang as well.”

  “What did he look like?”

  The guard laughed. “As I said …”

  “What was he wearing?”

  He shook his head.

  “A suit?”

  “I think so.”

  “A yellow suit. Yellow, like a chicken?”

  The guard frowned and fixed him with a stare. “Chicken? No one has a suit like a chicken.”

  Harry shrugged. “Well, some people do.”

  He stood in the hall where Løken and he had entered and studied a small, round circle in the wall. It looked as if someone had been trying to hang a picture but had given up trying to put in a screw.

  He went up to the office, leafed through the documents, mostly at random, switched on the computer, and was asked for a password. He tried “MAN U.” Incorrect.

  Polite language, English.

  “OLD TRAFFORD.” Incorrect again.

  One final attempt before being automatically locked out. He glanced around as if to find a clue in the room. What was his? He chuckled. Of course. The most common password in Norway. He carefully typed in the letters P-A-S-S-W-O-R-D, then pressed enter.

  The machine seemed to hesitate for a second. Then it switched itself off and he received a not quite so polite message, black on white, that he had been refused access.

  “Shit.”

  He tried switching the machine off and on, but there was only a white screen.

  He flicked through more papers, found a recent shareholders’ list for Phuridell. A new shareholder, Ellem Ltd, was listed with three percent of the sh
ares. Ellem. A crazy idea struck Harry, but he rejected it.

  At the bottom of a drawer he found the manual for the recording device. He looked at his watch and sighed. He would have to start reading. After half an hour, he was playing the tape. Klipra’s voice babbling in Thai for the most part, but he heard Phuridell mentioned a couple of times. After three hours he gave up. The conversation with the ambassador on the day of the murder simply wasn’t on any of the tapes. For that matter, there were no others from that day, either. He stuffed one of the tapes in his pocket, switched off the machine and made sure to give the computer a kick on the way out.

  45

  Friday, January 24

  He didn’t feel much. Attending the funeral was like watching a TV repeat. Same place, same priest, same urn, same shock to your eyes when you emerge in the sun afterward, and the same people standing at the top of the stairs and looking at one another in doubt. Almost the same people. Harry said hello to Roald Bork.

  “You found them, yes?” was all he said. There was a gray veil over his alert eyes; he seemed changed, as though what had happened had added years to his age.

  “We found them.”

  “She was so young.” It sounded like a question. As though he wanted someone to explain to him how this kind of thing could happen.

  “Hot,” Harry said, to change the subject.

  “It’s hotter where Ove is.” He said it casually, but his voice had a hard, bitter tone. He wiped his brow with a handkerchief. “By the way, I’ve realized I need a break from this heat. I’ve booked a flight home.”

  “Home?”

  “Yes, to Norway. ASAP. I rang my lad and said I wanted to meet him. Quite a while passed before I clicked that it wasn’t him on the phone but his son. Heh-heh. I’m getting senile. A senile grandfather, that’ll be something.”

  In the shade of the church, Sanphet and Miss Ao stood together, away from the others. Harry went over to them and reciprocated their wai.

  “Could I ask you a quick question, Miss Ao?”

  Her gaze flitted to Sanphet before nodding.

  “You sort the post at the embassy. Can you remember if you’ve received anything from a company called Phuridell?”

  She considered the question before responding with an apologetic smile. “I don’t remember. There are so many letters. I can look through the ambassador’s office tomorrow if you’d like. It might take a bit of time. He wasn’t exactly tidy.”

  “It’s not the ambassador I’m thinking about.”

  She gave him an uncomprehending look.

  Harry sighed. “I don’t even know if this is important, but would you contact me if you find anything?” he asked.

  She locked eyes with Sanphet.

  “She will, Officer,” Sanphet said.

  Harry was sitting in her office waiting when Liz rushed in completely out of breath. There were beads of sweat on her forehead.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “You can feel the tarmac through your shoes out there.”

  “How did the briefing go?”

  “Fine, I guess. The bosses congratulated us on solving the case and didn’t ask any detailed questions about the report. They even bought our story about anonymous tip-offs leading us to Klipra. If the Chief thought something was fishy he decided not to kick up a fuss.”

  “I didn’t think he would. After all, he has nothing to gain.”

  “Is that cynicism, Mr. Hole?”

  “Not at all, Miss Crumley. Just a naive, young officer beginning to understand the rules of the game.”

  “Maybe. But in their heart of hearts everyone’s probably glad Klipra’s dead. There would have been some very unpleasant revelations if the case had gone to court, not just for a couple of Police Chiefs but for the authorities in our two countries as well.”

  Liz kicked off her shoes and leaned back contentedly. The springs in the chair creaked while the unmistakable aroma of sweaty feet spread through the room.

  “Yes, it’s conspicuously handy for a number of people, don’t you think?” Harry said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. I think it stinks.”

  Liz glanced at her toes and then looked at Harry.

  “Has anyone ever told you you’re paranoid, Harry?”

  “Yeah, of course. But that doesn’t mean the little green men aren’t after you, does it.”

  She seemed nonplussed. “Relax, Harry.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “So when are you going?”

  “As soon as I’ve spoken to the pathologist and Forensics.”

  “Why do you need to talk to them?”

  “Just to rid myself of the paranoia. You know … a few mad ideas I’ve had.”

  “All right,” Liz said. “Have you eaten?”

  “Yes,” Harry lied.

  “Oh, I hate eating on my own. Can’t you just keep me company?”

  “Another time?”

  Harry got to his feet and left the office.

  The young pathologist cleaned his glasses as he spoke. The pauses were sometimes so long that Harry wondered if the slow-moving flow of words had come to a complete halt. But then another word came, then another, the cork freed itself and he continued. It sounded as though he was afraid Harry would criticize his English.

  “The man had been lying there for a maximum of two days,” the doctor said. “Any longer in this heat and his body …” He puffed out his cheeks and demonstrated with his arms. “… would have been like a huge gas balloon. And you would have noticed the smell. As far as the girl is concerned …” He looked at Harry and puffed out his cheeks again. “Ditto.”

  “How quickly did Klipra die from the shot?”

  The doctor moistened his lips and Harry had the sense he could actually feel time passing.

  “Quickly.”

  “And her?”

  The police doctor stuffed his handkerchief into his pocket.

  “Instantly.”

  “I mean, could either of them have moved after the shot, had convulsions or something like that?”

  The doctor put on his glasses, ensured they were straight and removed them again.

  “No.”

  “I’ve read that during the French Revolution, before the guillotine, when executions were still performed by hand, the condemned were told that sometimes the executioner missed and that if they could stand up and leave the scaffold afterward they could go free. Apparently some tried to stand up without a head and walk several steps, but then they fell, to tremendous cheers from the crowd, of course. If I remember correctly, a scientist explained that the brain may be to a certain degree preprogrammed and muscles may work overtime as great amounts of adrenalin are pumped into the heart before the head is cut off. That’s what happens when chickens are decapitated.”

  The doctor smirked. “Very amusing, Officer. But I’m afraid they’re cock-and-bull stories.”

  “So how do you explain this?”

  He passed the doctor a photo showing Klipra and Runa lying on the floor. The doctor looked at the photo, then put on his glasses and examined it in detail.

  “Explain what?”

  Harry pointed to the picture. “See there. His hand is covered by her hair.”

  The doctor blinked, as if a speck of dust in his eye was preventing him from seeing what Harry meant.

  Harry waved away a fly. “Listen, you know how your subconscious can instinctively draw conclusions, don’t you?”

  The doctor shrugged.

  “Well, without being aware of it, mine concluded that Klipra must have been lying there when he shot himself, because that’s the only way he could already have had his hand under her hair. But the angle of the shot shows that he was standing. How could he have shot her and then himself and yet have her hair on top of and not under his hand?”

  The doctor took off his glasses and resumed his cleaning.

  “Perhaps she shot them both,” he said, but by then Harry had gone.

  Harr
y took off his sunglasses and squinted with smarting eyes into the shadowy restaurant. A hand waved in the air and he headed for a table under a palm tree. A stripe of sun caused the steel frames of his glasses to flash as the man stood up.

  “You got the message, I can see,” Dagfinn Torhus said. His shirt had large, dark rings under the armpits and a jacket hung over the back of his chair.

  “Inspector Crumley said you’d rung. What brings you here?” Harry asked, holding out a hand.

  “Administrative duties at the embassy. I arrived this morning to clear up some paperwork. And we have to appoint a new ambassador.”

  “Tonje Wiig?”

  Torhus smiled weakly. “We’ll have to see. There are lots of things to take into consideration. What can you eat here?”

  A waiter was already at their table, and Harry looked up inquiringly.

  “Eel,” the waiter said. “Vietnamese speciality. With Vietnamese rosé wine and—”

  “No, thank you,” Harry said, peering at the menu and pointing to the coconut-milk soup. “With mineral water please.”

  Torhus shrugged and nodded the same.

  “Congratulations.” Torhus poked a toothpick between his teeth. “When are you off?”

  “Thank you, but I’m afraid the congratulations are a little premature, Torhus. There are still a couple of loose threads to tidy up.”

  The toothpick stopped. “Loose threads? It’s not your job to deal with those. You pack your things and get on home.”

  “That’s not so easy.”

  The hard, blue bureaucrat eyes glinted. “It’s over, do you understand? The case has been cracked. It was all over the front pages in Oslo yesterday that Klipra killed the ambassador and his daughter. But we’ll survive, Hole. I suppose you’re referring to the Police Chief in Bangkok, who says that they can’t see any motive for it and that Klipra may have been insane. So simple and so totally incomprehensible. But the important thing is that people buy it. And they are buying it.”