by Jo Nesbo
He went into the kitchen, drank a glass of water to relieve his headache and peered through the window in surprise. The roof of the block on the other side of Sofies gate was white and the bright reflected light made his eyes smart. The first snow had come in the night. He thought of the letter. He did occasionally get such letters, but this one had been special. It had mentioned Toowoomba.
On the radio a nature programme had started and an enthusiastic voice was waxing lyrical about seals. ‘Every summer Berhaus seals collect in the Bering Straits to mate. Since the males are in the majority, the competition for females is so fierce that those males which have managed to procure themselves a female will stick with her during the whole of the breeding period. The male will take care of his partner until the young have been born and can cope by themselves. Not out of love for the female, but out of love for his own genes and hereditary material. Darwinist theory would say that it is natural selection that makes the Berhaus seal monogamous, not morality.’
I wonder, thought Harry.
The voice on the radio was almost hitting falsetto with excitement.
‘But before the seals leave the Bering Straits to search for food in the open sea, the male will try to kill the female. Why? Because a female Berhaus seal will never mate twice with the same male! For her this is about spreading the biological risk of hereditary material, just like on the stock market. For her it makes biological sense to be promiscuous, and the male knows this. By taking her life he wants to stop the young of other seals competing with his own progeny for the same food.’
‘We’re entering Darwinian waters here, so why don’t humans think like the seal?’ another voice said.
‘But we do, don’t we! Our society is not as monogamous as it appears, and never has been. A Swedish study showed recently that between fifteen and twenty per cent of all children born have a different father from the one they – and for that matter the postulated fathers – think. Twenty per cent! That’s every fifth child! Living a lie. And ensuring biological diversity.’
Harry fiddled with the frequency dial to find some tolerable music. He stopped at an ageing Johnny Cash’s version of ‘Desperado’.
There was a firm knock on the door.
Harry went into the bedroom, put on his jeans, returned to the hall and opened up.
‘Harry Hole?’ The man outside was wearing a blue boiler suit and looking at Harry through thick lenses. His eyes were as clear as a child’s.
Harry nodded.
‘Have you got fungus?’ The man asked the question with a straight face. A long wisp of hair traversed his forehead and was stuck there. Under his arm he was holding a plastic clipboard with a densely printed sheet.
Harry waited for him to explain further, but nothing was forthcoming. Just this clear, open expression.
‘That,’ Harry said, ‘strictly speaking, is a private matter.’
The man gave the suggestion of a smile in response to a joke he was heartily sick of hearing. ‘Fungus in your flat. Mould.’
‘I have no reason to believe that I have,’ said Harry.
‘That’s the thing about mould. It seldom gives anyone any reason to believe that it’s there.’ The man sucked at his teeth and rocked on his heels.
‘But?’ Harry said at length.
‘But it is.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Your neighbour’s got it.’
‘Uh-huh? And you think it may have spread?’
‘Mould doesn’t spread. Dry rot does.’
‘So then …?’
‘There’s a construction fault with the ventilation along the walls in this block. It allows dry rot to flourish. May I take a peep at your kitchen?’
Harry stepped to the side. The man powered into the kitchen where at once he pressed an orange hairdryer-like apparatus against the wall. It squeaked twice.
‘Damp detector,’ the man said, studying something that was obviously an indicator. ‘Just as I thought. Sure you haven’t seen or smelt anything suspicious?’
Harry didn’t have a clear perception of what that might be.
‘A coating like on stale bread,’ the man said. ‘Mouldy smell.’
Harry shook his head.
‘Have you had sore eyes?’ the man asked. ‘Felt tired? Had headaches?’
Harry shrugged. ‘Of course. For as long as I can remember.’
‘Do you mean for as long as you’ve lived here?’
‘Maybe. Listen …’
But the man wasn’t listening; he’d taken a knife from his belt. Harry stood back and watched the hand holding the knife being raised and thrust with great force. There was a sound like a groan as the knife went through the plasterboard behind the wallpaper. The man pulled out the knife, thrust it in again and bent back a powdery piece of plaster, leaving a large gap in the wall. Then he whipped out a small penlight and shone it into the cavity. A deep frown developed behind his oversized glasses. Then he stuck his nose deep into the cavity and sniffed.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Hello there, boys.’
‘Hello there who?’ Harry asked, edging closer.
‘Aspergillus,’ said the man. ‘A genus of mould. We have three or four hundred types to choose between and it’s difficult to say which one this is because the growth on these hard surfaces is so thin it’s invisible. But there’s no mistaking the smell.’
‘That means trouble, right?’ Harry asked, trying to remember how much he had left in his bank account after he and his father had sponsored a trip to Spain for Sis, his little sister who had what she referred to as ‘a touch of Down’s syndrome’.
‘It’s not like real dry rot. The block won’t collapse,’ the man said. ‘But you might.’
‘Me?’
‘If you’re prone to it. Some people get ill from breathing the same air as the mould. They’re ailing for years, and of course they get accused of being hypochondriacs since no one can find anything and the other residents are fine. And then the pest eats up the wallpaper and the plasterboard.’
‘Mm. What do you suggest?’
‘That I eradicate the infection, of course.’
‘And my personal finances while you’re at it?’
‘Covered by the building’s insurance, so it won’t cost you a krone. All I need is access to the flat for the next few days.’
Harry found the spare set of keys in the kitchen drawer and passed them to him.
‘It’ll just be me,’ the man said. ‘I should mention that in passing. Lots of strange things going on out there.’
‘Are there?’ Harry smiled sadly, staring out of the window.
‘Eh?’
‘Nothing,’ Harry said. ‘There’s nothing to steal here anyway. I’ll be off now.’
* * *
The low morning sun sparkled off all the glass on Oslo Police HQ, standing there as it had for the last thirty years, on the summit of the ridge by the main street, Grønlandsleiret. From there the police were – although this had not been exactly intentional – near to the high crime areas in east Oslo, and the prison, located on the site of the old brewery, was its closest neighbour. The police station was surrounded by a brown, withering lawn and maple and linden trees which had been covered with a thin layer of grey-white snow during the night, making the park look like a deceased’s shrouded chattels.
Harry walked up the black strip of tarmac to the main entrance and entered the central hall where Kari Christensen’s porcelain wall decoration with running water whispered its eternal secrets. He nodded to the security guard in reception and went up to Crime Squad on the sixth floor. Although it was almost six months since he had been given his new office in the red zone, he often went to the cramped, windowless one he had shared with Police Officer Jack Halvorsen. Now Magnus Skarre was in there. And Jack Halvorsen had been interred in the ground of Vestre Aker Cemetery. At first the parents had wanted their son to be buried in their home town, Steinkjer, as Jack and Beate Lønn, the head of Krimtekni
sk, the Forensics Unit, had not been married; they hadn’t even been living together. But when they found out that Beate was pregnant and Jack’s baby would be born in the summer, they agreed that Jack’s grave should be in Oslo.
Harry entered his new office. Which he knew would be known as that for ever, the way the fifty-year-old home ground of Barcelona football club was still called Camp Nou, Catalan for new stadium. He dropped onto his chair, switched on the radio, and nodded good morning to the photos perched on the bookcase and propped against the wall. One day in an uncertain future, if he remembered to buy picture pins, they would hang on the wall. Ellen Gjelten and Jack Halvorsen and Bjarne Møller. There they stood in chronological order. The Dead Policemen’s Society.
On the radio Norwegian politicians and social scientists were giving their views on the American presidential election. Harry recognised the voice of Arve Støp, the owner of the successful magazine Liberal and famous for being one of the most knowledgeable, arrogant and entertaining opinion-formers in the country. Harry turned up the volume until the voices bounced off the brick walls, and grabbed his Peerless handcuffs lying on the new desk. He practised speed-cuffing on the table leg, which was already splintered as a result of this bad habit he had picked up on the FBI course in Chicago and perfected during lonely evenings in a lousy bedsit in Cabrini Green, to the screams of rowing neighbours and in the company of Jim Beam. The aim was to bang the cuffs against the arrestee’s wrist in such a way that the spring-loaded arm closed around the wrist and the lock clicked on the other side. With the right amount of force and accuracy you could cuff yourself to an arrestee in one simple movement before he had a chance to react. Harry had never had any use for this on the job and only once for the other thing he had learned over there: how to catch a serial killer. The cuffs clicked around the table leg and the radio voices droned on.
‘Why do you think Norwegians are so sceptical about George Bush, Arve Støp?’
‘Because we’re an overprotected nation which has never fought in any wars. We’ve been happy to let others do it for us: England, the Soviet Union and America. Yes, ever since the Napoleonic Wars we’ve hidden behind the backs of our elder brothers. Norway has based its security on others taking the responsibility when things get tough. That’s been going on for so long that we’ve lost our sense of reality and we believe that the earth is basically populated by people who wish us – the world’s richest country – well. Norway, a gibbering, pea-brained blonde who gets lost in a backstreet in the Bronx and is now indignant that her bodyguard is so brutal with muggers.’
Harry dialled Rakel’s number. Aside from Sis’s, Rakel’s telephone number was the only one he knew off by heart. When he was young and inexperienced, he thought that a bad memory was a handicap for a detective. Now he knew better.
‘And the bodyguard is Bush and the USA?’ the host asked.
‘Yes, Lyndon B. Johnson once said that the US hadn’t chosen this role, but he had realised there was no one else, and he was right. Our bodyguard is a born-again Christian with a father complex, a drink problem, intellectual limitations and not enough backbone to do his military service with honour. In short, a guy we should be pleased is going to be re-elected President today.’
‘I assume you mean that ironically?’
‘Not at all. Such a weak president listens to his advisers, and the White House has the best, believe you me. Even though on that laughable TV series about the Oval Office one may have formed the impression that the Democrats have a monopoly on intelligence, it is on the extreme right wing of the Republicans, surprisingly enough, that you find the sharpest minds. Norway’s security is in the best possible hands.’
‘A girlfriend of a girlfriend has had sex with you.’
‘Really?’ said Harry.
‘Not you,’ Rakel said. ‘I’m talking to the other guy. Støp.’
‘Sorry,’ Harry said, turning down the radio.
‘After a lecture in Trondheim. He invited her up to his room. She was interested, but drew his attention to the fact that she’d had a mastectomy. He said he would give that some thought and went to the bar. And came back and took her with him.’
‘Mm. I hope expectations were fulfilled.’
‘Nothing fulfils expectations.’
‘No,’ Harry said, wondering what they were talking about.
‘What’s happening this evening?’ Rakel asked.
‘Palace Grill at eight is fine. But what’s all this rubbish about not being able to reserve tables in advance?’
‘It gives the whole place cachet, I suppose.’
They arranged to meet in the bar next door first. After they had rung off, Harry sat thinking. She had sounded pleased. Or bright. Bright and cheery. He tried to sense if he had succeeded in being pleased on her behalf, pleased that the woman he had loved so much was happy with another man. Rakel and he had had their time, and he had been given chances. Which he wasted. So why not be pleased that she was well, why not let the thought that things could have been different go, and move on with his life? He promised to try a bit harder.
The morning meeting was soon over. As head of Crime Squad, Politioverbetjent – POB for short – Gunnar Hagen ran through the cases they were working on. Which were not many, as for the time being there weren’t any fresh murder cases under investigation, and murder was the only thing that got the unit’s pulse racing. Thomas Helle, an officer from the Missing Persons Unit of the uniformed police, was present and gave a report on a woman who had been missing from her home for a year. Not a trace of violence, not a trace of the perpetrator and not a trace of her. She was a housewife and had last been seen at the nursery where she had left her son and daughter in the morning. Her husband and everyone in her closer circle of acquaintances had an alibi and had been cleared. They agreed that Crime Squad should investigate further.
Magnus Skarre passed on regards from Ståle Aune – Crime Squad’s resident psychologist – whom he had visited at Ullevål Hospital. Harry felt a pang of conscience. Ståle Aune was not just his adviser on criminal cases, he was his personal supporter in his fight against alcohol and the closest thing he had to a confidant. It was over a week since Aune had been admitted with some vague diagnosis, but Harry had still not overcome his reluctance to enter hospitals. Tomorrow, Harry thought. Or Thursday.
‘We have a new officer,’ Gunnar Hagen announced. ‘Katrine Bratt.’
A young woman in the first row stood up unbidden, but without offering a smile. She was very attractive. Attractive without trying, thought Harry. Thin, almost wispy hair hung lifelessly down both sides of her face, which was finely chiselled, pale and wore the same serious, weary features Harry had seen on other stunning women who had become so used to being observed that they had stopped liking or disliking it. Katrine Bratt was dressed in a blue suit that underlined her femininity, but the thick black tights under the edge of her skirt and her practical winter boots invalidated any possible suspicions that she was playing on it. She stood letting her eyes run over the gathering, as if she had risen to see them and not vice versa. Harry guessed that she had planned both the suit and this little first day appearance at Police HQ.
‘Katrine worked for four years at Bergen Police HQ dealing mainly with public decency offences, but she also did a stint at Crime Squad,’ Hagen continued, looking down at a sheet of paper Harry presumed was her CV. ‘Law degree from Bergen University 1999, Police College and now she’s an officer here. For the moment no children, but she’s married.’
One of Katrine Bratt’s thin eyebrows rose imperceptibly, and either Hagen saw this, or he thought this last scrap of information was superfluous, and added, ‘For those who may be interested …’
In the oppressive and telling pause that followed, Hagen seemed to think he had made matters worse, coughed twice, with force, and said that those who had not yet signed up for the Christmas party should do so before Wednesday.
Chairs scraped and Harry was already in the corridor when h
e heard a voice behind him.
‘Apparently I belong to you.’
Harry turned and looked into Katrine Bratt’s face. Wondering how attractive she would be if she made an effort.
‘Or you to me,’ she said, showing a line of even teeth but without letting the smile reach her eyes. ‘Whichever way you look at it.’ She spoke Bergen-flavoured standard Norwegian with moderately rolled ‘r’s, which suggested, Harry wagered, that she was from Fana or Kalfaret or some other solidly middle-class district.
He continued on his way, and she hurried to catch up with him. ‘Seems the Politioverbetjent forgot to inform you.’
She pronounced the word with a slightly exaggerated stress on all the syllables of Gunnar Hagen’s rank.
‘But you should show me round and take care of me for the next few days. Until I’m up and running. Can you do that, do you think?’
Harry eased off a smile. So far he liked her, but of course he was open to changing his opinion. Harry was always willing to give people another chance to wind up on his black list.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, stopping by the coffee dispenser. ‘Let’s start with this.’
‘I don’t drink coffee.’
‘Nevertheless. It’s self-explanatory. Like most things here. What are your thoughts on the case of the missing woman?’
Harry pressed the button for Americano which, in this machine, was as American as Norwegian ferry coffee.