by Jo Nesbo
‘Wait a minute, young man. Talking of skates …’
Oleg stopped. Oh no, he thought. She’s found the skates.
She stood in the doorway, tilted her head and clocked him. ‘What about homework?’
‘Haven’t got much,’ he said with a relieved smile. ‘I’ll do it after tea.’
He saw her hesitate and added quickly: ‘You look so nice in that dress, Mum.’
She lowered her eyes, at the old sky-blue dress with the white flowers. And even though she gave him an admonitory look, a smile was playing at the corners of her mouth. ‘Watch it, Oleg. Now you’re sounding like your father.’
‘Oh? I thought he only spoke Russian.’
He hadn’t meant anything with that comment, but something happened to his mother, a shock seemed to run through her.
He tiptoed. ‘Can I go now?’
‘Yes, you can go?’ Katrine Bratt’s voice lashed the fitness-room walls in the basement at Police HQ. ‘Did you really say that? That Idar Vetlesen could just go?’
Harry stared up at her face bent over the bench he was lying on. The dome-shaped ceiling light formed a shining yellow halo round her head. He was breathing heavily because an iron bar was lying across his chest. He had been about to perform a bench press of ninety-five kilos and had just lifted the bar off the stand when Katrine had marched in and ruined his attempt.
‘I had to,’ Harry said, managing to push the bar a bit higher so that it was on his breastbone. ‘He had his solicitor with him. Johan Krohn.’
‘So what?’
‘Well, Krohn started by asking what sort of methods we employed to blackmail his client. Then he said the buying and selling of sexual services in Norway is legal, and that our methods for forcing a respected doctor to break his Hippocratic oath would also be worth a headline.’
‘But bloody hell!’ Katrine shouted in a voice that was shaking with fury. ‘This is a murder case!’
Harry hadn’t seen her lose control before and answered in his gentlest voice.
‘Listen, we can’t link the murders to the illness or even make the connection seem a possibility. And Krohn knows that. And so I can’t hold him.’
‘No, but you can’t just … lie there … and do nothing!’
Harry could feel his breastbone aching and it struck him that she was absolutely right.
She put both hands to her face. ‘I … I … I’m sorry. I just thought … It’s been a strange day.’
‘Fine,’ Harry groaned. ‘Could you help me with this bar? I’m almost –’
‘The other end!’ she exclaimed, removing her hands from her face. ‘We’ll have to begin at the other end. In Bergen!’
‘No,’ Harry whispered with the last air he had left in his lungs. ‘Bergen’s not an end. Could you …?’
He looked up at her. Saw her dark eyes fill with tears.
‘It’s my period,’ she whispered. Then she smiled. It happened so fast that it was like another person standing above him, a person with an odd sheen to her eyes and a voice under complete control. ‘And you can just die.’
In amazement, he heard the sound of her footsteps fading away, heard his own skeleton crack and red dots begin to dance in front of his eyes. He cursed, wrapped his hands around the iron bar and, with a roar, pushed. The bar wouldn’t budge.
She was right; he could in fact die like that. He could choose. Funny, but true.
He wriggled, tipped the bar to one side until he heard the weights slide off and hit the floor with a deafening clang. Then the bar hit the floor on the other side. He sat up and watched the weights careering around the room.
Harry showered, dressed and went upstairs to the sixth floor. Fell into the swivel chair, already feeling the sweet ache of his muscles, which told him that he was going to be stiff in the morning.
There was a message on his voicemail from Bjørn Holm telling him to call back asap.
Holm picked up and there was the sound of heart-rending sobs accompanied by the slide tones of a pedal steel guitar.
‘What is it?’ Harry asked.
‘Dwight Yoakam,’ Holm said, turning down the music. ‘Sexy bastard, ain’t he?’
‘I mean, what’s the call about?’
‘We’ve got the results for the Snowman letter.’
‘And?’
‘Nothing special as far as the writing’s concerned. Standard laser printer.’
Harry waited. He knew Holm had something.
‘What’s special is the paper he used. No one at the lab here has seen this type before, that’s why it’s taken a bit of time. It’s made with mitsumata, Japanese papyrus-like bast fibres. You can probably tell mitsumata by the smell. They use the bark to make the paper by hand and this particular sheet is extremely exclusive. It’s called Kono.’
‘Kono?’
‘You have to go to specialist shops to buy it, the sort of place that sells fountain pens for ten thousand kroner, fine inks and leather-bound notebooks. You know …’
‘I don’t, in fact.’
‘Me neither,’ Holm conceded. ‘But anyway, there is one shop in Gamle Drammensveien which sells Kono writing paper. I spoke to them and was told they rarely sold such things now, so it was unlikely they would reorder. People don’t have a sense of quality the way they used to, he reckoned.’
‘Does that mean …?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid that means he couldn’t remember when he last sold any Kono paper.’
‘Mm. And this is the only dealer?’
‘Yes,’ Holm said. ‘There was one in Bergen, but they stopped selling a few years ago.’
Holm waited for an answer – or, to be more precise, questions – as Dwight Yoakam, at low volume, yodelled the love of his life into her grave. But none came.
‘Harry?’
‘Yes. I’m thinking.’
‘Excellent!’ said Holm.
It was this slow inland humour that could make Harry chuckle long afterwards, and even then without knowing why. But not at this moment. Harry cleared his throat.
‘I think it’s very odd that paper like this would be put into the hands of a murder investigator if you didn’t want it to be traced back to you. You don’t need to have seen many crime shows to know that we would check.’
‘Perhaps he didn’t know it was rare?’ Holm suggested. ‘Perhaps he hadn’t bought it?’
‘Of course that’s a possibility, but something tells me that the Snowman wouldn’t slip up like that.’
‘But he has done.’
‘I mean I don’t think it’s a slip,’ Harry said.
‘You mean …’
‘Yes, I think he wants us to trace him.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s classic. The narcissistic serial killer staging a game, with himself in the principal role as the invincible, the all-powerful conqueror who triumphs in the end.’
‘Triumphs over what?’
‘Well,’ Harry said, and said it for the first time aloud, ‘at the risk of sounding narcissistic myself, me.’
‘You? Why?’
‘I have no idea. Perhaps because he knows I’m the only policeman in Norway who has caught a serial killer, he sees me as a challenge. The letter would suggest that – he refers to Toowoomba. I don’t know, Holm. By the way, have you got the name of the shop in Bergen?’
‘Flab speaking!’
Or so it sounded. The word – flæsk – was articulated with Bergensian tones and gravity. That is, with a soft l, a long α with a dip in the middle and a faint s. Peter Flesch, who voluntarily pronounced his name like the word for flab, was out of breath, loud and obliging. He was happy to chat away; yes, he sold all types of antiques so long as they were small, but he had specialised in pipes, lighters, pens, leather briefcases and stationery. Some used; some new. Most of his customers were regulars with an average age in line with his own.
To Harry’s questions about Kono writing paper he answered, with regret in his voice, that he no longer had any such pa
per. Indeed, it was several years since he had stocked it.
‘This might be asking a bit too much,’ Harry said. ‘But since you have regular customers for the most part, is it possible that you might remember some of the ones who bought Kono paper?’
‘Some maybe. Møller. And old Kikkusæn from Møllaren. We don’t keep records, but the wife’s got a good memory.’
‘Perhaps you could write down the full names, rough age and the address of those you can remember and email them –’
Harry was interrupted by tut-tutting. ‘We don’t have email, son. Not going to get it, either. You’d better give me a fax number.’
Harry gave the Police HQ number. He hesitated. It was a sudden inspiration. But inspiration never came without a reason.
‘You wouldn’t by any chance have had a customer a few years back,’ Harry said, ‘by the name of Gert Rafto, would you?’
‘Iron Rafto?’ Peter Flesch laughed.
‘You’ve heard of him?’
‘The whole town knew who Rafto was. No, he wasn’t a customer here.’
POB Møller always used to say that in order to isolate what was possible, you had to eliminate everything that was impossible. And that was why a detective should not despair, but be glad whenever he could discount a clue that did not lead to the solution. Besides, it had just been an idea.
‘Well, thank you anyway,’ Harry said. ‘Have a good day.’
‘He wasn’t a customer,’ Flesch said. ‘I was.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. He brought me bits and bobs. Silver lighters, gold pens. That sort of thing. Sometimes I bought them off him. Yes, that was before I realised where they came from …’
‘And where did they come from?’
‘Don’t you know? He stole them from crime scenes he worked on.’
‘But he never bought anything?’
‘Rafto didn’t have any need for the sort of thing that we had.’
‘But paper? Everyone needs paper, don’t they?’
‘Hm. Just a moment and I’ll have a word with the wife.’
A hand was placed over the receiver, but Harry could hear shouting, then a slightly lower conversation. Afterwards the hand was removed and Flesch trumpeted in elated Bergensian: ‘She thinks Rafto took the rest of the paper when we stopped selling it. For a broken silver penholder, she thinks. Helluva memory on the wife, you know.’
Harry put down the telephone knowing he was on his way to Bergen. Back to Bergen.
At nine o’clock that evening night lights were still burning on the first floor of Brynsalléen 6 in Oslo. From the outside, the six-storey building looked like any commercial complex, with its modern red brick and grey steel facade. And for that matter inside too, as most of the more than four hundred employees had jobs as engineers, IT specialists, social scientists, lab technicians, photographers and so on. But this was nevertheless ‘the national unit for the combating of organised and other serious crime’, generally referred to by its old name of Kriminalpolitisentralen, or in its abbreviated form, Kripos.
Espen Lepsvik had just dismissed his men after reviewing progress on the murder investigation. Only two people were left in the bare, harshly illuminated meeting room.
‘That was a bit thin,’ Harry Hole said.
‘Nice way of saying zilch,’ Espen Lepsvik said, massaging his eyelids with thumb and first finger. ‘Shall we go and have a beer while you tell me what you’ve unearthed?’
Harry told him while Espen Lepsvik drove them to the centre and Kafé Justisen, which was on the way home for both men. They sat at the table at the back of the busy licensed café frequented by everyone from beer-thirsty students to even thirstier solicitors and policemen.
‘I’m considering taking Katrine Bratt instead of Skarre to Bergen,’ Harry said, sipping from the bottle of carbonated water. ‘I checked her employment record before coming here. She’s pretty green, but her file says that she worked on two murder inquiries in Bergen that I seem to remember you were sent over to lead.’
‘Bratt, yes, I remember her.’ Espen Lepsvik, grinned and raised his index finger for another beer.’
‘Happy with her?’
‘Extremely happy. She’s … extremely … competent.’ Lepsvik winked at Harry, who saw that the other man already had that glassy look of a tired detective with three beers inside him. ‘And if both of us hadn’t been married, I think I’d have had a bloody crack at her.’
He drained his glass.
‘I was wondering more if you thought she was stable,’ Harry said.
‘Stable?’
‘Yes, there’s something about her … I don’t know quite how to explain it. Something intense.’
‘I know what you mean.’ Espen Lepsvik nodded slowly as his eyes tried to focus on Harry’s face. ‘Her record’s unblemished. But between you and me I heard one of the lads over there say something about her and her husband.’
Lepsvik searched for some encouragement in Harry’s face, found none, but continued anyway.
‘Something … you know … likes leather and rubber. S&M. Apparently went to that kind of club. Bit pervy.’
‘That’s not my concern,’ Harry said.
‘No, no, no, mine neither!’ Lepsvik exclaimed, raising his hands in defence. ‘It’s just a rumour. And do you know what?’ Lepsvik sniggered, leaning forward across the table so that Harry could smell his beery breath. ‘She can dominate me any day.’
Harry realised that there must have been something in his eyes because Lepsvik immediately seemed to regret his openness and beat a quick retreat to his side of the table. And carried on in a more businesslike tone.
‘She’s a professional. Clever. Intense and committed. Insisted with a bit too much vehemence that I should help her with a couple of cold cases, I remember. But not at all unstable, more the opposite. She’s more the closed, sullen type. But there are lots like that. Yes, in fact I think you two could be a perfect team.’
Harry smiled at the sarcasm and stood up. ‘Thanks for the tip, Lepsvik.’
‘What about a tip for me? Have you and she … got something going?’
‘My tip,’ Harry said, throwing a hundred-krone note on the table, ‘is that you leave your car here.’
14
DAY 9.
Bergen.
AT PRECISELY 08.26, THE WHEELS OF DY604 TOUCHED down on the wet tarmac at Flesland Airport, Bergen. So hard that Harry was suddenly wide awake.
‘Sleep well?’ Katrine asked.
Harry nodded, rubbed his eyes and stared out at the rain-heavy dawn.
‘You were talking in your sleep,’ she smiled.
‘Mm.’ Harry didn’t want to ask about what. Instead he quickly went back over what he had been dreaming. Not about Rakel. He hadn’t dreamt about her for nights. He had banished her. Between them they had banished her. But he had dreamt about Bjarne Møller, his old boss and mentor, who had walked onto the Bergensian plateaus and been found in Lake Revurtjern two weeks later. It was a decision Møller had taken because he – just like Zenon with the sore big toe – didn’t think life was worth living any longer. Had Gert Rafto come to the same conclusion? Or was he really still out there somewhere?
‘I’ve rung Rafto’s ex-wife,’ Katrine said as they were walking through the arrivals hall. ‘Neither she nor the daughter want to talk to the police again, they don’t want to reopen old wounds. And that’s fine. The reports from that time are more than adequate.’
They got into a taxi outside the terminal.
‘Lovely to be home?’ Harry asked in a loud voice over the drumming of the rain and the rhythmical swish of the windscreen wipers.
Katrine, indifferent, shrugged. ‘I always hated the rain. And I hated Bergensians who maintained it didn’t rain here as much as eastern Norwegians made out.’
They passed Danmarksplass, and Harry looked up at the top of Ulriken. It was covered with snow, and he could see the cable cars in motion. Then they drove through the viper’s
nest of slip roads by Store Lungegårdsvann bay and reached the centre, which for visitors was always a welcome surprise after the drab approach.
They entered the SAS hotel by Bryggen on the harbour front. Harry had enquired whether she would stay with her parents, but Katrine had answered that for one night it would be too much stress, they would go to too much trouble, and in fact she hadn’t even told them she was here.
They were given key cards for their rooms, and in the lift they were silent. Katrine looked at Harry and smiled as though silence in lifts was an implicit joke. Harry looked down, hoping his body wasn’t sending false signals. Or real ones.
The lift doors finally slid open, and her hips sashayed down the corridor.
‘Reception in five,’ Harry said.
‘What’s the timetable?’ he asked when they were sitting in the lobby six minutes later.
Katrine leaned forward from the deep armchair and flicked through her leather-bound diary. She had changed into an elegant grey suit, which meant she immediately blended in with the hotel’s business clientele.
‘You meet Knut Müller-Nilsen, the head of the Missing Persons and Violent Crime Unit.’
‘You’re not coming with me?’
‘I’d have to say hello and chat to everyone, and the whole day would be wasted. In fact, it would be good if you didn’t mention my name at all. They’d just be pissed off I hadn’t dropped by. I’m heading for Øyjordsveien to have a word with the last witness to see Rafto.’
‘Mm. And where was that?’
‘By the docks. The witness saw him leave his car and walk into Nordnes Park. No one returned for the car, and the area was gone through with a fine-tooth comb without yielding a thing.’
‘Then what do we do?’ Harry ran his thumb and middle finger along his jaw, thinking he should have shaved before making a trip out of town.
‘You go through the old reports with the detectives who were on the case and are still at the station. Get up to speed. Try to see it from a different angle.’