by Jo Nesbo
‘Fuck,’ Harry burst out. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’
‘Eh?’
‘Wet shower cabinet. Perfume. Mascara. You’re right.’ The inspector had taken out his mobile, maniacally punched the numbers in and got an almost immediate answer.
‘Gerda Nelvik? This is Harry Hole. Are you still doing the tests? … OK. Anything on the preliminary results?’
Bjørn Holm watched as Harry mumbled two mms and three rights.
‘Thank you,’ Harry said. ‘And I was wondering if any other officers had called earlier this evening and asked you the same … What? … I see. Yes, just ring me when the tests are finished.’
Harry rang off. ‘You can start the engine now,’ he said.
Bjørn Holm twisted the key in the ignition. ‘What’s the deal?’
‘We’re going to the Plaza Hotel. Katrine Bratt called the institute earlier this evening to ask about paternity.’
‘This evening?’ Bjørn Holm put his foot down and turned right towards Schous plass.
‘They’re running preliminary tests to establish paternity to ninety-five per cent probability. Then they’ll try to increase the certainty to ninety-nine point nine.’
‘And?’
‘It’s ninety-five per certain that the father of the Ottersen twins and Jonas Becker is Arve Støp.’
‘Holy moly.’
‘And I think Katrine’s followed your recommendations for a Saturday evening. And the prey is Arve Støp.’
Harry rang the Incident Room and asked for assistance as the old reconditioned engine roared through the night-still streets of Grünerløkka. And as they passed Akerselva A&E and skidded on the tramlines in Storgata, the heater was indeed blowing red-hot air on them.
Odin Nakken, a newspaper reporter at Verdens Gang, stood freezing on the pavement outside the Plaza Hotel cursing the world, people in general and his job in particular. As far as he could judge, the last guests were leaving the Liberal celebrations. And the last, as a rule, were the most interesting, the ones who could create the next day’s headlines. But the deadline was approaching; in five minutes he would have to go. Go to the office in Akersgata a few hundred metres away and write. Write to the editor that he was a grown-up now, that he was fed up with standing outside a party like a teenager, with his nose pressed against the windowpane staring in and hoping someone would come out and tell him who had danced with whom, who had bought drinks for whom, who had been in a clinch with whom. Write that he was handing in his notice.
A couple of rumours had been floating about that had been too fantastic to be true, but naturally they couldn’t print those. There was a limit, and there were unwritten rules. Rules to which, at least in his generation, journalists adhered. For what that was worth.
Odin Nakken took stock. There were only a couple of reporters and photographers still holding out. Or who had the same deadlines for celebrity gossip as his newspaper. A Volvo Amazon came hurtling towards them and pulled into the kerb with a squeal of brakes.
Out jumped a man from the passenger seat, and Odin Nakken immediately recognised him. He signalled to the photographer, and they ran after the police officer sprinting for the door.
‘Harry Hole,’ panted Nakken when he had caught up. ‘What are the police doing here?’
The red-eyed policeman turned to him. ‘Going to a party, Nakken. Where is it?’
‘Sonja Henie Room on the first. But I reckon it’s finished now, I’m afraid.’
‘Mm. Seen anything of Arve Støp?’
‘Støp went home early. What do you want with him?’
‘No. Was he alone?’
‘ To all outward appearances.’
The inspector pulled up sharply and turned to him. ‘What do you mean?’
Odin Nakken angled his head. He had no idea what this was about, but he was in no doubt that there was something.
‘A rumour was going round that he was negotiating with a pretty foxy lady. With fuck-me eyes. Nothing we can print, more’s the pity.’
‘So?’ growled the inspector.
‘A woman answering the description left the party twenty minutes after Støp. She got into a taxi.’
Hole was soon walking back the same way he had come. Odin hung on his coat-tails.
‘And you didn’t follow her, Nakken?’
Odin Nakken ignored the sarcasm. It was water off a duck’s back. Now.
‘She wasn’t a celebrity, Hole. A celeb shagging a non-celeb is nonnews, if I can put it like that. Unless the lady decides to talk, of course. And this one’s long gone.’
‘What did she look like?’
‘Slim, dark. Good-looking.’
‘Clothes?’
‘Long black leather coat.’
‘Thanks.’ Hole jumped into the Amazon.
‘Hey,’ Nakken shouted. ‘What do I get in return?’
‘A good night’s sleep,’ Harry said. ‘The knowledge that you’ve helped to make our town a safer place.’
Grimacing fiercely, Odin Nakken watched the old boar of a car embellished with rally stripes accelerate away with a throaty roar of laughter. It was time to get out of this. Time to hand in his notice. It was time to grow up.
‘Deadline,’ the photographer said. ‘We’ll have to go and write this shit up.’
Odin Nakken heaved a sigh of resignation.
Arve Støp stared into the darkness of the mask wondering what she was doing. She had dragged him into the bathroom by the handcuffs, pressed what she claimed was a revolver against his ribs and ordered him into the bath. Where was she? He held his breath and heard his heart and a crackling electric hum. Was one of the neon tubes in the bathroom on its way out? The blood from his temple had reached the corner of his mouth; he could taste the sweet metallic tang with the tip of his tongue.
‘Where were you the night Birte Becker went missing?’ Her voice came from over by the sink.
‘Here in my flat,’ Støp answered, trying to think. She had said she was from the police and then he remembered where he had seen her before: in the curling hall.
‘Alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the night Sylvia Ottersen was killed?’
‘The same.’
‘Alone all evening without talking to anyone?’
‘Yes.’
‘So no alibi?’
‘I’m telling you I was here.’
‘Good.’
Good? thought Arve Støp. Why was it good that he didn’t have an alibi? What was it she wanted? To force a confession out of him? And why did it sound as if the electric hum was getting louder as she came closer?’
‘Lie down,’ she said.
He did as instructed and felt the cold bath enamel sting the skin of his back and thighs. His breath had condensed on the inside of the mask, made it wet, made it even more difficult to breathe. Then the voice was there again, close by now.
‘How do you want to die?’
Die? She was out of her mind. Insane. Stark raving mad. Or was she? He told himself to keep a clear head; she was just trying to frighten him. Could Harry Hole be behind this? Could it be that he had underestimated the drunken sot of a policeman? But his whole body was shaking now, shaking so much that he could hear his Tag Heuer watch clink against the enamel, as if his body had accepted what his brain still had not. He rubbed the back of his head against the bottom of the bath, trying to straighten the pig mask so that he could see through the small holes. He was going to die.
That was why she had put him in the bath. So that there wouldn’t be so much mess, so all the traces could be quickly removed. Rubbish! You’re Arve Støp and she’s with the police. They know nothing.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Lift up your head.’
The mask. At last. He did as she said, felt her hands touch his forehead and at the back, but she didn’t loosen the mask. Something thin and strong tightened around his neck. What the fuck? A noose!
‘Don’t …’ he began, but his voice died as the noose press
ed against his windpipe. The handcuffs rattled and scraped against the bottom of the bath.
‘You killed them all,’ she said and the noose was tightened a notch. ‘You’re the Snowman, Arve Støp.’
There. She had said it out loud. The lack of blood to his brain was already making him dizzy. He shook his head frantically.
‘Yes, you are,’ she said, and as she jerked it felt as if his head was being severed. ‘You’ve just been appointed.’
The darkness came all of a sudden. He raised a leg and let it fall again, the heel of his foot banged impotently against the bath. A hollow boom reverberated around.
‘Do you know that rushing sensation, Støp? It’s the brain not getting sufficient oxygen. Quite wonderful, isn’t it? My ex-husband used to jerk himself off while I had him in a stranglehold.’
He tried to scream, tried to force the little air that was left in his body past the iron grip of the noose, but it was impossible. Jesus, didn’t she even want a confession? Then he felt it. A slight swishing sound in his brain, like the hiss of champagne bubbles. Was that how it would happen? So easy. He didn’t want it to be easy.
‘I’m going to hang you in the living room,’ said the voice by his ear as a hand affectionately patted his head. ‘Facing the fjord. So that you have a view.’
Then came a thin peeping sound, like the alarm on one of those heart monitors you see in films, he thought. When the curve flattens out and the heart no longer beats.
26
DAY 20.
The Silence.
HARRY PRESSED ARVE ST0P’S DOORBELL AGAIN.
A night owl, minus prey, was walking over the canal bridge peering down at the black Amazon parked in the middle of the car-free square in Aker Brygge.
‘Not gonna open up if he’s got a dame there, I s’pose,’ Bjørn Holm said, looking up at the three-metre-high glass door.
Harry pressed the other doorbells.
‘Those are just offices,’ Bjørn Holm said. ‘Støp lives alone at the top. I’ve read that.’
Harry looked around.
‘No,’ said Holm, who had guessed what he was thinking. ‘It won’t work with the crowbar. And the steel glass is unbreakable. We’ll have to wait until the careta—…’
Harry was on his way back to the car. And this time Holm was unable to follow the inspector’s train of thought. Not until Harry got into the driver’s seat and Bjørn remembered the key was still in the ignition.
‘No, Harry! No! Don’t …’
The remainder was drowned in the roar of the engine. The wheels spun on the rain-slippery surface before gaining purchase. Bjørn Holm stood waving in the road, but caught a glimpse of the inspector’s eyes behind the wheel and leapt out of the way. The Amazon’s bumper hit the door with a muffled crash. The glass in the door turned to white crystals as for one noiseless second it hovered in the air before tinkling to the ground. And before Bjørn could gauge the extent of the damage Harry was out of the car and striding through the now glassless entrance.
Bjørn ran desperately after him, cursing. Harry had grabbed a pot containing a two-metre-high palm tree, dragged it over to the lift and pressed the button. As the shiny aluminium doors slid apart, he jammed the pot between them and pointed to a white door with a green exit sign.
‘If you take the fire escape and I take the main stairs we have all the escape routes covered. Meet you on the sixth, Holm.’
Bjørn Holm was drenched with sweat before he reached the second floor on the narrow iron staircase. Neither his body nor his head were prepared for this. He was a forensics officer, for Christ’s sake! His bag was reconstructing dramas, not constructing them.
He stopped for a moment. But all he could hear was the fading echo of his own footsteps and his own panting. What would he do if he met someone? Harry had told him to bring his service revolver along to Seilduksgata, but had Harry meant that he would have to use it? Bjørn took hold of the railing and started running again. What would Hank Williams have done? Buried his head in a drink. Sid Vicious? Shown him a finger and legged it. And Elvis? Elvis. Elvis Presley. Right. Bjørn Holm wrapped his fingers round his revolver.
The steps finished. He opened the door and there, at the end of the corridor, was Harry leaning back against the wall beside a brown door. He had his revolver in one hand and was holding the other to his mouth. Forefinger over his lips as he watched Bjørn and pointed to the door. It was ajar.
‘We’ll do it room by room,’ Harry whispered when Bjørn was alongside. ‘You take the ones on the left, I’ll take the ones on the right. Same rhythm, back to back. And don’t forget to breathe.’
‘Wait!’ Bjørn whispered. ‘What if Katrine’s there?’
Harry studied him and waited.
‘I mean …’ Bjørn Holm went on, trying to articulate what he meant. ‘In a worst-case scenario would I shoot … a colleague?’
‘In the worst-case scenario,’ Harry said, ‘a colleague would shoot you. Ready?’
The young forensics officer from Skreia nodded and promised himself that if this went well he would wear bloody hair oil.
Harry silently prodded the door open with his foot and went in. He felt the current of air at once. The draught. He reached the first door to the right and grabbed the handle with his left hand as he pointed the revolver. Pushed the door open and went in. It was a study. Empty. Over the desk hung a large map of Norway with pins stuck in it.
Harry walked back into the hall where Holm was waiting for him. Harry motioned to Holm to keep his revolver raised the whole time.
They moved through the apartment with stealth.
Kitchen, library, fitness room, conservatory, guest room. All empty.
Harry felt the temperature drop. And as they came into the living room he saw why. The sliding door to the terrace and pool was wide open; white curtains flapped nervously in the wind. On either side of the room ran narrow pathways, each leading to a door. Harry pointed to Holm to take the door on the right while he took up position in front of the other.
Harry breathed in, huddled up to make the target as small as possible and opened.
In the darkness he could make out a bed, white linen and something that might have been a body. His left hand groped for a switch inside the door.
‘Harry!’
It was Holm.
‘Over here, Harry!’
Holm’s voice was excited, but Harry turned a deaf ear and concentrated on the darkness in front of him. His hand found the switch and the next moment the room was bathed in light from overhead spots. It was empty. Harry checked the cupboards, then left. Holm stood outside the other door with his gun pointing in the room.
‘He’s not moving,’ Holm whispered. ‘He’s dead. He …’
‘Then you needn’t have called me so urgently,’ Harry said, walking to the bath, bending over the naked man and removing the pig mask. A thin, red stripe ran around his neck, his face was pale and swollen and his eyes were bulging out from beneath the eyelids. Arve Støp was barely recognisable.
‘I’ll ring the Crime Scene people,’ Holm said.
‘Hang on.’ Harry held a hand in front of Støp’s mouth. Then he took the editor’s shoulder and shook him.
‘What are you doing?’
Harry shook harder.
Bjørn laid a hand on Harry’s shoulder. ‘But Harry, can’t you see …?’
Holm recoiled. Støp had opened his eyes. And now he was drawing breath – like a skin-diver breaking the surface – deep, painful and with a rattle in his throat.
‘Where is she?’ Harry said.
Støp was unable to focus his eyes and short gasps were all that emerged from his mouth.
‘Wait here, Holm.’
Holm nodded and watched his colleague leave the bathroom.
Harry stood on the edge of Arve Støp’s roof terrace. Twenty-five metres below glittered the black water of the canal. In the moonlight he could discern the sculpture of the woman on stilts in the water and the deser
ted bridge. And there … something shiny bobbing on the surface of the water, like the belly of a dead fish. The back of a black leather coat. She had jumped. From the sixth floor.
Harry stepped up to the edge of the terrace, between the empty flower boxes. An image from the past flashed through his brain. Østmarka, and Øystein who had dived from the mountain into Lake Hauktjern. Harry and Tresko dragging him to the shore. Øystein in bed at Rikshospitalet with what looked like scaffolding around his neck. What Harry had learned from this was that you should jump from great heights, not dive. And remember to keep your arms into your body so that you don’t break your collarbone. But above all you have to make up your mind before you look down, and jump before terror has engaged your common sense. And that was why Harry’s jacket slid to the terrace floor with a soft smack while Harry was already in the air listening to the roar in his ears. The black water accelerated towards him. As black as tarmac.
He put his heels together and the next moment it was as if the air had been knocked out of him and a large hand was trying to tear off his clothes, and all sound was gone. Then came the numbing cold. He kicked and rose to the surface. Got his bearings, located the coat and began to swim. He had already started losing sensation in his feet and knew he only had a few minutes before his body would stop functioning in this temperature. But he also knew that if Katrine’s laryngeal reflex was working and closed itself when it came into contact with water it would be the sudden cooling down that could save her, it would stop the metabolism, send the body’s cells and organs into hibernation mode and allow the vital functions to survive on a minimum of oxygen.
Harry lunged and glided through the thick, heavy water towards the glistening leather.
Then he was there and he grabbed her.
His first unconscious thought was that she was already heaven-bound, consumed by demons. For only her coat was there.
Harry cursed, spun round in the water and stared up at the terrace. Followed the edge up to the eaves, the metal pipework and the sloping roofs that led down the other side of the building, to other buildings. Other terraces and the multitude of fire escapes and routes through the labyrinth of facades in Aker Brygge. He trod water with legs that could no longer feel while confirming to himself that Katrine had not even underestimated him; he had fallen for one of the oldest tricks in the book. And for a moment of madness he considered death by drowning; it was supposed to be pleasant.