by Jo Nesbo
‘Mm. I had hoped we might have a chat now.’
She laughed and leaned forward. ‘I like the move, Harry. But it’s twelve o’clock, I’m as sober as a judge and I already have a lunch date. Have a nice day.’
She walked away on her click-clacking heels.
‘Was Gusto Hanssen your lover?’
Harry said it in a low tone, and Isabelle Skøyen was already three metres away. Nevertheless, she stiffened, as if she had found a frequency that cut through the noise of heels, voices and Diana Krall’s background crooning, and beamed into her eardrum.
She turned.
‘You rang him four times the same night, the last was at twenty-six minutes to two.’ Harry had taken a bar stool. Isabelle Skøyen retraced the three metres. She towered over him. Harry was reminded of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf. And she was not Little Red Riding Hood.
‘What do you want, Harry boy?’ she asked.
‘I want to know everything you know about Gusto Hanssen.’
The nostrils on Axe-Nose flared and her majestic breasts rose. Harry noticed that her skin had large black pores, like dots in a comic strip.
‘As one of the few people in this town concerned about keeping drug addicts alive I’m also one of the few to remember Gusto Hanssen. We lost him, and that’s sad. These calls are because I have his mobile number saved on my phone. We had invited him to a meeting of the RUNO committee. I have a good friend whose name is similar, and sometimes I hit the wrong key. That sort of thing can happen.’
‘When did you last meet him?’
‘Listen here, Harry Hole,’ she hissed under her breath, stressing Hole and lowering her face even closer to his. ‘If I’ve understood correctly you are not a policeman, but someone who works with clothes and shoes. I see no reason to talk to you.’
‘Thing is,’ Harry said, leaning back against the counter, ‘I’m very keen to talk to someone. So if it isn’t you, it’ll be a journalist. And they’re always so pleased to talk about celebrity scandals and the like.’
‘Celebrity?’ she said, turning on a radiant smile aimed not at Harry but a suit-clad man standing by the head waiter and waving back with his fingers. ‘I’m just a council secretary, Harry. The odd photo in the papers doesn’t make you a celebrity. Look how soon you’re forgotten.’
‘I believe the papers see a rising star in you.’
‘Do you indeed? Perhaps, but even the worst tabloids need something concrete, and you have nothing. Calling the wrong number is—’
‘—the sort of thing that can happen. What cannot happen, however …’ Harry took a deep breath. She was right; he had nothing on her. And that was why it was not a great idea to play it direct. ‘… is that blood of the type AB rhesus negative appears by chance in two places on the same murder case. One person in two hundred has that group. So when the forensics report shows the blood under Gusto’s nails is AB rhesus negative and the papers say that’s your group, an ageing detective cannot help but put two and two together. All I need to do is ask for a DNA test, then we’ll know with a hundred per cent certainty who Gusto stuck his claws into before he died. Does that sound like a somewhat above-average interesting newspaper headline, Skøyen?’
The council secretary kept blinking, as though her eyelids were trying to activate her mouth.
‘Tell me, isn’t the Crown Prince in the Socialist Party?’ Harry asked, scrunching up his eyes. ‘What’s his name again?’
‘We can have a chat,’ Isabelle Skøyen said. ‘Later. But then you’ll have to swear to keep your mouth shut.’
‘When and where?’
‘Give me your number and I’ll phone you after work.’
Outside, the fjord glinted and flashed. Harry put on his sunglasses and lit a cigarette to celebrate a well-accomplished bluff. Sat on the edge of the harbour, enjoying every drag, refused to feel the gnawing that persisted, and focused on the meaninglessly expensive toys the world’s richest working class had moored alongside the quay. Then he stubbed out the butt, spat in the fjord and was ready for the next visit on the list.
Harry confirmed to the female receptionist at the Radium Hospital that he had an appointment, and she gave him a form. Harry filled in name and telephone number, but left ‘Firm’ blank.
‘Private visit?’
Harry shook his head. He knew this was an occupational habit with good receptionists: seeing the lie of the land, collecting information about people who came and went and those who worked on the premises. If, as a detective, he needed the low-down on everyone in an organisation he made a beeline for the receptionist.
She pointed Harry to the office at the end of the corridor. On his way there Harry passed closed office doors and glass panes looking onto large rooms, people wearing white coats inside, benches littered with flasks and test-tube stands and big padlocks for steel cabinets Harry guessed would be an El Dorado for any drug addict.
At the end Harry stopped and, to be on the safe side, read the nameplate before knocking on the door: Stig Nybakk. He had barely knocked once when a voice reverberated: ‘Come in!’
Nybakk was standing behind the desk with a telephone to his ear, but waved Harry in and indicated a chair. After three ‘Yes’s, two ‘No’s, one ‘Well, I’m damned’ and a hearty laugh, he rang off and fixed a pair of sparkling eyes on Harry, who true to form had slumped in a chair with his legs stretched out.
‘Harry Hole. You probably don’t remember me, but I remember you.’
‘I’ve arrested so many people,’ Harry said.
More hearty laughter. ‘We went to Oppsal School. I was a couple of years below you.’
‘Young kids remember the older ones.’
‘That’s true enough. But to be frank I don’t remember you from school. You were on TV and someone told me you’d been to Oppsal and you were a pal of Tresko’s.’
‘Mm.’ Harry studied the tips of his shoes to signal he wasn’t interested in moving into private territory.
‘So you ended up as a detective? Which murder are you investigating now?’
‘I’m investigating a drugs-related death,’ Harry started, to keep as close as possible to the truth. ‘Did you get a look at the stuff I sent you?’
‘Yes.’ Nybakk lifted the receiver again, tapped in a number and scratched feverishly behind his ear while waiting. ‘Martin, can you come in here? Yes, it’s about the test.’
Nybakk rang off, and there followed three seconds of silence. Nybakk smiled; Harry knew his brain was scanning to find a topic to fill the pause. Harry said nothing. Nybakk coughed. ‘You used to live in the yellow house down by the gravel track. I grew up in the red house at the top of the hill. Nybakk family?’
‘Right,’ Harry lied, demonstrating again to himself how little he remembered of his childhood.
‘Have you still got the house?’
Harry crossed his legs. Knowing he couldn’t have the match called off before this Martin came. ‘My father died a few years ago. Sale dragged a bit, but—’
‘Ghosts.’
‘Pardon?’
‘It’s important to let the ghosts out before you sell, isn’t it? My mother died last year, but the house is still empty. Married? Kids?’
Harry shook his head. And played the ball into the other half of the field. ‘But you’re married, I can see.’
‘Oh?’
‘The ring.’ Harry nodded towards his hand. ‘I used to have an identical one.’
Nybakk held up the hand with the ring and smiled. ‘Used to? Are you separated?’
Harry cursed inside. Why the hell did people have to chit-chat? Separated? Course he was separated. Separated from the person he loved. Those he loved. Harry coughed.
‘There you are,’ Nybakk said.
Harry turned. A stooped figure wearing a blue lab coat squinted at him from the door. Long, black fringe that hung over a pale, almost snow-white, high forehead. Eyes set deep in his skull. Harry had not even heard him coming.
‘Thi
s is Martin Pran, one of our best scientists,’ Nybakk said.
That, Harry thought, is the Hunchback of Notre-Dame.
‘Eh, Martin?’ Nybakk said.
‘What you call violin is not heroin but a drug similar to levorphanol.’
Harry noted the name. ‘Which is?’
‘A high-explosive opioid,’ Nybakk intervened. ‘Immense painkiller. Six to eight times stronger than morphine. Three times more powerful than heroin.’
‘Really?’
‘Really,’ Nybakk said. ‘And it has double the effect of morphine. Eight to twelve hours. If you take just three milligrams of levorphanol we’re talking a full anaesthetic. Half of it through injection.’
‘Mm. Sounds dangerous.’
‘Not quite as dangerous as one might imagine. Moderate doses of pure opioids like heroin don’t destroy the body. No, it’s primarily the dependency that does it.’
‘Right. Heroin addicts die like flies.’
‘Yes, but for two main reasons. First of all, heroin is mixed with other substances that turn it into nothing less than poison. Mix heroin and cocaine, for example, and—’
‘Speedball,’ Harry said. ‘John Belushi—’
‘May he rest in peace. The second usual cause of death is that heroin inhibits respiration. If you take too large a dose you simply stop breathing. And as the level of tolerance increases you take larger and larger doses. But that’s the interesting thing about levorphanol – it doesn’t inhibit respiration nearly as much. Isn’t that right, Martin?’
The Hunchback nodded without raising his eyes.
‘Mm,’ Harry said, watching Pran. ‘Stronger than heroin, longer effect, and little chance of OD’ing. Sounds like a junkie’s dream substance.’
‘Dependency,’ the Hunchback mumbled. ‘And price.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘We see it with patients,’ Nybakk sighed. ‘They get addicted like that.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘But with cancer patients dependency is a non-issue. We increase the type of painkiller and dosage according to a chart. The aim is to prevent pain, not to chase its heels. And levorphanol is expensive to produce and import. That might be the reason we don’t see it on the streets.’
‘That’s not levorphanol.’
Harry and Nybakk turned to Martin Pran.
‘It’s modified.’ Pran lifted his head. And Harry thought he could see his eyes shining, as if a light had just been switched on.
‘How?’ Nybakk asked.
‘It will take time to discover how, but it does appear that one of the chlorine molecules has been exchanged for a fluorine molecule. It may not be that expensive to produce.’
‘Jesus,’ Nybakk said. ‘Are we talking Dreser?’
‘Possibly,’ Pran said with an almost imperceptible smile.
‘Good heavens!’ Nybakk exclaimed, scratching the back of his head with both hands in his enthusiasm. ‘Then we’re talking the work of a genius. Or an enormous flash in a pan.’
‘Afraid I’m not quite with you here, boys,’ Harry said.
‘Oh, sorry,’ Nybakk said. ‘Heinrich Dreser. He discovered aspirin in 1897. Afterwards he worked on modifying diacetymorphine. Not a lot needs to be done, molecule here, molecule there, and hey presto, it fastens on to other receptors in the human body. Eleven days later, Dreser had discovered a new drug. It was sold as cough medicine right up until 1913.’
‘And the drug was?’
‘The name was supposed to be a pun on a brave woman.’
‘Heroine,’ Harry said.
‘Correct.’
‘What about the glazing?’ Harry asked, turning to Pran.
‘It’s called a coating,’ the Hunchback retorted. ‘What about it?’ He faced Harry but his eyes were elsewhere, on the wall. Like an animal hunting for a way out, Harry thought. Or a herd animal that did not want to meet the hierarchical challenge of the creature looking you straight in the eye. Or simply a human with slightly above-average social inhibitions. But there was something else that caught Harry’s attention, something about the way he was standing, his crooked posture.
‘Well,’ Harry said, ‘Forensics says that the brown specks in violin originate from the finely chopped glazing of a pill. And it’s the same … coating you use on methadone pills that are made here at the Radium Hospital.’
‘So?’ Pran riposted.
‘Is it conceivable that violin is made here in Norway by someone with access to your methadone pills?’
Stig Nybakk and Martin Pran exchanged glances.
‘Nowadays we deliver methadone pills to other hospitals as well, so quite a few people have access,’ Nybakk said. ‘But violin is high-level chemistry.’ He expelled air between flapping lips. ‘What do you reckon, Pran? Have we got the competence in Norwegian scientific circles to discover such a substance?’
Pran shook his head.
‘What about by fluke?’ Harry asked.
Pran shrugged. ‘It is of course possible that Brahms wrote ein deutsches Requiem by fluke.’
The room fell silent. Not even Nybakk appeared to have anything to add.
‘Well,’ Harry said, getting up.
‘Hope that was of some help,’ Nybakk said, extending his hand to Harry across the desk. ‘Say hello to Tresko. I suppose he still does nights at Hafslund Energy, keeping his finger on the electricity switch for the town?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Doesn’t he like daylight?’
‘He doesn’t like hassle.’
Nybakk gave a tentative smile.
On his way out Harry stopped twice. Once to examine the empty laboratory in which the light had been turned off for the day. The second time was outside the door displaying Martin Pran’s nameplate. There was light under the door. Harry carefully pressed the handle. Locked.
The first thing Harry did when he got into the rental car was to check his mobile phone. He saw one missed call from Beate Lønn, but still nothing from Isabelle Skøyen. By Ullevål Stadium Harry realised he had timed his journey out of town badly. The nation with the shortest working hours was on its way home. It took him fifty minutes to reach Karihaugen.
Sergey was sitting in his car drumming his fingers on the wheel. In theory, his workplace was situated on the right side of rush-hour traffic, but when he was on the evening shift he ended up stuck in the gridlock leaving town anyway. The cars edged towards Karihaugen like cooling lava. He had googled the policeman. Clicked on old news stories. Murder cases. He had taken out a serial killer in Australia. Sergey had noticed that because the same morning he had been watching a programme from Australia on Animal Planet. It was all about the intelligence of crocodiles in the Northern Territory, about how they learned the habits of their prey. When men camped in the bush they usually took a path along a billabong to collect water after waking in the morning. On the path they were safe from crocodiles lying in the water and watching. If they stayed a second night the same would be repeated the next day. If they stayed a third night they would walk along the path once more, but this time they wouldn’t see a crocodile. Not until it rushed out of the bush and dragged its prey into the water.
The policeman had seemed ill at ease in the pictures on the Net. As though he didn’t like being photographed. Or watched.
The phone rang. It was Andrey. He got straight to the point.
‘He’s staying at Hotel Leon.’
The south Siberian dialect was in fact like a machine gun, staccato, but Andrey made it sound soft and flowing. He said the address twice, slowly and clearly, and Sergey memorised it.
‘Good,’ he said, trying to sound keen. ‘I’ll ask for his room number. And unless it’s at the end of a corridor I’ll wait there, at the end. So that when he leaves his room for the stairs or the lift he’ll have to turn his back on me.’
‘No, Sergey.’
‘No?’
‘Not in the hotel. He’ll be ready for us at Leon.’
Sergey started with surprise. ‘Ready?’
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He changed lane and slipped in behind a rental car as Andrey explained that the policeman had contacted two sellers and invited ataman to Hotel Leon. It stank of a trap from some distance. Ataman had given clear orders that Sergey was to do the job somewhere else.
‘Where?’
‘Wait for him in the street outside the hotel.’
‘But where shall I do it?’
‘You can choose,’ Andrey said. ‘But my personal favourite is an ambush.’
‘Ambush?’
‘Always an ambush, Sergey. And one more thing …’
‘Yes?’
‘He’s beginning to advance into areas where we don’t want him to advance. That means this is becoming a matter of urgency.’
‘What … does that mean?’
‘Ataman says you should take whatever time you need, but no more. Today is better than tomorrow. Which is better than the day after. Understand?’
When they rang off Sergey was still in the traffic jam. He had never felt so alone in all his life.
Rush hour was at its peak, and the tailback did not lighten until Berger, just before the Skedsmo intersection. By then Harry had been sitting in the car for an hour and had scanned all the radio channels before ending up with NRK Classical out of sheer protest. Twenty minutes later he saw the turn-off to Gardermoen. He had rung Tord Schultz’s number a dozen times during the day without getting through. Schultz’s colleague, whom he eventually located at the airline, said he had no idea where Tord could be and that he generally stayed at home when he wasn’t flying. And confirmed the address Harry had found on the Net.
Darkness was falling when Harry inferred from the road sign that he was in the right place. He drove slowly between the identical shoeboxes on either side of the newly asphalted road. From the houses which were illuminated enough for him to be able to read the numbers he worked out which was Tord Schultz’s. It lay in total darkness.
Harry parked the car. Looked up. Silver came out of the black sky, a plane, as soundless as a bird of prey. Lights swept across rooftops, and the plane disappeared behind him carrying the noise after it like a bridal train.
Harry walked up to the front door, placed his face against the glass panel and rang. Waited. Rang again. Waited for a minute.