by Jo Nesbo
‘Pizza.’
‘Repeat?’
‘Looks like the guy’s a bloody delivery boy. Says he works for Pizzaexpressen. Got an order for this address three-quarters of an hour ago.’
‘OK, we’ll check that out.’
Mikael Bellman leaned forward and took the walkie-talkie.
‘Bellman here. He’s sent this guy out to clear the mines. Which means he’s in the area and can see what’s happening. Have we got any dogs?’
Pause. Crackling noise.
‘U05 here. No dogs. We can have them here in fifteen.’
Bellman cursed again under his breath, then pressed the talk button. ‘Get them here. And the helicopter with floodlights and thermal imaging. Confirm.’
‘Received. Request helicopter. But I don’t think it has thermal imaging.’
Bellman closed his eyes and whispered ‘idiot’ before answering: ‘It does, it’s fitted, so if he’s in the forest we’ll find him. Use the whole team to spread a net north and west of the forest. If he makes a run for it, it’ll be that way. What’s your mobile number, U05?’
Bellman let go of the talk button and signalled to Katrine, who was holding the phone ready. Keyed in the numbers as U05 said them. Passed the phone to Bellman.
‘U05? Falkeid? Listen, we’re losing this one, and we haven’t got enough officers to do an effective search of the forest, so let’s try a long shot. As he clearly suspected we were here, he may also have access to our frequencies. It’s true we don’t have thermal imaging, but if he now believes we do and we’re spreading a net to the north and west, then . . .’ Bellman listened. ‘Exactly. Position your men on the east side. But keep a couple back in case he still comes to the house to check it out.’
Bellman broke the connection and handed the phone over.
‘What do you think?’ Katrine asked. The screen went off and it was as though the light from the white, pigmentless stripes on his face was pulsating in the darkness.
‘I think,’ Bellman said, ‘we’ve been outmanoeuvred.’
26
THEY LEFT OSLO at seven o’clock.
The incoming rush-hour traffic was at a standstill, and mute. As it was in their car, where both were adhering to the long-established pact of no unnecessary talking before nine.
On the way through the tollbooths a light drizzle fell, which the windscreen wipers seemed to absorb rather than remove.
Harry switched on the radio, listened to yet another news broadcast, but it wasn’t there, either. The item that should have been on every website and station this morning. The arrest in Berg, the news that a suspect had been detained in connection with the police murders. After the sport, which was about Norway’s match against Albania, Pavarotti and some pop star sang a duet and Harry hurriedly switched off the radio.
Through the hills up to Karihaugen, Rakel rested her hand on Harry’s, which was on the gearstick, as usual. Harry waited for her to say something.
Soon they would be apart for a whole working week, and Rakel still hadn’t said a word about his proposal of the night before. Was she having doubts? She didn’t usually say things she didn’t mean. At the turn-off to Lørenskog it struck him that perhaps she was thinking he had doubts. That if they acted as if it hadn’t happened, burying it in an ocean of silence, then it hadn’t happened. At worst it would be remembered as an absurd dream. Shit, perhaps he had dreamt it. In his opium-smoking days he would speak to people about things he was convinced had happened and would receive quizzical looks in return.
At the turn-off to Lillestrøm he broke the pact. ‘What about June? The twenty-first is a Saturday.’
He glanced at her, but she was looking at the rolling landscape of fields. Silence. Oh shit, she was having regrets. She—
‘June’s fine,’ she said. ‘But I’m pretty sure the twenty-first is a Friday.’ He could hear the smile in her voice.
‘Big do or . . .?’
‘Or just us and witnesses?’
‘You reckon?’
‘You can decide, but maximum ten people in total. We haven’t got the crockery for any more. And with five each you can invite everyone in your contacts list anyway.’
He laughed. This could be good.
‘And if you’re thinking of Oleg as best man, he’s busy,’ she said.
‘I see.’
Harry parked in front of the departures terminal and kissed Rakel with the boot still open.
On his way back, he rang Øystein Eikeland. Harry’s taxi-driving drinking pal and sole childhood friend sounded plastered. On the other hand, Harry didn’t know how he sounded when he wasn’t.
‘Best man? Shit, Harry, I’m touched. You asking me. Shit, got a smile on the clock now.’
‘Twenty-first of June. Anything on your calendar then?’
Øystein chuckled at the joke. The chuckling morphed into coughing. Which morphed into the gurgle of a bottle. ‘I’m touched, Harry. But the answer’s no. What you need is someone who can stand up straight in the church and speak with moderately clear diction at the meal. And what I need is an attractive woman at the table, free booze and no responsibility. I promise to wear my finest suit.’
‘Liar, you’ve never worn a suit, Øystein.’
‘That’s why they stay in such good shape. Not used much. Just like your pals, Harry. You could ring once in a while, you know.’
‘I suppose I could.’
They rang off and Harry drove bumper to bumper to the city centre, running through the short list of remaining candidates for best man. To be precise, one. He dialled Beate Lønn’s number. Got voicemail after five seconds and left a message.
The queue moved forward at snail’s pace.
He dialled Bjørn Holm’s number.
‘Hiya, Harry.’
‘Is Beate at work?’
‘Off today.’
‘Beate? She’s never off. Got a cold?’
‘Dunno. She texted Katrine last night. Ill. Did you hear about Berg?’
‘Oh, I’d forgotten all about that,’ Harry lied. ‘Well?’
‘He didn’t strike.’
‘Shame. You keep at it. I’ll try her at home.’
Harry hung up and called her landline.
After letting the phone ring for two minutes without success, he glanced at his watch. Plenty of time before his lecture, and Oppsal was on the way. He turned off at Helsfyr.
Beate had inherited her house from her mother, and it reminded Harry of the house in Oppsal where he had grown up: a typical 1950s timber house, the kind of sober box for a burgeoning middle class who thought apple orchards were no longer an upper-class preserve.
Apart from the rumble of a dustcart working its way up the road from bin to bin, all was quiet. Everyone was at work, school, kindergarten. Harry parked the car, went through the gate, passed a child’s bike locked to the fence, a dustbin bulging with black bags, a swing, leapt up the steps to a pair of Nike trainers he recognised. Rang the bell under the ceramic sign bearing Beate’s name and her son’s.
Waited.
Rang again.
On the first floor there was an open window to what he assumed had to be one of the bedrooms. He called her name. Perhaps she couldn’t hear because of the lorry’s steel piston loudly crushing and compacting rubbish as it came ever closer.
He tried the door. Open. He entered. Called up to the first floor. No answer. And could no longer ignore the unease he knew had been there the whole time.
From when the news didn’t come.
From when she didn’t answer her mobile phone.
He strode upstairs, went from room to room.
Empty. Undisturbed.
He ran back down the stairs and headed for the sitting room. Stood in the doorway and let his gaze wander. He knew exactly why he didn’t go right in, but didn’t want to think the thought aloud.
Didn’t want to tell himself he was looking at a possible crime scene.
He had been here before, but it struck him that th
e room seemed barer now. Perhaps it was the morning light, perhaps it was just that Beate wasn’t here. His gaze stopped at the table. A mobile phone.
He heard himself breathe out and realised how much relief he felt. She had nipped down to the shop, left the phone, not even bothering to lock up. To the chemist for some aspirin or something. Yes, that’s what must have happened. Harry thought of the Nike trainers on the doorstep. So? A woman would have more than one pair of shoes. If he waited for a couple of minutes she would be back.
Harry shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The sofa looked tempting, but still he didn’t go in. His gaze had fallen on the floor. There was a darker patch around the coffee table by the TV.
She had obviously got rid of the rug.
Recently.
Harry felt his skin itch inside his shirt, as if he had just been rolling, naked and sweaty, in the grass. He crouched down. Smelt a faint aroma of ammonia from the parquet floor. Unless he was mistaken, wooden floors didn’t like ammonia. Harry stood up, straightened his back. Strode through the hall into the kitchen.
Empty, tidy.
Opened the tall cupboard beside the fridge. It was as though houses built in the 1950s had these unwritten rules about where to keep everything: food, tools, important documents and, in this case, cleaning equipment. At the bottom of the cupboard there was a bucket with a cloth neatly folded over the edge; on the first shelf were three dusting cloths, one sealed and one opened roll of white bin bags. A bottle of Krystal green soap. And a tin of Bona polish. He bent down and read the label.
For parquet floors. Did not contain ammonia.
Harry got up slowly. Stood quite still listening. Scenting the air.
He was rusty, but he tried to absorb it and memorise everything he had seen. The first impression. He had emphasised it in his lectures again and again, how the first impressions at a crime scene were often the most important and correct, the collection of data while your senses were still on high alert, before they were blunted and counteracted by the forensics team’s dry facts.
Harry closed his eyes, tried to hear what the house was telling him, which details he had overlooked, the one that would tell him what he wanted to know.
But if the house was talking it was drowned by the noise of the dustcart outside the open front door. He heard the voices of the men on the lorry, the gate opening, the happy laughter. Carefree. As though nothing had happened. Perhaps nothing had happened. Perhaps Beate would soon be back, sniffling as she tightened her scarf around her neck, would brighten up, surprised but happy to see him. And even more surprised and happy when he asked her if she wanted to be a witness at his wedding to Rakel. Then she would laugh and blush to the roots as she did if anyone looked her way. The woman who used to immure herself in the House of Pain, the video room at Police HQ, where she would sit for twelve hours at a stretch and with infallible accuracy identify masked robbers caught on bank CCTV. Who became the head of Krimteknisk. A well-liked boss. Harry swallowed.
It sounded like notes for a funeral speech.
Pack it in, she’s on her way! He took a deep breath. Heard the gate slam, the dustcart start churning.
Then it came to him. The detail. That didn’t tally.
He stared into the cupboard. A half-used roll of white bin bags.
The bags in the dustbin had been black.
Harry was out of the blocks.
Sprinted through the hall, out of the door, down towards the gate. Ran as fast as he could, yet his heart was running ahead of him.
‘Stop!’
One dustman looked up. He was standing with one leg on the rear platform of the lorry, which had already started moving towards the next house. The crunch of the steel jaws as they chewed seemed to come from inside Harry’s head.
‘Stop the butchery!’
He jumped over the gate and landed on the tarmac with both feet. The dustman reacted at once, hit the red stop button and banged the side of the lorry, which pulled up with an angry snort.
The crusher was quiet.
The dustman stared.
Harry walked slowly over to him, looking at the same place, the open iron jaws. There was a pungent stench, but Harry didn’t notice it. He saw only the half-crushed, split rubbish bags, leaking and seeping out liquid, and staining the metal red.
‘Folk are not right in the head,’ the dustman whispered.
‘What’s up?’ It was the driver; he had stuck his head out of the cab.
‘Looks like someone’s chucked their dog in again,’ his colleague shouted. And looked at Harry. ‘Is it yours?’
Harry didn’t answer, just stepped up onto the platform and into the half-open hydraulic jaws.
‘Hey! You can’t do that! It’s danger—’
Harry shook off the man’s hand. Slipped on the red mess, hitting his elbow and cheek on the slippery steel floor, noticed the familiar taste and smell of day-old blood. Struggled to his knees and tore open a bag.
The contents poured out and slipped down the sloping flatbed.
‘Jesus Christ!’ the dustman behind him gasped.
Harry tore open a second. And a third.
Heard the dustman jump off and puke, the splash on the tarmac.
In the fourth bag Harry found what he was looking for. The other parts of her body could have belonged to anyone. But not this. Not this blonde hair, not this pale face that would never blush again. Not these vacant, staring eyes that had recognised everyone she had ever seen. The face had been hacked to pieces, but Harry was in no doubt. He put a finger on the earring forged from a uniform button.
It was so painful, so, so painful that he couldn’t breathe, so painful that he was doubled up, like a dying bee with its sting removed.
And he heard a sound cross his lips, as though from a stranger, a long, drawn-out howl that echoed around the quiet neighbourhood.
27
BEATE LØNN WAS buried in Gamlebyen Cemetery, beside her father. He hadn’t been buried there because it was his parish but because the cemetery was the closest one to Police HQ.
Mikael Bellman adjusted his tie. Held Ulla’s hand. It had been the PR consultant’s suggestion that she went along. The situation for him as the most senior officer had become so precarious after the latest killing that he needed help. The consultant had explained that it was important for him as Chief of Police to show more personal commitment, empathy, that so far he had appeared slightly too professional. Ulla had stepped up. Of course she had. Stunningly beautiful in the mourning outfit she had chosen with such meticulous care. She was a good wife to him. He would not forget it. Not for a long time.
The priest went on and on about what he called the big questions, about what happens when we die. But of course they weren’t the big questions; those were what had happened before Beate died and who had killed her. Her and three other officers in the course of the last six months.
They were the big questions for the press, who had spent recent days paying homage to the brilliant head of Krimteknisk and criticising the new and shockingly inexperienced Chief of Police.
They were the big questions for Oslo Council, who had summoned him to a meeting where he would have to account for his handling of the murders. They had indicated that they would not pull their punches.
And they were the big questions for the investigation groups, both the large one and the small one Hagen had set up without telling him, but which Bellman had now accepted, as at least it had found a concrete lead to work on, Valentin Gjertsen. Its weakness was that the theory that this ghost might be behind the murders was based on a single witness’s claim that she had seen him alive. And she was now in the coffin by the altar.
In the reports from the forensics team, the police investigation and the pathologist, there hadn’t been enough detail to give a full picture of what had happened, but everything they did know matched the old reports of the murder in Bergslia.
So if you assumed the rest was identical, Beate Lønn had died in the
worst way imaginable.
There wasn’t a trace of anaesthetic in any of the body parts they had examined. The pathologist’s report contained the phrases ‘massive internal bleeding in muscles and subcutaneous tissue’, ‘an inflammatory reaction to infection in the tissue’, which, translated, meant that Beate Lønn had been alive not only at the time the relevant parts of her body had been cut off, but unfortunately also some time afterwards.
The severed surfaces suggested a bayonet saw rather than a jigsaw had been used for the carving up of the body. The forensics officers guessed a so-called bimetal blade had been used, that is, a fourteen-centimetre, fine-toothed blade that could cut through bone. Bjørn Holm said this was the one hunters where he came from called the elk blade.
Beate Lønn might have been cut up on the coffee table as it was made of glass and could be cleaned effectively afterwards. The killer had probably taken ammonia with him and black bin bags as none of these had been found at the crime scene.
In the dustcart they had also found the remains of a rug drenched in blood.
What they didn’t find were fingerprints, footprints, fabric, hairs or other DNA material that didn’t belong to the house.
Or any signs of a break-in.
Katrine Bratt had explained that Beate Lønn had finished the call because the doorbell had rung.
It seemed very unlikely that Beate Lønn would have voluntarily let in a stranger, and definitely not in the middle of an operation. So the theory they were working on was that the killer had forced his way in, threatening her with a weapon.
And then, of course, there was the second theory. That it wasn’t a stranger. Because Beate Lønn had a chain on the solid door. And there were plenty of scratch marks, suggesting that it was used regularly.
Bellman looked down the rows. Gunnar Hagen. Bjørn Holm and Katrine Bratt. An elderly lady with a small boy he assumed was Lønn’s son, at any rate the similarity was striking.
Another ghost, Harry Hole. Rakel Fauke. Brunette, with these dark, glinting eyes, almost as beautiful as Ulla, incomprehensible that a guy like Hole could have got his paws on her.