by Jo Nesbo
'Forensics didn't find any illegal substances in the blood samples,' Beate said. 'Nor was there any mention of needle marks or other indications.'
Hagen cleared his throat and the others turned round. 'A Salvation Army soldier would not be involved in that sort of thing. Go on.'
Harry noticed red patches developing on Magnus Skarre's forehead. Skarre was short and stocky, an ex-gymnast, with smooth brown hair and a side parting. He was one of the youngest detectives, an arrogant and ambitious arriviste who in many ways was reminiscent of a young Tom Waaler. But without Waaler's very special intelligence and talent for police work. In the last year, however, Skarre's self-confidence had evaporated somewhat, and Harry had begun to think it was not impossible that they would make a decent policeman out of him after all.
'On the other hand, Robert Karlsen had an experimental bent,' Harry said. 'And we know that addicts can serve their sentences in Fretex shops. Curiosity and accessibility are a bad combination.'
'Exactly,' Skarre said. 'And when I asked the lady in Fretex whether Robert was single, she said she thought so. Even though there had been a foreign girl in a couple of times asking after him, but she seemed too young. She guessed the girl came from somewhere in ex-Yugoslavia. Bet you she's Kosovar-Albanian.'
'Why's that?' Hagen asked.
'Kosovar-Albanian. Drugs.'
'Whoa there,' clucked Hagen, rocking back on his chair. 'That sounds like gross prejudice, young man.'
'Right,' Harry said. 'And our prejudices solve cases. Because they are not based on lack of knowledge, but on actual facts and experience. In this room we reserve the right to discriminate against everyone, regardless of race, religion or gender. Our defence is that it is not exclusively the weakest members of society who are discriminated against.'
Halvorsen grinned. He had heard this rule before.
'Homosexuals, active believers and women are, from a statistical point of view, more law-abiding than heterosexual men between eighteen and sixty. But if you are female, lesbian and a Kosovar-Albanian with religious convictions, the chances that you are drug-dealing are nevertheless a lot higher than for a fat, Norwegian-speaking, male chauvinist pig with tattoos all over his forehead. So if we have to choose – and we do – we bring in the Albanian woman for questioning first. Unfair to law-abiding Kosovar-Albanians? Of course. But since we work with probabilities and limited resources, we cannot afford to ignore knowledge wherever we find it. If experience had taught us that an unexpectedly high percentage of those we arrested at customs in Gardemoen Airport were wheelchair users smuggling drugs in their orifices, we would put on rubber gloves, drag them out of their chairs, and finger-fuck every single one of them. We just keep our mouths shut about that sort of thing when we talk to the press.'
'Interesting philosophy, Hole.' Hagen checked around to gauge the reaction among the others, but the closed faces told him nothing. 'Well, back to the case.'
'OK,' Harry said. 'We'll continue where we left off, searching for the murder weapon, but the area will be increased to a radius of six blocks. We'll continue questioning witnesses and take a trip round the shops that were closed last night. We won't waste any more time on CCTV footage. Let's wait until we have something specific to look for. Li and Li, you have the address of Robert Karlsen's flat and the search warrant. Gorbitz gate, isn't it?'
Li and Li nodded.
'Check out his office as well. You may find something of interest there. Bring any correspondence and hard disks here from both places so that we can see who he's been in contact with. I have spoken to Kripos, who have contacted Interpol today to find out if there are similar cases in Europe. Halvorsen, you're coming with me to the Salvation Army HQ later. Beate, I would like a few words with you after the meeting. Off you go!'
Scraping of chairs and shuffling of feet.
'One moment, gentlemen!'
Silence. They looked at Gunnar Hagen.
'I can see that some of you are coming to work in ragged jeans and items of clothing advertising what I assume is Valerengen football club. The previous boss may have approved of that, but I do not. The press will be following us with Argus eyes. From tomorrow I want to see clothing which is whole and intact and does not display advertising slogans. The general public is out there and we want to be seen as neutral public servants. And I would ask all of you with the rank of inspector or above to stay behind.'
As the room emptied, Harry and Beate stayed behind.
'I'm going to draw up a document for all inspectors in the unit instructing them to carry weapons, starting next week,' Hagen said.
Harry and Beate both looked at him with incredulity.
'The war is hotting up out there,' Hagen said, raising his chin. 'We have to get used to the idea that weapons will be a necessity in the police force of the future. And then high-ranking officers will have to set an example and show the way. A weapon must not be an unfamiliar item but a normal tool of the trade like a mobile phone or a computer. OK?'
'Well,' Harry said, 'I don't have a firearms licence.'
'I assume you're joking,' Hagen said.
'I missed the test last autumn and had to hand in my gun.'
'I'll issue a licence. I have the authority to do that. You'll find a requisition order in your pigeonhole and you can pick the weapon up. No one will be excluded. Off you go.'
Hagen departed.
'He's out of his mind,' Harry said. 'What the hell do we need guns for?'
'Time to patch our jeans and buy a gun belt then, eh?' Beate said with a glint of amusement in her eyes.
'Mm. I wouldn't mind a peep at the pictures Dagbladet took of Egertorget.'
'Help yourself.' She passed him a yellow folder. 'May I ask you something, Harry?'
'Goes without saying.'
'Why did you do that?'
'Do what?'
'Why did you defend Magnus Skarre? You know he's a racist and you didn't mean one iota of what you said about discrimination. Is it to irritate the new POB? Or make sure you're really unpopular from day one?'
Harry opened the envelope. 'You'll get the photos back later.'
He stood by the window of the Radisson SAS hotel in Holbergs plass looking out over the white, frozen town at the break of day. The buildings were low and modest; it was strange to think this was the capital of one of the richest countries in the world. The Royal Palace was an anonymous yellow construction, a compromise between a pietistic democracy and a penniless monarchy. Through the branches of the naked trees he glimpsed a large balcony. The King must have addressed his subjects from there. He raised an imaginary rifle to his shoulder, closed one eye and took aim. The balcony blurred into two.
He had dreamt about Giorgi.
The first time he had met Giorgi he had been crouching by a whimpering dog. The dog was Tinto, but who was this boy with blue eyes and blond, curly hair? Working together they had managed to get Tinto into a wooden box and carry him to the town vet who lived in a grey tworoom brick house in an overgrown apple orchard down by the river. The vet had diagnosed dental problems and said he was no dentist. Besides, who would pay for an ageing stray which would soon lose the rest of its teeth? It would be better to put it to sleep now to avoid the pain and a slow death by starvation. But then Giorgi had started crying. High-pitched, heart-rending, almost melodic crying. And when the vet had asked why he was crying, Giorgi had said perhaps the dog was Jesus, because his father had told him that Jesus walked among us, was one of the humblest of us, well, maybe even a poor, pathetic dog that no one would give either shelter or food. With a shake of his head, the vet had rung the dentist. After school he and Giorgi had gone back to see a tail-wagging Tinto, and the vet had shown them the fine, black fillings in his mouth.
Although Giorgi was in the class above him, they had played together a few times after that. But it lasted just a few weeks because the summer holidays had begun. And when school started up again in the autumn, Giorgi seemed to have forgotten him. At any rate, he ig
nored him as though wanting nothing to do with him.
He had forgotten about Tinto, but he never forgot Giorgi. Several years later, though, during the siege, he had come across an emaciated dog in the ruins at the southern end of the town. It had trotted over to him and licked his face. It had lost its leather collar, and it was only when he saw the black fillings that he had realised it was Tinto.
He checked his watch. The bus to take them to the airport would arrive in ten minutes. He grabbed his suitcase, threw a last glance around the room to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything. Paper rustled as he pushed open the door. He looked down the corridor and saw the same newspaper lying outside several of the rooms. The picture of the crime scene on the front page met his eyes. He bent down and picked up the thick newspaper bearing a name in illegible Gothic script.
While he was waiting for the lift, he tried to read, but although some of the words somehow reminded him of German he understood next to nothing. Instead, he flicked through to the pages referred to on the front. At that moment the lift doors opened and he decided to put the large, unwieldy newspaper in the litter bin between the two lifts. But the lift was empty, so he kept it, pressed zero and concentrated on the pictures. His eye was caught by the text beneath one of the pictures. At first he didn't believe what he was reading. But as the lift jolted into action he experienced a sudden realisation with such horrible certainty that he went dizzy for a second and had to support himself on the wall. The newspaper almost fell out of his hand and he didn't see the lift doors opening in front of him.
When, at last, he did look up he was staring into the darkness and he knew he was in the basement and not in reception, which for some strange reason was floor 1 in this country.
He stepped out of the lift and the doors closed behind him. In the dark he sat down and tried to think clearly. Because this upset all his plans. The airport bus left in eight minutes. That was all the time he had to make a decision.
'I'm trying to look at some pictures here,' Harry said in desperation.
Halvorsen peered up from his desk opposite Harry's. 'Be my guest.'
'Stop snapping your fingers then. Why do you do that?'
'This?' Halvorsen looked at his fingers, snapped them and, a little abashed, laughed. 'It's just an old habit.'
'Oh yes?'
'My dad was a fan of Lev Yashin, the Russian goalkeeper in the sixties.'
Harry waited for him to go on.
'My dad wanted me to be the keeper at the Steinkjer club. So when I was small he used to snap his fingers between my eyes. Like this. To harden me, so that I wouldn't be afraid of shots at goal. Apparently, Yashin's father had done the same. If I didn't blink, I got a sugar cube.'
The words were followed by a moment of total silence in the office.
'You're kidding,' Harry said.
'No. Nice brown sugar.'
'I meant the snapping. Is it true?'
'Absolutely. He did it all the time. During mealtimes, when we were watching TV, even when my pals were there. In the end I started doing it to myself. I wrote Yashin on all my school bags and carved his name into my desk. Even now I always use Yashin as my password on computer programs or anything that needs one. Despite knowing that I am being manipulated. Do you understand?'
'No. Did the snapping help?'
'Yes, I'm not afraid of shots coming at me.'
'So you…'
'No. Turned out I had no ball sense.'
Harry pinched his top lip between two fingers.
'Can you see anything in the pictures?' Halvorsen asked.
'Not when you're sitting there snapping your fingers. And talking.'
Halvorsen gave a slow shake of the head. 'Shouldn't we be on our way to the Salvation Army Headquarters?'
'When I've finished. Halvorsen!'
'Yes?'
'Do you have to breathe so… weirdly?'
Halvorsen clamped his mouth shut and held his breath. Harry's eyes shot up, and back down again. Halvorsen thought he caught a hint of a smile. But he wouldn't have put money on it. Now the smile was gone, replaced by a deep furrow in the inspector's brow.
'Come and have a look at this, Halvorsen.'
Halvorsen walked round the desks. There were two photographs in front of Harry, both of the crowds in Egertorget.
'Can you see the man with the woollen hat and neckerchief at the side?' Harry pointed to a grainy face. 'He's right in line with Robert Karlsen on the very edge of the band, isn't he?'
'Yes…'
'But look at this picture. There. The same hat and the same neckerchief, but now he's in the middle, right in front of the band.'
'Is that so strange? He must have moved to the middle to hear and see better.'
'But what if he did that in reverse order?' Halvorsen didn't answer, so Harry went on. 'You don't change a place at the front for somewhere by the speaker where you can't see the band. Unless you have a good reason.'
'To shoot someone?'
'Cut the flippancy.'
'OK, but you don't know which photo was taken first. I bet he moved to the middle.'
'How much?'
'Two hundred.'
'Done. Look at the light under the lamp post. It's in both photos.' Harry passed Halvorsen a magnifying glass. 'Can you see any difference?'
Halvorsen nodded slowly.
'Snow,' Harry said. 'On the photo with him at the side it's snowing. When it started in the evening, yesterday, it didn't stop until well into the night. So that photo was taken later. We'll have to call that Wedlog guy from Dagbladet. If he was using a digital camera with an internal clock, he may have the precise time the photo was taken.'
Hans Wedlog, from Dagbladet, was one of those who swore by singlelens reflex cameras and rolls of film. Hence, as far as the timing of individual photos was concerned, he had to disappoint the inspector.
'OK,' Hole said. 'Did you cover the concert last night?'
'Yes, Rodberg and I do all the street-music stuff.'
'If you use rolls of film, you must have crowd shots lying around somewhere, haven't you?'
'Yes, I have. And I wouldn't have if I used a digital camera. They would have been deleted already.'
'That's what I was wondering. I was also wondering whether you would do me a favour.'
'Uh-huh?'
'Could you check your film from the day before yesterday to see if you can find a guy with a woollen hat and a black raincoat? And a neckerchief. We're poring over one of your photos right now. Halvorsen can scan it in and send it to you if you're near a computer.'
Harry could hear Wedlog had reservations. 'I can send you the photos, no problem, but checking them sounds like police work, and as a press guy I don't want to get any lines crossed here.'
'We're a bit short on time, I'm afraid. Would you like a photo of the police suspect or not?'
'Does that mean you would let us print it?'
'Yep.'
Wedlog's voice warmed up. 'I'm in the lab now, so I can check right away. I took loads of pictures of the crowd, so there's hope. Five minutes.'
Halvorsen scanned the photo in and sent it, and Harry sat drumming his fingers while they waited.
'What makes you so sure he was there the evening before?' Halvorsen asked.
'I'm not sure of anything,' Harry said. 'But if Beate is right and he is a pro, he would have done a recce, and preferably at a time when conditions were as similar to those of the planned hit as possible. And there was a street concert the day before.'
The five minutes came and went. Eleven minutes later the phone rang.
'Wedlog here. Sorry, no woolly hats and no black raincoats. And no neckerchief.'
'Fuck,' Harry said, loud and clear.
'Apologies. Shall I send them over so that you can check them for yourself? I had the lights focused on the audience that night. You'll have a better view of the faces.'
Harry hesitated. It was important to prioritise how time was allocated, especially in these critica
l first twenty-four hours.
'Send them and we'll look at them later,' Harry said, on the point of giving Wedlog his email address. 'By the way, better if you send them to Lonn at Krimteknisk. She's got a thing about faces. Perhaps she can see something.' He gave Wedlog the address. 'And I don't want my name mentioned in the byline, OK?'
'Course not. It'll be an "anonymous source in the police force". Nice to do business with you.'
Harry put down the receiver and nodded to a wide-eyed Halvorsen. 'OK, Junior, let's head for the Salvation Army HQ.'
Halvorsen glanced over at Harry. The inspector was unable to conceal his impatience as he scanned the noticeboard and the announcements about visiting preachers, music rehearsals and duty rosters. At length the uniformed, grey-haired reception lady was finished with incoming phone calls and turned to them with a smile.
Harry told her the purpose of their visit in swift, concise terms. She nodded as though she had been expecting them and gave them directions.
They didn't speak as they waited for the lift, but Halvorsen could see the beads of sweat on the inspector's brow. He knew Harry didn't like lifts. They got out on the fourth floor and Halvorsen followed Harry at a canter through the yellow corridors culminating in an open office door. Harry came to such an abrupt halt that Halvorsen almost crashed into him.
'Hello there,' Harry said.
'Hi,' said a woman's voice. 'Is it you again?'
Harry's sizeable figure filled the doorway and prevented Halvorsen from seeing who was speaking, but he noted the change in Harry's voice. 'Indeed it is. The commander?'
'He's waiting for you. Just go in.'
Halvorsen followed Harry through the small anteroom, with a quick nod to a small girl-woman behind a desk. The walls of the commander's office were decorated with wooden shields, masks and spears. On the well-stacked bookshelves were carved African figures and pictures of what Halvorsen supposed were the commander's family.
'Thank you for seeing us at such short notice, herr Eckhoff,' Harry said. 'This is Police Officer Halvorsen.'
'Tragic business,' said Eckhoff, who had got up from behind his desk and indicated two chairs with his hand. 'The press have been on our backs all day. Let me hear what you have so far.'