by Jo Nesbo
‘Oh?’
‘I’m not in the habit of showing up in person, but I wanted to have a tête-à-tête before putting anything into writing. This is about Silje Gravseng, who is your student.’
‘My student,’ Harry repeated.
‘Is that not the case?’
‘In a sense. You made it sound as if she were personally mine.’
‘I’ll do my best to be as precise as possible,’ Krohn said, puckering his lips into a smile. ‘She came straight to me instead of going to the police. Out of fear you would back one another up.’
‘You?’
‘The police.’
‘I’m not-’
‘You were employed by the police for years and, as a PHS employee, you’re part of the system. The point is she’s frightened the police would try to dissuade her from reporting this sexual assault. And that in the long term it would damage her career if she set herself against them.’
‘What are you talking about, Krohn?’
‘Am I still not making myself clear? You raped Silje Gravseng here in this office last night, just before midnight.’
Krohn observed Harry during the ensuing silence.
‘Not that I can use this against you, Hole, but your absence of visible surprise is eloquent and reinforces my client’s credibility.’
‘Does it need reinforcing?’
Krohn placed the tips of his fingers together. ‘I hope you’re aware of the seriousness of this matter, Hole. The very fact that this rape has been reported and made public will turn your life upside down.’
Harry tried to imagine him in his lawyer’s gown. The trial. The accusatory finger pointing at Harry in the dock. Silje bravely drying a tear. The lay judges’ open-mouthed expressions of indignation. The cold front from the public gallery. The ceaseless scratching of the court sketcher’s lead pencil on his pad.
‘The only reason I’m sitting here, instead of two policemen with handcuffs ready to usher you out through the corridors, past your colleagues and your students, is that this approach would have a cost for my client as well.’
‘Which is?’
‘I’m sure you know. She would always be the woman who sent a colleague to prison. Grassed up, it would be said. I understand this is frowned upon in police circles.’
‘You’ve seen too many films, Krohn. The police like to see rape cases cleared up, whoever the suspect is.’
‘And the trial would be a strain for a young girl, of course. Especially with important exams looming. As she didn’t dare to go to the police, and had to think hard before she came to me, much of the forensic and biological evidence will already be lost. And that means the trial might drag on for longer than it would otherwise.’
‘And what evidence have you got?’
‘Bruising. Scratch marks. A torn dress. And if I have to ask for this office to be gone through with a fine-tooth comb, I’m sure we’ll find bits of the same dress.’
‘If?’
‘Yes. I’m not just bad news, Harry.’
‘Oh?’
‘I have an alternative to offer you.’
‘The devil’s, I assume.’
‘You’re an intelligent man, Hole. You know we don’t have damning evidence. This is a typical rape case, isn’t it? It’ll be one person’s word against another’s and we’ll end up with two losers. The victim is suspected of loose morals and making false accusations, and everyone assumes the man who has been acquitted got off lightly. Given this potential lose-lose situation, Silje Gravseng has presented me with a wish, a suggestion, which I have no hesitation in supporting. Let me for a moment step out of my role as your adversary’s lawyer, Hole. I advise you to support it too. For the alternative is she reports you. She’s absolutely clear about that.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. As someone who wants to maintain law and order as her profession, she sees it as her civic duty to ensure that rapists are punished. But, fortunately for you, not necessarily by a judge.’
‘So, principled in a way?’
‘If I were you, I would be less sarcastic and a little more grateful, Hole. I could have recommended she report you to the police.’
‘What do you two want, Krohn?’
‘In brief, for you to resign from your post at PHS and never again work for, or be in any way connected with, the police. Leaving Silje to continue her studies here in peace without any interference from you. The same applies when she takes up a job. One negative word from you and the agreement is declared null and void, and the rape will be reported.’
Harry placed his elbows on the table, put his head in his hands. Massaging his forehead.
‘I’ll set up a written agreement in the form of a settlement,’ Krohn said. ‘Your resignation in exchange for her silence. Secrecy is a prerequisite on both sides. You will, however, hardly be able to damage her if you did break secrecy. Her decision will be met with sympathetic understanding.’
‘While I’ll be seen as guilty because I went along with this settlement.’
‘View it as damage limitation, Hole. A man with your background will easily be able to find work. As an insurance investigator, for example. They pay better than PHS, believe me.’
‘I believe you.’
‘Good.’ Krohn flipped up the lid of his phone. ‘How’s your calendar for the next few days?’
‘I can do it tomorrow as a matter of fact.’
‘Good. My office at two o’clock. Can you remember the address from the last time?’
Harry nodded.
‘Excellent. Have a marvellous day, Hole!’
Krohn jumped from his chair. Knee-lifts, pull-ups and bench press, Harry guessed.
After he had gone, Harry looked at his watch. It was Thursday and Rakel was coming a day earlier this weekend. Due to land at 17.30 and he had offered to collect her from the airport, which — after two of the standard ‘oh no, you don’t need to’s — she had accepted gratefully. He knew she loved the three-quarters of an hour in the car home. The chat. The calm. The prelude to a wonderful evening. Her excited voice explaining what it actually meant that only states could be parties to the Statute of the Court at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. About the UN’s legal powers or lack of them, as the countryside rolled past them. Or they talked about Oleg, about how he was doing, how he looked better by the day, how the old Oleg was returning. About the plans he had made. Studying law. PHS. And how lucky they had been. And how fragile happiness was.
They talked about everything that came into their heads, no beating around the bush. Almost everything. Harry never said how frightened he was. Frightened of making promises he couldn’t keep. Frightened of not being the person he wanted to be, had to be, for them. Frightened that he didn’t know if they could be the same for him. That he didn’t know how someone could make him happy.
The fact that he was now together with her and Oleg was almost an exceptional circumstance, something he only half believed in, a suspiciously wonderful dream he was constantly expecting to wake up from.
Harry rubbed his face. Perhaps it was close now. The awakening. The pitiless, stinging daylight. Reality. Where everything would be as before. Cold, hard and lonely. Harry shivered.
Katrine Bratt looked at her watch. Ten past nine. Outside, it might have been a sudden mild spring evening. Down in the basement it was a chilly, damp winter evening. She watched Bjørn Holm scratching his red sideburns. Ståle Aune scribbling on a pad. Beate Lønn stifling a yawn. They were sitting around a computer looking at the photo Beate had taken of the tram window. They had talked a bit about the drawing, and concluded that whatever it was meant to signify, it was unlikely to help them catch Valentin.
Then Katrine had told them again about her feeling that someone else had been in the Evidence Room.
‘It must have been someone working there,’ Bjørn said. ‘But, well, OK, it is strange they didn’t switch on the light.’
‘The key would be easy to copy,’ Katrine said.
‘Perhaps they aren’t letters,’ Beate said. ‘Perhaps they’re numbers.’
They turned to her. She was still staring at the computer.
‘Ones and zeros. Not i’s and o’s. Like a binary code. Don’t ones mean yes and zeros no, Katrine?’
‘I’m not a programmer,’ Katrine said. ‘But yes, that’s right. And one means on and zero means off.’
‘One means action, zero means do nothing,’ Beate said. ‘Do. Don’t. Do. Don’t. One. Zero. Row after row.’
‘Like petals on an ox-eye daisy,’ Bjørn said.
They sat in silence; the computer fan was all that could be heard.
‘The matrix ends in a zero,’ Aune said. ‘Don’t.’
‘If he was finished,’ Beate said. ‘He had to get off at his stop.’
‘Sometimes serial killers just stop killing,’ Katrine said. ‘Disappear. Never to be seen again.’
‘That’s the exception,’ Beate said. ‘Zero or no zero. Who thinks the cop killer intends to stop? Ståle?’
‘Katrine’s right, that does happen, but I’m afraid this one will keep going.’
Afraid, Katrine thought, close to blurting out what she was thinking, which was that she was afraid of the opposite, now that they were so close, that he would stop, disappear from view. That it was worth the risk. Yes, that in a worst-case scenario she would be willing to sacrifice one colleague to catch Valentin. It was a sick thought, but it was there anyway. Another police death was tolerable. Letting Valentin get away wasn’t. And she mouthed a silent incantation: one more time, you bastard. Strike one more time.
Katrine’s mobile rang. She saw from the number it was the Pathology Unit.
‘Hi. We checked this chunk of chewing gum from the rape case.’
‘Yes?’ Katrine could feel her blood pumping round faster. To hell with all the little theories, this was hard evidence.
‘I’m afraid we can’t find any DNA.’
‘What?’ It was like someone dousing you with a bucket of ice-cold water. ‘But. . but it has to be crammed with spit.’
‘That’s the way it goes sometimes, I’m afraid. Of course we could check it again, but with these police murders. .’
Katrine rang off. ‘They didn’t find anything in the chewing gum,’ she said in a low voice.
Bjørn and Beate nodded. Katrine thought she detected a certain air of relief in Beate.
There was a knock at the door.
‘Yes!’ Beate shouted.
Katrine stared at the iron door, suddenly sure it was him.
The tall blond man. He had changed his mind. He had come to save them all from this misery.
The iron door opened. Katrine cursed. It was Gunnar Hagen. ‘How’s it going?’
Beate stretched her arms above her head. ‘No Valentin on trams 11 or 12 this afternoon, and the questioning didn’t produce anything of interest. We’ve got officers on the tram this evening, but our hopes are higher for early tomorrow morning.’
‘I’ve been fielding queries from the Investigation Unit about the use of officers on the tram. They’re wondering what’s going on and if it has any connection with the police murders.’
‘Rumours spread quickly,’ Beate said.
‘Bit too quickly,’ Hagen said. ‘This is going to get to Bellman’s ears.’
Katrine stared at the screen. Patterns. This was her strength, this was; it was how they had managed to trace the Snowman that time. So. One and zero. Two numbers in pairs. Ten maybe? A pair of numbers that go together several times. Several times. Several. .
‘For this reason I’ll have to inform him about Valentin this evening.’
‘What does that mean for our group?’ Beate asked.
‘Valentin turning up on a tram isn’t our fault. It’s obvious we had to act. However, with that our group has completed its mission. It has established that Valentin is alive and given us a main suspect. And if we don’t catch him, there’s a chance he’ll turn up at the house in Berg. Now other officers will take over, folks.’
‘What about poly-ti?’ Katrine said.
‘I beg your pardon,’ Hagen answered in a soft voice.
‘Ståle says that you write what’s going on in your subconscious. Valentin has written lots of tens, one after the other. Another way of saying “many” is “poly”. So, poly-ti. As in politi. Police. That might mean he’s planning to murder more police officers.’
‘What’s she blathering about?’ Hagen asked, turning to Ståle.
Ståle Aune shrugged. ‘We’re trying to interpret his doodles on the tram window. My own doodle suggested that he was writing die. But what if he’s content to use ones and zeros? The human brain is a four-dimensional labyrinth. Everyone’s been there; no one knows the way.’
As Katrine walked through Oslo’s streets on her way to the police flat in Grünerløkka, she wasn’t aware of life around her, the laughing, excited people hurrying to celebrate the short spring, the short weekend, life before it was over.
She knew now. Why they had been so obsessed with this idiotic ‘code’. Because they were desperately hoping that things would cohere, have some meaning. But more importantly, because they had nothing else to go on. So they flogged a dead horse.
Her gaze was fixed on the pavement in front of her, and she was banging her heels on the tarmac in time to the incantation she kept repeating: ‘One more time, you bastard. Strike one more time.’
Harry had taken her long hair in his hand. It was still dark and shiny and so thick it felt like you were holding coiled rope. He pulled it towards him, tipping her head back, and looked down at her slender, arched back, her spine winding like a snake beneath her glowing, perspiring skin. Thrust again. Her groan was like a low-frequency growl coming from the depths of her chest, an angry, frustrated sound. Sometimes their lovemaking was quiet, calm, lazy like a slow dance, a shuffle. At other times it was like fighting. As it was tonight. It was as though her wanton lust bred greater lust, like now; it was like trying to extinguish a fire with petrol, it escalated, burned out of control, and often he thought, Jesus, this can’t end well.
Her dress was lying on the floor beside the bed. Red. She was so attractive in red it was almost a sin. Barefoot. No, she hadn’t been barefoot. Harry leaned over and breathed in her aroma.
‘Don’t stop,’ she groaned.
Opium. Rakel had told him the bitter smell was sweat from the bark of an Arab tree. No, not sweat, it was tears. The tears of a princess who fled to Arabia because of a forbidden love. Princess Myrrha. Myrrh. Her life ended in grief, but Yves Saint Laurent paid a fortune per litre of tears.
‘Don’t stop, hold. .’
She had taken his hand, pressed it against her neck. He squeezed carefully. Felt the blood vessels and the tensed muscles in her slender neck.
‘Harder! Har-’
Her voice was cut off as he did what she said. Knowing that now he had stopped the flow of oxygen to her brain. This had been her thing, something he did and got a kick out of because he knew she got a kick out of it. But something was different now. The thought that she was in his power. That he could do with her as he wished. He stared down at her dress. The red dress. Felt it building up inside him and that he wouldn’t be able to hold it back. He closed his eyes and imagined her. On all fours as she slowly turned over, looked at him, while her hair changed colour, and he saw who she was. Her eyes had rolled backwards and her neck was covered in bruises, which became visible as the forensics officer’s flash went off.
Harry let go and pulled his hand away. But Rakel was already there. She had tensed up and was shaking like a deer the second before it hits the ground. Then she died. Slumped with her forehead against the mattress, a bitter sob came from her mouth. She lay like that, kneeling as if in prayer.
Harry pulled out. She whimpered, turned and eyed him accusingly. Usually he waited before pulling out until she was ready for the separation.
Harry kissed her quickly on the neck, slid out of be
d and fished around for the Paul Smith underpants she had bought him at some airport. Found his pack of Camel in the Wranglers hanging over the chair. Went downstairs to the living room. Sat in a chair and looked out of the window, where the night was at its darkest and yet not so dark that he couldn’t see the silhouette of Holmenkollen Ridge against the sky. Lit a cigarette. Immediately afterwards he heard the patter of her feet behind him. Felt a hand stroking his hair and neck.
‘Is there something wrong?’
‘No.’
She sat down on the arm of the chair and snuggled her nose up against his neck. Her skin was still hot and smelt of Rakel and lovemaking. And Princess Myrrha’s tears.
‘Opium,’ he said. ‘Quite a name for a perfume.’
‘Don’t you like it?’
‘Yes, I do.’ Harry blew smoke at the ceiling. ‘But it’s quite. . pronounced.’
She lifted her head. Looked at him. ‘And you’re telling me that now?’
‘I hadn’t thought about it before. I didn’t really now, either.’
‘Is it the booze?’
‘What?’
‘The alcohol in the perfume. Is it that. .?’
He shook his head.
‘But there’s something,’ she said. ‘I know you, Harry. You’re troubled, restless. Look at the way you’re smoking. You’re sucking it out as if it were the last drop of water in the world.’
Harry smiled. Stroked the gooseflesh on her back. She kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘So if it’s not alcoholic abstinence, it’s the other variety.’
‘The other variety?’
‘The police variety.’
‘Oh, that,’ he said.
‘It’s the police murders, isn’t it?’
‘Beate came here to persuade me. She said she’d talked to you first.’
Rakel nodded.
‘And that you’d given the impression it was fine by you,’ Harry said.
‘I said it was up to you.’
‘Had you forgotten our promise?’
‘No, but I can’t force you to keep a promise, Harry.’
‘And what if I’d said yes and joined the investigation?’
‘Then you would have broken your promise.’