The Thirst: Harry Hole 11

by Jo Nesbo

  ‘At least you’re saying “we”. Does that mean you’ve got a guilty conscience?’

  ‘Do you think I’m some kind of psychopath, or what? Of course I think this is bad.’

  ‘I’m not going to answer that question. But yes, I agree that it’s pretty bad. Does this mean that you’re not going to be my source any more?’

  ‘If I say no, does that mean you won’t protect my identity in future?’

  ‘No,’ Mona said.

  ‘Good. So you do have a conscience.’

  ‘Well,’ Mona said, ‘it’s not so much that we care about the source than that we care what our colleagues would say if we blew a source. What are your colleagues saying, by the way?’

  ‘Nothing. They’ve figured out that I’m the leak, so they’ve isolated me. I’m not allowed to take part in meetings or know anything about the investigation.’

  ‘No? I can feel myself losing interest in you, Truls.’

  Truls snorted. ‘You’re cynical, but at least you’re honest, Mona Daa.’

  ‘Thanks. I assume.’

  ‘OK, I might have one last tip-off. But this is about something else entirely.’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘Police Chief Mikael Bellman is fucking a high-profile woman.’

  ‘There’s no money in tip-offs like that, Berntsen.’

  ‘OK, it’s free, just print it anyway.’

  ‘The editor doesn’t like infidelity stories, but if you’ve got evidence and are willing to stand by the story, I might be able to convince them. But in that case you’d be quoted, with your full name.’

  ‘With my name? That’s suicide, you can see that, surely? I can tell you where they meet, you could send one of those hidden photographers.’

  Mona Daa laughed. ‘Sorry, it doesn’t work like that.’

  ‘Doesn’t it?’

  ‘The press abroad do this sort of thing, but not us here in little Norway.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The official explanation is that we don’t sink to that level.’

  ‘But?’

  Mona shrugged her shoulders, shivering. ‘Because there aren’t really any limits to how low we’re actually prepared to go, my personal theory is that it’s another example of everyone’s-got-something-to-hide syndrome.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Married editors are no less unfaithful than anyone else. If you reveal someone’s infidelity, everyone in a small public arena like Norway’s risks being caught in the blast. We can write about affairs in the great big “abroad”, maybe refer to affairs abroad here at home if one public figure has said something careless about another. But investigative journalism into infidelity among people in positions of power?’ Mona Daa shook her head.

  Truls blew out scornfully through his nose. ‘So there’s no way to make it public?’

  ‘Is this something you think should be revealed because Bellman shouldn’t be Police Chief?’

  ‘What? No, maybe not that.’

  Mona nodded and looked up at the Monolith, and the remorseless struggle to reach the top that it depicted. ‘You must really hate him.’

  Truls didn’t answer. He just looked rather surprised, as if that was something he hadn’t thought about. And Mona wondered what was going on inside that pockmarked, not particularly attractive face, with its heavy jaw and beady eyes. She almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

  ‘I’m going now, Berntsen. We’ll be in touch.’

  ‘Will we?’

  ‘Maybe not.’

  When Mona had walked some way into the park, she turned round and saw Truls Berntsen in the light of one of the lamps up by the Monolith. He had stuck his hands in his pockets, and was just standing there with his back hunched, looking for something. He seemed so incredibly alone standing there like that, as unmoving as the blocks of stone around him.

  Harry stared at the ceiling. The ghosts hadn’t come. Maybe they wouldn’t be coming tonight. You never knew. But they had a new member. What would Mehmet look like when he came? Harry shut the thought out and listened to the silence. Holmenkollen was certainly quiet, there was no denying that. Too quiet. He preferred to hear the city outside. Like night-time in the jungle, full of noises that could warn you in the darkness, tell you when something was coming and when it wasn’t. Silence contained too little information. But that wasn’t it. It was the fact that there was no one beside him in bed.

  If he counted, then the number of nights he had shared a bed with anyone was in a clear minority. So why did he feel so alone, he, a man who had always sought out solitude and had never needed anyone else?

  He rolled onto his side and tried shutting his eyes.

  He didn’t need anyone now either. He didn’t need anyone. He didn’t need anyone.

  He just needed her.

  A creaking sound. From the timber walls. Or a floorboard. Perhaps the storm was early. Or the ghosts late.

  He turned onto the other side. Shut his eyes again.

  The creaking was just outside the bedroom door.

  He got up, walked over and opened it.

  It was Mehmet. ‘I saw him, Harry.’ Where his eyes had been there were two black sockets that sparked and smoked.

  Harry woke with a start.

  His phone was purring like a cat on the bedside table next to him.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘This is Dr Steffens.’

  Harry felt a sudden pain in his chest.

  ‘It’s about Rakel.’

  Of course it was about Rakel. And Harry knew that Steffens was only saying that to give him the seconds he needed to steel himself for the news.

  ‘We can’t bring her out of the coma.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She won’t wake up.’

  ‘Is … will she …?’

  ‘We don’t know, Harry. I know you must have an awful lot of questions, but so do we. I really can’t tell you anything except that we’re working as hard as we can here.’

  Harry bit the inside of his cheek to make sure this wasn’t just the world premiere of a new nightmare. ‘OK, OK. Can I see her?’

  ‘Not now, we’ve got her in intensive care. I’ll call as soon as we know more. But it might take a while, Rakel is probably going to be in a coma for some time, so don’t hold your breath, OK?’

  Harry realised that Steffens was right: he wasn’t breathing.

  They hung up. Harry stared at the phone. She won’t wake up. Of course not, she didn’t want to, because who the hell wants to wake up? Harry got out of bed and went downstairs. Opened the kitchen cupboards. Nothing. Empty, empty. He rang for a taxi then went back upstairs to get dressed.

  He saw the blue sign, read the name and braked. Pulled in to the side of the road and switched the engine off. Looked around. Forest and road. It reminded him of those anonymous, monotonous stretches of road in Finland, where you get the feeling that you’re driving through a desert of trees. Where the trees stand like a silent wall on either side of the road and a body is as easy to hide as it would be to sink it in the sea. He waited until a car had passed. Checked the mirror. He couldn’t see any lights now, either in front or behind. So he got out onto the road, walked round the car and opened the boot. She was so pale. Even her freckles were paler. And her frightened eyes looked big and black above the muzzle. He lifted her out, and had to help her stand up. He took hold of the handcuffs and led her across the road and over the ditch, towards the black wall of trees. He switched the torch on. Felt her trembling so much that the handcuffs were shaking.

  ‘There, there, I’m not going to hurt you, darling,’ he said. And could feel that he meant it. He really didn’t want to hurt her. Not any more. And perhaps she knew that, perhaps she understood that he loved her. Perhaps she was trembling because she was only dressed in underwear and his Japanese girlfriend’s negligee.

  They headed into the trees, and it was like walking into a building. A different sort of silence settled, while at the same time new noises could be heard
. Smaller but clearer, unidentifiable noises. A snapping sound, a sigh, a cry. The ground in the forest was soft, the carpet of pine needles gave a pleasant bounce as they moved forward with soundless steps, like a bridal couple in a church in a dream.

  When he had counted to a hundred he stopped. Raised the torch and shone it around them. And the beam of light soon found what he was looking for. A tall, charred tree that had been split in two by lightning. He dragged her towards the tree. She didn’t resist as he undid the handcuffs, pulled her arms around the tree and fastened the cuffs again. A lamb, he thought as he looked at her sitting there on her knees, hugging the tree. A sacrificial lamb. Because he wasn’t the bridegroom: he was the father giving his child away at the altar.

  He stroked her cheek one last time and turned to walk away when a voice rang out from among the trees.

  ‘She’s alive, Valentin.’

  He stopped, and instinctively pointed the torch in the direction of the sound.

  ‘Put that away,’ said the voice in the darkness.

  Valentin did as the voice said. ‘She wanted to live.’

  ‘But the bartender didn’t?’

  ‘He could identify me. I couldn’t take the risk.’

  Valentin listened, but all he could hear was a low whistle from Marte’s nostrils as she breathed.

  ‘I’ll clean up after you this one time,’ the voice said. ‘Have you got the revolver you were given?’

  ‘Yes,’ Valentin said. Wasn’t there something familiar about the voice?

  ‘Put it down next to her and go. You’ll get it back soon enough.’

  A thought struck Valentin. Draw the revolver, use the torch to find the other man, kill him. Kill the voice of reason, wipe out any trail that led to him, let the demon reign once more. The counter-argument was that Valentin might need him later.

  ‘Where and when?’ Valentin called. ‘We can’t use the locker at the bathhouse any more.’

  ‘Tomorrow. You’ll be informed. Now that you’ve heard my voice anyway, I’ll call.’

  Valentin pulled the revolver from its holster and put it down in front of the girl. Took one last look at her. Then he walked away.

  When he got back in the car he hit his head twice against the wheel, hard. Then he started the car, indicated to pull out even though there were no other cars in sight, and calmly drove away.

  ‘Stop over there,’ Harry told the taxi driver, pointing.

  ‘It’s three o’clock in the morning, and that bar looks very closed.’

  ‘It belongs to me.’

  Harry paid and got out. Where there had been febrile activity just a few hours ago, there was now no one in sight at all. The crime-scene investigators were finished, but there was white tape across the door. The tape was embossed with the Norwegian lion and the words POLICE. SEALED. DO NOT BREAK SEAL. TRANSGRESSION PUNISHABLE BY PENAL CODE 343. Harry inserted the key in the lock and turned it. The tape crackled as he pulled the door open and went inside.

  They had left the lights beneath the mirror shelves on. Harry closed one eye and aimed his index finger at the bottles from where he stood by the door. Nine metres. What if he’d fired? What would things look like now? Impossible to know. It was what it was. Nothing to be done about it. Except forget about it, of course. His finger found the bottle of Jim Beam. It had been promoted and now had its own optic. The brothel lighting made the contents shimmer like gold. Harry walked across the room and went behind the bar, grabbed a glass and held it under the bottle. He filled it to the brim. Why fool himself?

  He felt his muscles tense, all through his body, and wondered for a moment if he was going to throw up before the first mouthful. But he managed to hold on to both the contents of his stomach and the drink, until the third glass. Then he lurched for the sink, and before the yellow-green vomit hit the metal, he saw that the bottom was still red with congealed blood.

  27

  WEDNESDAY MORNING

  IT WAS FIVE to eight, and in the boiler room the coffee machine had finished rattling for the second time that morning.

  ‘What’s happened to Harry?’ Wyller wondered, looking at his watch again.

  ‘Don’t know,’ Bjørn Holm said. ‘We’ll have to start without him.’

  Smith and Wyller nodded.

  ‘OK,’ Bjørn said. ‘Right now Aurora is sitting with her father in Nokas’s head office looking at those recordings, along with someone from Nokas and a specialist in security cameras from the Street Crime Unit. If it goes according to plan, they should get through the four days’ footage in eight hours at most. If the receipt we found really is from a withdrawal Valentin himself made, with a bit of luck we could have his new identity within four hours or so. But certainly before eight o’clock this evening.’

  ‘That’s brilliant!’ Smith exclaimed. ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but let’s not count any chickens,’ Bjørn said. ‘Have you talked to Katrine, Anders?’

  ‘Yes, and we’ve got authorisation to use Delta. They’re ready to go.’

  ‘Delta, they’re the ones with semi-automatics and gas masks and … er, that sort of thing?’

  ‘You’re starting to get the hang of it, Smith,’ Bjørn chuckled, and saw Wyller looking at his watch again. ‘Worried, Anders?’

  ‘Maybe we should call Harry?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  Nine o’clock. Katrine had just dismissed the investigative team from the conference room. She was gathering her papers when she noticed the man standing in the doorway.

  ‘Well, Smith?’ she said. ‘Exciting day, eh? What are you lot up to down there?’

  ‘Trying to get hold of Harry.’

  ‘Hasn’t he shown up?’

  ‘He’s not answering his phone.’

  ‘He’s probably sitting in the hospital, they’re not allowed to have their phones on there. They say it can interfere with the machines and equipment, but that’s supposed to be just as misleading as saying they can disrupt navigation systems on planes.’

  She realised that Smith wasn’t listening and was looking past her.

  She turned and saw that the picture from her laptop was still being projected onto the screen. A picture from the Jealousy Bar.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s not pretty.’

  Smith shook his head like a sleepwalker, without taking his eyes off the screen.

  ‘Are you OK, Smith?’

  ‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m not OK. I can’t stand the sight of blood, I can’t stand violence, and I don’t know if can stand to see any more suffering. This individual … Valentin Gjertsen … I’m a psychologist, and I’m trying to relate to him as a professional case, but I think I might actually hate him.’

  ‘None of us is that professional, Smith. I wouldn’t let a little hatred worry me. Doesn’t it feel good to have someone to hate, as Harry says?’

  ‘Harry says that?’

  ‘Yes. Or Raga Rockers. Or … Was there something else?’

  ‘I’ve spoken to Mona Daa at VG.’

  ‘There’s someone else we can hate. What did she want?’

  ‘I was the one who called her.’

  Katrine stopped sorting her papers.

  ‘I told her my conditions for agreeing to be interviewed about Valentin Gjertsen,’ Smith said. ‘That I’ll talk about Valentin Gjertsen in general terms, and that I won’t say a thing about the investigation. It’s a so-called podcast, a sort of radio programme that—’

  ‘I know what a podcast is, Smith.’

  ‘So at least they can’t misquote me. Whatever I say will actually be broadcast. Do I have your permission?’

  Katrine considered. ‘My first question is: why?’

  ‘Because people are scared. My wife is scared, my children are scared, the neighbours, the other parents at school are scared. And, as a researcher in this field, I have a responsibility to make them a bit less scared.’

  ‘Don’t they have the right to be a bit scared?’

  ‘Don’t
you read the papers, Katrine? The shops have run out of locks and alarm systems in the last week.’

  ‘Everyone’s scared of what they don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s more than that. They’re scared because they thought we were dealing with someone I initially assumed was purely a vampirist. A sick, confused individual who was attacking people as a consequence of profound personality disorders and paraphilias. But this monster is a cold, cynical, calculating fighter who’s capable of making rational judgements, who runs when he needs to, like at the Turkish baths. And attacks when he can, like … like in that picture.’ Smith closed his eyes and turned his head away. ‘And I admit it, I’m scared as well. I lay awake all night wondering how these murders could have been committed by one and the same person. How is that possible? How could I have been so wrong? I don’t understand it. But I have to understand it, no one’s better placed than me to understand it, I’m the only person who can explain it and show them the monster. Because once they’ve seen the monster they’ll understand, and their fear will become manageable. It won’t disappear, but at least they’ll feel they can take rational decisions, and that will make them safer.’

  Katrine put her hands on her hips. ‘Let’s see if I understand you correctly. You don’t really understand what Valentin Gjertsen is either, but you want to explain that to the public?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Lying, with the intention of calming the situation?’

  ‘I think I’ll manage the latter better than the former. Do I have your blessing?’

  Katrine bit her bottom lip. ‘You’re certainly right that you have a responsibility to inform as an expert, and obviously it would be good if people could be reassured. As long as you don’t say anything about the investigation.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘We can’t have any more leaks. I’m the only person on this floor who knows what Aurora’s doing right now, not even the Police Chief has been informed.’

  ‘My word of honour.’

  ‘Is that him? Is that him, Aurora?’