by Jo Nesbo
'Was there anything specific you were after?' Sandemann asked in an innocent tone of voice as he peered over Harry's shoulder.
'A house key,' Harry said. 'You didn't find anything when you . . .' He stared at Sandemann's crooked fingers. '. . . undressed her?'
Sandemann closed his eyes and shook his head. 'The only thing under the skirt was herself. Apart from the picture in the shoe, of course.'
'The picture?'
'Yes. Curious, isn't it? What customs they have. It's still in her shoe.'
Harry lifted a black, high-heeled shoe out of the bag and caught a flash of her in the doorway when he arrived: black dress, black shoes, red mouth.
The picture was a dog-eared photograph of a woman and three children on a beach. It looked like a holiday snap from somewhere in Norway with large, smooth rocks in the water and tall pine trees on the hills in the background.
'Has anyone from her family been here?' Harry asked.
'Only her uncle. Together with one of your colleagues, naturally.'
'Naturally?'
'Yes, I understood he was serving a sentence.'
Harry didn't answer. Sandemann leaned forward and bent his back in such a way that the little head withdrew between his shoulders making him resemble a vulture: 'I wondered what for.' The whisper sounded like a hoarse birdcall: 'Since he won't even be allowed to attend the funeral, I mean.'
Harry cleared his throat. 'May I see her?'
Sandemann seemed disappointed, but gestured civilly with his hand to one of the coffins.
As usual, it struck Harry how a professional job could enhance a corpse. Anna really did seem at peace. He touched her forehead. It was like touching marble.
'What is the necklace?' Harry asked.
'Gold coins,' Sandemann said. 'Her uncle brought it.'
'And what's this?' Harry lifted up a wad of paper held together by a thick, brown elastic band. It was a stack of hundred-kroner notes.
'A custom they have,' Sandemann said.
'Who are these they you keep talking about?'
'Didn't you know?' Sandemann formed his thin, wet lips into a smile. 'She was a gypsy.'
All the tables in the canteen at Police HQ were occupied by colleagues in animated conversation. Except for one. Harry walked over to it.
'You'll get to know people by and by,' he said. Beate looked up at him with incomprehension, and he realised they might have more in common than he had thought. He sat down and placed a video cassette in front of him. 'This is taken from the 7-Eleven shop diagonally opposite the bank on the day of the robbery. Plus a recording of the Thursday before. Could you check it for anything interesting?'
'See if the bank robber's on it, you mean?' Beate mumbled with her mouth full of bread and liver paste. Harry studied her packed lunch.
'Well, we can only hope,' he said.
'Of course,' she said and her eyes filled with water as she struggled to swallow the food. 'In 1993, the Kreditkasse in Frogner was held up. The robber had taken plastic bags with the Shell logo on to put the money in, so we checked the surveillance camera at the nearest Shell station. Turned out he had been in to buy bags ten minutes before the job. Wearing the same clothes, but without a mask. We arrested him half an hour later.'
We, eight years ago?' Harry asked, not thinking.
Beate's face changed colour like traffic lights. She snatched a slice of bread and tried to hide behind it. 'My father,' she muttered.
'I apologise. I didn't mean it like that.'
'It doesn't matter,' came the swift response.
'Your father . . .'
'Was killed,' she said. 'It's a long time ago now.' Harry sat listening to the sounds of chewing while studying his hands.
'Why did you take a tape of the week before the robbery?' Beate asked.
'The skip,' Harry said.
'What about it?'
'I rang the skip company and asked. It was ordered on a Thursday by one Stein Sobstad in Industrigata and delivered to the agreed site directly outside the 7-Eleven the day after. There are two Stein Sobstads in Oslo and both deny having ordered a skip. My theory is that the robber had it placed there to cut off the view through the window so that the camera won't film him crossing the road as he leaves the bank. If he had been scouting around the 7-Eleven the same day as he had ordered the skip, we might see someone looking into the camera and out of the window towards the bank, checking angles and so on.'
'With a bit of luck. The witness outside the 7-Eleven says the robber was still masked when he crossed the road, so why would he go to all the bother with a skip?'
'The plan might have been to take off the balaclava while crossing the road.' Harry sighed. 'I don't know, I only know there is something about that green skip. It has been there for a week and apart from the odd passer-by throwing refuse in it, no one has used it.'
'OK,' Beate said, taking the video and standing up.
'One more thing,' Harry said. 'What do you know about this Raskol Baxhet?'
'Raskol?' Beate frowned. 'He was a kind of mythical figure until he gave himself up. If the rumours are true, in one way or another he's had a hand in ninety per cent of the bank robberies in Oslo. My guess is he could finger everyone who has committed a bank robbery here over the last twenty years.'
'So that's what Ivarsson is using him for. Where's he banged up?'
Beate thrust a thumb over her shoulder. 'A-Wing over there.'
'In Botsen?'
'Yes. And he's refused to utter a word to any policeman for the duration of his sentence.'
'So what makes Ivarsson think he can succeed?'
'He's finally found something Raskol wants that he can use to negotiate. In Botsen they say it's the only thing Raskol has asked for since he arrived. Permission to go to the funeral of a relative.'
'Really?' Harry said, hoping his face didn't give anything away.
'She'll be buried in two days' time, and Raskol has lodged an urgent plea with the prison governor to be allowed to attend.'
After Beate had gone, Harry remained at the table. The lunch break was over and the canteen was thinning out. It was supposed to be light and snug and was run by a national catering company, so Harry preferred to eat in town. But he suddenly remembered this was where he had danced with Rakel at the Christmas party; it was precisely here he had decided to make a move on her. Or was it vice versa? He could still feel the curve of her back on his hand.
Rakel.
In two days Anna would be buried, and no one had the slightest doubt that she had died by her own hand. He was the only person who had been there and could have contradicted them, but he couldn't remember a thing. So why couldn't he let sleeping dogs lie? He had everything to lose and nothing to gain. If for no other reason, why couldn't he forget the case for their sake, for his and Rakel's?
Harry put his elbows on the table and cradled his face in his hands.
If he had been able to contradict them, would he have done?
At the neighbouring table they turned when they heard the chair scraping on the floor and watched the close-cropped, long-legged policeman with the bad back stride quickly out of the canteen.
14
Luck
The bells over the door rang wildly in the dark, cramped kiosk as the two men came running in. Elmer's Fruit &Tobacco shop was one of the last kiosks of its kind with car, hunting and fishing magazines on one wall and soft porn, cigarettes and cigars on the other, and three piles of pools coupons on the counter between sweaty liquorice bars and dry, grey marzipan pigs from the previous Christmas tied in a ribbon.
'Just made it,' said Elmer, a thin, bald man of sixty with a beard and a Nordland accent.
'Wow, that was sudden,' Halvorsen said, brushing the rain off his shoulders.
'Typical Oslo autumn,' the northerner said in his acquired bokmal. 'Either a drought or a deluge. Twenty Camel?' Harry nodded and took out his wallet.
'And two scratch cards for the young officer?' Elmer held out
the scratch cards to Halvorsen, who gave him a broad smile and quickly pocketed them.
'Is it alright if I light up in here, Elmer?' Harry asked, peering out
into the downpour, which was lashing the now deserted pavements outside the dirty window.
'By all means,' Elmer said, giving them their change. 'Poisons and gambling are my bread and butter.'
He bent down and went out through a crooked brown curtain behind which they could hear a coffee machine gurgling.
'Here's the photo,' Harry said. 'I'd just like you to find out who the woman is.'
'Just?' Halvorsen looked at the dog-eared, grainy photograph Harry passed him.
'Start by finding out where the photo was taken,' Harry said and had a severe coughing fit when he tried to hold the smoke in his lungs. 'Looks like a holiday area. If it is, there must be a small grocer's or someone who rents out chalets, that sort of thing. If the family in the photo are regular visitors, someone working there knows who they are. When you know that, leave the rest to me.'
'All of this is because the photo was in the shoe?'
'It's not the usual place to keep photos, is it now?'
Halvorsen shrugged and walked into the street.
'It's not stopping,' Harry said.
'I know, but I have to get home.'
'What for?'
'For something called a life. Nothing that would interest you.'
Harry imitated a smile to show that he understood it was meant to be a witticism. 'Enjoy yourself.'
The bells rang and the door slammed behind Halvorsen. Harry sucked at his cigarette and, while studying Elmer's selection of reading matter, he was struck by how few interests he shared with the average Norwegian man. Was it because he no longer had any? Music, yes, but no one had done anything good in the last ten years, not even his old heroes. Films? If he came out of a cinema nowadays without feeling he had been lobotomised, he counted himself as fortunate. Nothing else. In other words, the only thing he was still interested in was finding people and locking them up. And not even that made his heart beat like before. The spooky thing was, Harry mused, laying a hand on Elmer's cold, smooth counter, that this state didn't bother him in the slightest. The fact that he had capitulated. It simply felt liberating to be older. The bells rang furiously again.
'I forgot to tell you about the guy we pulled in for illegally possessing a weapon last night,' Halvorsen said. 'Roy Kinnsvik, one of the skinheads in Herbert's Pizza.' He stood in the doorway with the rain dancing around his wet shoes.
'Mm?'
'He was obviously frightened, so I told him to give me something I needed and I would let him off.' 'And?'
'He said he saw Sverre Olsen in Grunerlokka the night Ellen was killed.'
'So what? We've got several witnesses who can confirm that.' 'Yes, but this guy saw Olsen sitting and chatting with someone in a car.'
Harry's cigarette fell to the ground. He ignored it. 'Did he know who it was?' he asked slowly. Halvorsen shook his head. 'No, he only recognised Olsen.' 'Did you get a description?'
'He could only remember he thought the person looked like a policeman. But he said he would probably recognise him again.'
Harry could feel himself getting warm under his coat and articulated each word with care: 'Could he say what car it was?'
'No, he had just rushed by.'
Harry nodded, running his hand up and down the counter. Halvorsen cleared his throat: 'But he thought it was a sports car.'
Harry noticed the cigarette smoking on the ground. 'Colour?' Halvorsen showed one upturned palm in apology. 'Was it red?' Harry asked in a low, thick voice. 'What did you say?'
Harry straightened up. 'Nothing. Remember the name. And go home to your life.' The bells jingled.
Harry stopped stroking the counter, but held his hand there. All of a sudden it felt like cold marble.
Astrid Monsen was forty-five years old and made her living by translating French literature in the study of her flat in Sorgenfrigata. She didn't have a man in her life, but she had a tape loop of a dog barking, which she put on at night. Harry heard her steps and at least three locks being released behind the door before it opened a fraction and a small, freckled face peered out from beneath black curls.
'Ugh,' it exclaimed when it saw Harry's towering frame.
The face may have been unfamiliar, but he had the immediate sensation that he had met her before. Presumably because of Anna's detailed description of her ghastly neighbour.
'Harry Hole, Crime Squad,' he said, showing his card. 'I apologise for disturbing you so late in the afternoon. I have a few questions about the evening Anna Bethsen died.'
He tried to smile reassuringly when he saw she was having problems closing her mouth. From the corner of his eye, Harry saw movement behind the glass in the neighbour's door.
'Could I come inside, fru Monsen? It won't take a minute.'
Astrid Monsen took two steps back, and Harry seized the opportunity to slip in and close the door behind him. Now he could see the whole of her Afro hairdo. She had obviously dyed it black, and it enclosed her little white head like an enormous globe.
They stood opposite each other in the frugal light of the hallway, beside dried flowers and a framed poster from the Chagall Museum in Nice.
'Have you seen me before?' Harry asked. 'What . . . do you mean?'
'Just whether you've seen me before. I'll come to the rest afterwards.'
Her mouth opened and closed. Then she shook her head firmly. 'Fine,' Harry said. 'Were you at home on Tuesday night?' She nodded tentatively. 'Did you see or hear anything?'
'Nothing,' she said. Rather too hastily for Harry's taste.
'Take your time and think it over,' he said with an attempt at a friendly smile, not the most practised feature in his repertoire of facial expressions.
'Nothing . . .' she said, her eyes searching for the door behind Harry. 'At all.'
Back on the street, Harry lit up. He had heard Astrid Monsen apply the safety lock the second he was on the other side of her door. Poor thing. She was the last on his list and he was able to conclude that no one had either seen or heard him or anyone else on the stairway the night Anna died.
After two drags, he threw away the cigarette.
He sat in his chair at home watching the red eye of the answer machine for a long time before pressing the play button. It was Rakel wishing him goodnight, and there was a journalist wanting a comment on the two bank raids. Afterwards he rewound the tape and listened to Anna's message: 'And would you mind wearing the jeans you know I like so much?'
He stroked his face. Then he took out the tape and threw it in the bin. Outside, the rain dripped and, inside, Harry zapped. Women's handball, soaps and some quiz game in which you could become a millionaire. Harry stuck with a discussion on a Swedish channel between a philosopher and a social anthropologist about the concept of revenge. One maintained that a country like the USA, which stands for certain values like freedom and democracy, has a moral responsibility to avenge attacks on its territory as they are also attacks on its values. 'Alone the desire for retaliation - and the execution of it - can protect such a vulnerable system as democracy.'
'What about if the values the democracy stands for themselves fall victim to an act of vengeance?' the other replied. 'What about if another nation's rights as laid down by international law are violated? What kind of values are you defending if you deprive innocent civilians of rights in your hunt for guilty parties? And what about the moral value of turning the other cheek?'
'The problem is that we only have two cheeks,' said the other man, with a smile. 'Isn't it?'
Harry switched off. Wondered whether he should ring Rakel, but decided it was too late. He tried to get his nose in a Jim Thompson book, but discovered that pages 24 to 38 were missing. He got up and paced up and down his room. He opened the refrigerator and stared in frustration at a white cheese and a jar of strawberry jam. He felt like something, but didn't know what. He slamm
ed the refrigerator door shut. Who was he trying to kid? What he wanted was a drink.
At two o'clock in the morning he woke up in his chair, fully clothed. He got up, went to the bathroom and drank a glass of water.
'Fuck,' he said to himself in the mirror. He went to the bedroom and turned on his PC. He found 104 articles in Norwegian on the Net about suicide, but none about revenge, just keywords and links to motives for revenge in literature and Greek mythology. He was just going to switch it off when he realised he hadn't checked his e-mails for a couple of weeks. There were two e-mails. One was from his ISP, who warned him two weeks ago the service was going to be closed down. The other address was [email protected]