by Jo Nesbo
He rubbed his face hard. Tried to get rid of the anaesthetisation he had longed for so recently. A blue light flashed between the trees in Stasjonsveien. He was caught in the net and it was already tightening. He wouldn't escape. Waaler was too good. But he didn't quite understand. This couldn't be a solo show. Someone must have authorised the use of these huge resources to arrest one single man. What had happened? Hadn't Beate received the e-mail he had sent her?
He listened. There were more dogs, no question. He cast his eyes around. At the illuminated detached houses scattered across the pitch-black hill. He thought of the snug, warm rooms behind the windows. Norwegians liked light. And they had electricity. They only turned it off when they were away for a fortnight on holiday down south. His gaze moved from house to house.
Tom Waaler stared up at the isolated houses decorating the land-scape like Christmas lights. Large, black gardens. Scrumping. He had his feet up on the dashboard in Victor's specially converted van. They had the best communication equipment available, so he had moved control of the operation there. He was in radio contact with all the units closing the circle around the area. He looked at his watch. The dogs were out; it would soon be ten minutes since they had slipped into the darkness with their handlers, moving through gardens.
The radio crackled: 'Stasjonsveien to Victor zero one. We have a car here with one Stig Antonsen going to Revehiven 17. Returning from work, he says. Shall we . . . ?'
'Check ID, address and let him through,' Waaler said. 'The same holds for you others out there, OK? Use your heads.'
Waaler tugged a CD out of his top pocket and put it in the player. Several falsettos. Prince sang 'Thunder.' The man in the driver's seat beside him raised an eyebrow, but Waaler pretended not to notice and turned up the volume. Verse. Refrain. Verse. Refrain. Next song: 'Pop Daddy'. Waaler checked his watch again. Shit, what a long time the dogs were taking. He hit the dashboard. Earning another glance from the driver's seat.
'They have a fresh trail of blood to follow,' Waaler said. 'How difficult can that be?'
'They're dogs, not robots,' the man said. 'Relax, they'll soon have
him.'
The artist to be known for ever as Prince was in the middle of 'Diamonds and Pearls' when the report came in: 'Victor zero three to Victor zero one. Think we've got him. We're outside a white house in . . . er, Erik's trying to find out what the road's called, but there's a number 16 on the wall, anyway.'
Waaler turned down the music. 'OK. Find out and wait for us. What's the ringing sound I can hear?'
'It's coming from the house.'
The radio crackled: 'Stasjonsveien to Victor one. Sorry to interrupt but there's a security vehicle here. They say they're going to Harelabben 16. Their central switchboard registered a burglar alarm going off there. Shall I—?'
'Victor zero one to all units!' Waaler yelled. 'Move in. Harelabben 16.'
Bjarne Moller was in a dreadful mood. In the middle of his favourite TV programme! He found the white house, number 16, parked outside, went through the gate and up to the open door where a police officer was standing with an Alsatian on a leash.
'Is Waaler here?' asked the PAS. The officer motioned to the door. Moller noticed that the glass in the hall window was smashed. Waaler stood in the hall inside in furious discussion with another officer.
'What the hell's going on here?' Moller asked without preamble. Waaler turned. 'Right. What brings you here, Moller?' 'A phone call from Beate Lonn. Who authorised this idiocy?' 'Our police solicitor.'
'I'm not talking about the arrest. I'm asking who gave the go-ahead to World War Three because one of our very own colleagues may - may! - have a couple of things to explain.'
Waaler rocked back on his heels while eyeballing Moller. 'PAS Ivarsson. We found a couple of things at Harry's place which make him more than just someone we would like to talk to. He is under suspicion of murder. Anything else you were wondering about, Moller?'
Moller raised an eyebrow in surprise and concluded Waaler must be very worked up. That was the first time he had ever heard him talk to a superior in such a provocative manner. 'Yes. Where's Harry?'
Waaler pointed to the red footprints on the parquet floor. 'He was here. Broke in, as you can see. Beginning to be quite a lot to explain, isn't there?'
'I asked where he is now.'
Waaler and the other police officer exchanged looks. 'Harry is clearly not that keen to explain. The bird had flown when we arrived.'
'Oh? I was under the impression you had surrounded the whole area.'
'We had,' Waaler said.
'So how did he get away then?'
'Using this.' Waaler pointed to the telephone on the table. The receiver was stained with what looked like blood.
'He got away using a phone?' Moller felt an irrational - his bad mood and the seriousness of the situation taken into account - urge to smile.
'There is reason to believe,' Waaler said while Moller watched the powerful musculature of the David Hasselhoff jaw straining, 'that he ordered a taxi.'
Oystein drove down the alley slowly and turned the taxi into the cobbled semicircle in front of Oslo prison. He reversed in between two cars, his rear end facing the empty park and Gronlandsleiret. He turned the ignition key to kill the engine, but the windscreen wipers kept swishing to and fro. And waited. No one was around, neither in the square nor in the park. He glanced up at Police HQ before pulling the lever under the wheel. There was a click and the boot lid sprang into the air.
'Come out!' he shouted, looking in the mirror.
The car rocked, the boot lid was opened fully and smacked shut. Then the back door opened and a man hopped in. 0ystein studied the drenched, shivering passenger in the mirror.
'You look great, Harry.'
'Thanks.'
'Cool threads too.'
'Not my size, but it's Bjorn Borg. Lend me your shoes, will you.' 'Eh?'
'I could only find felt slippers in the hall. Can't go on a prison visit wearing them. And your jacket.'
Oystein rolled his eyes and struggled out of his short leather jacket.
'Did you have any trouble getting past the roadblocks?' Harry asked. 'Just on the way in. They had to check I had the name and address of the person I was delivering the package to.' 'I found the name on the door.'
'On my way back, they just looked in the car and waved me through. Thirty seconds passed and then there was a hell of a racket on the radio. Calling all units and so on. Heh, heh.'
'I thought I heard something from the back. You do know it's illegal to tune in to police radio, don't you, Oystein?'
'Well, it's not illegal to tune in. It's illegal to use it. And I almost never use it.'
Harry tied the shoelaces and threw the slippers over the seat to Oystein. 'You'll find your reward in heaven. If they took the number of the taxi and you receive a visit, you'll have to tell them what happened. You got a booking via a mobile and the passenger insisted on lying in the boot.'
'Absolutely. And that's the truth.'
'Truest thing I've heard for a long while.'
Harry took a deep breath and pressed the bell. Not much risk in the first phase, but it was difficult to know how quickly the news that he was a wanted man had spread. After all, police officers were in and out of this prison all the time.
'Yes,' a voice said from the intercom.
'Inspector Harry Hole,' Harry over-articulated, looking into the camera over the entrance with what he hoped was an unruffled expression. 'For Raskol Baxhet.'
'You're not on my list.'
'Really?' Harry said. 'I asked Beate Lonn to ring you and book me in. Last night, nine o'clock. Just ask Raskol.'
'If it's outside visiting hours, you have to be on the list, Inspector. You'll have to ring during office hours tomorrow.'
Harry shifted weight from one foot to the other. 'What's your name?'
'Boygset. I'm afraid I can't—'
'Listen here, Boygset. This visit concerns info
rmation for an important police case which cannot wait until tomorrow. I imagine you've heard the sirens going off all round Police HQ this evening, haven't you?'
'Yes, but—'
'Right, unless you'd like to answer the papers' questions tomorrow about how you messed up the schedule, I suggest we move on from robot mode and press the common-sense button. That's the one right in front of you, Boygset.'
Harry stared into the lifeless camera eye. One-thousand-and-one, one-thousand-and-two. The lock buzzed.
Raskol was sitting in a chair in his cell when Harry was let in.
'Thank you for confirming the visit,' Harry said, looking around the four-by-two-metre cell. A bed, a desk, two cupboards, a few books. No radio, no magazines, no personal effects, bare walls.
'This is how I prefer it,' Raskol said in answer to Harry's thoughts. 'It focuses the mind.'
'Then feel how this focuses the mind,' Harry said, perching on the edge of the bed. 'Arne Albu didn't kill Anna after all. You got the wrong man. You have innocent blood on your hands, Raskol.'
Harry was not sure, but he seemed to detect the minutest of twitches in the gypsy's gentle, though cold, martyr's mask. Raskol lowered his head and placed his palms against his temples.
'I received an e-mail from the murderer,' Harry said. 'Turns out he was manipulating me from day one.' He ran a hand up and down the criss-cross pattern of the duvet as he summarised what the e-mail said. And followed up with a precis of the day's events.
Raskol sat motionless, listening until Harry had finished. Afterwards he raised his head. 'That means there is innocent blood on your hands, too, Spiuni.'
Harry nodded.
'Now you're here to tell me I was the one who stained your hands. And therefore I owe you a debt.' Harry didn't answer.
'I agree,' Raskol said. 'Tell me what I owe.'
Harry stopped stroking the duvet. 'Three things. First of all, I need a place to hide until I've got to the bottom of this business.' Raskol nodded.
'Secondly, I need the key to Anna's flat to check a couple of things.'
'I've already given it back.'
'Not the key with AA on, that's in a drawer in my place, and I can't go there now. And thirdly . . .'
Harry paused and Raskol scrutinised his face with curiosity.
'If I hear Rakel say anyone has so much as looked askance at them, I will give myself up, put all my cards on the table and finger you as the man behind Arne Albu's murder.'
Raskol gave him an indulgent, friendly smile. As if, on Harry's behalf, he regretted one thing they were both absolutely clear on - the fact that no one would ever succeed in finding any link whatsoever between Raskol and the murder. 'You don't need to worry about Rakel and Oleg, Spiuni. My contact was instructed to call off his artisans the moment we had dealt with Albu. You should be more concerned about the outcome of the trial. My contact says the prospects don't look too rosy. I understand the father's family has certain connections?'
Harry hunched his shoulders.
Raskol pulled out the desk drawer, took the shiny Trioving system key and gave it to Harry. 'Go to the metro station in Gronland. Go down the first set of stairs and you'll see a woman sitting behind a window by the toilets. You need five kroner to get in. Tell her Harry has arrived, go into the Gents and lock yourself in one of the cubicles. When you hear someone come in whistling "Waltzing Matilda" it means your transport is ready. Good luck, Spiuni.'
The rain was hammering down so hard there was a fine shower rebounding off the tarmac, and if anyone had taken the time, they would have seen small rainbows in the streetlamps at the bottom of the narrow one-way section of Sofies gate. However, Bjarne Moller didn't have time. He got out of the car, raised his coat over his head and ran across the street to the front door where Ivarsson, Weber and a man, apparently of Pakistani origin, stood waiting for him.
Moller shook hands and the dark-skinned man introduced himself as Ali Niazi, Harry's neighbour.
'Waaler will be here as soon as he has cleared up in Slemdal,' Moller said. 'What have you found?'
'Quite sensational things, I'm afraid,' Ivarsson said. 'The most important thing now is to work out how we're going to tell the press that one of our own police officers—'
'Whoa there,' Moller rumbled. 'Not so fast. How about a debriefing?'
Ivarsson smiled thinly. 'Come with me.'
The Head of the Robberies Unit led the other three through a low door and down a crooked staircase into the cellar. Moller contorted his long, thin body as well as he could to avoid touching the ceiling or walls. He didn't like cellars.
Ivarsson's voice was a dull echo between the brick walls. 'As you know, Beate Lonn received a number of forwarded e-mails from Hole. He maintains he was sent them by a person who confessed to murdering Anna Bethsen. I've been to Police HQ and I read the e-mails an hour ago. To put it bluntly, they are for the most part confused, incomprehensible gibberish. But they do contain information which the writer could not have possessed without intimate knowledge of what went on the night Anna Bethsen died. Even though the information puts Hole in the flat that evening, it also apparently gives him an alibi.'
'Apparently?' Moller ducked underneath another door frame. Inside, the ceiling was even lower, and he walked bent double while trying not to think that above him were four floors of building materials held together by centuries old wattle and daub. 'What do you mean, Ivarsson? Didn't you say the e-mails contained a confession?'
'First of all, we searched Hole's flat,' Ivarsson said. 'We switched on his computer and opened the mailbox and found all the e-mails he had received. Just as he had made out to Beate Lonn. In other words, an apparent alibi.'
'I heard that,' Moller said with obvious irritation. 'Can we get to the point quickly?'
'The point is, of course, the person who sent these e-mails to Harry's computer.'
Moller heard voices.
'It's round that corner,' the man who introduced himself as Harry's neighbour said.
They came to a halt in front of a storeroom. Two men were crouching behind the wire mesh. One shone a torch on the back of a laptop while reading out a number, which the other noted down. Moller saw two electric cables running from the wall socket, one to the laptop and the other to a scratched Nokia mobile phone, which in turn was connected to the laptop.
Moller straightened up as far as he was able. 'And what does that prove?'
Ivarsson placed a hand on the shoulder of Harry's neighbour. 'Ali says he was in the cellar a few days after Anna Bethsen was killed, and that was the first time he had seen this laptop with attached mobile phone in Harry's storeroom. We've already checked the phone.'
'And?'
'It's Hole's. Now we're trying to find out who bought the laptop. We've checked the sent items, anyway.'
Moller closed his eyes. His back was aching already.
'And there they are.' Ivarsson shook his head in vindication. 'All the e-mails Harry's trying to make us believe some mysterious murderer has sent him.'
'Hm,' Moller said. 'That doesn't look good.'
'Weber found the real proof in the flat.'
Moller looked at Weber for guidance, who, with a grim expression on his face, held up a small transparent plastic bag.
'A key?' Moller said. 'Bearing the initials AA?'
'Found in the drawer of the telephone table,' Weber said. 'It matches the key to Anna Bethsen's flat.'
Moller stared blankly at Weber. The harsh light from the naked bulb gave their faces the same deathly pale colour as the whitewashed walls and Moller had the feeling he was in a burial vault. 'I have to get out,' he murmured.
37
Spiuni Gjerman
Harry opened his eyes and looked up into a smiling girl's face and felt the first sledgehammer blow.
He closed his eyes again, but neither the girl's laughter nor the headache disappeared.
He tried to reconstruct the night.
Raskol, the toilet in the metro station, a s
quat man in a worn Armani suit whistling, an outstretched hand with gold rings, black hairs and a long pointed nail on the little finger. 'Hi, Harry, I'm your friend Simon.' And in sharp contrast to the shabby suit: a shiny new Mercedes with a chauffeur who looked like Simon's brother with the same cheery, brown eyes and the same hairy, gold-bedecked handshake.
The two men in the front of the car had chatted away in a blend of Norwegian and Swedish with the curious intonation of circus people, knife-sellers, preachers and dance-band vocalists. But they hadn't said much. 'How are you, my friend?' 'Terrible weather, eh?' 'Smart clothes, my friend. Shall we swap?' Hearty laughter and flicking of a cigarette lighter. Did Harry smoke? Russian cigarettes. Take one, please, a bit rough maybe, but 'good in their way, you