by Jo Nesbo
'Oh, yes?' She put a scoopful of coffee in the filter machine. 'Lev's schoolbooks. You got them from Trond Grette, to compare with the handwriting in the suicide letter. Do you remember which subject it was?'
'I didn't look that carefully. I just remember checking it was his.' She poured water into the machine. 'It was Norwegian,' Harry said. 'Could have been,' she said, facing him.
'It was,' Harry said. 'I've just come from Jean Hue, from Kripos.'
'The handwriting expert? Now, in the middle of the night?'
'He has an office at home and was very understanding. He checked the notebook and the suicide letter against this.' Harry unfolded a sheet of paper and placed it on the draining board. 'Will the coffee be long?'
'What's so urgent?' Beate asked, leaning over the sheet. 'Everything,' Harry said. 'The first thing you have to do is re-check all the bank accounts.'
Else Lund, the office manager in the travel agency Brastour and one of two employees, was occasionally phoned in the middle of the night by a customer in Brazil who had been robbed, or had lost their pass-port and tickets, and in their desperation they had rung her mobile phone without thinking about the time difference. Consequently she switched it off when she went to sleep. That was why she was furious when her landline rang at half past five and the voice at the other end asked whether she could get in to the office as soon as possible. She was only marginally less infuriated when the voice added it was the police.
'I hope this is a matter of life and death,' Else Lund said. 'It is,' the voice said. 'Mostly death.'
Rune Ivarsson was, as usual, the first to arrive at work. He stared out of the window. He liked the tranquillity, having the whole floor to himself, but that wasn't the reason. When the others arrived,
Ivarsson had already read all the faxes, the reports from the previous evening and all the newspapers, and had the head start he needed. If you are the boss, it is all about being one step ahead - establishing a bridgehead to give you a perspective. When his subordinates in the division expressed sporadic frustration that management was holding back information, it was because they didn't understand that knowledge is power and that any management team must have power if it is to plot the course which will ultimately bring a case to fruition. Indeed, it was simply for their own good that management possessed greater knowledge. When he had instructed everyone working on the Expeditor case to report directly to him, it was for exactly that reason, to keep the information where it belonged instead of wasting time on endless plenary discussions, which were only intended to give subordinates the feeling they were participants in the process. Right now it was more important that he, as Unit Head, got a grip, showed initiative and acted. Even though he had done his best to make it look as if the revelations about Lev Grette were his work, he knew the way it had happened had weakened his authority. A Unit Head's authority was not a question of personal prestige, but a matter for the whole police force, he had told himself. There was a knock at the door.
'Didn't know you were a morning person, Hole,' Ivarsson said to the pasty face in the doorway, continuing to read the fax in front of him. He had had some quotes sent over from a daily newspaper which had interviewed him about the hunt for the Expeditor. He didn't like the interview. Fair enough, he hadn't been misquoted, but they had still managed to make him sound evasive and helpless. Fortunately, the photographs were good. 'What do you want, Hole?'
'Merely to say that I've called a meeting on the sixth floor. I thought you might be interested in coming along. It's about the so-called bank raid in Bogstadveien. We're about to begin.'
Ivarsson stopped reading and looked up. 'So you've called a meeting? Interesting. Might I ask who authorised this meeting, Hole?'
'No one.'
'No one.' Ivarsson emitted a short rattle of seagull laughter. 'Then you'd better get up there and say the meeting is postponed until after lunch. You see, I have a pile of reports to work through right now. Got it?'
Harry nodded slowly, as if giving the matter due, careful consideration. 'Got it. This is Crime Squad business, though, and we're starting now. Good luck with the reports.'
He turned and at that moment Ivarsson's fist hammered down on the table.
'Hole! Don't turn your fucking back on me like that! I call the meetings in this department. Especially when it's a robbery. Understood?' A wet, red lower lip quivered in the centre of the PAS's face.
'As you heard, I said the so-called robbery in Bogstadveien, Ivarsson.'
'And what the hell do you mean by that?' The voice was a whine now.
'That the robbery in Bogstadveien was never a robbery,' Harry said. 'It was a meticulously planned murder.'
Harry stood by the window and looked across at Botsen prison. The day had reluctantly got under way, like a creaking cart. Rain clouds over Ekeberg and black umbrellas in Gronlandsleiret. They were assembled behind his back: Bjarne Moller, yawning and sunk into the chair; the smiling Chief Superintendent chatting with Ivarsson; Weber with crossed arms, silent and impatient; Halvorsen with his notebook at the ready; and Beate Lonn with nervously wandering eyes.
49
Stone Roses
The rain showers petered out later in the day. The sun peeped out in between all the leaden grey, and then the clouds parted like curtains opening on the final act. It would turn out to be the last hours of a blue sky before the city of Oslo pulled the grey winter duvet over its head. Disengrenda lay bathed in sun as Harry pressed the bell for the third time.
He could hear the bell like a grumbling in the terraced house's abdomen. The neighbour's window opened with a bang.
'Trond's not here,' a voice trilled. Her face wore a different brown hue now, a kind of golden brown, which made Harry think of nicotine-stained skin. 'Poor boy,' she added.
'Where is he?' Harry asked.
She rolled her eyes in answer and pointed her thumb over her shoulder.
'The tennis court?'
Beate made to go, but Harry stayed put.
'I've been thinking about what we discussed last time,' Harry said. 'About the footbridge. You said everyone was surprised because he was such a quiet, polite boy.'
'I did?'
'But everyone here in Grenda knew he had done it?'
'We saw him cycling off in the morning.'
'Wearing the red jacket?'
'Yes.'
'Lev?'
'Lev?' She laughed and shook her head. 'I'm not talking about Lev. He did a lot of weird things, but he was never wicked.' 'Who was then?'
'Trond. I was talking about him the whole time. I did say he was completely ashen when he returned. Trond can't stand the sight of blood.'
The wind was picking up. In the west, black popcorn clouds were beginning to gobble up the blue sky. The gusts gave the puddles on the red clay court goose pimples and erased the reflected image of Trond Grette, who tossed the ball up for another serve.
'Hello,' Trond said, hitting a ball which gently spun through the air. A little cloud of white chalk puffed up at the back of the server's box and was immediately blown away as the ball bounced, high and unreturnable, past the imaginary opponent on the other side of the net.
Trond faced Harry and Beate standing outside the wire fence. He was wearing a white tennis shirt, white tennis shorts, white socks and white shoes.
'Perfect, wasn't it.' He smiled.
'Almost,' said Harry.
Trond beamed even wider, shaded his eyes and scanned the sky. 'Looks like it's clouding over. How can I help you?'
'You can come with us to Police HQ,' Harry said.
'Police HQ?' He eyed them in surprise. That is, he seemed to be trying to appear surprised. His widening eyes were a touch too theatrical and there was something affected about his voice they hadn't heard before when they questioned him. The intonation was too low and gave a little jump at the end: Police H-Q? Harry could feel his hackles rising.
'Right now,' Beate said.
'Right.' Trond nodded as if somet
hing had just clicked into place and smiled again. 'Of course.' He made for the bench where a couple of tennis racquets peered out from underneath a grey coat. His shoes shuffled along in the shale.
'He's lost it,' Beate whispered. 'I'll cuff him.'
'Don't . . .' Harry began and grabbed her arm, but she had already shoved open the door and stepped in. Time expanded, inflated like an airbag and trapped Harry, immobilised him. Through the wire netting he saw Beate go for the handcuffs she had attached to her belt. He heard the sound of Trond's shoes on the shale. Small steps. Like an astronaut. Harry's hand automatically moved towards the gun in his shoulder holster under his jacket.
'Grette, I'm sorry . . .' was all Beate managed to say before Trond reached the bench and put his hand under the coat. Time had begun to breathe now, it shrank and expanded in one movement. Harry felt his hand close around the butt of his gun, knowing there was an eternity between this second and getting the weapon out, loading, releasing the safety catch and aiming. Beneath Beate's raised arm he caught a flash of reflected sunlight.
'Me, too,' Trond said, lifting the steel-grey and olive-green AG3 to his shoulder. She took a step back.
'My dear,' Trond said softly. 'Stand quite, quite still if you want to stay alive for a few more seconds.'
'We've made a mistake,' Harry said, turning away from the window and addressing the assembled detectives. 'Stine Grette was not killed by Lev but by her own husband, Trond Grette.'
The conversation between the Chief Superintendent and Ivarsson stopped, Moller sat up in his chair, Halvorsen forgot to take notes and even Weber's face lost its lethargic expression.
Moller, it was, who finally broke the silence. 'The accountant guy?' Harry nodded to the disbelieving faces.
'It's not possible,' Weber said. 'We have the video from the 7-Eleven, and we have the fingerprint on the Coke bottle. There is no doubt that Lev Grette was the killer.'
'We have the handwriting on the suicide letter,' Ivarsson said.
'And unless I'm much mistaken, the robber was identified as Lev Grette by Raskol himself,' the Chief Superintendent said.
'The case looks pretty cut and dried,' Moller said.
'Let me explain,' Harry said.
'Yes, would you be so kind?' said the Chief Superintendent.
The clouds had gathered pace now and sailed in over Aker hospital like a black armada.
'Don't do anything stupid, Harry,' Trond said. The muzzle of the gun was pressed against Beate's forehead. 'Drop the gun I know you're holding.'
'Or what?' Harry asked, pulling out his gun.
Trond gave a low chuckle. 'Elementary. I'll shoot your colleague.'
'Like you shot your wife?'
'She deserved it.'
'Oh? Because she liked Lev more than you?' 'Because she was my wife!'
Harry breathed in. Beate stood between Trond and him, but with her back to Harry so he was unable to read any of her facial expressions. There were several possible routes to take. Option number 1 was to tell Trond he was being stupid and hasty, and hope he would see that. Against that: a man who took a loaded AG3 with him onto the tennis court had already worked out what he was going to use it for. Option number 2 was to do what Trond said, put down his gun and wait to be slaughtered. Option number 3 was to put pressure on Trond, make something happen, something which would make him change his plans. Or explode and pull the trigger. The first option was hopeless, the second the worst possible outcome and the third, well, if the same happened to Beate as happened to Ellen, Harry knew he would never be able to live with himself - if he survived.
'Perhaps she didn't want to be your wife any longer,' Harry said. 'Was that what happened?'
Trond's finger tightened round the trigger and his eyes met Harry's above Beate's shoulder. Inside, Harry instinctively began to count. 'One-thousand-and-one, one-thousand-and-two . . .'
'She thought she could just leave me,' Trond said in a low voice. 'Me - who had given her everything.' He laughed. 'For a guy who had never done anything for anyone, who thought life was a birthday party and all the presents were for him. Lev didn't steal. He was just confused by the prepositions from and to.' Trond's laughter was carried away on the wind like the crumbs of alphabet biscuits.
'Like from Stine to Trond,' Harry said.
Trond blinked hard with both eyes. 'She said she loved him. Loved. She didn't even use those words on the day we married. Fond of, she said. She was fond of me. Because I was so good to her. But she loved the boy who dangled his legs from a roof and waited for applause. That was what it was about for him. Applause.'
There were fewer than six metres between them and Harry could see the knuckles on Trond's left hand whiten as he held the gun barrel.
'But not for you, Trond. You didn't need any applause, did you. You enjoyed your triumphs in silence. Alone. Like that time by the bridge.'
Trond pushed out his lower lip. 'Own up, you believed me, didn't you.'
'Yes, we believed you, Trond. We believed every word you said.' 'So where did I slip up?'
'Beate has checked Trond and Stine Grette's bank accounts for the last two quarters,' Harry said.
Beate held up a pile of papers for the others in the room. 'They've both transferred money to Brastour, the travel agency,' she said. 'The agency has confirmed that in March of this year Stine Grette booked a trip to Sao Paulo for June, and Trond Grette followed a week later.'
'So far, that tallies with what Trond Grette told us,' Harry said. 'The strange thing is that Stine told Klementsen, the branch manager, she was going on holiday to Greece. Also that Trond Grette booked and bought his ticket the same day he left. Pretty bad planning if you're going on holiday together to celebrate ten years of marriage, isn't it?'
The room was so quiet they could hear the refrigerator motor on the other side of the corridor switch itself on.
'Suspiciously reminiscent of a wife who has lied to everyone about where she's going, and an already sceptical husband who has checked her bank statement and been unable to make Brastour square with a trip to Greece. Who then rang Brastour, found the name of the hotel where his wife was staying and followed her to bring her back.'
'And so?' Ivarsson said. 'Did he find her with a darkie?'
Harry shook his head. 'I don't think he found her at all.'
'We've checked and she didn't stay at the hotel she booked,' Beate said. 'Trond returned on an earlier flight.'
'Furthermore, Trond took out thirty thousand kroner on his bank card in Sao Paulo. At first, he said he'd bought a diamond ring, then that he'd met Lev and given him the money because he was broke. I'm fairly sure, though, that neither is true. I believe the money was for a service for which Sao Paulo is even more famous than jewellery.'
'And that is?' Ivarsson asked, clearly irritated by the silence, which had become unbearable.
'Contract murder.'
Harry had felt like dragging it out even longer, but a glance from Beate told him he was already being melodramatic. 'When Lev came back to Oslo this autumn, it was for his own money. He wasn't broke at all and had no intention of robbing any bank. He had returned to take Stine with him to Brazil.'
'Stine?' Moller exclaimed. 'His brother's wife?'
Harry nodded. The detectives present exchanged glances.
'And Stine was supposed to move to Brazil without telling anyone?' Moller continued. 'Not her parents, not her friends? Without even giving notice to her employers?'
'Well,' Harry said, 'when you've decided to spend your life with a bank robber wanted by both the police and your colleagues you don't announce your plans and leave a forwarding address. There was only one person she had told, and that was Trond.'
'The last person she should have told,' Beate added.
'She probably thought she knew him, after being with him for thirteen years.' Harry walked over to the window. 'The sensitive but kind, safe accountant who loved her so dearly. Let me speculate a little about what happened afterwards.'
> Ivarsson sniffed. 'And what do you call what you've been doing so far?'
'When Lev comes to Oslo, Trond gets in touch. Says they're adults and brothers so they should be able to talk about things. Lev is relieved and happy. But he doesn't show his face around town, it's too risky, so they agree to meet in Disengrenda while Stine's at work. Lev goes and is well received by Trond, who says he had been sad at first, but now he was basically over that and happy for them. He opens a bottle of Coke for each of them and they drink and talk about practical details. Trond has Lev's secret address in d'Ajuda so he can forward post, back-payments and so on to Stine. Lev doesn't realise he has just given Trond the final details he needs to implement a plan which Trond had initiated when he was in Sao Paulo.'