by Jo Nesbo
Harry saw Weber slowly nodding his head.
'Friday morning. D-day. In the afternoon Stine is flying to London with Lev and from there to Brazil the following morning. The trip has been booked through Brastours. The suitcases are packed and ready at home, but she and Trond go to work as usual. At two Trond leaves work and goes to Focus in Sporveisgata. He arrives, pays for the squash court he has booked, but says he hasn't found a partner.
That's the first alibi in place: a registered payment at 14.34. Then he says he'll do some training in the fitness room instead and goes into the changing room. There are lots of people moving in and out at that time. He locks himself in the toilet with the bag, changes into the boiler suit with something over it, probably a long coat, waits until he can be sure the people he saw in the toilet have gone, puts on his sunglasses, takes the bag and passes quickly and unnoticed out of the changing room through the reception area. I would guess he walks towards Stenspark and then up Pilestredet by the building site where they clock off at three. He nips in, tears off his coat, puts on a folded balaclava he has hidden under his cap. Then he walks up the hill and turns left down Industrigata. At the Bogstadveien crossroads he goes into the 7-Eleven. He'd been there a couple of weeks earlier to check the camera angles. And the skip he ordered is in position. The scene is set for the diligent police officers he obviously knows will check all the video footage in the shops and petrol stations around. So he puts on this little show for us: we don't see his face but we do see very clearly a bottle of Coke he's holding in his bare hand and drinking from. He puts it in a plastic bag, so we're all convinced the fingerprints have not been wiped off by the rain and places it in the green skip he knows won't be collected for a good while. He must have had a fairly high opinion of our efficiency, and we nearly lost the evidence, but he got lucky - Beate drove like crazy and we managed it: to give Trond Grette a watertight alibi by acquiring the final, incontrovertible piece of evidence against Lev.'
Harry broke off. The faces in front of him expressed mild perplexity.
'The bottle of Coke was the one Lev had drunk from in Disengrenda,' Harry said. 'Or somewhere. Trond had taken it for precisely this purpose.'
'I'm afraid you've forgotten something, Hole,' Ivarsson whinnied. 'You saw yourself that the bank robber was holding the bottle in his bare hands. If it was Trond Grette, it must be his prints on the bottle.'
Harry motioned towards Weber.
'Glue,' said the experienced detective.
'I beg your pardon?' The Chief Superintendent turned to Weber.
'An old trick used by bank robbers. You spread a little glue over your fingertips, let it harden and, bingo, no prints.'
The Chief Superintendent shook his head. 'But where has this accountant, as you call him, learned these tricks?'
'He was the little brother of one of the most professional bank robbers Norway has seen,' Beate said. 'He knew Lev's methods and style inside out. Amongst other things, Lev kept video recordings of his raids at his home in Disengrenda. Trond had taught himself his brother's techniques so well that even Raskol was deceived into thinking he recognised Lev Grette. On top of that, there is the physical similarity of the two brothers, which meant that computer manipulation of the videos showed the robber could have been Lev.'
'Shit!' Halvorsen exclaimed involuntarily. He ducked and sent a fearful glance at Bjarne Moller, but Moller was sitting with mouth wide open, staring blankly in front of him as if a bullet had passed through his head.
'You haven't put down the gun, Harry. Can you explain?'
Harry attempted to breathe regularly even though his heart was running amok. Oxygen to the brain, that was crucial. He tried not to look at Beate. The wind puffed up thin, blonde strands of her hair. Muscles in the thin neck were straining and her shoulders had begun to tremble.
'Elementary,' Harry said. 'You'll shoot us both. You have to give me a better deal than that, Trond.'
Trond laughed and rested his cheek against the green butt of the gun. 'What do you say to this deal, Harry? You've got twenty-five seconds to think through the alternatives and put down the weapon.'
'The usual twenty-five?'
'Correct. I suppose you recall how quickly the time went. Think fast, Harry.'
'Do you know what put the idea in my head about Stine knowing the robber?' Harry shouted. 'They were standing too close. Much closer than you and Beate now. It's odd, but, even in life-and-death situations, people respect others' intimate spaces if they can. Isn't that strange?'
Trond placed the barrel under Beate's chin and raised her face. 'Beate, would you be so kind as to count for us?' He was using the theatrical tone again. 'From one to twenty-five. Not too fast and not too slow.'
'I was wondering about something,' Harry said. 'What did she say before you shot her?'
'Would you really like to know, Harry?' 'Yes, I would.'
'Beate has two seconds to start counting. One . . .' 'Count, Beate!'
'One.' Her voice was a dry whisper. 'Two.' 'Stine pronounced the final death sentence for herself and Lev,' Trond said.
'Three.'
'She said I could shoot her, but I should spare him.'
Harry felt his throat constrict and his grip on the gun weaken.
'Four.'
'In other words, he would have shot Stine however long the branch manager took to put the money in the bag?' Halvorsen asked. Harry nodded gloomily.
'Since you seem to know everything, I take it you also know his escape route,' Ivarsson said. The tone was intended to be sarcastic and amusing, but the irritation shone through all too clearly.
'No, but I assume he took the same route back. Up Industrigata, down Pilestredet, into the building site where he took off the balaclava and stuck the POLITI label on the back of the boiler suit. When he was back in Focus, he was wearing a cap and sunglasses, and failed to attract the attention of the centre staff since they didn't recognise the photos of him. He went into the changing room and put on the sports gear he had been wearing when he arrived from work, then joined the general hubbub in the fitness rooms, did a bit of cycling, maybe lifted a few weights. Then he showered, went to the reception desk and reported his squash racquet missing. The girl who took his details gave the exact time as 16.02. The alibi was cemented and he went into the street, heard the sirens and drove home. Possibly.'
'I don't know if I understand the purpose of the police labels,' the Chief Inspector said. 'We don't even have boiler suits in the force.'
'Elementary psychology,' Beate said and her cheeks glowed when she saw the Chief Superintendent's raised eyebrow. 'I mean . . . not elementary in the sense that it's . . . erm, obvious.'
'Go on,' the Chief Superintendent said.
'Trond Grette knew, of course, that the police would search for anyone wearing a boiler suit observed in the area. He, therefore, had to have something on his boiler suit which would cause all the police swarming around to pay little attention to this unidentified person in Focus. The public always shies away from the police.'
'Interesting theory,' Ivarsson said with a sour smile and the tips of two fingers under his chin.
'She's right,' the Chief Superintendent said. 'Everyone has a fear of authority. Go on.'
'But, to be absolutely sure, he pretended to be a witness and volunteer information about a man he had seen walking past the fitness room wearing a boiler suit with politi on.'
'Which was a stroke of genius in itself,' Harry said. 'Grette told us this as if he was unaware that the police strip ruled the man out of our inquiries. of course, it also strengthened Trond Grette's credibility in our eyes that he volunteered information which -seen from his point of view - might place him on the murderer's escape route.'
'Eh?' said Moller. 'Repeat that one more time, Harry. Slowly.'
Harry took a deep breath.
'Oh, never mind,' Moller said. 'I've got a headache.' 'Seven.'
'But you didn't do what she asked,' Harry said. 'You didn't spare yo
ur brother.'
'Of course not,' Trond said. 'Did he know you had killed her?'
'I had the pleasure of telling him myself. On the mobile. He was waiting in Gardemoen airport. I told him if he didn't get on the plane, I would go after him too.'
'And he believed you when you said you'd killed Stine?'
Trond laughed. 'Lev knew me. He didn't doubt it for a second. While I was giving him the details, he was reading about the raid on teletext in the business lounge. He switched off his phone when I heard them call his flight. His and Stine's. Hey, you!' He put the gun to Beate's head.
'Eight.'
'He must have thought he had a safe passage home,' Harry said. 'Didn't know about the contract in Sao Paulo, though, did he.'
'Lev was a thief, but a naive thief. He should never have given me the secret address in d'Ajuda.'
'Nine.'
Harry tried to ignore Beate's robotic monotones. 'Then you sent instructions to the hired killer, and the suicide letter. Which you wrote with the same handwriting style you used to do Lev's essays.'
'Bravo,' Trond said. 'Good work, Harry. Apart from the fact that they had been sent before the bank job.'
'Ten.'
'Well,' Harry said, 'the contract killer also did good work. It really did look as if Lev had hanged himself. Even though the missing little finger business was perplexing. Was that the receipt?'
'Let's put it this way. A little finger fits nicely in a standard envelope.'
'Didn't think you could stand the sight of blood, Trond?' 'Eleven.'
Harry heard a distant rumble of thunder over the whistling, roaring wind. The field and the paths around them were deserted. Everyone had taken shelter from the looming storm.
'Twelve.'
'Why don't you just give yourself up?' Harry said. 'You know it's hopeless.'
Trond chuckled. 'Of course it's hopeless. That's the point, isn't it. No hope. Nothing to lose.' 'Thirteen.'
'So what's the plan, Trond?'
'The plan? I have two million kroner from the bank job and I'm planning a long - if not happy - life in exile. The travel plans have had to be put forward, but I was prepared for that. The car has been packed and ready ever since the robbery. You can choose between being shot or handcuffed to the fence.'
'Fourteen.'
'You know it won't work,' Harry said.
'Believe me, I know a lot about disappearing. Lev did nothing but. Twenty minutes' head start is all I need. I'll have changed transport and identity twice. I have four cars and four passports en route, and I have good contacts. In Sao Paulo, for example. Twenty million inhabitants. You can start the search there.'
'Fifteen.'
'Your colleague will die soon, Harry. What's it going to be?' 'You've said too much,' Harry said. 'You're going to kill us anyway.'
'You'll have to take a risk and find out. What options have you got?'
'That you die before me,' Harry said, loading his gun. 'Sixteen,' whispered Beate.
Harry had finished.
'Amusing theory, Hole,' Ivarsson said. 'Especially the one about the contract killer in Brazil. Extremely . . .' He bared his small teeth into a thin smile: 'Exotic. There's no more? Proof, for example?'
'Handwriting. The suicide letter,' Harry said.
'You've just said it doesn't match Trond Grette's writing.'
'Not his usual writing, no. But the essays . . .'
'Have you got a witness to swear he wrote them?'
'No,' Harry said.
Ivarsson groaned: 'In other words, you don't have one single shred of incriminating evidence in this robbery case.'
'Murder case,' Harry said softly, eyeing Ivarsson. At the edge of his vision he could see Moller staring at the floor, ashamed, and Beate wringing her hands in despair. The Chief Superintendent cleared his throat.
Harry released the safety catch.
'What are you doing?' Trond scrunched up his eyes and shoved the gun barrel into Beate's head so hard he forced it backwards.
'Twenty-one,' she groaned.
'Isn't it liberating?' Harry said. 'When you finally realise you have nothing to lose. That makes all decisions so much easier.'
'You're bluffing.'
'Am I?' Harry placed the gun against his left forearm and fired. The crack was loud and sharp. A few tenths of a second passed before the echo from the tall blocks came crashing back. Trond stared. A jagged edge stood up around the hole in the policeman's leather jacket and a white tuft of wool lining swirled away in the wind. The blood trickled through. Heavy, red droplets hit the ground with a muffled tick-tick clock-like sound, vanished in the mixture of shale and rotting grass to be absorbed by the soil. 'Twenty-two.'
The droplets grew and fell faster and faster, sounding like an accelerating metronome. Harry raised his gun, poked the barrel through a gap in the wire netting fence and took aim. 'That's what my blood looks like, Trond,' he said in a voice so low it was barely audible. 'Shall we have a peek at yours?'
At that moment the clouds covered the sun.
'Twenty-three.'
A dark shadow fell like a wall from the west, firstly across the fields, then across the terraced houses, the blocks, the red shale and the three people. The temperature fell, too. Like a stone, as though the obstruction in front of the light not only cut off the heat but also radiated cold. But Trond didn't notice. All he sensed and saw was the policewoman's brief, hurried gulps of air, her wan, expressionless face and the muzzle of the policeman's gun staring at him like a black eye which had finally found what it was seeking and was already boring through him, dissecting him and stretching him out. The distant thunder rumbled. But all he heard was the sound of blood. The policeman's flesh was open and the contents were spilling out. The blood, his insides, his life dripped loudly onto the grass. It wasn't being devoured; it did the devouring, burned its way into the ground. Trond knew that even if he closed his eyes and covered his ears, he would still hear his own blood rushing in his ears, singing and throbbing to get out.
He felt the nausea like a kind of mild labour pain, a foetus which would be born through his mouth. He swallowed, but the water was running from all his glands, greasing his insides, preparing him. The fields, the blocks and the tennis court began to revolve. He huddled up, tried to hide behind the policewoman, but she was too small, too transparent, just a gossamer veil of life trembling in the squalls. He clung to the gun as though it was holding him up and not the opposite, tightened his finger on the trigger, then waited. Had to wait. What for? For the fear to release its grip? For things to recover their equilibrium? But they wouldn't, they just whirled around and would not come to rest until they had smashed on the bottom. Everything had been in free fall from the moment Stine had said she was leaving, and the blood rushing in his ears had been a constant reminder that the pace was gathering. He had woken every morning thinking that now he must have got used to falling, now the horror must have let go, the end was in sight, he had been through the pain barrier. But it wasn't true. Then he had begun to long to hit rock bottom, the day he would stop being frightened. And now he could see the bottom he was even more frightened. The ground on the other side of the wire fence rushed towards him.
'Twenty-four.'
The countdown was nearing the end. Beate had the sun in her eyes, she was standing inside in a bank in Ryen and the light outside was dazzling, making everything white and harsh. Her father stood beside her, as silent as ever. Her mother was shouting from some-where, but she was far away, she always had been. Beate counted the images, the summers, the kisses and the defeats. There were a lot, she was surprised how many there were. She recalled faces, Paris, Prague, a smile from under a black fringe, a clumsily expressed declaration of love, a breathless, fearful: Does it hurt? And a restaurant she hadn't been able to afford in San Sebastian, but where she had reserved a table anyway. Perhaps she should be grateful after all?
She had woken from these thoughts when the gun nudged her forehead. The images disappear
ed and there was only a white, crackling snowstorm on the screen. She wondered: Why did Father only stand beside me? Why didn't he ask me for something? He had never done that. And she hated him for it. Didn't he know it was the only thing she desired, to do something for him, anything at all? She had walked where he had walked, but when she found the bank raider, the killer, the widow-maker and wanted to give her father his vengeance, their vengeance, he had stood beside her, as silent as ever, and refused.
Now she was standing where he had stood. All the people she had watched on the bank videos from all over the world at night in the House of Pain, wondering what they were thinking. Now it was her turn and still she didn't know.
Then someone had turned off the light, the sun disappeared and she was immersed in the cold. She had awoken again in the cold. As if the first awakening had only been part of a new dream. And she had started counting again. But now she was counting places she had never been, people she had never met, tears she had never cried, words she had never heard said as yet.