by Jo Nesbo
The eggshells and milk cartons crunched under his feet in the container as he moved towards the round opening in the ceiling. He peered up the hole but all he could see was blackness. He poked the rod up. Waited until he hit the usual soft bulk of bags, but instead the rod met something solid. He poked harder. It wouldn't budge; something was wedged good and proper.
He took the torch hanging from his belt and shone the light up the shaft. A drop fell on his glasses. Blinded and cursing, he tore off his glasses and wiped the lenses on his blue coat while holding the torch under his arm. He shifted to the side and took a short-sighted squint up. He was alarmed. Pointed the torch upwards, his imagination beginning to work overtime. His heart was slowing as he stared. In disbelief, he put his glasses back on. Then his heart stopped beating.
The iron rod slid and scraped down the wall until it hit the floor with a clang. Sverre Hasvold found himself sitting in the refuse container. The torch must have slipped down between the bags somewhere. Another drop dripped onto the plastic bag between his thighs. He jerked backwards as though it were caustic acid. Then he got to his feet and sprinted out.
He had to have fresh air. He had seen things at sea, but nothing like this. This was . . . not normal. It had to be sick. He pushed open the front door and staggered out onto the pavement without noticing the two tall men standing there or the cold air that met him. Dizzy and breathless, he leaned against the wall and took out his mobile phone. Stared at it, helpless. They had changed the emergency numbers some years ago, made them easier to remember, but the old ones were the ones that occurred to him, of course. He caught sight of the two men. One of them was talking on his mobile; the other he recognised as one of the residents.
'Sorry, but do you know how to ring the police?' Hasvold asked and could hear that he had become hoarse as though from a long bout of screaming.
The resident glanced at the man beside him, who studied the caretaker for a moment before saying: 'Hang on, we may not need Ivan and the tracker dogs after all.' The man lowered his mobile and turned to Sverre Hasvold. 'I'm Inspector Hole, Oslo Police. Let me guess . . .'
In a flat by Vestkanttorget Tore Bjørgen was looking down through the bedroom window onto the yard. It was as quiet outside as inside; no children running around screaming or playing in the snow. It must have been too cold and dark. And it was several years since he had seen children playing outside in the winter anyway. From the living room he could hear the TV newsreader warning about record low temperatures. The Social Services Secretary was going to implement special measures to take the homeless off the streets and to encourage the elderly living on their own to turn up the heating in their flats. The police were looking for a Croatian national by the name of Christo Stankic. There was a reward for any tip-offs leading to his arrest. The presenter didn't mention an amount, but Bjørgen assumed it would be more than enough for a return plane ticket to Cape Town and three weeks' food and accommodation.
Bjørgen dried his nostrils and rubbed the rest of the cocaine into his gums. It took away the last of the pizza taste.
He had told the manager of Biscuit that he had a headache and had gone home early. Christo – or Mike as he had said his name was – was waiting for him on a bench in Vestkanttorget as they had arranged. Christo had obviously enjoyed his ready-made Grandiosa pizza and had wolfed it down without noticing the fifteen milligrams of Stesolid in chopped-up pill form.
Bjørgen surveyed the sleeping Christo, who was lying naked and face down on his bed. Despite the ball gag, Christo's breathing was regular and deep. He hadn't shown any signs of waking while Tore was making his little arrangement. Tore had bought the sedatives off a frenetic junkie in the street right outside Biscuit for fifteen kroner a pill. The rest had not cost much, either. The handcuffs, ankle cuffs, the ball gag with head harness and the string of shiny anal beads had followed in a so-called beginners' pack that he had bought off a website for only 599 kroner.
The duvet was on the floor and Christo's skin glowed in the light from the flickering flames of the candles Tore had placed around the room. His body formed a Y shape against the white sheet; his hands were tied to the head of Tore's solid brass bed while his feet were attached to opposing rails at the end. Tore had managed to squeeze a cushion under Christo's stomach to raise his backside.
Tore removed the lid of the Vaseline tin, scooped a lump with his index finger and separated Christo's buttocks with the other hand. And the thought went through his mind again. This was rape. It would be difficult to call it anything else. And the thought, just the word 'rape', made him feel horny.
In fact, he was not sure whether Christo would have had any objection to being played with. The signals had been mixed. Nevertheless, it was dangerous to play with a murderer. Wonderfully dangerous. But not brainless. After all, the man beneath him would be locked up for the rest of his life.
He looked down at his erection. Then he took the anal beads from the box and pulled both ends of the thin but sturdy nylon string running through the beads like through a pearl necklace: the first beads were small but increased in volume, the largest the size of a golf ball. According to the instructions, the beads were to be inserted in the anal passage and then pulled out at leisure to achieve maximum stimulation of the nerves in and around the sensitive entrance to the anus. There was a variety of colours and if you didn't know what anal beads were you could be excused for imagining they were something else. Tore smiled at his distorted reflection in the largest of the beads. Dad might be a bit taken aback when he opened Tore's Yuletide present with a greeting from Cape Town and his fervent hope that it would look nice on the Christmas tree. However, no one in the family from Vegårdshei would have the slightest idea what kind of beads were glinting in front of them as they jigged round the tree singing and dutifully holding hands. Or where they had been.
* * *
Harry led Beate and her two assistants down the stairs to the basement where the caretaker unlocked the door to the refuse room. One of the assistants was new, a girl whose name Harry retained for no more than three seconds.
'Up there,' Harry said. The other three, wearing something that looked like a white beekeeper's outfit, stepped forward with care to stand beneath the chute opening, and the beams from their head lamps disappeared up into the dark. Harry studied the new assistant, waited for the reaction on her face. When it came it reminded Harry of the coral life that instantly retracts when touched by divers' fingers. Beate gave an imperceptible nod of the head, like a plumber's dispassionate assessment of moderate to severe frost damage.
'Enucleation,' she said. Her voice resounded in the chute. 'Have you got that, Margaret?'
The female assistant was breathing hard as she groped for a pen and notebook inside the beekeeper costume.
'I beg your pardon,' Harry said.
'The left eyeball has been removed. Margaret?'
'Got it,' the assistant said, taking notes.
'The woman's hanging down head first. Stuck in the chute, I suppose. There's a little blood dripping from the eye socket and inside I can see some areas of white which must be the inner cranium showing through the tissue. Dark red blood, so it's a while since it coagulated. The pathologist will check temperature and rigidity when he comes. Too quick?'
'No, that's fine,' Margaret said.
'We've found traces of blood by the chute door on the third floor, the same floor where the eye was found, so I assume the body was pushed in there. It's a tight opening and from here it looks as if the right shoulder has been dislocated. That may have happened when she was forced in or when her fall was broken. It's hard to know from this angle, but I think I can see bruising on the neck, which would suggest that she was strangled. The pathologist will check the shoulder and determine the cause of death. Otherwise there's not a lot we can do here. It's all yours, Gilberg.'
Beate stepped aside and the male assistant took several flash shots of the chute.
'What's the yellowish-white stuff in th
e eye socket?' he asked.
'Fat,' Beate said. 'Clear the container and look for things that may be from the victim or the killer. Afterwards you'll get some help from the officers outside to pull her down. Margaret, you come with me.'
They went into the corridor and Margaret went to the lift door and pressed the button.
'We're taking the stairs,' Beate said in a light tone. Margaret regarded her with surprise and then followed her two older colleagues.
'Three more of my people will be here soon,' Beate said in answer to Harry's unspoken question. Although Harry with his long legs was taking two steps at a time, the small woman kept up with ease. 'Witnesses?'
'None so far,' Harry said. 'But we're doing the rounds. Three officers are ringing all the flats in the block. And after that the neighbouring blocks.'
'Have they got a photo of Stankic?'
Harry sent her a glance to see whether she was being ironic. It was difficult to say.
'What was your first impression?' Harry asked.
'A man,' Beate said.
'Because whoever it was must have been strong to push her through the chute opening?'
'Maybe.'
'Anything else?'
'Harry, are we in any doubt as to who this was?' she sighed.
'Yes, Beate, we are. As a matter of principle we profess doubt until we know.'
Harry turned to Margaret, who was already out of breath from following them. 'And your first impression?'
'What?'
They turned into the corridor on the third floor. A corpulent man in a tweed suit under an open tweed coat was standing in front of the door to Jon Karlsen's flat. He had obviously been waiting for them.
'I was wondering what you felt when you entered the building,' Harry said. 'And looked up into the chute.'
'Felt?' Margaret asked with a puzzled smile.
'Yes, felt!' Ståle Aune bellowed, proffering a hand which Harry shook without hesitation. 'Come along and learn, folks, for this is the famous gospel according to Hole. Before entering a crime scene empty your mind of all thoughts, become a newly born child, without language, open yourself to the sacred first impression, the vital first seconds which are your great, and only, chance to behold what happened without an ounce of a fact. It almost sounds like exorcism, doesn't it? Smart suit, Beate. And who is your charming colleague?'
'This is Margaret Svendsen.'
'Ståle Aune,' the man said, seizing Margaret's begloved hand and kissing it. 'Goodness me, you taste of rubber, my dear.'
'Aune is a psychologist,' Beate said. 'He often helps us.'
'He often tries to help you,' Aune said. 'Psychology is, I'm afraid to say, a science that is still in its rompers and should not be accorded too much value for another fifty to a hundred years. And what is your response to Detective Inspector Hole's question, my dear?'
Margaret looked to Beate for help.
'I . . . don't know,' she said. 'The eye was a bit off-putting, of course.'
Harry unlocked the door.
'You know I can't stand the sight of blood,' Aune warned.
'Think of it as a glass eye,' Harry said, opening the door and stepping to the side. 'Walk on the plastic and don't touch anything.'
Aune trod with care on the path of black plastic traversing the floor. He crouched down beside the eye, which still lay in the pile of dust next to the vacuum cleaner but which now had a grey film over it.
'Apparently it's called enucleation,' Harry said.
Aune raised one eyebrow. 'Performed with a vacuum cleaner to the eye?'
'You can't suck an eye out of the head with just a vacuum cleaner,' Harry said. 'The perp must have sucked it out far enough for him to get a couple of fingers inside. Muscles and optic nerves are solid matter.'
'What you don't know, Harry.'
'I once arrested a woman who had drowned her child in the bath. While she was in custody she tore out one of her eyes. The doctor acquainted me with the technique.'
They heard a sharp intake of breath from Margaret behind them.
'Removing an eye does not have to be fatal,' Harry said. 'Beate thinks the woman may have been strangled. What's your first thought?'
'It goes without saying that this act has been committed by a person in a state of emotional or rational disequilibrium,' Aune said. 'The mutilation suggests uncontrolled anger. There may of course be practical reasons for the perpetrator to choose to dispatch the body down the chute . . .'
'Unlikely,' Harry said. 'If the intention was that the body should not be found for a while, it would have been smarter to leave it in the empty flat.'
'In that case to some extent this kind of thing tends to be a conscious symbolic act.'
'Hm. Remove an eye and treat the rest as rubbish?'
'Yes.'
Harry looked at Beate. 'It doesn't sound like the work of a professional killer.'
Aune shrugged. 'It could well be an angry professional killer.'
'In general pros have a method they rely on. Christo Stankic's method so far has been to shoot his victims.'
'He may have a wider repertoire,' Beate said. 'Or perhaps the victim surprised him while he was in the flat.'
'Perhaps he didn't want to shoot because it would have alerted the neighbours,' Margaret said.
The other three faced her.
She flashed an intimidated smile. 'I mean . . . perhaps he needed time and peace and quiet. Perhaps he was searching for something.'
Harry noticed that all of a sudden Beate had begun to breathe hard through her nose and was even paler than usual.
'How does that sound?' he asked, addressing Aune.
'Like psychology,' Aune said. 'A mass of questions. And hypotheses by way of a response.'
Outside again, Harry asked Beate if something was the matter.
'Just a bit of nausea,' she said.
'Oh? You're refused permission to be sick right now. Understood?'
She answered him with a cryptic smile.
He woke up, opened his eyes and saw lights roaming across the white ceiling above him. His body and head ached, and he was frozen. There was something in his mouth. And when he tried to move he could feel that his hands and feet had been shackled. He raised his head. In the mirror at the end of the bed, in the light from the burning candles, he could see he was naked. And there was something on his head, something black like a horse's harness. One of the straps went across his face, over his mouth, which was obstructed by a black ball. His hands were held by metal handcuffs, his feet by something black like bondage restraints. He stared into the mirror. On the sheet between his legs lay the end of a string that disappeared up between his buttocks. And there was something white on his stomach. It looked like semen. He sank back on the pillow and shut his eyes. He wanted to scream, but knew that the ball would effectively prevent any attempt.
He heard a voice from the living room.
'Hello? Politi?'
Politi? Polizei? Police?
He thrashed around on the bed, jerking his arms down and moaning with pain as the handcuffs cut into the back of his thumb, taking off the skin. He twisted his hands so that his fingers could get hold of the chain between the cuffs. Handcuffs. Steel bars. His father had taught him that building materials were almost always made to withstand pressure in one direction and that the art of bending steel was about knowing where and which way it would offer the least resistance. The chain between the handcuffs was made to prevent them being pulled apart.
He heard the man speaking briefly on the living-room telephone, then all went quiet.