The Snowman

by Jo Nesbo

  “A lie and an honest answer. Sounds easy.”

  “Sounds is right. If we assume he’s telling the truth when he’s talking about the founding of his magazine and why he hates politicians, we have the second point.” Tresko rewound the clip and played it. “Look.”

  Harry looked. But obviously not where he was supposed to. He shook his head.

  “The hands,” Tresko said. “Look at his hands.”

  Harry looked at Støp’s tanned hands resting on the chair arms.

  “They’re not moving,” Harry said.

  “Yes, but he isn’t hiding them,” Tresko said. “A classic sign of bad poker players with poor cards is all the effort they make to hide them behind their hands. And when they bluff they like to place an apparently pensive hand over their mouth to hide their expression. We call them hiders. Others exaggerate the bluff by sitting upright in the chair or leaning back to appear bigger than they are. They’re the bluffers. Støp is a hider.”

  Harry leaned forward. “Did you …”

  “Yes, I did,” Tresko said. “And it runs all the way through. He takes his hands off the arms of the chair and hides the right one—I would guess he’s right-handed—when he’s lying.”

  “What does he do when I ask him if he makes snowmen?” Harry made no attempt to conceal his eagerness.

  “He’s lying,” Tresko said.

  “Which bit? The bit about making snowmen or making them on his roof terrace?”

  Tresko uttered a short grunt, which Harry realized was meant to be laughter.

  “This is not an exact science,” Tresko said. “As I said, he’s not a bad card player. In the first seconds after you asked the question he has his hands on the arms as if he’s considering telling the truth. At the same time his nostrils flare as though he’s becoming stressed. But then he changes his mind, hides his right hand and comes up with a lie.”

  “Exactly,” Harry said. “And that means he has something to hide, doesn’t it?”

  Tresko pressed his lips together to show this was a tricky one. “It may also mean he’s choosing to tell a lie he knows will be found out. To hide the fact that he could easily have told the truth.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When pro card players have good hands, sometimes, instead of trying to bump up the pot, they bid high first time and give tiny signals that they’re bluffing. Just enough to hook inexperienced players into believing they’ve spotted a bluff and to get them to join the bidding. That’s basically what this looks like. A bluffed bluff.”

  Harry nodded slowly. “You mean he wants me to believe that he has something to hide?”

  Tresko looked at the empty beer bottle, looked at the fridge, made a halfhearted attempt to lever his huge body off the sofa and sighed.

  “As I said, this is not an exact science,” he said. “Would you mind …”

  Harry got up and went over to the fridge. Cursing inside. When he had rung Oda at Bosse he had known they would accept his offer to appear. And he had also known that he would be able to ask Støp direct questions unhindered; that was the format of the show. And that the camera would film the person answering, with close-ups or so-called medium shots—that is, the upper half of the body. All of this had been perfect for Tresko’s analysis. And yet they had failed. This had been the last ray of hope, the last place to look where there was some light. The rest was darkness. And perhaps ten years of fumbling and praying for luck, serendipity, a slipup.

  Harry stared at the neatly stacked rows of Ringnes beer bottles in the fridge, a comical contrast to the chaos reigning in the apartment. He hesitated. Then he took two bottles. They were so cold that they burned his palms. The fridge door was swinging shut.

  “The only place where I can say with certainty that Støp is lying,” Tresko said from the sofa, “is when he answers that there isn’t any madness or hereditary illness in his family.”

  Harry managed to catch the fridge door with his foot. The light from the crack was reflected in the black, curtainless window.

  “Repeat,” he said.

  Tresko repeated.

  Twenty-five seconds later Harry was halfway down the stairs and Tresko halfway down the beer Harry had chucked him.

  “Yes, there was one more thing, Harry,” Tresko mumbled to himself. “Bosse asked you if there was someone special you were cooling your heels waiting for, and you answered no.” He belched. “Don’t take up poker, Harry.”

  Harry called from his car.

  There was an answer before he could introduce himself. “Hi, Harry.”

  The thought that Mathias Lund-Helgesen either recognized his number or had his number listed made Harry shudder. He could hear Rakel’s and Oleg’s voices in the background. Weekend. Family.

  “I have a question about the Marienlyst Clinic. Are there still any patient records from there?”

  “I doubt it,” Mathias said. “I think the rules say that sort of thing has to be destroyed if no one takes over the practice. But if it’s important I’ll check, of course.”

  “Thank you.”

  Harry drove past the Vinderen tram stop. A glimpse of a ghost fluttered by. A car chase, a collision, a dead colleague, a rumor that it had been Harry driving and he should have been forced to take a Breathalyzer test. That was a long time ago. Water under the bridge. Scars under the skin. Versicolor on the soul.

  Mathias called back after fifteen minutes.

  “I spoke to Gregersen—he was the boss of Marienlyst. Everything was deleted or destroyed, I’m afraid. But I think some people, including Idar, took their patient information with them.”

  “And you?”

  “I knew I wouldn’t go into private practice, so I didn’t take anything.”

  “Can you remember any of the names of Idar’s patients, do you think?”

  “Some, maybe. Not many. It’s a while ago, Harry.”

  “I know. Thank you anyway.”

  Harry hung up and followed the sign to Rikshospitalet. The collection of buildings ahead of him covered the low ridge.

  Gerda Nelvik was a gentle, buxom lady in her mid-forties and the only person in the paternity department at the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Rikshospitalet this Saturday. She met Harry in reception and took him through. There was not much to suggest that this was where society’s worst criminals were hunted. The bright rooms, decorated in homey fashion, were, rather, testimony to the fact that the staff consisted almost entirely of women.

  Harry had been here before and knew the routines for DNA testing. On a weekday, behind the laboratory windows, he would have seen women dressed in white lab coats, caps and disposable gloves, bent over solutions and machines, busy with mysterious processes they called hair-prep, blood-prep and amplification, which would ultimately become a short report with a conclusion in the form of numerical values for fifteen different markers.

  They passed a room fitted with shelves, on which lay brown padded envelopes marked with names of police stations around the country. Harry knew they contained articles of clothing, strands of hair, furniture covers, blood and other organic material that had been submitted for analysis. All to extract the numeric code that represented selected points on the mysterious garland that is DNA and identified its owner with a certainty of 99.999 … percent.

  Gerda Nelvik’s office was no larger than it needed to be to accommodate shelves of ring files and a desk with a computer, piles of paper and a large photograph of two smiling boys, each with a snowboard. “Your sons?” Harry asked, sitting down.

  “I think so.” She smiled.

  “What?”

  “Insiders’ joke. You said something about someone submitting tests?”

  “Yes. I’m anxious to know about all the DNA tests submitted by a particular institution. Starting from twelve years back. And who they were for.”

  “I see. Which institution?”

  “The Marienlyst Clinic.”

  “The Marienlyst Clinic? Are you sure?”


  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “In paternity cases it’s usually a court or a lawyer who submits the request. Or individuals directly.”

  “These aren’t paternity suits but tests to establish possible family links because of the danger of hereditary medical conditions.”

  “Aha,” Gerda said. “Then we’ve got them in the database.”

  “Is that something you can check on the spot?”

  “Depends on whether you’ve got the time to wait”—Gerda looked at her watch—“for thirty seconds.”

  Harry nodded.

  Gerda tapped away on the keyboard as she dictated to herself. “M-a-r-i-e-n-l-y-s-t C-l-i-n-i-c.”

  She leaned back in her chair and let the machine work.

  “Terrible autumn weather we’re having, isn’t it,” she said.

  “Yes, it is,” Harry answered, miles away, listening to the whirring of the hard drive as if that could reveal whether the answer was the one he was hoping for.

  “The darkness can get to you,” she said. “Hope snow is on its way soon. Then it’ll brighten up, at least.”

  “Mm,” Harry said.

  The whirring stopped.

  “There you go,” she said, looking at the screen.

  Harry took a deep breath.

  “Yes, the Marienlyst Clinic has been a client here. But not for quite some time.”

  Harry tried to think back. When was it Idar Vetlesen had finished there?

  Gerda furrowed her brow. “But before that there were a lot, I can see.”

  She hesitated. Harry waited for her to say it. And then she said: “An unusually high number for a medical center, I would say.”

  Harry had a feeling. This was the path they should take; this one led out of the labyrinth. Or to be more precise: into the labyrinth. Into the heart of darkness.

  “Have you got any names or personal details of those tested?”

  Gerda shook her head. “Usually we do, but in this case the center wanted them to be anonymous, evidently.”

  Fuck! Harry closed his eyes and deliberated.

  “But you still have the test results? About whether individuals are fathers or not, I mean.”

  “Yes, indeed,” Gerda said.

  “And what do they tell you?”

  “I can’t give you an answer off the cuff. I’ll have to go into each one, and that’ll take more time.”

  “OK. But have you saved the DNA profiles of those you have tested?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the test is as comprehensive as in criminal cases?”

  “More comprehensive. To establish paternity beyond a doubt we require more markers, since half of the genes are from the mother.”

  “So what you’re saying is that I can collect a swab from a specific person, send it here and have you check it for any similarities with those you’ve checked from the Marienlyst Clinic?”

  “The answer is yes,” Gerda said with an intonation that suggested she would appreciate an explanation.

  “Good,” Harry said. “My colleagues will send you some swabs from a number of people who are husbands and children of women who have disappeared in recent years. To check whether they’ve been submitted before. I’ll make sure this is authorized to receive top priority.”

  A light seemed to be switched on in Gerda’s eyes. “Now I know where I’ve seen you! On Bosse. Is this about …”

  Even though there were only two of them there, she lowered her voice as if the name they had given the monster was a curse, an obscenity, an incantation that was not to be uttered aloud.

  Harry called Katrine and asked her to meet him at the Java café in St. Hanshaugen. He parked in front of an old apartment building with a sign on the entrance threatening that parked cars would be towed away, although the entrance was barely the width of a lawn mower. Ullevålsveien was full of people hurrying up and down doing their essential Saturday shopping. An ice-cold northerly wind swept down from St. Hanshaugen, blowing black hats off a bowed funeral procession on its way to the Vår Frelsers cemetery.

  Harry paid for a double espresso and a cortado, both in paper cups, and sat on one of the chairs on the pavement. On the pond on the other side of the road a lone white swan drifted around quietly with a neck formed like a question mark. Harry watched it and was reminded of the name of the fox trap. The wind blew goose pimples onto the surface of the water.

  “Is the cortado still hot?”

  Katrine was standing in front of him with outstretched hand.

  Harry passed her the paper cup, and they walked to his car.

  “Great that you could work on a Saturday morning,” he said.

  “Great that you could work on a Saturday morning,” she said.

  “I’m single,” he said. “Saturday morning has no value for people like us. You, on the other hand, should have a life.”

  An elderly man stood glaring at their car as they arrived.

  “I’ve ordered a tow truck,” he said.

  “Yes, I hear they’re popular,” Harry said, unlocking the door. “The only problem is finding somewhere to park them.”

  They got in and a wrinkled knuckle rapped on the glass. Harry rolled down the window.

  “Truck’s on its way,” the old man said. “You’ve got to stay here and wait.”

  “Do I?” Harry said, holding up his ID.

  The man ignored the card and glowered at his watch.

  “Your space’s too narrow to qualify as an entrance,” Harry said. “I’m sending over a man from the traffic department to unscrew your illegal sign. I’m afraid there’ll be a big fat fine, too.”

  “What?”

  “We’re police.”

  The old man snatched the ID card, looked suspiciously at Harry, at the card and back at Harry.

  “That’s fine this time. You can go,” the man mumbled with a sour expression and gave back the card.

  “It’s not fine,” Harry said. “I’m calling the traffic department now.”

  The old man stared at him with fury.

  Harry twisted the key in the ignition, let the engine roar, then turned to the old man again. “And you are to stay here.”

  They could see his openmouthed expression in the rearview mirror as they drove off.

  Katrine laughed. “You are bad! That was an old man.”

  Harry shot her a sidelong glance. Her facial expression was strange, as if it hurt her to laugh. Paradoxically, the episode at Fenris Bar had made her more relaxed with him. Perhaps that was a thing about attractive women: A rejection demanded their respect, made them trust you more.

  Harry smiled. He wondered how she would have reacted if she had known that this morning he had woken with an erection and fragments of a dream in which he had fucked her while she was sitting on the sink with her legs wide apart in the Fenris Bar bathroom. Screwed her so hard the pipes creaked, water slopped in the toilet bowls and the neon tubes buzzed and flickered as he felt the freezing porcelain on his balls every time he thrust. The mirror behind her had vibrated so much his features had blurred as they banged hips, backs and thighs against taps, hand dryers and soap holders. Only when they had stopped did he see that it wasn’t his but someone else’s face in the mirror.

  “What are you thinking about?” she asked.

  “Reproduction,” Harry said.

  “Oh?”

  Harry passed her a packet, which she opened. At the top was a piece of paper with the heading INSTRUCTIONS FOR DNA SWABBING KIT.

  “Somehow this is all tied up with paternity,” Harry said. “I just don’t know how or why yet.”

  “And we’re off to …?” Katrine asked, lifting a small pack of Q-tips.

  “Sollihøgda,” Harry said. “To get a swab from the twins.”

  In the fields surrounding the farm the snow was in retreat. Wet and gray, it squatted on the countryside it still occupied.

  Rolf Ottersen received them on the doorstep and offered them coffee. As they removed their outer clothing Ha
rry told him what they wanted. Rolf Ottersen didn’t ask why, just nodded.

  The twins were in the living room knitting.

  “What’s it going to be?” Katrine asked.

  “Scarf,” the twins said in unison. “Auntie’s teaching us.”

  They motioned to Ane Pedersen, who was sitting in the rocking chair knitting and smiling a “Nice to see you again” at Katrine.

  “I just want a bit of spit and mucus from them,” Katrine said brightly, raising a Q-tip. “Open wide.”

  The twins giggled and put down their knitting.

  Harry followed Rolf Ottersen to the kitchen, where a large kettle had boiled and there was a smell of hot coffee.

  “So you were wrong,” Rolf said. “About the doctor.”

  “Maybe,” Harry said. “Or maybe he has something to do with the case after all. Is it OK if I take a look at the barn again?”

  Rolf Ottersen made a gesture inviting Harry to help himself.

  “But Ane has tidied up in there,” he said. “There’s not a lot to see.”

  It was indeed tidy. Harry recalled the chicken blood lying on the floor, thick and dark, as Holm took samples, but now it had been scrubbed. The floorboards were pink where the blood had seeped into the wood. Harry stood by the chopping block and looked at the door. Tried to imagine Sylvia standing there and slaughtering chickens as the Snowman came in. Had she been surprised? She had killed two chickens. No, three. Why did he think it was two? Two plus one. Why plus one? He closed his eyes.

  Two of the chickens had been lying on the chopping block, their blood pouring out onto the sawdust. That was how chickens should be slaughtered. But the third had been lying some distance away and had soiled the floorboards. Amateur. And the blood had clotted where the third chicken’s throat had been cut. Just like on Sylvia’s throat. He recalled how Holm had explained this. And knew the thought wasn’t new; it had been lying there with all the other half-thought, half-chewed, half-dreamed ideas. The third chicken had been killed in the same way as Sylvia, with an electric cutting loop.