by Jo Nesbo
Beate shook her head. “No. On the contrary. He was more famous for being overanxious to catch the bad guys. Before he was killed, he talked about having a big fish on the hook and wanting to reel it in solo.”
“Solo.”
“He didn’t want to say any more, and he didn’t trust anyone else. Sound like someone you know, Harry?”
He smiled, got up and threaded his arms into his jacket sleeves. “Where are you going?”
“To visit an old friend.”
“Didn’t know you had any.”
“In a manner of speaking. I called the head of Kripos.”
“Heimen?”
“Yes. I asked if he could give me a list of people Gusto had spoken to on his cell before the murder. He answered that, first off, it was such an open-and-shut case they didn’t have a list. Second, if they did they would never give it to a … let me see …” Harry closed his eyes and counted on his fingers. “Discharged cop, alkie or traitor like me.”
“As I said, I didn’t know you had any old friends.”
“So now I’ll have to try elsewhere.”
“OK. I’ll have this powder analyzed today.”
Harry stopped in the doorway. “You said that recently violin had been turning up in Gothenburg and Copenhagen. Does that mean it appeared there after Oslo?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it usually the other way around? New dope goes to Copenhagen first and then spreads north?”
“You’re probably right. Why?”
“Not quite sure yet. What did you say that pilot’s name was?”
“I didn’t. Schultz. Tord. Anything else?”
“Yes. Have you considered that the undercover man may have been right?”
“Right?”
“To keep his mouth shut and not to trust anyone. He may have known there was a burner somewhere.”
HARRY LOOKED AROUND the large, airy cathedral of a reception area at Telenor headquarters in Fornebu. At the desk thirty feet away two people stood waiting. He saw them receiving passes and being collected by the person they were visiting at the barriers. Telenor had obviously tightened up their procedures, and his plan of more or less gate-crashing Klaus Torkildsen’s office was no longer viable.
Harry assessed the situation.
Torkildsen would certainly not appreciate the visit. He had once been caught exposing himself, which he had managed to keep secret from his employer, but Harry had used that information for several years to pressure him into giving him access to information, sometimes way beyond what a telephone company was legally entitled to do. Nevertheless, without the authority a police ID card endowed, Harry would probably not even get in to see Torkildsen.
To the right of the four gates leading to the elevators was a larger gate that had been opened to let in a group of visitors. Harry made a swift decision. He strode up to the group and edged to the middle of the throng, which was shuffling toward the Telenor representative holding the gate open. Harry turned to his neighbor, a small man with Chinese features.
“Ni hao.”
“Excuse me?”
Harry saw the name on the visitor’s pass. Yuki Nakazawa.
“Oh, Japanese.” Harry laughed and patted the little man several times on the shoulder, as if he were an old friend. Yuki Nakazawa returned a tentative smile.
“Nice day,” Harry said, still with his hand on the man’s shoulder.
“Yes,” Yuki said. “Which company are you?”
“TeliaSonera,” Harry said.
“Very, very good.”
They passed the Telenor employee and from the corner of his eye Harry could see him coming toward them and knew roughly what he would say. And he was right.
“Sorry, sir. I can’t let you in without a name badge.”
Yuki Nakazawa looked at the man in surprise.
TORKILDSEN HAD BEEN given a new office. After walking what felt like half a mile through an open-plan office Harry finally saw a familiar large physique in a glass cage.
Harry went straight in.
The man was sitting with his back to him, a telephone pressed to his ear. Harry could see the shower of spittle stand out against the window. “Now you get the bloody SW-Two server up and running!”
Harry coughed.
The chair swiveled around. Klaus Torkildsen was even fatter. A surprisingly elegant, tailored suit succeeded in partially hiding the rolls of flab, but nothing could hide the expression of sheer fear that spread across his extraordinary face. What was so extraordinary about it was that with such an expanse at their disposal, the eyes, nose and mouth had deemed it appropriate to assemble on a small island amid an ocean of face. His eyes descended to Harry’s lapel.
“Yuki … Nakazawa?”
“Klaus.” Harry beamed and stretched out his arms for a hug.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Torkildsen whispered.
Harry dropped his arms. “I’m happy to see you, too.”
He perched on the edge of the desk. Same place he had always sat. Invade and find higher ground. Simple and effective way to rule. Torkildsen gulped, and Harry saw large, shiny beads of sweat forming on his brow.
“The cell network in Trondheim,” Torkildsen grumbled, indicating the phone. “Should have had the server up and running last week. Can’t fucking trust anyone anymore. I’m pushed for time. What do you want?”
“The list of calls to and from Gusto Hanssen’s cell since May.” Harry grabbed a pen and wrote the name on a yellow Post-it.
“I’m management now. I don’t work on the floor.”
“No, but you can still get me the numbers.”
“Do you have any authorization?”
“If I did I would’ve gone straight to a police contact instead of you.”
“So why wouldn’t your prosecutor authorize this?”
The old Torkildsen would not have dared to ask this. He had become tougher. Had more confidence. Was it the new promotion? Or something else? Harry saw the back of a photo frame on the desk. The kind of personal photo used to remind yourself you had someone. So, unless it was a dog, it was a woman. Perhaps even with a child. Who would have thought it? The old flasher had got himself a woman.
“I no longer work for the police,” Harry said.
Torkildsen smirked. “Yet you still want info on conversations?”
“I don’t need much, just this cell.”
“Why should I? If anyone found out I’d passed this kind of info on I’d get the boot. And it wouldn’t be hard to see if I’d been in the system.”
Harry didn’t answer.
Torkildsen gave a bitter laugh. “I understand. It’s the same old cowardly blackmail number. If I don’t give you info, contrary to regulations, you’ll make sure my colleagues get to hear about my conviction.”
“No,” Harry said. “No, I won’t talk. I’m simply asking you for a favor, Klaus. It’s personal. My ex-girlfriend’s boy risks life imprisonment for something he didn’t do.”
Harry saw Torkildsen’s double chin jerk and create a wave of flesh that rippled down his neck until it was absorbed into the greater body mass and was gone. Harry had never addressed Klaus Torkildsen by his Christian name before today. Torkildsen looked at him. Blinked. Concentrated. The beads of sweat glinted, and Harry could see the cerebral calculator adding, subtracting and—at length—reaching a result. Torkildsen threw up his arms and leaned back in the chair, which creaked under the weight.
“Sorry, Harry, I would have liked to help you. But right now I can’t afford that sort of sympathy. Hope you understand.”
“Of course,” Harry said, rubbing his chin. “It’s completely understandable.”
“Thank you,” Torkildsen said, clearly relieved and beginning to struggle up from his chair, so as to escort Harry out of the glass cage and his life.
“Right,” Harry said. “If you don’t get me the numbers it won’t just be your colleagues who find out about your exposing yourself but your wife as well. A
ny kids? Yes? One, two?”
Torkildsen slumped back in the chair, staring at Harry in disbelief. The old, trembling Klaus Torkildsen. “You … you said you wouldn’t …”
Harry shrugged. “Sorry. But right now I can’t afford that sort of sympathy.”
IT WAS TEN minutes past ten at night and Schrøder’s was half full.
“I wouldn’t have wanted you to come to my workplace,” Beate said. “Heimen called me and said you’d been asking about a list of phone calls, and he’d heard you’d been to see me. He warned me not to get mixed up in the Gusto case.”
“Well,” Harry said, “it’s good you could come here.” He established eye contact with Rita, who was serving beer at the other end of the room. He held up two fingers. She nodded. It was three years since he had been here, but she still understood the sign language of her ex-regular: a beer for the companion, a coffee for the alcoholic.
“Was your friend any help with the list?”
“Lots of help.”
“So what did you find out?”
“Gusto must have been broke at the end; his account had been blocked several times. He didn’t use his phone much, but he and Oleg had a few short conversations. He called his foster sister, Irene, quite a bit, but the conversations suddenly stopped some weeks before he died. Otherwise the calls were mostly to Pizza Xpress. I’ll go to Rakel’s afterward and Google these other names. What can you tell me about the analysis?”
“The substance you bought is almost identical to early samples of violin we have examined. But there is a small difference in the chemical compound. And then there are the brown flecks.”
“Yes?”
“It’s not an active pharmaceutical ingredient. It’s quite simply the coating that’s used on pills. You know, to make them easier to swallow or to give them a better taste.”
“Is it possible to trace it to the producer?”
“In theory, yes. But I’ve checked, and it transpires that medicine manufacturers generally make their own coating, which means there are several thousand of them all over the globe.”
“So we won’t make any headway there?”
“Not with the coating,” Beate said. “But on the inside of some fragments there are still remains of the pill. It was methadone.”
Rita brought the coffee and beer. Harry thanked her, and she left.
“I thought methadone was liquid and came in bottles.”
“The methadone used in the so-called medicine-assisted rehabilitation of drug addicts comes in bottles. So I called up St. Olav’s Hospital. They research opioids and opiates and told me that methadone pills are used for the treatment of pain.”
“And in violin?”
“They said it was possible that modified methadone could be used in its manufacture, yes.”
“That only means violin is not made from scratch, but how does that help us?”
Beate curled her hand around the beer glass. “Because there are very few producers of methadone pills. And one of them is based in Oslo.”
“AB? Nycomed?”
“The Radiumhospitalet. They have their own research institute and have manufactured a methadone pill to treat severe pain.”
“Cancer.”
Beate nodded. One hand transported the glass to her mouth while the other picked up something lying on the table.
“From the Radiumhospitalet?”
Beate nodded again.
Harry picked up the pill. It was round, small and had an R stamped into the brown glazing.
“Do you know what, Beate?”
“No.”
“I think Norway has created a new export.”
“DO YOU MEAN to say that someone in Norway is producing and exporting violin?” Rakel asked. She was leaning with her arms crossed against the doorframe of Oleg’s room.
“There are at least a couple of facts that suggest someone might be,” Harry said, keying in the next name on the list he had been given by Torkildsen. “First, the ripples spread outward from Oslo. No one at Interpol had seen or heard about violin before it appeared in Oslo, and it is only now that you can find it on the streets of Sweden and Denmark. Second, the substance contains chopped-up methadone pills, which I swear are made in Norway.” Harry pressed SEARCH. “Third, a pilot was arrested at Gardermoen with something that might have been violin, but was then swapped.”
“Swapped?”
“In which case we have a burner in the system. The point is that this pilot was leaving the country for Bangkok.”
Harry smelled her perfume and knew she had moved from the door and was standing by his shoulder. The sheen from the computer screen was the only light in the dark room.
“ ‘Foxy.’ Who’s that?” Her voice was next to his ear.
“Isabelle Skøyen. City Council. One of the people Gusto called. Or, to be precise, she called him.”
“The blood donor T-shirt’s a size too small for her, isn’t it?”
“It’s probably part of a politician’s job to promote blood donation.”
“Are you actually a politician if you’re just a council secretary?”
“Anyway, the woman says she’s AB Rh-negative, and then it’s simply your civic duty.”
“Rare blood, yes. Is that why you’ve been looking at that picture for so long?”
Harry smiled. “There were lots of hits here. Horse breeder. ‘The Street Sweeper.’ ”
“She’s the one credited with putting all the drug gangs behind bars.”
“Not all of them, obviously. I wonder what she and Gusto could have had to talk about.”
“Well, she heads the Social Services Committee’s campaign against drugs, so maybe she used him to gather general information.”
“At half past one in the morning?”
“Whoops!”
“I’d better ask her.”
“Yes, I’m sure you’d like that.”
He craned his head toward her. Her face was so close he could hardly focus on her.
“Do I hear what I think I hear, my love?”
She laughed softly. “Not at all. She looks cheap.”
Harry inhaled slowly. She hadn’t moved. “And what makes you think I don’t like cheap?” he asked.
“And why are you whispering?” Her lips moved so close to his he could feel the stream of air with her words.
For two long seconds the computer’s fan was all that could be heard. Then she suddenly straightened up. Sent Harry an absentminded, far-off look and placed her hands against her cheeks as if to cool them down. Then she turned and left.
Harry leaned back, closed his eyes and cursed softly. Heard her clattering about in the kitchen. Breathed in a couple of times. Decided that what had just happened had not happened. Tried to collect his thoughts. Then he went on.
He Googled the remaining names. Some came up with ten-year-old results of skiing competitions or a report of a family get-together, others not even that. They were people who no longer existed, who had been withdrawn from modern society’s almost all-embracing floodlights, who had found shady nooks where they sat waiting for the next dose or else nothing.
Harry sat looking at the wall, at a poster of a guy with plumage on his head. JÓNSI was written underneath. Harry had a vague memory that it had something to do with the Icelandic band Sigur Rós. Ethereal sounds and relentless falsetto singing. Quite a long way from Megadeth and Slayer. But of course Oleg may have changed his taste. Or have been influenced. Harry settled back with his hands behind his head.
Irene Hanssen.
He had been surprised by the list of calls. Gusto and Irene had spoken on the phone almost every day, then abruptly stopped. After that he hadn’t even tried to call her. As if they had had a falling-out. Or maybe Gusto had known that Irene could not be reached by phone. But then, a few hours before he was shot, Gusto had called the landline at her home address. And had got an answer. The conversation had lasted one minute and twelve seconds. Why did he think that was odd? Harry tried
to unravel his way back to where the thought had originated. But had to give up. He dialed the landline. No answer. Tried Irene’s cell. A voice told him that the account was temporarily blocked. Unpaid bills.
Money.
It started and ended with money. Drugs always did. Harry tried to remember the name Beate had told him. The pilot who had been arrested with powder in his hand luggage. The police memory still worked. He typed TORD SCHULTZ into directory assistance.
A cell number came up.
Harry opened a drawer in Oleg’s desk to find a pen. He lifted Masterful Magazine and his eye fell on a newspaper clipping in a plastic folder. He immediately recognized his own, younger face. He took out the folder and flipped through the other clippings. They were all of cases Harry had worked on and where Harry’s name had been mentioned or his picture appeared. There was also an old interview in a psychology journal where he had answered—not without some irritation, he seemed to remember—questions about serial killings. Harry closed the drawer. Cast around. He felt a need to smash something. Then he switched off the computer, packed the little suitcase, went into the hall and put on his suit jacket. Rakel came out. She brushed an invisible speck of dust from his lapel.
“It’s so strange,” she said. “I hadn’t seen you for ages, I had just begun to forget you, and then, here you are again.”
“Yes,” he said. “Is that a good thing?”
A fleeting smile. “I don’t know. It’s both good and bad. Do you understand?”
Harry nodded and pulled her to him.
“You’re the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” she said. “And the best. Even now, merely by being here, you can make me forget everything else. No, I’m not sure that’s good.”
“I know.”
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the suitcase.
“I’m checking into Hotel Leon.”
“But—”
“We’ll talk tomorrow. Good night, Rakel.”
Harry kissed her on the forehead, opened the door and went out into the warm autumn evening.
THE BOY IN reception said he didn’t need to fill in another registration form and offered Harry the same room as last time, 301. Harry said that was fine so long as they fixed the broken curtain pole.