Harry Hole Mysteries 3-Book Bundle (32 page)

Erik, adrift in a boat watching a tidal wave growing on the horizon, didn’t answer.

‘So Becker found your address, took his son’s toy gun along with him – a very authentic-looking imitation of a Glock 21 – and went to Tveita to wait for you to come home. He wanted to see the fear in your eyes, he said. Threaten you to make you tell whatever you knew so that he could pass your name on to us. He followed the car into the garage, but it turned out your wife was driving.’

‘And he … he …’

‘Told her everything, yes.’

Erik rose from the cardboard box and walked over to the window. The flat had a view of Torshov Park and an Oslo bathed in wan morning sun. He didn’t like the old apartment blocks with views. They meant stairs. The better the view, the more stairs there were and the more exclusive the apartments, which meant heavier, more expensive goods, higher payouts for damage and more days with his men off sick. But that was the way it was when you exposed yourself to the risks of maintaining fixed low rates; you always won the competition for the worst jobs. Over time there is a price to pay with all risks. Erik took a deep breath and heard the policeman scuffing his feet on the wood floor. And he knew. This detective would not be worn down by any delaying tactics. This was one damage report he would not be throwing in the bin. Birte Olsen, now Becker, was going to be the first customer he would suffer a loss on.

‘Then he told me he’d been having an affair with Birte Becker for ten years,’ Harry said. ‘And that when they met and had sex for the first time she’d been pregnant with her husband.’

‘You’re pregnant with a girl or a boy,’ Rakel corrected, patting down the pillow so that she could see him better. ‘Or by her husband.’

‘Mm,’ Harry said, levering himself up on his arm, stretching across her and grabbing the cigarette packet on the bedside table. ‘Not more than eighty percent of the time.’

‘What?’

‘They said on the radio that somewhere between fifteen and twenty per cent of all children in Scandinavia have a different father from the one they think.’ He shook a cigarette out of the packet and held it up against the afternoon light seeping in under the blind. ‘Share one?’

Rakel nodded without speaking. She didn’t smoke, but this was something they had always done after making love: shared this one cigarette. The first time Rakel had asked to taste his cigarette, she had said it was because she wanted to feel the same as he did, to be as poisoned and stimulated as he was, to get as close to him as she could. And he had thought of all the girl junkies he had met who had had their first fix for the same idiotic reason, and refused. But she had persuaded him and eventually it had become a ritual. After they had made love slowly, lingering over it, the cigarette was like an extension of their lovemaking. At other times it was like smoking a peace pipe after a fight.

‘But he had an alibi for the whole of the evening Birte went missing,’ Harry said. ‘A boys’ night in Tveita that started at six and lasted all night. At least ten witnesses, admittedly wasted for the most part, but no one had been allowed to go home before six in the morning.’

‘Why keep it a secret that Vetlesen wasn’t the Snowman?’

‘As long as the real Snowman thinks we think we’ve got the killer he’ll lie low, hopefully, and won’t commit any more murders. And he won’t be so wary if he thinks the hunt has been called off. In the meantime we can quietly work our way closer at our leisure …’

‘Do I hear irony there?’

‘Maybe,’ Harry said, passing her the cigarette.

‘You don’t quite believe that then?’

‘I think our superiors have many reasons for concealing the fact that
Vetlesen wasn’t our man. The Chief Superintendent and Hagen held the press conference at the time when they were congratulating themselves on solving the case …’

Rakel sighed. ‘And yet still I do occasionally miss Police HQ.’

‘Mm.’

Rakel studied the cigarette. ‘Have you ever been unfaithful, Harry?’

‘Define unfaithful.’

‘Having sex with someone other than your partner.’

‘Yes.’

‘While you were with me, I mean.’

‘You know I can’t be absolutely certain.’

‘OK, sober then.’

‘No, never.’

‘So what does that make you think of me? Being here now?’

‘Is this a trick question?’

‘I mean it seriously, Harry.’

‘I know. I just don’t know if I feel like answering it.’

‘Then you can’t have any more of the cigarette.’

‘Mm. Alright. I think you believe you want me, but you wish you wanted him.’

The words hung over them as if imprinted in the darkness.

‘You’re so bloody … detached,’ Rakel erupted, handing Harry the cigarette and crossing her arms.

‘Perhaps we shouldn’t talk about it?’ Harry suggested.

‘But I have to talk about it! Don’t you see? Otherwise I’ll go out of my mind. My God, I’m already out of my mind, being here, now …’ She pulled the duvet up to her chin.

Harry turned and slid over to her. Already before he had touched her she had closed her eyes, tipped back her head and from between her parted lips he could hear her breathing accelerate. And he thought: how does she do it? From shame to sexual abandon in a flash? How can she be so … detached?

‘Do you think …’ he said, seeing her open her eyes and stare at the ceiling in surprise and frustration at the caresses that hadn’t materialised,
‘a bad conscience makes us wanton? That we’re unfaithful not in spite of the shame but because of it?’

She blinked a couple of times.

‘There’s something in that,’ she said at length. ‘But it’s not everything. Not this time.’

‘This time?’

‘Yes.’

‘I asked you once and at that time you said –’

‘I was lying,’ she said. ‘I’ve been unfaithful before.’

‘Mm.’

They lay in silence listening to the distant drone of the afternoon rush hour in Pilestredet. She had come to him straight from work; he knew Rakel and Oleg’s routines, and knew she would have to go soon.

‘Do you know what I hate about you?’ she said finally, giving his ear a tweak. ‘You’re so bloody proud and stubborn you can’t even ask if it was to you.’

‘Well,’ Harry said, taking the half-smoked cigarette and admiring her naked body as she jumped out of bed, ‘why would I want to know?’

‘For the same reason Birte’s husband did. To reveal the lie. To have the truth out in the open.’

‘Do you think the truth will make Filip Becker any less unhappy?’

She pulled the sweater over her head, a tight-fitting black one in coarse wool that lay straight over her soft skin. It occurred to Harry that if he was jealous of anything, it was the sweater.

‘Do you know what, herr Hole? For someone whose job it is to uncover unpleasant truths you certainly enjoy living a lie.’

‘OK,’ Harry said, stubbing the cigarette in the ashtray. ‘Out with it then.’

‘It was in Moscow while I was with Fjodor. There was a Norwegian attaché at the embassy I had trained with. We fell head over heels in love.’

‘And?’

‘He was also in a relationship. As we were about to finish with our respective partners she got in first and told him she was pregnant.
And since by and large I have good taste as far as men go …’ Pulling on her boots, she screwed up her top lip. ‘I had of course chosen someone who would not desert his responsibilities. He applied for a transfer back to Oslo, and we never saw each other again. And Fjodor and I got married.’

‘And straight afterwards you became pregnant?’

‘Yes.’ She buttoned up her coat and looked down at him. ‘Now and then I’ve wondered whether it was to get over him. And whether Oleg was a product not of love but of love-sickness. Do you think he was?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ Harry said. ‘I just know he’s one great product.’

She smiled down at him in gratitude and stooped to give him a kiss on the forehead. ‘We’ll never see each again, Hole.’

‘Of course not,’ he said, sitting up in bed and staring at the bare wall until he heard the heavy door on to the street close behind her with a dull thud. Then he walked into the kitchen, turned on the tap and took down a glass from the top cupboard. While waiting for the water to run cold his gaze fell on the calendar with the picture of Oleg and Rakel in the sky-blue dress and then onto the floor. There were two wet boot prints on the lino. They must have been Rakel’s.

He donned his coat and boots, was about to leave, then turned, fetched his Smith & Wesson service revolver from the top of the wardrobe and stuffed it in his coat pocket.

The lovemaking was still in his body like a quiver of well-being, a mild intoxication. He had reached the street door when a sound, a click, made him spin round and peer into the yard where the darkness was denser than in the street. He was intending to go on his way, and would have done. Had it not been for the prints. The boot prints on the lino. So he went into the yard. The yellow lights from the windows above him bounced off the remnants of snow that still lay where the sun could not quite reach. It stood by the entrance to the cellar storerooms. A crooked figure with its head at an angle, pebbles for eyes and a gravel grin laughing at him. Silent laughter reverberated between the brick walls and blended into a hysterical shriek he recognised as his own as he grabbed the snow shovel beside the cellar steps and swung it in
violent fury. The sharp metal edge of the shovel struck below the head, lifting it off the body and sending the wet snow flying against the wall. The next hefty swipe sliced the snowman’s torso into two and the third scattered the remains across the black tarmac in the middle of the yard. Harry stood there gasping for breath when he heard another click behind him. Like the sound of a revolver being cocked. In one smooth movement he swirled round, dropped the shovel and drew the black revolver.

Muhammad and Salma stood by the wooden fence, underneath the old birch, mutely staring at their neighbour with big, frightened children’s eyes. In their hands they were holding dry branches. The branches looked as if they might have been elegant arms for a snowman had Salma not snapped hers in two, out of sheer terror.

‘Our … s-snowman,’ Muhammad stammered.

Harry returned the revolver to his coat pocket and closed his eyes. Cursing himself, he swallowed and instructed his brain to let go of the gunstock. Then he opened his eyes again. Tears were welling under Salma’s brown irises.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll help you to make another one.’

‘I want to go home,’ Salma whispered in a thick voice.

Muhammad took his little sister by the hand and accompanied her home, giving Harry a wide berth.

Harry felt the revolver grip against his hand. The click. He had thought it was the sound of the hammer being raised. But he was wrong, of course; this phase of the firing procedure is noiseless. What you hear is the sound of the hammer being cocked, the sound of the shot that has not been fired, the sound of being alive. He took out his service revolver again. Pointed it at the ground and pressed the trigger. The hammer still didn’t move. Only when he had forced the trigger a third of the way back and he was thinking that the gun could fire at any moment did the hammer begin to rise. He let go of the trigger. The hammer fell back into position with a metallic click. And again he heard the sound. And realised that anyone who pressed the trigger so far back that the hammer rose intended to shoot.

Harry looked up at the windows of his flat on the second floor. They were dark, and a thought struck him: he had no idea what went on behind them when he wasn’t there.

Erik Lossius sat listlessly staring out of the window in his office and musing. About how little he had known of what went on behind Birte’s brown eyes. About how it felt worse that she had been with other men than that she had disappeared and was perhaps dead. And wishing he had lost Camilla to a murderer than in this way. But mostly Erik Lossius was thinking that he must have loved Camilla. And still did. He had rung her parents, but they hadn’t heard from her, either. Perhaps she was living with one of those Oslo West girlfriends he knew about only from hearsay.

He gazed at the afternoon gloom slowly descending on Groruddalen as it became thicker and erased the detail. There was nothing more to do today, but he didn’t want to go home to the much too large and much too empty house. Not yet. There was a case of assorted spirits in the cupboard behind him, the so-called slush fund from various drinks cabinets in transit. But no mixers. He poured gin into his coffee cup and managed a little sip before the phone on the desk rang. He recognised the French international code on the display. The number wasn’t on the complaints list, so he took it.

He knew it was his wife from her breathing, even before she had spoken a word.

‘Where are you?’ he asked.

‘Where do you think?’ Her voice sounded a long way away.

‘And where are you ringing from?’

‘From Casper.’

That was the café three kilometres from their country house.

‘Camilla, the police are looking for you.’

‘Are they?’

She sounded as if she was dozing on a sunbed. Bored, just going
through the motions of being interested, with that polite but distant nonchalance he had fallen for all those years ago on the balcony in Blommenholm.

‘I …’ he began. But stopped. What could he really say?

‘I thought it was right to call you before our solicitor did,’ she said.

‘
Our
solicitor?’

‘My family’s,’ she said. ‘One of the best at this kind of thing, I’m afraid. He’ll go for a straightforward split down the middle as far as possessions and money are concerned. We’ll ask for the house, and we’ll get it, even though I’ll make no secret of the fact that I intend to sell it.’

Goes without saying, he thought.

‘I’ll be home in five days. By then I assume you’ll have moved out.’

‘That’s short notice,’ he said.

‘You can do it. I’ve heard no one works faster or cheaper than Rydd & Flytt.’

She pronounced the latter with such distaste that he shrank. The way he had shrunk ever since the conversation with Inspector Hole. He was a blanket that had been washed on too high a temperature, he had become too small for her, become unusable. And with the same certainty that he knew now, at this moment, that he loved her more than ever before, he knew that he had lost her irrevocably, that there would be no reconciliation. And when she had rung off he saw her squinting into the sunset on the French Riviera through a pair of sunglasses she had bought for twenty euros but on her they looked like three thousand kroners’ worth of Gucci or Dolce & Gabbana or … he had forgotten what the other brands were called.