Harry Hole Mysteries 3-Book Bundle (38 page)

He could have rung Hagen, could have sounded the alarm, taken Skarre along and a patrol car. But he might be wrong. And he had to be certain first, there was too much to lose, both for him and her.

He got out of the car and went to the door and the unmarked second-floor bell. Waited. Rang once more. Then he went back to his car, fetched the crowbar from the boot, returned to the door and rang the firstfloor bell. A man answered with a sleepy
ja
, the TV droning in the background. Fifteen seconds later the man came down and opened up. Harry showed him his police ID.

‘I didn’t hear a domestic dispute,’ the man said. ‘Who called you?’

‘I’ll find my own way out,’ Harry said. ‘Thanks for your help.’

The door on the second floor didn’t have a nameplate, either. Harry knocked, rested his ear against the cold wood and listened. Then he inserted the tip of the crowbar between the door and the frame immediately above the lock. As the blocks of flats in Grünerløkka had been built for workers in the factories along the River Akerselva, and thus with the cheapest possible materials, Harry’s second forced entry in under an hour was easy.

He stood for a few seconds in the dark of the corridor listening before he switched on the light. Looked down at the shoe rack in front of him. Six pairs of shoes. None of them big enough to belong to a man. He lifted one pair, the boots Katrine had worn earlier today. The soles were still wet.

He went into the living room. Switched on the torch instead of the ceiling light so that she wouldn’t see from the street that she had a visitor.

The cone of light swept over the worn pine floor with large nails between the boards, a plain white sofa, low bookshelves and an exclusive Linn Systems Loudspeaker. There was an alcove in the wall, with a tidy, narrow bed, and a kitchenette with a stove and fridge. The impression was austere, spartan and neat. Like his own place. The light had caught a face staring stiffly at him. And then another. And one more. Black wooden masks with carvings and painted patterns.

He looked at his watch. Eleven. He let the torch wander further afield.

There were newspaper cuttings pinned up above the only table in the room. They covered the wall from floor to ceiling. He went closer. His eyes skimmed them as he felt his pulse begin to tick like a Geiger counter.

These were murder cases.

Many murder cases, ten or twelve, some so old the newspaper had yellowed. But Harry could remember them all quite clearly. He remembered them because they had one thing in common: he had led the investigation.

On the table, beside a computer and a printer, lay a heap of folders.
Case reports. He opened one of them. There weren’t any reports of his cases, but Laila Aasen’s murder on Ulriken Mountain. Another was of Onny Hetland’s disappearance in Fjellsiden. A third folder was about a case of police violence in Bergen, about complaints against Gert Rafto. Harry flicked through. Found the same photograph of Rafto that he had seen in Müller-Nilsen’s office. Looking at it now, he thought it was obvious.

Beside the printer was a pile of paper. Something was drawn on the top sheet. A quick amateur pencilled sketch, but the motif was clear enough. A snowman. The face was long, as if it had leaked, melted; the coal eyes had died and the carrot was long and thin and pointed downwards. Harry leafed through the sheets. There were several drawings. All of snowmen, most just of the face. Masks, Harry thought. Death masks. One of the faces had a beak, small human arms at the side and bird feet at the bottom. Another had a pig’s snout and a top hat.

Harry started to search the other end of the room. And told himself the same thing he had said to Katrine on the island of Finnøy: empty your mind of expectations and look, don’t search. He went through all the cupboards and drawers, rummaged through kitchen utensils and washing paraphernalia, clothes, exotic shampoos and bizarre creams in the bathroom, where the smell of her perfume hung heavy in the air. The floor of the shower was wet and on the sink there was a cotton bud stained with mascara. He came out again. He didn’t know what he was after, just that it wasn’t here. He straightened up and looked around.

Wrong.

It was here. He just hadn’t found it yet.

He took the books off the shelves, opened the cistern, checked whether there were any loose boards in the floor or the walls and turned the mattress in the alcove. Then he was finished. He had searched everywhere. Without any success, but for the most important premise of any search: what you
don’t
find is just as important as what you do find. And he knew now what he hadn’t found. Harry looked at his watch. Then he began to tidy up.

It was only when he was putting the drawings in order that it occurred
to him that he hadn’t checked the printer. He pulled out the tray. The top sheet was yellowish and thicker than normal printer paper. He lifted it up. It had a particular aroma, as if it had been impregnated with a spice or burned. He turned on the desk lamp and held the sheet up to it as he hunted for the mark. And found it. Down in the bottom right-hand corner, a kind of watermark in between the fine paper fibres, visible if held against the electric light bulb. The blood vessels in his throat seemed to widen, the blood was suddenly in a hurry, his brain screaming for more oxygen.

Harry switched on the computer. Checked his watch again and listened while it took an eternity for the operating system and programs to boot up. He went straight to the search function and typed in a single word. Clicked the mouse on
search
. An animated dog, in both senses, appeared, jumping up and down and barking soundlessly in an attempt to shorten the waiting time. Harry stared at the text flashing by as the documents were scanned. Shifted his gaze to the rubric where it said for the moment
No items matched your search
. He examined the spelling of the search word. Toowoomba. He closed his eyes. Heard the deep purr of the machine, like an affectionate cat. Then it stopped. Harry opened his eyes.
One item matched your search.

He placed the cursor over the Word icon. A yellow rectangular box popped up.
Date modified: 9 September
. He felt his finger tremble as he double-clicked. The white background of the short text shone into the room. There was no doubt. The words were identical to those in the letter from the Snowman.

A
RVE
S
TØP WAS LYING IN A BED THAT HAD BEEN SEWN AND
weighed to customer specifications in the Misuku factory in Osaka and shipped ready assembled to a tannery in Chennai, India, because the laws in the state of Tamil Nadu did not permit the direct exportation of this type of leather. It had taken six months from order to receipt of the goods, but it had been worth the wait. Like a geisha it adapted perfectly to his body, supported him where necessary and allowed him to adjust it for every conceivable level or direction.

He watched the teak blades of the ceiling fan slowly rotate.

She was in the lift on her way up to him. He had explained on the intercom that he was waiting for her in the bedroom, and had left the door ajar. The cool silk of his boxer shorts lay on his alcohol-warmed body. The music from a Café del Mar CD streamed out of the Bose audio system with small, compact speakers hidden in every room of the apartment.

He heard her heels clacking on the parquet floor of the living room. Slow but resolute footsteps. Just the sound made him go hard. If only she knew what was awaiting her …

His hand foraged under the bed; his fingers found what they were groping for.

And then she was in the doorway, silhouetted against the moonlight over the fjord, looking at him with a half-smile. She loosened the belt of her long, black leather coat and let it fall. He gasped, but she was still wearing her dress beneath. She went over to the bed and passed him something rubbery. It was a mask. A pink animal mask.

‘Put this on,’ she said in a neutral businesslike voice.

‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘A pig’s face.’

‘Do as I say.’ Again this strange yellow gleam in her eyes.

‘
Mais oui, madame
.’

Arve Støp put it on. It covered all of his face, smelt of washing-up gloves and he could only just see her through the small slits for eyes.

‘And I want you to –’ he began and heard his own voice, encased and alien. That was as far as he got before he felt a stinging pain over his left eye.

‘You shut your mouth!’ she shouted.

Slowly it reached his consciousness that she had hit him. He knew he shouldn’t, it would ruin her role play, but he could not help himself. It was too comical. A pig mask! A clammy, pink rubbery thing with pig ears, snout and overbite. He let out a guffaw. The next blow hit him in the stomach with shocking power, and he doubled up, groaned and fell back on the bed. He was unaware that he wasn’t breathing until everything went black. Desperately he fought for air inside the tight-fitting mask as he felt her wrench his arms behind his back. Then, finally, oxygen reached his brain and the pain came at the same time. And the fury. Bloody cow, what did she think she was doing?! He wriggled free and would have grabbed her, but couldn’t move his hands; they were held tight behind his back. He jerked and felt something sharp cut into his wrists. Handcuffs? The perverted bitch.

She pushed him into a sitting position.

‘Can you see what this is?’ he heard her whisper.

But his mask had slipped sideways, he couldn’t see anything.

‘I don’t need to,’ he said. ‘I can smell it’s your cunt.’

The blow hit him over the temple. It was like a CD skipping, and when he had the sound back he was still sitting upright in bed. He
could feel something running down between his cheek and the inside of his mask.

‘What the hell are you hitting me with?’ he shouted. ‘I’m bleeding, you madwoman!’

‘This.’

Arve Støp felt something hard pressed against his nose and mouth.

‘Smell,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it good? It’s steel and gun oil. Smith & Wesson. Smells like nothing else, doesn’t it? The smell of powder and cordite is even better. If you ever get to smell it, that is.’

Just a violent game, Arve Støp told himself. A role play. But there was something else, something in her voice, something about the whole situation. Something that put all that had happened in a new light. And for the first time in ages – so long ago he had to think back to his childhood, so long that intially he didn’t recognise the feeling – Arve Støp noticed: he was frightened.

‘Sure we shouldn’t fire her up?’ shivered Bjørn Holm, pulling the leather jacket round him more tightly. ‘When the Amazon came out she was well known for having a helluva heater.’

Harry shook his head and looked at his watch. Half past one. They had been sitting in Bjørn Holm’s car outside Katrine’s flat for over an hour. The night was blue-grey, the streets empty.

‘She was actually California white,’ Bjørn Holm continued. ‘Volvo colour number 42. Previous owner sprayed it black. Qualifies as a veteran car and all that now. Mere 365 kroner road tax a year. A krone a day …’

Bjørn Holm paused when he saw Harry’s warning look and instead turned up David Rawlings and Gillian Welch, which was the only new music he could tolerate. He had recorded it from a CD onto a cassette, not just so that it could play on the newly installed cassette player in the car, but because he belonged to that extremely small yet unbending faction of music lovers who opined that the CD had never managed to reproduce the cassette’s uniquely warm sound quality.

Bjørn Holm knew he was talking too much because he was nervous. Harry hadn’t told him any more than that Katrine had to be eliminated from some inquiries. And that Bjørn Holm’s daily grind for the next few weeks would be eased if he didn’t know the details. And being the peaceful, laid-back, intelligent person he was, Bjørn Holm didn’t try to cause any trouble. That didn’t mean he liked the situation though. He checked his watch.

‘She’s gone back to some guy’s place.’

Harry reacted. ‘What makes you think that?’

‘She’s not married after all. Wasn’t that what you said? Single women are like us single guys nowadays.’

‘And by that you mean?’

‘Four steps. Go out, observe the herd, select the weakest prey, attack.’

‘Mm, you need four steps?’

‘The first three,’ said Bjørn Holm, adjusting the mirror and his red hair. ‘Just prick-teasers in this town.’ Bjørn Holm had considered hair oil, but concluded it was too radical. On the other hand, perhaps that was just what was needed. Go the whole hog.

‘Fuck,’ Harry burst out. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’

‘Eh?’

‘Wet shower cabinet. Perfume. Mascara. You’re right.’ The inspector had taken out his mobile, maniacally punched the numbers in and got an almost immediate answer.

‘Gerda Nelvik? This is Harry Hole. Are you still doing the tests? … OK. Anything on the preliminary results?’

Bjørn Holm watched as Harry mumbled two
mm
s and three
right
s.

‘Thank you,’ Harry said. ‘And I was wondering if any other officers had called earlier this evening and asked you the same … What? … I see. Yes, just ring me when the tests are finished.’

Harry rang off. ‘You can start the engine now,’ he said.

Bjørn Holm twisted the key in the ignition. ‘What’s the deal?’

‘We’re going to the Plaza Hotel. Katrine Bratt called the institute earlier this evening to ask about paternity.’

‘This evening?’ Bjørn Holm put his foot down and turned right towards Schous plass.

‘They’re running preliminary tests to establish paternity to ninety-five per cent probability. Then they’ll try to increase the certainty to ninety-nine point nine.’

‘And?’

‘It’s ninety-five per certain that the father of the Ottersen twins and Jonas Becker is Arve Støp.’

‘Holy moly.’

‘And I think Katrine’s followed your recommendations for a Saturday evening. And the prey is Arve Støp.’

Harry rang the Incident Room and asked for assistance as the old reconditioned engine roared through the night-still streets of Grünerløkka. And as they passed Akerselva A&E and skidded on the tramlines in Storgata, the heater was indeed blowing red-hot air on them.