The vocalist held a finger against his earpiece as he attacked the highest note of their international hit of the eighties.
‘No one hits a bum note as beautifully as Morten Harket,’ said a voice next to Støp.
He turned. And knew at once that he had seen her before, because he never forgot a beautiful woman. What he was beginning to forget more and more was who, where and when. She was slim and wearing a plain black dress with a slit that reminded him of someone. Of Birte. Birte had a dress like that.
‘It’s scandalous,’ he said.
‘It’s a difficult note to hit,’ she said without taking her eyes off the vocalist.
‘It’s scandalous I can’t remember your name. I only know we’ve met before.’
‘We haven’t met,’ she said. ‘You just gave me the once-over.’ She brushed her black hair off her face. She was attractive in a stern, classical way. Kate Moss-attractive. Birte had been Pamela Anderson-attractive.
‘That I think can definitely be excused,’ he said, with a feeling that he was waking up, that his blood was beginning to surge through his body bringing champagne to parts of his brain that relaxed him rather than making him drowsy.
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Katrine Bratt,’ she said.
‘Oh yes. Are you one of our advertisers, Katrine? A bank connection? A lessor? A freelance photographer?’
To every question Katrine shook her head with a smile.
‘I’m a gatecrasher,’ she said. ‘One of your female journalists is a friend of mine. She told me who was playing after dinner, and said I could just put on a dress and slip in. Feel like throwing me out?’
She raised the champagne glass to her lips. They weren’t as full as he usually liked, but nevertheless deep red and moist. She was still looking at the stage so that he could study her profile at his leisure. The whole of her profile. The hollow back, the perfect arch of her breasts. No need for any silicone, maybe just a good bra. But could they have suckled a child?
‘I’m considering the option,’ he said. ‘Any arguments you would like to put forward?’
‘Will a threat do?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘I saw the paparazzi outside waiting for your celebrity guests to emerge with the evening’s catch. What about if I told them about my journalist friend? That she was given to understand her prospects at
Liberal
were poor after she had rejected your advances?’
Arve Støp laughed aloud and from his heart. He saw that they had already been attracting inquisitive looks from other guests. Leaning towards her, he noticed that the aroma of her perfume was not unlike the eau de cologne he used.
‘Firstly, I’m not frightened of a bad reputation, least of all among my colleagues in the gossip rags. Secondly, your friend is a useless journalist, and thirdly she’s lying. I’ve fucked her three times. And you can tell the paparazzi
that.
Are you married?’
‘Yes,’ said the unknown woman, turning to the stage and shifting her weight so that the slit of her dress allowed a glimpse of a lacy hold-up. Arve Støp felt his mouth go dry and took a sip of champagne. Watched the flock of tiptoeing women at the front of the stage. Breathed through his nose. He could smell pussy from where he was standing.
‘Have you got any children, Katrine?’
‘Do you want me to have children?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because through creating life women have learned to subject themselves to nature, and that gives them a more profound insight into life than other women. And men.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘No, it makes you women less desperate to hunt for a potential father. You just want to enjoy the game.’
‘OK,’ she laughed. ‘Then I’ve got children. What games do you like to play?’
‘Whoa,’ Støp said, looking at his watch. ‘We’re moving too fast.’
‘What games do you like to play?’
‘All of them.’
‘Great.’
The singer closed his eyes, grabbed the microphone with both hands and attacked the song’s crescendo.
‘This is a boring party, and I’m going home.’ Støp put his empty glass on a tray whistling past. ‘I live in Aker Brygge. Same entrance as
Liberal
, top floor. Top bell.’
She gave a thin smile. ‘I know where it is. How much of a head start do you want?’
‘Give me twenty minutes. And a promise that you won’t talk to anyone before you leave. Not even your girlfriend. Is that a deal, Katrine Bratt?’
He looked at her, hoping he had said the right name.
‘Trust me,’ she said, and he noticed a strange gleam in her eyes, like the gleam of a forest fire in the sky. ‘I’m just as keen as you that this stays between us.’ She raised her glass. ‘And by the way, you fucked her four times, not three.’
Støp enjoyed a last glance before making his way to the exit. Behind him the vocalist’s falsetto was still quivering almost inaudibly under the chandeliers.
A door slammed and loud, enthusiastic voices reverberated down Seilduksgata. Four youths on their way from a party to one of the bars in Grünerløkka. They passed the car parked at the edge of the pavement without noticing the man inside. Then they rounded the corner, and the street was quiet again. Harry leaned towards the windscreen and looked up at the windows of Katrine Bratt’s flat.
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 first-floor 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.
25
DAY 20.
Deadline.
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.