The Chief Constable cleared his throat. ‘Have you any suggestions?’
‘Not yet,’ said the white hair. ‘But I believe you and Torleif have. Fire away.’
‘In our view, specific mistakes have been made in the appointment and follow-up phases. Human blunders and not systemic flaws. Hence this is not directly a management problem. We propose therefore that we make a distinction between responsibility and guilt. Management takes the responsibility, is humble and –’
‘Skip the basics,’ said the white hair. ‘Who’s your scapegoat?’
The Chief Superintendent adjusted his collar. Gunnar Hagen could see that he was extremely ill at ease.
‘Inspector Harry Hole,’ said the Chief Superintendent.
Again there was silence as the white-haired man lit his cigar anew. The lighter clicked and clicked. Then sucking noises issued from the shadows and the smoke rose again.
‘Not a bad idea,’ said the high-pitched voice. ‘Had it been anyone other than Hole I’d have said you would have to find your scapegoat higher up in the system. An inspector is not fat enough as a sacrificial lamb. Indeed, I might have asked you to consider yourself, Torleif. But Hole is an officer with a profile; he’s been on that talk show. A popular figure with a certain reputation as a detective. Yes, that would be perceived as fair game. But would he be cooperative?’
‘Leave that to us,’ said the Chief Superintendent. ‘Eh, Gunnar?’
Gunnar Hagen gulped. His mind turned – of all things – to his wife. To the sacrifices she had made so that he could have a career. When they’d got married she had broken off her studies and moved with him to wherever the Special Forces, and later the police force, had sent him. She was a wise, intelligent woman, an equal in most areas, his superior in some. It was to her he went with both career and moral issues. And she always imparted good advice. Nevertheless, he had perhaps not succeeded in achieving the illustrious career for which they had both hoped. But now things were looking rosier. It was on the cards that his position as Crime Squad supremo would lead onwards and upwards. It was just a question of not putting a foot wrong. That needn’t be so difficult.
‘Eh, Gunnar?’ repeated the Chief Superintendent.
It was just that he was so tired. So tired to the soul. This is for you, he thought. This is what you would have done, darling.
31
DAY 21.
The South Pole.
H
ARRY AND
R
AKEL STOOD AT THE BOW OF THE WOODEN
ship
Fram
in the museum, observing a group of Japanese tourists taking pictures of the ropes and masts as, with smiles and nods, they ignored the guide explaining that this simple vessel had transported both Fridtjof Nansen on his failed attempt to be the first to the North Pole in 1893 and Roald Amundsen when he beat Scott to the South Pole in 1911.
‘I left my watch on your table,’ Rakel said.
‘That’s an old trick,’ Harry said. ‘It means you’ll have to come back for it.’
She laid a hand over his on the railing and shook her head. ‘Mathias gave it to me for my birthday.’
Which I forgot, Harry thought.
‘We’re going out and he’s going to ask, if I’m not wearing it. And you know what what I’m like about lying. Could you . . . ?’
‘I’ll drop it off before four,’ he said.
‘Thanks. I’ll be working, but just put it in the bird box on the wall by the door. That’s . . .’
She didn’t need to say any more. That was where she had always put the house key when he got there after she had gone to bed. Harry slapped the railing with his hand. ‘According to Arve Støp, Roald Amundsen’s problem was that he won. He thinks all the best stories are about losers.’
Rakel didn’t answer.
‘I suppose it’s a kind of consolation,’ Harry said. ‘Shall we go?’
Outside, it was snowing.
‘So it’s over now?’ she said. ‘Until next time?’
He shot her a quick glance to assure himself she was talking about the Snowman and not them.
‘We don’t know where the bodies are,’ he said. ‘I was with her in her cell this morning before going to the airport, but she won’t say anything. Just stares into the air as if there’s someone there.’
‘Did you tell anyone you were going to Bergen alone?’ she asked out of the blue.
Harry shook his head.
‘Why not?’
‘Well,’ Harry said, ‘I might have been wrong. Then I could have returned quietly without losing face.’
‘That wasn’t why,’ she said.
Harry glanced at her again. She looked more fed up than he did.
‘To be frank, I have no idea,’ he said. ‘I suppose I hoped it wouldn’t be her after all.’
‘Because she’s like you? Because it could have been you?’
Harry couldn’t even remember telling her they were similar.
‘She looked so alone and frightened,’ Harry said as the snowflakes stung his eyes. ‘Like someone who’s got lost in the twilight.’
Fuck, fuck, fuck! He blinked and felt the tears, like a clenched fist, trying to force their way up his windpipe. Was he having a breakdown? He froze as Rakel’s warm hand caressed his neck.
‘You’re not her, Harry. You’re different.’
‘Am I?’ he smiled thinly, removing her hand.
‘You don’t kill innocent people, Harry.’
Harry turned down Rakel’s offer of a lift and caught the bus. He stared at the flakes falling and the fjord beyond the window, thinking how Rakel had only inserted the word
innocent
at the last minute.
Harry was about to open his front door in Sofies gate when he remembered he didn’t have any instant coffee, and walked the fifty metres to Niazi, the corner shop.
‘Unusual to see you at this time of day,’ Ali said, taking the money.
‘Day off,’ Harry said.
‘What weather, eh? They say there’s going to be half a metre of snow over the next twenty-four hours.’
Harry fidgeted with the coffee jar. ‘I happened to frighten Salma and Muhammad in the yard the other day.’
‘Yes, I heard.’
‘I’m sorry. I was a bit stressed, that’s all.’
‘That’s OK. I was just afraid you’d started drinking again.’
Harry shook his head and gave a weak smile. He liked the Pakistani’s direct approach.
‘Good,’ said Ali, counting out the change. ‘How’s the redecorating going?’
‘Redecorating?’ Harry took his change. ‘Do you mean the mould man?’
‘The mould man?’
‘Yes, the guy who’s checking the cellar for fungus. Stormann or something like that.’
‘Fungus in the
cellar
?’ Ali sent Harry a horrified look.
‘Didn’t you know?’ Harry said. ‘You’re the chairman of the residents’ committee. I’d have thought he would have spoken to you.’
Ali shook his head slowly. ‘Perhaps he spoke to Bjørn.’
‘Who’s Bjørn?’
‘Bjørn Asbjørnsen who’s lived on the ground floor for thirteen years,’ Ali said, sending Harry a reproving look. ‘And has been the vice chair for just as long.’
‘Oh, right, Bjørn,’ Harry said, pretending to note the name.
‘I’ll check that out,’ Ali said.
Upstairs in his flat, Harry pulled off his boots, headed straight for the bedroom and fell asleep. He had hardly slept at the hotel in Bergen. When he awoke his mouth was dry and he had stomach pains. He got up to drink some water and came to a sudden halt when he entered the hall.
He hadn’t noticed when he got in, but the walls were back.
He walked from room to room. Magic. It had been done to such perfection that he could swear they hadn’t been touched. No old nail holes visible, no lines askew. He touched the sitting-room wall as if to assure himself that this was not a hallucination.
On the sitting-room table, in front of the wing chair, there was a yellow piece of paper. A handwritten message. The letters were neat and strangely attractive.
It’s gone. You won’t see me any more. Stormann.
PS
Had to turn one of the boards in the wall as I cut myself and blood got onto it. When blood gets into untreated wood it’s impossible to wash off. The alternative would have been to paint the wall red.
Harry fell into the wing chair and studied the smooth walls.
It was only when he went into the kitchen that he discovered the miracle was not complete. The calendar with Rakel and Oleg was gone. The sky-blue dress. He swore aloud and feverishly ransacked the rubbish bins and even the plastic refuse container in the yard before concluding that the happiest time of his life had been eradicated along with the fungus.
It was definitely a different workday for psychiatrist Kjersti Rødsmoen. And not just because the sun had made a rare appearance in the Bergen sky and was at this moment shining through the windows where she was hurrying along a corridor at Haukeland Hospital’s psychiatric department in Sandviken. The department had changed its name so many times that very few Bergensians knew that the current official name was Sandviken Hospital. However, a closed ward was, until further notice, a closed ward while Bergen waited for someone to claim that the terminology was misleading or at any rate stigmatising.
She was both dreading and looking forward to the imminent session with the patient confined under the strictest security measures she could ever remember in the department. They had reached agreement on the ethical boundaries and procedures with Espen Lepsvik from Kripos and Knut Müller-Nilsen from Bergen Police. The patient was psychotic and could therefore not attend a police interview. Kjersti was a psychiatrist and entitled to talk to the patient, but with the patient’s best interests at heart, not in a way that might have the same purpose as police questioning. And ultimately there was the issue of client confidentiality. Kjersti Rødsmoen would have to assess for herself whether any information that emerged from the conversation could be construed as having such great significance for the police that she should take it further. And this information would have no validity in a court of law anyway as it came from a psychotic person. In short, they were moving in a legal and ethical minefield where even the slightest slip might have catastrophic consequences, as everything she did would be scrutinised by the judicial system and the media.
A carer and a uniformed policeman stood outside the door of the consulting room. Kjersti pointed to the ID card pinned to her white medical coat, and the officer opened the door.
The agreement was that the carer would keep an eye on what was happening in the room and sound the alarm if necessary.
Kjersti Rødsmoen sat down on the chair and scrutinised the patient. It was hard to imagine that she represented any danger, this small woman with hair hanging over her face, black stitches where her torn mouth had been sewn up and wide-open eyes that seemed to be staring with unfathomable horror at something Kjersti Rødsmoen could not see. Quite the contrary. The woman appeared so incapable of any action that you had the feeling she would be blown over if you so much as breathed on her. The fact that this woman had killed people in cold blood was quite simply inconceivable. But it always was.
‘Hello,’ said the psychiatrist. ‘I’m Kjersti.’
No response.
‘What do you think your problem is?’ she asked.
The question came straight from the manual governing conversations with psychotics. The alternative was:
How do you think I can help you?
Still no response.
‘You’re quite safe in this room. No one will harm you. I won’t hurt you. You’re absolutely safe.’
According to the manual, this solid statement was supposed to reassure the psychotic patient, because a psychosis is primarily about boundless fear. Kjersti Rødsmoen felt like an air stewardess running through the safety procedures before take-off. Mechanical, routine. Even on routes crossing over the driest of deserts you demonstrate the use of the life jacket. Because the statement proclaims what you want to hear: you’re allowed to be frightened, but we’ll take care of you.
It was time to check her perception of reality.
‘Do you know what day it is today?’
Silence.
‘Look at the clock on the wall over there. Can you tell me what time it is?’
She received a hunted stare by way of an answer.
Kjersti Rødsmoen waited. And waited. The minute hand of the clock shifted with a quivering goose-step.
It was hopeless.
‘I’m going now,’ Kjersti said. ‘Someone will come and fetch you. You’re quite safe.’
She went to the door.
‘I have to talk to Harry.’ Her voice was deep, almost masculine.
Kjersti stopped and turned. ‘Who’s Harry?’
‘Harry Hole. It’s urgent.’
Kjersti tried to establish eye contact, but the woman was still staring into her own distant world.
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to tell me who Harry Hole is, Katrine.’
‘Crime Squad Inspector in Oslo. And if you have to say my name, use my surname, Kjersti.’
‘Bratt?’
‘Rafto.’
‘I see. But can’t you tell me what you want to talk to Harry Hole about, so that I can pass it on –’
‘You don’t understand. They’re all going to die.’
Kjersti sank slowly back onto the chair. ‘I do understand. And why do you think they’re going to die, Katrine?’
And finally there was eye contact. And what Kjersti Rødsmoen saw made her think of one of those red cards in the game of Monopoly she had in her holiday cabin: Your houses and hotels have all burned down.
‘None of you understands anything,’ answered the low, masculine voice. ‘It’s not me.’
At two o’clock Harry pulled in to the kerb beneath Rakel’s timber house in Holmenkollveien. It had stopped snowing and he thought it wouldn’t be wise to leave telltale tyre prints on the drive. The snow emitted soft, drawn-out screeches under his boots and the sharp daylight flashed against the sunglass-black windows as he approached.