The bells rang furiously again.
'I forgot to tell you about the guy we pulled in for illegally possessing a weapon last night,' Halvorsen said. 'Roy Kinnsvik, one of the skinheads in Herbert's Pizza.' He stood in the doorway with the rain dancing around his wet shoes.
'Mm?'
'He was obviously frightened, so I told him to give me something I needed and I would let him off.'
'And?'
'He said he saw Sverre Olsen in Grunerlokka the night Ellen was killed.'
'So what? We've got several witnesses who can confirm that.'
'Yes, but this guy saw Olsen sitting and chatting with someone in a car.'
Harry's cigarette fell to the ground. He ignored it.
'Did he know who it was?' he asked slowly.
Halvorsen shook his head. 'No, he only recognised Olsen.'
'Did you get a description?'
'He could only remember he thought the person looked like a policeman. But he said he would probably recognise him again.'
Harry could feel himself getting warm under his coat and articulated each word with care: 'Could he say what car it was?'
'No, he had just rushed by.'
Harry nodded, running his hand up and down the counter.
Halvorsen cleared his throat: 'But he thought it was a sports car.'
Harry noticed the cigarette smoking on the ground. 'Colour?'
Halvorsen showed one upturned palm in apology.
'Was it red?' Harry asked in a low, thick voice.
'What did you say?'
Harry straightened up. 'Nothing. Remember the name. And go home to your life.'
The bells jingled.
Harry stopped stroking the counter, but held his hand there. All of a sudden it felt like cold marble.
Astrid Monsen was forty-five years old and made her living by translating French literature in the study of her flat in Sorgenfrigata. She didn't have a man in her life, but she had a tape loop of a dog barking, which she put on at night. Harry heard her steps and at least three locks being released behind the door before it opened a fraction and a small, freckled face peered out from beneath black curls.
'Ugh,' it exclaimed when it saw Harry's towering frame.
The face may have been unfamiliar, but he had the immediate sensation that he had met her before. Presumably because of Anna's detailed description of her ghastly neighbour.
'Harry Hole, Crime Squad,' he said, showing his card. 'I apologise for disturbing you so late in the afternoon. I have a few questions about the evening Anna Bethsen died.'
He tried to smile reassuringly when he saw she was having problems closing her mouth. From the corner of his eye, Harry saw movement behind the glass in the neighbour's door.
'Could I come inside, fru Monsen? It won't take a minute.'
Astrid Monsen took two steps back, and Harry seized the opportunity to slip in and close the door behind him. Now he could see the whole of her Afro hairdo. She had obviously dyed it black, and it enclosed her little white head like an enormous globe.
They stood opposite each other in the frugal light of the hallway, beside dried flowers and a framed poster from the Chagall Museum in Nice.
'Have you seen me before?' Harry asked.
friendly smile, not the most practised feature in his repertoire of facial expressions.
'What . . . do you mean?'
'Just whether you've seen me before. I'll come to the rest afterwards.' Her mouth opened and closed. Then she shook her head firmly. 'Fine,' Harry said. 'Were you at home on Tuesday night?' She nodded tentatively.
'Did you see or hear anything?'
'Nothing,' she said. Rather too hastily for Harry's taste. 'Take your time and think it over,' he said with an attempt at a
'Nothing . . .' she said, her eyes searching for the door behind Harry. 'At all.'
Back on the street, Harry lit up. He had heard Astrid Monsen apply the safety lock the second he was on the other side of her door. Poor thing. She was the last on his list and he was able to conclude that no one had either seen or heard him or anyone else on the stairway the night Anna died.
After two drags, he threw away the cigarette.
He sat in his chair at home watching the red eye of the answer machine for a long time before pressing the PLAY button. It was Rakel wishing him goodnight, and there was a journalist wanting a comment on the two bank raids. Afterwards he rewound the tape and listened to Anna's message: 'And would you mind wearing the jeans you know I like so much?'
He stroked his face. Then he took out the tape and threw it in the bin. Outside, the rain dripped and, inside, Harry zapped. Women's handball, soaps and some quiz game in which you could become a millionaire. Harry stuck with a discussion on a Swedish channel between a philosopher and a social anthropologist about the concept of revenge. One maintained that a country like the USA, which stands for certain values like freedom and democracy, has a moral responsibility to avenge attacks on its territory as they are also attacks on its values. 'Alone the desire for retaliation - and the execution of it - can protect such a vulnerable system as democracy.'
'What about if the values the democracy stands for themselves fall victim to an act of vengeance?' the other replied. 'What about if another nation's rights as laid down by international law are violated? What kind of values are you defending if you deprive innocent civilians of rights in your hunt for guilty parties? And what about the moral value of turning the other cheek?'
'The problem is that we only have two cheeks,' said the other man, with a smile. 'Isn't it?'
Harry switched off. Wondered whether he should ring Rakel, but decided it was too late. He tried to get his nose in a Jim Thompson book, but discovered that pages 24 to 38 were missing. He got up and paced up and down his room. He opened the refrigerator and stared in frustration at a white cheese and a jar of strawberry jam. He felt like something, but didn't know what. He slammed the refrigerator door shut. Who was he trying to kid? What he wanted was a drink.
At two o'clock in the morning he woke up in his chair, fully clothed. He got up, went to the bathroom and drank a glass of water.
'Fuck,' he said to himself in the mirror. He went to the bedroom and turned on his PC. He found 104 articles in Norwegian on the Net about suicide, but none about revenge, just keywords and links to motives for revenge in literature and Greek mythology. He was just going to switch it off when he realised he hadn't checked his e-mails for a couple of weeks. There were two e-mails. One was from his ISP, who warned him two weeks ago the service was going to be closed down. The other address was
[email protected] He doubleclicked and read the message: Hi Harry. Don't forget the key. Anna. The time showed it had been sent two hours before he was due to meet her for the last time. He read the message again. So short. So . . . simple. He assumed that was how people e-mailed each other. Hi Harry. To outside observers it must have seemed as if they were old friends, but they had known each other for six weeks, a long time ago, and he hadn't even realised she had his e-mail address.
When he fell asleep, he dreamed that he was standing in the bank with the gun again. The people around him were made of marble.
15
Gadjo
'What fantastic weather it is today,' Bjarne Moller said as he came sailing into Harry and Halvorsen's office the next morning.
'Well, you would know, wouldn't you. You've got a window,' Harry said without looking up from his cup of coffee. 'And a new chair,' he added as Moller dropped into Halvorsen's defective chair, which gave a scream of pain.
'Hi, sunshine,' Moller said. 'Having a bad day?'
Harry shrugged. 'I'm pushing forty and I've started to enjoy grumbling. Anything wrong with that?'
'Rumours going round it's sunny,' Harry said as he entered the
'Not at all. Good to see you in a suit, by the way.'
Harry lifted the lapels of his jacket as if he had only now discovered the dark suit.
'There was a meeting of Unit Heads
yesterday,' Moller said. 'Do you want the short or the long version?'
Harry stirred his coffee with a pencil. 'We have to stop investigating Ellen's case. Is that it?'
'The case was closed ages ago, Harry. And the Head of Forensics says you're pestering them to check all sorts of old evidence.' 'We found a new witness yesterday who--'
'There's always a new witness, Harry. They just don't want any more.'
'But--'
'We've drawn a line under it, Harry. Sorry.'
Moller turned at the door. 'Go for a walk in the sun. It might be the last warm day for a while.'
House of Pain and saw Beate. 'Just so you know.'
'Turn off the light,' she said. 'And I'll show you something.' She had sounded excited on the telephone, but she didn't mention
why. She picked up the remote control: 'I didn't find anything on the tape from the day the skip was ordered, but take a peek at this one from the day of the robbery.'
Harry saw the 7-Eleven on the screen. He saw the green skip outside the window, the cream buns inside the shop, the back of the head and bum-crack of the boy he had talked to the day before. He was serving a girl who was buying milk,
Cosmopolitan and condoms.
'The recording is timed at 15.05, so about fifteen minutes before the robbery. Look now.'
The girl took her things and left, the queue moved forward and a man in a black boiler suit and a peaked cap with the earflaps pulled well down pointed at something on the counter. He held his head down so that his face couldn't be seen. Under his arm he was carrying a folded black holdall.
'What the hell,' Harry whispered.
'That's the Expeditor,' Beate said.
'Sure? Lots of people wear black boiler suits, and the robber didn't have a cap.'
'When he goes away from the counter, you'll see they're the same shoes as on the video. And notice the bulge on his left. That's the AG3.'
'He's taped it to his body. But what's he doing in a 7-Eleven?'
'He's waiting for the armoured van and he needs a lookout post where he won't be conspicuous. He's done a recce in the area and knows that the security van comes between 15.15 and 15.20. In the meantime, he can't exactly walk around wearing a balaclava and announce his intentions, so he uses a cap which covers most of his face. When he goes to the counter, if you look hard, you can see a small rectangle of light flickering on it. It's a reflection off glass. You're wearing sunglasses, aren't you, you Expeditor bastard.' Beate spoke in a low voice, but fast, with an anger Harry had not heard from her before. 'He's obviously aware of the camera in the 7-Eleven, too. He doesn't show any of his face. Look at him checking the angles! In fact, he does it really well. I've got to give him that.'
The boy behind the counter gave the man in the boiler suit a cream bun and picked up the ten-kroner coin he put down.
'Hello.'
'Right,' Beate said. 'He's not wearing gloves. But he doesn't seem to have touched anything in the shop. And there you can see the rectangle of light I was telling you about.'
Harry didn't say a word.
The man went out of the shop as the last person in the queue was being served.
'Mm. We'll have to start searching for witnesses again,' Harry said, getting up.
'I wouldn't be too optimistic,' Beate said, still staring at the screen. 'Remember only one witness reported having seen the Expeditor escape in the Friday rush hour. The robber's best hiding place is in a crowd.'
'OK, but have you got any other suggestions?'
'Sit down or you'll miss the climax.'
Mildly disconcerted, Harry shot her a look and faced the screen. The boy behind the counter had turned towards the camera with a finger jammed up his nose.
'One man's climax is another--' Harry grumbled.
'Look at the skip outside the window.'
The window pane reflected the light, but they could still see the man in the black boiler suit. He was standing on the pavement between the skip and a parked car. His back was to the camera and a hand was resting on the edge of the skip. He seemed to be keeping an eye on the bank while eating the cream bun. The holdall he was carrying was on the tarmac.
'That's his lookout post,' Beate said. 'He ordered the skip and had it placed on that precise spot. It is ingeniously simple. He can watch for the security van while hiding from the security cameras. And notice the way he stands. First of all, half of the passers-by won't even be able to see him because of the skip, and those who can will see a man in a boiler suit and cap beside a skip: a builder, a removal man or a waste-disposal worker. In short, nothing that will gain a foothold in the cerebral cortex. No wonder we didn't get any witnesses.'
'He's leaving some nice, fat fingerprints on the skip,' Harry said. 'Shame it's done nothing but rain for the last week.'
'But the cream bun--'
'He's eating his fingerprints too,' Harry sighed.
'--makes him thirsty. Watch this now.'
The man bent down, unzipped the holdall and pulled out a white plastic bag. From this he removed a bottle.
'Coca-Cola,' Beate whispered. 'I zoomed in on a still before you came. It's a Coke bottle with a cork in.'
The man held the bottle at the top while pulling out the cork. Then he threw back his head, held the bottle high in the air and poured. They could see the last dregs running out, but the cap blotted out the open mouth and face. Then he put the bottle in the plastic bag, knotted it and was about to put it in his holdall when he paused.
'Watch. Now he's thinking,' Beate whispered, and in a low monotone: 'How much room will the money take up? How much room will the money take up?'
The protagonist studied the holdall. Looked at the skip. Then he made up his mind and with a quick toss of his arm the bag, with the bottle inside, sailed in an arc through the air and landed in the open skip.
'A three-pointer!' Harry roared.
'The crowd goes wild!' Beate yelled.
'Fuck!' Harry shouted.
'Oh no,' Beate groaned and banged her forehead against the wheel
in despair.
'They must have just been here,' Harry said. 'Hang on!' He flung open the car door in front of a cyclist who swerved out of
the way, and ran across the street, into the 7-Eleven and over to the
counter.
'When did they take the skip?' he asked the boy who was about to
wrap two Big Bite sausages for two large-bottomed girls. 'Wait your turn, for Christ's sake,' the boy said without looking
up.
One of the girls let out an indignant whine as Harry leaned over,
blocking access to the ketchup bottle, and grabbed hold of the boy's
green shirt front.
'Hello there, it's me again,' Harry said. 'Now follow this carefully,
otherwise this sausage will be going right up . . .'
The boy's terrified expression forced Harry to collect himself. He
released his grip and pointed to the window, through which you could
now see Nordea Bank on the other side of the street because of the
gaping hole left by the skip. 'When did they take the skip? Quickly!' The boy swallowed and stared at Harry. 'Now. Just now.' 'When is now?'
'Two minutes ago.' His eyes had glazed over.
'Where were they going?'
'How should I know? I don't know nuffin about skips.' 'Nothing.'
'Eh?'
But Harry had already gone.
*
Harry put Beate's red mobile phone to his ear.
'Oslo Waste Management? This is the police, Inspector Harry
Hole. Where do you empty those skips of yours? The private ones,
yes. Metodica, OK. Where are . . . Verkseier Furulands vei in
Alnabru? Thank you. What? Or Gronmo? How do I know which
one . . . ?'
'Look,' Beate said. 'A traffic jam.'
Cars formed an apparently impenetrable wall down towards the
T
-junction in front of Kafe Lorry in Hegdehaugsveien.
'We should have taken Uranienborgveien,' Harry said. 'Or
Kirkeveien.'
'Shame you're not driving,' Beate said, forcing the front offside
wheel up onto the pavement, leaning on the horn and accelerating.
People jumped out of the way.
'Hello?' Harry said on the mobile phone. 'You've just collected a
green skip from Bogstadveien by the Industrigata crossroads. Where
is it going? Yes. I'll wait.'
'Let's take a chance on Alnabru,' Beate said and swung out into the
crossroads in front of a tram. The wheels spun on the steel rails until
they got a grip on the tarmac. Harry had a vague feeling of deja vu. They had come to Pilestredet when the man from Oslo Waste
Management came back to say that they couldn't contact the driver
on his mobile, but the skip was probably on its way to Alnabru. 'Fine,' Harry said. 'Can you ring Metodica and ask them not to
empty the contents of the skip into the incinerator until we . . . Your
office is closed from 11.30 to 12.00? Careful! No, I was talking to the
driver. No, my driver.'
In the Ibsen tunnel Harry called Police HQ and asked them to
send a patrol car to Metodica, but the closest available car was at least
fifteen minutes away.
'Fuck!' Harry threw the mobile phone over his shoulder and
smacked the dashboard.
At the roundabout between Byporten and Plaza Beate sneaked into the space between a red bus and a Chevy van, straddling the white line. When she came down the raised intersection known as the traffic machine doing 110 km/h and performed a controlled skid on screaming tyres, into the hairpin bend on the fjord side of Oslo