On returning to his flat, he switched on the TV to see the NRK news. Heroic tales about American firefighters. He switched it off. A man's voice screamed a woman's name down in the street; he sounded drunk. Harry rummaged around in his pockets to find the note he had made of Rakel's new number and discovered he still had the key engraved with AA. He put the key at the back of the drawer in the telephone table before ringing the number. No answer. When the telephone rang, he wasn't sure if it would be her; instead he had Oystein on a crackly line.
'Shit, the way they drive here!'
'You don't need to shout, Oystein.'
'They're fucking trying to kill me on the roads here! I took a taxi
from Sharm el-Sheikh. Great trip, I thought - right through the desert, not much traffic, straight road. Boy, was I wrong. It's a miracle I'm alive, I can tell you. And so hot! And have you heard the grasshoppers here - the desert crickets? They make the world's highest-pitched grasshopper noises. Goes right through the cerebral cortex, absolutely terrible. The water here is just amazing. Amazing! Completely clear with a dash of green. Body temperature, so you don't even feel it. Yesterday I got out of the sea and wasn't even sure if I'd been in . . .'
'Forget the sea temperatures, Oystein. Have you found the server?' 'Yes and no.'
a discussion at the other end. Harry caught fragments, like 'the boss' and 'the money'.
'What does that mean?'
Harry didn't get an answer. They had clearly been interrupted by
'Harry? Sorry, the guy here got a bit paranoid. And I am too. Bloody hot, it is! But I think I've found the right server. There's always a chance they're trying to screw me, but tomorrow I'll see the works and meet the boss in person. Three minutes on the keyboard and I'll know if it's the right one. And the rest is just a question of money. I hope. Ring you tomorrow. You should see the knives these Bedouins have here . . .'
Oystein's laugh sounded hollow.
The last thing Harry did before switching off the light was to consult the encyclopedia. Horsehead Nebula was a dark cloud. Not a lot was known about it, nor about Orion either, except that it was considered one of the most beautiful of all the constellations. Orion was a Greek mythical figure, a Titan and a great hunter. He was seduced by Eos, for which Artemis killed him in his fury. Harry went to sleep with the sensation that somebody was thinking about him.
On opening his eyes the following morning he could feel his thoughts were scattered far and wide, torn fragments and glimpses of half-forgotten scenes. It was as though someone had ransacked his brain, and the contents, which had been carefully tidied away in drawers and cupboards, lay strewn around. He must have been dreaming. The telephone in the hall rang and rang. Harry forced himself out of bed. It was Oystein again: he was in an office in El Tor.
'We've got a problem,' he said.
24
Sao Paulo
Raskol's mouth and lips formed a gentle smile. It was therefore impossible to say whether it was really a gentle smile or not. Harry guessed the latter.
'You have a friend in Egypt searching for a telephone number then,' Raskol said. Harry was unable to decipher whether the intonation was sarcastic or matter-of-fact.
'El Tor,' Harry said, rubbing his palm against the arm of his chair. He felt an intense discomfort. Not because he was sitting in the sterile visitors' room again, but on account of his errand. He had considered all the options. Taking a personal loan. Confiding in Bjarne Moller. Selling the Ford Escort to the garage where it was always being repaired. But this was the only realistic chance, the only logical way to go. It was madness.
'The telephone number is not simply a number,' Harry said. 'It will lead us to the client who sent me the e-mail. The e-mail which proves he knows details about Anna's death he would not have known, had he not been present just before she died.'
'And your friend says the owners of the ISP have asked for 60,000
Egyptian pounds. And that is?'
'Approximately 120,000 kroner.'
'Which you think I should give you?'
'I don't think anything. I'm just telling you what the situation is.
They want money and I haven't got it.'
Raskol ran a finger along his top lip. 'Why should that be my
problem, Harry? We made an agreement and I kept my part.' 'I'll keep my part, but it will take longer without money.' Raskol shook his head, threw out his arms and mumbled
something in what Harry supposed was Romany. Oystein had been
desperate on the telephone. There was no doubt they had found the
correct server, he had said. But he had imagined a rusty antique in a
shed, wheezing but functional, and a horse trader with a turban who
wanted three camels and a pack of American cigarettes. Instead he
went to an air-conditioned office where the young besuited Egyptian
behind a desk had gazed at him through silver-framed glasses and
told him the price was 'non-negotiable', payment was to be in
untraceable notes and the offer would stand for three days. 'I assume you've considered the consequences if it leaks out that
you've been receiving money from someone like me while on duty?' 'I'm not on duty,' Harry said.
Raskol stroked his ears with the palms of his hands. 'Sun Tzu says
if you do not control events, they will control you. You don't have
any control over events, Spiuni. It means you've blundered. I don't
like people who make blunders. Hence, I have a suggestion. We'll
make this simple for both parties. You give me the name of this man
and I'll sort out the rest.'
'No!' Harry slammed his hand down hard on the table. 'I don't
want him roughed up by one of your gorillas. I want him behind lock
and key.'
'You surprise me, Spiuni. If I've understood you correctly, you're
already in a sensitive position. Why not let justice be meted out to the
hilt as painlessly as possible?'
'No vendetta. That was our agreement.'
Raskol smiled. 'You're a tough nut, Hole. I like that. And I respect agreements. But now you're beginning to screw up. How can I be
sure this is the right man?'
'You were given the opportunity to check the key I found at the
chalet was identical with Anna's.'
'And now you come to me for help again. So you'll have to give me
a bit more.'
Harry swallowed. 'When I found Anna, she had a photo in her
shoe.'
'Go on.'
'My thinking is she managed to put it there before the murderer
shot her. It's a picture of the murderer's family.'
'Is that all?'
'Yes.'
Raskol shook his head, looked at Harry and then shook his head
again.
'I don't know who's the most stupid here. You, for letting your
friend pull the wool over your eyes. Your friend, who thinks he can
hide after stealing money from me.' He heaved a deep sigh. 'Or me,
for giving you money.'
Harry thought he would feel happiness or at least relief. Instead he
only felt the knot in his stomach tightening. 'So what do you need to
know?'
'Just the name of your friend and the bank in Egypt where he
wants to pick up the money.'
'You'll have them in an hour.' Harry got to his feet.
Raskol rubbed his wrists as if he had taken off handcuffs. 'I hope
you don't think you understand me, Spiuni.' He said it in a low voice
without looking up.
Harry came to a halt. 'What do you mean?'
'I'm a gypsy. My world can be an inverted world. Do you know
what God is in Romany?'
'No.'
'Devel. Devil. Strange, isn't it? When you sell your soul, it's g
ood
to know who you're selling it to, Spiuni.'
*
Halvorsen thought Harry looked drained.
'Define "drained",' Harry said, leaning back in his office chair. 'Or,
in fact, don't.'
When Halvorsen asked Harry how things were going and Harry
asked him to define 'going', Halvorsen sighed and left the office to try
his luck with Elmer.
Harry dialled the number he had received from Rakel, but again
got the Russian voice he assumed was telling him he was generally
barking up the wrong tree. So he rang Bjarne Moller and tried to give
his boss the impression he wasn't barking up the wrong tree. Moller
didn't sound convinced.
'I want good news, Harry. Not reports on how you've been
spending your time.'
Beate came in to say she had watched the video ten more times and
she no longer had any doubt that the Expeditor and Stine Grette
knew each other. 'I think the last thing he tells her is that she is going
to die. You can see it in her eyes. Defiant and frightened at the same
time, just like in the war films where you see resistance fighters lined
up ready to be shot.'
Pause.
'Hello?' She waved a hand in front of his eyes. 'You look drained.' He rang Aune.
'Harry here. How do people react when they know they're going
to be executed?'
Aune chuckled. 'They're focused,' he said. 'On time.' 'And frightened? Panic-stricken?'
'That depends. What sort of execution are we talking about?' 'A public execution. In a bank.'
'I see. I'll ring you back in two minutes.'
Harry studied his watch as he waited. It took 120 seconds. 'The process of dying, much like the process of being born, is a
very intimate affair,' Aune said. 'The reason people in such situations
instinctively have a desire to hide is not just because they feel physically vulnerable. Dying in the sight of others, as in a public execution, is a double punishment as it is an affront to the victim's modesty in the most brutal way conceivable. It was one of the reasons public executions were considered to have a more criminally preventative effect on the population than execution in the solitude of the cell. Some allowances were made, however, such as obliging the executioner to wear a mask. That wasn't, as many think, to conceal the executioner's identity - everyone knew it was the local butcher or rope-maker. The mask was out of consideration for the condemned man, so that he didn't feel a stranger was close to him at
the moment of death.'
'Mm. The bank robber was also wearing a mask.'
'The use of masks is a whole field of psychological research. For
example, the modern notion that wearing a mask deprives us of
freedom can be turned on its head. Masks can depersonalise in a way
which allows freedom. To what do you otherwise attribute the
popularity of masked balls in Victorian times? Or the use of masks in
sexual games? A bank robber, on the other hand, has more prosaic
reasons for wearing a mask, of course.'
'Maybe.'
'Maybe?'
'I don't know,' Harry sighed.
'You seem . . .'
'Tired. See you.'
Harry's position on earth slowly moved away from the sun and the afternoons became dark earlier and earlier. The lemons outside Ali's shop shone like small yellow stars and a silent spray of fine rain fell as Harry walked up Sofies gate. The afternoon had been spent arranging the transfer of funds to El Tor. It hadn't been such a major job. He had chatted to Oystein, got his passport number plus the address of the bank beside the hotel where he was staying and phoned the information through to the prison inmates' newspaper the
Returning Phantom, where Raskol was working on an article about Sun Tzu. Then it was simply a question of waiting.
Harry had arrived at the front door and was about to search for keys when he heard a padding of feet on the pavement behind him. He didn't turn.
Not until he heard the low growl.
In fact, he was not surprised. If you heat up a pressure cooker, you know that sooner or later something has to happen.
The dog's face was as black as the night and contrasted with the whiteness of the bared teeth. The feeble light from the lamp over the front door caught a trickle of saliva hanging off a large canine tooth and it sparkled.
'Sit!' said a familiar voice from the shadows beneath the garage entrance on the other side of the quiet, narrow street. The Rottweiler reluctantly lowered its broad, muscular hindquarters onto the wet tarmac, but its shiny brown eyes, the furthest thing from 'puppy-dog eyes' you could imagine, never left Harry.
The shadow from the cap fell across the approaching man's face.
'Good evening, Harry. Frightened of dogs?'
Harry looked down at the red jaws in front of him. A fragment of trivia floated to the surface. The Romans had used the Rottweiler's forefathers in the conquest of Europe. 'No, what do you want?'
'To make you an offer. An offer you . . . what's the phrase again?'
'That's fine, just make me the offer, Albu.'
'Truce.' Arne Albu flipped up the peak of his cap. He tried his boyish smile, but it didn't sit as well as the previous time. 'You keep away from me and I'll keep away from you.'
'Interesting. And what would you do to me, Albu?'
Albu nodded towards the Rottweiler, which was not sitting but on its haunches ready to pounce. 'I have my methods. And I'm not completely without resources.'
'Mm.' Harry patted his jacket pocket for cigarettes, but stopped when the growling became menacing. 'You look drained, Albu. Is all the running tiring you?'
Albu shook his head. 'It's not me who's running, Harry. It's you.'
'Oh? Vague threats against a police officer in a public place. I call that signs of fatigue. Why don't you want to play any more?'
'Play? Is that how you see it? A kind of ludo with human fate.'
Harry saw the anger in Arne Albu's eyes. Something else, too. His jaw was working and the blood vessels in the temples and forehead stood out. It was desperation.
'Do you realise what you've done?' he almost whispered, no longer making any attempt to smile. 'She's left me. She's . . . taken the children and gone. Because of a petty affair. Anna didn't mean a thing to me any more.'
Arne Albu stood close to Harry. 'Anna and I met when a friend of mine was showing me round his gallery and she happened to have a private viewing there. I bought two of her paintings, I don't really know why. I said they were for the office. Of course they were never hung up anywhere. When I went to fetch the pictures the next day, Anna and I fell into conversation and suddenly I had invited her to lunch. Then it was dinner. And two weeks later a weekend trip to Berlin. Things got out of hand. I was stuck and didn't even make an attempt to extricate myself. Not until Vigdis discovered what was going on and threatened to leave me.'
His voice had begun to tremble.
'I promised Vigdis it was just a one-off, an idiotic infatuation men of my age occasionally pursue when they meet a young woman. She reminds them what it had been like once. To be young, strong and independent. But you aren't any more. Independent, least of all. When you have children, you'll know . . .'
His voice gave way and he was breathing heavily. He buried his hands in his coat pockets and went on.
'Anna was an intense lover. It verged on the abnormal. It was as if she could never let go. I literally had to tear myself away; she ruined one of my jackets as I was trying to get out of the door. I think you know what I mean. She once told me about what it was like after you left. She almost went to pieces.'
Harry was too surprised to answer.
'But I probably felt sorry for her,' Albu continued. 'Otherwise I wouldn't have agreed to meet her again. I'd said quit
e clearly it was over between us, but she just wanted to give me back a few things, she said. I wasn't to know you would come and blow everything out of proportion. Make it look as if we had . . . taken up where we'd left off.' He bent his head. 'Vigdis doesn't believe me. She says she'll never be able to trust me again. Not another time.'
He lifted his face and Harry saw the despair in his eyes. 'You took the only thing I had, Hole. They're all I have left. I don't know if I can get them back.' His features distorted in pain.
Harry thought of the pressure cooker. Any moment now.
'The only chance I have is if you . . . if you don't . . .'
Harry reacted instinctively when he saw Albu's hand moving in his coat pocket. He kicked out and hit Albu in the side of the knee, sending him into a kneeling position on the pavement. Harry swung his forearm into the face of the Rottweiler as it attacked; he heard the sound of material being ripped and felt teeth puncturing his skin, sinking into the flesh. He hoped its jaws would lock, but the smart bastard let go. Harry aimed a foot at the black mound of naked muscle and missed. He heard its claws scratch at the tarmac as it launched itself and saw the jaws open to meet him. Someone had told him that Rottweilers know before they are three weeks old that the most effective method of killing someone is to tear open the throat, and now the seventy-kilo muscle machine was past his arms. Harry used the momentum the kick had given him to spin round. As the dog's jaws locked it was thus not around his throat, but his neck. Not that that meant his problems were over. He reached behind him and grabbed the upper jaw with one hand and the lower with the other and pulled with all his strength. Instead of opening, however, the jaws sank a few more millimetres into his neck. The sinews and muscles of the dog's jaws were like steel. Harry charged backwards and threw himself against the wall. He heard the dog's ribs crack, but the jaws didn't yield. He felt himself panicking. He had heard about jaws locking, about the hyena whose jaws were fastened onto the male lion's throat long after it had been torn to shreds by lionesses. He felt the warm blood running down his back inside the T-shirt and discovered he had fallen to his knees. Had everything begun to lose sensation? Where was everyone? Sofies gate was a quiet street, but Harry had never seen it as deserted as now, he thought. It struck him how everything had happened in silence, no shouts, no barking, just the sound of flesh against flesh and flesh being torn. He tried to shout, but couldn't force out a sound. His field of vision was beginning to darken at the margins; he knew an artery was being squeezed and he was getting tunnel vision because his brain wasn't receiving enough blood. The shiny lemons outside Ali's shop were losing their shine. Something black, flat, wet and solid came up and exploded in his face. He tasted gravel. Far away, he could hear Albu's voice: 'Let go!'