Police: A Harry Hole thriller (Oslo Sequence 8) (21 page)

They had almost arrived in Asker, but they had travelled in a silence so impenetrable that when Katrine did answer no one had forgotten the question.

‘Yes,’ she said.

16

KATRINE BRATT CROSSED
the open square in front of Chateau Neuf, the headquarters of the Norwegian Student Society. Great parties, cool gigs, heated debates. That was how she remembered the place. And in between they had passed their exams.

The dress code had changed surprisingly little since she was here: average T-shirts, sagging trousers, nerdy glasses, retro Puffa jackets and retro army jackets, security of style trying to camouflage insecurity, the avarege social climber signalling ‘smart slacker’, the fear of failing socially and professionally. At any rate, though, they were glad not to be the poor buggers on the other side of the square, which was where Katrine was heading.

Some of them were coming towards her now from the prison-like gate in front of the college grounds: students in black police uniforms that always looked a bit too big however well they fitted. From afar she could pick out the first years; they looked as if they were standing in the middle of the uniform, and the peak of the cap came too far down their foreheads. Either to conceal their insecurity or to avoid meeting the slightly contemptuous or even sympathetic looks from students across the square, the proper students, the free, independent, socially critical, thinking intellectuals. Who were grinning behind long, greasy hair, lying on the steps in the sun, exalted in their supine states, inhaling what they knew the police trainee knew
might
be a reefer.

For they were the real youth, the cream of society with a right to make mistakes, those who still had life choices ahead of them, not behind.

Perhaps it was only Katrine who had felt like this when she was here, who felt the desire to shout that they didn’t know who she was, why she had chosen to become a police officer, what she had decided to do with the rest of her life.

The old duty officer, Karsten Kaspersen, still stood in the office inside the door, but if he did remember Katrine Bratt, his face didn’t show it as he examined her ID card and gave a quick nod. She walked down the corridor to a lecture room. Passing the door of the crime-scene room which was furnished like a flat with partition walls and had a gallery from where they could watch one another practising searches, finding clues and interpreting the course of events. Then the door to the fitness room, with training mats and the smell of sweat, where they drilled the fine art of wrestling people to the ground and applying handcuffs. At the end of the corridor she slipped into auditorium 2. The lecture was in full flow, so she crept along to a free seat in the back row. She sat down so quietly she wasn’t noticed by the two girls excitedly whispering in front of her.

‘She’s weird, I’m telling you. She’s got a picture of him on her bedsit wall.’

‘
Has
she?’

‘I’ve seen it myself.’

‘My God, he’s so old. And ugly.’

‘Do you think?’

‘Are you blind?’ She nodded to the board where the lecturer was writing with his back to the class.

‘Motive!’ The lecturer had turned to them and repeated the word he had written on the board. ‘The psychological cost of killing is so high for rationally thinking people with normal feelings that there has to be an extremely good motive. Extremely good motives are as a rule easier and quicker to find than murder weapons, witnesses or forensic evidence. And they point you straight to a potential perp. That is why every detective should start with the question “why”.’

He paused to scan the audience, a bit like a sheepdog circling and keeping the flock together, Katrine thought.

He raised his forefinger. ‘A rough simplification: find the motive and you’ve got the murderer.’

Katrine Bratt didn’t think he was ugly. Not attractive though, of course, not in the conventional meaning of the word. More what the British call an acquired taste. And the voice was the same deep, warm voice with the slightly worn, hoarse edge that appealed not only to young student fans.

‘Yes?’ The lecturer had hesitated for a moment before giving the floor to a female student waving her arm.

‘Why do we send out large, costly forensics units if a brilliant detective like you can crack the case with a few questions and a bit of deduction?’

There was no audible irony in the girl’s intonation, only an almost childlike sincerity plus a lilt that revealed she must have lived in the north.

Katrine saw the emotions flicker across the lecturer’s face – embarrassment, resignation, annoyance – before he collected himself and gave an answer: ‘Because it’s never enough to
know
who the lawbreaker is, Silje. During the bank robbery wave in Oslo ten years ago the Robberies Unit had a female officer who could recognise masked robbers by the shape of their faces.’

‘Beate Lønn,’ said the girl he had called Silje. ‘The boss of Krimteknisk.’

‘Exactly. And so in eight out of ten cases the Robberies Unit knew who the masked men on the CCTV videos were. But they didn’t have any proof. Fingerprints are proof. A used gun is proof. A convinced detective is
not
proof, however brilliant he or she may be. I’ve used a number of simplifications today, but here is the last: the answer to the question “why” is worthless unless we find out how and vice versa. But now that we’ve got a bit further in the process Folkestad is going to talk about forensic investigation.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We’ll talk more in depth about motives next time, but here’s something to get your brains working. Why do people kill one another?’

He scanned the audience again with an encouraging expression. Katrine saw that in addition to the scar that ran like a channel from the corner of his mouth to his ear he had two new scars. One looked like a slash with a knife to the neck; the other could have been made by a bullet at the side of his head, level with his eyebrows. But otherwise he looked better than she had ever seen him. The 1.92-metre figure looked tall and supple; the blond, cropped brush of hair still didn’t have any flecks of grey. And she could see he was toned beneath his T-shirt. There was meat back on his bones. And, most important of all, life in his eyes. The alert, energetic, bordering on manic, look was back. Laughter lines and expansive body language she had never seen before. You could almost suspect him of leading a good life. Which, if this was the case, would be a first.

‘Because they have something to gain by it,’ a boy’s voice answered.

The lecturer nodded good-naturedly. ‘You would think so, wouldn’t you? But murder as a crime for profit is not that usual, Vetle.’

A barking Sunnmøre voice: ‘Because they hate someone?’

‘Elling is suggesting crimes of passion,’ he said. ‘Jealousy. Rejection. Revenge. Yes, definitely. Anything else?’

‘Because they are deranged.’ The suggestion came from a tall, stooped boy.

‘Deranged’s not the word, Robert.’ It was the girl again. Katrine could only see a blonde ponytail over the back of the seat in the front row. ‘It’s called—’

‘It’s fine. We know what he means, Silje.’ The lecturer had sat down at the front of the desk, stretched out his long legs and crossed his arms over the Glasvegas logo on his T-shirt. ‘And personally I think deranged is an excellent word. But not in fact a particularly usual reason for murder. There are of course those who are of the opinion that murder in itself is proof of insanity, but most murders are rational. Just as it’s rational to seek material gain, it’s rational to seek emotional relief. The murderer may have some idea that murder will dull the pain that comes with hatred, fear, jealousy, humiliation.’

‘But if murder is so rational . . .’ The first boy. ‘Can you tell us how many satisfied murderers you’ve met?’

The class smart-arse, Katrine hazarded a guess.

‘Very few,’ the lecturer said. ‘But the fact that the murder is felt to be a disappointment doesn’t mean it’s not a rational act so long as the murderer
believes
he will obtain relief. But revenge is generally sweeter in your imagination; the fury of a murder motivated by jealousy is followed by regret, the moment that the serial killer builds up to so carefully is invariably an anticlimax, so he has to keep trying. In short . . .’ He got up and went back to the board. ‘As far as murder is concerned, there is something in the claim that crime doesn’t pay. For the next session I want each of you to think of a motive that could drive you to murder. I don’t want any politically correct bullshit. I want you to examine your darkest, innermost recesses. Well, the next darkest will do perhaps. And then I want you to read Aune’s thesis on the personality of a murderer and profiling, OK? And, yes, I’m going to ask follow-up questions. So be afraid, be ready. Off you go.’

There was a cacophony as seats sprang back.

Katrine stayed where she was, watching the students passing her. In the end, there were only three people left. Her, the lecturer wiping the board and the blonde ponytail who was standing right behind him, legs together, notes under her arm. Katrine could see she was slim. And that her voice sounded different now from when she had been speaking in class.

‘Do you think the serial killer you caught in Australia achieved satisfaction after killing the women?’ Affected little girl’s voice. Like a young girl trying to get into her father’s good books.

‘Silje . . .’

‘I mean, he raped them. And that must have been pretty good.’

‘Read the thesis and we can come back to it in the next session, OK?’

‘OK.’

Still she hung around. Rocking up and down on her feet. As if stretching up on her toes, Katrine thought. Up to him. While the lecturer shuffled his papers into a leather case without taking any notice of her. Then she turned on her heel and went up the stairs to the exit. Slowed down when she saw Katrine and eyeballed her, then sped up and was gone.

‘Hi, Harry,’ Katrine said quietly.

‘Hi, Katrine,’ he said without looking.

‘You look good.’

‘Same to you,’ he said, zipping up his case.

‘Did you see me arrive?’

‘I
sensed
you arrive.’ He looked up. And smiled. Katrine had always been surprised at the metamorphosis his face went through when he smiled. At how the smile could blow away the hard, dismissive, life-weary expression he wore like a shabby coat. At how, suddenly, he could look like a playful, overgrown boy with the sun radiating from him. Like a sunny July day in Bergen. As welcome as it was rare and short.

‘What does that mean?’

‘That I’ve been half expecting you to turn up.’

‘Oh, you have, have you?’

‘Yes. And the answer’s no.’ He stuffed the case under his arm, ran up the stairs to her in four long strides and hugged her.

She squeezed him, drawing in his aroma. ‘No to what, Harry?’

‘No, you can’t have me,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘But you knew that, didn’t you?’

‘Hey!’ she said, trying to free herself from his grip. ‘If it hadn’t been for Miss Ugly Bug it wouldn’t have taken me five minutes to have you at my feet, sunshine. And I didn’t say you looked
that
good.’

He laughed, let her go and Katrine felt herself thinking he could have held her for a bit longer. She had never worked out whether she really wanted Harry; maybe it had always been so unrealistic she refrained from forming an opinion on it. And in time it had become a joke and the waters were muddied. Besides he was back with Rakel. Or Miss Ugly Bug as he allowed Katrine to call her as the notion was so absurd it only emphasised Rakel’s annoying beauty.

Harry rubbed his badly shaven chin. ‘Hm, if it’s not my irresistible body you’re after, then it must be . . .’ He raised a forefinger. ‘I’ve got it. My brilliant mind!’

‘You haven’t got any funnier over the years, either.’

‘And the answer’s still no. And you knew that too.’

‘Have you got an office where we can discuss this?’

‘Yes and no. I have an office, but not one where we can discuss whether I can help you with the murder case.’

‘Murder cases.’

‘It’s one case, as far as I’ve been informed.’

‘Fascinating, isn’t it?’

‘Don’t you try that one on me. I’ve finished with that kind of life, and you know it.’

‘Harry, this case needs you. And you need it.’

The smile didn’t reach his eyes this time. ‘I need a murder case like I need a drink, Katrine. Sorry. Save yourself some time and try an alternative.’

She looked at him. Thinking the analogy with drink came without any hesitation. It confirmed what she had suspected, that he was simply afraid. Afraid that if he so much as looked at a case it would have the same result as a drop of booze. He wouldn’t be able to stop; he would be swallowed up, consumed. For a moment her conscience pricked her, the pusher’s unbidden attack of self-loathing. Until she started visualising the crime scene again. Anton Mittet’s crushed skull.

‘There are no alternatives for you, Harry.’

‘I can give you a couple of names,’ Harry said. ‘There’s a guy I was on the FBI course with. I can ring and—’

‘Harry . . .’ Katrine grabbed him under the arm and led him to the door. ‘Has this office of yours got any coffee?’

‘It has, but as I said—’

‘Forget the case. Let’s just have a chat about the old days.’

‘Have you got the time for it?’

‘I need some distraction.’

He looked at her. Was about to say something, then changed his mind. Nodded. ‘OK.’

They went up a staircase and down a corridor to the offices.

‘I can hear you’ve nicked bits of Ståle Aune’s psychology lectures,’ Katrine said. As usual she had to jog to keep up with Harry’s giant strides.

‘I nick as much as I can. After all, he was the best.’

‘Like “deranged” being one of the few words in medicine which is exact, intuitively comprehensible and poetic all at once. But precise words always end up on the scrapheap because stupid professionals think linguistic obfuscation is best for patients’ welfare.’

‘Yep,’ Harry said.

‘That’s why I’m no longer a manic-depressive. Not borderline, either. I’m bipolar type II.’