Police: A Harry Hole thriller (Oslo Sequence 8) (26 page)

Harry looked down at the paper centred in the beam from the reading lamp, the only light in the room. He could, of course, have taken everything with him to Holmenkollveien. Coffee, a babbling radio, the fragrance of fresh trees through an open window. But he had decided not to mull over why he preferred to sit here alone instead of there alone. Presumably because he had an inkling what the response would be. That there he wasn’t alone. Not quite. The black timber fortress with three locks on the door and sprinklers in front of all the windows still couldn’t keep the monsters out. The ghosts were sitting in the dark corners watching him through their empty eye sockets. His phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and saw the text on the illuminated screen. It was from Oleg and there were no letters, only numbers. 665625. Harry smiled. Naturally it was a long way off Stephen Krogman’s legendary Tetris world record of 1,648,905 points in 1999, but Oleg had long smashed Harry’s best scores in the slightly antiquated computer game. Ståle Aune had maintained there was a line where Tetris records went from being impressive to just being sad. And that Oleg and Harry had crossed it a long time ago. But no one else knew of the other line they had crossed. The one to death and back. Oleg on a chair beside Harry’s bed. Harry feverish as his body fought against the damage Oleg’s bullets had caused, Oleg crying as his body shook with cold turkey. Not much was said, but Harry had a vague memory of them holding hands so hard at one point that it had hurt. And this image, two men clinging to each other, not wanting to let go, would always be with him.

Harry texted
I’ll be back
in return. A number answered with three words. It was enough. Enough to know that the other person was
there
, even if the next time they saw each other could be weeks away. Harry put the earphones back and searched for the music Oleg had sent over without any comment. The band was the Decemberists and was more Harry than Oleg, who preferred harder stuff. Harry heard a lone Fender guitar with the pure, warm twang, which was only a pipe amplifier and not a fixed box, or perhaps a deceptively
good
box, and leaned over the next sheet. The student had written that after a sudden hike in the murder rate in the 1970s, the figure had stabilised at the new, higher level. There were around fifty murders a year in Norway, so about one a week.

Harry noticed that the air had become close and he ought to open a window.

The student remembered that the clear-up rate was around ninety-five per cent. And concluded that there had to be approximately fifty unsolved murders over the last twenty years. Seventy-five over the last thirty years.

‘Fifty-eight.’

Harry jumped in his chair. The voice had reached his brain before the perfume. His doctor had explained that his sense of smell – or more specifically the olfactory cells – had been damaged by years of smoking and alcohol abuse. But that wasn’t why it took him a minute to place the scent. It was called Opium, made by Yves Saint Laurent, and stood by the bath at home in Holmenkollveien. He tore out his earphones.

‘Fifty-eight over the last thirty years,’ she said. She had put on make-up. Sported a red dress and was barefoot. ‘But Kripos’s statistics don’t include Norwegian citizens killed abroad. For that you would have to use Statistics Norway. And then the figure is seventy-two. Which means that the clear-up rate in Norway is higher. Which the Chief of Police regularly uses in his publicity.’

Harry pushed his chair away from her. ‘How did you get in?’

‘I’m the class rep. I have keys.’ Silje Gravseng perched on the edge of the desk. ‘But the point is that the majority of murders abroad are assaults, so we can assume the perp doesn’t know the victim.’ Harry registered suntanned knees and thighs where her skirt rode up. She must have been on holiday recently. ‘And for that type of murder the clear-up rate in Norway is lower than in countries we ought to be comparing ourselves with. It is frighteningly low, actually.’ She had angled her head down to one shoulder so that damp blonde hair fell across her face.

‘Oh yes?’ Harry said.

‘Yes. There are in fact only four detectives in Norway with a hundred per cent clear-up rate. And you’re one of them . . .’

‘I’m not sure that’s correct,’ Harry said.

‘But I am.’ She smiled at him, squinting as though she had the low afternoon sun in her eyes. Dangling her bare feet as though she were sitting on the edge of a jetty. Holding his eyes as though she thought she could suck the eyeballs out of the sockets.

‘What are you doing here so late?’ Harry asked.

‘I’ve been doing some training in the fitness room.’ She pointed to the rucksack on the floor and flexed her right arm. A pronounced biceps muscle appeared. He remembered the combat instructor mentioning something about her flooring several of the boys.

‘Training on your own so late?’

‘Got to learn as much as I can. But perhaps you could show me how to bring down a suspect?’

Harry looked at his watch. ‘Tell me, shouldn’t you be . . .?’

‘Asleep? I can’t sleep, Harry. I just think about . . .’

He looked at her. She pouted. Placed a finger against her bright red lips. He could feel a certain irritation mounting. ‘It’s good you use your brain, Silje. Keep doing it. And I’ll keep . . .’ He pointed to the pile of papers.

‘You haven’t asked
what
I think about, Harry.’

‘Three things, Silje. I’m your lecturer and not your confessor. You’ve no business to be in this wing without an appointment. And to you I’m Hole, not Harry. OK?’ He knew his voice had been sterner than necessary, and when he looked up again he discovered her eyes were big and round with disbelief. She dropped the finger from her lips. She dropped the pout as well. And when she spoke again her voice was hardly more than a whisper.

‘I was thinking about you, Harry.’

Then she laughed a loud, shrill laugh.

‘I suggest we stop right there, Silje.’

‘But I
love
you, Harry.’ More laughter.

Was she high? Drunk? Had she come straight from a party perhaps?

‘Silje, don’t . . .’

‘Harry, I know you’ve got obligations. And I know there are rules for lecturers and students. But I know what we can do. We can go to Chicago. Where you did the serial killer course. I can apply to do it and you can—’

‘Stop!’

Harry heard his shout echo down the corridor. Silje had hunched up as if he’d hit her.

‘Now I’ll accompany you to the door, Silje.’

She blinked at him in astonishment. ‘What’s the matter, Harry? I’m the second-best-looking girl in the year. I could have whoever I want in this place. Including the lecturers. But I’ve saved myself for you.’

‘Come on.’

‘Do you want to know what I’ve got under my dress, Harry?’

She put a bare foot on the desk and opened her thighs. Harry was so quick she didn’t have a chance to react when he knocked her foot off the desk.

‘No one puts their feet on my desk except me, thank you.’

Silje crumpled. Hid her face in her hands. Ran them over her head, as though she wanted to creep into a hiding place under her long, muscular arms. She cried. Sobbed quietly. Harry let her sit like this until the sobbing had subsided. He was about to put his hand on her shoulder, but then changed his mind.

‘Listen, Silje,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’re on something, I don’t know. That’s fine. Happens to all of us. This is my suggestion: you go now, we pretend this never happened and neither of us breathes a word about it ever again.’

‘Are you afraid someone will find out about us, Harry?’

‘There is no us, Silje. And listen to me. I’m giving you a chance here.’

‘Are you thinking that someone will find out that you’re shagging a student?’

‘I’m not shagging anyone. I’m thinking of your own good.’

Silje lowered her arm and raised her head. Harry was shocked. Her make-up had run like black blood, her eyes had a wild gleam to them and the sudden hungry-predator grin made him think of an animal he had seen on one of those nature programmes.

‘You’re lying, Harry. You’re shagging that bitch. Rakel. And you don’t think about me. Not the way you say, you hypocritical bastard. But you do think about me, all right. Like a piece of meat you can shag. Like you’re
going
to shag.’

She had slid off the desk and taken a step towards him. Harry sat there, sunk in his chair with his legs stretched out in front of him, as always. He was looking up at her with this sense that he was part of a scene that was going to be acted out, no, had already been acted out, for Christ’s sake. She stretched forward, gracefully, her hand rested on his knee, she stroked upwards, up over his belt as she leaned over him and her hand disappeared under his T-shirt. The voice purred: ‘Mmm, nice six-pack, teacher.’ Harry grabbed her hand, twisting her wrist round as he shot out of the chair. She screamed as he forced her arm up behind her back and pushed her head down towards the floor. Then he turned her towards the door, grabbed her rucksack and shoved her out of the room and down the corridor.

‘Harry!’ she groaned.

‘This hold is called the half-nelson, or by many, the police grip,’ Harry said without stopping, propelling her down the stairs. ‘Handy to learn for the exam. That is, if you get as far as the exam. Because I hope you realise you’ve put me in a position where I’ll have to report this.’

‘Harry!’

‘Not because I feel I’ve been harassed particularly, but because I question whether you have the psychological stability to work in the police force, Silje. I’ll leave it to the authorities to evaluate. So you’ll have to convince them that this was just a bit of a slip-up. Does that sound fair to you?’

He opened the front door with his free hand, and as he shoved her out she swung round and eyeballed him. It was a glare of such naked fury and ferocity it confirmed what Harry had been thinking for a while about Silje Gravseng. She was not someone who should be given police powers and unleashed on the general public.

Harry watched her as she tottered through the gate, across the square to Chateau Neuf, where a student was having a smoke and a break from the dull pounding of the music inside. He stood leaning against a street lamp, wearing an army jacket, Cuba 1960 style. Watched Silje with studied indifference until she’d passed, whereupon he turned and stared after her.

Harry stood in the corridor. Cursing loudly. Felt his pulse slowing. Took out his phone, rang one of the contacts from a list which was so short some people were entered with only one letter.

‘Arnold here.’

‘This is Harry. Silje Gravseng just turned up at my office. This time it went too far.’

‘Oh yes? Spill the beans.’

Harry gave his colleague the edited highlights.

‘This is not good, Harry. Worse, maybe, than you imagine.’

‘She might have been on something. Looked as if she’d come from a party. Or she just has problems controlling her impulses. But I need some advice here about what to do. I know I ought to report it but—’

‘You don’t understand. Are you still down by the front door?’

‘Yes. So?’ Harry said, surprised.

‘The guard must have gone home. Can you see anyone else?’

‘Anyone else?’

‘Anyone?’

‘Well, there’s a guy in the square outside Chateau Neuf.’

‘Would he have seen her leave?’

‘Yes.’

‘Perfect! Go over to him now. Talk to him. Get his name and address. Keep him occupied until I come and pick you up.’

‘You what?’

‘I’ll explain later.’

‘Am I supposed to sit on the back of your bike?’

‘I have to confess I have a kind of car here somewhere. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

‘Good . . . er, morning?’ Bjørn Holm mumbled. He peered at his watch, but wasn’t sure if he was still in dreamland.

‘Were you asleep?’

‘No, no,’ Bjørn Holm said, leaning back against the headboard and pressing the phone to his ear. As though it would bring her even closer.

‘I just wanted to tell you I’ve got a bit of the chewing gum stuck under Anton Mittet’s car seat,’ Katrine Bratt said. ‘I reckon it’s the murderer’s. But of course it’s a long shot.’

‘Yes,’ Bjørn said.

‘You mean it’s a waste of time?’

Bjørn thought she sounded disappointed. ‘You’re the detective,’ he answered and immediately regretted not saying anything more encouraging.

In the ensuing silence he wondered where she was. At home? Was she also in bed?

‘Oh well,’ she sighed. ‘By the way, something odd happened while I was in the Evidence Room.’

‘Oh yes?’ Bjørn said and could hear he was overdoing the enthusiasm.

‘I thought I heard someone else in there. I may have been mistaken, but on the way out it looked as if someone had moved one of the evidence boxes on the shelf. I checked the label . . .’

Bjørn Holm thought she was lying down; her voice had that lazy softness.

‘It was the René Kalsnes case.’

Harry closed the heavy door and locked out the gentle morning light behind him.

He walked through the cool darkness of the timber house to the kitchen. Slumped down onto a chair. Unbuttoned his shirt. It had taken time.

The guy in the army jacket had seemed fairly alarmed when Harry went over to him and asked him to wait until a police colleague arrived.

‘This is normal tobacco, you know!’ he had said, passing Harry the cigarette.

When Arnold came they took the student’s signed testimony and then got into a dust-covered Fiat of indeterminate vintage and went straight to Krimteknisk where people were still working because of the latest police murder. There, Harry undressed, and while someone took his clothing for examination, two of the male officers went over his genitals and hands with a light and contact paper. Then he was given an empty plastic beaker.

‘Give it your best shot, Hole. If there’s enough room. Toilet’s down the corridor. Think about something nice, OK?’

‘Mm.’

Harry had sensed rather than heard the suppressed laughter as he left them.

Think about something nice.

Harry fingered the copy of the report lying on the kitchen worktop. He had asked Hagen to send it. Privately. Discreetly. It consisted largely of medical terms in Latin. He understood some of them though. Enough to know that Rudolf Asayev had died in the same mysterious, inexplicable way that he had lived. And, lacking anything to suggest criminal activity, they had been obliged to conclude that it had been a cerebral infarction. A stroke. The kind of thing that happens.