Police: A Harry Hole thriller (Oslo Sequence 8) (40 page)

‘Don’t think you will,’ Harry Hole said, lifting the bar. ‘Without him you’ve got no shield.’

‘In which case,’ Valentin said, and Ståle felt his arm being bent behind his back, forcing him to stand up, ‘I’ll let the doctor go. With me.’

‘Take me instead,’ Harry Hole said.

‘Why should I?’

‘I’m a better hostage. There’s a chance he’ll panic and faint. And you won’t need to worry about what tricks I might pull if you’re holding on to me.’

Silence. From the window they could hear a faint sound. Perhaps a distant siren, perhaps not. The pressure from the blade slackened. Then – as Ståle was about to breathe again – he felt a pricking sensation and heard the snap of something being severed. It fell to the floor. The bow tie.

‘One move from you and . . .’ the voice hissed in his ear before turning to Harry. ‘As you wish, cop, but let go of the bar first. Then stand with your face to the wall, legs apart and—’

‘I know the drill,’ Harry said, letting go of the bar, turning, placing his palms high up the wall and spreading his legs.

Ståle felt the grip on his arm loosen and the next moment he saw Valentin standing behind Harry, pushing his arm up his back and holding the knife against his throat.

‘Let’s go, handsome,’ Valentin said.

Then they were out of the door.

And Ståle could finally draw breath.

From the window the sirens rose and fell with the wind.

Harry saw the receptionist’s terrified expression as he and Valentin walked towards her like a two-headed troll and passed her without a word. On the stairway Harry tried to walk more slowly, but soon felt a stinging pain in his side.

‘This knife will go deeper into your kidney if you try anything.’

Harry increased his speed. He couldn’t feel the blood yet as it was the same temperature as his skin, but he knew it was running down the inside of his shirt.

Then they were on the ground floor, and Valentin kicked open the door and pushed Harry through, but the knife never lost contact with him.

They stood in Sporveisgata. Harry heard the sirens. A man with sunglasses and a dog walked towards them. Passing by without so much as a glance, the white stick tapping on the pavement like a castanet.

‘Stand here,’ Valentin said, pointing to a No Parking sign with a mountain bike locked to the post.

Harry stood by the post. His shirt had become sticky and the pain throbbed in his side with a pulse of its own. The knife pressed into his back. He heard keys and the rattle of a bike lock. The sirens were approaching. Then the knife was gone. But before Harry could react and jump away, his head was dragged backwards as something was clamped around his neck. Sparks appeared in his eyes as his head smacked against the post and he gasped for air. The keys rattled again. Then the pressure slackened and Harry instinctively raised his hand, inserted two fingers between his throat and whatever was holding him. Bloody hell.

Valentin swung out in front of him on his bike. Put the goggles on, saluted him with two fingers to his helmet and pushed down on the pedals.

Harry watched the black rucksack disappearing down the street. The sirens couldn’t be more than two blocks away. A cyclist passed by. Helmet, black rucksack. One more. No helmet, but a black rucksack. One more. Shit, shit, shit. The sirens sounded as if they were in his head. Harry closed his eyes and thought about the old Greek logic puzzle where something is approaching, a kilometre away, half a kilometre, a third of a kilometre, a quarter, a hundredth, and if it is true that a sequence of numbers is infinite, it will never arrive.

32

‘
SO YOU JUST
stood there, fastened to a post with a bike lock around your neck?’ Bjørn Holm asked, in disbelief.

‘A sodding No Parking sign,’ Harry said, looking down at the empty coffee cup.

‘Ironic,’ Katrine said.

‘They had to send someone to get bolt cutters.’

The Boiler Room door opened and Gunnar Hagen marched in. ‘I’ve just heard the news. What’s going on?’

‘Patrol cars are in the area looking for him,’ Katrine said. ‘Every single cyclist is being stopped and searched.’

‘Even though he must have got rid of his bike by now and is in a taxi or on public transport,’ Harry said. ‘Valentin is many things, but not stupid.’

The Crime Squad boss threw himself onto a chair out of breath. ‘Did he leave any clues?’

Silence.

He looked in surprise at the wall of accusatory faces. ‘What’s up?’

Harry coughed. ‘You’re sitting on Beate’s chair.’

‘Am I?’ Hagen jumped up.

‘He left his tracksuit top,’ Harry said. ‘Bjørn’s handed it to Krimteknisk.’

‘Sweat, hair, the whole salami,’ Bjørn said. ‘Reckon we’ll have it confirmed in a day or two that Paul Stavnes and Valentin Gjertsen are one and the same.’

‘Anything else in the top?’ Hagen asked.

‘No wallet, mobile, notebook or calendar showing plans for future murders,’ Harry said. ‘Just this.’

Hagen automatically took it and looked at what Harry had passed him. An unopened little plastic bag containing three Q-tips.

‘What was he going to do with these?’

‘Kill someone?’ Harry suggested laconically.

‘They’re for cleaning your ears,’ Bjørn Holm said. ‘But actually they’re for scratching your ears, right? The skin gets irritated, we scratch even more, there’s more wax and all of a sudden we
have
to have more Q-tips. Heroin for the ears.’

‘Or for make-up,’ Harry said.

‘Oh?’ Hagen said, studying the bag. ‘By which you mean . . . he wears make-up?’

‘Well, it’s a mask. He’s already had plastic surgery. Ståle, you’ve seen him close up.’

‘I haven’t thought about it, but you may be right.’

‘You don’t need much mascara and eyeliner to achieve a difference,’ Katrine said.

‘Great,’ Hagen said. ‘Have we got anything on the name Paul Stavnes?’

‘Very little,’ Katrine said. ‘There’s no Paul Stavnes on the national register with the date of birth he gave Aune. The only two people with the same name have been eliminated by police outside Oslo. And the elderly couple who live at the address he gave have never heard of any Paul Stavnes or Valentin Gjertsen.’

‘We’re not in the habit of checking patients’ contact details,’ Aune said. ‘And he settled up after every session.’

‘Hotel,’ Harry said. ‘Boarding house, hospice. They’ve all got their guests registered on databases now.’

‘I’ll check.’ Katrine swivelled round on her chair and began to tap away on her keyboard.

‘Is that kind of thing on the Internet?’ Hagen asked in a sceptical tone.

‘No,’ Harry said. ‘But Katrine uses a couple of search engines you’ll wish didn’t exist.’

‘Oh, why’s that?’

‘Because they have access to a level of codes that mean the best firewalls in the world are completely useless,’ Bjørn Holm said, peering over Katrine’s shoulder, to a clicking landslide of keystrokes, like the feet of fleeing cockroaches on a glass table.

‘How’s that possible?’ Hagen asked.

‘Because they’re the same codes the firewalls use,’ Bjørn said. ‘The search engines
are
the wall.’

‘Not looking good,’ Katrine said. ‘No Paul Stavnes anywhere.’

‘But he must live somewhere,’ Hagen said. ‘Is he renting a flat under the name Paul Stavnes? Can you check that?’

‘Doubt he’s your run-of-the-mill tenant,’ Katrine said. ‘Most landlords vet their tenants these days. Google them, check the tax lists anyway. And Valentin knows they would be suspicious if they couldn’t find him anywhere.’

‘Hotel,’ said Harry, who had got up and was standing by the board where they had written what had seemed to Hagen at first sight like a chart of free associations with arrows and cues until he had recognised the names of the murder victims. One of them was referred to only as B.

‘You’ve already said hotel, my love,’ Katrine said.

‘Three Q-tips,’ Harry went on, leaning down to Hagen and retrieving the sealed plastic bag. ‘You can’t buy a packet like this in a shop. You find it in a hotel bathroom with miniature bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Try again, Katrine. Judas Johansen this time.’

The search was finished in less than fifteen seconds.

‘Negative,’ Katrine said.

‘Damn,’ Hagen said.

‘We’re not done yet,’ Harry said, studying the plastic bag. ‘There’s no manufacturer’s name on this, but usually Q-tips have a plastic stick and these are wooden. It should be possible to track down the suppliers and the Oslo hotels receiving the supplies.’

‘Hotel supplies,’ Katrine said, and the insect-like fingers were scam-pering again.

‘I have to be off,’ Ståle said, getting up.

‘I’ll see you out,’ Harry said.

‘You won’t find him,’ Ståle said, outside Police HQ, looking down over Bots Park, which lay bathed in cold, sharp spring light.

‘
We
, don’t you mean?’

‘Maybe,’ Ståle sighed. ‘I don’t exactly feel I’m making much of a contribution.’

‘Contribution?’ Harry said. ‘You got us Valentin all on your own.’

‘He escaped.’

‘His alias is out in the open. We’re getting closer. Why don’t you think we’ll catch him?’

‘You saw him yourself. What do you think?’

Harry nodded. ‘He said he went to you because you’d done a psychological assessment of him. At the time you concluded he was of sound mind in a legal sense, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, but, as you know, people with serious personality disorders can be convicted.’

‘What you were after was extreme schizophrenia, psychosis, at the time of the act and so on, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘But he could have been a manic-depressive or a psychopath. Correction, bipolar II or a sociopath.’

‘The correct term now is dissocial.’ Ståle accepted the cigarette Harry passed him.

Harry lit them both. ‘It’s good he goes to you even though he knows you work for the cops. But that he continues even after realising you’re involved in the hunt for him?’

Ståle inhaled and shrugged. ‘I must be such a brilliant therapist he was willing to take the risk.’

‘Any other suggestions?’

‘Well, maybe he’s a thrill-seeker. Lots of serial killers have visited detectives under a variety of pretexts to be in close contact with the hunt, to experience the triumph of fooling the police.’

‘Valentin took off his T-shirt even though he must have known you knew about the tattoo. A terrible risk if you’re under investigation for murder.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Hm, yes, what do I mean?’

‘You mean he has an unconscious desire to be caught. He wanted me to recognise him. And when I failed he unconsciously helped me by revealing his tattoo.’

‘And when he achieved his objective, he made a desperate attempt to flee?’

‘The conscious took over. This could put the police murders in a new light, Harry. Valentin’s murders are compulsive acts which, unconsciously, he wants to stop, he wants punishment, or exorcism, someone to stop the demon in him. So when we didn’t manage to catch him for the original murders, he does what many serial killers do, he increases the risk factor. In his case, by targeting the police who couldn’t catch him the first time round because he knows that for a crime against the police there is no limit to resources. And in the end he shows his tattoo to someone he knows is part of the investigation. I think you may well be right, Harry.’

‘Mm, don’t know if I can take the credit for it. What about a simpler explanation? Valentin isn’t as careful as we think he should be because he doesn’t have as much to fear as we think he does.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Harry drew on his cigarette. Released the smoke as he inhaled it through his nose. It was a trick he’d been taught by a milky-white German didgeridoo player in Hong Kong: ‘Exhale and inhale at the same fucking time, mate, and you can smoke your cigarettes twice.’

‘Go home and have a rest,’ Harry said. ‘That was a tough deal.’

‘Thank you, but I’m the psychologist here, Harry.’

‘A murderer holding a knife to your throat? Sorry, Doc, but you’re not going to be able to rationalise that away. The nightmares queue up – believe me, I’ve been there. So take it from a colleague. And that’s an order.’

‘An order?’ A twitch in Ståle’s face suggested a smile. ‘Are you the boss now, Harry?’

‘Were you ever in any doubt?’ Harry groped in his pocket. Took out his phone. ‘Yes?’

He dropped the half-smoked cigarette on the ground. ‘Will you sort it for me? They’ve found something.’

Ståle Aune watched Harry as he went through the door. Then he looked down at the smouldering cigarette on the tarmac. Gently placed his shoe on it. Increased the pressure. Turned his foot. Felt the cigarette being squashed under the thin leather sole. Felt the fury rising. Twisted it harder. Ground the filter, ash, paper and tobacco into the tarmac. Dropped his own cigarette. Repeated the movements. It felt good and bad at the same time. Felt like screaming, hitting, laughing, crying. He had tasted every nuance in the cigarette. He was alive. He was so bloody alive.

‘Casbah Hotel in Gange-Rolvs gate,’ Katrine said before Harry had closed the door behind him. ‘It’s mostly embassies who use the hotel for employees before getting them longer-term accommodation. Pretty reasonable rates, small rooms.’

‘Mm. Why this hotel in particular?’

‘It’s the only hotel which has these Q-tips delivered and is situated on the right side of town for the number 12 tram,’ Bjørn said. ‘I rang. They haven’t got any Stavnes, Gjertsen or Johansen registered in the guest book, but I faxed Beate’s drawing.’

‘And?’

‘The receptionist said they’ve got someone like him, someone called Savitski who claimed he worked at the Belarusian embassy. He used to go to work wearing a suit, but now he’s started wearing training gear. And riding a bike.’

Harry already had the receiver in his hand. ‘Hagen? We need Delta. Right now.’

33

‘
SO THAT’S WHAT
you want me to do?’ Truls said, twirling the beer glass between his fingers. They were sitting in Kampen Bistro. Mikael had said it was a very good place to eat. East Oslo chic, popular among those who
count
, the ones with more cultural capital than money, the in-crowd who had salaries low enough to maintain their student lifestyle without it seeming pathetic.