Police: A Harry Hole thriller (Oslo Sequence 8) (55 page)

After it had rung three times and no one had answered he gave up.

Then he called his contact at the telephone company. And got an answer in two seconds.

‘What do you want, Hole?’

‘I need you to track down a phone signal. For one Truls Berntsen. He’s got a police line, so he must be one of your customers.’

‘We can’t keep meeting like this.’

‘This is official police business.’

‘Follow the procedures then. Contact the police lawyer, send the case to the Crime Squad boss and call us back when you’ve got permission.’

‘This is urgent.’

‘Listen, I can’t keep giving you—’

‘This is about the police murders.’

‘It should only take a few seconds to get permission from the boss, Harry.’

Harry cursed under his breath.

‘Sorry, Harry, but it’s more than my job’s worth. If anyone finds out that I check police movements without authorisation . . . What’s the problem with getting permission?’

‘See you.’ Harry rang off. He had two unanswered calls and three text messages. They must have come through while he had the phone off. He opened the texts in turn. The first was from Rakel.

Tried calling. I’m home. Make you something nice if you tell me when you’re coming. Got a surprise. Someone to beat you at Tetris.

Harry read the message again. Rakel had come home. With Oleg. His first instinct was to jump in the car straight away. Drop this mission. He had made a mistake; he shouldn’t be here now. While knowing that was exactly what it was: a first instinct. An attempt to flee from the inevitable. The second message was from a number he didn’t recognise.

Have to talk to you. Are you at home? Silje G

He deleted the message. However, he recognised the number of the third message at once.

Think you’re looking for me. I’ve got a solution for our problem. Meet me at the G crime scene asap. Truls

44

WHEN HARRY CROSSED
the car park he noticed a car with a smashed side window. The light from the street lamp glinted on the glass splinters on the tarmac. It was a Suzuki Vitara. Berntsen had been driving round in one like it. Harry rang the police switchboard.

‘Harry Hole here. I’d like a car checked for the owner.’

‘Everyone can do that online now, Hole.’

‘You can do it for me then, can’t you?’

He received a grunt in response and read out the registration number. The answer came in three seconds.

‘Truls Berntsen. Address—’

‘That’s fine.’

‘Any report to make?’

‘What?’

‘Has it been involved in anything? Does it look as if it’s been stolen or broken into, for example?’

Pause.

‘Hello?’

‘No, it looks fine. Just a misunderstanding.’

‘A mis—’

Harry rang off. Why hadn’t Truls Berntsen driven away in his car? No one on a police salary took taxis in Oslo any more. Harry tried to visualise the metro network in Oslo. There was a line only a hundred metres away. Ryen Station. He hadn’t heard any trains. They must go through a tunnel. Harry blinked into the darkness. He had just heard something else.

The crackle as the hair on his neck stood on end.

He knew it was impossible to hear, yet it was all he could hear. He took out his phone again. Pressed K.

‘Finally,’ Katrine answered.

‘Finally?’

‘Can’t you see I’ve been trying to ring you?’

‘Oh yes? You sound out of breath.’

‘I’ve been running, Harry. Silje Gravseng.’

‘What about her?’

‘She’s got newspaper cuttings of the police murders all over her room. She keeps a baton for beating up rapists, according to the caretaker. And she’s got a brother in the funny farm after being beaten up by two policemen. And she’s nuts, Harry. Off her trolley.’

‘Where are you?’

‘In Vaterlandsparken. She’s not here. I think we should put out an alert for her.’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘She’s not the person we’re after.’

‘What do you mean? Motive, opportunity, state of mind. It’s all there, Harry.’

‘Forget Silje Gravseng. I want you to check a statistic for me.’

‘A statistic!’ She shouted so loud the membrane crackled. ‘I’m standing here with half the criminal records from the Vice Squad dribbling their filth all over me, looking for a possible police murderer, and now you want me to check a
statistic
! Sod you, Harry Hole!’

‘Check the FBI’s statistics for witnesses who have died in the period between their initial summons and the start of the trial.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Just give me the figures, OK?’

‘Not OK!’

‘Well, regard it as an order then, Katrine Bratt.’

‘OK, but . . . hey, just a minute! Who’s the boss here?’

‘If you have to ask, I doubt it’s you.’

Harry heard more Bergensian swearing before he broke the connection.

Mikael Bellman was sitting on the sofa with the TV on. The news had finished, the sport was starting, so Mikael’s gaze wandered from the TV to the window. To the town lying in the black cauldron far beneath them. The item about the City Hall chairman had lasted ten seconds. He had said that reshuffles at City Hall were standard practice, and that this time it was because of an unusually large burden on this particular post, so it was reasonable to pass the baton on to someone else. Isabelle Skøyen would return to her post as secretary to the committee for Social Affairs, which would allow the council to benefit from her skills there. Skøyen herself was unavailable for comment, it was said.

It glittered like a jewel, his town.

He heard the door to one of the children’s rooms close gently and immediately afterwards she snuggled up to him on the sofa.

‘Are they sleeping?’

‘Like logs,’ she said, and he felt her breath on his neck. ‘Feel like watching TV?’ She bit his earlobe. ‘Or . . .?’

He smiled, but didn’t budge. Enjoying the moment, feeling how perfect it was. Being here right now. At the top of the pile. The alpha male with women at his feet. One hanging on his arm. The other neutralised and rendered innocuous. The same was true of the men. Asayev was dead, Truls reinstated as his henchman, the former Police Chief an accomplice in their shared wrongdoing in such a way that he would obey if Mikael needed him again. And Mikael knew that now he had the council’s confidence even if it took time to find the cop killer.

It was a long time since he had felt so good, so relaxed. He felt her hands on him. Knew what they would do before she knew herself. She could turn him on. Though not set him alight the way other people could. Like her, the one he had cut down to size. Like him, the one who had died in Hausmanns gate. But she could arouse him enough to know he would be fucking her soon. That was marriage. And it was good. It was more than enough, and there were more important things in life.

He pulled her to him and put his hand up her green sweater. Bare skin, like placing your hand on a stove ring on low heat. She sighed softly. Leaned over to him. He didn’t actually like using his tongue when kissing her. Maybe he had once, but not any more. He had never told her that. Why should he as long as it was something she wanted and he hated? Marriage. Nevertheless it felt like a tiny relief when the cordless phone began to warble on the little table by the sofa.

He took it. ‘Yes?’

‘Hi, Mikael.’

The voice said his Christian name in such an intimate way that at first he was convinced he knew it, he just needed a couple of seconds to place the person in question.

‘Hi,’ he answered accordingly and got off the sofa. Walked towards the terrace. Away from the sound of the TV. Away from Ulla. It was an automatic movement, perfected over the years. Half out of consideration for her. Half out of consideration for his secrets.

The voice at the other end chuckled. ‘You don’t know me, Mikael. Relax.’

‘Thank you. I am relaxed,’ Mikael said. ‘I’m at home. And for that reason it would be nice if you could get to the point.’

‘I’m a nurse at the Rikshospital.’

That was a thought that hadn’t struck Mikael before, at least not that he could remember. However, it was as if he knew what was coming off by heart. He opened the door to the terrace and stepped onto the cold flagstones without taking his phone from his ear.

‘I was Rudolf Asayev’s nurse. You remember him, Mikael. Yes, of course you do. You and he did business together. He opened his heart to me when he came out of the coma. About what you two were doing.’

It had clouded over, the temperature had plummeted and the flagstones were so cold that they were hurting his feet through his socks. Nevertheless, Mikael Bellman’s sweat glands were working flat out.

‘Talking about business,’ the voice said. ‘Perhaps we have something to discuss as well.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I want some of your money to stay shtum, let me put it like that.’

It had to be him, the nurse from Enebakk. The one Isabelle had hired to get rid of Asayev. She had claimed he would gladly take his payment in sex, but obviously that hadn’t been enough.

‘How much?’ Bellman asked, attempting to be businesslike, but noticed he failed to sound as cold-blooded as he would have liked.

‘Not much. I’m a man of simple tastes. Ten thousand.’

‘Too little.’

‘Too little?’

‘It sounds like a first instalment.’

‘We could say a hundred thousand.’

‘So why don’t you?’

‘Because I need money tonight, now, the banks are closed and you can’t get more than ten thousand from an ATM.’

Desperate. That was good news. Or was it? Mikael walked to the edge of the terrace, looked down over his town and tried to concentrate. This was one of those situations where he was usually at his best, where everything was at stake and one false move could prove fatal.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Well, you can call me Dan. As in Danuvius.’

‘Great, Dan. You realise, do you, that although I’m negotiating with you, it doesn’t mean I admit anything? I could be trying to entice you into a trap and then arrest you for blackmail.’

‘The only reason you’re saying that is that you’re scared I’m a journalist who’s heard a rumour and is trying to trick you into giving yourself away.’

Damn.

‘Where?’

‘I’m at work, so you’ll have to come here. But somewhere discreet. Meet me in the locked ward. There’s no one there now. In three-quarters of an hour in Asayev’s room.’

Three-quarters of an hour. He was in a rush. It could of course be a precaution. He didn’t want to give Mikael time to set a trap. But Mikael believed in simple explanations. Like being faced with a junkie anaesthetic nurse who had suddenly run out of supplies. And, if so, that would make things easier. He might even be able to keep that particular cat in the bag for good.

‘Fine,’ Mikael said, and rang off. Breathed in the strange, almost suffocating smell coming from the terrace. Then he went into the living room and shut the door behind him.

‘I have to go out,’ he said.

‘Now?’ Ulla said, staring at him with the wounded expression that would normally annoy him enough to snap at her.

‘Now.’ He thought of the gun he had locked in the boot of his car. A Glock 22, a present from an American colleague. Unused. Unregistered.

‘When will you be back?’

‘I don’t know. Don’t wait up.’

He walked towards the hall, feeling her eyes on his back. He didn’t stop. Not until he reached the doorway.

‘No, I’m not meeting
her
. OK?’

Ulla didn’t answer. Just turned to the TV and pretended to be interested in the weather report.

Katrine swore, dripping with sweat in the Boiler Room’s clammy heat, but she kept typing.

Where the hell was it hiding, the FBI’s statistic about dead witnesses? And what the hell did Harry want with it?

She looked at her watch. Sighed and rang his number.

He didn’t pick up. Of course not.

She left a message saying she needed more time. She was deep in the FBI’s website, but this statistic had to be either very bloody secret or he’d misunderstood. Chucked the phone onto the desk. She felt like calling Leif Rødbekk. No, not him. Some other idiot who could be bothered to fuck her tonight. The first person to pop into her head produced a frown. Where did
he
come from? Sweet, but . . . but what? Had she been unconsciously nurturing this thought for a while?

She dismissed the notion and concentrated on the screen again.

Perhaps it wasn’t the FBI, perhaps it was the CIA?

She tried new search terms. Central Intelligence Agency, witness, trial and death. Return. The computer whirred. The first hits came in.

The door behind her opened, and she felt the draught from the culvert outside.

‘Bjørn?’ she said, without looking up from the screen.

Harry parked his car outside Jakob Church in Hausmanns gate and walked up to number 92.

He stopped outside and looked up at the facade.

There was a dim light on the second floor, and he noticed there were bars on the windows now. The new owner was probably sick of the burglaries via the rear fire escape.

Harry had imagined he would feel more. After all, this was where Gusto had been killed. Where he had almost had to pay with his own life.

He felt the door. It was just like before. He opened up, went straight in. At the bottom of the stairs he took out the Odessa, released the safety catch, peered up the steps and listened as he breathed in the smell of urine- and vomit-marinated woodwork. Total silence.

He started up the stairs. Moving as noiselessly as he could over wet newspaper, milk cartons and used syringes. On the second floor he stopped by the door. This was new as well. A metal door. Multiple locks. Only extremely motivated burglars would bother with this.

Harry saw no reason to knock. No reason to surrender any possible element of surprise. So when he pressed the handle, felt the door react with taut springs, but found it unlocked, he gripped the Odessa with both hands and kicked the heavy door with his right foot.