The Redbreast (Harry Hole)

by Jo Nesbo

  ‘Yes, I must have arrived about four to five minutes afterwards,’ Harry said. ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Central switchboard. They said you had rung and asked for reinforcements after Waaler reported the shooting.’

  Harry motioned with his head towards the red sports car in front of the gateway.

  ‘When I arrived I saw Waaler’s Jap car. I knew he was coming here, so that was fine. But when I got out of my car I heard a terrible howling noise. At first I thought there was a dog somewhere in the neighbour-hood. As I walked up the gravel path, however, I knew it was coming from inside the house and that it wasn’t a dog. It was human. I didn’t take any chances and rang for assistance from Økern police district.’

  ‘It was the mother?’

  Harry nodded. ‘She was completely hysterical. It took them almost half an hour before they had her in a calm enough state to say something sensible. Weber is still talking to her now, in the sitting room.’

  ‘Good old sensitive Weber?’

  ‘Weber’s fine. He’s a bit of an old sourpuss at work, but he’s pretty good with people in this kind of situation.’

  ‘I know. I was just joking. How’s Waaler taking it?’

  Harry shrugged his shoulders. ‘I know,’ Møller said. ‘He’s a cold fish. Fair enough. Shall we go in and take a dekko?’

  ‘I’ve been in.’

  ‘Well, give me a guided tour then.’

  They made their way up to the first floor as Møller mumbled greetings to colleagues he hadn’t seen for ages.

  The bedroom was full of specialists from the Crime Scene Unit and cameras were flashing. Black plastic, on which the outline of a body had been drawn, covered the bed.

  Møller let his gaze wander round the walls. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he mumbled.

  ‘Sverre Olsen didn’t vote for the Socialists,’ Harry said. ‘Don’t touch anything, Bjarne,’ shouted an inspector Harry recognised from Forensics. ‘You know what happened last time.’

  Apparently Møller did; at any rate he laughed good-naturedly.

  ‘Sverre Olsen was sitting on the bed when Waaler came in,’ Harry said. ‘According to Waaler, he was standing by the door and he asked Olsen about the night Ellen was killed. Olsen pretended he couldn’t remember the date, so Waaler asked a few more questions and gradually it became obvious that Olsen did not have an alibi. According to Waaler, he asked Olsen to go to the station with him and give a statement, and that was when Olsen suddenly grabbed the revolver that he must have kept hidden under the pillow. He fired and the bullet passed above his shoulder and through the door – here’s the hole – and through the ceiling in the hall. According to Waaler, he pulled out his service revolver and got Olsen before he could fire off any more shots.’

  ‘Quick reactions. Good shot, too, I heard.’

  ‘Smack in the forehead,’ Harry said.

  ‘Not so strange perhaps. Waaler got top results in the shooting test last autumn.’

  ‘You’re forgetting my results,’ Harry said drily.

  ‘How’s it going, Ronald?’ Møller shouted, turning to the inspector dressed in white.

  ‘Plain sailing, I reckon.’ The inspector stood up and straightened his back with a groan. ‘We found the bullet that killed Olsen behind the Eternit panel here. The one that went through the door continued on up through the ceiling. We’ll have to see if we can find that one as well so that the ballistics boys have something to play with tomorrow. The angles fit anyway.’

  ‘Hm. Thanks.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. How’s your wife by the way?’

  Møller told him how his wife was, omitted to ask how the inspector’s was, but for all Harry knew, he didn’t have one. Last year four of the boys in Forensics had separated from their wives in the same month. They had joked in the canteen that it must have been the smell of corpses.

  They saw Weber outside the house. He was standing on his own with a cup of coffee in his hand, watching the man on the ladder.

  ‘Was it alright, Weber?’ Møller asked.

  Weber squinted at them as if he first had to check whether he could be bothered to answer them.

  ‘She won’t be a problem,’ he said, peering up at the ladder man again. ‘Of course she said she couldn’t understand it because her son hated the sight of blood and so on, but we won’t have any problems as far as the factual things that happened here are concerned.’

  ‘Hm.’ Møller placed a hand behind Harry’s elbow. ‘Let’s take a little walk.’

  They strolled down the road. It was an area with small houses, small gardens and blocks of flats at the end. Some children, their faces red with effort, pedalled past them on their way up to the police cars with the sweeping blue lights. Møller waited until they were well out of the others’ hearing.

  ‘You don’t seem particularly happy that we’ve caught Ellen’s killer,’ he said.

  ‘Well, depends what you mean by happy. First of all, we don’t know if it is Sverre Olsen yet. The DNA tests —’

  ‘The DNA tests will show it’s him. What’s up, Harry?’

  ‘Nothing, boss.’

  Møller stopped. ‘Really?’

  Møller inclined his head towards the house. ‘Is it because you think Olsen got away too lightly with a quick bullet?’

  ‘I’m telling you, it’s nothing!’ Harry said with a sudden vehemence. ‘Spit it out!’ Møller bellowed. ‘I just think it’s bloody funny.’

  Møller frowned. ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘An experienced policeman like Waaler . . .’ Harry had lowered his voice. He spoke slowly, stressing every word. ‘. . . deciding to take off alone to talk to and possibly arrest a suspect. It breaks all the written and unwritten rules.’

  ‘So what are you saying? That Tom Waaler provoked it? Do you think he made Olsen go for his gun so that he could avenge Ellen’s killing? Is that it? Is that why you stood there saying according to Waaler this and according to Waaler that, precisely as if we in the police don’t trust a colleague’s words? While half the Crime Scene Unit is listening?’

  They glared at each other. Møller was almost as tall as Harry.

  ‘I’m just saying it’s bloody funny,’ Harry said, turning away. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘That’s enough, Harry! I don’t know what made you come out here after Waaler or whether you suspected that something was going to happen, but I know that I don’t want to hear any more about it. I don’t want to hear another damned word insinuating anything. Understood?’

  Harry’s eyes lingered on the Olsen family’s yellow house. It was smaller than the other houses and it didn’t have the same high hedge around it as the rest in this quiet-afternoon residential street. The other hedges made this ugly, Eternit-cladded home seem unprotected. The neighbouring houses seemed to be cold-shouldering it. There was the acidic smell of bonfires, and the distant metallic voice of the commentator from Bjerke trotting track came and went with the wind.

  Harry shrugged. ‘Sorry. I . . . you know.’

  Møller put his hand on his shoulder.

  ‘She was the best. I know that, Harry.’

  65

  Schrøder’s. 2 May 2000.

  THE OLD MAN WAS READING AFTENPOSTEN. HE WAS DEEPLY engrossed, studying the form for the trotting races when his attention was caught by the waitress standing by his table.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, putting the large glass in front of him. As usual, he didn’t answer, merely observed her as she counted his change. Her age was indefinable, but he guessed somewhere between thirty-five and forty. And she looked as if the years had been as hard to her as to the clientele she served. But she had a nice smile. Could knock back a drink or two. She left and he downed the first swig of his beer as his eyes wandered round the room.

  He looked at his watch. Then he got up, went over to the coin-operated phones at the back of the room, deposited three one-krone coins, punched in the number and waited. After three rings the phone was picked up.

  ‘Juu
l.’

  ‘Signe?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He could hear from her voice that she was already frightened, she knew who was ringing. This was the sixth time, so perhaps she had worked out the pattern and knew he would ring today.

  ‘This is Daniel,’ he said.

  ‘Who is that? What do you want?’ Her breath came in quick, successive pants.

  ‘I just told you, it’s Daniel. I only want you to repeat what you said years ago. Do you remember?’

  ‘Please stop this. Daniel is dead.’

  ‘Until death us do part, Signe. Until death us do part.’

  ‘I’ll phone the police.’

  He put down the receiver. Then he donned his hat and coat and walked slowly out into the sunshine. In Sankthanshaugen Park the first buds had appeared. It wouldn’t be long now.

  66

  Dinner. 5 May 2000.

  RAKEL’S LAUGHTER PENETRATED THE CONSTANT BUZZ OF voices, cutlery and busy waiters in the packed restaurant.

  ‘. . . and I was almost scared when I saw that there was a message on the answerphone,’ Harry said. ‘You know that small flashing eye. And then your voice of authority.’

  He lowered his voice into a deep key.

  ‘This is Rakel. Dinner at eight on Friday. Don’t forget, nice suit and wallet. Helge was scared out of his wits. I had to give him two millet cobs before he calmed down.’

  ‘I didn’t say that!’ she protested between bursts of laughter. ‘It was similar.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t! And it was your fault. It was the message you’ve got on your answerphone.’

  She tried to find the same deep key: ‘This is Hole. Speak to me. That is just so . . . so . . .’

  ‘Harry-like?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  It had been a perfect dinner, a perfect evening, and now it was time to ruin it, Harry thought.

  ‘Meirik has given me my orders. I have to go to Sweden on an undercover assignment,’ he said, fidgeting with his glass of Farris water. ‘Six months. I’m leaving after the weekend.’

  ‘Oh.’

  He was surprised when he didn’t see a reaction register on her face.

  ‘I rang Sis and my father and told them earlier today,’ he went on. ‘My father spoke. He even wished me good luck.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ She gave him a fleeting smile and busied herself with the dessert menu.

  ‘Oleg will miss you,’ she said in a low voice.

  He looked at her, but couldn’t catch her eye.

  ‘And what about you?’ he asked.

  A wry smile flitted across her face.

  ‘They’ve got Banana Split à la Szechuan,’ she said.

  ‘Order two.’

  ‘I’ll miss you too,’ she said and her eyes found the next page of the menu.

  ‘How much?’

  She shrugged.

  He repeated the question. And watched her take a breath. She was poised to speak, but let the air out. Then she started again. In the end it came.

  ‘Sorry, Harry, but right now there’s only space for one man in my life. A little man of six.’

  It felt like having a bucket of freezing cold water poured over your head.

  ‘Come on,’ Harry said. ‘I can’t be that wrong.’

  She raised her eyes from the menu with a quizzical expression on her face.

  ‘You and me,’ Harry said, leaning across the table. ‘Here, this evening. We’re flirting. We’re having fun. But we want more than that. You want more than that.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Not perhaps. Absolutely certain. You want everything.’

  ‘So what.’

  ‘So what? You have to tell me, that’s what, Rakel. I’m off to some dump in southern Sweden in a few days’ time. I’m not a spoiled man. I just want to know if I have anything to come back to in the autumn.’

  Their eyes met and this time he held her gaze. For a long time. She finally put down the menu.

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be like this. I know this will sound strange, but . . . the alternative won’t work.’

  ‘What alternative?’

  ‘Doing what I feel like doing. Taking you home and taking off all your clothes and making love to you all night.’

  She whispered the last part softly and quickly. As if it were something she had wanted to wait until the very last minute to say, but when it had to be said, it had to be said exactly like that. Blunt and unadorned.

  ‘What about one more night?’ Harry said.‘What about several nights? What about tomorrow night and the night after that and next week and . . . ?’

  ‘Stop it!’ She had an angry line over the bridge of her nose. ‘You have to understand, Harry. It won’t work.’

  ‘Right.’ Harry flicked out a cigarette and lit it. He allowed her to stroke his chin, his mouth. The gentle touch ran like an electric shock along his nerve fibres, leaving a dull pain.

  ‘It’s not you, Harry. For a while I thought I might be able to do it again. I’ve been through all the arguments. Two adults. No one else involved. Non-committal and simple. And a man I feel more for than anyone since . . . since Oleg’s father. That’s why it won’t stop with just the once. And that . . . that is no good.’

  She fell silent.

  ‘Is it because Oleg’s father is an alcoholic?’

  ‘Why do you ask about that?’

  ‘I don’t know. It could explain why you don’t want to get involved with me. Not that you need to have been with another alkie to know that I’m not a good catch, but . . .’

  She rested her hand on his.

  ‘You’re a good catch, Harry. It’s not that.’

  ‘So what is it then?’

  ‘This is the last time. That’s what it is. We won’t meet again.’

  Her eyes rested on him. And he saw it now. They weren’t tears of laughter gleaming in the corners of her eyes.

  ‘And the rest of the story?’ he asked, trying to force a smile. ‘Is that like everything else in POT, on a need-to-know basis?’

  She nodded.

  The waiter came to their table, but must have sensed his timing was off and went away again.

  She opened her mouth to say something. Harry could see that she was on the verge of tears. She bit her lower lip. Then she put the napkin down on the tablecloth, shoved her chair back, stood up without a word and left. Harry remained, sitting and staring at the napkin. She must have been squeezing it in her hand for some time, he mused, because it was crumpled up into a ball. He watched it slowly unfold like a white paper flower.

  67

  Halvorsen’s Flat. 6 May 2000.

  WHEN HALVORSEN WAS WOKEN BY THE TELEPHONE RINGING, the luminous figures on the digital alarm clock showed 1.30 a.m.

  ‘Hole speaking. Were you asleep?’

  ‘Nope,’ Halvorsen said, without the slightest idea why he should lie.

  ‘I had a couple of things on my mind, about Sverre Olsen.’

  From the breathing and the traffic in the background it sounded as if Harry was out walking.

  ‘I know what you want to know,’ Halvorsen said.‘Sverre Olsen bought a pair of combat boots at Top Secret in Henrik Ibsens gate. They recognised him from the photo and furthermore they could give us the date. You see, Kripos had been there to check his alibi in connection with the Hallgrim Dale case before Christmas. But I faxed all that up to your office earlier today.’

  ‘I know. I’ve just come from there now.’

  ‘Now? I thought you were going out for dinner this evening?’

  ‘Well, we finished early.’

  ‘And you went back to work?’ Halvorsen asked, in disbelief.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I did. It was your fax which started me thinking. I was wondering if you could check a couple of other things for me tomorrow.’

  Halvorsen groaned. First of all, Møller had told him in a way that brooked no misunderstanding: Harry was to have nothing to do with the Ellen Gjelten case. And second: tomorrow was
Saturday.

  ‘Are you there, Halvorsen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can imagine what Møller said. Don’t take any bloody notice. Now you’ve got the chance to learn a little more about detective work.’

  ‘The problem is, Harry —’

  ‘Keep quiet and listen, Halvorsen.’

  Halvorsen cursed to himself. And listened.

  68

  Vibes Gate. 8 May 2000.

  THE SMELL OF FRESHLY BREWED COFFEE WAFTED INTO THE hall where Harry was hanging his jacket on an overloaded coat stand.

  ‘Thank you for receiving me at such short notice, herr Fauke.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Fauke mumbled from the kitchen. ‘An old man like me is only too happy to help. If I can help.’

  He poured coffee into two large mugs and put them on the kitchen table. Harry ran the tips of his fingers along the rough surface of the dark, heavy oak table.

  ‘From Provence,’ Fauke said without any prompting. ‘My wife liked French peasant furniture.’

  ‘Wonderful table. Your wife had good taste.’

  Fauke smiled.

  ‘Are you married? No? Never been married? You shouldn’t wait too long, you know. You become difficult, on your own all the time.’

  He laughed.

  ‘I know what I’m talking about. I was past thirty when I got married. That was late for the time. May 1955.’

  He pointed to one of the photographs hanging on the wall over the kitchen table.

  ‘Is that really your wife?’ Harry asked. ‘I thought it was Rakel.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course,’ after first looking at Harry in surprise. ‘I forgot that you and Rakel knew each other from POT.’

  They went into the sitting room, where the piles of paper had grown since his last visit and occupied all the chairs except the one at the desk. Fauke cleared a place for them to sit by the overflowing coffee table.