The Bat

by Jo Nesbo

  Outside a Vietnamese restaurant a waiter stood leaning against the door frame smoking. He looked as if he’d had a long day already. The queue of cars and people slowly oozed along Darlinghurst Road in King’s Cross.

  On the corner of Bayswater Road Andrew stood chewing a bratwurst.

  ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘On the dot. Germanic to the core.’

  ‘Germany’s—’

  ‘Germans are Teutons. You come from a northern Germanic tribe. You even look it. You’re not denying your own tribe, are you?’

  Harry was tempted to reply with the same question, but refrained.

  Andrew was in bubbly mood. ‘Let’s kick off with someone I know,’ he said.

  They agreed to start the search for the proverbial needle as close to the middle of the haystack as they could get – among the prostitutes in Darlinghurst Road. They were not hard to find. Harry already recognised a few of them.

  ‘Mongabi, my man, how’s business?’ Andrew stopped and warmly greeted a dark-skinned man wearing a tight suit and bulky jewellery. A gold tooth glistened when he opened his mouth.

  ‘Tuka, you raging stallion! Can’t complain, you know.’

  He looks like a pimp, if anyone does, Harry thought.

  ‘Harry, say hello to Teddy Mongabi, the baddest pimp in Sydney. He’s been doing this for twenty years and still stands with his girls on the street. Aren’t you getting a bit long in the tooth for this now, Teddy?’

  Teddy threw up his arms and grinned. ‘I like it down here, Tuka. This is where it’s happening, you know. If you sit in an office it isn’t long before you lose your perspective and control. And control is everything in this game, you know. Control of the girls and control of the punters. People are like dogs, you know. A dog you don’t have under control is an unhappy dog. And unhappy dogs bite, you know.’

  ‘If you say so, Teddy. Listen, I’d like to have a word with one of your girls. We’re on the lookout for a bad boy. He could have been up to some of his tricks here, too.’

  ‘Fine, who’d you like to talk to?’

  ‘Is Sandra here?’

  ‘Sandra’ll be here any moment. Sure you don’t want anything else? Apart from a chat, I mean.’

  ‘No thanks, Teddy. We’ll be at the Palladium. Can you tell her to drop by?’

  Outside the Palladium there was a doorman encouraging the crowd to enter with salacious enticements. He brightened up when he saw Andrew, who exchanged two words with the doorman and they were waved past the ticket office. A narrow staircase led down into the cellar of the dimly lit strip club where a handful of men sat round tables waiting for the next performance. They found a table some way back in the room.

  ‘Seems like you know everyone round here,’ Harry said.

  ‘Everyone who needs to know me. And I need to know. Surely you have this weird symbiosis between police and the underworld in Oslo, too, don’t you?’

  ‘Course. But you seem to have a warmer relationship with your contacts than we do.’

  Andrew laughed. ‘I guess I feel a certain affinity. If I hadn’t been in the police force I might have been in this business, who knows.’

  A black miniskirt teetered down the stairs on high stilettos. Beneath the short fringe she peered around with heavy, glazed eyes. Then she came over to their table. Andrew pushed out a chair for her.

  ‘Sandra, this is Harry Holy.’

  ‘Really?’ she said, with broad, red lips held in a crooked smile. One canine was missing. Harry shook a cold, corpse-like hand. There was something familiar about her. Had he seen her in Darlinghurst Road one night? Perhaps she had been wearing different make-up or different clothes?

  ‘So what’s this about? Are you after some villains, Kensington?’

  ‘We’re looking for one villain in particular, Sandra. He likes to choke girls. Using his hands. Ring a bell?’

  ‘A bell? Sounds like fifty per cent of our customers. Has he hurt anyone?’

  ‘Probably only those who were able to identify him,’ Harry said. ‘Have you seen this guy?’ He held up the photo of Evans White.

  ‘No,’ she answered without looking, and turned to Andrew. ‘Who’s this then, Kensington?’

  ‘He’s from Norway,’ Andrew said. ‘He’s a policeman and his sister was working at the Albury. She was raped and murdered last week. Twenty-three years old. Harry’s taken compassionate leave and come here to find the man who did it.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Sandra looked at the photo. ‘Yes,’ she said. Nothing else.

  Harry got excited. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, yes, I’ve seen him.’

  ‘Have you, er . . . met him?’

  ‘No, but he’s been in Darlinghurst Road several times. I have no idea what he was doing here, but his face is familiar. I can ask around a bit.’

  ‘Thank you . . . Sandra,’ Harry said. She sent him a quick smile.

  ‘I have to go to work now, boys. See you, I guess.’ With that, the miniskirt went the same way it had come.

  ‘Yes!’ Harry shouted.

  ‘Yes? Because someone’s seen the bloke in King’s Cross? Making an appearance in Darlinghurst Road is not forbidden. Nor is shagging prostitutes, if that’s what he did. Not very forbidden, anyway.’

  ‘Don’t you feel it, Andrew? There are four million inhabitants in Sydney, and she’s seen the one person we’re looking for. Of course, it doesn’t prove anything, but it’s a sign, isn’t it? Can’t you feel we’re getting warmer?’

  The muzak was switched off and the lights were lowered. The customers in the establishment directed their attention to the stage.

  ‘You’re pretty sure about this Evans White, aren’t you.’

  Harry nodded. ‘Every fibre in my body tells me it’s Evans White. I’ve got a gut instinct, yes.’

  ‘Gut instinct?’

  ‘Intuition isn’t hocus-pocus when you think about it, Andrew.’

  ‘I’m thinking about it now, Harry. And I can’t feel anything in my gut. Explain to me how this gut of yours works, if you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Harry looked at Andrew to check he wasn’t pulling his leg. Andrew returned the gaze with a genuinely interested expression. ‘Intuition is just the sum of all your experience. The way I see it, everything you’ve experienced, everything you know, you think you know and didn’t know you knew is there in your subconscious lying dormant, as it were. As a rule you don’t notice the sleeping creature, it’s just there, snoring and absorbing new things, right. But now and then it blinks, stretches and tells you, hey, I’ve seen this picture before. And tells you where in the picture things belong.’

  ‘Wonderful, Holy. But are you sure your sleeping creature sees all the details in this picture? What you see depends on where you’re standing and the angle you’re looking from.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Take the sky. The sky you see in Norway is just the same as the one you see in Australia. But because now you’re down under, you’re standing on your head compared with being at home, aren’t you. So you see the stars upside down. If you don’t know you’re standing upside down you get confused and make mistakes.’

  Harry looked at Andrew. ‘Upside down, eh?’

  ‘Yep.’ Andrew puffed on his cigar.

  ‘At school I learned that the sky you see is quite different from the one we see. If you’re in Australia the globe covers the view of the stars we see at night in Norway.’

  ‘OK then,’ Andrew said, unruffled. ‘Nevertheless, it’s a question of where you view things from. The point is that everything is relative, isn’t it. And that’s what makes it so bloody complicated.’

  From the stage came a hissing sound and white smoke. The next moment it changed to red and violins were heard from the speakers. A woman wearing a plain dress and a man in trousers and a white shirt stepped out of the smoke.

  Harry had heard the music before. It was the same as the drone he had heard in his neighbour’s headphones o
n the plane, all the way from London. But it was only now he understood the text. A woman’s voice was singing that they called her the wild rose and she didn’t know why.

  The girlish timbre was in sharp contrast to the man’s deep, sombre voice:

  ‘Then I kissed her goodbye,

  Said all beauty must die,

  I bent down and planted a rose between her teeth . . .’

  Harry was dreaming about stars and yellow-and-brown snakes when he was awoken by a light click of his hotel-room door. For a moment he lay still, aware only of how contented he was. It had started raining again, and the drainpipes outside his window were singing. He got up, naked, opened the door wide and hoped his incipient erection would be noticed. Birgitta laughed with surprise and leapt into his arms. Her hair was soaking wet.

  ‘I thought you said three,’ Harry said, pretending to be offended.

  ‘The customers wouldn’t leave,’ she said, lifting her freckly face to him.

  ‘I’m wildly, uncontrollably, head over heels in love with you,’ he whispered, gripping her face between his hands.

  ‘I know,’ she said.

  Harry stood by the window, drinking orange juice from the minibar and examining the sky. The clouds had drifted away again, and someone had stuck a fork in the velvet sky several times so that the divine light behind shone through the holes.

  ‘What do you think of transvestites?’ Birgitta asked from the bed.

  ‘You mean, what do I think of Otto?’

  ‘As well.’

  Harry thought. ‘I think I like his arrogant style. The lowered eyelids, the displeased expression. The world-weariness. What should I call it? It’s like a melancholy cabaret in which he flirts with all and sundry. A superficial, self-parodying flirtation.’

  ‘And you like that?’

  ‘I like his couldn’t-give-a-stuff attitude. And that he stands for everything the majority hates.’

  ‘And what is it that the majority hates?’

  ‘Weakness. Vulnerability. Australians boast that they’re a liberal nation. Perhaps they are as well. But my understanding is that their ideal is the honest, uncomplicated, hard-working Australian with a good sense of humour and a touch of patriotism.’

  ‘True blue.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They call it being true blue. Or fair dinkum. It means someone or something is genuine, decent.’

  ‘And behind the facade of jovial decency it’s easy to hide so much bloody crap. Otto, on the other hand, with all his outlandish garb, representing seduction, illusion and falsity, strikes me as the best example of sincerity I’ve met here. Naked, vulnerable and genuine.’

  ‘That sounds very PC, if you ask me. Harry Holy, the gay man’s best friend.’ Birgitta was in teasing mode.

  ‘I argued the point well though, didn’t I?’

  He lay down on the bed, looked at her and blinked his innocent, blue eyes. ‘I’m bloody glad I’m not in the mood for another round with you, frøken. As we’ve got to get up so early in the morning, I mean.’

  ‘You just say things like that to get me going,’ Birgitta said, as they launched themselves at each other once more.

  19

  A Pleasant Prostitute

  HARRY FOUND SANDRA in front of Dez Go-Go. She was standing by the kerb scanning her little queendom in King’s Cross, her legs tired from balancing on high heels, her arms crossed, a cigarette between her fingers and the Sleeping Beauty eyes that are both inviting and repelling at once. In short, she looked like a prostitute in any part of the world.

  ‘Morning,’ Harry said. Sandra gazed at him without a sign of recognition. ‘Remember me?’

  She raised the corners of her mouth. It might have been intended as a smile. ‘Sure, love. Let’s go.’

  ‘I’m Holy, the policeman.’

  Sandra peered at him. ‘So it bloody is. At this hour my contact lenses are beginning to go on strike. Must be all the exhaust fumes.’

  ‘Can I buy you a coffee?’ Harry asked politely.

  She shrugged. ‘Not much going on here any more, so I may as well call it a night.’

  Teddy Mongabi suddenly appeared in the strip-club door chewing a matchstick. He nodded briefly to Harry.

  ‘How did your parents take it?’ Sandra asked when the coffee came. They were sitting in Harry’s breakfast place, Bourbon & Beef, and the waiter remembered Harry’s regular order: Eggs Benedict, hash browns, flat white. Sandra took her coffee black.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Your sister . . .’

  ‘Oh, yes, right.’ He lifted the cup to his mouth to gain time.

  ‘Mm, yes, as well as can be expected. Thank you for asking.’

  ‘It’s a terrible world we live in.’

  The sun had not yet cleared the rooftops in Darlinghurst Road, but the sky was already azure with a few circular puffs of cloud here and there. It looked like wallpaper for a child’s room. But it didn’t help, because the world was a terrible place.

  ‘I talked to some of the girls,’ Sandra said. ‘The bloke’s name in the picture is White. He’s a dealer. Speed and acid. Some of the girls buy from him, but none of them has had him as a customer.’

  ‘Perhaps he doesn’t have to pay to have his needs covered,’ Harry said.

  Sandra snorted. ‘Need for sex is one thing. Need to buy sex is quite another. For lots of men that’s the kick. There’s plenty we can do for you that you don’t get at home, believe you me.’

  Harry glanced up. Sandra was staring straight at him and the glaze in her eyes was gone for a moment.

  He believed her.

  ‘Did you check the dates we talked about?’

  ‘One of the girls says she bought acid off him the night before your sister was found.’

  Harry put down the cup of coffee, spilling it, and leaned across the table. He spoke quickly and softly. ‘Can I talk to her? Is she reliable?’

  Sandra’s broad, red mouth parted in a smile. There was a black cavity where the tooth was missing. ‘As I said, she bought acid, which is forbidden in Australia. And is she reliable? She’s an acidhead . . .’ She hunched her shoulders. ‘I’m only telling you what she told me. But she doesn’t have the world’s clearest concept of what day a Wednesday or a Thursday is, let’s put it like that.’

  The mood at the morning meeting was irritable. Even the fan’s growl was deeper than usual.

  ‘Sorry, Holy. We’re dropping White. No motive, and that woman of his says he was in Nimbin at the time of the murder,’ Watkins said.

  Harry raised his voice. ‘Listen, Angelina Hutchinson is on speed and God knows what else. She’s pregnant, probably by Evans White. He’s her pusher, for Christ’s sake! God and Jesus rolled into one! She’ll do whatever he tells her. We spoke to the landlord and the woman hated Inger Holter, and with good reason. The Norwegian girl tried to steal her golden goose.’

  ‘Perhaps we’d better have a closer look at the Hutchinson woman,’ Lebie said quietly. ‘At least she has a clear motive. Perhaps she’s the one who needs White as an alibi and not the other way round.’

  ‘White’s lying, isn’t he. He was seen in Sydney the day before Inger Holter was found.’ Harry had got up and walked the two paces the conference room allowed.

  ‘By a prostitute on LSD and we don’t even know if she’ll make a statement,’ Watkins pointed out, turning to Yong. ‘What did the airlines say?’

  ‘The Nimbin police themselves saw White in the main street three days before the murder. Neither Ansett Airlines nor Qantas has had White on the passenger lists between that time and the murder.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean a thing,’ Lebie growled. ‘If you sell dope you don’t travel under your own name. Anyway, he could have caught the train. Or driven if he’d had the time.’

  Harry had some steam up now. ‘I repeat. American statistics show that in seventy per cent of all murder cases the victim knows the murderer. Yet we’re focusing the investigation on a serial killer we all know we ha
ve as much chance of catching as winning the pools. Shouldn’t we do something with better odds? After all, we have a guy who has quite a bit of circumstantial evidence stacked against him. The point is that now we have to shake him. Act while the trail’s still hot. Bring him in and wave a charge in his face. Push him into making a mistake. Right now he has us where he wants us: in . . . a . . . a . . .’ He searched in vain for the English word for bakevja. Rut.

  ‘Hm,’ Watkins said, thinking aloud. ‘Course it won’t look too good if someone we had right under our noses turns out to be guilty, and we did nothing.’

  At that moment the door opened and Andrew entered. ‘G’day, folks, sorry I’m late. But someone has to keep the streets safe. What’s up, boss? You’ve got a frown on you like the Jamison Valley.’

  Watkins sighed.

  ‘We’re wondering whether to redistribute some of the resources here. Drop the serial-killer theory for a while and put all our energies into Evans White. Or Angelina Hutchinson. Holy seems to think her alibi’s not up to much.’

  Andrew laughed and plucked an apple from his pocket. ‘I’d like to see a pregnant girl of forty-five kilos squeeze the life out of a sturdy Scandinavian woman. And then fuck her afterwards.’

  ‘Just a thought,’ muttered Watkins.

  ‘And as far as Evans White’s concerned, you can forget it.’ Andrew shone the apple on his sleeve.

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘I’ve just been talking to a contact. He was in Nimbin buying some grass on the day of the murder, having heard about White’s wonderful products.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘No one told him White didn’t do business from home, so he went to his flat only to be chased away by a raving lunatic with a rifle under his arm. I showed him the photo. Sorry, but there’s no doubt that Evans White was in Nimbin on the day of the murder.’