Cockroaches

by Jo Nesbo

  “Don’t say that,” Harry said. Her skin burned against his palm. “That’s bad luck.”

  “Better bad luck than no luck, Pappa used to say.”

  He retracted his hand.

  “Don’t you want eternal life?” she whispered.

  He blinked and knew that his brain had taken a snap of them there and then, on a footbridge with people hurrying past in both directions and a shimmering sea serpent below. Just like you take snaps of places you visit because you know you won’t be there long. He had done it before, one night in mid-jump at Frogner Lido, another night in Sydney when a red mane of hair blew backward in the wind, and on a cold February afternoon at Fornebu Airport when Sis was waiting for him among the press photographers and the storm of camera flashes. He knew that whatever happened he would always be able to access the snaps, they would never fade; on the contrary, they would have more consistency and substance over the years.

  At that moment he felt a drop on his face. And then another. He looked up in amazement.

  “I was told there was no rain before May,” he said.

  “Mango showers,” Runa said, turning her face to the sky. “We get them sometimes. It means the mangoes are ripe. Soon it’ll pelt down. Come on …”

  * * *

  Harry was falling asleep. The noise was no longer so obtrusive, and he had started to notice that there was a kind of rhythm to the traffic, a kind of predictability. The first night he would wake up to the sound of horns honking. In a few nights he would probably wake up if he couldn’t hear any horns honking. The racket of a broken silencer didn’t come from nowhere, it had a place in the apparent chaos. It just took a little time to adjust to it, like learning to find your sea legs on a boat.

  He had arranged to meet Runa at a cafe by the university the next day to ask some questions about her father. Her hair had still been dripping when she got out of the taxi.

  For the first time in a long while he dreamed about Birgitta. The hair sticking to her pale skin. But she smiled and was alive.

  20

  Tuesday, January 14

  It took the lawyer four hours to have Woo released from custody.

  “Dr. Ling. He works for Sorensen,” Liz said at the morning meeting and sighed. “Nho only had time to ask Woo where he was on the day of the murder, then it was over.”

  “And what did the mobile lie detector get out of the answer?” Harry asked.

  “Nothing,” Nho said. “He wasn’t interested in telling us anything.”

  “Nothing? Shit, and there was me thinking you Thais were handy with water torture and electric shocks. So now there’s a giant psychopath out there who wishes me dead.”

  “Could somebody please give me some good news?” Liz said.

  A newspaper crackled.

  “I rang the Maradiz Hotel again. The first person I spoke to said there was a farang who used to go there with a woman from the embassy. This guy said the woman was white and they spoke to each other in a language which he thought might have been German or Dutch.”

  “Norwegian,” Harry said.

  “I tried to get a description of the two, but they weren’t very clear.”

  Liz sighed. “Sunthorn, drive over with some photos and see if they can identify the ambassador and his wife.”

  Harry wrinkled his nose. “Man and wife have a love nest for two hundred dollars a day a few kilometers from where they live? Isn’t that a bit perverse?”

  “According to the man I spoke to today, they stayed there at weekends,” Rangsan said. “I’ve got a few dates.”

  “I would bet yesterday’s winnings it wasn’t his wife,” Harry said.

  “Maybe not,” Liz said. “Anyway, it probably won’t get us very far.”

  She concluded the meeting by telling the rest of the team to spend the day doing neglected paperwork on cases which were dropped when the murder of the Norwegian ambassador was given top priority.

  “So we’re back to square one?” Harry asked, after the others had left.

  “We’ve been there the whole time,” Liz said. “Perhaps you’ll get what you Norwegians want.”

  “What we want?”

  “I talked to our Chief of Police this morning. He had spoken to a Mr. Torhus in Norway yesterday, who wanted to know how long this was going to take. The Norwegian authorities asked for some clarification this week if we didn’t have anything concrete. The Chief told him this was a Thai investigation and we didn’t shelve murder cases just like that. But later on he received a call from our Ministry of Justice. Good job we got the sightseeing done while there was time, Harry. Looks like you’ll be going home on Friday. Unless, as they said, something concrete turns up.”

  “Harry!”

  Tonje Wiig met him in reception, her cheeks flushed and a smile so red he suspected she had put on some lipstick before she came out.

  “We must have some tea,” she said. “Ao!”

  Miss Ao had stared at him in dumb fear when he arrived, and even though he’d hastened to say his visit had nothing to do with her, he noticed her eyes, like an antelope by a watering hole, always drinking within sight of lions. She turned her back on them and left them alone.

  “Nice-looking girl,” Tonje said, with a searching glance at Harry.

  “Lovely,” he said. “Young.”

  Tonje appeared content with the answer and led him into her office.

  “I tried to ring you last night,” she said, “but you obviously weren’t at home.”

  Harry could see she wanted him to ask why she had rung, but he refrained. Miss Ao came in with the tea, and he waited until she had gone.

  “I need some information,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “Since you were the chargé d’affaires when the ambassador was away I assume you kept track of his absences.”

  “Naturally.”

  He read out four dates to her, which she checked against her calendar. The ambassador had been to Chiang Mai three times and to Vietnam once. Harry slowly took notes as he prepared for the follow-up.

  “Did the ambassador know any Norwegian women in Bangkok apart from his wife?”

  “No …” Tonje said. “Not as far as I know. Well, apart from me, that is.”

  Harry waited until she had put down her cup before asking: “What would you say if I said I think you were having a relationship with the ambassador?”

  Tonje Wiig’s chin dropped. She was a credit to Norwegian dental care.

  “Oh, golly gosh!” she said. So free of irony that Harry could only assume “golly gosh” still existed in some women’s vocabulary. He cleared his throat.

  “I think you and the ambassador spent the dates we just noted at the Maradiz Hotel, and if so I would like you to account for your relationship and tell me where you were the day he died.”

  It was surprising that someone as pale as Tonje Wiig could turn even whiter.

  “Should I talk to a lawyer?” she said at length.

  “Not unless you have something to hide.”

  He saw a tear had formed in the corner of her eye.

  “I have nothing to hide,” she said.

  “In which case, you should talk to me.”

  She carefully dabbed her eye so as not to smudge her mascara.

  “Sometimes I felt like killing him, Officer.”

  Harry noted the change in the form of address and waited patiently.

  “So much so that I was almost glad when I heard he was dead.”

  He could hear that her tongue was loosening. It was important not to say or do anything stupid to stem the flow now. One confession seldom comes alone.

  “Because he didn’t want to leave his wife?”

  “No!” She shook her head. “You don’t understand. Because he ruined everything for me! Everything that …”

  The first sob was so bitter that Harry knew he had struck something. Then she pulled herself together and dried both eyes

  “This was a political appointment. He wa
sn’t remotely qualified for the job. They sent him here in great haste, as though they couldn’t get him out of Norway fast enough. There had already been signals I would be the candidate for the post but I had to give the keys to the ambassador’s office to someone who didn’t know the difference between a chargé and an attaché. And we never had any kind of relationship. That would have been an absolutely absurd notion to me. Can’t you see that?”

  “What happened then?”

  “When I was sent for, to identify him, I suddenly forgot about all the appointment business—I was getting a new chance. Instead I remembered what a nice, clever man he had been. He was!”

  She said it as if Harry had protested.

  “Even though he wasn’t much good as an ambassador, in my opinion. There are some things which are more important than a job and a career. Perhaps I shouldn’t even apply for the post. We’ll have to see. There’s so much to think about. Yes, no, I won’t say anything definite now.”

  She sniffed a couple of times and seemed to have recovered. “It’s very unusual for a chargé d’affaires to be appointed as an ambassador at the same embassy, you know. To my knowledge, it’s never happened.”

  She pulled out a mirror and checked her makeup, and said, apparently to herself: “But there’s a first time for everything, I suppose.”

  Once Harry was in the taxi on his way back to the police station he decided to leave Tonje Wiig off his list of suspects. Partly because she had been convincing, partly because she could prove she had been somewhere else on the dates the ambassador had spent at the Maradiz Hotel. Tonje had also confirmed there were not a great many Norwegian women resident in Bangkok to choose from.

  Therefore it came as a blow to the solar plexus to suddenly have to think the unthinkable. Because it simply wasn’t so unthinkable.

  * * *

  The girl who came through the glass door at the Hard Rock Cafe was a different girl from the one he had seen in the garden and at the funeral, the one with the turned-off, introverted body language and the bad-tempered, defiant expression. Runa’s face opened into a beam when she spotted him sitting with an empty bottle of Coke and a newspaper in front of him. She was wearing a short-sleeved, blue flowery dress. Like a practiced illusionist her prosthesis was hardly noticeable.

  “You’re early,” she said with delight.

  “It’s difficult to get the times right with the traffic,” he said. “I didn’t want to be late.”

  She grabbed a seat and ordered an iced tea.

  “Yesterday. Your mother—”

  “Was asleep,” she said curtly. So curt that Harry guessed it was meant as a warning. But he didn’t have time to beat around the bush anymore.

  “Drunk, you mean?”

  She looked up at him. The happy smile had evaporated.

  “Was it my mother you wanted to talk about?”

  “Among other things. What was your parents’ relationship like?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?”

  “Because I think you’re worse at lying,” he answered honestly.

  “Oh yes? In that case they got on like a house on fire.” She had the defiant expression back.

  “That bad, eh?”

  She squirmed.

  “Sorry, Runa, but this is my job.”

  She shrugged. “My mother and I don’t get on so well. But Pappa and I were great friends. I think she was jealous.”

  “Of whom?”

  “Of both of us. Of him. I don’t know.”

  “Why of him?”

  “He didn’t seem to need her. She was so much air to him …”

  Harry couldn’t believe what he was about to ask. But he had seen so many terrible things over the years. He paused. “Did your father sometimes take you to a hotel, Runa? The Maradiz Hotel, for example.”

  He saw the astonishment on her face.

  “What do you mean? Why would he?”

  He stared down at the newspaper on the table, but forced himself to lift his gaze.

  “What?” she burst out, stirring the spoon in her cup vigorously and making the tea slop over. “You say the weirdest things. What are you getting at?”

  “Well, Runa, I know this is difficult, but I think your father has done things he would have regretted.”

  “Pappa? Pappa always regretted. He regretted and shouldered the blame and complained … but the witch wouldn’t leave him in peace. She hounded him all the time, you’re not this and you’re not that and you’ve dragged me here and so on. She thought I didn’t hear, but I did. Every word. She wasn’t made to live with a eunuch, she was a full-blooded woman. I told him he should leave, but he stuck it out. For my sake. He didn’t say that, but I knew that was why.”

  “What I’m trying to say,” he said, lowering his head to catch her eyes, “is that your father didn’t have the same sexual feelings as some others.”

  “Is that why you’re so bloody stressed? Because you think I didn’t know my father was gay?”

  Harry resisted the impulse to drop his jaw. “What do you mean by gay exactly?” he asked.

  “Poof. Homo. Faggot. Bender. Buttfucker. I’m the result of the few shags the witch managed to get off Pappa. He thought she was disgusting.”

  “Did he say that?”

  “He was far too decent to say something like that. But I knew. I was his best friend. He said that. Now and then it seemed as if I was his only friend. ‘You and horses are the only things I like,’ he said to me once. Me and horses. That’s a good one, eh? I think he had a lover—a guy—when he was a student, before he met my mother. But the guy left him, didn’t want to acknowledge the relationship. Fair enough. Pappa didn’t want to, either. It was a long time ago. Things were different then.”

  She said that with the unshakable confidence of a teenager. Harry lifted the Coke to his mouth and sipped slowly. He had to gain time. This hadn’t developed in the way he had anticipated.

  “Do you want to know who was at the Maradiz Hotel?” she asked. “Mum and her lover.”

  21

  Tuesday, January 14

  White, frozen branches spread their fingers toward the pale winter sky over the Palace Gardens. Dagfinn Torhus stood by the window and watched a man run shivering up Haakon VIIs gate with his head buried between his shoulders. The telephone rang. Torhus saw from the clock that it was lunchtime. He followed the man until he was out of sight by the Metro station, then he lifted the receiver and said his name. There was a hissing and crackling until the voice reached him.

  “I’ll give you one more chance, Torhus. If you don’t take it I’ll make sure the Ministry advertises your job faster than you can say ‘Norwegian police intentionally misled by Foreign Office Director.’ Or ‘Norwegian ambassador victim of gay murder.’ Both make for passable headlines, don’t you think?”

  Torhus sat down. “Where are you, Hole?” he asked, for lack of anything better to say.

  “I’ve just had a long conversation with my boss at Crime Squad. I’ve asked him in fifteen different ways what on earth this Atle Molnes was doing in Bangkok. All I’ve uncovered so far suggests he’s the least likely ambassador this side of the outspoken Reiulf Steen. I was unable to lance the boil, but I was able to confirm that there is one. He’s sworn to secrecy, I suppose, so he referred me to you. Same question as before. What don’t I know that you do? For your information, I’m sitting here with a fax machine beside me and the numbers of Verdens Gang, Aftenposten and Dagbladet newspapers.”

  Torhus’s voice brought the winter cold all the way to Bangkok. “They won’t print unsupported claims from an alcoholic policeman, Hole.”

  “If it’s an alcoholic celebrity policeman they will.”

  Torhus didn’t answer.

  “By the way, I think they’re going to cover the case in Sunnmørsposten as well.”

  “You’ve taken the oath of confidentiality,” Torhus said in a subdued tone. “You’ll be prosecuted.”

  Hole laughed. “Rock and a hard place, e
h? Knowing what I know and not following it up would be a dereliction of duty. That’s punishable too, you know. For some reason I have the feeling I have less to lose than you if confidentiality is broken.”

  “What guarantee—” Torhus started, but was interrupted by crackling on the line. “Hello?”

  “I’m here.”

  “What guarantee do I have that you’ll keep what I say to yourself?”

  “None.” The echo made it sound as if he had emphasized his answer three times.

  Silence.

  “Trust me,” Harry said.

  Torhus snorted. “Why should I?”

  “Because you’ve got no choice.”

  The Director saw from the clock that he was going to be late for lunch. The roast beef on rye in the canteen was probably already gone, but that didn’t matter much, he had lost his appetite.

  “This must not get out,” he said. “And I mean that in all seriousness.”

  “The intention isn’t that it will get out.”

  “OK, Hole. How many scandals involving the Christian Democratic Party have you heard about?”

  “Not many.”

  “Exactly. For years the Christian Democrats had been this cozy little party no one had bothered about much. While the press was digging up stuff on the power elite in the Socialist Party and the weirdos in the Progress Party, the Christian Democrat MPs were largely allowed to lead their lives without much scrutiny. With the change of government that was no longer possible. When there was a reshuffle it soon became clear that Atle Molnes, despite his undoubted competence and long experience of Storting, would not be considered as a minister. Rooting around in his private life would entail a risk that a Christian party with personal values on its agenda could not take. The party can’t reject the ordination of homosexual priests and at the same time have homosexual ministers. I believe even Molnes could see that. But when the names of the new government were presented there were several reactions in the press. Why wasn’t Atle Molnes included? After he stepped aside some time ago to give the Prime Minister room as party leader most observers saw him as a number two, or at least a three or four. Questions were asked and the homosexuality rumors which had first arisen when he resigned as a candidate for party leader were rekindled. Now of course we know that there are many MPs who are gay, so why the fuss, one might ask. Well, the interesting thing about this case, apart from the fact that the man was a Christian Democrat, is that he was a close friend of the Prime Minister; they had studied together, even shared a bedsit. And it was just a matter of time before the press got hold of it. Molnes wasn’t in the government, but still it was becoming a personal strain on the PM. Everyone knew the PM and Molnes had been each other’s most important political supporters right from the start, and who would believe him if he said he’d been unaware of Molnes’s sexual inclinations all those years? What about all the voters who had supported the PM because of the party’s clear views on civil partnerships and other depravity, when he himself nurtured a viper in his bosom, to be a bit biblical? How would that help to create trust? The PM’s personal popularity had so far been one of the most important guarantees for a minority government to continue, and what they least needed was a scandal. It was obvious they had to get Molnes out of the country as swiftly as possible. It was decided that a post as an ambassador abroad would be best because then you couldn’t accuse the PM of pushing a party colleague with long and faithful service into the cold. That was the point at which I was contacted. We moved fast. The ambassador post in Bangkok still hadn’t been formally appointed and that would put him far enough away for the press to leave him in peace.”