by Jo Nesbo
“I’m afraid we’ll have to do this in English,” Harry said, sitting down opposite him. “It’s being recorded.” He pointed to the microphone in front of them.
“I see.” Brekke tried to smile. It looked as if iron hooks were stretching his mouth.
“I had to fight to get this interview,” Harry said. “As it’s being recorded, strictly speaking, a Thai police officer should be doing it, but as you’re a Norwegian national, the Chief said it was fine.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, I’m not sure there’s much to be grateful for. You’ve been told you have the right to contact a lawyer, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
Harry was about to ask why he hadn’t accepted the offer, but refrained. No reason to give him another chance to deliberate. What he had learned about the Thai legal system was that it was fairly similar to the system in Norway, and hence there was no reason to believe that lawyers were much different either. In which case, the first thing they would do would be to gag their clients. But regulations had been followed and now it was time to get moving.
Harry signaled that the recording could start. Nho came in, read out some formalities as an introduction to the tape and left.
“Is it true that you are having a relationship with Hilde Molnes, the wife of the deceased, Atle Molnes?”
“What?” Two wild, staring eyes met him from across the table.
“I’ve spoken to Mrs. Molnes. I suggest you tell the truth.”
A pause ensued.
“Yes.”
“Bit louder please.”
“Yes!”
“How long has this relationship been going on?”
“I don’t know. A long time.”
“Since the ambassador’s welcome party eighteen months ago?”
“Well …”
“Well?”
“Yes, I think that’s correct.”
“Did you know that Mrs. Molnes would have the right of disposal over a substantial fortune if her husband died?”
“Fortune?”
“Am I speaking unclearly?”
Brekke gasped like a punctured beach ball. “It’s news to me. I had the impression their capital was relatively limited.”
“Really? The last time I spoke to you, you told me the meeting you and Molnes had in your office on the seventh of January was about investment. We know, furthermore, that Molnes owed a large sum of money. I can’t get this to tally.”
A further silence. Brekke was about to say something, then stopped.
“I lied,” he said in the end.
“You have another chance to tell me the truth now.”
“He came to me to discuss my relationship with Hilde … with his wife. He wanted it to stop.”
“Not an unreasonable request, perhaps?”
Brekke shrugged. “I don’t know how much you know about Atle Molnes.”
“Assume we know nothing.”
“Let me say that his sexual orientation did not make for much of a marriage.”
He glanced up. Harry nodded for him to go on.
“His keenness for Hilde and me to stop meeting wasn’t motivated by jealousy. It was because rumors were apparently circulating in Norway. He said if the relationship became public these rumors would be stoked and that would hurt not only him but also, undeservedly, others in important positions. I tried to delve deeper, but that was all he would say.”
“What did he threaten you with?”
“Threaten? What do you mean?”
“He didn’t just say, please, would you mind not meeting a woman I assume you love.”
“Yes, in fact he did. I think that was even the word he used.”
“Which word?”
“Please.” Brekke folded his hands on the table in front of him. “He was a strange man. ‘Please.’ ” He smiled weakly.
“Yes, I suppose you don’t hear that so often in your business.”
“Nor in yours, I suppose?”
Harry stared at him, but there was no challenge in Brekke’s eyes.
“What did you agree to do?”
“Nothing. I said I would give the matter some thought. What could I say? The man was on the verge of tears.”
“Did you consider stopping the relationship?”
Brekke furrowed his brow as if this idea was new to him.
“No. I … well, it would have been very difficult for me to stop seeing her.”
“You told me that after the meeting you accompanied the ambassador down to the underground car park where he had his Mercedes. Are you changing that statement now?”
“No …” Brekke said in surprise.
“We’ve checked the CCTV recordings of the date in question between 3:50 and 5:15. The ambassador’s Mercedes wasn’t parked in the visitors’ bay. Would you like to change your statement?”
“Change …?” Brekke looked at him in disbelief. “My God, man, no. I came out of the lift and saw his car. We must have both been on the recording. I even remember we exchanged a few words before he got into the car. I promised the ambassador I wouldn’t mention the conversation we’d had to Hilde.”
“We can prove this was not the case. For the last time: Would you like to change your statement?”
“No!”
Harry could hear a firmness in his voice which had not been there before the interview started.
“What did you do after you’d accompanied the ambassador down to the car park, as you maintain?”
Brekke explained that he had gone back up to his office to finish a company analysis report and that he sat there until about midnight, when he took a taxi home. Harry asked if anyone had dropped by or rung him while he was working, but Brekke said that no one could get to his office without the code and that he had blocked his calls so he could work in peace, as he usually did when he was working on reports.
“Is there no one who can give you an alibi? No one who saw you going home, for example?”
“Ben, the caretaker where I live. He may remember. At any rate he usually notices when I come home late wearing a suit.”
“A caretaker who saw you coming home at midnight, is that all?”
Brekke pondered. “I’m afraid so.”
“OK,” Harry said. “Someone else will take over now. Would you like something to drink? Coffee, water?”
“No, thank you.”
Harry got up to go.
“Harry?”
He turned. “It’s best if you call me Hole. Or Officer.”
“I see. Am I in trouble?” He said it in Norwegian.
Harry pinched his eyes together. Brekke was a sad sight, slumped like a cloth sack.
“I think I’d ring your lawyer now if I were you.”
“I understand. Thank you.”
Harry stopped in the doorway. “Incidentally, what about the promise you made the ambassador, did you keep it?”
Brekke gave him a sort of apologetic smile. “Idiotic. I had intended to tell Hilde, of course, I mean, I had to. But when I found out he was dead then … well, he was a strange man, and I got it into my head that I should keep the promise even though it had no practical meaning anymore.”
* * *
“Just a mo. I’ll put you on loudspeaker.”
“Hello?”
“We can hear you, Harry. Away you go.”
Bjarne Møller of Crime Squad, Dagfinn Torhus from the Foreign Office and the Police Commissioner for Oslo listened to Harry’s telephone report without interrupting him at any point.
Afterward Torhus spoke up.
“So we have one Norwegian in custody, suspected of murder. The question is: How long can we keep a lid on this?”
The Police Commissioner cleared her throat. “As the murder is not yet public knowledge, I think we still have a few days, especially since you don’t have a great deal on Brekke, other than a false statement and a motive. If you have to let him go it’s probably best if no one knows about the arrest.”
“Harry, can you hear me?” It was Møller speaking. There was some atmospheric noise, which Møller took to be confirmation. “Is the guy guilty, Harry? Did he do it?”
There was some more noise and Møller lifted the Police Commissioner’s telephone receiver.
“What did you say, Harry? You …? Right. Well, we’ll discuss that here and keep in touch.”
Møller rang off.
“What did he say?”
“He didn’t know.”
By the time Harry got home it was late. Le Boucheron had been full so he’d eaten at a restaurant in Soi 4 in Patpong, a street full of gay bars. During the main course a man had come over to the table and politely asked if he would like a handjob and then discreetly withdrew when Harry shook his head.
Harry got out on the fifth floor. There was no one around and the lights were off around the pool. He pulled off his clothes and dived in. The water gave him a cooling embrace. He swam a few lengths, felt the resistance in the water. Runa had said that no two pools were identical, that all water had its idiosyncrasies, its special consistency, smell and color. This pool was vanilla, she had said. Sweet and viscous. He inhaled, but could only smell chlorine and Bangkok. He floated on his back and closed his eyes. The sound of his own breathing underwater made him feel as if he were enclosed in a little room. He opened his eyes. A light went off in one of the flats in the opposite wing. A satellite moved slowly between stars. A motorbike with a broken silencer attempted to move off. Then his gaze went back to the flat. He counted the floors again. He swallowed water. The light had gone off in his flat.
Harry was out of the pool in seconds, pulled on his trousers and looked around in vain for something that could be used as a weapon. He grabbed the pool net leaning against the wall, jogged the few meters to the lift and pressed the button. The doors separated, he stepped in and noticed a faint aroma of curry. It was as if a second had been taken from his life, and when he came to he was lying supine on the cold stone floor of the corridor. Luckily the blow had hit him in the forehead, but a huge figure was standing over him, and Harry knew at once that the odds were not in his favor. He hit out at the lower thigh with the net, but the light aluminum shaft had little effect. He managed to avoid the first kick and staggered to his knees, but the second struck his shoulder and spun him halfway around. His back hurt, but the adrenalin kicked in and he got to his feet with a roar of pain. In the light from the open lift he saw a pigtail jiggling around a shaven skull as a fist was swung, hit him above the eye and knocked him back toward the pool. The figure followed up, and Harry feinted a left before planting a right where he thought the face had to be. It was like punching granite, as though he had hurt himself more than his opponent. Harry stepped back and moved his head to the side, felt a current of air and horror seize his chest. He fumbled at his belt, found the handcuffs, detached them and threaded his fingers inside. He waited until the hulk came closer, took a risk that no uppercut was on its way and ducked. Then he struck, swinging his hip, following with his shoulder, his whole body behind it, and in furious desperation launched his iron-clad knuckles through the darkness until they crunched against flesh and bone, and something gave. He hit again and could feel the iron bore its way through skin. The blood was hot and thick between his fingers; he didn’t know if it was his own or his attacker’s, but he raised his fist for another blow, shocked that the man was still upright. Then he heard the low, throaty laugh and a trainload of concrete landed on his head, the blackness became blacker and the concept of up and down no longer existed.
26
Thursday, January 16
Harry was brought around by the water; instinctively he breathed in and the next moment he was dragged under. He fought, but it made no difference. The water amplified the metallic click of something being locked, and the arm that held him let go. He opened his eyes; everything was turquoise around him and he felt the tiles beneath him. He pushed off, but a jerk on his wrist told him what his brain had been trying to explain and he had refused to accept. He was going to drown. Woo had attached him to the drain at the bottom of the pool with his own handcuffs.
He looked up. The moon was shining down on him through a filter of water. He stretched his free arm up and out of the water. Hell, the pool was only one meter deep here! Harry crouched and tried to stand up, stretched with all his might. The handcuff cut into his thumb, but still his mouth was twenty centimeters below the surface. He noticed the shadow at the edge of the pool moving away. Shit! Don’t panic, he thought. Panic uses up oxygen.
He sank to the bottom and examined the grille with his fingers. It was made of steel and was totally immovable, it didn’t budge even when he grabbed it with both hands and pulled. How long could he hold his breath? One minute? Two? All his muscles ached, his temples throbbed and red stars were dancing in front of his eyes. He tried to jerk himself loose. His mouth was dry with fear, his brain had started producing images he knew were hallucinations; too little fuel, too little water. An absurd thought struck him—if he drank as much water as he could the water level might sink enough for him to breathe. He banged his free hand against the side of the pool, knowing no one could hear him, for even if the world beneath the water was quiet, the metropolitan clamor of Bangkok continued unabated up above, drowning any other sounds. And if someone had heard him, so what? All they could do was keep him company while he died. A burning heat centered on his head and he prepared to experience what all drowning people have to experience sooner or later: water inhalation. His free hand met metal. The pool net. It was on the edge of the pool. Harry grabbed it and pulled. Runa had been playing didgeridoo. Hollow. Air. He closed his mouth around the end of the aluminum pole and breathed in. He got water in his mouth, swallowed, almost suffocated, tasted dead, dry insects on his tongue and bit around the tube as he fought his cough reflexes. Why was it called oxygen, from the Greek, oxys, meaning acid? It isn’t acidic, it’s sweet, even in Bangkok the air is as sweet as honey. He inhaled loose bits of aluminum and grit that stuck to the mucus in his throat, but he didn’t notice. He breathed in and out with a passion, as though he had run a marathon.
The brain was beginning to function again. That was how he knew he had been given merely a postponement of the inevitable. In his blood the oxygen was converted to carbon dioxide, the body’s exhaust fumes, and the pole was too long for him to be able to expel the nitrogen completely. So he was inhaling recycled air, again and again, a mixture of ever-decreasing oxygen and increasingly fatal CO2. This excess of carbon dioxide is called hypercapnia, and he would soon die from it. In fact, because he was breathing so fast, it accelerated the process. After a while he would become sleepy, his brain would lose interest in drawing air, he would breathe less and less and ultimately stop.
So lonely, Harry thought. Chained. Like the elephants on the riverboats. The elephants. He blew down the tube with all the power he could muster.
Anne Verk had lived in Bangkok for three years. Her husband was the CEO of Shell’s Thailand office; they were childless, medium unhappy and would stick out a few years together yet. After that she would move back to Holland, finish her studies and search for a new husband. Out of sheer boredom she had applied for a job as an unpaid teacher at Empire and, to her surprise, got it. Empire was an idealistic project whose aim was to offer schooling to the many girls on the game in Bangkok, mainly in English. Anne Verk taught them what they needed in bars; that was why they went. They sat behind their desks, shy, smiling young girls who giggled when she made them repeat after her: “Can I light your cigarette for you, sir?” Or “I’m a virgin. You’re very bold, sir. Would you like a drink?”
Today one of the girls was wearing a new red dress, which she was clearly proud of and which she had bought at Robinson’s department store, she explained to the class in hesitant English. Sometimes it was difficult to imagine that these girls worked as prostitutes in some of the toughest areas of Bangkok.
Like most Dutch people, Anne spoke excellent English and on
ce a week she taught some of the other teachers as well. She got out of the lift on the fifth floor. It had been an especially wearing evening with a lot of arguing about teaching methods, and she was yearning to kick off her shoes in the 200-square-meter apartment when she heard some strange, hoarse trumpeting noises. At first she thought they came from the river, but then she realized they were coming from the swimming pool. She found the light switch and it took her several seconds to take on board and process the sight of a man underwater and the pool net upright in the water. Then she ran.
Harry saw the light come on and saw the figure by the pool. Then it went. It looked like a woman. Had she panicked? Harry had started noticing the first signs of hypercapnia. In theory, it should be bordering on a pleasant feeling, like drifting off under an anesthetic, but he just felt the terror running through his veins like glacier water. He forced himself to concentrate, breathe calmly, not too much, not too little, but thinking was becoming a challenge.
Accordingly, he didn’t notice that the water level was beginning to sink, and when the woman jumped into the pool and lifted him to the surface he was sure an angel had come for him.
27
Friday, January 17
The rest of the night was mostly about his headache. Harry sat in a chair in his flat, a doctor came, took a blood sample and said he had been lucky. As though he needed anyone to explain that. Later Liz sat beside him and noted down what had happened.
“What did he want in the apartment?” she asked.
“No idea. To frighten me maybe.”
“Did he take anything?”
He glanced around. “Not if my toothbrush is still in the bathroom.”
“Clown. How do you feel?”
“Hungover.”
