Cockroaches

by Jo Nesbo

  Løken knocked back the drink and poured himself another. He took a sip, set down the glass and leaned back in his chair.

  “I have special qualifications for this job, Harry.”

  Harry had a vague idea what he meant.

  “I know what they think, what drives them, what gives them a kick, what temptations they can resist and what they can’t.” He produced his pipe. “I’ve known them for as long as I can remember.”

  Harry didn’t know what to say. So he held his tongue.

  “Did you say dry? Are you good at it, Harry? At renouncing things? Like in the story about the cigarettes. You just take a decision and stick to it whatever happens?”

  “Well, yes, I assume so,” Harry said. “The problem is that the decisions aren’t always good.”

  Løken chuckled again. Harry was reminded of an old friend who used to chuckle in the same way. He had buried him in Sydney, but he paid Harry regular visits at night.

  “We’re the same then,” Løken said. “I’ve never laid a hand on a child in my life. I’ve dreamed about it, fantasized about it and cried about it, but I’ve never done it. Can you comprehend that?”

  Harry swallowed.

  “I don’t know how old I was the first time my stepfather raped me, but I would guess no more than five. I sank an ax in his thigh when I was thirteen. Hit an artery, he went into shock and almost died. He survived, but ended up in a wheelchair. He said it had been an accident. The ax had slipped out of his hand while he was chopping wood. He probably thought we were quits.”

  Løken lifted his glass and glared at the brown liquid.

  “Perhaps you think this is an enormous paradox,” he said. “That children who have been sexually abused are the ones with the greatest statistical chance of becoming abusers themselves?”

  Harry pulled a face.

  “It’s true,” Løken said. “Pedophiles often know exactly what suffering they are inflicting on the children. Many of the abusers have experienced the fear themselves, the confusion and the guilt. Did you know that several psychologists claim there is a close relationship between sexual arousal and a longing for death?”

  Harry shook his head. Løken emptied the glass in one draft and grimaced.

  “It’s the same with vampire bites. You think you’re dead and then you wake up and find you’ve become a vampire yourself. Immortal, with an unquenchable thirst for blood.”

  “And with an eternal longing for death?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And what makes you so different?”

  “Everyone’s different, Hole.” Løken finished tamping his pipe and set it down on the table. He had taken off his black roll-neck sweater and the sweat on his naked body glistened. He was sinewy and well built, but loose folds of skin and withered muscles betrayed that he had aged and perhaps one day would die after all.

  “When they found a child-porn magazine in my locker in the officers’ mess at Vardø I was summoned by the station commander. I was lucky, I assume; they didn’t report me. I didn’t get a black mark on my record, just a request to resign from the air force. Via my intelligence position I had come into contact with what was once called Special Services, the forerunner of the CIA. They sent me on a course in the States, then I was sent to Korea under the pretext of working for the Norwegian field hospital.”

  “And who exactly are you working for now?”

  Løken shrugged to indicate it didn’t really matter.

  “Aren’t you ashamed?” Harry asked.

  “Of course,” Løken said with a tired smile. “Every day. It’s a weakness I have.”

  “So why are you telling me all this?” Harry asked.

  “Well, first, I’m too old to run around hiding. Second, because I have others to consider apart from myself. And third, because the shame lies more on an emotional plane than an intellectual one.”

  One corner of his mouth rose in a sarcastic grin.

  “I used to subscribe to the Archives of Sexual Behavior to see if any researchers could specify what sort of monster I was. More out of curiosity than shame. I read an article about a pedophile monk in Switzerland who I’m sure had never done anything at all either, but halfway through the article he’d locked himself in a room and drunk cod liver oil containing fragments of glass, so I never finished reading it. I prefer to see myself as a product of my upbringing and environment, but despite everything a moral person. I manage to live with myself, Hole.”

  “But, being a pedophile yourself, how can you work with child prostitution? Does it excite you?”

  Løken stared down at the table, rapt in thought. “Have you ever fantasized about raping a woman, Hole? You don’t need to answer, I know you have. It doesn’t mean you want to rape someone, does it. Nor does it mean you’re unfit to work on rape cases. Even if you can understand how a man can lose his self-control it’s actually very simple. It’s wrong. It’s against the law. The bastard will have to pay.”

  The third glass was knocked back. He was down to the label on the bottle.

  Harry shook his head. “Sorry, Løken, I’m struggling to accept that. If you buy child pornography, you’re a part of it. Without people like you there wouldn’t be a market for this filth.”

  “True.” Løken’s eyes had glazed over. “I’m no saint. Yes, I’ve helped to make the world the vale of woes it is. What can I say? As the song says: If it rains, I’m like everyone else, I get wet.”

  Harry suddenly felt old as well. Old and tired.

  “So what were the lumps of plaster?” Løken asked.

  “Just a wild idea. It struck me it was like the plaster on the screwdriver we found in the boot of Molnes’s car. Yellowish. Not completely white like normal whitewash. I’ll have the lumps analyzed and compared with the plaster in the car.”

  “And what would that mean?”

  Harry shrugged. “You never know what anything means. Ninety-nine percent of the information you gather during a case is worthless. You just have to hope you’re alert enough for the one percent under your nose.”

  “True enough.” Løken closed his eyes and settled back in the chair.

  Harry walked downstairs to the street and bought some noodle soup with king prawns from a toothless man wearing a Liverpool cap. He ladled it from a black cauldron into a plastic bag, tied a knot and bared his gums. In the kitchen Harry found two soup dishes. Løken woke up with a start when he shook him, and they ate in silence.

  “I think I know who gave the order for the investigation,” Harry said.

  Løken didn’t answer.

  “I know you couldn’t wait to start the undercover work until the agreement with Thailand was signed and sealed. It was urgent, wasn’t it. Getting a result was urgent, that’s why you jumped the gun.”

  “You don’t give in, do you.”

  “Is that of any significance now?”

  Løken blew on the spoon. “It can take a long time to gather evidence,” he said. “Maybe years. The time aspect was more important than anything else.”

  “I’d bet there’s nothing in writing to trace back to the prime mover, that Torhus at the Foreign Office is alone, if it ever came out. Am I right?”

  “Good politicians always make sure to cover their backs, don’t they? They have Secretaries of State to do the dirty work. And Secretaries of State don’t give orders. They just tell Directors what they have to do to accelerate a stalled career path.”

  “Are you by any chance referring to Secretary of State Askildsen?”

  Løken slurped a prawn into his mouth and chewed in silence.

  “So what was dangled in front of Torhus to lead the operation? A job as Director General?”

  “I don’t know. We don’t talk about that kind of thing.”

  “And what about the Police Commissioner? Isn’t she risking quite a bit?”

  “She’s probably a good Social Democrat, I suppose.”

  “Political ambitions?”

  “Maybe. Maybe neither of
them is risking as much as you think. Having an office in the same building as the ambassador doesn’t mean—”

  “That you’re on their payroll? So who do you work for? Are you a freelancer?”

  Løken smiled at his image in the soup. “Tell me, what happened to that woman of yours, Hole?”

  Harry looked at him in bewilderment.

  “The one who stopped smoking.”

  “I told you. She met an English musician and went to London with him.”

  “And after that?”

  “Who said anything happened after that?”

  “You did. The way you talked about her.” Løken laughed. He had put down his spoon and slumped back in the chair. “Come on, Hole. Did she really stop smoking? For good?”

  “No,” Harry said quietly. “But now she’s stopped. For good.”

  He looked at the bottle of Jim Beam, closed his eyes and tried to remember the warmth of only one, the first drink.

  Harry sat there until Løken fell asleep. Then he hitched his arms under the older man’s shoulders and took him to bed, covered him with a blanket and left.

  The porter at River Garden was asleep as well. Harry considered waking him, but decided against it—everyone should get some sleep tonight. A letter had been pushed under Harry’s door. Harry left it unopened on the bedside table with the other one, stood by the window and watched a freighter glide beneath Taksin Bridge, black and soundless.

  40

  Tuesday, January 21

  It was getting on for ten when Harry arrived at the office. He met Nho on his way out.

  “Have you heard?”

  “Heard what?” Harry yawned.

  “The orders from your Police Commissioner in Oslo.”

  Harry shook his head.

  “We were told at the meeting this morning. The bigwigs have had a get-together.”

  Liz jumped in her chair as Harry burst into her office.

  “Good morning, Harry?”

  “No, it isn’t. I didn’t get to bed until five. What’s this I hear about scaling down the investigation?”

  Liz sighed. “Looks like our Chiefs have been having another powwow. Your Police Commissioner has been talking about budgets and personnel shortages and she wants you back, and our Police Chief’s starting to get twitchy because of all the other murder cases we dropped when this one came up. Of course they’re not talking about shelving the case, just downgrading it to normal priority.”

  “Which means?”

  “It means I’ve been told to make sure you’re sitting on a plane in the next couple of days.”

  “And?”

  “I told them planes are generally fully booked in January, so it could be at least a week.”

  “So we’ve got a week?”

  “No, if economy class is full I was told to book first class.”

  Harry laughed. “Thirty thousand kroner. Tight budgets? They’re getting jumpy, Liz.”

  As Liz leaned back in her chair it creaked.

  “Do you want to talk about it, Harry?”

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t know if I want to,” she said. “Some things are best left in peace, aren’t they.”

  “So why don’t we do that?”

  She turned her head, opened the blinds and looked out. Harry sat in such a way that the sunlight gave Liz’s shiny pate a kind of white halo.

  “Do you know what the average salary of a recruit in the national police force is, Harry? A hundred fifty bucks a month. There are a hundred twenty thousand officers in the force trying to provide for their families, but we can’t even pay them enough to provide for themselves. Is it so strange that some of them try to supplement their wages by turning a blind eye?”

  “No.”

  She sighed. “Personally, I’ve never managed to leave things be. God knows, I could have done with a bit extra, but I’m not comfortable with that. It probably sounds a bit like a Girl Scout pledge, but in fact someone has to do the job.”

  “Furthermore, it’s your—”

  “Responsibility, yes.” She gave a weary smile. “We all have our crosses to bear.”

  Harry started to talk. Liz fetched some coffee, told the central switchboard she wasn’t taking any incoming calls, made a note, got more coffee, studied the ceiling, cursed and finally told Harry to go out so that she could think.

  An hour later she called him in again. She was furious.

  “Shit, Harry, do you know what you’re asking me to do here?”

  “Yes. And I can see you know too.”

  “I’m risking my job if I agree to cover you and this Løken.”

  “Thanking you.”

  “Fuck you!”

  Harry grinned.

  The woman who answered the telephone at Bangkok’s Chamber of Commerce rang off when Harry spoke English. He asked Nho to ring instead, and wrote the name Phuridell, which he’d seen on the front page of the report in Klipra’s office. “Just find out what they do, who owns it and so on.”

  Nho went to call, and Harry drummed his fingers on the desk until he picked up the phone and made a call.

  “Hole,” came the reply. It was of course his father’s name, but Harry knew it was habit and it meant the whole family. He made it sound as if his mother was still in the green sitting-room chair doing embroidery or reading a book. Harry had a suspicion he had started talking to her too.

  His father had just got up. Harry asked how he was going to spend the day and was surprised to hear he was going to the cabin in Rauland.

  “To chop some wood,” he said. “I’m running out.”

  He rarely went to the cabin.

  “How’s it going?” his father asked.

  “Great. I’ll soon be home. How’s Sis?”

  “She’s coping. But she’s never going to be a cook.”

  They both grinned. Harry could visualize what the kitchen looked like after Sis had made the Sunday lunch.

  “Well, you’d better bring her something nice back,” he said.

  “I’ll find her something. What about you? Anything you fancy?”

  The line went silent. Harry cursed himself; he knew that they were both thinking the same thing, that what he wanted Harry couldn’t buy in Bangkok. That was how it was every time; whenever he thought he had finally got his father out of himself, he said or did something that reminded his father of her and he was lost again, back into his self-imposed, silent isolation. It was worse for Sis. She was doubly alone when Harry wasn’t there.

  His father coughed. “You could … you could bring one of those Thai shirts.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes, that would be nice. And a pair of proper Nike trainers, they’re supposed to be so cheap in Thailand. I took out my old ones yesterday and they’re no good anymore. How’s your jogging by the way? Are you up for a test in Hanekleiva?”

  As Harry put the receiver down he felt a strange lump at the top of his chest.

  For the rest of the day Harry did nothing.

  He doodled and wondered if the doodles resembled anything.

  Jens called to ask how the case was going. Harry answered that it was a state secret, and Jens understood, but said he would sleep better if he knew they had another lead suspect. Then Jens told him a joke he had just heard on the phone, about a gynecologist who said to a colleague that one of his patients had a clitoris like a pickled gherkin. “That big?” the colleague had asked. “No,” the gynecologist had answered. “That salty.”

  Jens apologized for the quality of joke that circulated through the finance world.

  Afterward Harry tried telling the joke to Nho, but either his English or Nho’s wasn’t up to the task because the situation just became embarrassing.

  Then he went into Liz and asked if it was all right if he sat there for a while. After an hour she’d had enough of the silent presence and told him to leave.

  He ate dinner at Le Boucheron again. The Frenchman spoke to him in French, and Harry smiled and said somethin
g in Norwegian.

  Harry dreamed about her again. Red hair spread around and the calm, secure eyes. He waited for what usually followed, the seaweed growing out of her mouth and eye sockets, but it didn’t happen.

  “It’s Jens.”

  Harry woke up and realized he had answered the phone in his sleep.

  “Jens?” He wondered why his heart had suddenly started beating so fast.

  “Sorry, Harry, but this is an emergency. Runa’s gone.”

  Harry was wide awake.

  “Hilde’s frantic. Runa should have been home for dinner, and now it’s three in the morning. I’ve called the police, and they’ve alerted their patrol cars, but I wanted to ask you for help as well.”

  “To do what?”

  “To do what? I don’t know. Could you come over here? Hilde’s crying her eyes out.”

  Harry could imagine the scene. He had no desire to witness the rest.

  “Listen, Jens, there’s not a lot I can do right now. Give her a Valium if she isn’t too drunk and call all Runa’s friends.”

  “The police said the same. Hilde says she hasn’t got any friends.”

  “Shit!”

  41

  Wednesday, January 22

  Hilde Molnes was definitely too drunk for Valium. She was too drunk for most things, apart from getting even drunker.

  Jens didn’t appear to notice. He kept running in and out of the kitchen with water and ice looking like a hunted animal.

  Harry sat on the sofa half listening to her babble.

  “She thinks something terrible has happened,” Jens said.

  “Tell her that more than eighty percent of all missing persons turn up in one piece,” Harry said, as though what he said needed to be translated into her own babblespeak.

  “I’ve told her that. But she thinks someone’s done something to Runa. She can feel it in her bones, she says.”

  “Nonsense!”

  Jens perched on the edge of a chair wringing his hands. He seemed totally incapable of thought or action and looked at Harry imploringly. “Runa and Hilde have argued a great deal recently. I wondered perhaps … if she’s run off to punish her mother. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility.”