Cockroaches

by Jo Nesbo

  “So the scandal is a matter of record?”

  “Both yes and no. We’ve managed to keep a lid on the motel stuff. The nub is that the Prime Minister hasn’t been embroiled in the scandal. Now we have other matters on our minds. The press has been ringing us here to ask why news of the ambassador’s murder wasn’t made public earlier.”

  “What do you say in response?”

  “What the hell can I say? Language problems, misunderstandings, the Thai police sending us flawed information initially, that sort of thing.”

  “And they buy it?”

  “No, they don’t. But they can’t accuse us of misinforming them, either. In the press release it says the ambassador was found dead in a hotel and that is correct. What did you say when you found the daughter and Klipra, Hole?”

  “I didn’t.” Harry took some deep breaths. “Listen, Torhus, I found a couple of porn magazines at Klipra’s house which suggest he was a pedophile. That hasn’t been mentioned in any of the police reports.”

  “Really? Well, well.” The voice didn’t betray for an instant that he was covering anything up. “Anyway, you no longer have an assignment here in Thailand, and Møller wants you back as soon as possible.”

  Boiling hot coconut-milk soup was placed on the table, and Torhus stared skeptically at his bowl. His glasses steamed up.

  “Verdens Gang is bound to take a nice photo of you when you arrive at Fornebu Airport,” he said acidly.

  “Try one of the red ones,” Harry said, pointing.

  46

  Friday, January 24

  According to Liz, Supawadee was the person who solved most of the murder cases in Thailand. His most important instruments were a microscope, some test tubes and litmus paper. Sitting opposite Harry, he was beaming like a sun.

  “That is correct, Harry. The bits of lime plaster you gave us contain the same limewash solution as the dust on the screwdriver in the boot of the ambassador’s car.”

  Instead of contenting himself with answering yes or no to Harry’s inquiry, he repeated the whole question so that there would be no misunderstandings. Supawadee had an excellent grasp of linguistics; he knew that in English questions and answers can be complicated for a Thai. If Harry had got on the wrong bus in Thailand, started doubting himself and said to another passenger: “This isn’t the bus to Hua Lamphong, is it.” with the correct stress and intonation, the Thai might have answered “yes,” in the sense of “yes, you’re right, this isn’t the bus to Hua Lamphong.” Farangs know this happens. Supawadee’s experience was that most farangs, being less intelligent, weren’t aware of how questions worked, so he had come to the conclusion that it was best to answer the questions in full.

  “That’s also correct, Harry. The contents of the vacuum cleaner bag at Klipra’s cabin were very interesting. It contained carpet fibers from the boot of the ambassador’s car, the ambassador’s suit and also from Klipra’s jacket.”

  Harry noted this with mounting excitement. “What about the two tapes I sent you? Did you send them to Sydney?”

  Supawadee beamed even more, if at all possible, for this was the bit that pleased him most.

  “This is the twentieth century, Officer, we don’t send tapes. They would have taken at least four days. We recorded them onto a DAT tape and e-mailed the recordings to this sound expert of yours.”

  “Jeez, can you do that?” Harry asked, half to make Supawadee happy and half resigned. Computer freaks always made him feel old. “And what did Jésus Marguez say?”

  “At first I told him it was absolutely impossible to tell what kind of room someone was phoning from, based on an answerphone message. But your friend was extremely persuasive. He talked a lot about frequency domains and hertz, which was very educational. Did you know, for example, that in one microsecond the ear can distinguish between a million different sounds? I think he and I could—”

  “Conclusion, Supawadee?”

  “His conclusion was that the two recordings are from two different people, but it is very likely they were recorded in the same room.”

  Harry could feel his heart racing.

  “What about the meat in the freezer?”

  “You’re correct again, Harry. The meat in the freezer was pork.”

  Supawadee blinked and laughed with sheer elation. Harry knew there was more to come.

  “And?”

  “But the blood wasn’t just pig blood. Some of it was human.”

  “Do you know who from?”

  “Well, it’ll take a few days before I get the definitive answer from the DNA test, so provisionally I can give you only an answer with ninety percent accuracy.”

  If Supawadee had had a trumpet Harry was sure he would have played a fanfare first.

  “The blood comes from our friend, nai Klipra.”

  At last Harry got through to Jens in his office.

  “How’s it going, Jens?”

  “OK.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You sound …” Harry couldn’t find a word for how he sounded. “You sound a bit sad,” he said.

  “Yes. No. It’s not so easy to say. She’s lost all her family and …” The voice trailed off.

  “And you?”

  “Don’t start.”

  “Come on, Jens.”

  “It’s just that if I’d ever wanted to pull out of this marriage, it’s absolutely impossible now.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “My God, I’m the only person she has, Harry. So I know I should be thinking about her and all she’s been through, but instead I’m thinking about myself and what I’m getting myself into. I’m obviously a bad person, but the whole thing frightens me. Do you understand?”

  “I think so.”

  “Hell, if only this were just about money … at least that’s something I understand. But these …” He searched for the word.

  “Feelings?” Harry suggested.

  “Right. It’s such shit.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Anyway, I’ve made up my mind that for once in my life I’m going to do something that’s not just about me. And I want you to be there and kick me up the arse if you detect the slightest sign of resistance. Hilde needs to think about other things, so we’ve already set the date. The fourth of April. Easter in Bangkok—how does that sound? She’s already looking on the brighter side and has half decided to cut down on her drinking. I’ll send you your ticket in the post, Harry. Don’t forget I’m counting on you, so you’re not bloody pulling out.”

  “If I’m the most suitable candidate for best man I can’t imagine what your social life is like, Jens.”

  “I’ve conned everyone I know at least once. I don’t want any stories of that sort in the best man’s speech, all right?”

  Harry laughed. “OK, give me a few days to mull it over. I was ringing, though, to ask you for a favor. I’m trying to find out something about one of the owners of Phuridell, a company known as Ellem Ltd, but all I can find in the company register is a PO box in Bangkok and confirmation that the share capital has been paid.”

  “It must be a relatively new owner. I haven’t heard the name. I’ll do a bit of ringing around and see if I can dig up something. I’ll call you back.”

  “No, Jens. This is strictly confidential. Only Liz, Løken and I know anything about it, so you mustn’t mention it to anyone. Not even anyone else in the police knows. The three of us are meeting in secret this evening, so it would be great if you had anything by then. I’ll ring you, OK?”

  “All right. This sounds heavy. I thought the case was done and dusted.”

  “It will be this evening.”

  The sound of pneumatic drills on rock was deafening.

  “Are you George Walters?” Harry shouted into the ear of the man wearing the yellow helmet who the men in overalls had pointed out to him.

  He turned to Harry. “Yes, who are you?”

  Twenty meters beneath them the traffic was crawling at a snail�
�s pace. It was going to be another afternoon of gridlock.

  “Detective Officer Hole. Norwegian police.”

  Walters rolled up a technical drawing and gave it to one of the two men beside him.

  “Oh, yes.”

  He made a time-out signal to the man drilling and the relative silence settled like a filter on the eardrums as the machine was turned off.

  “A Wacker,” Harry said. “LHV5.”

  “Oh, met it before, have you?”

  “I had a summer job on a building site years ago. Shook my kidneys up with one of them.”

  Walters nodded. His eyebrows had been bleached white by the sun, and he looked tired. Wrinkles had already formed deep into the middle-aged face.

  Harry pointed down the concrete road running like a Roman aqueduct through a stony wilderness of houses and skyscrapers. “So this is BERTS, Bangkok’s salvation?”

  “Yes,” Walters said, looking in the same direction as Harry. “You’re standing on it now.”

  The reverence in his voice, plus the fact that he was here and not in an office, told Harry that the boss of Phuridell was happier with engineering than with accounts. It was more exciting to see how the project was taking shape than to get too involved with solving the company’s dollar debt.

  “Reminds you of the Great Wall of China,” Harry said.

  “This will bring people together, not keep them out.”

  “I’ve come here to ask about Klipra and this project. And Phuridell.”

  “Tragic,” Walters said, without specifying which particular element he was referring to.

  “Did you know Klipra, Mr. Walters?”

  “I wouldn’t put it that strongly. We met at several board meetings and he called me a couple of times.” Walters put on some sunglasses. “That was all.”

  “Called you a couple of times? Isn’t Phuridell a pretty big company?”

  “More than eight hundred employees.”

  “You’re the boss here, and you hardly spoke to the owner of the company you work for?”

  “Welcome to the world of business.” Walters surveyed the road and city as though all the rest was nothing that concerned him.

  “He invested quite a lot of money into Phuridell. Are you trying to say he didn’t care?”

  “He obviously didn’t have any objections to the way the company was being run.”

  “Do you know anything about a company called Ellem Ltd?”

  “I’ve seen the name on the list of shareholders. We’ve had other matters on our minds lately.”

  “Like how to solve the problem of the dollar debt?”

  Walters turned to Harry again. He saw a distorted version of himself in the sunglasses.

  “What do you know about that?”

  “I know that your company needs refinancing if you’re going to keep going. You have no obligation to give any information as you’re not listed on the stock exchange anymore, so you can hide your problems from the outside world for a while, hoping a savior will appear with new capital. It would be frustrating to throw in the towel now that you’re in a position to get more contracts from BERTS, wouldn’t it?”

  Walters signaled to the engineers that they could take a break.

  “My guess is that this savior is going to turn up,” Harry continued. “He’ll buy the company for a song and will probably become very wealthy when the contracts start rolling in. How many people know about the company’s plight?”

  “Listen here, mate—”

  “Hole. The board, of course. Anyone else?”

  “We inform all the owners. Apart from that, we see no reason to tell everyone about affairs that don’t concern them.”

  “Who do you think is going to buy the company, Mr. Walters?”

  “I’m the administrative director,” Walters snapped. “I’m employed by shareholders. I don’t get mixed up in owner issues.”

  “Even if it might mean the sack for you and eight hundred others? Even if you won’t be allowed to continue with this any longer?” Harry nodded toward the concrete disappearing into the mist.

  Walters didn’t answer.

  “Actually, maybe it’s more like the Yellow Brick Road. In The Wizard of Oz, you know?”

  George Walters nodded slowly.

  “Listen, Mr. Walters, I’ve called Klipra’s solicitor and a couple of the returning small-time shareholders. In the last few days Ellem Ltd has bought up your shares in Phuridell. None of the others would be able to refinance Phuridell, so they’re just happy they’ve left a company but haven’t lost all of their investment. You say you’re not interested in the owners, Mr. Walters, but you look like a responsible man. And Ellem is your new owner.”

  Walters took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “Will you tell me who’s behind Ellem Ltd, Mr. Walters?”

  The drills started again, and Harry had to move closer to him to hear.

  Harry nodded. “I just wanted to hear you say that,” he shouted back.

  47

  Friday, January 24

  Ivar Løken knew it was over. Not a fiber in his body had given up, but it was over. The panic came in waves, washed over him and retreated. And all the time he knew he was going to die. It was a wholly intellectual conclusion, but the certainty trickled through him like ice melting. The time he had walked into the booby trap at My Lai and stood there with a bamboo stake stinking of shit through his thigh and another through his foot up to the knee he hadn’t for one second thought he was going to die. When he lay shaking with fever in Japan and they said his foot would have to be amputated he had said he would rather die, but he knew that death was not an alternative, it was impossible. When they had brought an anesthetic, he had knocked the syringe out of the nurse’s hand.

  Idiotic. Then they had let him keep his foot. As long as there’s pain there’s life he had scratched into the wall above the bed. He had been at the hospital in Okabe for almost a year before he won his fight against his own infected blood.

  He told himself he had lived a long life. Long. That was something after all. And he had seen others who had gone through worse. So why resist? His body said no, the way he had said no all his life. Had said no to crossing the line when desire was driving him, said no to letting them crack him when the military dismissed him, said no to feeling sorry for himself when humiliation lashed him and reopened sores. Primarily, though, he had said no to closing his eyes. For that reason he had absorbed everything: wars, suffering, brutality, courage and humanity. So much that he could say without fear of contradiction that he had lived a long life. Not even now did he close his eyes; he barely blinked. Løken knew he was going to die. If he’d had tears he would have cried.

  Liz looked at her watch. It was half past eight, and she and Harry had been sitting in Millie’s Karaoke for close on an hour. Even Madonna was beginning to look impatient rather than hungry in the photo.

  “Where is he?” she said.

  “Løken will come,” Harry said. He was standing by the window; he had pulled up the blind and saw his own reflection run through by car headlights crawling past on Silom Road.

  “When did you talk to him?”

  “Straight after talking to you. He was at home, tidying up the photos and camera equipment. Løken will come.”

  He pressed the backs of his hands against his eyes. They had been irritated and red when he woke up today.

  “Let’s make a start,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We have to go through everything,” Harry said. “One last reconstruction.”

  “OK. But why?”

  “Liz, we’ve been on the wrong track the whole time.”

  He let go of the cord, the blind crashed down and it sounded as if something was falling through thick foliage.

  * * *

  Løken was sitting in a chair. A line of knives lay on the table in front of him. Each one of them was capable of killing a man in seconds. Indeed i
t was strange how easy it was to kill another human being. So easy that now and then it seemed incredible that most people got as old as they did. One circular movement, like peeling an orange, and the throat was cut. Blood pumped out at such a rate that death occurred in seconds, at least if the murder was carried out by someone who knew their trade.

  A stab to the back required greater precision. You could strike twenty to thirty times without hitting anything in particular; you were just hacking away harmlessly at human flesh. But if you knew your anatomy, knew how to puncture a lung or the heart, it was child’s play. If you stabbed from the front it was best to aim low and pull upward so that you got under the rib cage and reached the vital organs. But it was easier from behind, as long as you aimed to the side of the spine.

  How easy was it to shoot someone? Very easy. The first time he had killed was with a semiautomatic in Korea. He had taken aim, pulled the trigger and seen a man fall. That was it. Never any pangs of conscience, nightmares or nervous breakdowns. Perhaps because it was war, but he didn’t believe that was the whole explanation. Perhaps he lacked empathy? A psychologist had explained to him that he was a pedophile because he had a damaged soul. He might just as well have said evil.

  “OK, listen carefully now.” Harry had taken a seat opposite Liz. “On the day of the murder the ambassador’s car went to Ove Klipra’s house at seven o’clock, but the ambassador wasn’t driving.”

  “He wasn’t?”

  “No. The guard doesn’t remember seeing anyone in a yellow suit.”

  “So?”

  “You’ve seen the suit, Liz. It would make a petrol-pump attendant seem discreet. Do you think you would forget a suit like that?”

  She shook her head, and Harry continued.

  “The driver parked the car in the garage, rang the bell by the side door and when Klipra opened up he was probably looking straight down a gun muzzle. The visitor went inside, closed the door and politely asked Klipra to open his mouth.”

  “Politely?”

  “I’m trying to give the story a bit of color. OK?”