by Jo Nesbo
“We’re entering Darwinian waters here, so why don’t humans think like the seal?” another voice said.
“But we do, don’t we! Our society is not as monogamous as it appears, and never has been. A Swedish study showed recently that between fifteen and twenty percent of all children born have a different father from the one they—and for that matter the postulated fathers—think. Twenty percent! That’s every fifth child! Living a lie. And ensuring biological diversity.”
Harry fiddled with the radio dial to find some tolerable music. He stopped at an aging Johnny Cash’s version of “Desperado.”
There was a firm knock on the door.
Harry went into the bedroom, put on his jeans, returned to the hall and opened up.
“Harry Hole?” The man outside was wearing blue overalls and looking at Harry through thick lenses. His eyes were as clear as a child’s.
Harry nodded.
“Have you got fungus?” The man asked the question with a straight face. A long wisp of hair traversed his forehead and was stuck there. Under his arm he was holding a plastic clipboard with a densely printed sheet.
Harry waited for him to explain further, but nothing was forthcoming. Just this clear, open expression.
“That,” Harry said, “strictly speaking, is a private matter.”
The man gave the suggestion of a smile in response to a joke he was heartily sick of hearing. “Fungus in your apartment. Mold.”
“I have no reason to believe that I do,” said Harry.
“That’s the thing about mold. It seldom gives anyone any reason to believe that it’s there.” The man sucked at his teeth and rocked on his heels.
“But?” Harry said at length.
“But it is.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Your neighbor’s got it.”
“Uh-huh? And you think it may have spread?”
“Mold doesn’t spread. Dry rot does.”
“So then …?”
“There’s a construction fault with the ventilation along the walls in this building. It allows dry rot to flourish. May I take a peep at your kitchen?”
Harry stepped to the side. The man powered into the kitchen, where at once he pressed an orange hair-dryer-like apparatus against the wall. It squeaked twice.
“Damp detector,” the man said, studying something that was obviously an indicator. “Just as I thought. Sure you haven’t seen or smelled anything suspicious?”
Harry didn’t have a clear perception of what that might be.
“A coating like on stale bread,” the man said. “Moldy smell.”
Harry shook his head.
“Have you had sore eyes?” the man asked. “Felt tired? Had headaches?”
Harry shrugged. “Of course. For as long as I can remember.”
“Do you mean for as long as you’ve lived here?”
“Maybe. Listen …”
But the man wasn’t listening; he’d taken a knife from his belt. Harry stood back and watched the hand holding the knife being raised and thrust with great force. There was a sound like a groan as the knife went through the plasterboard behind the wallpaper. The man pulled out the knife, thrust it in again and bent back a powdery piece of plaster, leaving a large gap in the wall. Then he whipped out a small pen-light and shone it into the cavity. A deep frown developed behind his oversize glasses. Then he stuck his nose deep into the cavity and sniffed.
“Right,” he said. “Hello there, boys.”
“Hello there who?” Harry asked, edging closer.
“Aspergillus,” said the man. “A genus of mold. We have three or four hundred types to choose among and it’s difficult to say which one this is because the growth on these hard surfaces is so thin it’s invisible. But there’s no mistaking the smell.”
“That means trouble, right?” Harry asked, trying to remember how much he had left in his bank account after he and his father had sponsored a trip to Spain for Sis, his little sister, who had what she referred to as “a touch of Down syndrome.”
“It’s not like real dry rot. The building won’t collapse,” the man said. “But you might.”
“Me?”
“If you’re prone to it. Some people get ill from breathing the same air as the mold. They’re ailing for years, and of course they get accused of being hypochondriacs since no one can find anything and the other residents are fine. And then the pest eats up the wallpaper and the plasterboard.”
“Mm. What do you suggest?”
“That I eradicate the infection, of course.”
“And my personal finances while you’re at it?”
“Covered by the building’s insurance, so it won’t cost you a krone. All I need is access to the apartment for the next few days.”
Harry found the spare set of keys in the kitchen drawer and passed them to him.
“It’ll just be me,” the man said. “I should mention that in passing. Lots of strange things going on out there.”
“Are there?” Harry smiled sadly, staring out of the window.
“Eh?”
“Nothing,” Harry said. “There’s nothing to steal here anyway. I’ll be off now.”
The low morning sun sparkled off all the glass on the Oslo Police HQ, standing there as it had for the last thirty years, on the summit of the ridge by the main street, Grønlandsleiret. Although this had not been exactly intentional, the HQ was near the high-crime areas in east Oslo, and the prison, located on the site of the old brewery, was its closest neighbor. The police station was surrounded by a brown withering lawn and maple and linden trees that had been covered with a thin layer of gray-white snow during the night, making the park look like a deceased’s shrouded chattels.
Harry walked up the black strip of pavement to the main entrance and entered the central hall, where Kari Christensen’s porcelain wall decoration with running water whispered its eternal secrets. He nodded to the security guard in reception and went up to the Crime Squad on the sixth floor. Although it had been almost six months since he had been given his new office in the red zone, he still often mistakenly went to the cramped, windowless one he had shared with Officer Jack Halvorsen. Now Magnus Skarre was in there. And Jack Halvorsen had been interred in the ground of Vestre Aker cemetery. At first the parents had wanted their son to be buried in their hometown, Steinkjer, as Jack and Beate Lønn, the head of Krimteknisk, the Forensics Unit, had not been married; they hadn’t even been living together. But when they found out that Beate was pregnant and Jack’s baby would be born in the summer, Jack’s parents agreed that Jack’s grave should be in Oslo.
Harry entered his new office. Which he knew would be known as that forever, the way the fifty-year-old home ground of the Barcelona football club was still called Camp Nou, Catalan for “New Stadium.” He dropped into his chair, switched on the radio and nodded good morning to the photos perched on the bookcase and propped against the wall. One day in an uncertain future, if he remembered to buy picture hooks, they would hang on the wall. Ellen Gjelten and Jack Halvorsen and Bjarne Møller. There they stood in chronological order. The Dead Policemen’s Society.
On the radio Norwegian politicians and social scientists were giving their views on the American presidential election. Harry recognized the voice of Arve Støp, the owner of the successful magazine Liberal and famous for being one of the most knowledgeable, arrogant and entertaining pundits in the country. Harry turned up the volume until the voices bounced off the brick walls, and grabbed his Peerless handcuffs from the new desk. He practiced speed-cuffing the table leg, which was already splintered as a result of this new bad habit of his. He had picked it up in the FBI course in Chicago and perfected it during lonely evenings in a lousy apartment in Cabrini-Green, surrounded by arguing neighbors and in the company of Jim Beam. The aim was to bang the cuffs against the arrestee’s wrist in such a way that the spring-loaded arm closed around the wrist and the lock clicked on the other side. With the right amount of force and acc
uracy you could cuff yourself to an arrestee in one simple movement before he had a chance to react. Harry had never had any use for this on the job and only once for the other thing he had learned over there: how to catch a serial killer. The cuffs clicked around the table leg and the radio voices droned on.
“Why do you think Norwegians are so skeptical about George Bush, Arve Støp?”
“Because we’re an overprotected nation that has never fought in any wars. We’ve been happy to let others do it for us: England, the Soviet Union and America. Yes, ever since the Napoleonic Wars we’ve hidden behind the backs of our older brothers. Norway has based its security on others taking the responsibility when things got tough. That’s been going on for so long that we’ve lost our sense of reality and we believe that the earth is basically populated by people who wish us—the world’s richest country—well. Norway, a gibbering, pea-brained blonde who gets lost in an alley in the Bronx and is now indignant that her bodyguard is so brutal with muggers.”
Harry dialed Rakel’s number. Aside from Sis’s, Rakel’s telephone number was the only one he knew by heart. When he was young and inexperienced, he thought that a bad memory was a handicap for a detective. Now he knew better.
“And the bodyguard is Bush and the U.S.A.?” the host asked.
“Yes. Lyndon B. Johnson once said that the U.S. hadn’t chosen this role, but he had realized there was no one else, and he was right. Our bodyguard is a born-again Christian with a father complex, a drinking problem, intellectual limitations and not enough backbone to do his military service with honor. In short, a guy we should be pleased is going to be re-elected president today.”
“I assume you mean that ironically?”
“Not at all. Such a weak president listens to his advisers, and the White House has the best, believe you me. Even though from that laughable TV series about the Oval Office one may have formed the impression that the Democrats have a monopoly on intelligence, it is on the extreme right wing of the Republicans, surprisingly enough, that you find the sharpest minds. Norway’s security is in the best possible hands.”
“A girlfriend of a girlfriend has had sex with you.”
“Really?” said Harry.
“Not you,” Rakel said. “I’m talking to the other guy. Støp.”
“Sorry,” Harry said, turning down the radio.
“After a lecture in Trondheim. He invited her up to his room. She was interested, but drew his attention to the fact that she’d had a mastectomy. He said he would give that some thought and went to the bar. And came back and took her with him.”
“Mm. I hope expectations were fulfilled.”
“Nothing fulfills expectations.”
“No,” Harry said, wondering what they were talking about.
“What’s happening this evening?” Rakel asked.
“Palace Grill at eight is fine. But what’s all this garbage about not being able to reserve tables in advance?”
“It gives the whole place cachet, I suppose.”
They arranged to meet in the bar area first. After they had hung up, Harry sat thinking. She had sounded pleased. Or bright. Bright and cheery. He tried to sense if he had succeeded in being pleased on her behalf, pleased that the woman he had loved so much was happy with another man. Rakel and he had had their time, and he had been given chances. Which he wasted. So why not be pleased that she was well, why not let the thought that things could have been different go, and move on with his life? He promised to try a bit harder.
The morning meeting was soon over. As head of the Crime Squad, Politioverbetjent—POB for short—Gunnar Hagen ran through the cases they were working on. Which were not many, as for the time being there weren’t any fresh murder cases under investigation, and murder was the only thing that got the unit’s pulse racing. Thomas Helle, an officer from the Missing Persons Unit of the uniformed police, was present and gave a report on a woman who had been missing from her home for a year. Not a trace of violence, not a trace of the perpetrator and not a trace of her. She was a housewife and had last been seen at the day-care center where she had left her son and daughter in the morning. Her husband and everyone in her closer circle of acquaintances had an alibi and had been cleared. They agreed that the Crime Squad should investigate further.
Magnus Skarre passed on regards from Ståle Aune—the Crime Squad’s resident psychologist—whom he had visited at Ullevål University Hospital. Harry felt a pang of conscience. Ståle Aune was not just his adviser on criminal cases; he was his personal supporter in his fight against alcohol and the closest thing he had to a confidant. It had been more than a week since Aune had been admitted with some vague diagnosis, but Harry had still not overcome his reluctance to enter hospitals. Tomorrow, Harry thought. Or Thursday.
“We have a new officer,” Gunnar Hagen announced. “Katrine Bratt.”
A young woman in the first row stood up unbidden, but without offering a smile. She was very attractive. Attractive without trying, thought Harry. Thin, almost wispy hair hung lifelessly down both sides of her face, which was finely chiseled and pale and wore the same serious, weary features Harry had seen on other stunning women who had become so used to being observed that they had stopped liking or disliking it. Katrine Bratt was dressed in a blue suit that underlined her femininity, but the thick black tights below the hem of her skirt and her practical winter boots invalidated any possible suspicions that she was playing on it. She let her eyes run over the gathering, as if she had risen to see them and not vice versa. Harry guessed that she had planned both the suit and this little first-day appearance at the Police HQ.
“Katrine worked for four years at the Bergen Police HQ, dealing mainly with public-decency offenses, but she also did a stint at the Crime Squad,” Hagen continued, looking down at a sheet of paper Harry presumed was her CV. “Law degree from University of Bergen 1999, the police academy and now she’s an officer here. For the moment no children, but she’s married.”
One of Katrine Bratt’s thin eyebrows rose imperceptibly, and either Hagen saw this or he thought this last scrap of information was superfluous, because he added, “For those who may be interested …”
In the oppressive and telling pause that followed, Hagen seemed to think he had made matters worse; he coughed twice with force and said that those who had not yet signed up for the Christmas party should do so before Wednesday.
Chairs scraped and Harry was already in the corridor when he heard a voice behind him.
“Apparently I belong to you.”
Harry turned and looked into Katrine Bratt’s face. Wondering how attractive she would be if she made an effort.
“Or you to me,” she said, showing a line of even teeth but without letting the smile reach her eyes. “Whichever way you look at it.” She spoke Bergen-flavored standard Norwegian with moderately rolled r’s, which suggested, Harry wagered, that she was from Fana or Kalfaret or some other solidly middle-class district.
He continued on his way, and she hurried to catch up with him. “Seems the Politioverbetjent forgot to inform you.”
She pronounced the word with a slightly exaggerated stress on all the syllables.
“But you should show me around and take care of me for the next few days. Until I’m up and running. Can you do that, do you think?”
Harry eased off a smile. So far he liked her, but of course he was open to changing his opinion. Harry was always willing to give people another chance to wind up on his blacklist.
“I don’t know,” he said, stopping by the coffee dispenser. “Let’s start with this.”
“I don’t drink coffee.”
“Nevertheless. It’s self-explanatory. Like most things here. What are your thoughts on the case of the missing woman?”
Harry pressed the button for Americano, which, in this machine, was as American as Norwegian ferry coffee.
“What about it?” Bratt asked.
“Do you think she’s alive?” Harry tried to ask in a casual manner s
o that she wouldn’t realize it was a test.
“Do you think I’m stupid?” she said and watched with undisguised revulsion as the machine coughed and spluttered something black into a white plastic cup. “Didn’t you hear the Politioverbetjent say that I worked at the Sexual Offenses Unit for four years?”
“Mm,” Harry said. “Dead, then?”
“As a dodo,” said Katrine Bratt.
Harry lifted the white cup. He pondered the possibility that he had just been allocated a colleague he might come to appreciate.
Walking home in the afternoon, Harry saw that the snow was gone from the streets, and the light, flimsy flakes whirling through the air were eaten up by the wet sidewalk as soon as they hit the ground. He went into his regular music shop on Akersgata and bought Neil Young’s latest even though he had a suspicion it was a stinker.
As he unlocked his apartment he noticed that something was different. Something about the sound. Or perhaps it was the smell. He pulled up sharp at the threshold to the kitchen. The whole of one wall was gone. That is, where early this morning there had been bright flowery wallpaper and plasterboard, he now saw rust-red bricks, gray mortar and grayish-yellow studwork dotted with nail holes. On the floor was the mold man’s toolbox and on the countertop a note saying he would be back the following day.
He went into the sitting room and slipped in the Neil Young CD, then glumly took it out again after a quarter of an hour and put on Ryan Adams. The thought of a drink came from nowhere. Harry closed his eyes and stared at the dancing pattern of blood and total blindness. He was reminded of the letter again. The first snow. Toowoomba.
The ringing of the telephone interrupted Ryan Adams’s “Shakedown on 9th Street.”
A woman introduced herself as Oda, said she was calling from Bosse and it was nice to talk to him again. Harry couldn’t remember her, but he did remember the TV program. They had wanted him to talk about serial killers, because he was the only Norwegian police officer to have studied with the FBI, and furthermore he had hunted down a genuine serial killer. Harry had been stupid enough to agree. He had told himself he was doing it to say something important and moderately qualified about people who kill, not so that he could be seen on the nation’s most popular talk show. In retrospect, he was not so sure about that. But that wasn’t the worst aspect. The worst was that he’d had a drink before going on the air. Harry was convinced that it had been only one. But on the program it looked as if it had been five. He had spoken with clear diction; he always did. But his eyes had been glazed and his analysis sluggish, and he hadn’t managed to draw any conclusions, so the show host had been forced to introduce a guest who was the new European flower-arranging champion. Harry had not said anything, but his body language had clearly shown what he thought about the flower debate. When the host, with a surreptitious smile, had asked how a murder investigator related to flower arranging, Harry had said that wreaths at Norwegian burials certainly maintained high international standards. Perhaps it had been Harry’s slightly befuddled, nonchalant style that had drawn laughter from the studio audience and contented pats on the back from the TV people after the program. He had “delivered the goods,” they said. And he had joined a small group of them at Kunstnernes Hus, had been indulged and had woken up the next day with a body that screamed, demanded, it had to have more. It was a Friday and he had continued to drink all weekend. He had sat at Schrøder’s and shouted for beer as they were flashing the lights to encourage customers to leave, and Rita, the waitress, had gone over to Harry and told him that he would be refused admission in the future unless he went now, preferably to bed. On Monday morning Harry had turned up for work at eight on the dot. He had contributed nothing useful to the department, thrown up in the sink after the morning meeting, clung to his office chair, drunk coffee, smoked and thrown up again, but this time in the toilet. And that was the last time he had succumbed; he hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since.
