by Jo Nesbo
The question came straight from the manual governing conversations with psychotics. The alternative was: How do you think I can help you?
Still no response.
“You’re quite safe in this room. No one will harm you. I won’t hurt you. You’re absolutely safe.”
According to the manual, this solid statement was supposed to reassure the psychotic patient, because a psychosis is primarily about boundless fear. Kjersti Rødsmoen felt like a flight attendant running through the safety procedures before takeoff. Mechanical, routine. Even on routes crossing over the driest of deserts you demonstrate the use of the life jacket. Because the statement proclaims what passengers want to hear: You’re allowed to be frightened, but we’ll take care of you.
It was time to check her perception of reality.
“Do you know what day it is today?”
Silence.
“Look at the clock on the wall over there. Can you tell me what time it is?”
She received a hunted stare by way of an answer.
Kjersti Rødsmoen waited. And waited. The minute hand of the clock shifted with a quivering goose step.
It was hopeless.
“I’m going now,” Kjersti said. “Someone will come fetch you. You’re quite safe.”
She went to the door.
“I have to talk to Harry.” Her voice was deep, almost masculine.
Kjersti stopped and turned. “Who’s Harry?”
“Harry Hole. It’s urgent.”
Kjersti tried to establish eye contact, but the woman was still staring into her own distant world.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to tell me who Harry Hole is, Katrine.”
“Crime Squad inspector in Oslo. And if you have to say my name, use my surname, Kjersti.”
“Bratt?”
“Rafto.”
“I see. But can’t you tell me what you want to talk to Harry Hole about, so that I can pass it on—”
“You don’t understand. They’re all going to die.”
Kjersti sank slowly back into the chair. “I do understand. And why do you think they’re going to die, Katrine?”
And finally there was eye contact. And what Kjersti Rødsmoen saw made her think of one of those orange cards in the game of Monopoly she had in her vacation house: Your houses and hotels have all burned down.
“None of you understands anything,” answered the low, masculine voice. “It’s not me.”
At two o’clock Harry pulled up to the curb in front of Rakel’s timber house on Holmenkollveien. It had stopped snowing and he thought it wouldn’t be wise to leave telltale tire prints on the driveway. The snow emitted soft, drawn-out screeches under his boots and the sharp daylight flashed against the sunglass-black windows as he approached.
He went up the steps by the front door, opened the hatch of the birdhouse, put Rakel’s watch inside and closed it again. He had turned around to leave as the door behind him was wrenched open.
“Harry!”
Harry spun around, swallowed and essayed a smile. Before him stood a man naked but for a towel around his waist.
“Mathias,” he said, bewildered, staring at the other man’s chest. “You gave me a shock. Thought you’d be working at this time of day.”
“Sorry.” Mathias laughed, quickly crossing his arms. “I was working late last night. Day off today. I was on my way to the shower when I heard some noise at the door. I assumed it would be Oleg; his key sticks a bit, you see.”
Sticks, Harry mused. That must mean Oleg has the key he used to have. And that Mathias has Oleg’s. A woman’s mind.
“Can I help you, Harry?” Harry noticed that his crossed arms were unnaturally high up on his chest, as though he was trying to hide something.
“Nope,” Harry said casually. “I was just driving by and had something for Oleg.”
“Why didn’t you knock?”
Harry swallowed. “I suddenly realized he wasn’t back from school yet.”
“Oh? How did you know that?”
Harry nodded to Mathias, as though bestowing approval for an apposite question. There wasn’t a shred of suspicion in Mathias’s friendly, open face, only a genuine desire to have something clarified that he couldn’t grasp.
“The snow,” Harry said.
“The snow?”
“Yes. It stopped snowing two hours ago, and there are no prints on the steps.”
“Well, I’ll be damned, Harry,” Mathias burst out enthusiastically. “Now that’s what I call applying deductive reasoning to your everyday life. You’re a detective, all right, no question about that.”
Harry’s laughter was strained. Mathias’s crossed arms had sunk a little, and now Harry could see what Rakel must have meant by Mathias’s physical quirk. Where you expected to see two nipples, the skin just continued, white and unbroken.
“It’s hereditary,” said Mathias, who had clearly been following Harry’s eyes. “My father didn’t have any, either. It’s rare but quite harmless. And what are we men supposed to do with them anyway?”
“Indeed,” Harry said, feeling his earlobes go warm.
“Would you like me to give the something to Oleg?”
Harry shifted his gaze. It settled instinctively on the birdhouse, then moved on.
“I’ll drop it off another time,” Harry said, grimacing in a way he hoped inspired trust. “You have a shower.”
“OK.”
“See you.”
The first thing Harry did when he got back into the car was to smack both hands on the wheel and curse aloud. He had behaved like a twelve-year-old pilferer caught red-handed. He had lied to Mathias’s face. Lied and crawled and been a shit.
He gunned the engine and let the clutch go with a jerk to punish the car. He didn’t have the energy to think about it now. Had to focus on other things. But he couldn’t, and his mind was racing in a chaotic chain of associations as he tore down to Oslo city center. He thought of blemishes, of flat, red nipples that looked like bloodstains on bare skin. Of bloodstains on untreated wood. And for some reason the mold man’s words came into his head: “The alternative would have been to paint the wall red.”
The mold man had bled. Harry half closed his eyes and visualized the cut. It must have been a deep cut to have made such a mess that … that the alternative would have been to paint the wall red.
Harry jumped on the brakes. He heard a horn, looked in the mirror and saw a Hiace sliding on new snow until the tires got a grip and it skidded alongside him and past.
Harry kicked open the car door, leaped out and saw that he was by the stadium at the bottom of Holmenkollveien. He took a deep breath and broke his tower of thoughts into pieces, dismantled it to see if he could reassemble it. Rebuilt it quickly, without forcing any of the parts. For they slotted in by themselves. His pulse was accelerating. If this made credible sense, everything was turned upside down. And it all fit, it fit that the Snowman had planned how to infiltrate Harry and had just walked in off the street and made himself comfortable. And the bodies—that would explain what had happened to the bodies. Trembling, Harry lit a cigarette and started to try to reconstruct what he had seen in a flash. The chicken feathers with blackened edges.
Harry didn’t believe in inspiration, divine insights or telepathy. But he did believe in luck. Not the luck you were born with, but the systematic luck you earned through hard work and spinning yourself such a fine-meshed net that at some point chance would play into your hands. But this was not that kind of luck. This was just a fluke. An atypical fluke. If he was right, of course. Harry looked down and discovered that he was wading through snow. That in fact—quite literally—he had his feet on the ground.
He walked back to the car, took out his mobile phone and rang Bjørn Holm’s number.
“Yes, Harry?” answered a sleepy, almost unrecognizable nasal voice.
“You sound hung over.”
“I wish.” Holm sniffled. “Goddamn cold. Freezing under two duvets. Ache all over�
��”
“Listen,” Harry interrupted. “Do you remember when I asked you to take the temperature of the chickens to find out how long it had been since Sylvia had been in the barn slaughtering them?”
“Yes?”
“And you said afterward that one was warmer than the other two.”
Bjørn Holm sniffed. “Yes. Skarre suggested it had a temperature. A theory that’s perfectly plausible.”
“I think it was warmer because it was killed after Sylvia was killed, in other words, at least an hour later.”
“Oh? Who by?”
“By the Snowman.”
Harry heard a long, loud snort as snot traveled backward before Holm answered. “You mean she took Sylvia’s hatchet, went back and—”
“No, the hatchet was in the forest. I should have reacted when I saw it, but of course I’d never heard of this cutting loop when we were there looking at the chicken carcasses.”
“And what did you see?”
“A sliced feather with a blackened edge. You see, I think the Snowman was using the cutting loop.”
“Right,” said Holm. “But why on earth would she kill a chicken?”
“To paint the whole wall red.”
“Eh?”
“I’ve got an idea,” Harry said.
“Shit,” mumbled Bjørn Holm. “I suppose this idea means I have to get out of bed.”
“Well…,” Harry began.
The snowy weather must have just been taking a breather, for at three it started again, and thick, furry flakes began to sweep down over Østland. A gray glazed coat of slush lay on Route E16, winding upward from Bærum.
At the highest point on the road, Sollihøgda, Harry and Holm turned and skidded their way along the forest road.
Five minutes later Rolf Ottersen was standing in front of them in the doorway. Behind him, in the sitting room, Harry could see Ane Pedersen sitting on the sofa.
“We just wanted to have another look at the barn floor,” Harry said.
Rolf Ottersen pushed his glasses back up his nose. Bjørn Holm let out a rasping chesty cough.
“Help yourselves,” Ottersen said.
As Holm and Harry walked toward the barn Harry could feel that the thin man was still standing by the door watching them.
The chopping block was in the same place, but there was no sign of any chickens, living or dead. Leaning against the wall there was a spade with a pointed blade. To dig in the ground, not to shovel snow. Harry headed for the tool board. The outline of the hatchet that should have been hanging there reminded Harry of the chalk outlines after bodies have been removed from crime scenes.
“It’s my belief the Snowman came here and slaughtered the third chicken to spray blood over the floorboards. The Snowman couldn’t turn the boards and the alternative was to paint them red.”
“You told me that in the car as well, but I’m still lost.”
“If you want to hide red stains you can either remove them or paint everything red. I think the Snowman was trying to hide something. A clue.”
“What kind of clue?”
“Something red that’s impossible to remove because untreated wood soaks it up.”
“Blood? She was trying to hide blood with more blood? Is that your idea?”
Harry snatched a broom and swept away the sawdust around the chopping block. He crouched down and felt Katrine’s revolver pressing into him under his belt. Studied the floor. There was still a pink glow.
“Did you bring the photos we took?” Harry asked. “Start checking the places where there was the most blood. It was some way from the chopping block, around here.”
Holm took the photos from his bag.
“We know that it was chicken blood on top,” Harry said. “But imagine that the first blood that was spilled here had time to saturate the wood and be absorbed into it and therefore didn’t mix with the new blood that was poured on top a good while later. What I’m wondering is whether you can still get samples of the first blood—in other words, the blood that soaked into the wood.”
Bjørn Holm blinked in dismay. “What the fuck am I supposed to answer to that?”
“Well,” Harry said, “the only answer I will accept is yes.”
Holm responded with a prolonged fit of coughing.
Harry strolled over to the farmhouse. He knocked, and Rolf Ottersen came out.
“My colleague will be here for a while,” Harry said. “Would you mind if he popped in now and again to get warm?”
“Fine,” Ottersen said with reluctance. “What are you digging for now?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Harry said. “I saw there was soil on the spade over there.”
“Oh, that. Fence posts.”
Harry scoured the snow-covered ground that stretched into the dense, dark forest. Wondering what it was Ottersen wanted to fence in. Or out. For he had seen it: the fear in Rolf Ottersen’s eyes.
Harry motioned toward the sitting room. “You’ve got a visitor …” He was interrupted by a call on his mobile phone.
It was Skarre.
“We’ve found another one,” he said.
Harry stared into the forest and felt the large snowflakes melting on his cheeks and forehead.
“Another what?” he mumbled in response, even though he had already heard the answer in Skarre’s tone.
“Another snowman.”
The psychiatrist Kjersti Rødsmoen contacted POB Knut Müller-Nilsen as he and Espen Lepsvik from Kripos were leaving the police station.
“Katrine Bratt has talked,” she said. “And I think you should come to the hospital to hear what she has to say.”
32
DAY 21
The Tanks
Skarre trod in the tracks in the snow leading to the trees, ahead of Harry. Early-afternoon darkness presaged that winter was on its way. Above them flashed the Tryvann communications tower, and below them twinkled Oslo. Harry had driven straight from Sollihøgda and parked in the large empty parking lot where new graduates collected like lemmings every spring for the obligatory enactment of adult rituals of the species: cavorting around a fire, stupefying themselves with alcohol and indulging in sex with wild abandon. Harry’s graduation celebrations were different. He had had just two companions, Bruce Springsteen and “Independence Day,” which shrieked from his boom box on top of the German bunker on Nordstrand beach.
“A hiker found it,” Skarre said.
“And considered it necessary to report a snowman in the forest to the police?”
“He had a dog with him. It … well … you’ll see for yourself.”
They emerged into open terrain. A young man straightened up on catching sight of Skarre and Harry and came toward them.
“Thomas Helle, Missing Persons Unit,” he said. “We’re glad you’re here, Hole.”
Harry sent the young officer a look of surprise, but saw that he really meant it.
On a hill in front of him Harry watched the Crime Scene Unit at work. Skarre crawled under the red police cordon and Harry stepped over. A path marked out where they were to walk so as not to destroy any forensic evidence that had not already been destroyed. The Crime Scene officers became aware of Harry and Skarre’s presence and silently moved aside to observe the newcomers. As if they had been waiting for this: a chance to display. To collate reactions.
“Oh, shit,” Skarre said, recoiling a step.
Harry felt his head go cold, as if all the blood had drained from his brain, leaving a numb, dead sensation of nothing.
It was not the details, because at first glance the naked woman did not seem to have been brutally mutilated. Not like Sylvia Ottersen or Gert Rafto. What scared the living daylights out of him was the construction, the studied, cold-blooded nature of the arrangement. The body sat on top of two large balls of snow that had been rolled up against a tree trunk, one on top of the other like an incomplete snowman. The body leaned against the tree but any sideways movement would have been prevented b
y a steel wire attached to the thick branch over her head. The wire ended in a rigid noose around her neck, bent in such a way that it touched neither her shoulders nor her neck, like a lasso frozen in motion as it falls perfectly over the victim. Her arms were tied behind her back. The woman’s eyes and mouth were closed, affording the face a peaceful expression; she could have been asleep.
It was almost possible to believe the body had been arranged with loving attention. Until the stitches on the naked, pale skin became evident. The edges of the skin under the nearly invisible thread were separated only by a fine, even join of black blood. One welt of stitches ran across her torso, just under her breasts. The other around her neck. Immaculate workmanship, Harry mused. Not a stitch hole visible, not a line askew.
“Looks like that abstract-art shit,” Skarre said. “What’s it called?”
“Installation art,” said a voice behind him.
Harry cocked his head. They were right. But there was something that conflicted with the impression of perfect surgery.
“He chopped her up into chunks,” he said in a voice that sounded as if someone had him in a stranglehold. “And reassembled her.”
“He?” queried Skarre.
“Maybe to ease transportation,” Helle said. “I think I know who she is. She was reported missing by her husband yesterday. He’s on his way here now.”
“Why do you think it’s her?”
“Her husband found a dress with scorch marks.” Helle pointed to the body. “Roughly where the stitches are.”
Harry concentrated on his breathing. He could see the imperfection now. This was the unfinished snowman. And the knots and angles of the twisted wire were jagged. They seemed rough, arbitrary, tentative. As though this was a mock-up, a rehearsal. The first draft of an unfinished work. And why had he tied her hands behind her back? She must have been dead long before she came here. Was that part of the mock-up? He cleared his throat.
“Why wasn’t I told about this before?”
“I reported it to my boss, who reported it to the chief superintendent,” said Helle. “All we were told was that we should keep it under our hats until further notice. I assume that had something to do with”—he shot a quick glance at the Crime Scene officers—“this anonymous fugitive.”
