The Cockroaches

by Jo Nesbo

  “That sounds really far-fetched,” Liz said, wrinkling her nose.

  Rangsan picked up the paper again. “Nonetheless, I found the Thai Indo Travelers number three times on the list of incoming calls to the Molnes family over the last three days.”

  Liz whistled softly, and there were nods around the table.

  “What?” said Harry, realizing there was something he hadn’t picked up.

  “Thai Indo Travelers is a travel agency on the outside,” Liz explained. “But on the first floor they run their real business—lending money to people who can’t get loans anywhere else. Their interest rates are high and they have a very effective way of making people pay up. We’ve been keeping an eye on them for some time.”

  “Ever make anything on them stick?”

  “We could have if we’d tried hard enough. But we think their competitors are worse. Thai Indo Travelers has managed to operate alongside the mafia and as far as we know they don’t even pay protection. If they killed the ambassador it would be the first time they’ve killed anyone to our knowledge.”

  “Perhaps it was time to set an example,” Nho said.

  “Kill a man first and then ring the family to collect the money. Doesn’t that sound a bit back to front?” Harry said.

  “Why? Those who need a warning about what happens to bad debtors have been warned,” Rangsan said, slowly turning a page. “If they get the money as well, that’s a bonus.”

  “Fine,” Liz said. “Nho and Harry, you make a courtesy visit to the loan sharks. One more thing, I’ve just been talking to Forensics. They’re totally mystified by the grease we found around the knife wound on Molnes’s suit. They claim it’s organic and that it has to be from some animal. OK, I think that’s everything. Good luck.”

  Rangsan caught up with Harry and Nho as they headed toward the lift.

  “Be careful. These are rough guys. I’ve heard they use propellers on bad debtors.”

  “Propellers?”

  “They take them out in a boat, tie them to a pole in the river, put the engine in reverse and lift the propeller shaft out of the water as they slowly glide past. Can you visualize that?”

  Harry visualized it.

  “A couple of years ago we found a guy who’d died of a heart attack. His face had been pulled off, literally. The idea was that he would have to walk around town as a warning and deterrent to other debtors. But it must have been too much of a strain on his heart when he heard the engine starting up and saw the propeller coming.”

  Nho nodded. “Not good. Better to pay.”

  AMAZING THAILAND it said in big letters over the multicolored image of Thai dancers. The poster hung on the wall of the tiny travel agency in Sampeng Lane in Chinatown. Apart from Harry, Nho, and a man and a woman behind desks, the spartan room was empty. The man wore glasses with such thick lenses that he seemed to be looking at them from the inside of a goldfish bowl.

  Nho had just shown him his police ID.

  “What did he say?”

  “The police are always welcome. We can have special prices on his trips.”

  “Ask for a free trip upstairs.”

  Nho said a couple of words and the man lifted a telephone receiver.

  “Mr. Sorensen just has to finish drinking his tea,” he said in English.

  Harry was about to say something but a reproving glance from Nho changed his mind. They both sat down to wait. After a couple of minutes Harry pointed to the inactive fan on the ceiling. Goldfish Bowl smiled and shook his head.

  “Kaput.”

  Harry could feel his scalp itching. After a couple more minutes the telephone rang and the man asked them to follow him. At the bottom of the stairs he motioned that they should take off their shoes. Harry thought of his sweaty tennis socks with holes in and considered it was best for all concerned if he kept his shoes on, but Nho slowly shook his head. Cursing, Harry flipped off his shoes and trudged upstairs.

  Goldfish Bowl knocked on a door, it was flung open and Harry stepped back two paces. A mountain of flesh and muscle filled the doorway. The mountain had two small slits for eyes, a drooping black moustache and his head was shaven, apart from a limp pigtail. His head looked like a discolored bowling ball; the torso had no neck or shoulders, only a bulging mass that started at his ears and descended to a couple of arms which were so fat it was as if they had been screwed on. Harry had never seen such a large human in all his life.

  The man turned and waddled ahead of them into the room.

  “His name’s Woo,” Nho whispered. “Freelance goon. Very bad reputation.”

  “My God. He looks like a terrible imitation of a Hollywood bad guy.”

  “Chinese from Manchuria. They’re famous for being very …”

  The shutters in front of the windows were closed, and in the darkened room Harry could discern the outline of a man sitting behind a large desk. A fan whirred on the ceiling and a stuffed tiger’s head snarled at them from the wall. An open balcony door gave the impression the outside traffic was passing through the room, and a third person sat by the doorway. Woo squeezed himself into the last remaining chair. Harry and Nho took up a position in the middle of the floor.

  “How can I help you, gentlemen?”

  The voice from behind the desk was deep, the pronunciation British, the tones almost Oxford. He raised his hand and a ring glinted. Nho looked at Harry.

  “Erm, we’re from the police, Mr. Sorensen …”

  “I know.”

  “You lent money to Atle Molnes, the Norwegian ambassador. You rang his wife after his death. Why? To try and force her to pay his debts?”

  “We have no unsettled debts with any ambassador. Besides, we don’t deal with that kind of loan, Mr … .”

  “Hole. You’re lying, Mr. Sorensen.”

  “What did you say, Mr. Hole?” Sorensen had leaned forward. His facial features were Thai, but his skin and hair were as white as snow and his eyes blue.

  Nho caught Harry’s sleeve, but he pulled his arm away and held Sorensen’s gaze. He knew he’d put his neck on the block, had taken a threatening stance and that Mr. Sorensen would lose face now if he conceded anything. Those were the rules of the game. But Harry was standing there in threadbare socks, sweating like a pig and absolutely sick of face, tact and diplomacy.

  “You’re in Chinatown now, Mr. Hole, not in farang land. I have no argument with the Chief of Police in Bangkok. I suggest you have a chat with him before you say another word, then I promise you we’ll forget this embarrassing scene.”

  “Usually the police read the Miranda rights to the criminal, not vice versa.”

  Mr. Sorensen’s teeth shone white between moist, red lips. “Oh, yes. ‘You have the right to remain silent,’ and so on. Well, this time it was vice versa. Woo, show them out. Gentlemen.”

  “Your activities here can’t stand the light of day and neither can you, Mr. Sorensen. If I were you I would go straight out and buy some sunscreen with a high protection factor. They don’t sell it in prison exercise yards.”

  Sorensen’s voice went a touch deeper. “Don’t provoke me, Mr. Hole. I’m afraid my sojourns abroad have caused me to lose my legendary Thai patience.”

  “After a couple of years behind bars you’ll soon have it back.”

  “Show Mr. Hole out, Woo.”

  The massive body moved with astonishing speed. Harry caught the acrid smell of curry, and before he could lift an arm he was swept off the ground and clasped like a teddy bear someone had just won at the fair. Harry tried to wriggle loose, but the iron grip tightened every time he released air from his lungs, just like a boa constrictor constricts its victim’s supply of air. Everything went black and the sound of traffic became louder. Then finally he was free and hovering in the air. When he opened his eyes he knew he had been unconscious, as though he had been dreaming for a second. He saw a sign covered in Chinese symbols, a bundle of wires between two telegraph poles, a grayish-white sky and a face looking down on him. Then sound re
turned, and he could hear a stream of words cascading from the face’s mouth. He pointed to the balcony and then to the roof of the tuk-tuk which had been left with a nasty sag.

  “How are you, Harry?” Nho waved away the tuk-tuk driver.

  Harry peered down at himself. His back hurt and there was something immeasurably sad about bedraggled sports socks on dirty, gray tarmac.

  “Well, I wouldn’t have been allowed into Schrøder’s like this. Have you got my shoes?”

  Harry could have sworn Nho was biting his tongue to restrain a grin.

  * * *

  “Sorensen told me to bring an arrest warrant next time,” Nho said once they were back in the car. “Now we’ve got them for violence against a civil servant anyway.”

  Harry ran his finger down a long cut on his calf. “We haven’t got them, we’ve got the goon. But perhaps he can tell us something. What is it about you Thais and heights? According to Tonje Wiig I’m the third Norwegian to be thrown out of a house this week.”

  “An old mafia modus operandi. They’d rather do that than plug someone with lead. If the police find a guy beneath a window they cannot rule out the possibility that he might have fallen accidentally. Some money changes hands, the case is shelved without anyone being directly criticized and everyone’s happy. Bullet holes complicate matters.”

  They stopped at the lights. A wrinkled old Chinese woman sat on a carpet grinning. Her face blurred in the quivering blue air.

  15

  Sunday, January 12

  “What’s a pedophile?”

  Ståle Aune sighed deeply on the other end of the line.

  “Pedophile? That’s one hell of an opener. The short answer is it’s a person who is sexually attracted to minors.”

  “And the slightly more in-depth answer?”

  “There’s a lot we don’t know about the phenomenon, but if you spoke to a sexologist he would probably make a distinction between preference-conditioned and situation-conditioned pedophiles. The classic figure with a bag of sweeties in the park is the preference-conditioned. His pedophile interests usually begin in his teens, not necessarily with any external conflict. He identifies with the child, adapts his behavior to the child’s age and can on occasion assume a pseudo-parental role. The sexual activity is usually carefully planned and for him sex is an attempt to solve his life problems. Am I being paid for this?”

  “And the situation-conditioned?”

  “A more diffuse group. They’re primarily more sexually interested in other adults, and the child tends to be a substitute for someone the pedophile is in conflict with.”

  “Tell me more about the guy with the bag of sweeties. How’s he wired?”

  “Well, as a rule, pedophiles have low self-esteem and a so-called fragile sexuality. That is, they are uncertain of themselves, they can’t take on adult sexuality and they feel like failures. They think they can only control the situation if they live out their desires with children.”

  “And it’s all down to nature and nurture, the usual spiel?”

  “It’s not unusual for abusers to have been sexually abused themselves as children.”

  “How do you recognize them?”

  “Sorry, Harry, but it doesn’t work like that. They don’t really stand out at all. They’re usually men who live alone and have a poor social network. They might have a damaged sexual identity, but they can function perfectly well in other areas of life.”

  “I see. So you can’t tell.”

  “Shame creates clever camouflage artists. Most pedophiles have lifelong training in concealing their predilections from others, so the only thing I can say is that there are a lot more out there than the police arrest for abuse.”

  “Ten for every one caught.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing. Thanks, Ståle. By the way, I’ve put a cork in the bottle.”

  “Oh. How many days?”

  “About forty-eight hours.”

  “Hard?”

  “Well, at least the monsters are staying under the bed. I thought it would be worse.”

  “You’ve only just started. Remember, you’ll have some bad days.”

  “Is there anything else but bad days?”

  It was dark, and the taxi driver passed him a small color brochure when he asked to be driven to Patpong.

  “Massage, sir? Good massage. I’ll drive you.”

  In the sparse light he saw pictures of girls smiling at him, as pure and innocent as a Thai Airways advertisement.

  “No thanks, I just want to eat.” Harry returned the brochure even though his battered back thought it sounded an excellent suggestion. When, out of curiosity, Harry asked what kind of massage, the taxi driver made an international sign that left no room for interpretation.

  It was Liz who had recommended Le Boucheron in Patpong, and the food looked really good, it was just that Harry didn’t have the appetite. He smiled apologetically at the waitress who took away his plate, and he gave a generous tip so they wouldn’t think he was dissatisfied. Then he went out into the hysterical street life of Patpong. Soi 1 was closed to traffic, but it was even more crowded with people surging up and down, like a seething river, alongside stalls and bars. Music boomed out of every orifice in the wall, sweaty men and women on the pavements were on the lookout for action, and the smells of humanity, sewage and food vied for supremacy. A curtain was pulled aside as he passed and inside he saw girls dancing clad in the obligatory G-strings and high-heeled shoes.

  “No cover charge, ninety baht for drinks,” someone shouted in his ear. He continued walking, but it was like standing still because the same was repeated all the way down the overpopulated street.

  He felt a pulse beating in his stomach and couldn’t decide if it was the music, his heart or the dull din from one of the machines pounding piles night and day into Bangkok’s new motorway over Silom Road.

  At one bar a girl in a loud, red silk dress caught his gaze and pointed to the chair beside her. Harry walked on, feeling almost drunk. He heard a roar from another bar with a TV hanging from one corner and it was clear some team or other had scored. Two Englishmen with pink necks clinked glasses and sang “I’m forever blowing bubbles …”

  “Come in, blondie.”

  A tall, slim woman fluttered her eyelashes at him, pushed out a pair of large, firm breasts and crossed her legs so that the skintight trousers left nothing to the imagination.

  “She’s katoy,” a voice said in Norwegian, and Harry turned.

  It was Jens Brekke. A petite Thai woman in a tight leather skirt was hanging from his arm.

  “It’s fantastic really, all that: the curves, breasts and a vagina. In fact, some men prefer a katoy to the genuine item. And why not?” Brekke bared a set of white teeth in his brown childlike face. “The only problem of course is that surgically created vaginas do not have the same self-cleansing properties as those belonging to real women. The day they can do that I’ll consider a katoy myself. What’s your opinion, Officer?”

  Harry glanced at the tall woman who had turned her back on them with a loud sniff when she heard the word katoy.

  “Well, the thought hadn’t struck me that any of the women here might not be women.”

  “It’s easy to fool the untrained eye, but you can tell by the Adam’s apple and generally it’s not possible to remove that. Also, they tend to be a head too tall, a touch too provocatively dressed and slightly too aggressively flirtatious. And much too good-looking. That’s what gives them away ultimately. They can’t control themselves; they always have to go that bit too far.”

  He left the sentence hanging in the air, as though he were hinting at something, but if he was, Harry didn’t know what.

  “By the way, Officer, have you been overdoing things yourself? I can see you’re limping.”

  “Exaggerated faith in Western conversational styles. It’ll pass.”

  “Which? The faith or the injury?”

  Brekke watched Harry with t
he same unseen smile that had been there after the funeral. As though it were a game he wanted Harry to join in. Harry was not in a ludic mood.

  “Both, I hope. I was on my way home.”

  “Already?” The neon light shone on Brekke’s moist forehead. “Look forward to seeing you in better shape tomorrow then, Officer.”

  On Surawong Road Harry flagged down a taxi.

  “Massage, sir?”

  16

  Monday, January 13

  When Nho picked Harry up outside River Garden, his high-rise apartment block, the sun had only just risen and was shining gently down on him between the low houses.

  They found Barclays Thailand before eight o’clock and a smiling car-park attendant with a Jimi Hendrix hairstyle and headphones let them into the car park beneath the building. Nho eventually spotted a solitary free slot for guests between the BMWs and Mercedes by the lifts.

  Nho preferred to wait in the car as his Norwegian was limited to “takk,” thank you, which Harry had taught him to say in a coffee break. Liz had half teased that “takk” was always the first word a white man tried to teach natives.

  Nho was uncomfortable in the neighborhood; all the expensive cars attracted thieves, he said. And even if the car park was equipped with CCTV he didn’t quite trust car-park attendants who clicked their fingers to an invisible beat while opening the barrier.

  Harry took the lift up to the ninth floor and entered the reception area of Barclays Thailand. He introduced himself and looked at the clock. He had half expected to have to wait for Brekke, but a woman accompanied him back into the lift, swiped a card and pressed P which, she explained, stood for penthouse. Then she darted back out and Harry rose heavenward.

  As the lift doors slid open he saw Brekke standing in the middle of a glowing brown parquet floor, leaning against a large mahogany table with one phone to his ear and another on his shoulder. The rest of the room was glass. Walls, ceiling, coffee table, even the chairs.

  “Talk later, Tom. Make sure you’re not gobbled up today. And, as I said, don’t touch the rupiah.”