The Cockroaches

by Jo Nesbo

  The echo died.

  “Fru Molnes has a motive, but is it good enough?” Harry said and jumped down. “Would you kill someone to have the right of disposal over fifty million kroner for six years?”

  “Depends on who I had to kill,” Liz said. “I know a couple of people I would murder for less.”

  “I mean: is fifty million kroner for six years the same as five million for sixty years?”

  “Negative.”

  “Exactly. Shit!”

  “Do you wish it was her? Mrs. Molnes?”

  “I’ll tell you what I wish. I wish we could find the bloody murderer so that I could go home.”

  Liz belched loudly; it was impressive. She nodded in acknowledgement and put the beer down.

  “Poor daughter. Runa’s her name, right?”

  “She’s a tough girl.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He shrugged and raised an arm to the sky.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Thinking.”

  “I mean with your hand. What’s that?”

  “Energy. I’m gathering energy from all the people down there. It’s supposed to give eternal life. Do you believe in that kind of thing?”

  “I stopped believing in eternal life when I was sixteen, Harry.”

  Harry turned, but couldn’t see her face in the night.

  “Your father?”

  He could see the sharp outline of her head nodding.

  “Yup. He carried the world on his shoulders, my dad did. Shame it was too heavy.”

  “How …?” He fell silent.

  There was a crunch as she crushed the beer can.

  “It’s just another sad story about a Vietnam vet, Harry. We found him in the garage, in full dress uniform with his service rifle beside him. He had written a long letter, not to us, but to the U.S. Army. It said he couldn’t bear the thought that he’d fled his responsibilities. He’d realized that when he was standing in the doorway of the helicopter taking off from the roof of the American Embassy in Saigon in 1973 and watching the desperate south Vietnamese storming the place to take refuge from the approaching forces. He wrote that he was as responsible as the police who used the butts of their rifles to keep them out, all of them who had promised they would win the war, who had promised democracy. As an officer he saw himself as equally responsible for the U.S. Army’s decision to prioritize evacuation at the expense of the Vietnamese who had fought side by side with them. Dad dedicated his military efforts to them and regretted that he had not lived up to his responsibility. Finally, he said goodbye to me and Mom and said we should try to forget him as quickly as possible.”

  Harry felt an urge to smoke.

  “That’s a lot of responsibility to carry,” he said.

  “Yeah, but I guess sometimes it’s easier to take responsibility for the dead instead of the living. The rest of us have to look after them, Harry. The living. After all, that’s the responsibility that drives us.”

  Responsibility. If there was one thing he had tried to bury last year, it was responsibility. Whether it was for the living or the dead, himself or others. It only involved guilt and was never rewarded anyway. No, he could not see how responsibility was driving him. Perhaps Torhus had been right, perhaps his motives for wanting to see justice done weren’t so noble after all. Perhaps it was just stupid ambition that prevented him from allowing the case to be shelved, that made him so keen to catch someone, no matter who, so long as he could find damning evidence and stamp the file “Solved.” The newspaper headlines and the backslap-ping when he returned from Australia, had they actually meant as little as he liked to believe? This idea that he could trample over everything and everyone because he wanted to get back to Sis’s case, perhaps it was just a pretext? Because it had become so, so important for him to succeed.

  For a second there was silence, it was as though Bangkok was drawing breath. Then the same foghorn rent the air again. A lament. It sounded like a very lonely elephant, Harry thought. And then the cars started honking their horns again.

  A note lay on the doormat when he got back to his flat. I’m in the pool. Runa.

  Harry had noticed that “pool” was next to the figure 5 on the lift panel, and when he got out on the fifth floor, sure enough, he could smell chlorine. Around the corner was a swimming pool under the open sky with balconies on two sides. The water glittered softly in the moonlight. He crouched down by the edge and stuck out a hand.

  “You feel at home here, don’t you?”

  Runa didn’t answer, just kicked out, swam past him and ducked beneath the water. Her clothes and prosthesis lay in a bundle by the sunlounger.

  “Do you know what time it is?” he asked.

  She appeared from below, grabbed him around the neck and kicked off. He was caught totally unprepared, lost his balance and his hands found naked, smooth skin as he slipped into the water with her. They didn’t make a sound, just pushed water to the side like a heavy, warm duvet and sank into it. Bubbles formed in his ears and tickled, and his head felt as if it were expanding. They reached the bottom and he pushed off with his feet and took them to the surface.

  “You’re crazy!” he spluttered.

  She chuckled and swam away with rapid strokes.

  He was lying on the side in dripping clothes when she came out of the pool. When he opened his eyes she was holding the pool net trying to catch a large dragonfly floating on the surface of the water.

  “That’s a miracle,” Harry said. “I was convinced the only insects that survived in this town were cockroaches.”

  “Some of the good ones always survive,” she said, carefully lifting the net. She released the dragonfly and it flew over the pool with a low buzzing noise.

  “Aren’t cockroaches good?”

  “Yuk, they’re revolting!”

  “They don’t have to be bad because they’re revolting.”

  “Maybe not. But I don’t think they’re good. It’s like they just exist.”

  “They just exist,” Harry repeated, not sarcastically, more reflectively.

  “They’re made like that. Made for us to want to tread on them. If there weren’t so many of them.”

  “Interesting theory.”

  “Listen,” she whispered. “Everyone’s asleep.”

  “Bangkok never sleeps.”

  “Yes, it does. Listen. They’re sleeping noises.”

  The pool net was attached to a hollow aluminum tube, which she blew through. It sounded like a didgeridoo. He listened. She was right.

  She followed him down to use the shower.

  He was already standing in the corridor and had pressed the lift button when she emerged from his bathroom with a towel around her.

  “Your clothes are on the bed,” he said, closing the apartment door.

  Afterward they stood in the corridor waiting for the lift. A red number above the door had started the countdown.

  “When are you leaving?” she asked.

  “Soon. If nothing turns up.”

  “I know you met Mum earlier this evening.”

  Harry put his hands in his pockets and looked at his toenails. She had said he ought to cut them. The lift doors opened, and he stood in the doorway.

  “Your mother says she was at home the night your father died. And you can testify to that.”

  She groaned. “Honestly, do you want me to answer that?”

  “Maybe not,” he said. He took a step back and they looked at each other while waiting for the doors to close.

  “Who do you think did it?” he asked at length.

  She was still looking at him as the doors slid shut.

  24

  Wednesday, January 15

  In the middle of Jimi’s guitar solo in “All Along the Watchtower” the music suddenly stopped and Jim Love gave a start, then realized someone had removed his headphones.

  He turned in the chair, and a tall, blond guy who had definitely been a little lax with his sunscreen towere
d over him in the cramped car-parking booth. Half of the face was hidden behind a pair of pilot sunglasses of dubious quality. Jim had an eye for that kind of thing; his own had cost him a week’s pay.

  “Hello,” the tall man said. “I asked if you spoke English.”

  The guy spoke with an indefinable accent and Jim answered with a Brooklyn one.

  “Better than I speak Thai anyway. How can I help you? Which company do you want?”

  “No company today. I want a chat with you.”

  “With me? You’re not the supervisor from the security company, are you? I can explain the Walkman—”

  “No, I’m not. I’m from the police. My name’s Hole. My colleague, Nho …”

  Harry stepped aside, and behind him in the doorway Jim saw a Thai man with the standard crew cut and freshly ironed white shirt. Which meant that Jim did not doubt for one minute that the badge he held up was genuine. He scrunched up one eye.

  “Police, huh? Do you go to the same hairdresser? Ever thought about a new do? Like this?” Jim pointed to his own mop of hair.

  The tall man laughed. “Doesn’t look like eighties retro has hit police stations just yet, no.”

  “Eighties what?”

  “Have you got someone who can take over while we talk?”

  Jim explained that he had come to Thailand four years ago on holiday with a few friends. They had hired motorbikes and driven north, and in a little village by the Mekong River on the border with Laos one of them had been foolhardy enough to buy some opium and put it in his backpack. On their way back they were pulled over by the police and searched. On a dusty country road in deepest Thailand they suddenly realized their friend was going to be locked up for an incredibly long time.

  “According to the law, they can fucking execute guys smuggling shit. Did you know that? And the three of us who hadn’t done nothing thought, oh fuck, we’re gonna be in trouble too, accessories or something. Shit, I mean, as a black American, I don’t exactly look like a drug smuggler, right? We begged and begged and got nowhere until one of the officers talked about a fine instead. So we scraped together all the dough we had, and they confiscated the opium and let us go. We were so damn happy. The problem was we’d given them the money for our return ticket to the States, right? So …”

  Jim described with a mass of words and even more gestures how one thing had led to another, that he’d been working as a guide for American tourists, but he’d had trouble with his residence permit and that he’d been lying low, looked after by a Thai girl he’d met, and that when the others were ready to leave he’d decided to stay. After a lot of toing and froing he’d got a residence permit because he’d been offered a job as a car-park attendant, and they needed people who spoke English for the buildings where international gatherings were held.

  Jim was talking so much in the end Harry had to stop him.

  “Shit, I hope your Thai friend doesn’t speak English,” Jim said, glancing nervously at Nho. “The guys we paid up north—”

  “Relax, Jim. We’re here to ask about something else. A dark blue Mercedes with a diplomatic plate number was supposed to have been here on the seventh of January, at around four. Does that ring any bells?”

  Jim burst out laughing. “If you asked me which Jimi Hendrix song I was listening to maybe I could answer you, man, but the cars that come in and out of here …” He pursed his lips.

  “When we were here we were given a ticket. You wouldn’t be able to check anything, would you? The registration number or something?”

  Jim shook his head. “We don’t worry about that. Most of the parking lot has CCTV, so if anything happens, we can check it out afterward.”

  “Afterward? Do you mean you record it?”

  “Of course.”

  “I haven’t seen any monitors.”

  “That’s because there aren’t any. This parking garage has six levels, right, so we can’t sit and watch it all. Shit, most criminals who see a camera just scram, right? So you’re halfway there. And if anyone’s dumb enough to sneak in and steal one of the cars, we’ve got it all on tape for you guys.”

  “How long do you keep the videos?”

  “Ten days. Most people have worked out if something’s missing from their cars by then. Then we record over the tapes.”

  “That would mean you’ve got four to five p.m. on the seventh of January on tape then?”

  Jim peered up at a calendar on the wall. “You betcha.”

  They walked down a staircase and entered a warm, damp basement, where Jim switched on a solitary lightbulb and unlocked one of the steel cabinets along the wall. The tapes were stacked neatly in piles.

  “There’s a lot of tapes to get through if you want to check the whole parking lot.”

  “Visitor parking is enough,” Harry said.

  Jim searched along the shelves. Obviously every camera had its shelf, and the dates were written on the labels in pencil. Jim pulled out a cassette.

  “Bingo.”

  He opened another cabinet in which there was a video player and a monitor, inserted the cassette and after a few seconds a black-and-white image appeared on the screen. Harry immediately recognized the visitor parking slots; the recording clearly came from the same camera he had seen the last time they were here. A code at the bottom of the screen showed the day, month and time. They spooled forward to 15:50. No ambassador’s car. They waited. It was like watching a freeze-frame; nothing was happening.

  “Let’s fast-forward,” Jim said.

  Apart from the clock in the corner speeding up there was no difference. 17:15. A couple of cars raced by leaving wet marks on the cement. 17:40 and they could see the tracks drying and vanishing, but still no sign of the ambassador’s Mercedes. When the clock showed 17:50 Harry told Jim to switch off the video player.

  “There should have been an embassy car in one of the visitors’ spaces,” Harry said.

  “Sorry,” Jim said. “Looks like someone’s given you some bad information.”

  “Could it have been parked anywhere else?”

  “Of course. Anyone who isn’t a regular visitor has to drive past this same camera, we would have seen the car pass.”

  “We’d like to see a different video,” Harry said.

  “Oh yeah. Which one?”

  Nho rummaged through his pockets. “Do you know where a car with this registration number parks?” he asked, passing him a slip of paper. Jim stared at him suspiciously.

  “Shit, man, you speak English after all.”

  “It’s a red Porsche,” Nho said.

  Jim passed back the note. “I don’t need to check. No regulars drive a red Porsche.”

  “Faen!” Harry said.

  “What was that?” Jim asked with a grin.

  “A Norwegian word you don’t want to learn.”

  They walked back into the sunshine.

  “I can get you a decent pair cheap,” Jim said, pointing to Harry’s sunglasses.

  “No, thank you.”

  “Anything else you need?” Jim winked and laughed. He had already started clicking his fingers. He was probably looking forward to listening to his Walkman again.

  “Hey, Officer!” he shouted after them as they left. Harry turned. “Fa-an!”

  They could hear his laughter all the way to the car.

  “So what do we know?” Liz asked, putting her feet on the desk.

  “We know that Brekke’s lying,” Harry said. “He said that after their meeting he accompanied the ambassador down to where his car was parked in the underground car park.”

  “Why would he lie about that?”

  “On the phone the ambassador says that he wants confirmation that they’re meeting at four o’clock. There’s no doubt the ambassador arrived at the office. We’ve spoken to the receptionist, and she confirmed it. She can also confirm that they left the office together, because Brekke popped by to leave a message. She remembers that because it was around five and she was getting ready to go home.”


  “I’m glad someone remembers something.”

  “But what Brekke and the ambassador did after that we don’t know.”

  “Where was the car? I doubt he’d risk parking in the street in that part of Bangkok.”

  “They might have agreed to go somewhere else, and the ambassador got someone to look after the car while he was fetching Brekke,” Nho suggested.

  Rangsan cleared his throat and turned over a page.

  “In a place that’s crawling with small-time crooks just waiting for a chance like that?”

  “Yeah, I agree,” Liz said. “It’s still weird that he didn’t use the underground lot, when it’s the easiest and the safest thing to do. He could literally have parked next to the elevator.”

  Her little finger rotated in her ear and her expression lit up.

  “Where are we actually going with this?” she asked.

  Harry threw up his arms in resignation. “I’d been hoping we could prove Brekke had left the office for the day when he and the ambassador left at five, taking the ambassador’s car. And that the recordings would show his Porsche was in the car park overnight. But I didn’t consider the possibility that Brekke didn’t drive his car to work.”

  “Let’s forget the cars for now,” Liz said. “What we do know is that Brekke’s lying. So what do we do next?” She flicked Rangsan’s newspaper.

  “Check alibis,” came the answer from behind.

  25

  Wednesday, January 15

  People’s reactions to being arrested are as varied as they are unpredictable.

  Harry thought he had seen most variants and was therefore not especially surprised to watch Jens Brekke’s sun-tanned face take on a grayish hue and his eyes wander like those of a hunted animal. Body language changes, and even a tailor-made Armani suit doesn’t sit as well anymore. Brekke held his head high, but it seemed as though he had shrunk.

  Brekke hadn’t been arrested, he had just been brought in for questioning, but for someone who had never been picked up by two armed officers who didn’t even ask if the time was convenient, the difference was academic. When Harry caught sight of Brekke in the interview room the idea that the man before him had managed to perform a cold-blooded stabbing seemed absurd. However, he’d thought the same before and been wrong.