by Jo Nesbo
The suited detective nodded slowly. Harry noted that Winter was sitting up in his chair outside, as if he wanted to protest, and that Larsen was ignoring him.
“Mm. And now you’re wondering if I wanted to get rid of her, but that as a homicide detective I knew I’d inevitably be one of the suspects, so did I sort out a hitman and an alibi? Is that why I’m still here?”
Larsen ran his hand over his tie clip, which Harry noticed had the British Airways logo on it. “Not really. But we’re aware of how important the first forty-eight hours are, so we wanted to get this out of the way before asking you what you think happened.”
“Me?”
“You’re no longer a suspect. But you’re still…” Larsen let this hang in the air for a moment before he said the name with his almost exaggerated pronunciation: “Harry Hole.”
Harry looked across at Winter. Was that why he had let his detective reveal what they knew? They were stuck. They needed help. Or was this Sung-min Larsen’s own initiative? Winter looked oddly stiff as he sat out there.
“So it’s true, then?” Harry said. “The perpetrator didn’t leave a single piece of forensic evidence at the scene?”
Harry took Larsen’s expressionless face as confirmation.
“I’ve got no idea what happened,” Harry said.
“Bjørn Holm said you’d found some unidentified boot marks on the property.”
“Yes. But they could just have been from someone who got lost, that sort of thing does happen.”
“Really? There’s no sign of a break-in, and Forensics have confirmed that your…that the victim was killed where she was found. Which suggests that the killer was invited in. Would the victim have let a man she didn’t know into the house?”
“Mm. Did you notice the bars on the windows?”
“Wrought-iron bars over all twelve windows, but not the four basement windows,” Larsen said without hesitation.
“That wasn’t paranoia, but a consequence of being married to a murder detective with a rather too-high profile.”
Larsen made a note. “Let’s assume the murderer was someone she knew. The presumed reconstruction suggests that they were standing face to face. The killer closer to the kitchen, the victim nearer the door, when he first stabbed her twice in the stomach.”
Harry took a deep breath. The stomach. Rakel had been in pain before the blow to the back of her neck. The blow that put her out of her misery.
“The fact that the killer was closer to the kitchen,” Larsen went on. “That made me think that the killer had moved into a more intimate part of the home, that he felt at home there. Do you agree, Hole?”
“That’s one possibility. Another is that he walked round her to grab the knife that’s missing from the block.”
“How do you know—”
“I managed to take a quick look at the scene before your boss threw me out.”
Larsen tilted his head slightly and looked at Harry. As if he were evaluating him. “I see. Well, the business with the kitchen made us think of a third possibility. That it was a woman.”
“Oh?”
“I know it doesn’t often happen, but I’ve just read that a woman has confessed to the Borggata stabbing. The daughter. Heard of that one?”
“I might have.”
“A woman would be less suspicious of opening the door and letting another woman in, even if they didn’t know each other well. And for some reason or other, I find it easier to imagine a woman going straight into another woman’s kitchen than a man. OK, maybe that’s stretching things a bit.”
“I agree,” Harry said, without specifying if he meant the first, second or both ideas. Or that he agreed in general, that he had thought the same when he was at the scene.
“Are there any women who could have had a motive to harm Rakel Fauke?” Larsen asked. “Jealousy, anything like that?”
Harry shook his head. Obviously he could have mentioned Silje Gravseng, but there was no reason to do that now. A few years ago she had been one of his students at Police College, and the closest thing Harry had had to a female stalker. She had visited him in his office one evening and tried to seduce him. Harry had rejected her advances, and she had reacted by accusing him of rape. But her story had been so full of holes that her own lawyer, Johan Krohn, had stopped her, and the whole thing ended with Silje having to leave Police College. After that she paid a visit to Rakel at the house, not to harm or threaten her, but to apologise. All the same, Harry had run a quick check on Silje yesterday. Perhaps because he remembered the hatred in her eyes when she’d realised he didn’t want her. Perhaps because the lack of physical evidence suggested the killer knew a thing or two about detection methods. Perhaps because he wanted to rule out all other possibilities before reaching a final verdict. And enacting a final sentence. It hadn’t taken long to find out that Silje Gravseng was working as a security guard up in Tromsø, where she had been on duty on Saturday night, 1,700 kilometres from Oslo.
“Going back to the knife,” Larsen said when he got no response. “The knives in the block belong to a Japanese set, and the size and shape of the one that’s missing matches the knife wounds. If we assume that was the murder weapon, that suggests that the murder was spontaneous rather than planned. Agreed?”
“That’s one possibility. Another is that the killer knew about the block of knives before he arrived. A third is that the killer used his own knife, but decided to remove a knife from the scene in an attempt to confuse you, as well as getting rid of the forensic evidence.”
Larsen made some more notes. Harry looked at the time and cleared his throat.
“Finally, Hole. You say you’re not aware of any women who might have wanted to kill Rakel Fauke. What about men?”
Harry shook his head slowly.
“What about this Svein Finne?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “You’d have to ask him.”
“We don’t know where he is.”
Harry stood up and took his peacoat from the hook on the wall. “If I run into him, I’ll be sure to let him know you’re looking for him, Larsen.”
He turned towards the window, gave a two-fingered salute to Winter. He got a sour smile and one finger in return.
Larsen stood up and held his hand out to Harry. “Thanks for your help, Hole. Obviously you can find your own way.”
“The big question is whether or not you lot can.” Harry gave Larsen a brief smile, an even briefer handshake, then left.
At the lift he pressed the button and leaned his forehead against the shiny metal beside the door.
She wanted you back.
So, did that make things better or worse?
All these pointless what-ifs. All the self-flagellating I-should-haves. But something else as well, the pathetic hope people cling to about there being a place where those who love each other, those who have Old Tjikko’s roots, will meet again, because the thought of that not being the case is unbearable.
The lift doors slid open. Empty. Just a claustrophobic, constricting coffin inviting him in to carry him down. Down to what? To all-encompassing darkness?
Anyway, Harry rarely used lifts, he couldn’t stand them.
He hesitated. Then stepped inside.
11
Harry woke with a start and stared out at the room. The echo of his own scream was still bouncing between the walls. He looked at the time. Ten o’clock. In the evening. He pieced together the previous thirty-six hours. He had been drunk for pretty much all of them, absolutely nothing had happened, but despite that he had still managed to come up with a workable timeline with no holes in it. He was usually able to do that. But Saturday evening at the Jealousy stood out as a long, complete blackout. Probably the long-term effects of alcohol abuse finally catching up with him.
Harry swung his legs off the sofa as he tried to rem
ember what had made him cry out this time. Then immediately regretted doing so. He had been holding Rakel’s face in his hands, her shattered eyes had been staring, not at him, but through him, like he wasn’t there. She had a thin layer of blood on her chin, as if she’d coughed and a bubble of blood had burst on her lips.
Harry grabbed the bottle of Jim Beam from the coffee table and took a swig. It no longer seemed to work. He took another. The odd thing was that even though he hadn’t seen her face, and didn’t want to see it before the funeral on Friday, it had been so real in the dream.
He looked at his phone, which lay black and dead beside the bottle on the table. It had been switched off since before the interview the previous morning. He ought to turn it on. Oleg was bound to have called. Things needed to be arranged. He needed to pull himself together. He picked up the cork of the bottle of Jim Beam from the end of the table. Sniffed it. It didn’t smell of anything. He threw the cork at the bare wall and closed his fist round the neck of the bottle in a tight stranglehold.
12
At three o’clock in the afternoon Harry stopped drinking. There was nothing special that happened, no particular resolution that stopped him from drinking until four o’clock, or five, or the rest of the evening. His body simply couldn’t take any more. He switched his phone on, ignored the missed calls and text messages, and called Oleg.
“Have you surfaced?”
“More like finished drowning,” Harry said. “You?”
“Keeping afloat.”
“Good. Beat me up first? Then talk about practical stuff?”
“OK. Ready?”
“Go for it.”
* * *
—
Dagny Jensen looked at the time. It was only nine, and they had only just finished the main course. Gunnar had been responsible for most of the conversation, but Dagny still felt she couldn’t handle any more. She explained that she had a headache, and Gunnar was very understanding, thank goodness. They skipped dessert, and he insisted on seeing her home even though she assured him that wasn’t necessary.
“I know Oslo’s safe,” he said. “I just like walking.”
He had talked about entertaining, harmless things, and she had done her best to pay attention and laugh in the right places, even though she was in complete meltdown inside. But as they passed Ringen Cinema and started the climb up Thorvald Meyers gate to the block where she lived, a silence arose. And then he said it, at last.
“You’ve seemed a little out of sorts in the past few days. It’s none of my business, but is anything wrong, Dagny?”
She knew she’d been waiting for it. Hoping for it. That someone would ask. That it might prompt her to dare. Unlike all the rape victims who kept quiet about it, who covered their silence with shame, impotence, fear of not being believed. She had thought that she’d never react like that. And sure enough, she felt none of those things. So why was she behaving like this? Was that why, after she got home from the cemetery, she had cried for two hours non-stop before calling the police, then, while she was waiting to be transferred to the Vice Squad or wherever it was they wanted her to report her rape, she had suddenly cracked and hung up? Then fell asleep on the sofa and woke up in the middle of the night, when her first thought was that the rape was just something she’d dreamed. And she had felt an immense relief. Until she remembered. But she had also caught a glimpse of the idea that it could have been a bad dream. And that if she decided that was the case, it could go on being a dream, as long as she didn’t tell a single soul about it.
“Dagny?”
She took a trembling breath and managed to say: “No, there’s nothing wrong. This is where I live. Thanks for walking me home, Gunnar. See you tomorrow.”
“Hope you’re feeling better then.”
“Thanks.”
He must have noticed that she shrank away when he hugged her, because he let go of her quickly. She walked towards stairwell D as she took her key out of her bag, and when she looked up again she saw that someone had stepped out of the darkness into the light shining from the lamp above the door. A broad-shouldered, slim man in a brown suede jacket and a red bandana around his long black hair. She stopped abruptly with a gasp.
“Don’t be scared, Dagny, I’m not going to hurt you.” His eyes were glowing like embers in his furrowed face. “I’m just here to check up on you and our child. Because I keep my promises.” His voice was low, barely more than a whisper, but he didn’t have to speak loudly for her to hear him. “Because you do remember my promise, don’t you? We’re engaged, Dagny. Until death do us part.”
Dagny tried to breathe, but it was as if her lungs were paralysed.
“To seal our union, let’s repeat our promise with God as our witness, Dagny. Let’s meet in the Catholic church in Vika on Sunday evening, when we’ll have it to ourselves. Nine o’clock? Don’t leave me standing at the altar.” He let out a short laugh. “Until then, sleep well. Both of you.”
He stepped aside, out into the darkness again, and the light from the stairwell momentarily blinded her. By the time she had raised her hand to her eyes, he was gone.
Dagny stood there in silence as warm tears trickled down her cheeks. She looked at the hand holding the key until it stopped shaking. Then she unlocked the door and went inside.
13
The altocumulus clouds lay like a crocheted cloth across the sky above Voksen Church.
“My condolences,” Mikael Bellman said in a heartfelt voice, with a well-practised facial expression. The former young Chief of Police, now an equally young Minister of Justice, shook Harry’s hand with his right as he placed his left hand on top of the handshake as if to seal it. As if to express that he really meant it. Or to assure himself that Harry wasn’t going to snatch his hand away before the assembled press photographers—who hadn’t been given permission to take pictures inside the church—had done their thing. Once Bellman had ticked off Minister of Justice takes time to attend funeral of former police colleague’s spouse, he disappeared towards the waiting black SUV. He had probably checked in advance that Harry wasn’t a suspect.
Harry and Oleg went on shaking hands and nodding at the faces in front of them, most of them Rakel’s friends and colleagues. A few neighbours. Apart from Oleg, Rakel didn’t have any close relatives still alive, but the large church had still been well over half full. The funeral director had said that if they’d delayed the funeral until the following week, even more people would have been able to rearrange their schedules. Harry was pleased Oleg hadn’t announced any gathering after the funeral. Neither of them knew Rakel’s colleagues particularly well or felt like chatting to the neighbours. What needed saying about Rakel had been said by Oleg, Harry and a couple of her childhood friends inside the church, and that would have to do. Even the priest had to confine himself to the hymns, prayers and prescribed phrases.
“Fuck.” It was Øystein Eikeland, one of Harry’s own two childhood friends. With tears in his eyes he placed his hands on Harry’s shoulders and breathed fresh alcohol into his face. Maybe it was just his appearance that made Harry think of Øystein whenever anyone trotted out jokes about Keith Richards. For every cigarette you smoke, God takes an hour away from you…and gives it to Keith Richards. Harry saw that his friend was thinking hard before he finally opened his mouth to reveal his brown stumps and repeated, with a little more intensity: “Fuck.”
“Thanks,” Harry said.
“Tresko couldn’t make it,” Øystein said without letting go of Harry. “That’s to say, he gets panic attacks in groups of more than…well, more than two people. But he sends his best wishes, and says…” Øystein screwed his eyes up against the morning sunlight. “Fuck.”
“A few of us are meeting at Schrøder’s.”
“Free bar?”
“Max three.”
“OK.”
“Roar Bohr, I was Rakel�
�s chief.” Harry looked into the slate-grey eyes of a man who was fifteen centimetres shorter than him, but who still seemed just as tall. And there was something about his posture, and also the slightly archaic “chief,” that put Harry in mind of an officer in the military. His handshake was firm and his gaze steady and direct, but there was also a soreness, possibly even vulnerability there. But perhaps that was because of the circumstances. “Rakel was my best co-worker, and a wonderful person. It’s a huge loss to the NHRI and all of us who work there, and especially for me, because I worked so closely with her.”
“Thanks,” Harry said, believing him. But perhaps that was just the warmth of his handshake. The warm hand of a man who worked in human rights. Harry watched Roar Bohr as he walked over to two women standing a short distance away, and noted that Bohr looked down at where he was putting his feet. Like someone who automatically looks for landmines. Then he noticed that there was something familiar about one of the women, although she had her back to him. Bohr said something, evidently quietly, because the woman had to lean over, and Bohr put one hand gently on the base of her spine.
And then the condolences were finished. The hearse had driven away with the coffin, and a few people had already gone off to meetings and other everyday concerns. Harry saw Truls Berntsen walking off on his own to catch the bus back to the office, presumably to play more solitaire. Some of the others were standing in little groups outside the church talking. Police Chief Gunnar Hagen and Anders Wyller, the young detective Harry was renting his flat from, were standing with Katrine and Bjørn, who had brought the baby with them. Some people probably found the sound of a baby crying something of a comfort at a funeral, a reminder that life did actually go on. To anyone who wanted life to go on, anyway. Harry announced to everyone who was still there that there was going to be a small gathering at Schrøder’s. Sis, his sister, who had travelled up from Kristiansand with her partner, came over, gave Harry and Oleg each a long, hard hug, then said they needed to be getting back. Harry nodded and said that was a shame but that he understood, even though he was actually relieved. Apart from Oleg, Sis was the only person with the potential to make him cry in public.
