Knife

by Jo Nesbo

  * * *

  —

  “Did I say something wrong?” Finne laughed as he stumbled through the muddy snow. He fell to his knees, and Harry pulled him up and shoved him towards the bunkers.

  * * *

  —

  Harry was crouched down in front of the wooden bench. On the floor in front of him was everything he had found when he searched Svein Finne. A dice made of blue-grey metal. A couple of hundred-kroner notes and some coins, but no bus or tram tickets. A knife in a sheath. The knife had a brown wooden shaft, a short blade. Sharp. Could that be the murder weapon? There were no traces of blood on it. Harry looked up. He had removed one of the planks covering the gun slits to let some light into the bunker. Joggers occasionally ran past along the path just outside, but there wouldn’t be any until the snow had gone completely. No one would hear Svein Finne’s screams.

  “Nice knife,” Harry said.

  “I collect knives,” Finne said. “I had twenty-six that you seized from me, do you remember? I never got them back.” The light of the low morning sun was striking Svein Finne’s face and muscular upper body. Not the pumped-up version jailbirds get from repetitive weightlifting in a cramped gym, but the wiry, fit sort. A ballet dancer’s body, Harry thought. Or Iggy Pop’s. Clean. Finne was sitting on the bench with his hands cuffed round the backrest. Harry had removed his shoes as well, but had let him keep his trousers.

  “I remember the knives,” Harry said. “What’s the dice for?”

  “To make the difficult decisions in life.”

  “Luke Rhinehart,” Harry said. “So you’ve read The Dice Man.”

  “I don’t read, Hole. But you can keep the dice, a gift from me to you. Let fate decide when you don’t know what to do. You’ll find it very liberating, believe me.”

  “So fate is more liberating than deciding for yourself?”

  “Of course. Imagine that you feel like killing someone, but can’t make yourself do it. So you need help. From fate. And if the dice tells you to kill, fate bears the responsibility; it liberates you and your free will. Do you see? All it takes is a throw of the dice.”

  Harry checked the recording was working before he put the phone down on the bench. He took a deep breath. “Did you throw the dice before you murdered Rakel Fauke?”

  “Who’s Rakel Fauke?”

  “My wife,” Harry said. “The murder took place in the kitchen of our home in Holmenkollen ten days ago.” He saw something begin to dance in Finne’s eyes.

  “My condolences.”

  “Shut up and talk.”

  “Or else?” Finne sighed as if he were bored. “Are you going to get the car battery and use it on my testicles?”

  “Using car batteries to torture someone is a myth,” Harry said. “They don’t have enough power.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I read up about torture methods online last night,” Harry said, running the sharp edge of the knife against the skin of his thumb. “Apparently it isn’t the pain itself that makes people confess, but the fear of pain. But obviously the fear needs to be well founded—the torturer has to convince the victim that the pain he is willing to inflict is only limited by the torturer’s imagination. And if there’s one thing I’ve got right now, Finne, it’s imagination.”

  Svein Finne moistened his thick lips. “I see. You want the details?”

  “All of them.”

  “The only detail I have for you is that I didn’t do it.”

  Harry clenched his fist around the handle of the knife and punched. He felt the cartilage in the other man’s nose break, felt the blow in his own knuckles and the warm blood on the back of his hand. Finne’s eyes filled with tears of pain and his lips parted. Revealed his big, yellow teeth in a broad grin. “Everybody kills, Hole.” His priest’s voice had a different, more nasal tone now. “You, your colleagues, your neighbour. Just not me. I create new life, I repair what you destroy. I populate the world with myself, with people who want good.” He tilted his head. “I don’t understand why people make the effort to raise something that isn’t theirs. Like you and your bastard son. Oleg, that’s his name, isn’t it? Is that because your sperm’s too weak, Hole? Or didn’t you fuck Rakel well enough for her to want to give birth to your children?”

  Harry punched again. Hit the same place. He wondered if the crisp crunching sound came from Finne’s nose or was just in his own head. Finne leaned his head back and grinned up at the roof. “More!”

  * * *

  —

  Harry was sitting on the floor with his back against the concrete wall, listening to the sound of his own deep breathing and the wheezing sound from the bench. He had wound Finne’s shirt around his hand, but the pain told him that the skin on at least one of his knuckles was broken. How long had they been at it? How long was it going to take? On the website about torture it had said that no one, absolutely no one, could hold out against torture in the long run, that they would tell you what you want, or possibly what they think you want. Svein Finne had merely repeated the same word: more. And had got what he asked for.

  “Knives.” The voice was no longer recognisable as Finne’s. And when Harry looked up, he didn’t recognise the man either. The swelling on his face had made his eyes close, and the blood was hanging off him like a dripping red beard. “People use knives.”

  “Knives?” Harry repeated in a whisper.

  “People have been sticking knives in each other since the Stone Age, Hole. Fear of them is embedded in our genes. The thought that something can penetrate your skin, get inside, destroy what’s inside you, that which is you. Show them a knife and they’ll do whatever you want.”

  “Who does what you want?”

  Finne cleared his throat and spat red saliva on the floor between them. “Everyone. Women, men. You. Me. In Rwanda, the Tutsis were offered the chance to buy bullets so they could be shot rather than hacked to death with machetes. And you know what? They paid up.”

  “OK, I’ve got a knife,” Harry said, nodding towards the knife on the floor between them.

  “And where are you going to stick it?”

  “I was thinking the same place you stabbed my wife. In the stomach.”

  “A bad bluff, Hole. If you stab me in the stomach I won’t be able to talk, and I’d bleed to death before you got your confession.”

  Harry didn’t answer.

  “Actually, hang on,” Finne said, straightening his bloody head. “Could it be that you, who have done your research into torture, are conducting this ineffective boxing match because deep down you don’t really want a confession?” He sniffed the air. “Yes, that’s it. You don’t want me to confess, so you have an excuse to kill me. In fact, you’d have to kill me in order to get justice. You just needed a precursor to the killing. So you can tell yourself you tried, that this wasn’t what you wanted. That you’re not like the murderers who do it just because they like it.” Finne’s laughter turned into a gurgling cough. “Yes, I lied. I am a murderer, me too. Because killing someone is fantastic, isn’t it, Hole? Seeing a child come into the world, knowing that it’s your own creation, can only be outshone by one thing: removing someone from the world. Terminating a life, assuming the role of fate, being someone’s dice. Then you’re God, Hole, and you can deny it as much as you like, but that’s precisely the feeling you’ve got right now. It’s good, isn’t it?”

  Harry stood up.

  “So I’m sorry to have to spoil this execution, Hole, but I hereby declare: mea culpa, Hole. I murdered your wife, Rakel Fauke.”

  Harry froze. Finne looked up at the roof.

  “With a knife,” he whispered. “But not the one you’re holding in your hand. She was screaming when she died. She was screaming your name. Haarr-y. Haarr-yy…”

  Harry felt a different type of rage hit him. The cold sort, the sort that made hi
m calm. And crazy. Which he had feared might come, and which mustn’t be allowed to take over.

  “Why?” Harry asked. His voice was suddenly relaxed. His breathing normal.

  “Why?”

  “The motive?”

  “That’s obvious, surely? The same as yours now, Hole. Revenge. We’re engaged in a classic blood feud. You killed my son, I kill your wife. That’s what we do, that’s what separates us from the animals: we take revenge. It’s rational, but we don’t even have to think about whether it makes sense, we just know that it feels good. Isn’t that what it feels like for you right now, Hole? You’re making your own pain into someone else’s. Someone you can convince yourself is responsible for the fact that you’re in pain.”

  “Prove it.”

  “Prove what?”

  “That you killed her. Tell me something you couldn’t have known about the murder or crime scene.”

  “To Harri. With an ‘i.’ ”

  Harry blinked.

  “From Oleg,” Finne went on. “Branded into a breadboard hanging on the wall between the top cupboards and the coffee machine.”

  The only sound in the silence that followed was the metronome-like dripping.

  “There’s your confession,” Finne said, coughing and spitting again. “That gives you two options. You can take me into custody and get me convicted under Norwegian law. That’s what a policeman would do. Or you can do what us murderers do.”

  Harry nodded. Crouched down again. Picked up the dice. He cupped his hands and shook it before letting it roll across the concrete floor. He looked at it thoughtfully. Put the dice in his pocket, grasped the knife and stood up. The sunlight shining in between the planks glinted off the blade. He stopped behind Finne, put his left arm around his forehead and locked his head to his chest.

  “Hole?” The voice was slightly higher now. “Hole, don’t…” Finne jerked at the cuffs, and Harry could feel his body trembling.

  Finally, a sign of angst in the face of death.

  Harry breathed out and dropped the knife into his coat pocket. Still holding Finne’s head tight, he pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped Finne’s face with it. He wiped the blood from around his nose, mouth and chin. Finne sniffed and cursed, but didn’t try to struggle. Harry tore two strips off the handkerchief and stuck them in his nostrils. Then he put the handkerchief back in his pocket, walked around the bench and looked at the result. Finne was panting as if he’d just run the 400 metres. Because Harry had mostly had Finne’s T-shirt wrapped round his fist when he hit him, there were no cuts, just swelling and the nosebleed.

  Harry went outside and put some snow in the T-shirt, then went back inside and held it to Finne’s face.

  “Trying to make me presentable so you can claim this never happened?” Finne said. He had already calmed down.

  “It’s probably too late for that,” Harry said. “But whatever punishment they give me will be based on the amount of damage, so let’s call it damage limitation. And you provoked me because you wanted me to hit you.”

  “I did, did I?”

  “Of course. You wanted to get some physical evidence to prove to your lawyer that you were assaulted when the police were questioning you. Because any judge would refuse to allow the police to present evidence acquired using unlawful means. That’s why you confessed. Because you assumed the confession would get you out of here but still wouldn’t cost you anything later.”

  “Maybe. At least you’re not thinking of killing me.”

  “No?”

  “You’d already have done it by now. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe you haven’t got it in you after all.”

  “You’re suggesting I should?”

  “Like you said yourself, it’s too late now, an ice pack isn’t going to fix this. I’ll end up walking free.”

  Harry picked his phone up from the bench. Switched the recording off and called Bjørn Holm.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Harry. I’ve got Svein Finne. He’s just confessed to me that he murdered Rakel, and I’ve got it recorded.”

  Harry heard a baby crying in the pause that followed.

  “Really?” Bjørn said slowly.

  “Really. I want you to come and arrest him.”

  “What? Didn’t you say you’ve already arrested him?”

  “Not arrested, no,” Harry said, and looked at Finne. “I’m suspended, aren’t I, so right now I’m just a private citizen holding another private citizen here against his will. Finne can always file a complaint, but I’m pretty sure I’d be treated fairly leniently given the fact he murdered my wife. The important thing now is that he’s arrested and questioned properly by the police.”

  “I get it. Where are you?”

  “The German bunkers above Sjømannsskolen. Finne’s sitting cuffed to a bench in here.”

  “I see. What about you?”

  “Mm.”

  “No, Harry.”

  “No what?”

  “I don’t want to have to carry you out of some bar later tonight.”

  “I’ll send the audio file to your email address.”

  * * *

  —

  Mona Daa stopped in the doorway of her editor’s office. He was talking on the phone.

  “They’ve arrested someone for Rakel Fauke’s murder,” she said loudly.

  “I’ve got to go,” the editor said, then hung up without waiting for a response and looked up. “Are you on it, Daa?”

  “It’s already written,” Mona said.

  “Get it out there! Has anyone else published it yet?”

  “We got notification five minutes ago, there’s a press conference at four o’clock. What I wanted to talk to you about is whether or not we should name the suspect.”

  “Did they give his name in the announcement?”

  “Of course not.”

  “So how have you got it?”

  “Because I’m one of your best reporters.”

  “In five minutes?”

  “OK, the best.”

  “So who is it?”

  “Svein Finne. Previous convictions for assault and rape, and a criminal record as long as a plague year. Do we publish his name?”

  The editor ran his hand over his thinning hair. “Hm. Tricky.”

  Mona was well aware of the dilemma. Under paragraph 4.7 of the Ethical Code of Practice for the Norwegian Press, the press agreed to deal sensitively with the publication of names in criminal cases, especially during the early stages of an investigation. Any identification had to be justifiable on grounds of public interest. On the other hand, her paper, VG, had published the name of a professor whose offense was that he had sent inappropriate text messages to women. Everyone had agreed that the man was a pig, but as far as they were aware no laws had been broken, and it was hard to claim that the public needed to know the professor’s name. In Finne’s case they could obviously justify publication of his name by saying the public needed to know who they should be looking out for. On the other hand, was there any possibility of what the code called “imminent danger of offenses against innocent people, with serious and repeated criminal acts,” as long as Finne was in custody?

  “We’ll hold back his name,” the editor said. “But include his criminal record and say that VG knows who he is. Then at least we’ll get a gold star from the Press Association.”

  “That’s how I’ve already written it, so it’s ready to go. We’ve also managed to get hold of a new, previously unpublished picture of Rakel as well.”

  “Fantastic.”

  Her editor wasn’t wrong. After a week and a half of intense press coverage of the murder, their choice of pictures was getting pretty repetitive.

  “But maybe run a picture of the husband, the policeman, under the headline.”

&nb
sp; Mona blinked. “You mean Harry Hole, right under Suspect Arrested for Rakel’s Murder? Isn’t that a bit misleading?”

  The editor shrugged. “They’ll find out soon enough when they read the article.”

  Mona nodded slowly. The shock effect of Harry Hole’s familiar, ruggedly attractive face below that sort of headline would obviously get more clicks than another picture of Rakel. And their readers would forgive them the ostensibly unintentional misunderstanding; they always did. Nobody wanted to be properly deceived, but people had nothing against being misled in an entertaining way. So why did Mona dislike this part of the job so much, when she loved the rest of it?

  “Mona?”

  “Will do,” she said, pushing herself off the door frame. “This is going to be big.”

  21

  Katrine Bratt stifled a yawn and hoped that none of the three other people around the table in the Chief of Police’s office had noticed. Yesterday had been a very long day, after the press conference about the arrest in Rakel’s case. And when she finally got home and went to bed, her son had kept her up most of the night.

  But there was a chance that today wasn’t going to turn into a marathon. Because Svein Finne’s name hadn’t been made public in the media, a vacuum had arisen, the eye of the storm in which—for the moment, at least—things really were calm. But it was still too early in the morning to say what the day would bring.

  “Thanks for agreeing to see us at such short notice,” Johan Krohn said.

  “No problem,” Police Chief Gunnar Hagen said with a nod.

  “Great. Then I’ll get straight to the point.”

  The standard phrase of a man who feels at home “getting to the point,” Katrine thought. Because even if Krohn evidently enjoyed the limelight, he was first and foremost a nerd. A now-renowned defense lawyer, almost fifty years old, who still looked like a boy, someone who used to be bullied and now wore his professional reputation and freshly won confidence like a suit of armour. Katrine had read about the bullying in a magazine interview. It hadn’t been the same getting-beaten-up-in-every-break that Katrine had experienced growing up, but low-level teasing and withheld invitations to birthday parties and games, the sort of bullying that every celebrity now claimed to have suffered, to be applauded for their openness. Krohn had said he had come forward to make it easier for other smart kids suffering the same thing. Katrine found it odd that the sought-after lawyer’s desire for justice was balanced by his lack of empathy.