Knife

by Jo Nesbo

  Harry shrugged his shoulders. “I see a woman one-metre-seventy-something tall, but everything else about her is bigger than me. Bigger house. More intelligent. Better morals.”

  “Are you talking about Kaja Solness, or the usual?”

  “The usual?”

  “Rakel.”

  Harry didn’t answer. He looked up at the black windows behind the bare witches’ fingers of the branches in the hedge. The house was saying nothing. But it didn’t look like it was asleep. It looked like it was holding its breath.

  Three short notes. Don Helms’s steel guitar on “Your Cheatin’ Heart.” Bjørn pulled his phone from his jacket pocket. “Text message,” he said, and went to put his phone back.

  “Open it,” Harry said. “It’s for me.”

  Bjørn did as Harry said.

  “I don’t know what this is or who it’s from, but it says benzodiazepine and flunitrazepam.”

  “Mm. Familiar substances in rape cases.”

  “Yes. Rohypnol.”

  “Can be injected into a sleeping man, and if the dose is strong enough he’d be out for at least four or five hours. He wouldn’t even notice if he was being bundled about and carried all over the place.”

  “Or raped.”

  “Quite. But what makes flunitrazepam such an effective drug for rape is of course that it induces amnesia. Total blackout, the victim doesn’t remember a thing about what happened.”

  “Which is presumably why it isn’t manufactured anymore.”

  “But it’s sold on the street. And someone who’s worked in the police would know where to get hold of it.”

  The three notes rang out again.

  “Christ, rush hour,” Bjørn said.

  “Open this one too.”

  There was a whimper from the back seat and Bjørn turned to look at the baby carrier. Then the breathing settled down again and Harry saw the tension leave Bjørn’s body, and his colleague tapped at his phone.

  “It says electricity usage went up by 17.5 kilowatts per hour between 20:00 and 24:00 hours. What does that mean?”

  “It means that whoever killed Rakel did it at around 20:15.”

  “What?”

  “Recently I spoke to a guy who pulled the same trick. He ran over and killed a girl when he was drunk, put her in the car and turned up the heat to keep her body temperature up. He wanted to trick the medical officer into thinking she died later than she did, at a time when he didn’t have an illegal amount of alcohol in his blood.”

  “I don’t follow you, Harry.”

  “The murderer is the first person we see in the recording, the one who arrives on foot. They get to Rakel’s at 20:02, kill her with a knife from the block in the kitchen, turn up the thermostat that all the radiators on the ground floor are connected to, then leave without locking the door. Come to mine later, where I’m still so out of it I don’t notice myself being dosed up with Rohypnol. The killer plants the murder weapon between the records on my shelves, finds the keys to the Ford Escort, drives me to the scene and carries me inside. That’s why it takes so long on the video, and looks like a fat person, or someone with their coat hanging down as they go inside, hunched over. The killer is carrying me like a rucksack. ‘The way we carry anyone who’s fallen,’ as Bohr said they did in Afghanistan and Iraq. And I was put down in the pool of blood beside Rakel and left to my own devices.”

  “Bloody hell.” Bjørn scratched his red beard. “But we don’t see anyone leaving the scene.”

  “Because the perpetrator knew I’d be convinced I’d killed Rakel when I woke up. Which meant I’d have to find both sets of keys inside the house, with the door locked from the inside. Which would lead me to conclude that no one but me could have committed the murder.”

  “A variation on the locked-room mystery?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So…?”

  “After the murderer put me down beside Rakel, they locked the door from the inside and left the scene through one of the basement windows. That’s the only one without bars. They don’t know about the wildlife camera, but they’re lucky. The camera is activated by movement, but nothing shows up because the murderer is moving through total darkness on the far side of the drive when they leave the scene. We assumed it must have been a cat or a bird and didn’t really pay it much thought.”

  “You mean it was all just…to fuck with you?”

  “Manipulated into thinking I’d killed the woman I loved.”

  “Christ, that’s worse than the most brutal death sentence, that’s just torture. Why…?”

  “Because that’s exactly what it was. A punishment.”

  “Punishment? For what?”

  “For my betrayal. I realised that when I was about to kill myself and turned the radio on. ‘Farther along we’ll know more about it….’ ”

  “ ‘Farther along we’ll understand why,’ ” Bjørn said, nodding slowly.

  “ ‘Cheer up, my brother,’ ” Harry said. “ ‘Live in the sunshine. We’ll understand it all by and by.’ ”

  “Beautiful,” Bjørn said. “A lot of people think that’s a Hank Williams song, but it was actually one of the few cover versions he ever recorded.”

  Harry took out the pistol. He saw Bjørn shuffle uncomfortably in his seat.

  “It’s unregistered,” Harry said as he screwed the silencer onto the barrel. “It was acquired for E14, a disbanded intelligence unit. Can’t be traced to anyone.”

  “Are you thinking of…”—Bjørn nodded nervously towards Kaja’s house—“using that?”

  “No,” Harry said, handing the pistol to his colleague. “I’m going in without it.”

  “Why are you giving it to me?”

  Harry looked at Bjørn for a long time.

  “Because you killed Rakel.”

  49

  “When you called Øystein at the Jealousy Bar early on the night of the murder and found out that I was there, you realised I was going to be there for a while,” Harry said.

  Bjørn was clutching the pistol as he stared at Harry.

  “So you drove to Holmenkollen. Parked the Amazon a little way away so the neighbours or other witnesses wouldn’t see and remember the unusual car. You walked to Rakel’s house. Rang the bell. She opened the door, saw it was you, and obviously let you in. At the time you didn’t know you were being recorded by a wildlife camera, of course. Back then, all you knew was that everything was in place. There were no witnesses, nothing unforeseen had happened, the block of knives was standing where it had been the last time you visited us, when I was still living there. And I was sitting in the Jealousy Bar drinking. You grabbed the knife from the block and killed her. Efficiently and without any pleasure, you’re not a sadist. But brutally enough for me to know that she had suffered. When she was dead, you turned up the thermostat, took the knife, drove to the Jealousy, put Rohypnol in my drink while I was busy fighting with Ringdal. You bundled me into your car and drove home with me. Rohypnol works fast, I was well away by the time you parked next to the Escort in the car park behind my building. You found the keys to my flat in my pocket, pressed my hand round the knife so it had my fingerprints on it, then planted it in my flat between The Rainmakers and the Ramones, in the right place for Rakel. You searched until you found the car keys. On your way down the stairs you bumped into Gule, on his way home from work. That wasn’t part of the plan, but you improvised well. Told him you’d put me to bed and were on your way home. Back in the car park you moved me from the Amazon to the Escort, then drove it up to Rakel’s. You managed to get me out, but it took a bit of time. You carried me on your back up the steps, in through the unlocked door, and put me down in the pool of blood beside Rakel. You cleaned the scene of any evidence that you’d been there, then left the house through the basement window. Obviously the window catch couldn’t
be fastened from the outside. But you’d thought about that too. I’m guessing you walked home from there. Down Holmenkollveien. Sørkedalsveien to Majorstua, maybe. Avoiding anywhere with security cameras, taxis that would need paying by card, anything that could be traced. Then you just had to wait, keeping your TETRA terminal nearby, following developments. That was why you—even though you were on paternity leave—were one of the first on the scene when there was a report that a woman’s body had been found at Rakel’s address. And you took charge. You went around the house looking for possible escape routes, something the others hadn’t thought to do seeing as the main entrance had been open when they found Rakel. You went down into the basement, put the catch back on the window, then went up into the attic for appearance’s sake, then came back and said everything was locked up. Any objections so far?”

  Bjørn Holm didn’t answer. He was sitting slouched in his seat, his glassy eyes looking in Harry’s direction, but apparently unable to focus.

  “You thought you were home and dry. That you’d committed the perfect crime. No one could accuse you of not being ambitious. Obviously things got a bit tricky when you realised my brain had suppressed the fact that I’d woken up in Rakel’s house. Suppressed the fact that I was convinced I must have killed her seeing as the door was locked from the inside. Suppressed the fact that I had removed any evidence that I had been there, taken down the wildlife camera and thrown the memory card away. I couldn’t remember anything. But that wasn’t going to save me. You’d hidden the murder weapon in my flat as insurance. Insurance that if I didn’t recognise my own guilt and punish myself enough, if it looked like I was going to escape, you could discreetly arrange for the police to get a search warrant and find the knife. But when you realised I couldn’t remember anything, you made sure I found the knife you’d planted. You wanted me to become my own torturer. So you gave me a new record and you knew exactly where in my record collection I’d put it, seeing as you know my system. The Ramones’ Road to Ruin was precisely that. I dare-say you didn’t take any perverse pleasure from giving it to me at the funeral, but…” Harry shrugged. “That’s what you did. And I found the knife. And I began to remember.”

  Bjørn’s mouth opened and closed.

  “But then a couple of real flies appeared in the ointment,” Harry said. “I found the memory card containing the recordings from the wildlife camera. You realised there was a serious danger that you could be identified and uncovered. You asked if the contents had been copied before you told me to hand the card over to you. I thought you were asking because it would be easier to send the contents by Dropbox. But you just wanted to make sure that you were getting the only copy in existence, and could destroy or modify the recordings so that you couldn’t be recognised. When, to your relief, you saw that the recordings didn’t reveal much, you sent the card on to a 3-D expert, but without your name being involved. In hindsight it’s easy to see that I should have asked myself why you didn’t just ask me to send it straight to him in the first place.”

  Harry looked at the pistol. Bjørn wasn’t holding it by the handle with his finger on the trigger, but by the trigger guard, like it was a piece of evidence that he didn’t want to leave any fingerprints on.

  “Have you…” Bjørn’s voice sounded like a sleepwalker’s, as if his mouth were full of cotton wool. “Have you got some sort of recording device?”

  Harry shook his head.

  “Not that it matters,” Bjørn said with a resigned smile. “How…how did you figure it out?”

  “The thing that always bound us together, Bjørn. Music.”

  “Music?”

  “Just before I drove into the truck, I turned the radio on and heard Hank Williams and those violins. It should have been playing hard rock. Someone had changed the channel. Someone other than me had used the car. And when I was in the river I realised something else, that there was something about the seat. It wasn’t until I got to Bohr’s cabin that I had time to figure it out. It was the first time I got in the car after Rakel’s death, when I was about to drive to the old bunkers in Nordstrand. I felt it then as well, that something wasn’t right. I even bit my false finger, the way I do when I can’t quite remember something. Now I know it was the back of the seat. When I got in the car, I had to adjust it, raise it. Sometimes I had to adjust it when Rakel and I were sharing the car, but why would I have to adjust the seat of a car that no one but me drives? And who do I know who has the seat pushed so far back that he’s almost lying down?”

  Bjørn didn’t answer. There was that same, distant look in his eyes, as if he were listening to something going on inside his own head.

  * * *

  —

  Bjørn Holm looked at Harry, saw his mouth move, registered the words, but they didn’t sound the way they ought to. He felt almost like he was drunk, watching a film, was underwater. But this was happening, it was real, only there was a filter over it, as if it didn’t really concern him. Not anymore.

  He had known it ever since he heard dead Harry’s voice on the phone. That he had been found out. And that it was a relief. Yes, it was. Because if it had been torture for Harry to think he had killed Rakel, it had been hell for Bjørn. Because he not only thought, but knew he had killed Rakel. And he remembered almost every detail of the murder, reliving it practically every moment, without pause, like a monotonous, throbbing bass drum against his temple. And with each beat came the same shock: no, it isn’t a dream, I did it! I did what I dreamed about, what I planned, what I was convinced would somehow bring balance back to a world that’s spun out of control. Killing what Harry Hole loved more than anything, the way Harry had killed—ruined—the only thing Bjørn cherished.

  Of course Bjørn had been aware that Katrine was attracted to Harry; no one who had worked closely with the pair of them could have failed to notice. She hadn’t denied it, but claimed she and Harry had never got it together, had never so much as kissed each other. And Bjørn had believed her. Because he was naive? Maybe. But primarily because he wanted to believe her. Besides, that was all a long time ago, and now she was with Bjørn. Or so he had thought.

  When was the first time he had suspected anything?

  Was it when he had suggested to Katrine that Harry should be one of the baby’s godparents and she had rejected the idea out of hand? She had no better explanation than the fact that Harry was an unstable person who she didn’t want having any responsibility for little Gert’s upbringing. As if the role of godparent was anything but a gesture from the parents to a friend or relative. And she had hardly any relatives, and Harry was one of the few friends they had in common.

  But Harry and Rakel had come to the christening as ordinary guests. And Harry had been the same as usual, had stood in a corner, talking without any enthusiasm to anyone who went over to him, glancing at the time and looking at regular intervals at Rakel, who was deep in conversation with different people, and every half an hour he signalled to Bjørn that he was going outside for a cigarette. It was Rakel who had reinforced Bjørn’s suspicions. He had seen her face twitch when she saw the baby, heard the slight tremble in her voice when she dutifully told the parents what a miraculous child they had produced. And, not least, the pained look on her face when Katrine had passed the baby to her to hold while she sorted something out. He had seen Rakel turn her back on Harry so that he couldn’t see her or the child’s faces.

  Three weeks later he had the answer.

  He had used a cotton bud to take a sample of the child’s saliva. He’d sent it to the Forensic Medical Institute, without specifying which case it related to, just that it was a DNA test subject to the usual oath of confidentiality covering paternity tests. He had been sitting in his office in the Criminal Forensics Unit in Bryn when he read the results that showed there was no way he could be Gert’s father. But the woman he had spoken to, the new Romanian one, said they’d found a match with someone else
in the database. The father was Harry Hole.

  Rakel had known. Katrine knew, of course. Harry too. Maybe not Harry, actually. He wasn’t a good actor. Just a betrayer. A false friend.

  The three of them against him. Of those three, there was only one he couldn’t live without. Katrine.

  Could Katrine live without him?

  Of course she could.

  Because what was Bjørn? A plump, pale, harmless forensics expert who knew a bit too much about music and film, and who in a few years would be an overweight, pale, harmless forensics expert who knew even more about music and film. Who at some point had swapped his Rasta hat for a flat cap and had bought plenty of flannel shirts. Who had been convinced that these were personal choices, things that said something about personal development, about an awareness that only he had reached, because of course we’re all special. Right up until he looked around at a Bon Iver concert and saw a thousand copies of himself, and realised that he belonged to a group, a group of people who more than any other—at least in theory—hate everything about belonging to a group. He was a hipster.

  As a hipster he hated hipsters, and especially male hipsters. There was something insubstantial, unmanly, about that dreamy, idealistic striving for the natural, the original, the authentic; about a hipster trying to look like a lumberjack who lived in a log cabin and grew and shot his own food, but who was still an overprotected little boy who thought modern life, quite rightly, had stripped away all his masculinity, leaving him with a feeling of being helpless. Bjørn had this suspicion about himself confirmed during a Christmas party with his old schoolmates back home in Toten, when Endre, the cocky headmaster’s son, who was studying sociology in Boston, had called Bjørn a typical “hipster loser.” Endre had brushed his thick black fringe back with a smile and quoted Mark Greif, who had written an article in the New York Times saying that hipsters compensated for their lack of social and career achievements by trying to claim cultural superiority.