The Redbreast hh-3

by Jo Nesbo

  'Do you know if he was conducting a relationship with any particular woman recently?'

  She shook her head. 'Ask around in the Foreign Office. It's a strange environment, you know. Bound to be someone there who would be more than willing to give you a pointer.'

  She said this without rancour, purely as a matter of information.

  They both looked up when Halvorsen came into the room.

  'Odd,' he said. 'You did receive a telephone call at 12.24, fru Brandhaug, but not yesterday. The day before.'

  'Oh dear, perhaps I mixed up the days,' she said. Yes, well, so it has nothing to do with the case, then.'

  'Maybe not,' Halvorsen said. I checked the number with enquiries anyway. The call came from a pay phone. At Schroder's cafe.'

  'Cafe?' she said. 'Yes, that would probably explain the noises in the background. Do you think…?'

  'It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the murder of your husband,' Harry said, getting up. 'There are lots of strange people at Schroder's.'

  She accompanied them to the front steps. It was a grey afternoon outside with low-lying clouds sweeping across the hill behind them.

  Fru Brandhaug stood with her arms crossed, as if she were freezing cold.

  'It's so dark here,' she said. 'Have you noticed that?'

  The Crime Scene Unit was still busy combing the area around the bivouac where they had found the cartridge when Harry and Halvorsen approached from across the heath.

  'Hey, you there!' they heard a voice shout as they ducked under the yellow police tape.

  'Police,' Harry answered.

  'Makes no difference!' the same voice shouted back. 'You'll have to wait until we've finished.'

  It was Weber. He was wearing high rubber boots and a comical yellow raincoat. Harry and Halvorsen ducked back under the tape.

  'Hey, Weber,' Harry shouted.

  'Got no time,' he answered with a dismissive wave.

  'It'll take one minute.'

  Weber went closer with long strides and an obviously irritated expression on his face.

  'What do you want?' he yelled from a distance of twenty metres.

  'How long had he been waiting?'

  'The bloke up here? No idea.'

  'Come on Weber. A guess.'

  'Who's working on this case? Kripos or you?'

  'Both. We haven't co-ordinated yet.'

  'And are you trying to kid me you're going to?'

  Harry smiled and took out a cigarette.

  'You've come up with some good guesses before, Weber.'

  'Cut out the flattery, Hole. Who's the lad?'

  'Halvorsen,' Harry said before Halvorsen had a chance to introduce himself.

  'Listen to me, Halvorsen,' Weber said, regarding Harry with a disgust he made no attempt to disguise. 'Smoking is a revolting habit and the ultimate proof that humans are here on earth for one thing only -enjoyment. The bloke who was here left eight dog-ends in a half-full pop bottle. Teddy cigarettes, no filter. And Teddy smokers are not content with two a day, so unless he ran out, by my reckoning he was here for twenty-four hours at most. He had cut sprigs of spruce down from the lowest branches which the rain couldn't get at. But there were drops of rain on the spruce covering the bivouac. The last time it rained was three o'clock yesterday afternoon.'

  'So he was lying here from somewhere between eight a.m. and three p.m. yesterday?' Halvorsen asked.

  'I think Halvorsen could go far,' Weber said laconically, with his eyes still on Harry. 'Especially considering the competition he'll have in the force. It's getting bloody worse and worse. Have you seen what they're recruiting at the police college now? Even the teacher training colleges are getting geniuses in comparison with the rubbish we get.'

  All of a sudden it seemed that Weber wasn't in a hurry after all and he set off on a long diatribe about the gloomy prospects for the police force.

  'Did anyone living nearby see anything?' Harry quickly asked as Weber paused to draw breath.

  'We've got four men doing house to house now, but most of the people won't be back till later. They won't dig up anything.'

  'Why not?'

  'I don't think he showed himself round here. Earlier today we had a dog following his footsteps for about a kilometre into the forest, to one of the paths. But we lost him there. I would guess he took the same route here and back, following the network of paths between Sognsvann and Lake Maridal. He could have parked a car in at least a dozen car parks for walkers in this area. And there are thousands of them using the paths every day, at least half of them with a rucksack. You see?’

  ‘We see.'

  'And now you're probably going to ask me if there are any fingerprints.’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Come on.'

  'What about the bottle of pop?' Weber shook his head.

  'No prints. Nothing. Considering how long he was here, he has left surprisingly few traces. We'll keep searching, but I'm pretty positive that the shoe print and a few fibres from his clothing are all we'll find.'

  'Plus the cartridge.'

  'He left that on purpose. Everything else has been removed a little too thoroughly.'

  'Hm. As a warning perhaps. What do you think?'

  'What do I think? I thought it was only you young blokes who had been blessed with a bit of brainpower. That's the impression they're trying to promote in the force nowadays.'

  'Right. Thanks for your help, Weber.'

  'And pack the fags in, Hole.'

  'Bit of a stickler,' Halvorsen said in the car on the way down to the city centre.

  'Weber can be hard to take sometimes,' Harry conceded. 'But he knows his job.'

  Halvorsen drummed the beat to a soundless song on the dashboard. 'What now?' he asked. 'Continental.'

  Kripos had phoned the Continental fifteen minutes after they had washed and changed the bedding in Brandhaug's room. No one had noticed Brandhaug had had a visitor, only that he had checked out at around midnight.

  Harry stood in reception, pulling at his last cigarette while the duty head receptionist from the previous night wrung his hands and looked unhappy.

  'We didn't know that herr Brandhaug had been shot until late morning,' he said. 'Otherwise we wouldn't have touched his room.'

  Harry gave a sign of acknowledgement and took a drag of his cigarette. The hotel room was not the scene of any crime; it would simply have been interesting to know if there was any blonde hair on the pillow and to contact whoever may have been the last person to talk to Brandhaug.

  'Well, if that's everything then,' the man said with a smile and a faint suggestion he was going to cry.

  Harry didn't respond. He had noticed that the head receptionist had become more and more nervous the less he and Halvorsen said. So he said nothing; he waited and watched the glow of his cigarette.

  'Er…' said the receptionist, running a hand along the lapel of his jacket.

  Harry waited. Halvorsen studied the floor. The head receptionist held out for barely fifteen seconds before cracking.

  'Of course, he did occasionally have visitors up there,' he said.

  'Who?' Harry said without taking his eyes off the glow of his cigarette.

  'Women and men…'

  'Who?'

  'As a matter of fact, I don't know. It's none of our business who the Under Secretary of State chooses to spend his time with.’

  ‘Really?' Silence.

  'Of course, if a woman comes here who is obviously not a guest, we do take note which floor she takes the lift to.’

  ‘Would you recognise her?'

  'Yes.' The answer came like a shot, no hesitation. 'She was very attractive. And very drunk.’

  ‘Prostitute?'

  'If so, then a high-class one. And they tend to be sober. Well, not that I know much about them. This hotel is no -’

  ‘Thank you,' Harry said.

  A southerly wind brought in warm weather and, as Harry left the police HQ after the meeting with Meirik and
the Chief Constable, he instinctively knew that something had finished. A new season was on its way.

  The Chief Constable and Meirik had both known Brandhaug. Only professionally, they both found it necessary to stress. It was clear that the two had discussed the matter in private. Meirik opened the meeting by definitively drawing a line under the undercover job in Klippan. He almost seemed relieved, Harry noted. The Chief Constable then put forward her proposal, and Harry realised that his dashing exploits in Sydney and Bangkok had even left a mark on the upper echelons of the police force.

  'Typical sweeper,' the Chief Constable had called Harry. And then she explained the role they were now going to play him in.

  A new season. The warm Fohn wind made Harry feel light-headed and he permitted himself a taxi since he was still dragging around a heavy bag. The first thing he did on walking into his flat in Sofies gate was to check the answerphone. The red eye was lit. No blinking. No messages.

  He had asked Linda to copy the case file and he spent the rest of the evening going through everything they had on the murders of Hallgrim Dale and Ellen Gjelten. Not that he was expecting to find anything new, but it might stimulate his imagination. He glanced over from time to time at the telephone, wondering how long he would manage to wait before he called her. The Brandhaug case was the main item on the TV news. At midnight he went to bed. At one o'clock he got up, pulled out the telephone jack and put the phone in the fridge. At three o'clock he fell asleep.

  75

  Moller's Office. 11 May 2000.

  'Well?' Moller said, after Harry and Halvorsen had taken their first sip of coffee and Harry, with a grimace, had told him what he thought of it.

  'I think the connection between the newspaper article and the killing is a dead duck.'

  'Why?' Moller stretched back in his chair.

  'In Weber's opinion, the killer had been hiding in the forest since early in the day, so at most a few hours after Dagbladet had hit the stands. This was not a spontaneous action; it was a well-planned attack. The killer had known he was going to shoot Brandhaug for some days. He had been out to recce the area; he knew about Brandhaug's comings and goings; he had found the best place to fire from, with the least risk of being seen; he knew how he was going to get in and out, hundreds of tiny details.'

  'So you think this is the murder he bought the Marklin rifle for?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not.'

  'Thanks. That got us a long way,' Moller said acidly.

  I only mean that it is a possibility. On the other hand, it's all completely out of proportion. It seems slightly over the top to smuggle in the world's most expensive assassination rifle to kill a high-ranking though relatively nondescript bureaucrat without a bodyguard or any security staff. Any hitman could literally ring the doorbell and shoot him with a handgun at close range. This is a little like… like…'

  Harry made circle movements with his hands.

  'Shooting sparrows with a cannon,' Halvorsen said.

  'Exactly,' Harry said.

  'Hm.' Moller closed his eyes. And what kind of role do you see for yourself in the continuing investigation, Harry?'

  'As a kind of sweeper,' Harry smiled. 'I'm the guy from POT who does his own thing, but can request assistance from all other departments whenever necessary. Who reports to Meirik, but has access to all the documents in the case. Who asks questions, but can't be questioned. That sort of thing.'

  'What about a licence to kill as well?' Moller said. 'And a very fast car?'

  'In fact, this is not my idea,' Harry said. 'Meirik has just been talking to the Chief Constable.'

  'The Chief Constable?'

  'Yup. I suppose you'll get an email about it during the course of the day. The Brandhaug case has top priority from this minute and the Chief Constable does not want to leave any stone unturned. This is one of those FBI deals where investigation teams have to some degree overlapping duties in order to avoid the standardisation of ideas you get on big cases. You must have read about it.'

  'No.'

  'The point is that even if you have to duplicate a few of the jobs, and even if the same investigative work is carried out several times by different teams, this is more than outweighed by the advantages of different approaches and different lines of investigation.’

  'Thank you,' Moller said. 'What has this got to do with me? Why are you sitting here now?'

  'Because, as I said, I can request assistance from all other -’

  ‘… departments if necessary. I heard that. Spit it out, Harry' Harry angled his head towards Halvorsen, who was smiling somewhat sheepishly at Moller. Moller groaned.

  'Please, Harry! You know we're down to the bare bones in Crime Squad.'

  I promise you'll get him back in good condition.' I said no!'

  Harry said nothing. He waited, entwining his fingers and studying the cheap reproduction of Kittelsen's Soria Maria Castle hanging on the wall over the book shelves.

  'When will I get him back?' Moller asked.

  'As soon as the case is over.'

  'As soon… That's how a section head answers an inspector, Harry. Not the other way around.' Harry shrugged. 'Sorry, boss.'

  76

  Irisveien. 11 May 2000.

  Her heart was already beating like a sewing machine gone wild when she picked up the receiver.

  'Hi, Signe,' the voice said. 'It's me.'

  She felt the tears coming immediately.

  'Stop this,' she whispered. 'Please.'

  'Until death us do part. That's what you said, Signe.'

  'I'm getting my husband.'

  The voice gave a chuckle.

  'But he's not there, is he.'

  She was squeezing the telephone so tight that her hand hurt. How could he know that Even wasn't at home? And how come he only called when Even was out?

  The next thought made her throat constrict; she couldn't breathe and she began to feel faint. Was he calling from a place where he could see the house, where he could see when Even went out? No, no, no. With an effort of will, she pulled herself together and concentrated on breathing. Not too quickly, deep breaths. Calm, she told herself, as she had told the injured soldiers who were brought in to them from the trenches; crying, panic-stricken and hyperventilating. She had her terror under control. And she could hear from the sounds in the background that he was calling from somewhere with a lot of people. Her house was in a residential area.

  'You were so beautiful in your nurse's uniform, Signe,' the voice said. 'So shining white and pure. White, exactly like Olaf Lindvig in his white leather tunic. Do you remember him? You were so pure that I thought you could never betray us, that you didn't have it in your heart. I thought you were like Olaf Lindvig. I saw you touch him, his hair, Signe. One moonlit night. You and he, you looked like angels, as if you were sent from heaven. But I was mistaken. There are, by the way, angels which are not heaven-sent, Signe. Did you know that?'

  She didn't answer. Her thoughts churned around her head in a maelstrom. Something he said had set them in motion. The voice. She could hear it now. He was distorting his voice.

  'No,' she forced herself to answer.

  'No? You should do. I am such an angel.'

  'Daniel's dead,' she said.

  The other end went quiet. Only his breath wheezing against the membrane. Then the voice again.

  'I have come to pass judgment. On the living and the dead.' Then he rang off.

  Signe closed her eyes. She got up and went into the bedroom. She stood behind the drawn blinds and saw herself reflected in the window. She was shaking as if she had a high temperature.

  77

  Harry's Old Office. 11 May 2000.

  It took Harry twenty minutes to move back into his old office. Everything he needed found space in a bag from the 7-Eleven. The first thing he did was to cut out a picture of Bernt Brandhaug from Dagbladet. Then he pinned it on to the notice-board, beside the archive pictures of Ellen, Sverre Olsen and Hallgrim Dale. Four clues. He had s
ent Halvorsen up to the Department of Foreign Affairs to make enquiries and see if he could find out who the woman at the Continental was. Four people. Four lives. Four stories. He sat down in the wrecked chair and studied them, but they just stared past him, vacantly.

  He rang Sis. She really wanted to keep Helge, at least for a while. They had become such good friends, she said. Harry said that was fine as long as she remembered to feed him.

  'It's a her,' Sis said.

  'Oh, yes. How do you know that?'

  'Henrik and I checked.'

  He was going to ask how they had checked, but decided he preferred not to know.

  'Have you talked to Dad?'

  She had. She asked Harry if he was going to meet the girl again. "Which girl?'

  'The one you said you'd been for a walk with, I suppose. The one with a little boy.'

  'Oh, her. No, I don't think so.' "Very stupid.'

  'Stupid? You've never met her, Sis.'

  'I think it's stupid because you're in love with her.'

  Now and then Sis was capable of saying things Harry had no idea how to answer. They agreed to go to the cinema one day. Harry wondered if that meant Henrik would be joining them. Sis said it did. That was the way it was when you had a partner.

  They rang off and Harry sat deep in thought. He and Rakel had never met in the corridors yet, but he knew where her office was. He made up his mind and got up-he had to talk to her now, he couldn't wait any longer.

  Linda flashed him a smile as he came in the door to POT.

  'Back already, handsome?'

  'I was just going to nip in to see Rakel.'

  'Just, was it, Harry? I saw you two at the office party, you know.'

  To his irritation, Harry could feel her mischievous smile making his ears burn and could hear that his attempt at a dry laugh didn't quite come off.

  'But you can save yourself the walk, Harry. Rakel is at home today. Off sick. One moment, Harry…' She picked up the telephone. 'POT. Can I help you?'

  Harry was on his way out of the door when Linda called after him. 'It's for you. Do you want to take it here?' She passed him the telephone.