by Jo Nesbo
'What kind of orders?'
'He didn't say'
'Did he say anything else?'
Krohn shook his head.
'Ring me any time at all if you think of anything else.'
'And one more thing, Inspector. If you believe that I will lose any sleep over having the man who killed your colleague acquitted, you are mistaken.'
But Harry had already left.
81
Herbert's Pizza. 11 May 2000.
Harry rang Halvorsen and asked him to go to Herbert's. They had the place almost to themselves and chose a table by the window. Right in the corner there was a man dressed in a long trench coat, with a moustache that went out of fashion with Adolf Hitler and two booted legs resting on a chair seat. He looked as if he was trying to set a new world record in being bored.
Halvorsen had caught up with Edvard Mosken, but not in Drammen.
'He didn't answer when I tried him at home, so I got hold of his mobile phone number through directory enquiries. It turned out he was in Oslo. He has a flat in Tromsogata in Roddelokka where he stays when he's at Bjerke.'
'Bjerke?'
'The racetrack. He must be there every Friday and Saturday. Places a few bets and has a bit of fun, he said. And he owns a quarter of a horse. I met him in the stables behind the track.'
'What else did he say?'
'He occasionally pops into Schroder's in the morning when he's in Oslo. He has no idea who Bernt Brandhaug is and he has definitely never phoned his house. He knew who Signe Juul was-he remembered her from the Eastern Front.'
"What about his alibi?'
Halvorsen ordered a Hawaiian Tropic with pepperoni and pineapple.
'Mosken has been alone in his flat in Tromsogata all week, apart from trips up to Bjerke, he said. He was there the morning Brandhaug was killed too. And this morning.'
'Right. How do you think he answered your questions?'
'What do you mean?'
'Did you believe him when you were with him?’
‘Yes, no; well, believe, hm…'
'Go with your gut instinct, Halvorsen, don't be worried. And then say what you feel. I won't use it against you.'
Halvorsen looked down at the table and fidgeted with the menu.
'If Mosken is lying, then he's definitely a pretty cold fish. That much I can say.'
Harry sighed.
'Will you see to it that we put a tag on Mosken? I want two men outside his flat day and night.'
Halvorsen nodded and rang a number on his mobile phone. Harry could hear the sound of Moller's voice as he stole a glance at the neo-Nazi in the corner. Or whatever they called themselves. National Socialists. National Democrats. He had just been sent a copy of a sociology dissertation from the university which concluded that there were fifty-seven neo-Nazis in Norway.
The pizza arrived and Halvorsen sent Harry an enquiring look.
'Go ahead,' Harry said. 'Pizzas aren't my thing.'
The trench coat in the corner had been joined by a short, green combat jacket. They stuck their heads together and looked across at the two policemen.
'One more thing,' Harry said. 'Linda in POT told me that there was an SS archive in Cologne, partly destroyed by fire in the seventies, but some information had been picked up there about Norwegians fighting with the Germans. Commands, military awards, ranks, that kind of thing. I want you to ring them and see if you can find out anything about Daniel Gudeson. And Gudbrand Johansen.'
'Yessir,' Halvorsen said with his mouth full of pizza. 'When I've finished my pizza.'
'I'll have a chat with our young friends in the meantime,' Harry said, getting up.
In a work context, Harry had always taken pains not to use his size to gain a psychological advantage. Yet even though Hitlermoustache stretched his neck to peer up at Harry, Harry knew that the cold stare concealed the same fear that he had witnessed with Krohn. Only this guy had had more training in disguising it. Harry snatched the chair Hitlermoustache was resting his boots on and his legs clattered on to the floor before he had a chance to react.
'Sorry,' Harry said. 'I thought this chair was free.'
'It's the fucking filth,' Hitlermoustache said. The shaven skull sticking out of the combat jacket swivelled round.
'Right,' Harry said. 'Or the fuzz. Or the pigs. Uncle Nabs. No, that's a bit too cosy perhaps. What about les flics^7. Is that international enough?'
'Are we bothering you or what?' the coat asked.
'Yes, you're bothering me,' Harry said. 'You've been bothering me for a long time. Say hello to the Prince and tell him Harry Hole is going to bother him back. From Hole to the Prince. Did you get that?'
The combat jacket blinked and stared open-mouthed. Then the coat opened a mouth with teeth splayed out in all directions and laughed until the saliva ran.
Are you talking about HRH Haakon Magnus?' he asked, and when the combat jacket finally got the joke he laughed along with him.
'Well,' Harry said. 'If you're just the footsloggers, of course, you won't know who the Prince is. So you'll have to pass the message on to your next-in-line. Enjoy the pizzas, boys.'
He walked back to Halvorsen and could feel their eyes on his back.
'Eat up,' Harry said to Halvorsen, who was busy with an enormous piece of pizza stretching halfway round his face. 'We have to get out before I get more shit on my record.'
82
HolmenkoUen. 11 May 2000.
It was the warmest spring evening so far. Harry was driving with the car window open and the gentle breeze caressed his face and hair. From the top of HolmenkoUen he could see Oslo fjord and the islands strewn around like greenish brown shells, and the first white sails of the new season were making their way towards land for the evening. A couple of red-capped school-leavers stood urinating at the edge of the road, beside a red bus with loudspeakers mounted on the roof. The music was booming out: Won't-you-be my lover…
An elderly lady wearing hiking breeches, and with an anorak tied around her waist and a tired but beatific expression on her face, was ambling down the road.
Harry parked down from the house. He didn't want to go all the way up the drive, he didn't quite know why-perhaps because he thought it would seem less invasive to park at the bottom. Ridiculous, of course, since his visit had been unannounced and uninvited.
He was halfway up the drive when his mobile phone bleeped. It was Halvorsen ringing from the Traitors' Archive.
'Nothing,' he said. 'If Daniel Gudeson really is alive, he certainly wasn't convicted after the war.'
'And Signe Juul?'
'She was sentenced to one year.’
‘But never went to prison. Anything else of interest?’
‘Zilch. And now they're getting ready to chuck me out and close up.’
‘Go home and sleep-perhaps we'll come up with something tomorrow.'
Harry had arrived at the foot of the steps and was going to take them in one jump when the door opened. He stood still. Rakel was wearing a woollen jumper and blue jeans; her hair was untidy and her face paler than usual. He searched her eyes for any indication that she was happy to see him again, but found none. But nor was there the neutral courtesy he had dreaded most. Her eyes expressed nothing, whatever that meant.
'I heard someone talking outside,' she said. 'Come in.' Oleg was in the sitting room, watching TV in his pyjamas. 'Hi loser,' Harry said. 'Shouldn't you be practising Tetris?' Oleg snorted without taking his eyes off the TV. 'I always forget that children don't understand irony,' Harry said to Rakel.
'Where have you been?' Oleg asked.
'Been?' Harry was a little baffled by Oleg's accusatory expression. 'What do you mean?'
Oleg rolled his shoulders.
'Coffee?' Rakel asked. Harry nodded. Oleg and Harry sat in silence watching the gnu's incredible migration through the Kalahari Desert while Rakel clattered around in the kitchen. It took time, the coffee and the migration.
'Fifty-six thousand,' Oleg said finally.
<
br /> 'That's not true,' Harry said.
'I top the all-time-high list!'
'Go and get it.'
Oleg was on to his feet and out of the sitting room as Rakel brought in the coffee. She sat facing Harry. He found the remote control and turned down the sound of thundering hooves. It was Rakel who broke the silence in the end.
'So what are you going to do on 17 May this year?’
‘Work. But if you're suggesting an invitation to something, I'll move heaven and earth…'
She laughed and dismissed the idea with a wave.
'Sorry, I was just making conversation. Let's talk about something else.'
'You've been ill, haven't you?' Harry asked.
'That's a long story.'
'You have a number of them.'
'Why are you back from Sweden?' she asked.
'Brandhaug. With whom, strangely enough, I was sitting right here.'
'Yes, life throws up bizarre coincidences,' Rakel said.
'So bizarre that you would never get away with it in fiction, anyway.'
'You don't know the half of it, Harry.'
'What do you mean?'
She sighed and stirred her tea.
'What is this?' Harry asked. 'Is the whole family communicating in coded messages this evening?'
She attempted a laugh, but it ended up in a sniffle. Spring cold, Harry thought.
'I… it…'
She tried to start the sentence a couple more times, but nothing coherent emerged. The teaspoon in her cup went round in circles. Over her shoulder Harry glimpsed a gnu being slowly and pitilessly dragged into the river by a crocodile.
'I've had a terrible time,' she said. 'And I've been pining for you.'
She turned to Harry, and it was only now that he saw she was crying. The tears rolled down her cheeks and collected under her chin. She made no attempt to stop them.
'Well…' Harry began, and that was all he managed to say before they were in each other's arms. They clung to each other as to a lifebuoy. Harry was shaking. Just this, Harry thought. Just this is enough. Just holding her like this.
'Mummy!' The shout came from the first floor. 'Where's the GameBoy?'
'In one of the drawers in the dressing-table,' Rakel shouted in a quivering voice. 'Start at the top.'
'Kiss me,' she whispered to Harry.
'But Oleg might -'
'It's not in the dressing-table.'
When Oleg came downstairs with the GameBoy, which he finally found in the toy box, he didn't notice the atmosphere in the sitting room at first and laughed at Harry, who was hm-hming with concern at seeing the new score. But as soon as Harry set off to beat the new record, he heard Oleg say, 'What's up with your faces?'
Harry looked at Rakel, who was only just capable of keeping a straight face.
'It's because we like each other so much,' Harry said, replacing three lines with one long line out on the right. 'And your record is on the ropes now, loser.'
Oleg laughed and slapped Harry on the shoulder.
'No chance. You're the loser.'
83
Harry's Flat. 11 May 2000.
Harry didn't feel like a loser when, shortly before midnight, he unlocked the door to his flat and saw the red eye on the answerphone blinking. He had carried Oleg to bed and drunk tea, and Rakel had said that one day she would tell him a long story. When she wasn't so exhausted. Harry had answered that she needed a holiday, and she agreed.
'We could go together, all three of us,' he had said, 'when this business is over.'
She had stroked his hair.
'This is not the sort of thing to be flippant about, Harry Hole.’
‘Who's being flippant?'
'I can't talk about this now. Go on home, Harry Hole.'
They had kissed a little more in the hallway, and Harry still had the taste of her on his lips.
Without turning on the light, he crept into the sitting room in stockinged feet and pressed the play button of the answerphone. Sindre Fauke's voice filled the darkness:
'Fauke here. I've been thinking. If Daniel Gudeson is more than a ghost, there's only one person on this earth who can solve this riddle. And that's the man who was on watch that New Year's Eve when Daniel Gudeson was apparently shot dead: Gudbrand Johansen. You have to find Gudbrand Johansen, Inspector Hole.'
Then there was the sound of the receiver being replaced, a bleep, and where Harry expected the click, a new message instead.
'Halvorsen here. It's 11.30. I've just received a call from one of the officers outside Mosken's flat. They've been waiting and waiting, but he hasn't returned home. So they tried to ring the number in Drammen, just to see if he would answer the phone. But he didn't answer. One of the men drove to Bjerken, but everything was locked up and the lights were off. I asked them to stick it out for a while yet and put out a call for Mosken's car on police radio. Just so you know. See you tomorrow.'
New bleep. New message. New record on Harry's answerphone.
'Halvorsen again. I'm going senile. I completely forgot to mention the other thing. Looks as if we've finally had a bit of luck. The SS archive in Cologne didn't have any personal details about Gudeson or Johansen. They told me to ring the central Wehrmacht archive in Berlin. There I talked to a nice old grump who said that very few Norwegians had been in the regular German army. But when I explained the matter to him, he said he would check anyway. After a while he rang back and said that, as expected, he hadn't found anything about Daniel Gudeson. However, he had found copies of some papers concerning one Gudbrand Johansen, also a Norwegian. It appeared from the papers that he had been transferred from the Waffen SS to the Wehrmacht in 1944. A note was made on the copies that the original papers were sent to Oslo in the summer of 1944, which, according to our man in Berlin, could only mean that Johansen had been sent there. He also found some correspondence with a doctor who had signed Johansen's medical certificates. In Vienna.'
Harry sat down on the only chair in the room.
'The doctor's name was Christopher Brockhard, at the Rudolf II Hospital. I checked with the Viennese police and it turns out the hospital is still fully functional. They even gave me the name and telephone number of twenty-odd people who worked there during the war and are still alive.'
The Teutons know how to archive, Harry thought.
'So I began ringing round. I'm really crap at speaking German!'
Halvorsen's laughter crackled in the loudspeaker.
I rang eight of them before I found a nurse who could remember Gudbrand Johansen. She was an old lady of seventy-five. Remembered him very well, she said. You'll have the number and her address tomorrow morning. By the way, her name is Mayer. Helena Mayer.'
A crackly silence was followed by a bleep and the click of the tape recorder stopping.
Harry dreamed about Rakel, about her face burrowing into his neck, about her strong hands, and Tetris blocks falling and falling. But it was Sindre Fauke's voice that woke him in the middle of the night and made him stare at the contours of a figure in the dark.
'You have to find Gudbrand Johansen.'
84
Akershus Fortress. 12 May 2000.
It was 2.30 in the morning and the old man had parked his car beside a low warehouse in a street called Akershusstranda. Years ago the street had been a main thoroughfare in Oslo, but after the Fjellinje tunnel had been opened Akershusstranda had been closed off at one end and was only used during the day by those working in the docks. And prostitutes' clients who wanted a relatively undisturbed place for the 'walk'. Between the road and the water there were several warehouses and on the other side was the western side of Akershus Fortress. Naturally, if anyone had taken up a position in Aker Brygge with a quality riflescope they would certainly have been able to see the same as the old man did: the back of a grey coat which jerked every time the man inside it thrust his hips forward, and the face of a very made-up and very drunken woman who was being banged against the west wall of the fortress, rig
ht under the cannons. On each side of the mating couple was a floodlight projector lighting up the rock face and the wall above them.
Akershus, the WWII Wehrmacht prison. The internal section of the fortress area was closed for the night, and even though he could probably find his way in, the risk of being discovered in the actual place of execution was too great. No one really knew how many were shot there during the war, but there was a memorial plaque for fallen Norwegian Resistance men. The old man knew that at least one of them was a common criminal who had deserved his punishment whichever way you looked at it. And it was there they had shot Vidkun Quisling and the others who had been tried for war crimes and sentenced to death. Quisling had been imprisoned in the Powder Tower. The old man had often wondered if the Powder Tower had inspired Jens Bjorneboe's book, in which he described, in great detail, various methods of execution over the centuries. Was his description of execution by firing squad actually a portrait of the execution of Vidkun Quisling that October day in 1945 when they led the traitor out to the square to drill his body with bullets? Had they, as the author wrote, placed a hood over his head and fastened a white square of cloth over his heart as a marker? Had they given the command to shoot four times before the shots rang out? And had the trained marksmen shot so badly that the doctor with the stethoscope had been forced to say that the condemned man would have to be executed again-until they had done it four or five times and death occurred through loss of blood from the many surface wounds?
The old man had cut out the description from the book.
The grey coat had finished his business and was on his way down the slope to his car. The woman still stood by the wall; she had pulled her skirt back into place and lit a cigarette which glowed in the dark when she inhaled. The old man waited. Then she crushed the cigarette under her heel and began to walk down the muddy path round the fortress and back to her 'office' in the streets around Norges Bank.
The old man turned towards the back seat where the gagged woman stared at him with the same petrified eyes he had seen when she became conscious after being given diethyl ether. He could see her mouth moving behind the gag.
