Police: A Harry Hole thriller (Oslo Sequence 8)

by Jo Nesbo

  ‘Don’t stop, hold . . .’

  She had taken his hand, pressed it against her neck. He squeezed carefully. Felt the blood vessels and the tensed muscles in her slender neck.

  ‘Harder! Har—’

  Her voice was cut off as he did what she said. Knowing that now he had stopped the flow of oxygen to her brain. This had been her thing, something he did and got a kick out of because he knew she got a kick out of it. But something was different now. The thought that she was in his power. That he could do with her as he wished. He stared down at her dress. The red dress. Felt it building up inside him and that he wouldn’t be able to hold it back. He closed his eyes and imagined her. On all fours as she slowly turned over, looked at him, while her hair changed colour, and he saw who she was. Her eyes had rolled backwards and her neck was covered in bruises, which became visible as the forensics officer’s flash went off.

  Harry let go and pulled his hand away. But Rakel was already there. She had tensed up and was shaking like a deer the second before it hits the ground. Then she died. Slumped with her forehead against the mattress, a bitter sob came from her mouth. She lay like that, kneeling as if in prayer.

  Harry pulled out. She whimpered, turned and eyed him accusingly. Usually he waited before pulling out until she was ready for the separation.

  Harry kissed her quickly on the neck, slid out of bed and fished around for the Paul Smith underpants she had bought him at some airport. Found his pack of Camel in the Wranglers hanging over the chair. Went downstairs to the living room. Sat in a chair and looked out of the window, where the night was at its darkest and yet not so dark that he couldn’t see the silhouette of Holmenkollen Ridge against the sky. Lit a cigarette. Immediately afterwards he heard the patter of her feet behind him. Felt a hand stroking his hair and neck.

  ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘No.’

  She sat down on the arm of the chair and snuggled her nose up against his neck. Her skin was still hot and smelt of Rakel and lovemaking. And Princess Myrrha’s tears.

  ‘Opium,’ he said. ‘Quite a name for a perfume.’

  ‘Don’t you like it?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ Harry blew smoke at the ceiling. ‘But it’s quite . . . pronounced.’

  She lifted her head. Looked at him. ‘And you’re telling me that now?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought about it before. I didn’t really now, either.’

  ‘Is it the booze?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The alcohol in the perfume. Is it that . . .?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘But there’s something,’ she said. ‘I know you, Harry. You’re troubled, restless. Look at the way you’re smoking. You’re sucking it out as if it were the last drop of water in the world.’

  Harry smiled. Stroked the gooseflesh on her back. She kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘So if it’s not alcoholic abstinence, it’s the other variety.’

  ‘The other variety?’

  ‘The police variety.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ he said.

  ‘It’s the police murders, isn’t it?’

  ‘Beate came here to persuade me. She said she’d talked to you first.’

  Rakel nodded.

  ‘And that you’d given the impression it was fine by you,’ Harry said.

  ‘I said it was up to you.’

  ‘Had you forgotten our promise?’

  ‘No, but I can’t force you to keep a promise, Harry.’

  ‘And what if I’d said yes and joined the investigation?’

  ‘Then you would have broken your promise.’

  ‘And the consequences?’

  ‘For you, me and Oleg? Greater chance that we would be doomed. For the investigation into the murders of the three officers? Greater chance of success.’

  ‘Mm. The former is definite, Rakel. The latter highly doubtful.’

  ‘Maybe. But you know very well that we could be doomed anyway, whether you work for the police or not. There are several pitfalls. One is that you start climbing the walls because you can’t do what you feel you were born to do. I’ve heard of men whose relationships break down just in time for the autumn hunt.’

  ‘Elk. Rather than birds of the featherless variety, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, that does have to be said in their favour.’

  Harry inhaled. Their voices were lowered, calm, as though they were discussing the shopping. That was how they talked, he thought. That was what she was like. He pulled her to him. Whispered in her ear.

  ‘I want to keep you, Rakel. I want to keep this.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Yes. This is good. This is the best I’ve ever known. And you know what makes me tick, you remember Ståle’s diagnosis. An addictive personality bordering on OCD. Booze or hunting, it makes no difference, my mind starts whirring in the same grooves. As soon as I open the door, I’m there, Rakel. And I don’t want to be there. I want to be here. Hell, I’m on the way there now, only talking about it! I’m not doing this for Oleg and you; I’m doing it for me.’

  ‘There, there.’ Rakel stroked his hair. ‘Let’s talk about something else then.’

  ‘Yes. So they said Oleg would be out early?’

  ‘Yes. There are no more withdrawal symptoms. And he seems more motivated than ever. Harry?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He told me what happened that night.’ Her hand continued to stroke him. He wanted it to be there for ever.

  ‘Which night?’

  ‘You know. The night the doctor patched you up.’

  ‘Oh, he told you, did he?’

  ‘You told me you were shot by one of Asayev’s dealers.’

  ‘In a sense that’s true. Oleg was one of them.’

  ‘I preferred the old version. The one about Oleg appearing at the crime scene afterwards, seeing how badly hurt you were and running along the Akerselva to A&E.’

  ‘But you never really believed it, did you?’

  ‘He told me he burst in and forced a doctor at gunpoint to go with him.’

  ‘The doctor forgave Oleg when he saw my state.’

  Rakel shook her head. ‘He would have liked to tell me the rest as well, but he says he doesn’t remember much from those months.’

  ‘Heroin does have that effect.’

  ‘But I thought you might fill in the gaps for me now. What do you say?’

  Harry inhaled. Waited a second. Let out the smoke. ‘I prefer to say as little as possible.’

  She tugged his hair. ‘I believed you that time because I wanted to. My God, Harry, Oleg shot you. He should be in prison.’

  Harry shook his head. ‘It was an accident, Rakel. All that’s behind us now, and as long as the police don’t find the Odessa gun no one can link Oleg to the murder of Gusto Hanssen or anyone else.’

  ‘What do you mean? Oleg has been acquitted of that murder. Are you saying he had something to do with it after all?’

  ‘No, Rakel.’

  ‘So what are you telling me, Harry?’

  ‘Are you sure you want to know, Rakel? Really?’

  She looked at Harry hard without answering.

  Harry waited. Stared out of the window. Saw the silhouette of the ridge surrounding this quiet, secure town where nothing happened. Which was actually the edge of a dormant volcano, where the town had been built. Depending on how you looked at it. Depending on what you knew.

  ‘No,’ she whispered in the darkness. Taking his hand and putting it to her cheek.

  It was easy to live a happy life of ignorance, Harry thought. It was just a question of repression. Repressing an Odessa lying, or not lying, locked in a cupboard. Repressing three murders that were not your responsibility. Repressing the image of the hate-filled eyes of a rejected student with a red dress pulled up over her waist. Wasn’t it?

  Harry stubbed out his cigarette.

  ‘Shall we go to bed?’

  At three o’clock in the morning Harry woke with a start.

  He ha
d dreamt about her again. He had gone into a room and found her there. She was lying on a filthy mattress on the floor, cutting up the red dress she was wearing with a big pair of scissors. Beside her was a portable TV broadcasting her and what she was doing with a two-second delay. Harry looked around, but he couldn’t see a camera anywhere. Then she placed one shiny blade against the inside of her white thigh, opened her legs and whispered:

  ‘Don’t do it.’

  And Harry fumbled behind him and found the handle of the door that had closed after him, but it was locked. Then he discovered that he was naked and was moving towards her.

  ‘Don’t do it.’

  It sounded like an echo from the TV. A two-second delay.

  ‘I just have to get the key,’ he said, but it sounded like he was talking underwater, and he knew she hadn’t heard. Then she put two, three, four fingers inside her vagina, and he stared as the whole of the slim hand slipped inside. He took another step towards her. Then the hand came back out holding a gun. Pointed at him. A shiny, dripping gun with a cable leading back inside her like an umbilical cord. ‘Don’t do it,’ she had said, but he was already kneeling in front of her, leaning forward. Felt the gun, cool and pleasant, against his forehead. And then he whispered:

  ‘Do it.’

  24

  THE TENNIS COURTS were unoccupied as Bjørn Holm’s Volvo Amazon pulled up in front of Frogner Park and the police car by the main gate.

  Beate jumped out, wide awake despite having slept hardly a wink. It was hard to sleep in a stranger’s bed. Yes, she still thought of him as a stranger. She knew his body, but his mind, habits and thinking were still a mystery she wondered whether she had enough patience or interest to explore. So every morning she woke in his bed, she asked herself the question: are you going to carry on?

  Two plain-clothes policemen leaning back against the car straightened and came to meet her. She saw two uniformed officers sitting in the front seats of the car and another man in the back.

  ‘Is that him?’ she asked, feeling her heart beat wonderfully fast.

  ‘Yes,’ said one of the plain-clothes men. ‘Great police sketch. He’s the spitting image.’

  ‘And the tram?’

  ‘We sent it on, it was packed to the brim. But we took one woman’s details as there was a bit of drama.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He tried to make a run for it when we showed our ID and said he had to come along with us. He leapt into the aisle and grabbed a pram to block our way. Yelled for the tram to stop.’

  ‘A pram?’

  ‘Yes, you can’t believe it, can you? Bloody criminal.’

  ‘I’m afraid he’s committed worse.’

  ‘I mean, taking a pram on the tram during the morning rush hour.’

  ‘OK. But then you arrested him?’

  ‘The baby’s mother screamed and held onto his arm so that I could get a punch in.’ The policeman showed the bleeding knuckles on his right fist. ‘No point brandishing a shooter when this works, is there?’

  ‘Good,’ Beate said, trying to sound as if she meant it. She bent down and looked into the back of the car, but all she could see was a silhouette beneath the reflection of herself in the morning sun. ‘Can someone lower the window?’

  She tried to breathe calmly as the window slid soundlessly down.

  She recognised him at once. He didn’t look at her, he stared straight ahead, stared into the Oslo morning with half-closed eyes, as though still in the dream he hadn’t wanted to wake up from.

  ‘Have you searched him?’ she asked.

  ‘Close encounter of the third kind,’ the plain-clothes man grinned. ‘No, he didn’t have a weapon on him.’

  ‘I mean, have you searched him for drugs? Checked his pockets?’

  ‘Well, no. Why would we?’

  ‘Because this is Chris Reddy, also known as Adidas, several convictions for selling speed. He tried to run, so you can bet your life he’s got something on him. So strip him.’

  Beate Lønn straightened up and went back to the Amazon.

  ‘I thought she did fingerprints,’ she heard the plain-clothes man say to Bjørn Holm, who had come to join them. ‘Not that she recognised junkies.’

  ‘She recognises anyone who’s ever been in Oslo Police archives,’ Bjørn said. ‘Look a bit closer next time, OK?’

  When Bjørn got in the car and glanced at her, Beate knew she looked like a grumpy old cow, with her arms crossed, fuming as she stared ahead.

  ‘We’ll collar him on Sunday,’ Bjørn said.

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ Beate said. ‘Everything set up in Bergslia?’

  ‘Delta’s done a recce and found their positions. They said it was simple with all the forest around. But they’re in the neighbouring house as well.’

  ‘And everyone who investigated the original crime has been informed?’

  ‘Yes. Everyone will be near a phone all day and report in if they receive a call.’

  ‘That goes for you too, Bjørn.’

  ‘And you. By the way, why wasn’t Harry on that case? He was an inspector in Crime Squad then.’

  ‘Mm, he was indisposed.’

  ‘On the booze?’

  ‘How are we using Katrine?’

  ‘She’s got a position in Berg Forest, with a good view of the house.’

  ‘I want regular mobile contact with her all the time she’s there.’

  ‘I’ll tell her.’

  Beate glanced at her watch. 09.16. They drove down Thomas Heftyes gate and Bygdøy allé. Not because it was the shortest way to Police HQ, but because it was the most scenic. And because it killed some time. Beate glanced at her watch again. 09.22. D-Day in two days. Sunday.

  Her heart was still beating fast.

  Was already beating fast.

  Johan Krohn kept Harry waiting in reception the usual four minutes past the time of the appointment before coming out. Gave a couple of obviously superfluous messages to the receptionist before directing his attention to the two people sitting there.

  ‘Hole,’ he said, fleetingly studying the policeman’s face to diagnose mood and attitude before proffering his hand. ‘You’ve brought your own lawyer, have you?’

  ‘This is Arnold Folkestad,’ Harry said. ‘He’s a colleague, and I’ve asked him to join me so that I have a witness to what is said and agreed.’

  ‘Wise, very wise,’ said Johan Krohn, without anything in his tone or expression suggesting he meant it. ‘Come in, come in.’

  He led the way, looked quickly at a surprisingly petite, feminine wristwatch and Harry took the hint: I’m a busy lawyer with limited time for this relatively minor matter. The office was executive size and smelt of leather, which Harry assumed came from the bound chronological volumes of Norsk Rettstidende filling the shelves. And a perfume he recognised. Silje Gravseng was sitting in a chair, half turned towards them, half turned towards Johan Krohn’s massive desk.

  ‘Endangered species?’ Harry asked, running a hand across the desk before taking a seat.

  ‘Standard teak,’ Krohn said, occupying the driving seat behind the rainforest.

  ‘Standard yesterday, endangered today,’ Harry said, nodding briefly to Silje Gravseng. She answered by slowly lowering her eyelids and opening them again, as if she mustn’t move her head. Her hair was tied in a ponytail so tight it made her eyes narrower than usual. She was wearing a suit that could easily suggest she worked in the office. She seemed calm.

  ‘Shall we get down to business?’ said Johan Krohn, who had adopted his customary pose with his fingertips pressed together. ‘Frøken Gravseng has testified that she was raped in your office at the Politihøyskole at around midnight on the night in question. The evidence so far: scratch marks, bruises and a torn dress. All this has been photographed and can be used as proof in a court of law.’

  Krohn shot Silje a quick glance to ensure she was bearing up under the strain before continuing.

  ‘The medical examination at the Rape Crisis
Centre didn’t, it is true, reveal any tears or bruising, but it rarely does. Even in brutal attacks we’re only talking about fifteen to thirty per cent of cases. There is no sign of semen as you had enough presence of mind to ejaculate externally, on frøken Gravseng’s stomach to be precise, before you told her to get dressed, dragged her to the door and threw her out. Shame she didn’t have the same presence of mind as you did in retaining some of the sperm as evidence. Instead, she cried in the shower for hours and did her utmost to wash away all the signs of her defilement. Not so surprising, perhaps, a very understandable and normal reaction for a young girl.’

  Krohn’s voice had acquired a slightly indignant quiver, which Harry assumed wasn’t genuine, but rather designed to demonstrate how effective this testimony could be in court.

  ‘But the staff at the Rape Crisis Centre are required to describe the victim’s psychological state in a few lines. We are talking here about professionals with long experience of rape victims’ behaviour, and accordingly these are descriptions that the court would set great store by. And, believe me, in this case the psychological observations support my client’s statement.’

  An almost apologetic smile flitted across the lawyer’s face.

  ‘But before going over the evidence in any more detail let’s establish whether you have given my proposal any more thought, Hole. If you have concluded that accepting my offer is the right path – and I hope for everyone’s sake you have – I have the written contract here. Which, I hardly need say, will remain confidential.’

  Krohn passed a black leather document case to Harry while sending eloquent glances to Arnold Folkestad, who nodded slowly.

  Harry opened the case and scanned the A4 sheet.

  ‘Mm. I resign from PHS and waive any work in, or in connection with, the police force. And I do not talk under any circumstances with or about Silje Gravseng. Ready for signature, I can see.’

  ‘It’s not exactly complicated, so if you’ve already done your own calculations and come to the correct solution . . .’

  Harry nodded. Looked across at Silje Gravseng, who was sitting there, as stiff as a post, staring back at him, her face pale and expressionless.