The Thirst: Harry Hole 11

by Jo Nesbo

‘And I’ve had other things to think about.’

  ‘Really? Such as?’

  ‘Rakel’s in Ullevål.’

  ‘Shit. Is it serious?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Harry. How bad?’

  ‘Don’t know, but I can’t be part of the investigation any more. I’m going to be at the hospital from now on.’

  Pause.

  ‘Katrine?’

  ‘Yes? Yes, of course. I’m sorry, it’s just a bit too much to take in all at once. Naturally, you have my full support and sympathy. But, bloody hell, Harry, have you got anyone there to talk to? Do you want me to—?’

  ‘Thanks, Katrine, but you’ve got a man to catch. I’ll disband my team, and you’ll have to run with what you’ve got. Use Smith. His social skills are probably even worse than mine, but he’s fearless and dares to think outside the box. And Anders Wyller is interesting. Give him a bit more responsibility and see what comes of it.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking of doing that. Call if you need anything, anything at all.’

  ‘Yep.’

  They ended the call and Harry stood up. Went over to the coffee machine, heard his own feet drag on the floor. He never used to drag his feet, never. He stood with the jug in his hand and looked around the empty kitchen. He’d forgotten where he’d left his mug. He put the jug down again, sat at the kitchen table and rang Mikael Bellman’s number. He reached his voicemail. Which was just as well, he didn’t have much to say.

  ‘This is Hole. My wife’s ill, so I’m leaving. This decision is final.’

  He remained seated and looked out through the window at the lights of the city.

  Thought about that one-ton water buffalo standing there with a solitary lion hanging from its throat. The water buffalo was bleeding from its wounds, but it had a lot of blood, and if it could just shake the lion off, it could easily trample it underfoot or spear it on its horns. But time was running out, its windpipe was being squeezed and it needed air. And there were more lions on the way, the pride had caught the scent of blood.

  Harry saw the lights, but thought they had never seemed so far away.

  The engagement ring. Valentin had given her a ring, and had come back. Just like the Fiancé. Damn. He pushed it away. Time to switch his head off now. Turn the lights off, lock up and go home.

  It was 20.14 when Mona heard a noise. It came from the darkness, which had grown more dense while she had been sitting inside the cage. She saw a movement. Something was approaching. She had been through the questions she had prepared and wondered what she was most frightened of: him coming, or not coming. But she was no longer in any doubt. She felt her pulse throbbing in her neck and clutched the pistol in her jacket pocket. She had practised firing it in her parents’ basement, and from a distance of six metres she had hit what she’d been aiming at, a half-rotten raincoat hanging from a hook on the brick wall.

  It came out of the darkness and into the light from a freight ship that was moored by the cement silos a few hundred metres away.

  It was a dog.

  It padded over to the cage and stared at her.

  It looked like a stray. It didn’t have a collar, anyway, and was so skinny and scabby that it was hard to imagine it belonging anywhere but here. It was the sort of dog little Mona with her cat allergy had always hoped would follow her home one day, and never leave her.

  Mona met the dog’s short-sighted stare, and imagined that she could see what it was thinking. A human being in a cage. And heard it laugh inside.

  After looking at her for a while, the dog positioned itself parallel to the cage, lifted one back leg, and a stream of liquid hit the bars and floor inside.

  Then it padded away and disappeared back into the darkness.

  Without pricking its ears or sniffing the air.

  And Mona realised.

  There was no one coming.

  She looked at the pulse meter. 119. And falling.

  He wasn’t here. So where was he?

  Harry could see something in the darkness.

  In the middle of the drive, beyond the light from the windows and by the steps, he could make out the shape of someone standing with their arms by their sides, motionless, as they stared at the kitchen window and Harry.

  Harry lowered his head and looked down at his mug of coffee as if he hadn’t seen the figure outside. His pistol was upstairs.

  Should he run and get it?

  On the other hand, if it really was the hunted man who was approaching the hunter, he didn’t want to frighten him off.

  Harry stood up, stretched, aware that he was easily visible in the well-lit kitchen. He went into the living room, which also had windows facing the driveway, picked up a book, before taking two rapid strides towards the front door, grabbing the garden shears Rakel had left next to her boots, yanking the door open and running down the steps.

  The figure still didn’t move.

  Harry stopped.

  Peered.

  ‘Aurora?’

  Harry rummaged through the kitchen cupboard. ‘Cardamom, cinnamon, camomile. Rakel has a lot of teas starting with “c”, but seeing as I’m a coffee drinker I don’t really know what to recommend.’

  ‘Cinnamon would be fine,’ Aurora said.

  ‘Here,’ Harry said, handing her a box.

  She took out a tea bag and Harry watched her as she dunked it in the mug of steaming water.

  ‘You ran off from Police HQ the other day,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said simply, pressing the tea bag with a teaspoon.

  ‘And from the bus stop earlier today.’

  She didn’t answer, her hair had fallen in front of her face.

  He sat down, took a sip of coffee. Gave her the time she needed, didn’t fill the silence with words that demanded answers.

  ‘I didn’t see it was you,’ she said eventually. ‘Well, I did see, but by then I was already scared, and it often takes a bit of time for your brain to tell your body that everything’s fine. And in the meantime my body had already managed to run away.’

  ‘Mm. Is there someone you’re afraid of?’

  She nodded. ‘It’s Dad.’

  Harry steeled himself, he didn’t want to go on, didn’t want to go there. But he had to.

  ‘What’s your dad done?’

  Tears welled up in her eyes. ‘He raped me and said I must never tell anyone. Because then he would die …’

  The nausea came so suddenly that Harry lost his breath for a moment, and bile burned in his throat when he swallowed. ‘Your dad said he would die?’

  ‘No!’ Her sudden, angry exclamation threw a short, hard echo off the walls of the kitchen.

  ‘The man who raped me said he’d kill Dad if I ever told a soul. He said he’d nearly killed Dad once before, and that nothing would stop him next time.’

  Harry blinked. Tried to absorb the grim mixture of relief and shock. ‘You were raped?’ he said, with feigned calmness.

  She nodded, sniffed and wiped her eyes. ‘In the girls’ toilet when we were playing in a handball tournament. It was the day you and Rakel got married. He did it, and then he left.’

  Harry felt like he was falling.

  ‘Have you got somewhere I could get rid of this?’ She raised a dripping, dangling tea bag above the cup.

  Harry just held his hand out.

  Aurora looked at him uncertainly before letting go of the tea bag. Harry clenched his fist, felt the water burn his skin and run out between his fingers. ‘Did he hurt you, besides …?’

  She shook her head. ‘He held me so tight that I got bruises. I told Mum they were from the match.’

  ‘You mean you’ve kept this to yourself right up to now? For three years?’

  She nodded.

  Harry felt that he was on the verge of getting up, going round the table and wrapping his arms round her. But a second thought had time to kick in, picking up on what Smith had said about closeness and intimacy.

  ‘So why have you
come to tell me about it now?’

  ‘Because he’s killing other people. I saw the drawing in the paper. It’s him, it’s the man with the funny eyes. You’ve got to help me, Uncle Harry. You’ve got to help me protect Dad.’

  He nodded, breathing with his mouth open.

  Aurora tilted her head with a worried look on her face. ‘Uncle Harry?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are you crying?’

  Harry could taste the salt of the first tear at the corner of his mouth. Damn.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said in a thick voice. ‘How’s the tea?’

  Then Harry looked up and met her gaze. It had changed completely. As if something had opened it up. As if for the first time in a very long while she was looking out through those beautiful eyes of hers, not in, as she had done the last few times they had met.

  Aurora stood up, pushed the mug away, and walked round the table. Leaned over Harry and wrapped her arms around him. ‘It’s going to be OK,’ she said. ‘It’s going to be OK.’

  Marte Ruud went over to the customer who had just walked in through the door of the otherwise empty Schrøder’s Restaurant.

  ‘Sorry, but we stopped serving beer half an hour ago, and we’re closing in ten minutes.’

  ‘Give me a coffee,’ he said, and smiled. ‘I’ll drink it quickly.’

  She went back to the kitchen. The cook had gone home over an hour ago, as had Rita. They usually only had one member of staff working this late on Monday evenings, and even though it was quiet, she was still a bit nervous because this was her first evening on her own. Rita would be coming back just after closing time to help with the till.

  It didn’t take more than a few seconds to boil enough water for a single cup in the kettle. She added freeze-dried coffee. Went back out and put the cup down in front of the man.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ he said, looking at the steaming cup. ‘Seeing as it’s just the two of us here.’

  ‘Yes,’ Marte said, even though she meant no. She just wanted him to drink the coffee and go, leaving her to lock the door and wait for Rita, so she could get home. Her first lecture started at quarter past eight tomorrow morning.

  ‘Isn’t this where that famous detective drinks? Harry Hole?’

  Marte nodded. To be honest she hadn’t actually heard of him before he showed up, a tall man with an ugly scar on his face. Then Rita had told her all about Harry Hole, in great detail.

  ‘Where does he usually sit?’

  ‘They say he sits over there,’ Marte said, pointing at the corner table by the window. ‘But he doesn’t come as often as he used to.’

  ‘No, if he’s going to catch that “wretched pervert”, as he puts it, he probably hasn’t got time to sit here. But this is still his place. If you understand me?’

  Marte smiled and nodded, even though she wasn’t sure that she did understand.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  Marte hesitated, unsure if she liked the direction the conversation was taking. ‘We’re closing in six minutes, so if you’re going to have time to drink your coffee, maybe you …’

  ‘Do you know why you have freckles, Marte?’

  She froze. How did he know her name?

  ‘You see, when you were little and had no freckles, you woke up one night. You’d been having a kabuslar, a nightmare. You were still frightened when you ran into your mother’s bedroom so that she could tell you that monsters and ghosts didn’t exist. But in her bedroom a naked blue-black man was sitting hunched up on your mother’s chest. Long, pointed ears, blood running from the sides of his mouth. And as you just stood there staring, he puffed up his cheeks, and before you could get away he blew out all the blood he had in his mouth, covering your face and chest with tiny drops. And that blood, Marte, it never went away, no matter how hard you washed and scrubbed.’ The man blew on his coffee. ‘So that explains how you got freckles, but the question is, why? And the answer to that is as easy as it is unsatisfactory, Marte. Because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The world simply isn’t very fair.’ He raised the cup to his lips, opened his mouth wide, and poured the still steaming black liquid into his mouth. She gasped in horror, short of breath, scared that something might be about to happen, without knowing what. And she didn’t have time to see the spray from his mouth before the hot coffee hit her in the face.

  Blinded, she turned round and slipped on the liquid, one knee hit the floor, but she got to her feet and rushed for the door, pushing a chair over to slow him down as she tried to blink the coffee away. She grabbed the door handle and tugged it. Locked. He’d put the latch on. She heard creaking footsteps behind her as she put her finger and thumb on the lock, but didn’t have time to do more before she felt him grab hold of her belt and jerk her backwards. Marte tried to scream, but all she could get out were small whimpering sounds. Footsteps again. He was standing in front of her. She didn’t want to look up, didn’t want to look at him. She had never had a nightmare about any blue-black man when she was little, only one about a man with a dog’s head. And she knew that if she looked up now, that was what she would see. So she kept her gaze lowered, staring at the pointed cowboy boots instead.

  20

  MONDAY NIGHT, TUESDAY MORNING

  ‘YES?’

  ‘Harry?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure if this was your number. It’s Rita. From Schrøder’s. I know it’s late, and I’m sorry to wake you.’

  ‘I wasn’t asleep, Rita.’

  ‘I called the police, but they … well, they’ve been here, and now they’ve gone again.’

  ‘Try to calm down, Rita. What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s Marte, the new girl you met the last time you were here.’

  Harry remembered her rolled-up shirtsleeves and slightly nervous eagerness. ‘Yes?’

  ‘She’s gone. I got here just before midnight to help her with the till, but there was no one here. The door wasn’t locked, though. Marte’s reliable, and we had an arrangement. She wouldn’t just leave without locking up. She’s not answering her phone and her boyfriend says she hasn’t come home. The police checked the hospital, but nothing. And then the policewoman said it happens all the time, people disappearing in odd ways, then showing up again a few hours later with a perfectly reasonable explanation. She said I should call them if Marte hasn’t shown up again within twelve hours.’

  ‘What they said is actually true, Rita, they’re just following routine.’

  ‘Yes, but … hello?’

  ‘I’m here, Rita.’

  ‘When I was cleaning up, getting ready to close I found that someone had written something on one of the tablecloths. It looks like lipstick, and it’s exactly the shade of red that Marte uses.’

  ‘OK. So what does it say?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘No. It’s just a single letter. A “v”. And it’s in your place.’

  Three o’clock in the morning.

  A roar forced its way out between Harry’s lips, echoing off bare cellar walls. Harry stared at the iron bar that was threatening to fall and crush him as his trembling arms held it up. Then, with one final effort, he thrust the weights away from him, and they clanked against each other as he let the bar rest in its cradle. He lay on the bench gasping for breath.

  He closed his eyes. He had promised Oleg that he would be with Rakel. But he had to get back out there. Had to catch him. For Marte. For Aurora.

  No.

  It was too late. Too late for Aurora. Too late for Marte. So he had to do it for those who hadn’t yet become victims, who could still be saved from Valentin.

  Because it was for them, wasn’t it?

  Harry took hold of the bar, felt the metal against the calluses on his hands.

  Somewhere you can be useful.

  His grandfather had said that, that all you need is to be useful. When his grandmother had been giving birth to Harry’s father, she had lost so much blo
od that the midwife had called the doctor. Grandfather, who had been told there was nothing he could do to help, couldn’t bear to listen to Grandma’s screams, so he walked out, harnessed the horse to the plough and started to plough one of the fields. He drove the horse on with his whip and with cries loud enough to drown out those from the house, then started pushing the plough himself when his faithful old horse began to stumble in the harness. When the screaming had stopped and the doctor came out to tell him that both mother and child were going to survive, Grandfather fell to his knees, kissed the ground and thanked the God he didn’t believe in.

  That same night the horse collapsed in its stall and died.

  Now Rakel was lying in bed. Silent. And he had to decide.

  Somewhere you can be useful.

  Harry lifted the bar from the cradle and lowered it to his chest. Took a deep breath. Tensed his muscles. And roared.

  PART TWO

  21

  TUESDAY MORNING

  IT WAS SEVEN thirty. There was fine rain hanging in the air and Mehmet was about to cross the street when he noticed the man in front of Jealousy. He had made his hands into binoculars and was holding them against the window to see inside better. The first thing Mehmet thought was that Danial Banks was early asking for the next instalment, but as he got closer he realised that the man was taller, and blond. And it struck him that it must be one of the old, alcoholic customers who had come back, and hoped the bar still opened at seven o’clock in the morning.

  But when the man turned to face the street again, sucking at the cigarette between his lips, he saw it was that policeman. Harry.

  ‘Good morning,’ Mehmet said, getting his keys out. ‘Thirsty?’

  ‘That too. But I’ve got an offer for you.’

  ‘What sort of offer?’

  ‘The sort you can turn down.’

  ‘In that case I’m interested,’ Mehmet said, and let the policeman in. He followed, then locked the door. Switched the lights on from behind the counter.

  ‘This is actually a good bar,’ Harry said, putting his elbows on the counter and breathing in deeply.

  ‘Do you want to buy it?’ Mehmet said drily, pouring water into a cezve, the special Turkish coffee pot.