The Thirst: Harry Hole 11

by Jo Nesbo

  The taller policeman looked pointedly at the hand on his shoulder and Bellman removed it. Harry’s voice was hoarser than usual. ‘Enjoy your victory, Bellman. I’m being questioned first thing in the morning, so goodnight.’

  Bellman watched Harry Hole as he made his way towards the exit, with his legs wide apart and his knees bent, like a sailor on deck in a rough sea.

  Bellman had already conferred with Isabelle, and they had agreed that if this success wasn’t to leave a nasty aftertaste, it would be best if Internal Investigations concluded that there was little or nothing to criticise Hole for. Exactly how they were going to help Internal Investigations to reach this conclusion was as yet unclear, seeing as they couldn’t be bribed directly. But obviously any thinking person was receptive to a bit of common sense. And as far as the press and general public were concerned, Isabelle believed that it had become almost a matter of routine in recent years that mass murders ended with the perpetrator being killed by the police, and that the press and general public had more or less tacitly accepted that this was how society dealt with this sort of case – quickly and efficiently, in a way that appealed to ordinary people’s sense of justice and without the spiralling costs associated with court proceedings in big murder cases.

  Bellman looked for Katrine Bratt, aware that the pair of them together would make a good subject for the photographers. But she was already gone.

  ‘Gunnar!’ he called, loudly enough for a couple of photographers to turn round. The head of Crime Squad stopped in the doorway and came over to him.

  ‘Look serious,’ Bellman whispered, and held out his hand. ‘Congratulations,’ he said loudly.

  Harry was standing beneath one of the street lamps on Borggata, trying to light a cigarette in Emilia’s dying gasps. He was freezing, his teeth were chattering, and he could feel the cigarette bobbing up and down between his lips.

  He glanced up at the entrance of Police HQ, where the reporters and journalists were still coming out. Perhaps they were just as tired as him and for that reason weren’t talking noisily among themselves the way they usually did, but were heading down the road towards Grønlandsleiret as a silent, sluggish mass. Or perhaps they could feel it too. The emptiness. The emptiness that comes when a case is solved, when you reach the end of the road and realise that there’s no road left. No more field to plough. But your wife is still in the house, with the doctor and midwife, and there’s still nothing you can do. Nowhere you can be useful.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’

  Harry turned. It was Bjørn.

  ‘Katrine,’ Harry said. ‘She said she’d drive me home. She’s getting the car from the garage, so if you need a lift as well …’

  Bjørn shook his head. ‘Have you spoken to Katrine about what we talked about?’

  Harry nodded and made a fresh attempt to light his cigarette.

  ‘Is that a “Yes”?’ Bjørn wondered.

  ‘No,’ Harry said. ‘I haven’t asked her where you stand.’

  ‘You haven’t?’

  Harry closed his eyes for a moment. Perhaps he had. Either way, he couldn’t remember the answer.

  ‘I’m just asking because I was thinking that if the two of you were together around midnight, somewhere that wasn’t Police HQ, then maybe you weren’t just talking about work.’

  Harry cupped his hand round the cigarette and lighter as he looked at Bjørn. His childlike, pale blue eyes were bulging out more than usual.

  ‘I can’t remember anything but work stuff, Bjørn.’

  Bjørn Holm looked at the ground and stamped his feet. As if to get his circulation going. As if he couldn’t move from the spot.

  ‘I’ll let you know, Bjørn.’

  Bjørn Holm nodded without looking up, then turned and walked off.

  Harry watched him go. With a feeling that Bjørn had seen something, something he himself hadn’t spotted. There! Lit, at last!

  A car pulled up beside him.

  Harry sighed, tossed the cigarette on the ground, opened the door and got in.

  ‘What were you two talking about?’ Katrine asked, looking at Bjørn as she drove towards the nocturnal calm of Grønlandsleiret.

  ‘Did we have sex?’ Harry asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t remember a thing from earlier this evening. We didn’t fuck?’

  Katrine didn’t answer, apparently concentrating on stopping exactly on the white line in front of a red traffic light. Harry waited.

  The light turned green.

  ‘No,’ Katrine said, putting her foot down and easing off the clutch. ‘We didn’t have sex.’

  ‘Good,’ Harry said, and let out a low whistle.

  ‘You were too drunk.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You were too drunk. You fell asleep.’

  Harry closed his eyes. ‘Shit.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I thought.’

  ‘Not like that. Rakel’s in a coma. While I—’

  ‘While you’re doing your best to join her there. Forget it, Harry, worse things have happened.’

  On the radio a dry voice announced that Valentin Gjertsen, the so-called vampirist, had been shot and killed at midnight. And that Oslo had experienced and survived its first tropical storm. Katrine and Harry drove in silence through Majorstua and Vinderen, towards Holmenkollen.

  ‘What are your thoughts about Bjørn these days?’ Harry asked. ‘Any possibility of you giving him another chance?’

  ‘Did he tell you to ask?’

  Harry didn’t answer.

  ‘I thought he had something going on with what’s-her-name Lien.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that. OK, fine. You can let me out here.’

  ‘Don’t you want me to drive you all the way to the house?’

  ‘You’d only wake Oleg. This is great. Thanks.’ Harry opened the door, but didn’t move.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mm. Nothing.’ He got out.

  Harry watched the rear lights of the car vanish, then walked up the drive towards the house.

  It sat there, looming even darker than the darkness. No lights. No breathing.

  He unlocked and opened the door.

  Saw Oleg’s shoes but couldn’t hear anything.

  He took his clothes off in the laundry room, put them in the basket. Went up to the bedroom, got out some clean clothes. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to sleep, so he went down to the kitchen. Put some coffee on and looked out of the window.

  Thinking. Then he pushed his thoughts aside and poured the coffee, knowing he wasn’t going to drink it. He could go off to the Jealousy Bar, but he didn’t feel like drinking alcohol either. But he would do. Later.

  His thoughts returned.

  There were only two of them.

  And they were the simplest and the loudest.

  One said that if Rakel didn’t survive, he would follow her, walk the same path.

  The other was that if she did survive, he would leave her. Because she deserved better and because she shouldn’t have to be the one to leave.

  A third thought appeared.

  Harry rested his head in his hands.

  The thought of whether he wanted her to survive or not.

  Damn, damn.

  And then a fourth thought.

  What Valentin had said out in the forest.

  We all get fooled in the end, Harry.

  He must have meant that it was Harry who had fooled him. Or did he mean other people? That someone else had fooled Valentin?

  That’s why you’re also being fooled.

  He had said that just before he fooled Harry into thinking he was pointing a gun at him, but perhaps that wasn’t what he meant. Perhaps it was about more than that.

  He started when he felt a hand on the back of his neck.

  Turned and looked up.

  Oleg was standing behind his chair.

  ‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ Harry tried to say, but his voice couldn’t
seem to settle.

  ‘You were asleep.’

  ‘Asleep?’ Harry pushed himself up from the table. ‘No, I was just sitting and—’

  ‘You were asleep, Dad,’ Oleg interrupted with a little smile.

  Harry blinked away the fog. Looked around. Put his hand out and felt the coffee cup. It was cold. ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘I’ve been doing some thinking,’ Oleg said, pulling out the chair next to Harry and sitting down.

  Harry smacked his lips, loosened the saliva in his mouth.

  ‘And you’re right.’

  ‘Am I?’ Harry took a sip of the cold coffee to take away the taste of stale bile.

  ‘Yes. You have a responsibility that stretches beyond those closest to you. You have to be there for people who aren’t so close. And I have no right to demand that you let them all down. The fact that murder cases are like a drug to you doesn’t change that.’

  ‘Hm. And you came to this conclusion all on your own?’

  ‘Yes. With a bit of help from Helga.’ Oleg looked down at his hands. ‘She’s better than me at seeing things from other angles. And I didn’t mean what I said, about not wanting to be like you.’

  Harry put his hand on Oleg’s shoulder. Saw that he was wearing Harry’s old Elvis Costello T-shirt to sleep in. ‘My boy?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Promise me that you won’t be like me. That’s all I ask of you.’

  Oleg nodded. ‘One other thing,’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Steffens called. It’s Mum.’

  It felt like an iron claw was squeezing Harry’s heart, and he stopped breathing.

  ‘She’s woken up.’

  33

  THURSDAY MORNING

  ‘YES?’

  ‘Anders Wyller?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good morning, I’m calling from the Forensic Medical Institute.’

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘It’s about that strand of hair you sent for analysis.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Did you get the printout I sent you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, that isn’t the full analysis, but as you can see there’s a link between the DNA in the hair and one of the DNA profiles we registered in the vampirist case. To be more precise, DNA profile 201.’

  ‘Yes, I saw that.’

  ‘I don’t know who 201 is, but we do at least know that it isn’t Valentin Gjertsen. But seeing as it’s a partial match and I haven’t heard anything from you, I just wanted to make sure you’d got the results. Because I’m assuming you want us to complete the analysis?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘No? But—’

  ‘The case is solved, and you’ve got a lot of other work to be getting on with. By the way, was that printout sent to anyone else but me?’

  ‘No, I can’t see that there was any request to that effect. Do you want—?’

  ‘No, there’s no need. You can close the case. Thanks for your help.’

  PART THREE

  34

  SATURDAY DAYTIME

  MASA KANAGAWA USED the tongs to lift the red-hot iron from the oven. He put it on the anvil and started to beat it with one of the smaller hammers. The hammer was the traditional Japanese design, with a head that stuck out at the front in a sort of gallows shape. Masa had taken over the little smithy from his father and grandfather, but like plenty of the other smiths in Wakayama he had found it a struggle to make ends meet. The steel industry, which had long been the backbone of the city’s economy, had moved to China, and Masa had had to concentrate on niche products. Such as the katana, a samurai sword that was particularly popular in the USA, and which he produced to order for private customers all over the world. Japanese law dictated that a sword-smith needed a licence, must have served a five-year apprenticeship, and was only permitted to produce two long swords per month, all of which had to be registered with the authorities. Masa was just a simple smith, who made good swords for a fraction of the price charged by the licensed smiths, but he knew he could get caught, so kept a low profile. He neither knew nor wanted to know what his clients used the swords for, but he hoped it was for exercise, for decoration or collecting. All he knew was that it helped feed him and his family, and enabled him to keep the little smithy running. But he had told his son that he ought to find a different profession, that he ought to study, that being a smith was too hard and the rewards too meagre. His son had followed his father’s advice, but it cost money to keep him at university, so Masa accepted whatever commissions he was offered. Such as this one, to make a replica of a set of iron teeth from the Heian period. It was for a client in Norway, and this was the second time he had ordered the same thing. The first time was six months ago. Masa Kanagawa didn’t know the client’s name, he just had the address of a post office box. But that was fine, the goods had been paid for in advance and the price Masa had asked for was high. Not just because it was complicated work, making the little teeth to match the design the customer had sent him, but because it felt wrong. Masa couldn’t explain why it felt more wrong than forging a sword, but when he looked at the iron teeth they made him shudder. And as he drove home along Highway 370, the singing road where the carefully designed and constructed ridges in the surface created a tune as the tyres rolled over them, he no longer heard it as beautiful, soothing choral music. He heard a warning, a deep rumble that grew and grew until it became a scream. A scream like a demon’s.

  Harry woke up. He lit a cigarette and reflected. What sort of awakening was this? This wasn’t waking up to work. It was Saturday, his first lecture after the winter break wasn’t until Monday, and Øystein was looking after the bar today.

  It wasn’t waking up alone. Rakel was lying by his side. During the first few weeks after she came home from hospital, whenever he lay and looked at her sleeping he had been terrified that she wouldn’t wake up, that the mysterious ‘it’ that the doctors hadn’t identified was going to come back.

  ‘People can’t cope with doubt,’ Steffens had said. ‘People like to believe that you and I know, Harry. The accused is guilty, the diagnosis is definite. Admitting that we have doubts is taken as an admission of our own inadequacy, not an indication of the complexity of the mystery or the limitations of our profession. But the truth is that we will never know for certain what was wrong with Rakel. Her mast cell count was slightly elevated, so at first I thought it was a rare blood disease. But all the signs are gone and there’s a lot to suggest that it was some sort of poison. In which case you don’t have to worry about it recurring. Just like these vampirist murders, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘But we know who killed those women.’

  ‘You’re right. Bad analogy.’

  As the weeks passed, the gaps between him thinking about Rakel having a relapse grew longer.

  As did the gaps between him thinking there had been another vampirist killing every time the phone rang.

  So it wasn’t waking up full of angst.

  He had had a few of those after Valentin Gjertsen died. Oddly enough, not while Internal Investigations were interviewing him, before eventually concluding that Harry couldn’t be blamed for firing in an uncertain situation with a dangerous murderer who had himself provoked the response. It was only after, then, that Valentin and Marte Ruud started to haunt him in his dreams. And it was her, not him, who whispered in his ear. That’s why you’re also being fooled. He had told himself that it was other people’s responsibility to find her now. And as the weeks turned to months, their visits had become less frequent. It helped that he had got back into his daily routine at Police College and at home, and that he wasn’t touching alcohol.

  And now, at last, he was where he ought to be. Because this was the fifth sort. Waking up content. He would copy and paste yet another day, with his serotonin level exactly where it should be.

  Harry crept out of bed as quietly as he could, pulled on some trousers and went downstairs, inserted Rakel’s favourit
e capsule into the espresso machine, switched it on and went out onto the steps. He felt the snow sting pleasantly under his bare feet as he breathed in the winter air. The white-clad city was still in darkness, but a new day was blushing off to the east.

  Aftenposten was saying that the future looked brighter than the news might make us think. That in spite of the increasingly detailed picture the media were painting of murders, wars and atrocities, recently published research showed that the number of people being murdered was at a historic low, and sinking. Yes, one day murder might even become extinct. Mikael Bellman, whose appointment as Justice Minister was going to be confirmed next week, according to Aftenposten, had commented that there was obviously nothing wrong with setting ambitious targets, but that his personal target wasn’t a perfect society, but a better one. Harry couldn’t help smiling. Isabelle Skøyen was a talented prompt. Harry looked again to the sentence about murder one day becoming extinct. Why was this long-term claim triggering the anxiety he had to admit he had – in spite of his own contentment – felt for the past month, possibly longer? Murder. He had made it his life’s work to fight murderers. But if he succeeded, if they all disappeared, wouldn’t he disappear with them? Had he not buried a part of himself with Valentin? Was that why Harry had found himself standing by Valentin Gjertsen’s grave just a few days ago? Or was there some other reason? What Steffens had said about not being able to cope with doubt. Was it the lack of answers that was nagging at him? Damn it, Rakel was better, Valentin was gone, time to let go now.

  The snow creaked.

  ‘Nice winter break, Harry?’

  ‘We survived, fru Syvertsen. I see you haven’t had enough skiing, though.’

  ‘Skiing weather is skiing weather,’ she said, jutting her hip out. Her ski suit looked like it had been painted on her. She was holding her cross-country skis, no doubt as light as helium, in one hand as if they were chopsticks.

  ‘You don’t fancy coming for a quick circuit, Harry? We could sprint to Tryvann while everyone’s asleep.’ She smiled, the light from the lamp above them reflecting off her lips, some sort of cream to fend off the cold. ‘Nice and … slippery.’