by Jo Nesbo
‘Because she – unlike you – has to think about her career and would have had to take this to Mikael.’
‘And?’
‘Mikael’s taking over as Justice Minister next week. He doesn’t want any blots on his copybook.’
Harry looked at Truls Berntsen. He had long since figured out that Berntsen wasn’t as stupid as he might appear. ‘You mean he doesn’t want this case dragged out again?’
Berntsen shrugged. ‘The vampirist case came close to sticking a serious spoke in Mikael’s wheel. Then it turned into one of his greatest successes instead. So no, he doesn’t want to spoil that image.’
‘Hm. You’re giving these documents to me because you’re worried that otherwise they’ll end up in a drawer in the Police Chief’s office?’
‘I’m worried they’ll end up in the paper shredder, Hole.’
‘OK. But you still haven’t answered my question. Why?’
‘Didn’t you hear? The paper shredder.’
‘Why do you, Truls Berntsen, care about that? And no bullshit, I know who and what you are.’
Truls grunted something.
Harry waited.
Truls glanced at him, looked away, stamped his feet as if there was more snow on them. ‘I don’t know,’ he said eventually. ‘It’s true, I don’t know. I thought maybe it would be good if Magnus Skarre got a bloody nose for not noticing the link between the phones and Facebook, but it’s not that either. I don’t think. I think I just want … no, fuck it, I don’t know.’ He coughed. ‘But if you don’t want it, I’ll put it back in the filing cabinet and it can rot in there, same difference to me.’
Harry wiped the condensation from the window and watched Truls Berntsen as he walked out of the door and crossed the street, head bowed, in the sharp winter light. Was he mistaken, or had Truls Berntsen just shown symptoms of the partially benign illness known as police?
‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ Øystein asked when Harry walked back behind the bar.
‘Police porn,’ Harry said, putting the yellow folder on the counter. ‘Printouts and transcripts.’
‘The vampirist case? Hasn’t that been solved?’
‘Yes, there are just a few loose ends, formalities. Can’t you hear that the coffee’s boiling?’
‘Can’t you hear that Taylor Swift isn’t singing?’
Harry opened his mouth to say something, but instead heard himself laughing. He loved this guy. Loved this bar. He poured the spoiled coffee into two cups and tapped along on the folder to the beat of ‘Welcome to Some Pork’. As he glanced at the pages he thought that Rakel was bound to say yes, if he just sat quiet as a mouse and gave her some time.
His eyes stopped.
It was as if the ice creaked beneath him.
His heart began to beat faster. We all get fooled in the end, Harry.
‘What is it?’ Øystein asked.
‘What’s what?’
‘You look like you’ve … well …’
‘Seen a ghost?’ Harry asked, and reread it to make sure.
‘No,’ Øystein said.
‘No?’
‘No, you look more like you’ve … woken up.’
Harry looked up from the files and looked at Øystein. And felt it. His anxiety. It was gone.
‘It’s sixty,’ Harry warned. ‘And icy.’
Oleg eased off the accelerator slightly. ‘Why don’t you drive, seeing as you’ve got a car and a driving licence?’
‘Because you and Rakel are better drivers,’ Harry said, squinting against the sharp sunlight reflecting off the low snow-and tree-covered hillsides. A sign announced that they were four kilometres from Åneby.
‘Mum could have driven, then?’
‘I thought it might be useful for you to see a sheriff’s office. You could end up being sent somewhere like this one day, you know.’
Oleg braked behind a tractor that was throwing up snow as its chains sang against the tarmac. ‘I’m heading for Crime Squad, not the countryside.’
‘Oslo is almost the countryside, it’s only half an hour away.’
‘I’ve applied to the FBI course in Chicago.’
Harry smiled. ‘If you’re that ambitious, a couple of years in a sheriff’s office shouldn’t scare you. Take a left here.’
‘Jimmy,’ said the burly, cheery-looking man standing in front of the door of Nittedal sheriff’s office, which was located next door to social services and the jobcentre, in the sort of plain modern building that provided public services all over Norway. His fresh suntan made Harry assume he’d spent his winter break in the Canary Islands, even if his thoughts of ‘Lanzagrotty’ were based on a prejudiced assumption about where people from Nittedal with first names ending in ‘y’ went on holiday.
Harry shook his hand. ‘Thanks for taking the time to talk to us on a Saturday, Jimmy. This is Oleg, he’s a student at Police College.’
‘Looks like a future sheriff,’ Jimmy said, looking the tall young man up and down. ‘I consider it an honour that Harry Hole himself would want to visit us. So I’m afraid you’re the ones wasting your time here, not me.’
‘Oh?’
‘You said on the phone that you couldn’t get any answer from Lenny Hell, so I did a quick check while you were on your way. Turns out he went off to Thailand just after that interview with you.’
‘Turns out?’
‘Yes, before he left he told his neighbours and regular clients that he might be gone a while. So presumably he’s got a Thai number now, even if none of the people I spoke to know what it is. They don’t know where he’s staying out there either.’
‘A loner, maybe?’
‘You can safely say that.’
‘Family?’
‘Single. Only child. He never left home, and since his parents died he’s lived up in the Pig House on his own.’
‘Pig House?’
‘That’s just what we call it here in town. The Hell family worked with pigs for generations, did quite well out of it, and a hundred years ago they built a rather striking three-storey house up there. The Pig House.’ The sheriff chuckled. ‘Doesn’t do to get ideas above your station, eh?’
‘Hm. So what do you think Lenny Hell is doing in Thailand for so long?’
‘Well, what do people like Lenny do in Thailand?’
‘I don’t know Lenny,’ Harry said.
‘Nice guy,’ the sheriff said. ‘Smart too, an IT engineer. Works from home, freelance, we sometimes call him in when we get computer trouble. No drugs, nothing stupid. No money problems either, as far as I know. But he’s never quite got to grips with the whole women thing.’
‘What does that mean?’
Jimmy looked at the smoke from their breath as it hung in the air. ‘Bit cold out here, guys. Shall we go inside and get some coffee?’
‘I reckon Lenny’s on the lookout for a Thai bride,’ Jimmy said as he poured filter coffee into two white social services mugs and his own Lillestrøm Sportsklubb mug. ‘He couldn’t cope with the competition here at home.’
‘No?’
‘No. Like I said, Lenny’s something of a lone wolf, he keeps to himself and doesn’t say much, and he’s not much of a babe magnet to start with. And he has trouble controlling his jealousy. As far as I know, he’s never hurt a fly – or a woman – but there was one incident when a woman called us, saying that Lenny had become a bit intense after their first date.’
‘Stalking?’
‘That’s what it’s called these days, yes. Lenny had evidently sent her a load of text messages and flowers, even though she’d said she wasn’t interested in taking it any further. He’d be standing there waiting when she finished work. She made it very clear that she never wanted to see him again, and so she didn’t. But instead she told us she started to feel that things in her flat had been moved while she was at work. So she called us.’
‘She thought he’d been in her flat?’
‘I talked to Lenny, but he denied it. And we neve
r heard any more about it after that.’
‘Does Lenny Hell have a 3D printer?’
‘A what?’
‘A machine that can be used to copy keys.’
‘No idea, but like I said, he’s an IT engineer.’
‘How jealous is he?’ Oleg asked, and the other two turned towards him.
‘On a scale of one to ten?’ Jimmy asked. Harry couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic.
‘I’m just wondering if it could be morbid jealousy?’ Oleg asked, glancing uncertainly at Harry.
‘What’s the lad talking about, Hole?’ Jimmy took an audible slurp from his canary-yellow mug. ‘Is he asking if Lenny’s killed anyone?’
‘OK. Like I said on the phone, we’re just tidying up a few loose ends from the vampirist case, and Lenny did talk to two of the victims.’
‘And this Valentin guy killed them,’ Jimmy said. ‘Or is there some doubt about that now?’
‘No doubt,’ Harry said. ‘As I said, I just wanted to talk to Lenny Hell about those conversations. See if I could find out anything we didn’t already know. I saw on the map that his address is only a few kilometres from here, so I was thinking we could head up there and knock on the door. Get it out of the way.’
The sheriff stroked the emblem on his mug with a large hand. ‘It said in the paper that you’re a lecturer these days, not a detective.’
‘I suppose I’m like Lenny, a freelancer.’
Jimmy folded his arms, and his left sleeve slid up to reveal a faded tattoo of a naked woman. ‘OK, Hole. As you’ll appreciate, not much happens in Nittedal sheriff’s district, and thank God for that. So when you called, I didn’t just make a few phone calls, I also took a drive up to Lenny’s house. Or rather, I drove as far as I could. The Pig House is at the end of a forest road, and once you’ve passed the last neighbour there’s still a kilometre and a half to go. And the snow is half a metre deep, just as high as it is at the side of the road, with no sign of tracks made by either wheels or shoes. Only elk and foxes. And maybe the odd wolf. You get my meaning? There hasn’t been anyone there for weeks, Hole. If you want to get hold of Lenny, you’ll have to buy a plane ticket to Thailand. Pattaya’s popular with men who are after Thai ladies, or so I’ve heard.’
‘Snowmobile,’ Harry said.
‘What?’
‘If I come back tomorrow with a warrant, can you organise a snowmobile?’
Harry realised that the sheriff’s good humour had run out. Presumably he had imagined sharing a nice cup of coffee while he proved to the cops from the big city that they knew what effective police work was out in the countryside too. Instead they were making fun of his judgements and asking him to put a vehicle at their disposal, like he was some sort of supplies manager.
‘You don’t need a snowmobile for a kilometre and a half,’ Jimmy said, rubbing the tip of his suntanned nose, which had begun to peel. ‘Use skis, Hole.’
‘I haven’t got any skis. A snowmobile, and someone to drive it.’
The silence that followed seemed to last an eternity.
‘I saw that the youngster was driving.’ Jimmy tilted his head. ‘No driving licence, Hole?’
‘Yes, but I killed a police officer once when I was driving.’ Harry picked up his mug and emptied it. ‘I’d prefer to avoid that happening again. Thanks for the coffee, and see you tomorrow.’
‘So what was that?’ Oleg said as they were waiting at the junction indicating to pull out onto the main road. ‘A local sheriff volunteers to help on a Saturday, and you start giving him the runaround?’
‘Did I do that?’
‘Yes!’
‘Mm. Indicate left instead.’
‘Oslo’s right.’
‘According to the satnav, Åneby Pizza & Grill is two minutes away if we turn left.’
The owner of Åneby Pizza & Grill, who had introduced himself as Tommy, wiped his fingers on his apron as he looked carefully at the picture Harry was holding in front of him.
‘Maybe, but I don’t remember what Lenny’s friend looked like, I just remember that he was here, and that he had company on the night that woman got killed in Oslo. Lenny’s a lone wolf, always on his own, doesn’t come here much. That’s why I remembered that evening when you called back in the autumn.’
‘The man in the picture’s name is Alexander, or Valentin. Did you hear Lenny call him either of those names when they were talking?’
‘I don’t remember hearing them talk at all. And I was out front alone that night, my wife was in the kitchen.’
‘When did they leave?’
‘Couldn’t say. They shared a Knut Special XXL with pepperoni and ham.’
‘You remember that?’
Tommy grinned and tapped a finger to his temple. ‘Order a pizza and come back in three months’ time and ask me what it was. I’ll give you the same discount that the police station gets. All the pizza bases are low-carb, with nuts.’
‘Tempting, but I’ve got my boy waiting in the car. Thanks for your help.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
Oleg set off into the early dusk.
They were both silent, immersed in their own thoughts.
Harry was doing calculations. Valentin could easily have eaten a pizza with Lenny and then got back to Oslo in time to kill Elise Hermansen.
A lorry passed them going so fast that the car shook.
Oleg cleared his throat. ‘How are you going to get hold of a warrant?’
‘Mm?’
‘To start with, you don’t work at Crime Squad. And you don’t have any legal basis for the warrant.’
‘No?’
‘Not if I’ve understood the course correctly.’
‘Let’s hear it,’ Harry smiled.
Oleg slowed down slightly. ‘There’s incontrovertible proof that Valentin killed a number of women. Lenny Hell met these women by coincidence. That on its own isn’t enough to give the police the right to break into Lenny Hell’s house while he’s on holiday in Thailand.’
‘Agreed, it would be difficult to get a search warrant on those grounds. So let’s drive to Grini.’
‘Grini?’
‘I was thinking of having a chat with Hallstein Smith.’
‘Helga and I are making dinner together tonight.’
‘To be more precise, a chat about morbid jealousy. Dinner, you say? I understand, I’ll find my own way out to Grini.’
‘Grini’s almost on the way, so OK.’
‘Go and make dinner, it might take a while with Smith.’
‘Too late, you’ve already said I can come along.’ Oleg sped up, pulled out and overtook a tractor, and put the lights on full beam.
They drove for a while in silence.
‘Sixty,’ Harry said, typing on his phone.
‘And icy,’ Oleg said, easing off the accelerator slightly.
‘Wyller?’ Harry said. ‘Harry Hole. I hope you’re sitting at home and feeling bored on a Saturday afternoon. Oh? Then you’ll have to explain to the lovely lady, whoever she is, that you need to help a washed-up but legendary detective check a few things.’
‘Morbid jealousy,’ Hallstein Smith said, looking keenly at the guests who had just arrived. ‘It’s an interesting subject. But have you really come all this way to talk about that? Isn’t this more Ståle Aune’s specialty?’
Oleg nodded and looked like he agreed.
‘I wanted to talk to you, seeing as you’ve got doubts,’ Harry said.
‘Doubts?’
‘You said something that night Valentin was here. You said he knew.’
‘Knew what?’
‘You didn’t say.’
‘I was in shock, I probably said all sorts of things.’
‘No, for once you said relatively little, Smith.’
‘Did you hear that, May?’ Hallstein Smith laughed at the slight figure who was pouring tea for them.
She smiled and nodded, then went off into the living room with the teapot and one cup.
‘I said “he knew”, and you interpreted that to mean I doubted something?’ Smith asked.
‘It sounded like something inexplicable,’ Harry said. ‘Something you couldn’t quite understand how Valentin could know. Am I wrong?’
‘I don’t know, Harry. When it comes to my own subconscious, you can probably answer as well as me, maybe better. Why do you ask?’
‘Because a man has popped up. Well, he’s actually gone off to Thailand in something of a hurry. But I asked Wyller to check. And the person in question isn’t on any passenger lists during the period when he’s supposed to have gone. And during the past three months there hasn’t been any activity on this individual’s bank or credit cards, either in Thailand or anywhere else. And, almost as interestingly, Wyller found his name on our list of people who have bought 3D printers in the past year.’
Smith looked at Harry. Then he turned and looked out through the kitchen window. The snow lay like a soft, sparkling blanket over the field in the darkness outside. ‘Valentin knew where my office was. That’s what I meant by “he knew”.’
‘Your address, you mean?’
‘No, I mean the fact that he walked straight from the gate to the barn. He didn’t just know that my office was there, he also knew that I was usually there in the middle of the night.’
‘Maybe he saw light from the window?’
‘You can’t see any light in that window from the gate. Come with me, I want to show you something.’
They headed down to the barn, unlocked the door and went into the office, where Smith turned on his computer.
‘I’ve got all the security footage here, I just need to find it,’ Smith said, and started tapping.
‘Cool drawing,’ Oleg said, nodding at the bat-man on the wall. ‘Grim.’
‘Alfred Kubin,’ Smith said. ‘Der Vampyr. My father had a book of Kubin’s drawings. I used to sit at home and look at it while other kids went to the cinema to watch bad horror films. But sadly May won’t let me have any of Kubin’s pictures in the house, she says they give her nightmares. And speaking of nightmares, here’s the footage of Valentin.’
Smith pointed and Harry and Oleg leaned over his shoulders.
‘Here he is coming into the barn. You see, he’s not hesitating, he knows exactly where he’s going. How? The therapy sessions I had with Valentin weren’t here, but in a rented office in the city centre.’
