The Thirst: Harry Hole 11

by Jo Nesbo

  ‘I see. I assumed it couldn’t have been important seeing as Wyller told me to forget it. Were you worried your wife had a lover?’

  ‘Not really. Not until you just planted the idea, anyway.’

  ‘You men are so naive.’

  ‘That’s how we survive.’

  ‘But you’re not, are you? We’re taking over the planet, if you hadn’t noticed.’

  ‘Well, you’re working in the middle of the night, and that’s bloody weird. Goodnight, Paula.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Hang on, Paula. Forget what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What did Wyller tell you to forget?’

  ‘The connection.’

  ‘Between what?’

  ‘Between the strand of hair and one of the DNA profiles from the vampirist case.’

  ‘Really? Which one?’

  ‘I don’t know, like I said, we only have the numbers. We don’t even know if they’re suspects or police officers working at the scene.’

  Harry said nothing for a few moments. ‘Have you got the number?’ he eventually asked.

  ‘Good evening,’ the older paramedic said as he came into the staffroom in A&E.

  ‘Good evening, Hansen,’ said the only other person in the room as he pumped black coffee from the flask into his cup.

  ‘Your police friend just called.’

  Senior Consultant John Doyle Steffens turned round and raised an eyebrow. ‘Have I got friends in the police?’

  ‘He mentioned you, anyway. A Harry Hole.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He sent us a picture of a pool of blood and asked us to estimate how much it was. He said you’d done that based on a picture of a crime scene, and assumed that those of us who attend accidents are trained to do the same. I had to disappoint him.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Steffens said, and picked a hair off his shoulder. He didn’t regard his increasing hair loss as a sign that he was fading, but rather the reverse, that he was blossoming, mobilising, getting rid of things he had no use for. ‘Why didn’t he get in touch with me directly?’

  ‘Probably didn’t think a senior consultant would be working in the middle of the night. And it sounded urgent.’

  ‘I see. Did he say what it was about?’

  ‘Just something he was working on, he said.’

  ‘Have you got the picture?’

  ‘Here.’ The paramedic pulled out his phone and showed the doctor the message. Steffens glanced at the picture of a pool of blood on a wooden floor. There was a ruler beside the pool.

  ‘One and a half litres,’ Steffens said. ‘Fairly precisely. You can call and tell him.’ He took a sip of his coffee. ‘A lecturer working in the middle of the night, what is the world coming to?’

  The paramedic chuckled. ‘The same could be said of you, Steffens.’

  ‘What?’ the senior consultant said, making way for the other man in front of the flask.

  ‘Every other night, Steffens. What are you really doing here?’

  ‘Taking care of patients who are badly injured.’

  ‘I know that, but why? You’ve got a full-time job as senior consultant of haematology, but you still take extra shifts here in A&E. That’s not exactly common.’

  ‘Who wants common? It’s mostly a desire to be where you can be most useful, isn’t it?’

  ‘So you’ve got no family who’d rather you stayed at home?’

  ‘No, but I’ve got colleagues whose families would rather they didn’t stay at home.’

  ‘Ha! But you’re wearing a wedding ring.’

  ‘And you’ve got blood on your sleeve, Hansen. Have you just brought in someone who was bleeding?’

  ‘Yes. Divorced?’

  ‘Widowed.’ Steffens drank some more coffee. ‘Who’s the patient? Woman, man, young, old?’

  ‘Woman in her thirties. Why?’

  ‘Just wondered. Where is she now?’

  ‘Yes?’ Bjørn Holm whispered.

  ‘Harry. Had you gone to bed?’

  ‘It’s two o’clock in the morning, what do you think?’

  ‘There was around a litre and a half of Valentin’s blood on the office floor.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s basic mathematics. He weighed too much.’

  Harry heard the bed creak, then bedclothes brushing the phone before he heard Bjørn’s whispered voice again. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You can see it on the scales in the security camera footage when Valentin is leaving. He only weighs one and a half kilos less than when he arrived.’

  ‘One and a half litres of blood weighs one and a half kilos, Harry.’

  ‘I know that. Even so, we’re still short of evidence. Once we’ve got it I’ll explain. And you’re not to tell a soul about this, OK? Not even the person lying next to you.’

  ‘She’s asleep.’

  ‘So I can hear.’

  Bjørn laughed. ‘She’s snoring for two.’

  ‘Can we meet at eight o’clock, in the boiler room?’

  ‘I guess. Are Smith and Wyller coming too?’

  ‘We’ll be seeing Smith at his disputation on Friday.’

  ‘And Wyller?’

  ‘Just you and me, Bjørn. And I want you to bring Hell’s computer and Valentin’s revolver.’

  38

  THURSDAY MORNING

  ‘UP AND ABOUT early, Bjørn,’ said the older officer behind the counter of the evidence store.

  ‘Morning, Jens. I’d like to sign out something from the vampirist case.’

  ‘Yes, that’s back under the spotlight, isn’t it? Crime Squad was here getting stuff yesterday, I’m pretty sure it’s on shelf G. But let’s see what the bastard machine thinks …’ He tapped at the keyboard as if it were red hot, and looked across the screen. ‘… let’s see … bloody thing’s frozen again …’ He looked up at Bjørn with a resigned and rather helpless expression. ‘What do you say, Bjørn, wasn’t it better when we could just look in a folder and find out exactly wh—?’

  ‘Who was here from Crime Squad?’ Bjørn Holm asked, trying to hide his impatience.

  ‘What’s his name again? The one with the teeth.’

  ‘Truls Berntsen?’

  ‘No, no, the one with the nice teeth. The new guy.’

  ‘Anders Wyller,’ Bjørn said.

  ‘Mm,’ Harry said, leaning back in his chair in the boiler room. ‘And he signed out Valentin’s Redhawk?’

  ‘Plus the iron teeth and handcuffs.’

  ‘And Jens didn’t say what Wyller wanted them for?’

  ‘No, he didn’t know. I’ve tried calling Wyller in the office, but they said he’s taken some time owing so I called his mobile.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘No answer. Probably asleep, but I can try again now.’

  ‘No,’ Harry said.

  ‘No?’

  Harry closed his eyes. ‘We all get fooled in the end,’ he whispered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. Let’s go and wake Wyller. Can you call the unit and find out where he lives?’

  Thirty seconds later Bjørn put the phone back on the desk and repeated the name of the street in a clear voice.

  ‘You’re kidding,’ Harry said.

  Bjørn Holm turned the Volvo Amazon into the quiet street and drove down between the banks of snow where the cars seemed to have gone into hibernation for the winter.

  ‘Here it is,’ Harry said, leaning forward and looking up at the four-storey building. There was some graffiti on the pale blue wall between the second and third floors.

  ‘Sofies gate 5,’ Bjørn said. ‘Not exactly Holmenkollen …’

  ‘Another life,’ Harry said. ‘Wait here.’

  Harry got out, went up the two steps to the door and looked at the names beside the doorbells. Some of the old names had changed. Wyller’s name was further down than where his had once stood. He pressed the buzzer. Waited. Pressed again. Nothing. He was about t
o press it a third time when the door opened and a young woman hurried out. Harry caught the door before it closed and slipped inside.

  The stairwell smelt the same as it used to. A mixture of Norwegian and Pakistani food, and the cloying smell of old fru Sennheim on the first floor. Harry listened. Silence. Then he crept up the stairs, instinctively avoiding the sixth step, which he knew creaked.

  He stopped outside the door on the first landing.

  There was no light behind the frosted glass.

  Harry knocked. Looked at the lock. Knew it wouldn’t take much to break in. A plastic card and a hard shove. He thought about it. Being the person who broke in. And felt his heart beat faster, and his breath misted the glass in front of him. That tantalising excitement, was that what Valentin had felt when he opened the doors of his victims’ flats?

  Harry knocked again. He waited, then gave up and turned to leave. At that moment he heard footsteps behind the door. He turned round. Saw a shadow through the frosted glass. The door opened.

  Anders Wyller was wearing jeans, but his chest was bare and he hadn’t shaved. But he didn’t look like he’d just woken up. On the contrary, his pupils were big and dark, his forehead wet with sweat. Harry noticed something red on his shoulder – a cut? There was some blood, anyway.

  ‘Harry,’ Wyller said. ‘What are you doing here?’ His voice sounded different from the usual high, boyish pitch. ‘And how did you get in?’

  Harry cleared his throat. ‘We need the serial number of Valentin’s revolver. I rang the bell.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And you didn’t answer. I thought maybe you were asleep, so I came in anyway. I actually used to live in this building, on the fourth floor, so I know the doorbells aren’t very loud.’

  ‘Yes,’ Wyller said, stretching as he let out a yawn.

  ‘So,’ Harry said. ‘Have you got it?’

  ‘Got what?’

  ‘The Redhawk. The revolver.’

  ‘Oh, that. Yes. The serial number? Hang on, I’ll go and get it.’

  Wyller pulled the door to, and Harry saw him disappear across the hall through the glass. The flats all had the same layout, so he knew that was where the bedroom was. The figure headed back towards the front door, then turned left into the living room.

  Harry pulled the door open. There was a smell – perfume? He saw that the bedroom door was closed. That was what Wyller had done, he had closed the door. Harry looked automatically for clothes or shoes in the hall that could tell him something, but there was nothing there. He looked at the bedroom door and listened. Then he took three long, silent strides and was inside the living room. Anders Wyller hadn’t heard him as he knelt in front of the coffee table with his back to Harry, writing on a notepad. Next to the pad was a plate with a slice of pizza on it. Pepperoni. And the big revolver with the red butt. But Harry couldn’t see the handcuffs or iron teeth.

  There was an empty cage in one corner of the living room. The sort people keep rabbits in. Hang on, though. Harry remembered the meeting where Skarre had pressurised Wyller about the leak to VG, when Wyller said he had told VG that he had a cat. So where was the cat? And did you keep cats in cages? Harry’s gaze moved on to the end wall, where there was a narrow bookcase containing a few textbooks from Police College, including Bjerknes and Hoff Johansen’s Investigative Methods. But there were some that weren’t on the syllabus, like Ressler, Burgess and Douglas’s Sexual Homicide – Patterns and Motives, a book about serial killings that he had referred to in recent lectures because it contained information about the FBI’s newly established ViCAP unit. Harry looked at the other shelves. There were what looked like family photographs, two adults and Anders Wyller as a young boy. There were more books on the shelf below: Haematology at a Glance, Atul B. Mehta, A. Victor Hoffbrand. And Basic Haematology by John D. Steffens. A young man who was interested in blood disorders? Why not? Harry moved closer and looked more carefully at the family photograph. The boy looked happy. The parents less so. ‘Why did you sign out Valentin’s things?’ Harry said, and saw Wyller’s back stiffen. ‘Katrine Bratt didn’t ask you to. Physical evidence isn’t the sort of thing you normally take home with you, even if the case has been solved.’

  Wyller turned round and Harry saw his eyes dart automatically to the right. Towards the bedroom.

  ‘I’m a detective with Crime Squad and you’re a lecturer at Police College, Harry, so strictly speaking I should be asking you what you want the serial number for.’

  Harry looked at Wyller. Realised that he wasn’t going to get an answer. ‘The serial number was never checked in order to trace its original owner. And that could hardly have been Valentin Gjertsen, seeing as he didn’t exactly have a firearms licence, to put it mildly.’

  ‘Is that important?’

  ‘Don’t you think it is?’

  Wyller shrugged his bare shoulders. ‘As far as we know, the revolver was never used to kill anyone, not even Marte Ruud, because the post-mortem showed she was dead before she was shot. We’ve got the ballistic data for the revolver, and it doesn’t match any of the other cases in our database. So no, I don’t think it’s important to check the serial number, not while there are other things crying out for our attention.’

  ‘I see,’ Harry said. ‘Well, maybe this lecturer can make himself useful by seeing where the serial number leads.’

  ‘Of course,’ Wyller said, tearing the sheet from the notepad and giving it to Harry.

  ‘Thanks,’ Harry said, looking at the blood on his shoulder.

  Wyller followed him to the door, and when Harry turned round on the landing he saw that Wyller had spread himself out in the doorway, the way bouncers do.

  ‘Just out of curiosity,’ Harry said. ‘That cage in the living room, what do you keep in it?’

  Wyller blinked a couple of times. ‘Nothing,’ he said. Then he quietly closed the door.

  ‘Did you find him?’ Bjørn asked as he pulled out into the road.

  ‘Yes,’ Harry said, tearing a page out of his own notebook. ‘And here’s the serial number. Ruger’s an American company, can you check with the ATF?’

  ‘You don’t seriously think they’ll be able to trace that revolver?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because the Americans are pretty half-hearted when it comes to registering the owners of firearms. And there are more than three hundred million weapons in the USA. More guns than people, in other words.’

  ‘Frightening.’

  ‘What is frightening,’ Bjørn Holm said, putting his foot down harder on the accelerator to get a controlled slide as they turned to go down the hill towards Pilestredet, ‘is that even the ones who aren’t criminals and say they’ve got guns for self-defence use their guns to shoot the wrong people. There was an article in the Los Angeles Times saying that in 2012 more than twice as many people were killed in accidental shootings as in self-defence. And almost forty times as many shot themselves. And that’s before you even start to look at the statistics for murder.’

  ‘You read the Los Angeles Times?’

  ‘Well, mostly because Robert Hilburn used to write about music in it. Have you read his biography of Johnny Cash?’

  ‘Nope. Hilburn – is he the one who wrote about the Sex Pistols’ tour of the USA?’

  ‘Yep.’

  They stopped at a red light in front of Blitz, once the bridgehead of punk in Norway, where you could still see the occasional Mohawk. Bjørn Holm grinned at Harry. He was happy now. Happy about becoming a father, happy the vampirist case was over, happy to be able to slide a car that smelt of the 1970s and talk about music that was almost as old.

  ‘It would be great if you could let me have an answer before twelve o’clock, Bjørn.’

  ‘If I’m not mistaken, the ATF is based in Washington DC, where it’s the middle of the night.’

  ‘They’ve got an office with Interpol in The Hague, try there.’

  ‘OK. Did you find out why Wyller had signed out those things?�
��

  Harry stared at the traffic light. ‘No. Have you got Lenny Hell’s computer?’

  ‘Tord’s got it, he should be waiting for us in the boiler room.’

  ‘Good.’ Harry tried impatiently to stare the red light green.

  ‘Harry?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Did it ever occur to you that it looked as if Valentin had left his flat very quickly, just before Katrine and Delta got there? As if someone had warned him?’

  ‘No,’ Harry lied.

  The light turned green.

  Tord was pointing and explaining things to Harry as the coffee machine spluttered and groaned behind them.

  ‘Here are Lenny Hell’s emails to Valentin before the murders of Elise, Ewa and Penelope.’

  The emails were short. Just the victim’s name, address and a date. The date of the murder. And they all ended with the same line. Instructions and keys in agreed location. Instructions to be burned after reading.

  ‘They don’t say much,’ Tord said. ‘But enough.’

  ‘Hm.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why do the instructions have to be burned?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? There were things in them that could lead people to Lenny.’

  ‘But he didn’t delete the emails from his computer. Is that because he knew that IT experts like you could reconstruct the correspondence anyway?’

  Tord shook his head. ‘Nowadays it isn’t that simple. Not if both sender and recipient delete the emails thoroughly.’

  ‘Lenny would have known how to delete emails thoroughly. So why didn’t he?’

  Tord shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Because he knew that by the time we had his computer, the game would already be up.’

  Harry nodded slowly. ‘Maybe Lenny knew that from the start. That one day the war he was waging from his bunker would be lost. And that it would then be time for a bullet to the head.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Tord looked at his watch. ‘Was there anything else?’

  ‘Do you know what stylometry is?’

  ‘Yes. The analysis of variations in writing style. There was a lot of research into stylometry after the Enron scandal. Several hundred thousand emails were made public so that researchers could see if they could identify their senders. They got a hit rate of between eighty and ninety per cent.’