The Thirst: Harry Hole 11

by Jo Nesbo

  They passed Bygdøy. Snarøya. Harry was counting the seconds automatically. Ten minutes since they had driven away from Universitetsplassen. He looked up at the empty blue sky.

  ‘Marte Ruud was never assaulted. I shot her as soon as I brought her from the forest down into the cellar. Valentin had wrecked her, so it was an act of mercy to put her down.’ Smith turned towards him. ‘I hope you appreciate that, Harry. Harry? Do you think I talk too much, Harry?’

  They were approaching Høvikodden. The Oslo Fjord appeared again to their left. Harry calculated. The police might have time to set up a roadblock at Asker, they’d be there in ten minutes.

  ‘Can you imagine what a gift it was to me when you asked me to join the investigation, Harry? I was so surprised that I said no at first. Before I realised that if I was sitting there getting hold of all the information, I could warn Valentin when you were getting so close that he could no longer carry on. My vampirist was going to outshine Kürten, Haigh and Chase and become the greatest of them all. But I still didn’t know that his hamam was under surveillance until we were sitting in this car on the way there. And I was starting to lose control of Valentin – he killed that bartender, and kidnapped Marte Ruud. Luckily I found out that Alexander Dreyer had been identified at that cashpoint machine in time to be able to warn him to get out of his flat. By that point Valentin had worked out that it was me, his former psychologist, who was pulling the strings, but so what? The identity of the person who was in the boat with him didn’t make any difference. But I knew that the net was closing in. That it was time for the grand finale I had been planning for a while. I had got him to leave the flat and book into the Plaza Hotel, which obviously wasn’t somewhere he could stay for long, but I was at least able to send him an envelope containing copies of the keys to the barn and office, and instructions telling him to hide until midnight, when everyone had gone to bed. Naturally I couldn’t rule out that he might have started to suspect something, but what alternative did he have now that his cover was blown? He simply had to gamble that I could be trusted. And you have to give me credit for the way that was set up, Harry. Calling you and Katrine so that I had witnesses on the phone, as well as the security camera footage. Yes, of course it could be regarded as a cold-blooded liquidation, fabricating the story of the heroic researcher who had upset the serial killer with his public statements, and then killed him in self-defence. Yes, I accept that it meant that a perfectly ordinary disputation was attended by international media, and that fourteen companies have bought the rights to publish my thesis. But in the end it comes down to research, scholarship. It’s progress, Harry. And it’s possible that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but it’s also the road to an enlightened, humane future.’

  Oleg turned the ignition key.

  ‘A&E at Ullevål!’ the young blond detective shouted from the back seat, where he was sitting with Truls Berntsen’s head in his lap. They were both soaked with Berntsen’s blood. ‘Foot on the floor and sirens on!’

  Oleg was about to release the clutch when the back door was yanked open.

  ‘No!’ the detective shouted furiously.

  ‘Move, Anders!’ It was Steffens. He pushed his way in, forcing the young detective to move to the other side.

  ‘Hold his legs up,’ Steffens barked, now holding Berntsen’s head. ‘So he gets—’

  ‘Blood to his heart and brain,’ Anders said.

  Oleg released the clutch and they pulled away from the car park, out onto the road between a clanging tram and an angry taxi.

  ‘How’s it looking?’

  ‘See for yourself,’ Anders snarled. ‘Unconscious, weak pulse, but he’s breathing. As you can see, the bullet hit him in the right hemithorax.’

  ‘That’s not the problem,’ Steffens said. ‘The big problem’s at the back. Help me turn him over.’ Oleg glanced in the rear-view mirror. Saw them turn Truls Berntsen onto his side and tear his sweater and shirt off. He concentrated on the road again, used his horn to get past a lorry, accelerated as he crossed a junction on red.

  ‘Oh, fuck,’ Anders groaned.

  ‘Yes, it’s a big hole,’ Steffens said. ‘The bullet probably blew part of his rib out. He’s going to bleed out before we get to Ullevål unless …’

  ‘Unless …?’

  Oleg heard Steffens take a deep breath. ‘Unless we do a better job than I did with your mother. Use the backs of your hands on either side of the wound – like that – and press them together. Just close the wound as well as you can, there’s no other way.’

  ‘My hands are just sliding.’

  ‘Tear off some of his shirt and use that to get more friction.’

  Oleg heard Anders breathing heavily. He glanced in the rear-view mirror again. Saw that Steffens had put one finger on Berntsen’s chest while he tapped it with another finger.

  ‘I’m trying percussion, but I’m too cramped to be able to put my ear alongside,’ Steffens said. ‘Can you manage to …?’

  Anders leaned forward without taking his hands away from the wound. Put his head to Berntsen’s chest. ‘Very muffled,’ he said. ‘No air. Do you think …?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid it’s a haemothorax,’ his father said. ‘The pleural cavity’s filling with blood, and his lungs will soon collapse. Oleg …’

  ‘I hear you,’ Oleg said, and put his foot down.

  Katrine was standing in the middle of Universitetsplassen with her phone pressed to her ear, looking up at the empty, cloudless sky. It wasn’t yet visible, but she had requisitioned the police helicopter from Gardermoen with orders to scan the E6 motorway as it approached Oslo from the north.

  ‘No, there are no mobile phones we can track,’ she called over the noise of sirens approaching from different parts of the city and merging together. ‘Nothing registered by the toll stations. We’re setting up roadblocks on the southbound E6 and E18. I’ll let you know as soon as we’ve got anything.’

  ‘OK,’ Falkeid said at the other end. ‘We’re on standby.’

  Katrine ended the call. Another one came through.

  ‘Asker Police, on the E18,’ the voice said. ‘We’ve stopped an articulated lorry here and are positioning it across the road just after the slip road to Asker, and are filtering the traffic off there and back onto the motorway after the roundabout. A black 1970s Amazon with rally stripes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So we’re talking the world’s worst choice of getaway vehicle?’

  ‘Let’s hope so. Keep me informed.’

  Bjørn jogged over. ‘Oleg and that doctor are driving Berntsen to Ullevål,’ he panted. ‘Wyller’s gone with them.’

  ‘What are his chances, do you think?’

  ‘I only have experience of dead bodies.’

  ‘OK, did Berntsen look like one?’

  Bjørn Holm shrugged. ‘He was still bleeding, and at least that means he isn’t completely empty yet.’

  ‘And Rakel?’

  ‘She’s sitting in the auditorium with Bellman’s wife, she’s really cut up about it. Bellman himself had to rush off to manage the operation from somewhere he could get an overview of the situation, he said.’

  ‘Overview?’ Katrine snorted. ‘The only place we’ve got any sort of overview is here!’

  ‘I know, but take it easy, darling, we don’t want the little one to get stressed, do we?’

  ‘Bloody hell, Bjørn.’ She squeezed her phone. ‘Why couldn’t you have told me what Harry was planning?’

  ‘Because I didn’t know.’

  ‘You didn’t know? You must have known something if he’s brought Forensics in to examine Smith’s car.’

  ‘He hasn’t, that was a bluff. Like that bit about the dating of the DNA found on the water pipe.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Forensic Medical Institute can’t determine how old DNA is. What Harry said about them having found out that Smith’s DNA was more than two months old, that was a complete lie.’

  K
atrine looked at Bjørn. Put her hand in her bag and pulled out the yellow document folder Harry had given her. She opened it. Three sheets of A4. All blank.

  ‘A bluff,’ Bjørn said. ‘For stylometry to be able to reveal anything with any degree of accuracy, the text has to be at least five thousand characters long. Those short emails that were sent to Valentin reveal nothing about the identity of their author.’

  ‘Harry had nothing,’ Katrine whispered.

  ‘Not a damn thing!’ Bjørn said. ‘He was just going for a confession.’

  ‘Damn him!’ Katrine pressed her phone to her forehead, not quite sure if she wanted to warm it up or cool it down. ‘So why didn’t he say anything? Christ, we could have had armed police outside.’

  ‘Because he couldn’t say anything.’

  The answer came from Ståle Aune, who had walked over and stopped beside them.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Simple,’ Ståle said. ‘If he’d informed anyone in the police of what he was planning, and the police hadn’t already intervened, then what happened in the auditorium would de facto have been a police interview. A police interview way outside the rules, in which the person being questioned wasn’t informed of his rights, and in which the interviewer lied intentionally in order to mislead. And then none of what Smith said today could have been used in a trial. But as it is now …’

  Katrine Bratt blinked. Then she nodded slowly. ‘As it is, Harry Hole, lecturer and private citizen took part in a disputation in which Smith spoke out of his own volition and in the presence of witnesses. Did you know about this, Ståle?’

  Ståle Aune nodded. ‘Harry called me yesterday. He told me all the things that were pointing to Hallstein Smith. But he had no proof. So he explained his plan to use the disputation to set a monkey trap, with my help. And using Dr Steffens as an expert witness.’

  ‘And how did you reply?’

  ‘I said Hallstein Smith, “the Monkey”, had walked into that sort of trap once before, and was hardly likely to do so again.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But Harry used my own words against me by referring to Aune’s Thesis.’

  ‘Human beings are notorious,’ Bjørn said. ‘They make the same mistakes over and over again.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Aune nodded. ‘And Smith had apparently told Harry in the lift at Police HQ that he’d rather have his doctorate than a long life.’

  ‘And he walked straight into the monkey trap, of course, the idiot,’ Katrine groaned.

  ‘He lived up to his nickname, yes.’

  ‘Not Smith, I’m talking about Harry.’

  Aune nodded. ‘I’m going back to the auditorium – Bellman’s wife needs help.’

  ‘I’ll come with you to secure the crime scene,’ Bjørn said.

  ‘Crime scene?’ Katrine asked.

  ‘Berntsen.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Yes.’

  When the men had left her she looked up at the sky. Where had that helicopter got to?

  ‘Damn you,’ she muttered. ‘Damn you, Harry Hole.’

  ‘Is it his fault?’

  Katrine turned round.

  Mona Daa was standing there. ‘I don’t want to disturb you,’ she said. ‘I’m not actually working at the moment, but I saw it online so I came down. If you want to use VG to say anything, to send Smith a message or anything …?’

  ‘Thanks, Daa, I’ll let you know.’

  ‘OK.’ Mona Daa turned on her heel and started to leave, walking her penguin walk.

  ‘I was actually surprised not to see you at the disputation,’ Katrine said.

  Mona Daa stopped.

  ‘You’ve been VG’s lead reporter on the vampirist case from the start,’ Katrine said.

  ‘So Anders hasn’t spoken to you.’

  Something about the way Mona Daa used Anders Wyller’s first name, so naturally, made Katrine raise an eyebrow. ‘Spoken to me?’

  ‘Yes. Anders and me, we …’

  ‘You’re kidding?’ Katrine said.

  Mona Daa laughed. ‘No. I realise that there are certain practical issues, purely professionally, but no, I’m not joking.’

  ‘And when did you …?’

  ‘Now, really. We’ve both got a few days off, and have been spending them in claustrophobically close proximity in Anders’s little flat, to find out if we’d make a good match. We thought it made sense to know before we told anyone.’

  ‘So no one knows about it?’

  ‘Not until Harry very nearly caught us red-handed with a surprise visit. Anders reckons Harry realised. And I know he tried to get hold of me at VG. I’m assuming that was to confirm his suspicions.’

  ‘He’s pretty good at suspicions,’ Katrine said, looking up at the sky for the helicopter.

  ‘I know.’

  Harry listened to the faint whistling sound as Smith breathed in and out. Then he noticed something odd out on the fjord. A dog that looked like it was walking on water. Meltwater. Seeping up through cracks in the ice even though it was below freezing.

  ‘I’ve been accused of seeing vampirism simply because I want it to exist,’ Smith said. ‘But now it’s been proven, once and for all, and soon the whole world will know what Professor Smith’s vampirism is, regardless of what happens to me. And Valentin isn’t the only one, there’ll be more. More opportunities to keep the world focused on vampirism. I promise you, they’ve already been recruited. You asked me once if recognition meant more than life. Of course it does. Recognition is eternal life. And you’re going to get eternal life too, Harry. As the man who almost caught Hallstein Smith, the man they once called the Monkey. Do you think I talk too much?’

  They were approaching IKEA. They’d be at Asker in five minutes. Smith wouldn’t react if there was a bit of a queue, the traffic often built up there.

  ‘Denmark,’ Smith said. ‘Spring comes earlier there.’

  Denmark? Was Smith turning psychotic? Harry heard a dry clicking sound. The car was indicating. No, no, he was turning off the main road! Harry saw a sign with the name Nesøya on it.

  ‘There’s enough meltwater for me to be able to get out to the edge of the ice, wouldn’t you say? A super-light aluminium boat with just one man on board won’t sit too deep.’

  Boat. Harry clenched his teeth and swore silently. The boathouse. The boathouse Smith had said had formed part of his wife’s inheritance. That was where they were going.

  ‘The Skagerrak is 130 nautical miles across. Average speed, twenty knots. How long would that take, Harry, seeing as you’re so good at maths?’ Smith laughed. ‘I’ve already worked it out. On a calculator. Six and a half hours. And from there you can get all the way across Denmark by bus, that won’t take long. Then Copenhagen. Nørrebro. Red Square. Sit on a bench, hold up a bus ticket and wait for the travel agent. What do you think about Uruguay? A nice little country. It’s a good thing I’ve already cleared the road all the way to the boatshed, and made enough space inside for a car. Otherwise these stripes on the roof would have been easy to spot from a helicopter, wouldn’t they?’

  Harry closed his eyes. Smith had had his escape route planned for a while. Just in case. And there was only one reason why he was telling Harry about it now. Because Harry wasn’t going to get the chance to tell anyone else.

  ‘Turn left up ahead,’ Steffens said from the back seat. ‘Block 17.’

  Oleg turned and felt the wheels lose their grip on the ice before regaining it again.

  He had a feeling there was a speed limit in the hospital grounds, but was well aware that time and blood were both running out for Berntsen.

  He braked in front of the entrance, where two men in yellow paramedics’ tunics were waiting with a trolley. With practised movements they lifted Berntsen out of the back seat and up onto the trolley.

  ‘He’s got no pulse,’ Steffens said. ‘Straight into the hybrid room. The crash team—’

  ‘Already in place,’ the older paramedic said.

  Oleg and Anders followed th
e trolley and Steffens through two sets of doors to a room where a team of six people in caps, plastic glasses and silver-grey tunics were standing waiting.

  ‘Thanks,’ a woman said, and made a gesture that Oleg interpreted as meaning that he and Anders could go no further. The trolley, Steffens and the team disappeared behind two wide doors that swung shut behind them.

  ‘I knew you worked at Crime Squad,’ Oleg said when everything was quiet again. ‘But I didn’t know you’d studied medicine.’

  ‘I haven’t,’ Anders said, looking at the closed doors.

  ‘No? It sounded like it in the car.’

  ‘I read a few medical books on my own when I was at college, but I never studied medicine properly.’

  ‘Why not? Grades?’

  ‘I had the grades.’

  ‘But?’ Oleg didn’t know if he was asking because he was interested, or to keep his mind off what was happening to Harry.

  Anders looked down at his bloody hands. ‘I suppose it was the same for me as it is for you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘I wanted to be like my father.’

  ‘And?’

  Anders shrugged. ‘Then I didn’t want that any more.’

  ‘You wanted to join the police instead?’

  ‘At least then I could have saved her.’

  ‘Her?’

  ‘My mother. Or people in the same situation. Or so I thought.’

  ‘How did she die?’

  Anders shrugged again. ‘Our house got broken into, and it turned into a hostage situation. My father and I just stood there and watched. Dad got hysterical, and the burglar stabbed my mother and got away. Dad ran around like a headless chicken, shouting at me not to touch her while he looked for a pair of scissors.’ Wyller swallowed. ‘My father, the senior consultant, was looking for a pair of scissors while I stood there and watched her bleed to death. I talked to a few doctors afterwards, and found out that she could have been saved if we’d only done what needed to be done straight away. My father’s a haematologist, the state’s invested millions into teaching him everything there is to know about blood. Yet he still didn’t manage to do the simple things that were needed to stop it draining out of her. If a jury had known how much he knows about saving lives, they’d have convicted him of manslaughter.’