by Jo Nesbo
Harry couldn't come up with any repartee, so he flipped a cigarette out of the packet instead: 'What have we got here
then?'
'Masked man with an AG3.'
'And the bird has flown?'
'Very much flown.'
'Anyone talked to witnesses?'
'Yes, indeed. Li and Li are busy down at HQ.'
'Any details about what happened yet?'
'The robber gave the female branch manager twenty-five seconds to unlock the ATM while he held the gun to the head of one of the women behind the counter.'
'And he made her do the talking?'
'Yup. And when he came into the bank, he used the same English words.'
'This is a hold-up. Nobody move!' a voice behind them said, followed by a short, staccato laugh. 'So nice you were able to come, Hole. Oh dear, slipped in the bath?'
Harry lit his cigarette with one hand while passing the pack to Ivarsson, who shook his head. 'Filthy habit, Hole.'
'You're right.' Harry put the pack of Camel in his inside pocket.
'You should never offer your cigarettes but assume that a gentleman buys his own. Benjamin Franklin.'
'Really?' Ivarsson said, ignoring Weber's grin. 'You're very knowledgeable, Hole. Perhaps you know our bank robber has struck again - just as we said he would?'
'How do you know it was him?'
'As you've probably heard, it's a carbon copy of the Nordea robbery in Bogstadveien.'
'Oh?' Harry said, inhaling deeply. 'Where's the body?'
Ivarsson and Harry eyeballed each other. The reptilian teeth glinted. Weber interposed: 'The branch manager was fast. She emptied the cash machine in twenty-three seconds.'
'No murder victims,' Ivarsson said. 'Disappointed?'
'No,' Harry said, releasing the smoke through his nostrils. A gust of wind dispersed the smoke. But the fog in his head refused to let go.
Halvorsen looked up from Silvia as the door opened.
'Can you fix me a high-octane espresso pronto?' Harry said, collapsing in his office chair.
'Good morning to you, too,' Halvorsen said. 'You look bloody awful.'
Harry put his face in his hands: 'I can't remember diddly-squat about what happened last night. I have no idea what I was drinking, but I'll never let a drop pass my lips ever again.'
He peeped out between his fingers and saw his colleague with a deep frown of concern etched in his brow.
'Relax, Halvorsen, it was just one of those things. I'm as sober as this desk now.'
'What happened?'
Harry gave a hollow laugh. 'Stomach contents suggest I had dinner with an old friend. I've rung several times to have that confirmed, but she won't answer.'
'She?'
'Yes, she.'
'Not a very clever policeman, then, eh?' Halvorsen said circumspectly.
'You concentrate on the coffee,' Harry growled. 'An old flame, that was all. Quite innocent.'
'How do you know if you can't remember anything?'
Harry rubbed the palm of his hand over his unshaven chin, reflecting on what Aune had said about drugs simply emphasising latent tendencies. He didn't know if he found that reassuring. Isolated details were beginning to emerge. A black dress. Anna had been wearing a black dress. And he was lying on the stairs. And a woman helped him up. With half a face. Like one of Anna's portraits.
'I always have blackouts,' Harry said. 'This is no worse than any of the others.'
'And your eye?'
'Probably bumped into a kitchen cupboard when I came home or some such thing.'
'I don't want to worry you, Harry, but it looks like something more serious than a kitchen cupboard.'
'Well,' Harry said, taking the cup of coffee with both hands. 'Do I look bothered? The times I ended up in a drunken free-for-all, it was with people I didn't like when I was sober, either.'
'Message from Moller, incidentally. He asked me to tell you it was fine, but didn't say what.'
Harry rolled the espresso round in his mouth before swallowing it. 'You'll find out, Halvorsen, you'll find out.'
The bank robbery was discussed in detail at the briefing by the investigation team at Police HQ that afternoon. Didrik Gudmundson informed them that three minutes passed from the moment the alarm sounded until the police appeared, but by then the robber had already fled the crime scene. In addition to surrounding and blocking off the closest streets immediately with patrol cars, within the subsequent ten minutes they had set up an outer cordon covering the main traffic arteries: the E18 by Fornebu, Ring 3 by Ulleval, Trondheimsveien by Aker hospital, Griniveien above Baerum and the intersection by Carl Berners plass. 'I wish we could call this an iron cordon, but you know what it's like with staffing nowadays.'
Toril Li had interviewed a witness who reported having seen a man with a balaclava over his head jumping into the passenger side of a waiting white Opel Ascona in Majorstuveien. The car had promptly turned left up Jacob Aalls gate. Magnus Rian mentioned that another witness had seen a white car, possibly an Opel, driving into a garage in Vindern and that straight afterwards a blue Volvo had left. Ivarsson studied the map hanging on the whiteboard.
'Doesn't sound unreasonable. Put out an alert for blue Volvos too, Ola. Weber?'
'Textile fibres,' Weber said. 'Two behind the counter he leapt over and one by the door.'
'Yesss!' Ivarsson punched a fist in the air. He had taken to strutting around the table behind them, which Harry found extremely irritating. 'So all we have to do is find a few candidates. We'll put the video of the burglary out on the Net as soon as Beate is finished with the editing.'
'Is that wise?' Harry asked, rocking his chair back against the wall to cut off Ivarsson's passage.
The PAS looked at him in surprise. 'Wise? We wouldn't exactly object to anyone ringing in to give us the name of the person in the video.'
Ola interrupted. 'Do you remember the time a mother rang in to say she had seen her son on a burglary video on the Net? And it turned out he was already inside for another robbery?'
Loud laughter. Ivarsson smiled. 'We never turn away new wit-nesses, Hole.'
'Or new copycats?' Harry put his hands behind his head. 'An imitator? Now get a grip, Hole.'
'Hm. If I were going to rob a bank today, I would obviously copy the most sought-after bank robber in Norway at this moment and divert suspicion towards him. All the details of the Bogstadveien robbery were available on the Net.'
Ivarsson shook his head. 'I'm afraid your average bank robber these days is not so sophisticated, Hole. Would someone else like to explain to Crime Squad what the typical hallmark of an inveterate robber is? No? Well, he always - with painful precision - repeats what he did on the previously successful occasion. It is only when he fails - if he doesn't get the money or he is arrested - that he changes the pattern.'
'That substantiates your theory, but it doesn't exclude mine,' Harry said.
Ivarsson cast a desperate look around the table, as if begging for help. 'Fine, Hole. You will have the chance to test your theories. In fact, I've just decided to experiment with a new approach. The gist is that a small party will work independently of, but in parallel with, the investigation team. The idea originates with the FBI and the aim is to avoid getting into a rut, having only one view of the case, which does often happen with large groups of officers when, consciously or unconsciously, a consensus is formed about the principal features of an investigation. The small party can bring a new and fresh focus because they are working separately and are not influenced by the other group. This method has proved to be effective in tricky cases. Most of us here, I am sure, will agree that Harry Hole has the natural qualifications to be a member of such a party.'
Scattered chuckles. Ivarsson came to a halt behind Beate's chair. 'Beate, you will join Harry.'
Beate blushed. Ivarsson placed a paternal hand on her shoulder: 'If it doesn't work, all you have to do is say.'
'I will,' Harry said.
Harry was a
bout to unlock the front door to his apartment building when he changed his mind and walked back ten metres to the little grocery shop, where Ali was carrying in boxes of fruit and vegetables from the pavement.
'Hi, Harry! Are you better now?' Ali had a broad grin on his face and Harry closed his eyes for a second. It was as he feared.
'Did you help me, Ali?'
'Just up the stairs. When we opened your door, you said you could manage.'
'How did I get home? On foot or . . . ?'
'Taxi. You owe me a hundred and twenty.'
Harry groaned and followed Ali into the shop. 'I apologise, Ali. Really. Can you give me an abridged version, without too many embarrassing details?'
'You and the driver were arguing in the street. And our bedrooms face that way.' He added with a winning smile: 'Bloody awful to have the window there.'
'And when was that?'
'In the middle of the night.'
'You get up at five o'clock, Ali. I don't know what people like you mean by the middle of the night.' 'Half past eleven. At least.'
Harry promised it would never happen again. Ali kept nodding in the way that people do when listening to stories they know off by heart. Harry asked how he could thank Ali, who answered that Harry could rent him his unused cellar storage space. Harry said he would give the matter more thought and paid Ali the money for the taxi, a bottle of Coke, a bag of pasta and meatballs.
'We're quits then,' Harry said.
Ali shook his head. 'Quarterly rates,' said the chairman, treasurer and Mr Fix-it of the housing co-op committee.
'Oh shit, I'd forgotten.'
'Eriksen.' Ali smiled.
'Who's that?'
'Someone I got a letter from last summer. He asked me to send the account number so that he could pay his rates for May and June 1972.
He reckoned that was why he hadn't been able to sleep for the last thirty years. I wrote back saying no one in the block remembered him, so he didn't need to pay.' Ali pointed a finger at Harry. 'But I'm not going to do that with you.'
Harry raised both arms in surrender: 'I'll transfer the money tomorrow.'
The first thing Harry did when he was in his flat was to call Anna's number again. The same ex-presenter as the previous time. But he had barely emptied the bag of pasta and meatballs into the frying pan when he heard the telephone ringing above the sizzling noises. He ran into the hall and snatched at the phone.
'Hello!' he yelled.
'Hello,' said the familiar woman's voice at the other end, somewhat taken aback. 'Oh, it's you.'
'Yes, who did you think it was?'
Harry squeezed his eyes shut. 'Work. There's been another robbery.' The words tasted like bile and chilli. The numb ache behind his eyes was back.
'I tried to catch you on your mobile,' Rakel said.
'I've lost it.'
'Lost it?'
'Left it somewhere, or it's been stolen. I don't know, Rakel.' 'Is something wrong, Harry?'
'Wrong?'
'You sound so . . . stressed.'
'I . . .'
'Mm?'
Harry breathed in. 'How's the court case going?'
Harry was listening, but was unable to order the words into sentences which made sense. He picked up 'financial status', 'the best for the child' and 'arbitration' and gathered that there wasn't much news. The next meeting with the lawyers had been postponed until Friday; Oleg was fine, but was sick of living in a hotel.
'Tell him I'm looking forward to having you back,' he said.
When they had rung off, Harry stood wondering if he should ring back. But what for? To tell her he had been invited to dinner by an old flame and he had no idea what had taken place? Harry rested his hand on the telephone, but then the smoke alarm in the kitchen went off. And when he had taken the frying pan off the hob and opened the window, the telephone rang again. Later Harry was to reflect that a lot would have been different, if Bjarne Moller had not chosen to ring him that evening.
'I know you've just gone off duty,' Moller said, 'but we're a bit short-staffed and a woman has been found dead in her flat. Appears she shot herself. Could you take a look?'
'Of course, boss. I owe you one for today. By the way, Ivarsson presented the parallel-investigation approach as his idea.'
'What would you have done, if you were boss and had received such an order from above?'
'The idea of me as a boss is mind-boggling, boss. How do I get to this flat?'
'Stay where you are. You'll be picked up.'
Twenty minutes later there was a harsh buzzing sound that Harry heard so seldom it made him jump. The voice, metallic and distorted by the intercom, said the taxi had arrived, but Harry could feel the hairs on his neck rising. When he got downstairs and saw the low-slung, red sports car, a Toyota MR2, his suspicions were confirmed.
'Good evening, Hole.' The voice came from the open car window, but it was so close to the tarmac that Harry couldn't see who was speaking. Harry opened the car door and was welcomed by a funky bass, an organ as synthetic as a blue boiled sweet and a familiar falsetto: 'You sexy motherfucka!'
With difficulty, Harry heaped himself into a narrow bucket seat.
'It's us two tonight then,' Inspector Tom Waaler said, opening a Teutonic jaw and revealing an impressive row of impeccable teeth in the centre of his suntanned face. But the arctic-blue eyes remained cold. There were many at Police HQ who disliked Harry, but as far as he knew there was only one person who actually nourished a hatred of him. In Waaler's eyes, Harry knew he was an unworthy representative of the police force and therefore a personal affront. On several occasions, Harry had made it clear he didn't share Waaler's and some other colleagues' crypto-fascist views on homos, commies, dole cheats, Pakis, chinks, niggers, gyppos and dagos, while Waaler, for his part, had called Harry a 'pissed-up rock journo'. However, Harry suspected that the real reason for his hatred was that Harry drank. Tom Waaler could not tolerate weakness. Harry assumed that was why he spent so many hours in the fitness studio practising high kicks and punches against sacks of sand and a stream of new sparring partners. In the canteen, Harry had overheard one of the younger officers, with admiration in his voice, describing how Waaler had broken both arms of a karate kid in a Vietnamese gang by Oslo Central station. Given Waaler's view on skin colour, it was a paradox for Harry that his colleague spent so much time in the solarium, but perhaps it was true what one wag had said: Waaler wasn't actually a racist. He was just as happy beating up neo-Nazis as blacks.
Over and above what was common knowledge, there were some matters no one knew as such, but a few had a gut feeling about nevertheless. It was more than a year ago now since Sverre Olsen -the only person who could have told them why Ellen Gjelten was murdered - was found lying on his bed with a warm gun in his hand and a bullet from Waaler's Smith & Wesson between his eyes.
'Be careful, Waaler.'
'I beg your pardon?'
Harry reached out and turned down the love-making groans. 'It's icy tonight.'
The engine purred like a sewing machine, but the sound was deceptive; as the car accelerated Harry experienced for himself how hard the back of the seat was. They raced up the hill by Stenspark along Suhms gate.
'Where are we going?' Harry asked.
'Here,' Waaler said, swinging abruptly to the left in front of an oncoming car. The window was still open and Harry could hear the sound of wet leaves sucking at the tyres.
'Welcome back to Crime Squad,' Harry said. 'Didn't they want you in POT?'
'Restructuring,' Waaler said. 'Besides, the Chief Super and Moller wanted me back. I achieved some pretty useful results in Crime Squad, if you remember.'
'How could I forget.'
'Well, one hears so much about the long-term effects of drinking.'
Harry had just managed to put his arm against the dashboard before the sudden braking sent him into the windscreen. The glove compartment sprang open and something heavy hit Harry on the knee on its way to the floo
r.
'What the fuck was that?' he groaned.
'A Jericho 941, Israeli police issue,' Waaler said, switching off the engine. 'Not loaded. Leave it where it is. We've arrived.'
'Here?' Harry asked in amazement and bent down to look up at the yellow block of flats in front of him.
'Why not?' Waaler said, already halfway out of the car.
Harry felt his heart beginning to pound. As he searched for the door handle, out of all the thoughts racing through his mind one took hold: he should have made the call to Rakel.
The fog was back. It seeped in through the streets, from the cracks around the closed windows behind the trees in the avenue, out of the blue door which opened after they had heard Weber's abrupt bark over the intercom, and out through the keyholes in the doors they passed on the way upstairs. It lay like a duvet of cotton wool around Harry, and as they entered the flat, Harry had the sensation of walking on clouds. Everything around him - the people, the voices, the crackle of the walkie-talkies, the light from the camera flashes had taken on a dreamlike sheen, a coating of detachment because this was not, could not be, real. But, standing in front of the bed where the deceased lay with a pistol in her right hand and a black hole in her temple, he found himself unable to look at the blood on the pillow or meet her vacant, accusatory gaze. Instead he focused on the bedhead, on the horse with the bitten-off head, hoping the fog would soon lift and he would wake up.
