Nemesis - Harry Hole 02

by Jo Nesbo

  know'. More laughter. No one had mentioned Raskol's name or where they were going.

  Which had turned out to be not too far away.

  They turned off after the Munch Museum and bumped over potholes to a car park in front of a deserted, muddy football pitch. At the end of the car park were three caravans. Two large new ones and a small old one without wheels, standing on Leca blocks.

  The door of one of the large caravans opened and Harry saw the silhouette of a woman. Children's heads poked out behind her. Harry counted five.

  He said he wasn't hungry and sat in the corner watching them eat. The food was served by the younger of the two women in the caravan and was eaten quickly and without ceremony. The children stared at Harry as they giggled and shoved each other. Harry winked at them and tried a smile as feeling slowly returned to his stiff, numb body. Which was good news since there was two metres of it and every centimetre hurt. Afterwards Simon had given him two woollen blankets and a friendly pat on the shoulder, and nodded towards the small caravan. 'It's not the Hilton, but you're safe here, my friend.'

  Any warmth Harry had left in his body disappeared immediately he entered the egg-shaped refrigerator of a caravan. He had kicked off 0ystein's shoes which were at least one size too small, rubbed his feet and tried to make room for his long legs in the short bed. The last thing he remembered doing was trying to pull off his wet trousers.

  'Hee-hee-hee.'

  Harry opened his eyes again. The little brown face was gone and the laughter came from outside now, through the open door, where a stripe of sun was emboldened to shine in and onto the wall behind him and the photographs pinned there. Harry hauled himself up onto his elbows and looked at them. One of them showed two young boys with their arms around each other in front of the caravan he was lying in now. They looked pleased. No, more than that. They looked happy. That was perhaps why Harry hardly recognised a young Raskol.

  Harry swung his legs out of the bunk and decided to ignore the headache. To make sure his stomach was alright, he sat for a few seconds. He had been through much worse ordeals than yesterday's, much worse. During the meal the evening before he had been on the point of asking if they had anything stronger to drink, but had managed to hold back. Perhaps his body would tolerate spirits better now he had been abstemious for so long?

  His question was answered when he stepped outside.

  The children stared with astonishment as Harry supported himself on the tow bar and vomited over the brown grass. He coughed and spat a couple of times and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. When he turned, Simon was standing with a big smile on his face, as if emptying your stomach were the most natural start to the day. 'Food, my friend?'

  Harry swallowed and nodded.

  Simon lent Harry a creased suit, a clean shirt with a wide collar and a pair of large sunglasses. They got into the Mercedes and drove up Finnmarkgata. At the lights in Carl Berners plass Simon rolled down the window and shouted at a man standing outside a kiosk smoking a cigar. Harry had a vague feeling he had seen the man before. From experience he knew this feeling often meant the man had a record. The man laughed and shouted something back, which Harry didn't catch.

  'An acquaintance?' he asked. 'A contact,' Simon said.

  'A contact,' Harry repeated, watching the police car waiting on green at the other side of the crossing.

  Simon turned west towards Ulleval hospital.

  'Tell me,' Harry said. 'What sort of contacts has Raskol got in Moscow who can find one person in a city of twenty million people like that?' Harry clicked his fingers. 'Is it the Russian mafia?'

  Simon laughed. 'Maybe. If you can't come up with anyone better at finding people.'

  'The KGB?'

  'If I remember correctly, my friend, they no longer exist.' Simon laughed even louder.

  'The Russia expert in POT told me ex-KGB men are still running the show.'

  Simon shrugged. 'Favours, my friend. And return favours. That's what it's all about, you know.'

  Harry scanned the street. A van sped by. He had got Tess - the brown-eyed girl who had woken him up - to run down to Toyen and buy him copies of Dagbladet and Verdens Gang, but there was nothing about a wanted police officer in either of them. That didn't mean he could show his face everywhere because, unless he was very much mistaken, there would be a photograph of him in every police car.

  Harry walked quickly to the door, put Raskol's key in the lock and turned it. He tried not to make any noise in the hallway. There was a newspaper outside Astrid Monsen's door. Once inside Anna's flat, he closed the door softly behind him and breathed in.

  Don't think about what you're looking for.

  The flat smelt stuffy. He went into the furthest room. Nothing had been touched since he was last here. The dust danced in the sunlight flooding in through the window and brightening up the three portraits. He stood looking at them. There was something strangely familiar about the distorted heads. He went to the pictures and ran the tips of his fingers over the lumps of oil paint. If they were talking to him, he didn't understand what they were saying.

  He went into the kitchen.

  It smelt of refuse and rancid fat. He opened the window and went through the plates and cutlery in the kitchen sink. They had been rinsed but not washed. He prodded the hardened food remains with a fork. Loosened a small red particle from the sauce. Put it in his mouth. Japone chilli.

  Two large wineglasses behind a big saucepan. One had a fine red sediment in while the other seemed unused. Harry put his nose in, but could only smell a warm glass. Beside the wineglasses were two normal drinking glasses. He found a dishcloth so he could hold the glasses up to the light without leaving fingerprints. One was clean, the other had a sticky coating. He scratched at the coating with his nail and sucked his finger. Sugar. With a coffee taste. Coca-Cola? Harry closed his eyes. Wine and Coke? No. Water and wine for one person. Coke and an unused glass for the other. He wrapped the glass in the cloth and put it in his jacket pocket. On impulse, he went to the bathroom, unscrewed the lid on the cistern and felt inside. Nothing.

  Back out in the street, he saw clouds had moved in from the west and there was a nip in the air. Harry chewed his lower lip. He made a decision and started walking towards Vibes gate.

  Harry immediately recognised the young man behind the counter at the locksmith's.

  'Good morning, I'm from the police,' Harry said, hoping the boy wouldn't ask to see his ID, which was in his jacket in Vigdis Albu's house in Slemdal.

  The boy put down his newspaper. 'I know.'

  Panic caught hold of Harry for a second.

  'I remember you came here to collect a key.' The boy gave a broad smile. 'I remember all my customers.'

  Harry cleared his throat. 'Well, I'm not really a customer.' 'Oh?'

  'No, the key wasn't for me. But that's not why—' 'It must have been,' the boy interrupted. 'It was a system key, wasn't it?'

  Harry nodded. At the edge of his vision he could see a patrol car driving slowly past. 'It was system keys I wanted to ask about. I'm wondering how an outsider can get hold of a copy of a system key like this. A Trioving key, for example.'

  'They can't,' the boy said with the total conviction of someone who reads illustrated science magazines. 'Only Trioving can make a functional copy. So the only way is to falsify written authorisation from the housing committee. But even that would be found out when you come for the key because we will ask to see ID and check it against a list of flat-owners in the block.'

  'But I collected one of these system keys. And it was a key for another person.'

  The boy frowned. 'No, I remember quite clearly that you showed ID and I checked the name. Whose key was it you think you collected?'

  In the reflection in the glass door behind the counter Harry saw the same police car passing in the opposite direction.

  'Forget it. Is there any other way of getting a copy?'

  'No. Trioving, who grind these keys, only receive orders fr
om authorised dealers like ourselves. And, as I said, we check the documentation and keep an eye on keys ordered for all shared property and housing co-ops. The system should be pretty secure.'

  'It sounds it, yes.' Harry rubbed his face with his hand in irritation. 'I rang some time back and was told a woman living in Sorgenfrigata had received three keys for her flat. One we found in her flat, the second she gave to the electrician who was supposed to be fixing something and the third we found somewhere else. The thing is, I don't believe she ordered the third key. Can you check that for me?'

  The boy shrugged. 'Certainly I can, but why not ask her yourself?'

  'Someone shot her through the head.'

  'Ooops,' the boy said, without batting an eyelid.

  Harry stood stock-still. He could sense something. The slightest of shivers. A draught from the door maybe? Enough to raise the hairs on the back of your neck. The sound of a tentative clearing of the throat. He hadn't heard anyone come in. Without turning, he tried to see who it was, but from that angle it was impossible.

  'Police,' said a loud, high-pitched voice behind him. Harry swallowed hard.

  'Yes?' said the boy, looking over Harry's shoulder.

  'They're outside,' the voice said. 'They say the old lady down at number 14 has had a break-in. She needs a new lock right away, so they were wondering if we could send someone pronto.'

  'Well, you can go with them, Alf. I'm caught up, as you can see.'

  Harry listened intently until the footsteps had distanced themselves. 'Anna Bethsen.' He heard himself whispering. 'Can you check if she personally collected all the keys?'

  'I don't need to. She must have done.'

  Harry leaned over the counter. 'Can you check it anyway?'

  The boy gave a deep sigh and disappeared into the back room. He returned with a file and flicked through. 'See for yourself,' he said. 'There, there and there.'

  Harry recognised the delivery forms. They were identical to the ones he had signed himself when he came for Anna's key. But all the forms were signed by Anna. He was about to ask where the form with his own signature was when his eyes fell on the dates.

  'It says here the last key was collected back in August,' he said. 'But that's a long time before I was here and . . .'

  'Yes?'

  Harry stared up into the air. 'Thank you,' he said. 'I've found what I needed.'

  Outside, the wind had picked up. Harry rang from one of the telephone boxes in Valkyrie plass.

  'Beate?'

  Two seagulls headed into the wind above the tower of the Seamen's School and hovered there. Beneath the gulls lay Oslo fjord, which had gone an ominous green-black hue, and Ekeberg, where the two people on the bench were tiny dots.

  Harry had finished talking about Anna Bethsen. About the time they met. About the last evening, some of which he recalled. About Raskol. Beate had finished telling him they had managed to trace the laptop. It had been bought three months ago from the Expert shop by the Colosseum cinema. The guarantee had been made out to Anna Bethsen. And the mobile phone connected to it was the one Harry maintained he had lost.

  'I hate the scream of gulls,' Harry said.

  'Is that all you've got to say?'

  'At this very moment - yes.'

  Beate stood up from the bench. 'I shouldn't be here, Harry. You shouldn't have rung me.'

  'But you are here.' Harry gave up trying to light his cigarette in the wind. 'It means you believe me. Doesn't it?'

  Beate's response was to fling out her arms angrily.

  'I don't know any more than you do,' Harry said. 'Not even for certain that I didn't shoot Anna.'

  The gulls peeled off and performed an elegant roll in the surge of wind.

  'Tell me what you know one more time,' Beate said.

  'I know this guy has somehow obtained keys to Anna's flat so he got in and out on the night of the murder. When he left, he took Anna's laptop with him and my mobile phone.'

  'What was your mobile phone doing in Anna's flat?'

  'It must have fallen out of my jacket pocket during the evening. I was a bit animated, as I told you.'

  'And then?'

  'His original plan was simple. Drive to Larkollen after the murder and plant the key he'd used in Arne Albu's chalet. Attached to a keyring with the initials AA so that no one would be in any doubt. When he found my mobile phone, though, he suddenly realised he could tweak the plan a bit. Make it look like I had first of all murdered Anna and then rigged it so the blame fell on Albu. Then he used my mobile phone to connect to a server in Egypt and started sending me e-mails in such a way that it was impossible to trace the sender.'

  'And if he were traced, it would lead to . . .'

  'Me. However, I wouldn't have discovered anything was wrong until I received the next bill from Telenor. Probably not even then, since I don't read them that carefully.'

  'Or stop your subscription when you lose your phone.'

  'Mm.' Harry jumped up from the bench and began to pace to and fro. 'What's more difficult to understand is how he got into my cellar storeroom. You didn't find any signs of a break-in and no one in our block would have admitted an intruder. In other words, he must have had a key. In fact, all he would need is one key since we use one system key to fit the main door, loft, cellar and flat, but it's not easy to get hold of one. And the key to Anna's flat was also a system key...'

  Harry stopped and looked south. A green freighter with two large cranes was on its way up the fjord.

  'What are you wondering?' Beate asked.

  'I'm wondering whether to ask you to run a check on some names for me.'

  'I'd rather not, Harry. I shouldn't even be here, as I said.'

  'And I'm wondering where you got the bruises from.'

  Her hand went straight to her throat. 'Training. Judo. Anything else you were wondering?'

  'Yes, I was wondering if you could give this to Weber.' Harry pulled out the glass wrapped in a cloth from his jacket pocket. 'Ask him to check it for fingerprints and compare them with mine.'

  'Has he got yours?'

  'Forensics has the fingerprints of all Crime Scene officers. And ask him to analyse what was in the glass.'

  'Harry . . .' she began in an admonitory tone.

  'Please?'

  Beate sighed and took the bundle. 'Lasesmeden AS,' Harry said. 'And what do you mean by that?'

  'If you change your mind about checking names, you can run through the staff list at Lasesmeden. It's a small company of locksmiths.'

  She put on a resigned expression.

  Harry shrugged. 'If you give Weber the glass, I'm more than happy.'

  'Where do I contact you when Weber has the results?' 'Do you really want to know?' Harry smiled. 'I want to know as little as possible. You contact me, OK?' Harry pulled his jacket tighter around him. 'Shall we go?' Beate nodded, but didn't move. Harry raised his eyebrows. 'What he wrote,' she said. 'The bit about only the most vengeful surviving. Do you think it's true, Harry?'

  Harry stretched out his legs in the short bed in the caravan. The noise of the cars in Finnmarkgata reminded Harry of his childhood in Oppsal, lying in bed and listening to the traffic. When they were with Grandpa in the silence of Andalsnes in the summer it was the only thing he longed for: to return to the regular, soporific drone of cars, only broken by a motorbike, a noisy exhaust or a distant police siren.

  There was a knock at the door. It was Simon. 'Tess would like you to tell her a goodnight story tomorrow, too,' he said, stepping inside. Harry had told her how the kangaroo had learned to jump and had been rewarded with a goodnight hug by all the children.

  The two men smoked in silence. Harry pointed to the photograph on the wall. 'That's Raskol and his brother, isn't it? Stefan, Anna's

  father?'

  Simon nodded. 'Where's Stefan now?'

  Simon shrugged, not really interested, and Harry knew the subject was taboo.

  'They look like good friends in the photo,' Harry said.


  'They were like Siamese twins, you know. Pals. Raskol did two prison stretches for Stefan.' Simon laughed. 'I can see you're taken aback, my friend. It's the tradition. Can you understand? It's an honour to take a brother's or a father's punishment, you know.'

  'The police don't exactly feel the same way.'

  'They couldn't tell Raskol and Stefan apart. Gypsy brothers. Not easy for Norwegian police.' He grinned and offered Harry a cigarette. 'Especially when they were wearing masks.'

  Harry took a drag on his cigarette and took a shot in the dark. 'What came between them?'

  'What do you think?' Simon opened his eyes open wide in a dramatic gesture. 'A woman, of course.'