Nemesis - Harry Hole 02

by Jo Nesbo

  'Yes, I do,' Harry said. 'I have this piece of evidence.' He produced a sheet of paper and set it on the long table.

  Ivarsson and Moller leaned forward together, clunking heads.

  'What is this?' Ivarsson barked. ' "A Wonderful Day".'

  'Scribbles,' Harry said. 'Written on a notepad at Gaustad hospital. Two witnesses, Lonn and myself, were present and can testify that the writer was Trond Grette.'

  'So?'

  Harry looked at them. He turned his back and walked slowly to the window. 'Have you examined your own scribbles when you imagine you're thinking about something else? They can be quite revealing. That was why I took the piece of paper, to see if it made any sense. At first, it didn't. I mean when your wife has just been killed and you're sitting in a closed psychiatric ward writing "A Wonderful Day" again and again, then you're absolutely barking mad or you're writing the opposite of what you think. Then I discovered something.'

  Oslo was pale grey, like the face of a tired old man, but today in the sun the few colours still remaining shone. Like a final smile before saying goodbye, Harry mused.

  ' "A Wonderful Day",' he said. 'It's not a thought, a comment or an assertion. It's a title. Of the kind of essay you write at primary school.'

  A hedge sparrow flew past the window.

  'Trond Grette wasn't thinking, he was just scribbling on automatic pilot. As he had done from his school days when he sat practising the new handwriting style. Jean Hue, the handwriting expert at Kripos, has already confirmed the same person wrote the suicide letter and the school essays.'

  The film seemed to be stuck, the image frozen, not a movement, not a word, only the repeated actions of a photocopier outside in the corridor.

  Finally, Harry turned around and broke the silence: 'Seems like the mood is for Lonn and me to bring Trond Grette in for a little bit of questioning.'

  Fuck, fuck, fuck! Harry tried to hold the gun steady, but the pain was making him giddy and the blasts of wind were pulling and pushing at his body. Trond had reacted to the blood as Harry had hoped, and for a moment Harry had a clear line of fire. But Harry had hesitated and now Trond had Beate in front of him so that Harry could only see part of his head and his shoulder. She was similar, he could see that now, my God she was so similar. Harry blinked hard to get them in focus. The next blast of wind was so strong it caught hold of the grey coat on the bench and for a moment it seemed as if an invisible man clad only in a coat was running across the tennis court. Harry knew a downpour was on its way; this was the air mass the wall of rain was pushing forward as the final warning. Then it went as dark as night, the two bodies in front of him merged and then the rain was overhead; large, heavy drops hammered down.

  'Twenty-five.' Beate's voice was suddenly loud and clear.

  In the flash of light Harry could see their bodies casting shadows on the red shale. The crack which followed was so loud it attached itself to their ears like a lining. One body slipped away from the other and fell to the ground.

  Harry sank to his knees and heard his voice roar: 'Ellen!'

  He saw the figure still standing turn and begin to walk towards him, gun in hand. Harry took aim, but the rain was streaming down his face and blinding him. He blinked and aimed. He no longer felt anything, neither pain nor cold, sorrow nor triumph, only a huge void. Things were not meant to make sense; they just repeated them-selves in an eternal, self-explanatory mantra - living, dying, being reborn, living, dying. He squeezed the trigger halfway. Took aim.

  'Beate?' he whispered.

  She kicked open the door and passed the AG3 to Harry, who grabbed it.

  'What . . . happened?'

  'The Setesdal Twitch,' she said.

  'The Setesdal Twitch?'

  'He went down like a pile of bricks, poor thing.' She showed him her right hand. The rain washed and rinsed away the blood from the two wounds on her knuckles. 'I was just waiting for something to distract him. And the clap of thunder scared the living daylights out of him. You too, it seems.'

  They looked at the motionless body in the left-hand service box.

  'Will you help me with the handcuffs, Harry?' Her blonde hair was stuck to her face, but she didn't seem to notice. She smiled.

  Harry raised his face into the rain and closed his eyes. 'God in heaven above,' he mumbled. 'This poor soul will not be set free until 12 July 2022. Have mercy.'

  'Harry?'

  He opened his eyes. 'Yes?'

  'If he's not to be set free before 2022 we'd better get him to Police HQ right now.'

  'Not him,' Harry said, getting up. 'Me. That's when I retire.'

  He put his arm around her shoulders and smiled. 'You Setesdal Twitch, you . . .'

  50

  Ekeberg Ridge

  It began to snow again in December. And this time it was for real. The snow drifted against the walls of the houses and more snow was forecast. The confession came on Wednesday afternoon. Trond Grette, in consultation with his solicitor, told how he had planned and later carried out the murder of his wife.

  It snowed right through the night, and the next day he also confessed to being behind the murder of his brother. The man he had paid for the job was called El Ojo, The Eye, of no fixed abode. He changed his professional name and mobile telephone number every week. Trond had only met him once, in a car park in Sao Paulo, where they had agreed on the details. El Ojo had received 1,500 dollars in advance; Trond had placed the rest in a paper bag in a left-luggage locker at Tiete airport terminal. The agreement was that he would send the suicide letter to a post office in Campos Belos, a suburb in the south of the city, and the key when he had received Lev's little finger.

  The only thing remotely approaching amusement during the long hours of questioning was when Trond was asked how, as a tourist, he had managed to contact a professional contract killer. He replied that it had been a great deal easier than trying to get hold of a Norwegian builder. The analogy was not entirely by chance.

  'Lev told me about it once,' Trond said. 'They advertise themselves as plomeros next to chat-line ads in the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo.'

  'Plum-whats?'

  'Plomeros. Plumbers.'

  Halvorsen faxed the scanty information to the Brazilian embassy, who refrained from making a sarcastic comment and promised to pursue the case.

  The AG3 Trond had used in the raid was Lev's and had been in the loft in Disengrenda for several years. The gun was impossible to trace as the manufacturer's serial number had been filed off.

  Christmas came early for Nordea's consortium of insurance companies since the money from the Bogstadveien robbery was found in the boot of Trond's car and not a krone had been touched.

  The days passed, the snow came and the questioning continued. One Friday afternoon, when everyone was exhausted, Harry asked Trond why he hadn't thrown up when he shot his wife through the head - after all he couldn't stand the sight of blood. The room went quiet. Trond stared at the video camera in the corner. Then he merely shook his head.

  But when they had finished and they were walking through the Culvert back to the detention cells, he had suddenly turned to Harry: 'It depends on whose blood it is.'

  At the weekend Harry sat in a chair by the window watching Oleg and local boys building snow forts in the garden outside the timber house. Rakel asked him what he was thinking about and it almost slipped out. Instead he suggested going for a little walk. She fetched hats and gloves. They walked past the Holmenkollen ski jump and Rakel asked whether they should invite Harry's father and sister over to hers on Christmas Eve.

  'We're the only family left,' she said and squeezed his hand.

  On Monday Harry and Halvorsen started work on the Ellen case. Right from scratch. Questioned witnesses who had been in before, read old reports and checked tip-offs that had not been followed up and old leads. Cold leads, it turned out.

  'Have you got the address of the guy who said he'd seen Sverre Olsen with a man in a red car in Grunerlokka?' Harry asked.
<
br />   'Kvinsvik. His address is given as his parents' place, but I doubt we'll find him there.'

  Harry didn't expect much cooperation when he walked into Herbert's Pizza asking for Roy Kvinsvik. But after buying a beer for a young guy with the Nasjonalallianse logo on his T-shirt, he learned that Roy no longer had to maintain an oath of silence since he had recently cut ties with his former friends. Apparently Roy had met a Christian girl and lost his faith in Nazism. No one knew who she was or where Roy lived now, but someone had seen him singing outside the Philadelphian church.

  The snow lay in deep drifts as the snow ploughs shuttled to and fro down the streets of Oslo city centre.

  The woman who had been shot in the Grensen branch of the Den norske Bank was discharged from hospital. In Dagbladet she showed where the bullet had entered with one finger and how close it had been to hitting her heart with two fingers. Now she was going home to take care of her husband and children over Christmas, the paper said.

  On Wednesday morning at ten o'clock the same week Harry stamped the snow off his boots outside Room 3, Police HQ, before knocking.

  'Come in, Hole,' came the roar of Judge Valderhaug's voice. He was leading the internal SEFO inquiry into the shooting incident in the container terminal. Harry was led to a chair in front of a five-person tribunal. Apart from Valderhaug, there was a Public Prosecutor, one female detective, one male and Defence Counsel Ola Lunde whom Harry knew as tough but competent and genuine.

  'We would like to have our findings tied up before we break for Christmas,' Valderhaug opened. 'Can you tell us as concisely as possible about your role in this case?'

  To the clatter of the male detective's computer keyboard, Harry talked about his brief meeting with Alf Gunnerud. When he had finished, Valderhaug thanked him and rustled his papers for a while before finding what he was looking for. He peered at Harry over his glasses.

  'We would like to know if from your brief meeting with Gunnerud you were surprised when you heard he had pulled a gun on a policeman.'

  Harry remembered what he had thought when he saw Gunnerud on the staircase. A young man who was afraid of further beatings. Not a hardened killer. Harry met the judge's gaze and said: 'No.'

  Valderhaug took off his glasses. 'But when Gunnerud met you, he chose to run off. Why this change of tactics when he met Waaler, I wonder.'

  'I don't know,' Harry said. 'I wasn't there.' 'But you don't think it strange?' 'Yes, I do.'

  'But you just answered you weren't surprised.'

  Harry tipped his chair back. 'I've been a policeman for a long time, sir. It no longer surprises me when people do strange things. Not even murderers.'

  Valderhaug replaced his glasses and Harry thought he detected a smile playing around the mouth of the lined face.

  Ola Lunde cleared his throat. 'As you know, Inspector Tom Waaler was suspended for a brief period in connection with a similar incident last year while arresting a young neo-Nazi.'

  'Sverre Olsen,' Harry said.

  'At that time SEFO concluded that there were insufficient grounds for the Public Prosecutor to bring a charge.'

  'You only sat for a week,' Harry said.

  Ola Lunde raised an eyebrow at Valderhaug, who nodded. 'Nonetheless,' Lunde continued, 'it is naturally conspicuous that the same man is in the same situation once again. We know that there is a strong sense of solidarity in the police force and officers are reluctant to put a colleague in a difficult spot by er . . . um . . . er . . .'

  'Grassing,' Harry said.

  'I beg your pardon?'

  'I think the word you're looking for is "grassing".'

  Lunde exchanged glances with Valderhaug again. 'I know what you mean, but we prefer to call it presenting relevant information to ensure rules are enforced. Do you agree, Hole?'

  Harry's chair landed back on its front legs with a bang. 'Yes, in fact, I do. I'm just not as good with words as you.'

  Valderhaug could no longer conceal his smile.

  'I'm not so sure about that, Hole,' Lunde said, who had himself begun to smile. 'It's good we agree, and since you and Waaler have worked together for many years, we would like to use you as a character witness. We have had other officers in here who have alluded to Waaler's uncompromising style when dealing with criminals and sometimes non-criminals. Could you imagine that Tom Waaler may have shot Alf Gunnerud in a moment of rashness?'

  Harry cast lingering looks out of the window. He could barely see the outline of Ekeberg Ridge through the snow showers. But he knew it was there. Year in, year out, he had sat behind his desk at Police HQ and Ekeberg had always been there, and always would be, green in the summer, black and white in the winter, it couldn't be shifted, it was a fact. The great thing about facts is that you don't have to ponder whether they're desirable or not.

  'No,' Harry said. 'I cannot imagine that Tom Waaler would have shot Alf Gunnerud in a moment of rashness.'

  If anyone on the SEFO panel had noticed the tiny extra stress Harry had given to "rashness", they didn't say anything.

  In the corridor outside, Weber got up as soon as Harry came out.

  'Next please,' Harry said. 'What's that you've got?' Weber lifted up a plastic bag. 'Gunnerud's gun. I'll have to go in and get this over with.'

  'Mm.' Harry flipped a cigarette out of the packet. 'Unusual gun.' 'Israeli,' Weber said. 'Jericho 941.'

  Harry stood staring at the door as it slammed after Weber until Moller came past and called his attention to the unlit cigarette in his mouth.

  It was strangely quiet in the Robberies Unit. At first the detectives had joked that the Expeditor had gone into hibernation, but now they said he had let himself be shot and buried in a secret place so as to achieve eternal legendary status. The snow lay on the roofs around town, slid down and new snow came while smoke rose peacefully from chimneys.

  The three units at Police HQ arranged a Christmas party in the canteen. Seating was fixed and Bjarne Moller, Beate Lonn and Halvorsen ended up sitting next to each other. Between them, an empty chair and a plate with Harry's name card on.

  'Where is he?' Moller asked, pouring wine for Beate.

  'Out looking for one of Sverre Olsen's pals who says he saw Olsen and another guy on the night of the murder,' Halvorsen said, struggling to open a beer bottle with a disposable lighter.

  'That's frustrating,' Moller said. 'Tell him not to work himself to death. A Christmas dinner doesn't take up much time after all.'

  'You tell him,' Halvorsen said.

  'Perhaps he just doesn't want to be here,' Beate said.

  The two men looked at her and smiled.

  'What's the matter?' She laughed. 'Don't you think I know Harry as well?'

  They toasted. Halvorsen hadn't stopped smiling. He just watched. There was something - he couldn't quite put his finger on what -different about her. The last time he saw her was in the meeting room, but she hadn't had this life in her eyes. The blood in her lips. The posture, the willowy back.

  'Harry would rather go to prison than to affairs like these,' M0ller said and told them about the time Linda from reception in POT had forced him to dance. Beate laughed so much she had to wipe the tears from her eyes. Then she turned to Halvorsen and tilted her head: 'Are you going to sit there gawping all night, Halvorsen?'

  Halvorsen could feel his cheeks burning and managed to stammer out a puzzled 'Not at all' before M0ller and Beate burst out laughing again.

  Later that evening he plucked up the courage to ask her if she felt like a whirl on the dance floor. M0ller sat alone until Ivarsson came over and sat on Beate's chair. He was drunk, slurring his speech, and he talked about the time he sat terrified out of his wits in front of a bank in Ryen.

  'It's a long time ago, Rune,' M0ller said. 'You were straight out of college. You couldn't have done anything anyway.'

  Ivarsson leaned back and studied M0ller. Then he got up and left. M0ller guessed Ivarsson was a lonely person who didn't even know it himself.

  When the DJs Li a
nd Li finished by playing 'Purple Rain' Beate and Halvorsen bumped into one of the other couples dancing and Halvorsen noticed how Beate's body suddenly stiffened. He looked up at the other couple.

  'Sorry,' said a deep voice. The strong white teeth in the David Hasselhoff face shone in the dark.

  When the evening was over, it was impossible to get hold of a taxi and Halvorsen offered to accompany Beate home. They trudged eastwards in the snow and it took them over an hour before they were standing outside her door in Oppsal.

  Beate smiled and faced Halvorsen. 'If you would like that, you're very welcome,' she said.

  'I'd love it,' he said. 'Thank you.'

  'Then it's a deal,' she said. 'I'll tell my mother tomorrow.'