by Jo Nesbo
“First, I’m not frightened of a bad reputation, least of all among my colleagues in the gossip rags. Second, your friend is a useless journalist and third, she’s lying. I’ve fucked her three times. And you can tell the paparazzi that. Are you married?”
“Yes,” said the unknown woman, turning to the stage and shifting her weight so that the slit of her dress allowed a glimpse of a lacy garter. Arve Støp felt his mouth go dry and took a sip of Champagne. Watched the flock of tiptoeing women at the front of the stage. Breathed through his nose. He could smell pussy from where he was standing.
“Have you got any children, Katrine?”
“Do you want me to have children?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because through creating life women have learned to subject themselves to nature, and that gives them a more profound insight into life than other women. And men.”
“Bullshit.”
“No, it makes you women less desperate to hunt for a potential father. You just want to enjoy the game.”
“OK.” She laughed. “Then I’ve got children. What games do you like to play?”
“Whoa,” Støp said, looking at his watch. “We’re moving too fast.”
“What games do you like to play?”
“All of them.”
“Great.”
The singer closed his eyes, grabbed the microphone with both hands and attacked the song’s crescendo.
“This is a boring party, and I’m going home.” Støp put his empty glass on a tray whistling past. “I live in Aker Brygge. Same entrance as Liberal, top floor. Top bell.”
She gave a thin smile. “I know where it is. How much of a head start do you want?”
“Give me twenty minutes. And a promise that you won’t talk to anyone before you leave. Not even your girlfriend. Is that a deal, Katrine Bratt?”
He looked at her, hoping he had said the right name.
“Trust me,” she said, and he noticed a strange gleam in her eyes, like that of a forest fire in the sky. “I’m just as keen as you that this stay between us.” She raised her glass. “And, by the way, you fucked her four times, not three.”
Støp enjoyed a last glance before making his way to the exit. Behind him the vocalist’s falsetto was still quivering, almost inaudibly, under the chandeliers.
A door slammed and loud, enthusiastic voices reverberated down Seilduksgata. Four youths on their way from a party to one of the bars in Grünerløkka. They passed the car parked at the edge of the pavement without noticing the man inside. Then they rounded the corner, and the street was quiet again. Harry leaned toward the windshield and looked up at the windows of Katrine Bratt’s apartment.
He could have called Hagen, could have sounded the alarm, taken Skarre along and a patrol car. But he might be wrong. And he had to be certain first; there was too much to lose, both for him and for her.
He got out of the car and went to the door and the unmarked second-floor bell. Waited. Rang once more. Then he went back to his car, fetched the crowbar from the trunk, returned to the door and rang the first-floor bell. A man answered with a sleepy ja, the TV droning in the background. Fifteen seconds later the man came down and opened up. Harry showed him his police ID.
“I didn’t hear a domestic dispute,” the man said. “Who called you?”
“I’ll find my own way out,” Harry said. “Thanks for your help.”
The door on the second floor didn’t have a nameplate, either. Harry knocked, rested his ear against the cold wood and listened. Then he inserted the tip of the crowbar between the door and the frame immediately above the lock. Since the blocks of apartment buildings in Grünerløkka had been built for workers in the factories along the Akerselva River with the cheapest possible materials, Harry’s second forced entry in under an hour was easy.
He listened for a few seconds in the dark of the corridor before he switched on the light. Looked down at the shoe rack in front of him. Six pairs of shoes. None of them big enough to belong to a man. He lifted one pair, the boots Katrine had worn earlier today. The soles were still wet.
He went into the living room. Switched on the flashlight instead of the ceiling light so that she wouldn’t see from the street that she had a visitor.
The cone of light swept over the worn pine floor with large nails between the boards, a plain white sofa, low bookshelves and an exclusive Linn loudspeaker. There was an alcove in the wall, with a tidy, narrow bed, and a kitchenette with a stove and a fridge. The impression was austere, spartan and neat. Like his own place. The light had caught a face staring stiffly at him. And then another. And one more. Black wooden masks with carvings and painted patterns.
He looked at his watch. Eleven. He let the flashlight wander farther afield.
There were newspaper clippings pinned up above the only table in the room. They covered the wall from floor to ceiling. He went closer. His eyes skimmed them as he felt his pulse begin to tick like a Geiger counter.
These were murder cases.
Many murder cases, ten or twelve, some so old the newspaper had yellowed. But Harry could remember them all quite clearly. He remembered them because they had one thing in common: He had led the investigation.
On the table, beside a computer and a printer, lay a heap of folders. Case reports. He opened one of them. There weren’t any reports of his cases, but Laila Aasen’s murder on Ulriken Mountain was there. Another folder was of Onny Hetland’s disappearance in Fjellsiden. A third was about a case of police violence in Bergen, about complaints against Gert Rafto. Harry flicked through. Found the same photograph of Rafto that he had seen in Müller-Nilsen’s office. Looking at it now, he thought it was obvious.
Beside the printer was a pile of paper. Something was drawn on the top sheet. A quick, amateur penciled sketch, but the motif was clear enough. A snowman. The face was long, as if it had leaked, melted; the coal eyes had died and the carrot was long and thin and pointed downward. Harry leafed through the sheets. There were several drawings. All of snowmen, most just of the face. Masks, Harry thought. Death masks. One of the faces had a beak, small human arms at the side and bird feet at the bottom. Another had a pig’s snout and a top hat.
Harry started to search the other end of the room. And told himself the same thing he had said to Katrine on the island of Finnøy: Empty your mind of expectations and look, don’t search. He went through all the cupboards and drawers, rummaged through kitchen utensils and washing paraphernalia, clothes, exotic shampoos and bizarre creams in the bathroom, where the smell of her perfume hung heavily in the air. The floor of the shower was wet and on the sink there was a Q-tip stained with mascara. He came out again. He didn’t know what he was after, just that it wasn’t here. He straightened up and looked around.
Wrong.
It was here. He just hadn’t found it yet.
He took the books off the shelves, opened the toilet cistern, checked whether there were any loose boards in the floor or the walls and turned the mattress in the alcove. Then he was finished. He had searched everywhere. Without any success, except for the most important premise of any search: What you don’t find is just as important as what you do. And he knew now what he hadn’t found. Harry looked at his watch. Then he began to tidy up.
It was only when he was putting the drawings in order that it occurred to him that he hadn’t checked the printer. He pulled out the tray. The top sheet was yellowish and thicker than normal printer paper. He lifted it up. It had a particular aroma, as if it had been impregnated with a spice or burned. He turned on the desk lamp and held the sheet up to it as he hunted for the mark. And found it. Down in the bottom right-hand corner, a kind of watermark in between the fine paper fibers, visible if held against the lightbulb. The blood vessels in his throat seemed to widen; the blood was suddenly in a hurry, his brain screaming for more oxygen.
Harry switched on the computer. Checked his watch again and listened while it took an eternity for the operating sys
tem and programs to boot up. He went straight to the search function and typed in a single word. Clicked the mouse on SEARCH. An animated dog, in both senses, appeared, jumping up and down and barking soundlessly in an attempt to shorten the waiting time. Harry stared at the text flashing by as the documents were scanned. Shifted his gaze to the rubric where it said for the moment, No items matched your search. He examined the spelling of the search word. Toowoomba. He closed his eyes. Heard the deep purr of the machine, like an affectionate cat. Then it stopped. Harry opened his eyes. One item matched your search.
He placed the cursor over the Word icon. A yellow rectangular box popped up. Date modified: September 9. He felt his finger tremble as he double-clicked. The white background of the short text shone into the room. There was no doubt. The words were identical to those in the letter from the Snowman.
25
DAY 20
Deadline
Arve Støp was lying in a bed that had been sewn and weighed to customer specifications in the Misuku factory in Osaka and shipped already assembled to a tannery in Chennai, India, because the laws in the state of Tamil Nadu did not permit the direct exportation of this type of leather. It had taken six months from order to receipt of the goods, but it had been worth the wait. Like a geisha, it adapted perfectly to his body, supported him where necessary and allowed him to adjust it to every conceivable level or direction.
He watched the teak blades of the ceiling fan slowly rotate.
She was in the elevator on her way up to him. He had explained on the intercom that he was waiting for her in the bedroom, and had left the door ajar. He could feel the cool silk of his boxer shorts against his alcohol-warmed body. The music from a Café del Mar CD streamed out of the Bose audio system, with its small, compact speakers hidden in every room of the apartment.
He heard her heels clacking on the parquet floor of the living room. Slow but resolute footsteps. Just the sound made him go hard. If only she knew what was awaiting her …
His hand foraged under the bed; his fingers found what they were groping for.
And then she was in the doorway, silhouetted against the moonlight over the fjord, looking at him with a half-smile. She loosened the belt of her long black leather coat and let it fall. He gasped, but she was still wearing her dress beneath. She went over to the bed and passed him something rubbery. It was a mask. A pink animal mask.
“Put this on,” she said in a neutral, businesslike voice.
“Well, well,” he said. “A pig’s face.”
“Do as I say.” Again this strange yellow gleam in her eyes.
“Mais oui, madame.”
Arve Støp put it on. It covered his whole face and smelled like rubber gloves, and he could only just see her through the small slits for eyes.
“And I want you to—” he began and heard his own voice, encased and alien. That was as far as he got before he felt a stinging pain over his left eye.
“You shut your mouth!” she shouted.
Slowly it reached his consciousness that she had hit him. He knew he shouldn’t—it would ruin her role play—but he could not help himself. It was too comical. A pig mask! A clammy, pink rubbery thing with pig ears, snout and overbite. He let out a guffaw. The next blow hit him in the stomach with shocking power, and he doubled up, groaned and fell back on the bed. He was unaware that he wasn’t breathing until everything went black. Desperately he fought for air inside the tight-fitting mask as he felt her wrench his arms behind his back. Then, finally, oxygen reached his brain and the pain came at the same time. And the fury. Fucking cow, what did she think she was doing? He wriggled free and would have grabbed her, but couldn’t move his hands; they were held tight behind his back. He jerked and felt something sharp cut into his wrists. Handcuffs? The perverted bitch.
She pushed him into a sitting position.
“Can you see what this is?” he heard her whisper.
But his mask had slipped sideways; he couldn’t see anything.
“I don’t need to,” he said. “I can smell it’s your cunt.”
The blow hit him over the temple. It was like a CD skipping, and when he had the sound back he was still sitting upright in bed. He could feel something running down between his cheek and the inside of his mask.
“What the hell are you hitting me with?” he shouted. “I’m bleeding, you madwoman!”
“This.”
Arve Støp felt something hard pressed against his nose and mouth.
“Smell,” she said. “Isn’t it good? It’s steel and gun oil. Smith and Wesson. Smells like nothing else, doesn’t it? The smell of powder and cordite is even better. If you ever get to smell it, that is.”
Just a violent game, Arve Støp told himself. A role play. But there was something else, something in her voice, something about the whole situation. Something that put all that had happened in a new light. And for the first time in ages—so long ago he had to think back to his childhood, so long that initially he didn’t recognize the feeling—Arve Støp noticed: he was frightened.
“Sure we shouldn’t fire her up?” said Bjørn Holm, shivering and pulling the leather jacket around him more tightly. “When the Amazon came out she was well known for having a helluva heater.”
Harry shook his head and looked at his watch. One-thirty. They had been sitting in Holm’s car outside Katrine’s apartment building for more than an hour. The night was blue-gray, the streets empty.
“She was actually California white,” Holm continued. “Volvo color number forty-two. Previous owner sprayed it black. Qualifies as a veteran car and all that now. Mere three hundred and sixty-five kroner road tax a year. A krone a day …”
Bjørn Holm paused when he saw Harry’s warning look and instead turned up David Rawlings and Gillian Welch, which was the only new music he could tolerate. He had recorded it from a CD onto a cassette, not just so that it could play on the newly installed cassette player in the car, but because he belonged to that extremely small yet unbending faction of music lovers who opined that the CD had never managed to reproduce the cassette’s uniquely warm sound quality.
Bjørn Holm knew he was talking too much because he was nervous. Harry hadn’t told him any more than that Katrine had to be eliminated from some inquiries. And that Holm’s daily grind for the next few weeks would be eased if he didn’t know the details. And being the peaceful, laid-back, intelligent person he was, Holm didn’t try to cause any trouble. That didn’t mean he liked the situation, though. He checked his watch.
“She’s gone back to some guy’s place.”
Harry reacted. “What makes you think that?”
“She’s not married, after all. Wasn’t that what you said? Single women are like us single guys nowadays.”
“And by that you mean …”
“Four steps. Go out, observe the herd, select the weakest prey, attack.”
“Mm, you need four steps?”
“The first three,” said Bjørn Holm, adjusting the mirror and his red hair, “just cock-teasers in this town.” Holm had considered hair oil, but concluded it was too radical. On the other hand, perhaps that was just what was needed. Go the whole hog.
“Fuck,” Harry burst out. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“Eh?”
“Wet shower. Perfume. Mascara. You’re right.” The inspector had taken out his mobile, maniacally punched the numbers in and got an almost immediate answer.
“Gerda Nelvik? This is Harry Hole. Are you still doing the tests? … OK. Any preliminary results?”
Bjørn Holm watched as Harry mumbled two mms and three rights.
“Thank you,” Harry said. “And I was wondering if any other officers had called earlier this evening and asked you the same … What? … I see. Yes, just call me when the tests are finished.”
Harry hung up. “You can start the engine now,” he said.
Bjørn Holm twisted the key in the ignition. “What’s the deal?”
“We’re going to the Plaza Hotel. Kat
rine Bratt called the institute earlier this evening to ask about paternity.”
“This evening?” Holm put his foot down and turned right, toward Schous Plass.
“They’re running preliminary tests to establish paternity to ninety-five percent probability. Then they’ll try to increase the certainty to ninety-nine point nine.”
“And?”
“It’s ninety-five percent certain that the father of the Ottersen twins and Jonas Becker is Arve Støp.”
“Holy moly.”
“And I think Katrine’s followed your recommendations for a Saturday evening. And the prey is Arve Støp.”
Harry called the Incident Room and asked for assistance as the old reconditioned engine roared through the night-still streets of Grünerløkka. And as they passed the Akerselva emergency room and skidded on the tram tracks on Storgata, the heater was indeed blowing red-hot air on them.
Odin Nakken, a newspaper reporter at Verdens Gang, stood freezing on the pavement outside the Plaza Hotel cursing the world, people in general and his job in particular. As far as he could judge, the last guests were leaving the Liberal celebration. And the last, as a rule, were the most interesting, the ones who could create the next day’s headlines. But the deadline was approaching; in five minutes he would have to go. Go to the office in Akersgata a few hundred yards away and write. Write to the editor that he was a grown-up now, that he was fed up with standing outside a party like a teenager, with his nose pressed against the windowpane staring in and hoping someone would come out and tell him who had danced with whom, who had bought drinks for whom, who had been in a clinch with whom. Write that he was handing in his notice.
A couple of rumors had been floating about that had been too fantastic to be true, but naturally they couldn’t print those. There was a limit, and there were unwritten rules. Rules to which, at least in his generation, journalists adhered. For what that was worth.
Odin Nakken took stock. There were only a couple of reporters and photographers still holding out. Or who had the same deadlines for celebrity gossip as his newspaper. A Volvo Amazon came hurtling toward them and pulled up to the curb with a squeal of brakes.
