you’ve been close to Rakel and Oleg, but-’
‘And how close are you exactly?’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, it sounds as if you’ve assumed responsibility for their all-round care.’
Harry ignored the overtone to his voice and knew that he had revealed himself, knew the man was watching him in amazement. And knew he had lost the upper hand.
‘Rakel and I are old friends,’ Hans Christian said. ‘I grew up close to here, we studied law together, and… well. When you spend the best years of your life together there are bonds of course.’
Harry nodded. Knew that he should keep his mouth shut. Knew that everything he said would make things worse.
‘Mm. With bonds of that kind it’s strange I never saw or heard about you when Rakel and I were together.’
Hans Christian was unable to answer. The door opened. And there she was.
Harry felt a claw close around his heart and wrench it round.
Her figure was the same: slim, erect. The face was the same: heart-shaped with dark brown eyes and the broadish mouth that liked to laugh so much. The hair was almost the same: long, though the darkness was perhaps a tad lighter. But the eyes were changed. They were the eyes of a hunted animal, widened, wild. But when they fell on Harry it was as if something returned. Something of the person she had been. Of what they had been.
‘Harry,’ she said. And at the sound of her voice, the rest came, everything came back.
He took two long strides and held her in his arms. The scent of her hair. Her fingers on his spine. She was the first to let go. He retreated a step and looked at her.
‘You look good,’ he said.
‘You too.’
‘Liar.’
She smiled quickly. Tears had already formed in her eyes.
They stayed standing like that. Harry let her study him, let her absorb his older face with its new scar. ‘Harry,’ she repeated, tilted her head and laughed. The first tear trembled on her eyelashes and fell. A stripe ran down her soft skin.
Somewhere in the room a man with a polo player on his shirt coughed and said something about having to go to a meeting.
Then they were alone.
While Rakel was making coffee he saw her gaze fix on his metal finger, but neither of them made a comment. There was an unspoken agreement that they would never mention the Snowman. So Harry sat at the kitchen table and instead talked about his life in Hong Kong. Told her what he was able to tell. What he wanted to tell. That the job as ‘debt consultant’ for Herman Kluit’s outstanding accounts consisted in meeting customers with payments that had fallen behind and jogging their memories in a friendly way. In brief, the consultation involved advising them to pay as soon as was practical and feasible. Harry said his major and basically sole qualification was that he measured 1 metre 92 centimetres in his stockinged feet, had broad shoulders, bloodshot eyes and a newly acquired scar.
‘Friendly, professional. Suit, tie, multinationals in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Shanghai. Hotels with room service. Elegant office blocks. Civilised, Swiss-style private banks with a Chinese twist. Western handshakes and courtesy phrases. And Asian smiles. By and large they pay the next day. Herman Kluit is content. We understand each other.’
She poured coffee for both of them and sat down. Took a deep breath.
‘I got a job with the International Court of Justice in The Hague, with offices in Amsterdam. I thought that if we left this house behind us, this town, all the attention…’
Me, Harry thought.
‘… the memories, everything would be alright. And for a while it was. But then it started. At first, the senseless bouts of temper. As a boy Oleg never raised his voice. He was grumpy, yes, but never… like that. Said I’d ruined his life by taking him away from Oslo. He said that because he knew I had no defence. And when I started to cry, he started to cry. Asked me why I’d pushed you out. You’d saved us from… from…’
He nodded so that she didn’t have to say the name.
‘He began to come home late. Said he was meeting friends, but they were friends I had never met. One day he admitted he’d been to a coffee shop in Leidseplein and smoked hash.’
‘The Bulldog Palace with all the tourists?’
‘Right. I suppose that’s part of the Amsterdam experience, I thought. But I was afraid at the same time. His father… well, you know.’
Harry nodded. Oleg’s aristocratic Russian genes from his father. Highs, furies and lows. Dostoevsky land.
‘He sat in his room a lot listening to music. Heavy, gloomy stuff. Well, you know these bands…’
Harry nodded again.
‘But your records, too. Frank Zappa. Miles Davis. Supergrass. Neil Young. Supersilent.’
The names came so quickly and naturally that Harry suspected she had been eavesdropping.
‘Then, one day I was hoovering his room and I found two pills with smileys on.’
‘Ecstasy?’
She nodded. ‘Two months later I applied for and got a job at the Office of the Attorney General and moved back here.’
‘To safe old innocent Oslo.’
She shrugged. ‘He needed a change of scene. A new start. And it worked. He’s not the type to have lots of friends, as you know, but he met a couple of old pals and got on well at school until…’ Her voice fell apart at the seams.
Harry waited. He took a swig of coffee. Braced himself.
‘He could be away for several days in a row. I didn’t know what to do. He did as he wanted. I rang the police, psychologists, sociologists. He wasn’t legally an adult, yet there was nothing anyone could do unless there was evidence of taking drugs or law-breaking. I felt so helpless. Me! Who always thought it was the parents who were at fault, who always had a solution at hand when other parents’ children went off the rails. Don’t be apathetic, don’t repress. Action!’
Harry looked at her hand beside his on the coffee table. The delicate fingers. The fine veins on the pale hand that was normally tanned so early in the autumn. But he didn’t obey his impulse to cover her hand with his. Something was in the way. Oleg was in the way.
She sighed.
‘So I went to the city centre and searched for him. Night after night. Until I found him. He was standing on a corner of Tollbugata and was pleased to see me. Said he was happy. He had a job and was sharing a flat with some friends. He needed his freedom. I shouldn’t ask so many questions. He was “travelling”. This was his version of a gap year, sailing round the world, like all the other kids on Holmenkollen Ridge. Sailing round the world of Oslo city centre.’
‘What was he wearing?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing. Go on.’
‘He said he would be home again soon. And would finish his studies at school. So we agreed he would come back and have Sunday lunch with me.’
‘And did he?’
‘Yes. And when he’d left I saw that he had been in my bedroom and stolen my jewellery box.’ She took a long, quivering breath. ‘The ring you bought me in Vestkanttorget was in the box.’
‘Vestkanttorget?’
‘Don’t you remember?’
Harry’s brain rewound at top speed. There were a few black holes, some white ones he had repressed and large, blank expanses alcohol had consumed. But also areas with colour and texture. Like the day they were walking around the second-hand market in Vestkanttorget. Was Oleg with them? Yes, he was. Of course. The photograph.
