diacetymorphine. Not a lot needs to be done, molecule here, molecule there, and hey presto, it fastens on to other receptors in the human body. Eleven days later, Dreser had discovered a new drug. It was sold as cough medicine right up until 1913.’
‘And the drug was?’
‘The name was supposed to be a pun on a brave woman.’
‘Heroine,’ Harry said.
‘Correct.’
‘What about the glazing?’ Harry asked, turning to Pran.
‘It’s called a coating,’ the Hunchback retorted. ‘What about it?’ He faced Harry but his eyes were elsewhere, on the wall. Like an animal hunting for a way out, Harry thought. Or a herd animal that did not want to meet the hierarchical challenge of the creature looking you straight in the eye. Or simply a human with slightly above-average social inhibitions. But there was something else that caught Harry’s attention, something about the way he was standing, his crooked posture.
‘Well,’ Harry said, ‘Forensics says that the brown specks in violin originate from the finely chopped glazing of a pill. And it’s the same… coating you use on methadone pills that are made here at the Radium Hospital.’
‘So?’ Pran riposted.
‘Is it conceivable that violin is made here in Norway by someone with access to your methadone pills?’
Stig Nybakk and Martin Pran exchanged glances.
‘Nowadays we deliver methadone pills to other hospitals as well, so quite a few people have access,’ Nybakk said. ‘But violin is high-level chemistry.’ He expelled air between flapping lips. ‘What do you reckon, Pran? Have we got the competence in Norwegian scientific circles to discover such a substance?’
Pran shook his head.
‘What about by fluke?’ Harry asked.
Pran shrugged. ‘It is of course possible that Brahms wrote ein deutsches Requiem by fluke.’
The room fell silent. Not even Nybakk appeared to have anything to add.
‘Well,’ Harry said, getting up.
‘Hope that was of some help,’ Nybakk said, extending his hand to Harry across the desk. ‘Say hello to Tresko. I suppose he still does nights at Hafslund Energy, keeping his finger on the electricity switch for the town?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Doesn’t he like daylight?’
‘He doesn’t like hassle.’
Nybakk gave a tentative smile.
On his way out Harry stopped twice. Once to examine the empty laboratory in which the light had been turned off for the day. The second time was outside the door displaying Martin Pran’s nameplate. There was light under the door. Harry carefully pressed the handle. Locked.
The first thing Harry did when he got into the rental car was to check his mobile phone. He saw one missed call from Beate Lonn, but still nothing from Isabelle Skoyen. By Ulleval Stadium Harry realised he had timed his journey out of town badly. The nation with the shortest working hours was on its way home. It took him fifty minutes to reach Karihaugen.
Sergey was sitting in his car drumming his fingers on the wheel. In theory, his workplace was situated on the right side of rush-hour traffic, but when he was on the evening shift he ended up stuck in the gridlock leaving town anyway. The cars edged towards Karihaugen like cooling lava. He had googled the policeman. Clicked on old news stories. Murder cases. He had taken out a serial killer in Australia. Sergey had noticed that because the same morning he had been watching a programme from Australia on Animal Planet. It was all about the intelligence of crocodiles in the Northern Territory, about how they learned the habits of their prey. When men camped in the bush they usually took a path along a billabong to collect water after waking in the morning. On the path they were safe from crocodiles lying in the water and watching. If they stayed a second night the same would be repeated the next day. If they stayed a third night they would walk along the path once more, but this time they wouldn’t see a crocodile. Not until it rushed out of the bush and dragged its prey into the water.
The policeman had seemed ill at ease in the pictures on the Net. As though he didn’t like being photographed. Or watched.
The phone rang. It was Andrey. He got straight to the point.
‘He’s staying at Hotel Leon.’
The south Siberian dialect was in fact like a machine gun, staccato, but Andrey made it sound soft and flowing. He said the address twice, slowly and clearly, and Sergey memorised it.
‘Good,’ he said, trying to sound keen. ‘I’ll ask for his room number. And unless it’s at the end of a corridor I’ll wait there, at the end. So that when he leaves his room for the stairs or the lift he’ll have to turn his back on me.’
‘No, Sergey.’
‘No?’
‘Not in the hotel. He’ll be ready for us at Leon.’
Sergey started with surprise. ‘Ready?’
He changed lane and slipped in behind a rental car as Andrey explained that the policeman had contacted two sellers and invited ataman to Hotel Leon. It stank of a trap from some distance. Ataman had given clear orders that Sergey was to do the job somewhere else.
‘Where?’
‘Wait for him in the street outside the hotel.’
‘But where shall I do it?’
‘You can choose,’ Andrey said. ‘But my personal favourite is an ambush.’
‘Ambush?’
‘Always an ambush, Sergey. And one more thing…’
‘Yes?’
‘He’s beginning to advance into areas where we don’t want him to advance. That means this is becoming a matter of urgency.’
‘What… does that mean?’
‘ Ataman says you should take whatever time you need, but no more. Today is better than tomorrow. Which is better than the day after. Understand?’
When they rang off Sergey was still in the traffic jam. He had never felt so alone in all his life.
Rush hour was at its peak, and the tailback did not lighten until Berger, just before the Skedsmo intersection. By then Harry had been sitting in the car for an hour and had scanned all the radio channels before ending up with NRK Classical out of sheer protest. Twenty minutes later he saw the turn-off to Gardermoen. He had rung Tord Schultz’s number a dozen times during the day without getting through. Schultz’s colleague, whom he eventually located at the airline, said he had no idea where Tord could be and that he generally stayed at home when he wasn’t flying. And confirmed the address Harry had found on the Net.
Darkness was falling when Harry inferred from the road sign that he was in the right place. He drove slowly between the identical shoeboxes on either side of the newly asphalted road. From the houses which were illuminated enough for him to be able to read the numbers he worked out which was Tord Schultz’s. It lay in total darkness.
Harry parked the car. Looked up. Silver came out of the black sky, a plane, as soundless as a bird of prey. Lights swept across rooftops, and the plane disappeared behind him carrying the noise after it like a bridal train.
Harry walked up to the front door, placed his face against the glass panel and rang. Waited. Rang again. Waited for a minute.
Then he kicked in the panel.
He passed his hand through, found the latch and opened the door.
Stepping over the shards of glass, he continued into the living room.
The first thing that struck him was the darkness, that it was darker than a room should be, even unlit. He realised that the curtains were drawn. Thick blackout curtains of the kind they used at the military camp in Finnmark to keep out the midnight sun.
