‘Ooooh,’ she said as she caught sight of Harry.
‘Relax, I don’t want any beer, just breakfast,’ Harry said. ‘And a favour.’
‘I mean the neck,’ Rita said, holding the door for him. ‘It’s gone all blue. And what’s that…?’
‘Gaffer tape,’ Harry said.
Rita nodded and went to take orders. At Schroder’s the policy was that you kept yourself to yourself.
Harry sat down at his regular corner table by the window and rang Beate Lonn.
Got her voicemail. Waited until the beep.
‘Harry here. I’ve bumped into an elderly lady I may have made something of an impression on, so I don’t think I should approach police stations or the like for a while. I’m leaving two specimen bags here at Schroder’s. Come in person and ask for Rita. There’s another favour I’d like to ask. Bellman’s started a collection of addresses in Blindern. I’d like you, as discreetly as possible, to see if you could get copies of the teams’ lists, before they’re sent on to Orgkrim.’
Harry rang off. Then he called Rakel. Voicemail again.
‘Hi, this is Harry. I need some clean clothes which fit, and there used to be some hanging up at your place from… from then. I’m going for a minor upgrade and checking into the Plaza, so if you could send some there in a taxi when you come home that would be…’ He found himself automatically hunting for a word that might have a chance of making her smile. Like ‘spiffing’ or ‘mega’ or ‘wi-icked’. But failed and settled on a conventional ‘great.’
Rita arrived with coffee and a fried egg while Harry was calling Hans Christian. She sent him a reproving look. Schroder’s had a more or less unspoken rule that computers, board games and mobile phones were out of bounds. This was a place for drinking, preferably beer, eating, chatting or shutting up and at a pinch reading newspapers. Presumably reading books was a grey area.
Harry signalled that this would only take a few seconds, and Rita nodded graciously.
Hans Christian sounded relieved and horrified. ‘Harry? Goodness me. Everything alright?’
‘On a scale from one to ten…’
‘Yes?’
‘Did you hear about the shooting in Madserud alle?’
‘Oh Lord! Was that you?’
‘Have you got a weapon, Hans Christian?’
Harry thought he could hear him gulp.
‘Do I need one, Harry?’
‘You don’t. I do.’
‘Harry…’
‘For self-defence only. Just in case.’
Pause. ‘I’ve got an old hunting rifle my father left me. For hunting elk.’
‘Sounds good. Could you get it, wrap it up and deliver it to Schroder’s within three quarters of an hour?’
‘I can try. Wh- what are you going to do?’
‘I,’ Harry said, meeting Rita’s admonishing eyes from the counter, ‘am going to have breakfast.’
On his way to Gamlebyen Cemetery Truls Berntsen saw a black limousine parked outside the gate where he generally entered. And as he approached, the door opened on the passenger side and a man stepped out. He was wearing a black suit and had to be well over two metres tall. Powerful jaw, flat fringe and something indefinably Asian that Truls had always associated with the Sami, Finns and Russians. The jacket must have been made to measure, yet it was still too narrow on the shoulders.
He moved aside and gestured that Truls was to take his place in the passenger seat.
Truls stopped. If these were Dubai’s men it was an unexpected breach of the rules regarding direct contact. He looked around. No one in sight.
He hesitated.
If they had decided to rid themselves of the burner, this is how they would do it.
He looked at the enormous man. It was impossible to read anything from his facial expression, and Truls could not decide whether it was a good or a bad sign that the man had taken the trouble to put on a pair of sunglasses.
Of course he could turn and flee. But what then?
‘Q5,’ Truls mumbled to himself under his breath.
The door was immediately closed after him. It was strangely dark inside, must have been the tinted windows. And the air conditioning must have been unusually effective, it felt as if it was several degrees below zero. In the driver’s seat was a man with the face of a wolf. Black suit as well. Flat fringe. Probably Russian.
‘Nice you could make it,’ said a voice behind Truls. He didn’t need to turn. The accent. It was him. Dubai. The man no one knew. No one else knew. But what good was it to Truls to know a name, to recognise a face? Furthermore, you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
‘I want you to get hold of someone for us.’
‘Get hold of?’
‘Collect. And deliver to us. You don’t need to bother yourself with the rest.’
‘I’ve told you I don’t know where Oleg Fauke is.’
‘This isn’t Oleg Fauke, Berntsen. This is Harry Hole.’
Truls Berntsen could scarcely believe his own ears. ‘Harry Hole?’
‘Don’t you know who he is?’
‘Course I do. He was at Crime Squad. Mad as a hatter. A drunk. Solved a couple of cases. Is he in town?’
‘He’s staying at Hotel Leon. Room 301. Collect him from there at twelve sharp tonight.’
‘And how should I collect him?’
‘Arrest him. Knock him down. Say you want to show him your boat. Do whatever you like, just get him to the marina at Kongen. We’ll take the rest from there. Fifty thousand.’
The rest. He was talking about killing Harry Hole. He was talking about murder. Of a policeman.
Truls opened his mouth to say no, but the voice on the back seat was quicker.
‘Euros.’
Truls Berntsen’s jaw dropped with a shipwrecked ‘no’ somewhere between his brain and vocal cords. Instead he repeated the words he thought he had heard but scarcely believed.
‘Fifty thousand euros?’
‘Well?’
Truls looked at his watch. He had a bit more than eleven hours. He coughed.
‘How do you know he’ll be in his room at midnight?’
‘Because he knows we’re coming.’
‘Eh? Don’t you mean he doesn’t know you’re coming?’
The voice behind him laughed. It sounded like the motor on a wooden boat. Chug-chug.
31
It was four o’clock and Harry was standing under a shower on the eighteenth floor of the Radisson Plaza. He hoped the gaffer tape would hold in the hot water — at least it was dulling the pain for a short while. He had been allocated room number 1937, and something fluttered through his mind as he was given the key. The king’s year of birth, Koestler, synchronicity and all that. Harry didn’t believe it. What he believed in was the human mind’s ability to find patterns. And where, in fact, there were none. That was why he had always been a doubter as a detective. He had doubted and searched, doubted and searched. Seen patterns, but doubted the guilt. Or vice versa.
Harry heard the phone peep. It was audible but discreet and pleasant. The sound of an expensive hotel. He turned off the shower and went to the bed. Lifted the receiver.
‘There’s a lady here,’ the receptionist said. ‘Rakel Fauske… My apologies. Fauke, she says. She has something she would like to give you.’
