‘Right,’ Martine said, tightening the cap. ‘Will it never get better?’ she asked in a low voice.
‘What?’ Harry said hoarsely.
She didn’t answer.
Harry’s eyes jumped around the infirmary to find himself a distraction, something to refocus his mind, anything at all. They found the gold ring she had removed and placed on the couch before tending to his wounds. She and Rikard had been married for a few years now; the ring had chips and scratches, it wasn’t shiny and new like Torkildsen’s at Telenor. Harry experienced a sudden chill and his scalp began to itch. Of course it could have been just sweat.
‘Genuine gold?’ he asked.
Martine began to wind round the fresh bandage. ‘It’s a wedding ring, Harry.’
‘So?’
‘So of course it’s gold. However poor or mean you are, you don’t buy a wedding ring that’s not gold.’
Harry nodded. His scalp itched and itched; he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. ‘I did,’ he said.
She laughed. ‘In which case you’re the only person in the whole world who did, Harry.’
Harry stared at the ring. That was what she had said. ‘Like hell I’m the only…’ he said slowly. The hairs on his neck were never wrong.
‘Hey, wait, I haven’t finished!’
‘It’s fine,’ said Harry, who had already sat up.
‘At least you should have some clean clothes. You stink of rubbish, sweat and blood.’
‘The Mongolians used to rub animal excrement all over themselves before big battles,’ Harry said, buttoning up his shirt. ‘If you want to give me something, a cup of coffee wouldn’t go…’
She sent him a resigned look. And went through the door and down the stairs shaking her head.
Harry hurriedly took out his mobile.
‘Yes?’ Klaus Torkildsen sounded like a zombie. Kids screaming in the background were probably the explanation.
‘This is Harry H. If you do this for me I’ll never pester you again, Torkildsen. I’d like you to check some base stations. I have to know all the places Truls Berntsen — address somewhere in Manglerud — was on the night of 12 July.’
‘We can’t pinpoint that down to the square metre or chart-’
‘-movements minute by minute. I know all that stuff. Just do the best you can.’
Pause.
‘Is that all?’
‘No, there’s another name.’ Harry closed his eyes and racked his brain. Visualised the letters of the nameplate on the door at the Radium Hospital. Mumbled to himself. Then he said the name into the phone, loud and clear.
‘Noted. And never again means?’
‘Never again.’
‘I see,’ Torkildsen said. ‘One more thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘The police asked for your number yesterday. You don’t have one.’
‘I have an unregistered Chinese number.’
‘They seemed to be interested in tracing it. What’s going on?’
‘Sure you want to know, Torkildsen?’
‘No,’ Torkildsen said after another pause. ‘I’ll ring you when I’ve got something.’
Harry ended the call and pondered. He was wanted by the police. Even if they didn’t find his name against the number, they could put two and two together if they checked Rakel’s calls and saw a Chinese number appear. The phone gave away his location, and he would have to get rid of it.
When Martine returned with a cup of steaming hot coffee, Harry allowed himself two swigs and then asked straight out if he could borrow her phone for a couple of days.
She studied him with that pure, direct look of hers and said yes, if he’d thought the matter through.
Harry nodded, took the little red phone, kissed her on the cheek and carried his coffee down to the cafe. Five of the tables were already occupied, and more early-morning scarecrows were on their way. Harry sat at a free table and jotted down the numbers from his Chinese phone. Sent the important ones a short text message about his new temporary number.
Drug addicts are as inscrutable as other people, but in one area they are reasonably predictable, so when Harry left his Chinese mobile in the middle of the table and went to the toilet he was quite sure of the result. On his return the phone had vanished. It had gone on a journey the police would be able to follow around town via base stations.
Harry, for his part, walked out and down Toyengata to Gronland.
A police car rolled up the hill towards him. He immediately lowered his head, took out Martine’s phone and pretended he was in conversation as a pretext to shield most of his face.
The car passed. The next few hours would be about staying under cover.
More important, though, he knew something. He knew where to begin.
Truls Berntsen lay frozen under two layers of spruce twigs.
He had been playing the same film all night, over and over. Wolf-face, who had backed away carefully, repeating ‘easy’ like a prayer for a truce while they pointed their guns at each other. Wolf-face. The limousine driver outside Gamlebyen Cemetery. Dubai’s man. When he had stooped to grab the big guy whom Truls had shot, he had to lower his pistol and Truls had realised the man was willing to risk his life to save his pal. Wolf-face must have been an ex-soldier, an ex-policeman, there was some kind of honour crap going on, at any rate. A groan came from the big guy at that moment. He was alive. Truls felt both relief and disappointment. But he had let Wolf-face do it, let him haul the man to his feet and had heard the squelch of blood in his shoes as they staggered down the corridor to the rear door. Once they were outside he had pulled on his balaclava and run out, through reception, to the Saab, driven straight up here, not daring to go home. For this was the safe place, the secret place. The place where no one could see him, the place only he knew and where he went when he wanted to see her.
The place was in Manglerud, in a popular hiking area, but the hikers kept to the paths and never came up to his rock, which in any case was surrounded by a dense scrub forest.
Mikael and Ulla Bellman’s house stood on the ridge opposite the rock, and he had a perfect view of the living-room window where he had seen her sitting on so many evenings. Just sitting on the sofa, her beautiful face, her graceful body that had barely changed over the years, she was still Ulla — the most attractive girl in Manglerud. Sometimes Mikael was there too. He had seen them kissing and caressing each other, but they had always gone into the bedroom before anything else happened. He didn’t know that he wanted to see any more anyway. For he liked to see her sitting there alone best of all. On the sofa with a book and her feet drawn underneath her. Now and then she would cast a glance at the window as though she could feel she was being observed. And on those occasions he felt himself getting excited by the notion that she might know. Know he was out there somewhere.
But now the living-room window was black. They had moved. She had moved. And there were no safe viewing points near the new house. He had checked. And the way things were it wasn’t certain he was going to need one. Was going to need anything. He was a marked man.
They had tricked him into visiting Hole at Hotel Leon at midnight and then attacked.
They had tried to get rid of him. Tried to burn the burner. But why? Because he knew too much? But he was a burner, wasn’t he. Burners do know too much, that goes without saying. He couldn’t understand. Hell! It didn’t matter why, he had to make sure he stayed alive.
He was so cold and tired his bones ached, but he didn’t dare go home until it was light and he had checked the coast was clear. If he could get inside the door of his flat he had enough artillery to withstand a siege. He should have shot them both when he had the chance, but if they tried it on again they would see that it was not so bloody easy to nail Truls Berntsen.
Truls got up. Brushed the fir needles off his clothes, shivered and slapped his arms against his chest. Looked up at the house again. Dawn was beginning to break. He thought of the other Ullas. Like the little dark number at
