ukulele-he would have killed for this dance.
'Wait-what have you got there?' she asked.
'Well, it's not a pistol and I am glad to see you, but…'
Harry undipped his mobile from his belt and released his hand from her waist to go over and put the mobile on the speaker. Her arms were raised towards him when he returned.
'Hope we haven't got any thieves here,' he said. It was a hoary old joke at Police HQ, she must have heard it a hundred times before, but she laughed softly into his ear anyway.
Ellen let the phone ring until it stopped before putting down the receiver. Then she tried again. She stood by the window, looking down on to the street. No car. Of course not. She was overwrought. Tom was probably on his way home to bed. Or someone else's bed.
After three attempts she gave up on Harry, and rang Kim instead. He sounded tired.
'I took the taxi back at seven this evening,' he said. 'I've done twenty hours' driving today.'
'I'll just have a shower first,' she said. 'Only wanted to know if you were there.'
'You sound stressed.'
'It's nothing. I'll be there in three quarters of an hour. I'll have to use your phone by the way. And stay the night.'
'Fine. Would you mind nipping into the 7-Eleven in Markveien and buying some cigarettes?'
'Sure. I'll take a cab.'
'Why?'
'Explain to you afterwards.'
'You know it's Saturday night? You'll never get through to Oslo Taxis. And it'll take you four minutes to run up here.' She wavered. 'Kim?' she said. 'Yes?' he said. 'Do you love me?'
She heard his low chuckle and could imagine the half-closed, sleepy eyes and that lean, almost emaciated body of his under the duvet in the miserable flat in Helgesens gate. He had a view of the river Akerselva. He had everything she wanted. And for an instant she almost forgot Tom Waaler. Almost.
'Sverre!'
Sverre Olsen's mother stood at the bottom of the stairs, shouting at the top of her lungs, as she had done for as long as he could remember. 'Sverre! Telephone!'
She shouted as if she needed help, as if she was drowning or something like that.
'I'll take it up here, Mum!'
He swung his legs down from the bed, picked the phone up from the desk and waited for the click that told him his mother had put down the receiver.
'Hello?'
'It's me.' Prince in the background. Always Prince. 'I guessed it had to be,' Sverre said. 'Why's that?'
The question came like greased lightning. So quickly that Sverre was immediately on the defensive, as if it was he who owed money and not the other way around.
'You're probably ringing because you got my message?' Sverre said.
'I'm ringing because I'm looking at a list of calls received on my mobile. I see that you talked to someone at 20.32 this evening. What message were you wittering on about?'
'About the cash. I'm getting short, and you promised -’
‘Who did you talk to?'
'Eh? The lady on your answerphone, I suppose. Pretty neat. Is it a new one of…?'
No answer. Just Prince on low volume. You sexy motherfucker… The music abruptly came to an end.
'Tell me what you said exactly.'
'I just said that -'
'No! Exactly. Word for word.'
Sverre repeated it as exactly as he was able.
'I guessed as much,' the Prince said. 'You've just given away our whole operation to an outsider, Olsen. If we don't plug the leak right away, we've had it. Do you understand?'
Sverre Olsen didn't understand anything.
The Prince was utterly composed as he explained that his mobile phone had fallen into the wrong hands.
'It was no answering machine you heard, Olsen.’
‘Who was it then?’
‘Let's say the enemy.'
'Monitor. Is there someone sniffing around?’
‘The person in question is on her way to the police. It's your job to stop her.'
'Me? I just want my money and -’
‘Shut your mouth, Olsen.' Olsen shut his mouth.
'This is about the Cause. You're a good soldier, aren't you?’
‘Yes, but…'
And a good soldier clears up afterwards, doesn't he?'
'I've just been running messages between you and the old codger. You're the one who -'
'Especially when the soldier has a three-year rap hanging over him, made conditional on a technicality.'
Sverre could hear himself swallow.
'How do you know that?' he started.
'Don't you bother about that. I only want you to realise that you have as much to lose because of this as the rest of the brotherhood.' Sverre didn't answer. He didn't need to.
'Look on the bright side, Olsen. This is war. And there's no place for cowards and traitors. Furthermore, the brotherhood rewards its soldiers. On top of the ten thousand you'll get forty more when the job's done.'
Sverre mulled it over. Mulled over what clothes he should wear.
'Where?' he asked.
'Schous plass in twenty minutes. Bring whatever you need with you.'
'Don't you drink?' Rakel asked.
Harry looked around him. Their last dance had been so tight it might have caused eyebrows to rise. Now they had withdrawn to a table at the back of the canteen.
'I've given it up,' Harry said.
She nodded.
'It's a long story,' he added. 'I've got plenty of time.'
'This evening I only feel like hearing funny stories,' he smiled. 'Let's talk about you instead. Have you had the kind of childhood you can talk about?'
Harry had half expected her to laugh, but he received only a tired smile. 'My mother died when I was fifteen. Apart from that, I can talk about the rest.'
'I'm sorry to hear that.'
'There's nothing to be sorry about. She was an exceptional woman, but funny stories were on the agenda this evening…’
‘Have you any brothers or sisters?’
‘No, there's only me and Father.’
‘So you had to take care of him on your own?' She eyed him with surprise.
'I know what it's like,' he said. 'I've also lost my mother. My dad sat in a chair staring at the wall for years. I had to feed him, literally'
'My father ran a large building-supplies chain he had started from scratch, and I believed it was his whole life. But when Mother died he lost all interest overnight. He sold it before it went to pieces. And he pushed everyone he knew away from him. Including me. He became a bitter, lonely old man.'
She spread out her hand.
'I had my own life to live. I had met a man in Moscow, and father felt betrayed because I wanted to marry a Russian. When I brought Oleg back to Norway, the relationship between me and my father became very problematical.'
Harry stood up and came back with a margarita for her and a Coke for himself.
