'Trond Grette knew, of course, that the police would search for anyone wearing a boiler suit observed in the area. He, therefore, had to have something on his boiler suit which would cause all the police swarming around to pay little attention to this unidentified person in Focus. The public always shies away from the police.'
'Interesting theory,' Ivarsson said with a sour smile and the tips of two fingers under his chin.
'She's right,' the Chief Superintendent said. 'Everyone has a fear of authority. Go on.'
'But, to be absolutely sure, he pretended to be a witness and volunteer information about a man he had seen walking past the fitness room wearing a boiler suit with POLITI on.'
'Which was a stroke of genius in itself,' Harry said. 'Grette told us this as if he was unaware that the police strip ruled the man out of our inquiries. Of course, it also strengthened Trond Grette's credibility in our eyes that he volunteered information which-seen from his point of view-might place him on the murderer's escape route.'
'Eh?' said Mшller. 'Repeat that one more time, Harry. Slowly.'
Harry took a deep breath. 'Oh, never mind,' Mшller said. 'I've got a headache.'
'Seven.'
'But you didn't do what she asked,' Harry said. 'You didn't spare your brother.'
'Of course not,' Trond said.
'Did he know you had killed her?'
'I had the pleasure of telling him myself. On the mobile. He was waiting in Gardemoen airport. I told him if he didn't get on the plane, I would go after him too.'
'And he believed you when you said you'd killed Stine?'
Trond laughed. 'Lev knew me. He didn't doubt it for a second. While I was giving him the details, he was reading about the raid on teletext in the business lounge. He switched off his phone when I heard them call his flight. His and Stine's. Hey, you!' He put the gun to Beate's head.
'Eight.'
'He must have thought he had a safe passage home,' Harry said. 'Didn't know about the contract in Sгo Paulo, though, did he.'
'Lev was a thief, but a naive thief. He should never have given me the secret address in d'Ajuda.'
'Nine.'
Harry tried to ignore Beate's robotic monotones. 'Then you sent instructions to the hired killer, and the suicide letter. Which you wrote with the same handwriting style you used to do Lev's essays.'
'Bravo,' Trond said. 'Good work, Harry. Apart from the fact that they had been sent before the bank job.'
'Ten.'
'Well,' Harry said, 'the contract killer also did good work. It really did look as if Lev had hanged himself. Even though the missing little finger business was perplexing. Was that the receipt?'
'Let's put it this way. A little finger fits nicely in a standard envelope.'
'Didn't think you could stand the sight of blood, Trond?'
'Eleven.'
Harry heard a distant rumble of thunder over the whistling, roaring wind. The field and the paths around them were deserted. Everyone had taken shelter from the looming storm.
'Twelve.'
'Why don't you just give yourself up?' Harry said. 'You know it's hopeless.'
Trond chuckled. 'Of course it's hopeless. That's the point, isn't it. No hope. Nothing to lose.'
'Thirteen.'
'So what's the plan, Trond?'
'The plan? I have two million kroner from the bank job and I'm planning a long-if not happy-life in exile. The travel plans have had to be put forward, but I was prepared for that. The car has been packed and ready ever since the robbery. You can choose between being shot or handcuffed to the fence.'
'Fourteen.'
'You know it won't work,' Harry said.
'Believe me, I know a lot about disappearing. Lev did nothing but. Twenty minutes' head start is all I need. I'll have changed transport and identity twice. I have four cars and four passports en route, and I have good contacts. In Sгo Paulo, for example. Twenty million inhabitants. You can start the search there.'
'Fifteen.'
'Your colleague will die soon, Harry. What's it going to be?'
'You've said too much,' Harry said. 'You're going to kill us anyway.'
'You'll have to take a risk and find out. What options have you got?'
'That you die before me,' Harry said, loading his gun.
'Sixteen,' whispered Beate.
Harry had finished.
'Amusing theory, Hole,' Ivarsson said. 'Especially the one about the contract killer in Brazil. Extremely…' He bared his small teeth into a thin smile: 'Exotic. There's no more? Proof, for example?'
'Handwriting. The suicide letter,' Harry said.
'You've just said it doesn't match Trond Grette's writing.'
'Not his usual writing, no. But the essays…'
'Have you got a witness to swear he wrote them?'
'No,' Harry said.
Ivarsson groaned: 'In other words, you don't have one single shred of incriminating evidence in this robbery case.'
'Murder case,' Harry said softly, eyeing Ivarsson. At the edge of his vision he could see Mшller staring at the floor, ashamed, and Beate wringing her hands in despair. The Chief Superintendent cleared his throat.
Harry released the safety catch.
'What are you doing?' Trond scrunched up his eyes and shoved the gun barrel into Beate's head so hard he forced it backwards.
'Twenty-one,' she groaned.
'Isn't it liberating?' Harry said. 'When you finally realise you have nothing to lose. That makes all decisions so much easier.'
'You're bluffing.'
'Am I?' Harry placed the gun against his left forearm and fired. The crack was loud and sharp. A few tenths of a second passed before the echo from the tall blocks came crashing back. Trond stared. A jagged edge stood up around the hole in the policeman's leather jacket and a white tuft of wool lining swirled away in the wind. The blood trickled through. Heavy, red droplets hit the ground with a muffled tick-tick clock-like sound, vanished in the mixture of shale and rotting grass to be absorbed by the soil. 'Twenty-two.'
The droplets grew and fell faster and faster, sounding like an accelerating metronome. Harry raised his gun, poked the barrel through a gap in the wire netting fence and took aim. 'That's what my blood looks like, Trond,' he said in a voice so low it was barely audible. 'Shall we have a peek at yours?'
At that moment the clouds covered the sun.
'Twenty-three.'
A dark shadow fell like a wall from the west, firstly across the fields, then across the terraced houses, the
