Nemesis

Harry.

'It's a method Ellen and I used when we questioned suspects. One of us always ran the interview while the other just sat listening. If the interview was getting into a rut, we had a break. If I had done the talking, I would go out and Ellen would start up about other mundane things. Like giving up smoking or everything on TV was crap nowadays. Or she noticed how much she paid in rent since she had split up with her bloke. After they had chatted for a while, I would poke my head in and say something had cropped up and she would have to take over.'

'Did it work?'

'Every time.'

They went up the stairs to the barrier in front of the prison concourse. The prison officer behind the thick bulletproof glass nodded to them and pressed a button. 'Warder will be along in a minute,' came the nasal voice.

The prison warder was squat with bulging muscles and a dwarf's waddle. He led them to the cell block. A three-storey-high gallery with rows of light blue cell doors encircling a rectangular hall. Wire netting towered up between the floors. There was no one to be seen and the silence was only broken by a door being slammed shut somewhere.

Harry had been here many times before, but it always seemed absurd to him to think that behind all these doors were the people whom society thought fit to keep locked up against their will. He didn't quite know why he found the thought so monstrous, but it was something to do with seeing the physical manifestation of publicly institutionalised retribution for crime. The scales and the sword.

The warder's bunch of keys jangled as he unlocked a door inscribed with VISITORS in black letters. 'Here you are. Just knock when you're ready to leave.'

They stepped in and the door banged to behind them. In the ensuing silence Harry's attention was caught by the low intermittent hum of a neon tube and the plastic flowers on the wall, which cast pale shadows across the washed-out watercolours. A man was sitting erectly on a chair, placed exactly in the middle of the yellow wall behind a table. His forearms rested on the table on either side of a chessboard; his hair was drawn back tightly behind his ears. He was wearing a smooth overall-like uniform. The well-defined eyebrows and the shadow which fell on the straight nose formed a clear T every time the neon tube blinked. It was predominantly his expression, however, that Harry remembered from the funeral, the conflicting combination of suffering and a poker face which reminded Harry of someone.

Harry motioned to Beate to sit by the door. He took a chair to the table and sat down opposite Raskol. 'Thank you for taking the time to meet us.'

'Time is cheap here,' Raskol said in a surprisingly bright and gentle voice. He talked like an Eastern European with strong 'r's and clear diction.

'I understand. I'm Harry Hole and my colleague is-'

'Beate Lшnn. You're like your father, Beate.'

Harry heard Beate's gasp and half-turned. Her face had not reddened; on the contrary, her pale skin was even whiter and her mouth had frozen into a grimace, as if she had been slapped.

Looking down at the table, Harry coughed, and noticed for the first time that the almost eerie symmetry either side of the axis dividing him from Raskol was broken by one minor detail: the king and the queen on the chessboard.

'Where have I seen you before, Hole?'

'I'm mostly to be seen in the vicinity of dead people,' Harry said.

'Aha. The funeral. You were one of Ivarsson's guard dogs.'

'No.'

'So you didn't like that, eh? Being called his guard dog. Is there bad blood between you?'

'No,' Harry reflected. 'We just don't like each other. You didn't either, I understand.'

Raskol smiled gently and the neon tube flickered into life. 'I hope he didn't take it personally. It looked like a very expensive suit.'

'I think his suit suffered most.'

'He wanted me to tell him something. So I told him something.'

'That snitches are marked for life?'

'Not bad, Inspector. But the ink will fade with time. Do you play chess?'

Harry tried not to show that Raskol had used the correct rank. He might have guessed.

'How did you manage to hide the transmitter afterwards?' Harry asked. 'I heard they turned the whole block upside down.'

'Who said I hid anything? Black or white?'

'They say you're still the brains behind most of the big bank robberies in Norway, that this is your base and your part of the proceeds is paid into a foreign account. Is that why you made sure you were put in A-Wing in Botsen? Because you can meet the short-termers who are soon out and can execute the plans you hatch here? And how do you communicate with them on the outside? Have you got mobile phones here, too? Computers?'

Raskol sighed. 'A promising start, Inspector, but you're beginning to bore me already. Shall we play or not?'

'A boring game,' Harry said. 'Unless there's something in the pot.'

'Fine by me. What shall we play for?'

'This.' Harry held up a keyring with one single key and a brass nameplate.

'And what's that?' Raskol asked.

'No one knows. Occasionally you have to take a risk that what's in the pot has some value.'

'Why should I?'

Harry leaned forward. 'Because you trust me.'

Raskol laughed out loud. 'Give me one reason why I should trust you, Spiuni.'

'Beate,' Harry said without taking his eyes off Raskol. 'Would you mind leaving us on our own?'

He heard the banging on the door and the rattle of keys behind him. The door was opened and there was a smooth click as the lock fell into place.

'Have a look.' Harry put the key on the table.

Without removing his eyes from Harry's, Raskol asked: 'AA?'

Harry picked up the white king from the board. It was hand-carved and a handsome piece. 'Those are the initials of a man with a delicate problem. He was rich. He had a wife and children. House and chalet. Dog and lover. Everything in the garden seemed rosy.' Harry turned the piece on its head. 'But as time passed, the rich man changed. Events made him realise that the family was the most important thing in his life. So he sold his company, got rid of the lover and promised himself and his family that now they would live for each other. The problem was that the lover began to threaten the man with exposing their relationship. She may have blackmailed him, too. Not because she was greedy, but because she was poor. And because she was finishing off a piece of art which she thought would crown her life's work, and she needed money to launch it. She pressed him harder and harder, and one night he decided to pay her a visit. Not just any evening, but this special evening, because she had told him an old flame was coming round. Why did she tell him? Perhaps to make him jealous? Or to show there were other men who wanted her? He wasn't jealous. He was excited. This was a wonderful opportunity.' Harry looked at Raskol. He had crossed his arms and was watching Harry. 'He waited outside. Waited and waited, watching the lights in her flat. Just before midnight the visitor left. An arbitrary man who-should it ever come to that-would not have an alibi, who others presumably would confirm had spent the whole evening with Anna. Her watchful neighbour, if no one else, would have heard this man ring earlier in the evening. Our man didn't ring, though. Our man let himself in with a key. Crept up the stairs and unlocked the door to her flat.'

Harry picked up the black king and compared it with the white. If you didn't look too closely, you could be deceived into thinking they were identical.

'The weapon is not registered. It may have been Anna's; it may have been his. I don't know exactly what happened in the flat, and the world will probably never know, as she is dead. From the police point of view, it is an open and shut case: suicide.'

'I? Police point of view?' Raskol stroked his goatee. 'Why not we and our point of view? Are you trying to tell me you're flying solo here, Inspector?'

'What do you mean?'