end of the beach.
'Doubt it,' Weber said. 'There won't be anyone staying at this time of the year.'
'Who found the body?'
'Anonymous call from a telephone box in Moss. To the Moss police.'
'The murderer?'
'Don't think so. He said he saw a pair of legs sticking up when he was taking his dog for a walk.'
'Have they got the conversation on tape?'
Weber shook his head. 'He didn't ring the emergency number.'
'What do you make of this?' Waaler motioned towards the corpse.
'The doctors still have to send in their report, but to me it looks like he was buried alive. No external signs of violence, but blood in the nose and mouth and burst blood vessels in the eyes suggest a large accumulation of blood in the head. In addition, we found sand deep in his throat, which means he must have been breathing when he was buried.'
'I see. Anything else?'
'The dog was tied to the railing outside his chalet up there. Great big, ugly Rottweiler. In surprisingly good shape. The door wasn't locked. No signs of a struggle inside the chalet, either.'
'In other words, they marched in, threatened him with guns, tied up the dog, dug a hole for him and asked him if he would mind jumping in.'
'If there were several of them.'
'Big Rottweiler, one-and-a-half-metre-deep hole. I think we can take that as read, Weber.'
Weber didn't react. He had never had a problem working with Waaler. The man was a talented investigator, one of the few; his results spoke for themselves. But that didn't mean Weber had to like him. Although dislike wasn't perhaps the right word. It was something else, something which made you think of Spot the Difference pictures. You couldn't quite put your finger on what it was, but there was something that disquieted you. Disquieted, that was the word.
Waaler crouched down beside the body. He knew Weber didn't like him. That was fine by him. Weber was an older police officer working in Forensics, who was going nowhere, who could not conceivably affect Waaler's career or life in any way. He was, to cut a long story short, not someone he needed to like him.
'Who identified him?'
'A few of the locals popped by,' Weber answered. 'The owner of the grocery shop recognised him. We got hold of his wife in Oslo and brought her out here. She's confirmed it's Arne Albu.'
'And where is she now?'
'In the chalet.'
'Has anyone questioned her?'
Weber shrugged.
'I like being the first on the scene,' Waaler said, leaning forward and snapping a close-up of the face.
'Moss police district has the case. We've just been called in to assist.'
'We have the experience,' Waaler said. 'Has anyone politely explained that to the country clods?'
'A couple of us have in fact investigated murder before,' a voice behind them said. Waaler peered up at a smiling man in a black leather police jacket. The epaulettes bore one star and gold edges.
'No offence taken,' the inspector laughed. 'I'm Paul Sшrensen. You must be Inspector Waaler.'
Waaler briefly acknowledged him and ignored Sшrensen's moves to shake hands. He didn't like physical contact with men he didn't know. Nor with men he did know, for that matter. It was another matter with women. As long as he was in control, anyway. And he was.
'You haven't investigated anything like this before, Sшrensen,' Waaler said, prising open one of the dead man's eyelids and revealing a blood-red eyeball. 'This isn't a pub stabbing or a drunken misadventure. That's why you called us in, isn't it?'
'This doesn't look like anything local, no,' Sшrensen said.
'I suggest you and the boys stick around here and keep watch while I go and have a word with the corpse's wife.'
Sшrensen laughed as if Waaler had told a good joke, but stopped when he saw Waaler's raised eyebrows over the Police sunglasses. Tom Waaler stood up and began to walk to the police cordon. He counted slowly to three, then he shouted without turning: 'And move that police car. I see you've parked in the turnaround, Sшrensen. Forensics will be looking for tyre tracks from the murderer's car. Thanking you.'
He didn't need to turn to know the smile had been wiped off Sшrensen's jolly face. And that the crime scene had just been taken over by Oslo police district.
'Fru Albu?' Waaler enquired as he entered the living room. He had decided he wanted this over as quickly as possible. He had a lunch date with a promising young girl, and he intended to keep it.
Vigdis Albu looked up from the photo album she was flicking through. 'Yes?'
Waaler liked what he saw. The meticulously maintained body, the confident way she was sitting, the studied TV hostess-style casualness and the third button of her blouse undone. He also liked what he heard. The soft voice simply made for the special words he liked his women to say. And he liked the mouth he already hoped he would hear the words come out of.
'Inspector Tom Waaler,' he said, taking a seat opposite her. 'I understand what a shock this must have been for you. It is, of course, a clichй, and I doubt it has any significance for you at this time, but I would like to extend my sympathy to you. I have also lost someone very close to me.'
He waited. Until she was obliged to look up and he could catch her eyes. They were blurred, and at first Waaler thought tear-blurred. It wasn't until she answered that he realised she was drunk: 'Have you got a cigarette, Constable?'
'Call me Tom. I don't smoke. Sorry.'
'How long do I have to be here, Tom?'
'I'll arrange it so that you can leave as soon as possible. I just need to ask a few questions, OK?'
'OK.'
'Good. Have you any idea who could have wanted to take the life of your husband?'
Vigdis Albu rested her chin on her hand and gazed out of the window. 'Where's the other constable, Tom?'
'Pardon me?'
'Shouldn't he be here?'
'Which constable, fru Albu?'
'Harry. He's got this case, hasn't he?'
The main reason Tom Waaler had advanced through the ranks faster than anyone else from his intake year was that he had worked out that no one, not even defence counsels, would probe how he had obtained evidence of the accused's demonstrable guilt. The next reason was that he had sensitive antennae. Of course, on occasion, they didn't react when they should have. But they never reacted when they shouldn't have. And they were reacting now.
'Are you referring to Harry Hole, fru Albu?'
'You can stop here.'
Tom Waaler still liked the voice. He pulled into the kerb, leaned forward and looked up at the pink house towering over the hill. The morning sun glinted on an animal-like object in the garden.
'That was very nice of you,' Vigdis Albu said. 'To persuade Sшrensen to let me leave, and to drive me
