were tanned and happy in the picture – they must recently have returned from a holiday abroad. Behind them he could just make out a magnificent building and a statue of a horseman. Somewhere in France maybe. Normandy.
Harry perched on the edge of the bed and was caught by surprise when the bed moved. A waterbed. He lay back and felt how it moulded to the shape of his body. The cool duvet cover was wonderful against the bare skin of his arm. The water made a slapping sound inside the rubber mattress as he changed position. He closed his eyes.
Rakel. They were on a river. No, a canal. Their canal boat bobbed down and the water slapped against both sides making a kissing sound. They were below deck and Rakel lay quietly beside him in bed. She gave a low laugh as he whispered to her. Now she was pretending to sleep. He liked that. That she was pretending to sleep. It was a kind of game they played. Harry twisted round to look at her. His gaze fell on the mirror on the wardrobe door which reflected the whole of the bed. He looked at the open toolbox. On the top there was a short chisel with a green wooden handle. He lifted the tool up. Light, small, no sign of rust under the fine layer of builder’s plaster.
He was going to put the chisel back when his hand froze. There was a severed part of a body in the toolbox. He had seen the same thing at other crime scenes. Severed sexual parts. It took a second before he realised that the skin-coloured, very realistic-looking penis was merely a dildo.
He lay back on the bed again with the chisel still in his hand. He gulped.
After doing a job for so many years, going through people’s private property and personal lives on a daily basis, this was no big deal. That wasn’t why he gulped.
Here – in this bed.
Would have to have a drink now.
Sound carries over an enclosed space.
Rakel.
He tried not to think, but it was too late. Her body against his.
Rakel.
The erection came. Harry closed his eyes and could feel her hand moving, a sleeping person’s unconscious, arbitrary movement, and then resting on his stomach. Her hand just lay there as if it had no intention of going anywhere. Her lips against his ear, her warm breath sounding like the roar of something burning. Her lips began to move as soon as he touched her. Her small, soft breasts with the sensitive nipples that stiffened when he so much as breathed on them; her sex which would open and devour him. There was an explosion in his throat as if he wanted to cry.
Harry gave a start on hearing the door close on the floor below. He sat up, smoothed the duvet, stood up and checked himself over in the mirror. He rubbed his face hard with both hands.
Wilhelm insisted on staying outside to see if the canine Ivan could detect a scent.
As they were coming out of Sannergata, a red bus glided soundlessly away from the bus stop. A little girl stared at Harry through the back window; her round face grew smaller and smaller as the bus disappeared towards Rodelokka.
They walked to Kiwi and back without any reaction from the dog.
‘It doesn’t mean your wife hasn’t been here,’ Ivan said. ‘In a busy street with traffic and a lot of people around it’s difficult to isolate the scent of one person.’
Harry looked around him. He had the feeling that he was being observed, but the street was deserted, and all he saw in the windows of the row of house fronts was a dark sky and sun. An alkie’s paranoia.
‘Well,’ Harry said. ‘Then there’s nothing more we can do for the moment.’
Wilhelm stared at them in despair.
‘It’ll be alright,’ Harry said.
‘No, it won’t be alright,’ Wilhelm answered in the same flat voice that radio weather forecasters use.
‘Come here, Ivan!’ the police officer shouted, jerking the lead. The dog had stuck its nose under the front bumper of a VW Golf parked close to the kerb.
Harry gave Wilhelm a pat on the shoulder and avoided his intense stare.
‘All the patrol cars have been informed. If she doesn’t turn up before midnight, we’ll organise a search party. OK?’
Wilhelm did not answer.
Ivan barked at the Golf and pulled on his lead.
‘Wait a moment,’ the policeman said.
He went down on all fours, put his head close to the tarmac and stretched out an arm under the car.
‘Found anything?’ Harry asked.
The officer turned round. He was holding a lady’s high-heeled shoe. Harry heard Wilhelm sob behind him and asked: ‘Is this her shoe, Wilhelm?’
‘It won’t be alright,’ Wilhelm said. ‘It won’t be alright.’
10
Thursday and Friday.
Nightmares.
On Thursday afternoon a red mail van stopped outside a post office in Rodelokka. The contents of the postbox were emptied into a sack, eased gently into the back of the van and driven to the mail centre at Biskop Gunnerus gate 14, better known in Oslo as the Post House. The same evening, at the mail centre, the post was sorted by size and so the brown padded envelope ended up in a tray with other letters of C5 format. The envelope passed through several pairs of hands, though naturally enough no-one paid any special attention to it, nor when it was sorted by geographical area and was put first in the Ostland tray and then in the tray for postcode 0032.
When the letter finally lay in a post sack in the back of a red van ready for delivery the following morning, it was nighttime and most people in Oslo were sleeping.
‘It’ll be fine,’ the boy said, patting the round-faced girl on the head. He felt her long, thin hair stick to his fingers. It was electric.
He was eleven years old. She was seven and his little sister. They had been visiting their mummy at the hospital.
The lift arrived and they opened the door. A man wearing a white coat pushed the grille to one side, gave them a fleeting smile and left. They entered the lift.
‘Why is it such an old lift?’ the girl asked.
‘Because it’s an old house,’ the boy said, pulling the grille closed.
‘Is it a hospital?’
‘Not exactly,’ he said, pressing the button for the ground floor.
‘It’s a house for people who are very tired to rest a little.’
‘Is Mummy tired?’
‘Yes, but she’ll be fine. Don’t lean against the door, Sis.’
‘What?’
The lift started with a jerk and her long blonde hair moved. Electricity, he thought, and stared as the hair on her head slowly rose. Her hands shot up to her head, and she screamed. A thin, piercing scream that fixed him to the spot. Her hair was trapped on the other side of the grille. It must have been caught in the lift door. He tried to move, but it was as if he was stuck, too.
‘Daddy!’ she screamed and stood on the tips of her toes.
But Daddy had gone ahead to collect the car from the car park.
‘Mummy!’ she screamed as she was pulled off the lift floor. But Mummy lay in bed with a pallid smile on her face.
She kicked out wildly while clinging to her hair. If only he could move.
‘Help!’
Harry sat up in bed with a start. His heart was beating like a bass drum gone wild.
