against his ear.
‘We’re at the scene of the crime and it is the same pattern,’ Harry said. ‘You’ll have to get things moving and cancel holidays, boss. We’re going to need everyone you can muster.’
‘Is it a copycat killing?’
‘Out of the question. We’re the only ones who know about the mutilation and the diamonds.’
‘This is very inconvenient, Harry.’
‘Convenient serial murders are rare, boss.’
Moller went quiet for a few moments.
‘Harry?’
‘I’m still here, boss.’
‘I’m going to ask you to spend your final weeks assisting Tom Waaler on this case. You’re the only person in Crime Squad who has any experience of serial killings. I know you’ll say no, but I’m going to ask you anyway. Just to get us moving, Harry.’
‘OK, boss.’
‘This is more important than the disagreements between you and Tom… What did you say?’
‘I said it was fine.’
‘Do you mean that?’
‘Yes. I’ll have to be going now though. We’ll be here most of the evening, so it would be good if you could organise the first meeting of those involved in the case for tomorrow. Tom suggests eight o’clock.’
‘Tom?’ Moller asked in astonishment.
‘Tom Waaler.’
‘I know who it is. I’ve just never heard you use his Christian name before.’
‘The others are waiting for me, boss.’
‘OK.’
Harry slipped the phone back into his pocket, tossed the plastic beaker into the litter bin, locked himself in one of the cubicles in the Gents and clung onto the toilet bowl as he threw up.
Afterwards he stood in front of the basin with the tap running, looking at himself in the mirror. He listened to the buzz of voices from the corridor. Beate’s assistant was urging people to keep behind the barriers; Waaler was telling policemen to find out who had been in the vicinity of the building; Magnus Skarre was shouting to a colleague that he wanted a cheeseburger without chips.
When the water finally ran cold, Harry stuck his face under the tap. He let the water run down his cheek, into his ear, down over his neck, inside his shirt, along his shoulder and down his arm. He drank greedily. He refused to listen to the enemy deep inside him. Then he ran into the cubicle and threw up again.
Outside, the evening had drawn in quickly and Carl Berners plass lay deserted as Harry walked out of the building, lit a cigarette and raised a hand in defence to one of the newspaper vultures approaching him. The man stopped. Harry recognised him. Gjendem, wasn’t that his name? He had chatted to him after the case in Sydney. Gjendem was no worse than the others, maybe even a little better.
The television shop was still open. Harry went in. There was no-one about except for a fat man in a filthy flannel shirt sitting behind the counter reading a newspaper. On the counter an electric fan was blowing around his carefully placed strands of hair intended to conceal his baldness, and radiating his sweaty odour all over the shop. He sniffed when Harry showed him his ID and asked whether he had seen anyone suspicious inside or outside the shop.
‘They’re all suspicious here,’ he said. ‘This area is going to the dogs.’
‘Anyone who looked like they might kill someone?’ Harry asked drily.
The man squeezed one eye shut. ‘Is that why there are so many police cars round here?’
Harry nodded.
The man shrugged his shoulders and began to read the paper again.
‘Who hasn’t thought about killing someone at one time or another, Constable?’
On his way out Harry stopped when he saw his own car on one of the television screens. The camera swept across Carl Berners plass and stopped when it met the redbrick building. Then the picture went back to TV2 news and the next moment it was a fashion show. Harry sucked hard at his cigarette and closed his eyes. Rakel was coming towards him on a catwalk, no, twelve catwalks. She walked through the wall with the television sets on and stood in front of him with her hands on her hips. She fixed him with a look, tossed her head back, turned round and left him. Harry opened his eyes again.
It was 8.00. He tried not to remember that there was a bar close by, in Trondheimsveien. They had a licence to serve spirits.
The hardest part of the evening lay before him.
Then there was the night.
It was 10.00, and even though the mercury had mercifully dropped by two degrees, the air was still hot and static, waiting for an offshore breeze or an onshore breeze, or any kind of breeze. Forensics was deserted except for Beate’s office where a light still burned. The murder in Carl Berners plass had turned the whole day upside down and Beate was still at the crime scene when her colleague Bjorn Holm had rung to say there was a woman in reception from De Beers who had come to examine some diamonds.
Beate had returned in a hurry and now she was concentrating on the short, energetic woman in front of her who spoke the perfect kind of English you would expect from a Dutch person settled in London.
‘Diamonds have geological fingerprints which, theoretically, makes it possible for us to trace them right back to the owner as certificates, which go everywhere with the diamond, are issued showing their origin. Not in this case though, I’m afraid.’
‘Why not?’ Beate asked.
‘Because the two diamonds I have seen are what we call blood diamonds.’
‘Because of the red colour?’
‘No, because they most probably come from the Kiuvu mines in Sierra Leone. All the diamond dealers in the world boycott diamonds from Sierra Leone because the diamond mines are controlled by rebel forces who export diamonds to finance a war that is not about politics, but about money. Hence the name, blood diamonds. I believe these diamonds are new, and I suppose they have been smuggled out of Sierra Leone to another country where false certificates have been issued claiming they come from well-known mines in, say, South Africa.’
‘Any idea which country they were smuggled into?’
‘Most of them end up in ex-communist countries. When the Iron Curtain came down, the expertise acquired making false ID papers had to find a new outlet. And authentic-looking diamond certificates cost a pretty penny. That’s not the only reason, however, that I would go for Eastern Europe.’
‘Oh?’
‘I have seen these star-shaped diamonds before. They were smuggled in from the former GDR and Czechoslovakia. Like these ones, they were ground into diamonds of mediocre quality.’
‘Mediocre quality?’
‘Red diamonds may look attractive, but they’re cheaper than the white ones, the clear diamonds. The stones you’ve found also have substantial remains of uncrys-tallised carbon in them which makes them less clear than one would like. If you have to grind away so much of the diamond to produce the star shape, then you prefer not to use diamonds that are perfect from the very start.’
‘So, East Germany and Czechoslovakia.’ Beate closed her eyes.
‘Just an educated guess. If there’s nothing else, I can still make the evening flight back to London…’
Beate opened her eyes and got up.
‘Please forgive me. It’s been a long, hectic day. You’ve been a great help. Thank you very much for coming.’
‘Not at all. I only hope that it can help you catch the person who did this.’
‘So do we. I’ll call you a taxi.’
While Beate waited for Oslo Taxis to answer she noticed that the diamond expert was looking at her right hand holding the telephone. Beate smiled.
‘That’s a very attractive diamond you’ve got there. Looks like an engagement ring.’
Beate blushed without quite knowing why.
