‘I’m not engaged. It’s the engagement ring my father gave my mother. I inherited it when she died.’
‘Right. That explains why you are wearing it on your right hand.’
‘Eh?’
‘Yes, you would usually wear it on your left hand. Or on the middle finger of your left hand, to be precise.’
‘The middle finger? I thought your ring finger was next to your little finger.’
‘Not if you have the same beliefs as the Egyptians.’
‘And what did they believe?’
‘They thought that the vein of love, vena amoris, went directly from the heart to the middle finger on the left hand.’
After the taxi had arrived and the woman had left, Beate stood for a moment looking at her hand, at the middle finger on her left hand.
Then she rang Harry.
‘The gun was Czech, too,’ Harry said when she finished.
‘Perhaps there’s something in it,’ Beate said.
‘Perhaps,’ Harry said. ‘What was the vein called again?’
‘ Vena amoris?’
‘ Vena amoris,’ Harry mumbled. Then he put down the receiver.
16
Monday. Dialogue.
You’re sleeping. I place my hand against your face. Have you missed me? I kiss your stomach. I go down lower and you begin to stir. Waves. A dance of elfins. You’re silent. You pretend to sleep. You can wake up now, darling. You have been found.
Harry sat bolt upright in bed. It took a few seconds before he realised that it was his own scream that had woken him. He stared out into the semi-darkness and studied the shadows by the curtains and the wardrobe.
He laid his head back on the pillow. What had he been dreaming about? He’d been in a dark room. Two people were moving towards each other in a bed. Their faces were hidden. He switched on his torch and was shining it at them when he was woken by his own scream.
Harry looked at the digits on the clock on his bedside table. It was still two and a half hours away from 7.00. You can dream your way to hell and back in that time. He had to sleep though. Had to. He took a deep breath as if he were going to dive under water, and closed his eyes.
17
Tuesday. Profiles.
Harry watched the second hand on the wall clock over Tom Waaler’s head.
They’d had to bring in extra chairs to accommodate everyone in the large conference room in the green zone on the sixth floor. There was almost an atmosphere of solemnity in the room: no chatting, no drinking of coffee, no reading of newspapers, just people scribbling on notepads, the silent waiting for the clock to advance to 8.00. Harry counted 17 heads, and that meant that only one person was missing. Tom Waaler stood at the front with his arms crossed, staring at his Rolex wristwatch.
The second hand on the wall clock moved, stopped and, quivering, stood to attention.
‘Let’s start,’ Tom Waaler said.
There was a rustle of movement as everyone, with one accord, sat up in their chairs.
‘I’ll be leading this investigation, assisted by Harry Hole.’
Heads round the table turned in surprise towards Harry, who sat at the back of the room.
‘First of all, I’d like to thank those of you who uncomplainingly cut short your holidays,’ Waaler continued. ‘I’m afraid you’ll be asked to sacrifice more than your holidays in the days to come, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to get round to you all to thank you personally, so let’s just say that this “thank you” is for the whole month. OK?’
There were smiles and nods round the table. As one smiles and nods to a future divisional commander, Harry thought.
‘This is a special day in many ways.’
Waaler switched on the overhead projector. The front page of Dagbladet appeared on the screen behind him. SERIAL KILLER ON THE LOOSE? No pictures, just this screaming headline in block capitals. It’s rare now for a news desk with any respect for the profession to use question marks on a front page, and what very few people knew – and no-one in Room K615 – was that the decision to add the question mark had been taken only minutes before the paper went to press after the acting editor rang his superior – on holiday in Tvedestrand – for advice.
‘We haven’t had a serial killer in Norway – as far as we know at least – since Arnfinn Nesset went berserk in the ’80s,’ Waaler said. ‘Serial killers are rare, so rare that this is going to attract attention beyond the borders of Norway. We’re already the subject of a lot of interest, folks.’
Tom Waaler’s subsequent pause for effect was unnecessary. All those present had already been made aware of the significance of the case when they were briefed on the phone by Moller the previous evening.
‘OK,’ Waaler said. ‘If we’re really up against a serial killer now, we have a number of advantages on our side. Firstly, in our midst we have someone who has investigated and caught a serial killer. I assume you all know about Inspector Harry Hole’s star turn in Sydney. Harry?’
Harry saw the faces turn towards him and cleared his throat. He could feel his voice threatening to desert him and he cleared his throat again.
‘I’m not so sure that the job I did in Sydney was a model investigation.’ He attempted a wry smile. ‘As you perhaps remember, I ended up shooting the man.’
No laughter, not even so much as the suspicion of a smile. Harry was no future divisional commander.
‘We can imagine worse outcomes than that, Harry,’ Waaler said, looking at his Rolex again. ‘Many of you know the psychologist Stale Aune, to whom we have turned for expert advice on several cases. He’s agreed to come and give us a short presentation on the phenomenon of serial killing. For some of you this is nothing new, but going over some old ground won’t do any harm. He should be here at -’
All heads went up as the door swung open. The man who entered was panting loudly. Above the rotund stomach bursting out of a tweed jacket was a floppy orange necktie and glasses so small that you wondered whether it was possible to see through them at all. Beneath a shiny pate was a forehead glistening with sweat and beneath that a pair of dark, possibly dyed, but at any rate neatly tended eyebrows.
‘Talk of the devil…’ Waaler said.
‘And here he is!’ Stale Aune completed, pulling out a handkerchief from his breast pocket and drying his forehead. ‘And devilishly hot it is too!’
He went up to the end of the table and dropped his worn, brown leather bag onto the floor with a bang.
‘Good morning, lady and gentlemen. Nice to see so many young people awake at this time of day. Some of you I have met before, others of you have been spared.’
Harry smiled. He was one of those who had definitely not been spared. Harry first went to see Aune about his drinking problems many years ago. Aune was no expert on drug abuse, but Harry had to admit a relationship had developed between them that bordered on a friendship.
‘Notepads out, sluggards!’
Aune hung his jacket over a chair.
‘You look as if you’re at a funeral, and that’s probably true in some respects, but I want to see a few smiles before I leave here. That’s an order. And hang onto my coattails. I’m going to whistle through this.’
Aune grabbed a marker from the ledge under the flip chart and began to write at breakneck speed while speaking:
