Waaler gave a brief nod. Then he was gone again.
Beate put her hand on the old lady’s.
‘It’ll be alright,’ she said.
‘You’ll see that there’s been a mistake,’ Olaug said, without meeting her eyes.
Eleven, twelve. Beate heard the door opening in the hall.
Then she heard Waaler shout:
‘Police! My ID card is on the floor in front of you. Drop the gun or I’ll shoot!’
She felt Olaug’s hand jerk.
‘Police! Put down your gun or I’ll be forced to shoot!’
Why was he shouting so loudly? They couldn’t be more than five or six metres apart.
‘For the last time!’ Waaler shouted.
Beate got up and took her revolver out of the holster she had in the belt across her shoulder.
‘Beate…’ Olaug’s voice shook.
Beate looked up and met the old lady’s imploring eyes.
‘Drop your weapon! You’re shooting at a policeman.’
Beate took the four steps to the door, pulled it open and stepped into the hallway with her weapon raised. Tom Waaler was two metres away, with his back to her. In the doorway stood a man wearing a grey suit. He was holding a suitcase in one hand. Beate had taken a decision based on what she thought she would see. That was why her first reaction was one of confusion.
‘I’ll shoot!’ Waaler shouted.
Beate could see the open mouth and the stunned face of the man standing in line with the front door. Waaler had already thrust his shoulder forward to take the recoil when he pulled the trigger.
‘Tom…’
She said it in a low voice, but Tom Waaler’s back went as rigid as if she had shot him from behind.
‘He hasn’t got a gun, Tom.’
Beate had the feeling she was watching a film. An absurd scene where someone had pressed the pause button and the picture was locked in position, frozen; the picture quivered and jerked and time stood still. She waited for the crack of the gun, but it didn’t come. Tom Waaler was not crazy. Not in a clinical sense. He didn’t lack control where his impulses were concerned. That was presumably what had frightened her most at that time. The cold control as he abused her.
‘Since you’re here, anyway…’ Waaler said finally. His voice sounded strained. ‘… perhaps you can put the handcuffs on our prisoner.’
31
Saturday. ‘Isn’t it wonderful to have someone to hate?’
It was almost midnight when for the second time Bjarne Moller met the press outside the entrance to Police HQ. Only the brightest of stars shone through the heat-haze over Oslo, but he had to shield his eyes against the flashbulbs and the camera lights. Short, stabbing questions rained down on him.
‘One at a time,’ Moller said, pointing to a raised arm. ‘And please introduce yourself.’
‘Roger Gjendem, Aftenposten. Has Sven Sivertsen confessed?’
‘At the present moment the suspect is being interviewed by the man leading the investigation, Inspector Tom Waaler. Until the interviews are over I cannot answer your question.’
‘Is it true that you found weapons and diamonds in Sivertsen’s case? And that the diamonds are identical to those you found on the victims’ bodies?’
‘I can confirm that this is true. Over there, yes please.’
A young woman’s voice. ‘Earlier this evening you said that Sven Sivertsen lives in Prague, and in fact I have been able to find out his official address. It’s a boarding house, but they say that he left there more than a year ago and no-one seems to know where he lives. Do you?’
The other journalists were taking notes before Moller answered.
‘Not yet.’
‘I managed to get talking to a couple of the residents there,’ the woman’s voice said with barely concealed pride. ‘They said Sven Sivertsen had a young girlfriend. They didn’t know her name, but one of them suggested she was a prostitute. Are the police aware of this?’
‘We weren’t until this minute,’ Moller said. ‘But we appreciate your help.’
‘And we do, too,’ shouted one voice in the crowd, followed by all-male hyena laughter. The woman smiled uncertainly.
A question in Ostfold dialect: ‘ Dagbladet. How’s his mother taking it?’
Moller caught the journalist’s eye and bit his lower lip to prevent himself from snarling in anger.
‘I cannot make any judgment on that. Yes. Please.’
‘ Dagsavisen. We’re wondering how it’s possible that Marius Veland’s body could lie for four weeks in the loft of his building, in the hottest summer ever without anyone discovering it.’
‘We are as yet uncertain about the precise timing of this, but it looks as if a plastic bag was used, similar to a suit bag which was then sealed and made airtight before being…’ Moller searched for the right words, ‘hung in the wardrobe in the loft of the student block.’
A low mumble ran through the throng of journalists and Moller wondered if he had given away too much detail.
Roger Gjendem was asking another question.
Moller saw his mouth moving as he listened to the tune that was buzzing round in his head. ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You.’ She had sung it so well on Beat for Beat, her sister, the one who was taking over the main role in the musical, what was her name again?
‘I apologise,’ Moller said. ‘Could you repeat that, please.’
Harry and Beate were sitting on a low wall set back from the jostling crowd of journalists, watching and smoking a cigarette. Beate had announced that she was a social smoker and took one from the packet that Harry had just bought.
Harry himself didn’t feel any need to be sociable. Just to sleep.
They saw Tom Waaler coming out of the main entrance smiling into the hail of flashbulbs going off. The shadows were dancing a victory jig against the wall of Police HQ.
‘He’ll be a celebrity now,’ Beate said. ‘The man who led the investigation and single-handedly arrested the Courier Killer.’
‘With two guns and stuff?’ Harry smiled.
‘Yes, it was just like the Wild West. And can you tell me why you would ask someone to put down a weapon they don’t have?’
‘Waaler probably meant the weapon Sivertsen was carrying. I would’ve done the same.’
‘Of course, but do you know where we found his gun? In his suitcase.’
‘For all Waaler knew, he could have been the fastest gun in the West from a standing suitcase.’
Beate laughed. ‘You’re coming afterwards for a beer, aren’t you?’
Their eyes met and her smile became fixed as her blush spread over her neck and face.
‘I didn’t mean…’
‘It’s fine. You can celebrate for us both, Beate. I’ve done my bit.’
‘You could come with us, anyway?’
‘Don’t think so. This was my last case.’
Harry flicked his cigarette away and it flew like a firefly through the night.
‘Next week I won’t be a policeman any more. Perhaps I ought to feel that there is something to celebrate, but I don’t.’
‘What will you do?’
‘Something else.’ Harry got up. ‘Something completely different.’
