‘Do you think Camilla Loen was taking drugs?’ Harry asked.
Nygard’s head shot up. ‘Why should we think that?’
Harry closed his eyes and waited.
‘No,’ Vibeke said. Her voice was soft and low. ‘We don’t think so.’
Harry opened his eyes and smiled at her gratefully. Anders Nygard sent her a somewhat surprised look.
‘Her door wasn’t locked, was it?’
Anders Nygard nodded.
‘Don’t you think that was strange?’ Harry asked.
‘Not particularly. She was at home after all.’
‘Mm. You have a simple lock on your door and I noticed that you…’ he nodded towards Vibeke, ‘… locked up when I came in.’
‘She’s a bit anxious now,’ Nygard said, patting his partner’s knee.
‘Oslo isn’t what it was,’ Vibeke said.
Her eyes met Harry’s for a brief moment.
‘You’re right,’ Harry said. ‘And it seems as if Camilla Loen shared your opinion. Her flat has a double lock and security chains on the inside. She doesn’t strike me as a woman who would have a shower with the door unlocked.’
Nygard shrugged his shoulders. ‘Whoever did it could have picked the lock.’
Harry shook his head. ‘People only pick locks in films.’
‘Someone might already have been in the flat with her,’ Vibeke said.
‘Who?’
Harry waited in silence. When he considered that no-one was going to break the silence, he got up.
‘Someone will call you in for questioning. For the moment, thank you.’
In the hallway, he turned round.
‘By the way, who called the police?’
‘It was me,’ Vibeke said. ‘I rang while Anders went to fetch the caretaker.’
‘Before you’d found her? How did you know…?’
‘There was blood dripping into the pan.’
‘Oh? How did you know that?’
Anders Nygard gave a loud, exaggerated sigh and rested a hand on Vibeke’s neck: ‘It was red, wasn’t it.’
‘Well,’ Harry said, ‘there are other things than blood which are red.’
‘That’s right,’ Vibeke said. ‘It wasn’t just the colour though.’
Anders Nygard threw her a look of astonishment. She smiled, but Harry noticed that she moved away from her partner’s hand.
‘I used to live with a chef and we ran a little eating house together. That’s when I learned a few things about food. One of which was that blood contains albumin, and if you pour blood into a pan of water over sixty-five degrees, the blood coagulates and becomes lumpy. Just like when an egg cracks in boiling water. When Anders tasted the lumps in the water and said that they tasted of egg, I knew it was blood. And that something terrible had happened.’
Anders Nygard’s mouth fell open. He went suddenly very pale under his tan.
‘Bon appetit,’ Harry mumbled and left.
5
Friday. Underwater.
Harry hated theme pubs: Irish pubs, topless pubs, novelty pubs or, worst of all, celebrity pubs where the walls were lined with portraits of regular customers of some notoriety. The theme of Underwater was a vaguely nautical mix of diving and the romanticism of old wooden ships. But at some point, well into his fourth beer, Harry couldn’t care less about gurgling aquariums of green water, diving helmets and the rustic interiors of creaking wood. It could have been worse. The last time he had been here people had suddenly burst into a round of operatic favourites; for a moment he had the feeling that the musical had finally caught up with reality. He took stock and confirmed with some relief that none of the four guests in the pub looked as though they were considering breaking into song for the time being.
‘Everyone on holiday?’ he asked the girl behind the bar as she put his beer in front of him.
‘It’s seven o’clock.’ She gave him change for a hundred-kroner note although he had given her two hundred.
He would have gone to Schroder if he could, but he had a hazy recollection that he was banned there and he didn’t have the nerve to go and find out. Not today. He remembered fragments of some scene there on Tuesday. Or was it Wednesday? Someone had dragged up the time when he had been on TV and had been referred to as the ‘Norwegian Police Hero’ because he had shot a gunman in Sydney. Some guy had made a few remarks and called him names. Some of what he said had been spot on. Did they end up coming to blows? It was not impossible, but of course the injuries to his knuckles and nose that he woke up with could just as easily have been caused by a fall on the cobblestones in Dovregata.
Harry’s mobile phone rang. He stared at the number and saw that it wasn’t Rakel this time, either.
‘Hello, boss.’
‘Harry? Where are you?’ Bjarne Moller sounded concerned.
‘Underwater. What’s up?’
‘Water?’
‘Water. Fresh water. Salt water. Tonic water. You sound… What’s the word? Frazzled.’
‘Are you drunk?’
‘Not drunk enough.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. The battery keeps going, boss.’
‘One of the officers at the crime scene threatened to write a report on you. He says you were visibly intoxicated when you arrived.’
‘Why “threatened” and not “is threatening”?’
‘I persuaded him not to. Were you intoxicated, Harry?’
‘Of course I wasn’t, boss.’
‘Are you absolutely positive that you are telling me the truth now, Harry?’
‘Are you absolutely positive that you want to know?’
Harry heard Moller’s groan at the other end.
‘This cannot go on, Harry. I’ll be forced to put a stop to it.’
‘OK. Begin by taking me off this case.’
‘What?’
‘You heard me. I don’t want to work with that bastard. Put someone else on the case.’
‘We haven’t got the personnel to…’
‘Then give me the boot. I don’t give a monkey’s.’
Harry put his phone back in his inside pocket. He could hear Moller’s voice gently vibrating against his nipple. Actually it was quite a pleasant feeling. He drained the rest of his glass, stood up and staggered out into the warm summer evening. The third taxi he hailed in Ullevalsveien stopped and picked him up.
‘Holmenkollveien,’ he said, settling his sweaty neck back against the cool leather of the back seat. As they went along he gazed out of the window at the swallows as they dissected the pale blue sky in their search for food. The insects had come out now. This was the swallows’ window of opportunity, their chance to live. From now until the sun went down.
The taxi pulled up below a large, dark timber-clad house.
‘Shall I drive up?’ the taxi driver asked.
