Harry hoped that meant that he had appreciated the point; that there was less risk for the Griever if Harry signed out the prisoner according to regulations. That way, later on, he could tell the detectives everything exactly as it happened. Instead of risking being caught lying when he said that no-one had come in or gone out at the time of the mysterious death in cell number nine. He hoped Groth was thinking at this very moment that Harry could take a weight off his mind at the stroke of a pen and that this was good news. No reason to double-check. After all, Waaler had said that this idiot was on their side now.
The Griever cleared his throat.
Harry scribbled his name on the dotted line.
‘March,’ he said, giving Sivertsen a shove.
The night air in the car park outside the custody block tasted like cold beer in his throat.
34
Sunday Night. The Ultimatum.
Rakel woke up.
She had heard the door go downstairs.
She rolled over in bed and looked at the clock: 12.45.
She stretched and lay still, listening. The feeling of sleepy well-being was replaced by the tingle of expectation. She would pretend that she was sleeping when he crept into bed. She knew it was a childish game, but she enjoyed it. He would just lie there breathing. And when she turned in her sleep and her hand happened to touch his stomach, she would hear him breathing faster and deeper. Then they would lie there without moving and see who could hold out longest, a kind of competition. And he would lose.
Maybe.
She closed her eyes.
After a while, she opened them again. A nagging fear had entered her mind.
She got up, opened the bedroom door and listened.
Not a sound.
She went over to the stairs.
‘Harry?’
Her voice sounded anxious and it frightened her even more. She pulled herself together and went downstairs.
There was no-one there.
She concluded that the unlocked front door had not been properly closed and that she had woken up when it blew open.
After locking it she sat down in the kitchen with a glass of milk. She listened to the creaking of the wooden house. The old walls seemed to be talking.
At 1.30 she got up. Harry had gone back to his place. And he would never know that he could have won tonight.
On her way to the bedroom a thought occurred to her and created momentary panic. She turned back. And gave a sigh of relief when she saw from the door of Oleg’s room that he was asleep in bed.
Nevertheless, she woke up an hour later with nightmares and lay tossing and turning for the rest of the night.
The white Ford Escort passed through the summer’s night like a rumbling, ageing submarine.
‘Okernveien,’ Harry mumbled. ‘Sons gate.’
‘What?’ Sivertsen asked.
‘Just talking to myself.’
‘What about?’
‘About the shortest route.’
‘Where to?’
‘You’ll soon find out.’
They parked down a small one-way street where a few detached houses had strayed into a zone of high-rise flats. Harry leaned over Sivertsen and pushed the door open on the passenger side. The car had been broken into a number of years ago and the passenger door wouldn’t open from the outside. Rakel joked about it, about cars and the personality of car owners. He was not sure that he had grasped the subtext. Harry walked round the car to the passenger door, pulled Sivertsen out and told him to stand with his back to him.
‘Are you a southpaw?’ Harry asked while unlocking the handcuffs.
‘What?’
‘Do you punch best with your left hand or your right?’
‘Oh, I see. I don’t punch.’
‘Terrific.’
Harry attached the handcuffs to Sivertsen’s right wrist and to his own left. Sivertsen sent him a surprised look.
‘Don’t want to lose you, old chap.’
‘Wouldn’t it have been easier to point a gun at me?’
‘Course it would, but I had to be a good boy and hand it over a couple of weeks ago. Let’s go.’
They cut across a field towards the dark, heavy profiles of high-rise flats towering up against the night sky.
‘Nice to be back in old familiar territory?’ Harry asked when they stood in front of the entrance to the student block.
Sivertsen shrugged his shoulders.
Once inside, Harry heard something he would have preferred not to hear. Footsteps on the stairs. He shot a quick glance around. He saw the light in the porthole-shaped window in the lift door and stepped sideways into the lift, dragging Sivertsen after him. The lift rocked under their weight.
‘Guess which floor we’re going to!’ Harry said.
Sivertsen rolled his eyes as Harry dangled a bunch of keys with a plastic skull attached in front of his face.
‘Not in the mood for games? OK, take us to the fourth, Sivertsen.’
Sivertsen pressed the button with the figure four on and looked up, waiting for the lift to move. Harry scrutinised Sivertsen’s face. He was a damned good actor; he had to give him that.
‘The grille,’ Harry said.
‘What?’
‘The lift won’t move unless you close the grille. You know that.’
‘This?’
Harry nodded. The metal rattled as Sivertsen pulled the grille door to the right. The lift still didn’t budge.
Harry felt a bead of sweat forming on his brow.
‘Pull it right to the end,’ Harry said.
‘Like this?’
‘Cut out the play-acting,’ Harry said, swallowing. ‘It has to be pulled right over. If it doesn’t touch the contact on the floor by the door frame, the lift won’t work.’
Sivertsen smiled.
Harry clenched his right fist.
The lift gave a jerk and the white brick wall began to move behind the black, glistening iron grille. They passed one lift door and through the porthole Harry saw the back of someone’s head, going downstairs. One of the students, he hoped. At any rate, Bjorn Holm had said that forensics had finished their work here.
‘You don’t like lifts, do you?’
Harry didn’t answer; he just watched the wall gliding by.
‘A tiny little phobia?’
