out of his bedroom.’
Harry nodded. Was there more of a nip in the night air, or was he imagining it? Sivertsen shifted position.
‘During the day I had the house to myself. He had two daughters, one fourteen and the other sixteen. Bodil and Alice. For them, of course, I was incredibly exciting. An unheard of older half-brother who had dropped in out of the blue. Both of them fell in love with me, but I chose Bodil, the younger one. One day she came home early from school and I took her into her father’s bedroom. She was removing the blood-stained sheets afterwards when I chased her out, locked the door, gave the key to the gardener and asked him to give it to my father. At breakfast the next morning Father asked me if I wanted to work for him. That was how I got into smuggling diamonds.’
Sivertsen broke off.
‘Time’s ticking away,’ Harry said.
‘I worked from Oslo. Apart from a couple of early blunders that led to two conditional sentences, I did well. My speciality was going through customs at airports. It was very easy. Just dress up as a respectable person and don’t look frightened. And I wasn’t frightened; I didn’t give a damn. I used to wear a priest’s dog collar. Of course it’s such an obvious trick that it can arouse the suspicions of the customs people right away, but the thing is you also have to know how a priest walks, how he wears his hair, what shoes he likes, the way he holds his hands and the facial expression he uses. If you learn these things, you’ll almost never be stopped. A customs officer may still be suspicious, but the threshold for stopping priests is higher. Any customs officer going through a priest’s suitcase without finding anything while long-haired hippies stroll through is bound to be the subject of complaints. The customs set-up is like any other. They’re bent on giving the public a positive – though erroneous – impression that they’re doing a good job.
‘My father died of cancer in 1985. Randi’s incurable heart ailment was still incurable, but it was not bad enough to prevent her from flying back home and taking over the business. I don’t know if she found out that I had deflowered Bodil, but I soon found myself without work. Norway was no longer an area they wanted to operate in, she said, but she didn’t offer me anything else. After some years of unemployment in Oslo I moved to Prague, which was a smugglers’ El Dorado after the fall of the Iron Curtain. I spoke good German and soon found my feet. I earned fast money, but spent it just as quickly. I made friends, but no strong attachments to anyone. Not to women, either. I didn’t need to, because do you know what, Hole? I discovered that I had inherited a gift from my father – the power of falling in love.’
Sivertsen nodded towards the Iggy Pop poster.
‘There’s no greater aphrodisiac for a woman than a man who is in love. I specialised in married women – they didn’t give me so much trouble afterwards. When I was strapped for cash, they could also be a welcome, though fleeting, source of income. And so the years flitted by without a twinge of worry. For more than thirty years my smile was free, the bed my stamping ground and my dick the relay baton.’
Sivertsen rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes.
‘It must sound cynical, but you can take it from me that every declaration of love that came out of my mouth was just as genuine and sincere as those my stepmother received from my father. I gave them everything I had, until it was over and I showed them the door. I couldn’t afford a sanatorium. It always ended like that and that was how I thought it would always be. Until one autumn day I went into the cafe in Grand Hotel Europa in Wenceslas Square and there she was. Eva. Yes, that was her name, and it’s not true that para-doxes do not exist, Hole. The first thing that struck me was that she was no beauty; she just behaved like one. However, people who are convinced that they are beautiful are beautiful. I have a certain knack with women and I went over to her. She didn’t tell me to go to hell; she just treated me with a distant courtesy that drove me wild.’
Sivertsen gave a knowing smile.
‘There’s no stronger aphrodisiac for a man than a woman who’s not in love. She was twenty-six years younger than me, had more style than I will ever have and – most of all – she didn’t need me. She could continue with her work that she thinks I know nothing about, whipping German businessmen and giving them blow jobs.’
‘So why didn’t she?’ Harry asked, puffing smoke at Iggy.
‘She didn’t have a chance. I was in love, enough for two men, but I wanted her for myself, and Eva is like most women who are not in love – she values economic security. So, to acquire exclusivity I had to acquire some money. Smuggling blood diamonds from Sierre Leone was low-risk, but it did not produce enough money to make me irresistibly wealthy. Drugs was high-risk. That was how I got into smuggling arms and met Prince. We met twice in Prague to agree on procedures and conditions. The second time was in an open-air restaurant in Vaclav Square. I persuaded Eva to act the photo-snapping tourist, and the table where Prince and I were sitting happened to come up on the majority of the photos. People who don’t settle their accounts after I’ve done jobs for them usually receive a photo in the post together with a reminder. It works. Prince was promptitude personified, though, and I’ve never had any trouble with him. I only found out that he was a policeman some time later.’
Harry closed the window and sat on the sofa bed.
‘In spring I received a phone call,’ Sivertsen said. ‘From a Norwegian with an Ostland dialect. I’ve no idea how he managed to get hold of my telephone number. He seemed to know all about me. It was almost creepy. No, it was creepy. He knew who my mother was, about the prison sentences I had had, and about the pentagram- shaped blood diamonds I had specialised in for years. Worst of all, though: he knew I had started smuggling guns. He wanted both. A diamond and a Ceska with a silencer. He offered an unimaginably high sum. I said “no” to the weapon, that it would have to go via another channel, but he insisted it had to come directly through me, no middle-man. He raised his offer. And Eva is, as I have said, a demanding woman, and I couldn’t afford to lose her. So we agreed.’
‘What exactly did you agree?’
‘He had very specific requests regarding the delivery. It had to take place in Frogner Park, directly below the Monolith. The first delivery was just over five weeks ago. It had to be at five o’clock, in the peak period when tourists were about and people were walking in the park after work. That made it easier for him and for me to get in and out without attracting attention, he said. The chances of me being recognised were minimal anyway. Many years ago, at my local bar in Prague, I saw a Norwegian guy who used to beat me up at school. He looked right through me. He and a lady I had while she was honeymooning in Prague are the only people from Oslo I’ve seen since I moved away from here, you know.’
Harry nodded.
‘Anyway,’ Sivertsen said, ‘the client didn’t want us to meet and that was fine by me. I was to carry the items in a brown polythene bag and put it in the green litter bin at the centre of Frogner Park in front of the Fountain and then leave immediately. It was very important that I was on time. The agreed sum was paid up front into my account in Switzerland. He said that the simple fact that he had found me was unlikely to give me any ideas about tricking him and that was what he was counting on. He was right. Could I have a cigarette?’
Harry lit it for him.
‘The day after the first handover he rang me and ordered a Glock 23 and another blood diamond for the following week. Same place, same time, same procedure. It was a Sunday, but there were just as many people there.’
‘Same day and same time as the first killing, of Marius Veland.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Go on.’
‘This was repeated three times. Always with five days between. But the last time was a little different. I was told about two deliveries: one on the Saturday and one on the Sunday, yesterday that is. The client asked me to stay at my mother’s on Saturday night so that he could contact me should there be any changes to the plan. Fine by me. I was going to do that anyway. I was looking forward to seeing Mother. After all, I had good news for her.’
‘That she was going to be a grandmother.’
Sivertsen nodded.
‘And that I was going to get married.’
Harry stubbed out his cigarette.
‘So what you’re saying is that the diamond and the gun we found in your briefcase were for the handover on Sunday?’
