‘Fine? You don’t sound very convinced.’
‘Well, are you?’
‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
‘Because you don’t know who you can trust, not even you.’
Moller blinked twice, but failed to get an answer out; he flashed a glance across to the policeman sitting behind the wheel.
‘Can you wait for a second, boss?’
Harry got out of the car. Rakel let go of Oleg and he disappeared through the door.
She had her arms crossed in front of her chest and her eyes fixed on his shirt as he stood before her.
‘You’re wet,’ she said.
‘Well, when it rains…’
‘… I get wet.’ She smiled sadly and laid the palm of her hand against his cheek.
‘Is it over now?’ she whispered.
‘It’s over for now.’
She closed her eyes and leaned forwards. He took her in his arms.
‘He’ll manage OK,’ he said.
‘I know. He said he wasn’t afraid. Because you were there.’
‘Mm.’
‘How are you?’
‘Fine.’
‘And it’s true? It’s all over?’
‘Over.’ He mumbled into her hair. ‘Last day at work.’
‘Good,’ she said.
He could feel her body coming closer, filling all the small spaces between them.
‘Next week I start the new one. That’ll be good.’
‘The one you got via a pal?’ she asked, putting her hand on his neck.
‘Yes.’ The smell of her filled his head. ‘Oystein. Do you remember Oystein?’
‘The taxi driver?’
‘Yes. The exam for the taxi driver’s licence is on Tuesday. I’ve been mugging up street names in Oslo every single day.’
She laughed and kissed him on the mouth.
‘What do you think?’ he asked.
‘I think you’re crazy.’
Her laughter rippled like a little brook in his ears. He wiped a tear off her cheek.
‘I have to go now,’ he said.
She tried to smile, but Harry saw that she wouldn’t be able to.
‘I won’t manage,’ she blurted out before the sobs shook her voice.
‘You’ll manage,’ Harry said.
‘I can’t manage… without you.’
‘That’s not true,’ Harry said, pulling her close. ‘You can manage very well without me. The question is: Can you manage with me?’
‘Is that the question?’ she whispered.
‘I know you’ll have to think about it.’
‘You don’t know anything.’
‘Have a think first, Rakel.’
She tilted back her head and he held the arch of her spine. She contemplated his face. Looking for changes, Harry thought.
‘Don’t go, Harry.’
‘I’ve got a meeting. If you like, I’ll drop by early tomorrow morning. We could…’
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t know. I have no plans. Or ideas. Does that sound OK?’
She smiled.
‘That sounds perfect.’
He looked at her lips. Hesitated. Then he kissed her and left.
‘Here?’ the policeman behind the wheel asked, looking in the mirror. ‘Isn’t it closed?’
‘Twelve till three in the morning on workdays,’ Harry said.
The driver pulled into the kerb outside the Boxer.
‘Are you coming too, boss?’
Moller shook his head.
‘He wants to talk to you on his own.’
Serving had long since finished and the last guests were in the process of leaving the bar.
The head of Kripos was sitting at the same table as on the previous occasion. His deep eye sockets lay in shadow. The beer in front of him was almost finished. A crack opened in his face.
‘Congratulations, Harry.’
Harry squeezed his way in between the bench and the table.
‘Really good work. But you must tell me how you worked out that Sven Sivertsen was not the Courier Killer.’
‘I saw a photo of Sivertsen in Prague and remembered that I’d seen a photo of Wilhelm and Lisbeth in the same place. On top of that, forensics examined the remains of the excrement under…’
The Chief Superintendent leaned across the table and placed his hand on Harry’s arm. His breath smelled of beer and tobacco.
‘I don’t mean proof, Harry. I mean the idea. The suspicion. Whatever made you link the clues with the right man. What was the moment of inspiration? What was it that made you formulate the thought?’
Harry shrugged his shoulders. ‘You think all sorts of thoughts all the time. But…’
‘Yes?’
‘It all fitted too well.’
‘What do you mean?’
Harry scratched his chin. ‘Did you know that Duke Ellington used to ask the piano tuners not to tune the piano to perfect pitch?’
‘No.’
‘When a piano is tuned to perfection, it doesn’t sound good. There’s nothing wrong, it just loses some of the warmth, the feeling of genuineness.’
Harry poked at a piece of varnish on the table that was coming loose.
‘The Courier Killer gave us a perfect code that told us where and when. But not why. In this way he made us focus on actions rather than the motive. Every hunter knows that if you want to see your prey in the dark, you mustn’t focus on it directly, but beside it. It was when I stopped staring at facts that I heard it.’
‘Heard it?’
‘Yes. I could hear that these so-called serial killings were too perfect. They sounded right, but they didn’t sound genuine. The killings followed the formula down to the last detail; they gave us an explanation that was as plausible as any lie, but seldom as plausible as the truth.’
‘And you knew that?’
‘No, but I stopped being so myopic and my vision cleared.’
The head of Kripos nodded while staring down into the bulbous beer glass which he kept rotating between his hands on the table. It sounded like a grindstone in the quiet, almost deserted bar.
He cleared his throat.
‘I was wrong about Tom Waaler, Harry. And I apologise.’
Harry didn’t answer.
‘What I wanted to say to you is that I didn’t sign your dismissal papers. I would like you to continue working. I want you to know that you have my confidence. My complete and unreserved confidence. And I hope,
