'Death.' Birger Holmen still had his head in his hands, but his voice was quite distinct. 'So you think my son was killed? Why?'
'I was hoping you could tell us.'
Birger Holmen did not answer.
'Was it because he threatened her?' Harry asked. 'Was it to give your wife peace of mind?'
Holmen raised his head. 'What are you talking about?'
'My guess is you hung around Plata waiting. And when he turned up, you followed him after he had bought his fix. You took him down to the container terminal, as he sometimes went there when he had nowhere else.'
'How am I supposed to know that?! This is outrageous. I-'
'Of course you knew. I showed this photo to the watchman, who recognised the person I was asking about.'
'Per?'
'No, you. You were there this summer asking if you could search the containers for your son.'
Holmen stared at Harry, who went on:
'You had it all planned. Wire cutters to get in and an empty container, which was an appropriate place for a drug addict to end his life, where no one could hear or see you shoot him. With the gun you knew Per's mother could testify was his.'
Halvorsen studied Birger Holmen and held himself in readiness, but Holmen showed no signs of making any kind of move. He breathed heavily through his nose and scratched his forearm while staring into space.
'You can't prove any of this.' He said this in a resigned tone, as if it were a fact he regretted.
Harry made a conciliatory gesture. In the ensuing silence they could hear loud barking from down in the street.
'It won't stop itching, will it,' Harry said.
Holmen stopped scratching at once.
'Can we see what itches so much?'
'It's nothing.'
'We can do it here or down at the station. Your choice, herr Holmen.'
The barking increased in intensity. A dog sled, here, in the middle of the city? Halvorsen had a feeling there was going to be an explosion.
'Fine,' Holmen whispered, unbuttoning the cuff and pushing up his sleeve.
There were two small sores with scabs on. The skin around them was red and inflamed.
'Turn your arm round,' Harry ordered.
Holmen had a matching sore underneath.
'They itch like hell, dog bites, don't they,' Harry said. 'Especially after ten to fourteen days when they begin to heal. A doctor down at A amp;E told me that I had to try and stop scratching. You should have done that too, herr Holmen.'
Holmen gazed at his sores without seeing them. 'Should I?'
'The skin is punctured in three places. We can prove that a particular dog down at the container terminal bit you – we have a model of its jaw. Hope you managed to defend yourself.'
Holmen shook his head. 'I didn't want… I just wanted her to feel free.'
The barking in the street came to a sudden end.
'Are you going to confess?' Harry asked, signalling to Halvorsen, who thrust a hand into his inside pocket. Without finding pen or paper. Harry rolled his eyes and gave him his own notepad.
'He said he was so low,' Holmen said, 'that he couldn't go on. That now he really wanted to give up. So I searched around and found him a room in the Salvation Army Hostel. A bed and three meals a day for twelve hundred kroner a month. And he was promised a place on the methadone project. There was just a couple of months to wait. But then I heard nothing from him, and when I rang the Hostel, they said he had absconded without paying the rent, and… well, then he turned up here again. With the gun.'
'And you decided there and then?'
'He was a goner. I had already lost my son. And I couldn't let him take her with him.'
'How did you find him?'
'Not in Plata. He was down in Eika and I said I would buy the gun off him. He was carrying it and showed it to me. Wanted the money on the spot. But I said I didn't have enough money. He should meet me at the gate at the back of the container terminal the next evening. You know, in fact I'm glad you have… I…'
'How much?' Harry interrupted.
'What?'
'How much did you have to pay?'
'Fifteen thousand kroner.'
'And…'
'He came. It turned out he didn't have any ammunition for the weapon. Never did have, he said.'
'But you must have had an inkling that would be the case, and it's a standard calibre, so you bought some?'
'Yes.'
'Did you pay him first?'
'What?'
'Forget it.'
'You have to understand it wasn't only Pernille and I who suffered.
For Per every day was a prolongation of his suffering. My son was a dead person waiting for… for someone to stop his heart that would not stop beating. A… a…'
'Redeemer.'
'Yes, that's it. A redeemer.'
'But that's not your job, herr Holmen.'
'No, it's God's job.' Holmen bowed his head and mumbled something.
'What?' asked Harry.
Holmen raised his head, but his eyes were staring into empty space. 'If God doesn't do His job, though, someone else has to do it.'
On the street, a brown dusk had descended around the yellow lights. Even in the middle of the Oslo night the darkness was never total when snow had fallen. Noises were wrapped in cotton wool and the creaking of snow underfoot sounded like distant fireworks.
'Why don't we take him with us?' Halvorsen asked.
'He's not going anywhere. He has something to tell his wife. We'll send a car in a couple of hours.'
'Bit of an actor, isn't he?'
'Eh?'
'Well, wasn't he sobbing his guts out when you brought him the news of his son's death?'
Harry shook his head in resignation. 'You've got a lot to learn, Junior.'
Annoyed, Halvorsen kicked at the snow. 'Enlighten me, O Wise One.'
'Committing a murder is such an extreme act that many repress it. They can walk around with it like a kind of half-forgotten nightmare. I have seen that several times now. It's when others say it out loud that they realise it is not only something that exists in their head. It did happen.'
'Right. A cold fish, anyway.'
'Didn't you see the man was crushed? Pernille Holmen was probably right when she said that her husband was the loving one.'
'Loving? A murderer?' Halvorsen's voice quivered with indignation.
Harry laid a hand on the detective's shoulder. 'Think about it. Isn't it the ultimate act of love? Sacrificing your only son?'
'But…'
'I know what you're thinking, Halvorsen. But you'll just have to get used to the idea. This is the type of moral paradox that will fill your days.'
Halvorsen pulled at the unlocked car door, but it was frozen fast. In a sudden bout of fury he heaved and it
