'Thank you, boss.' Harry took the last printout of the pictures off the paper tray and studied the man with the scarf Beate had ringed. 'You may just have given us a clue.'
'We don't need to thank each other for doing our jobs, Hole.' Hagen took the rest of the printouts and marched out.
Halvorsen peered up as Harry raced into the office.
'Got a lead,' Harry said. Halvorsen sighed. This phrase tended to mean loads of work and nothing to show for it.
'I'm going to ring Alex in Europol,' Harry said.
Halvorsen knew Europol was Interpol's little sister in The Hague, set up by the EU after the terrorist actions in Madrid in 1998 to focus specifically on international terror and organised crime. What he didn't know was why this Alex was often willing to help Harry when Norway was not in the EU.
'Alex? Harry, from Oslo. Could you check something out for me, please?'
Halvorsen listened to Harry asking Alex in his jerky but effective English to search the database for offences committed by suspected international criminals in Europe over the last ten years. Search words: 'contract killing' and 'Croat'.
'I'll wait,' Harry said, and waited. Then, in surprise, 'That many?' He scratched his chin, then asked Alex to add 'gun' and 'nine millimetre' to the search.
'Twenty-three hits, Alex? Twenty-three murders with a Croat as the suspect? Jesus! Well, I know that wars create professional hit men, but nevertheless. Try 'Scandinavia'. Nothing? OK, have you got any names, Alex? None? Hang on a sec.'
Harry looked at Halvorsen as though hoping for a few timely words, but Halvorsen just shrugged.
'OK, Alex,' Harry said. 'One last attempt.'
He asked him to add 'red neckerchief ' or 'scarf ' to the search.
Halvorsen could hear Alex laughing on the line.
'Thanks, Alex. Talk to you soon.'
Harry put down the receiver.
'Well?' said Halvorsen. 'Lead gone up in smoke?'
Harry nodded. He had slumped a few notches lower in his chair, but then straightened up with a start. 'We have to think along new lines. What have we got? Nothing? Great, I love blank sheets of paper.'
Halvorsen remembered Harry had once said that what separates a good detective from a mediocre one is the ability to forget. A good detective forgets all the times his gut instinct lets him down, forgets all the leads he has believed in that led nowhere. And pitches in, naive and forgetful again, with undiminished enthusiasm.
The telephone rang. Harry snatched at the receiver. 'Harr-' But the voice at the other end was already in full flow.
Harry got up from behind the desk and Halvorsen could see the knuckles on his hand around the receiver going white.
'Wait, Alex. I'll ask Halvorsen to take notes.'
Harry held his hand over the receiver and called to Halvorsen: 'He tried one last time for fun. Dropped Croat, nine millimetre and the other things, and searched under red scarf. Found Zagreb in 2000 and 2001. Munich in 2002 and Paris in 2003.'
Harry went back to the phone. 'This is our man, Alex. No, I'm not sure, but my gut feeling is. And my head says that two murders in Croatia are not a coincidence. Have you any further details Halvorsen can jot down?'
Halvorsen watched Harry gape in astonishment.
'What do you mean no description? If they remember the scarf, they must have noticed other things. What? Normal height? Is that all?'
Harry shook his head as he listened.
'What's he saying?' Halvorsen whispered.
'Wide discrepancies between statements,' Harry whispered back.
Halvorsen noted down 'discrepancies'.
'Yes, great, email me the details. Well, thanks for now, Alex. If you find anything else, such as a suspected haunt or something like that, give me a buzz, OK? What? Ha ha. Right, I'll send you a copy of me and my wife.'
Harry rang off and noticed Halvorsen's quizzical stare.
'Old joke,' Harry said. 'Alex thinks all Scandinavian couples make private porno films.'
Harry dialled another number, discovered while he was waiting for an answer that Halvorsen was still looking at him and sighed. 'I've never even been married, Halvorsen.'
Magnus Skarre had to shout to be heard over the coffee machine, which appeared to be suffering from a serious lung condition. 'Perhaps there are a number of hit men from a hitherto unknown gang who wear red scarves as a kind of uniform.'
'Rubbish,' drawled Toril Li, taking her place in the coffee queue behind Skarre. She was holding an empty mug with the slogan 'The World's Best Mum'.
Ola Li gave a little chuckle. He took a seat by the table inside the kitchenette which functioned as a canteen for the Crime and Vice Squads.
'Rubbish?' said Skarre. 'It could be terrorism, couldn't it? Holy war against the Christians? Muslims. Then all hell would be let loose. Or perhaps it's los dagos. They wear red scarves, don't they?'
'They prefer to be called Spaniards,' said Toril Li.
'Basques,' said Halvorsen, sitting at the table across from Ola Li.
'Eh?'
'Bull running. San Fermin in Pamplona. The Basque country.'
'ETA!' shouted Skarre. 'Shit, why didn't we think of them before?!'
'You should write film scripts, you should,' Toril Li said. Ola Li was laughing out loud now, but said nothing, as usual.
'And you two should stick to bank robbers on Rohypnol,' Skarre mumbled, referring to the fact that Toril Li and Ola Li, who were neither married nor related, had come from the Robberies Unit.
'There's just the little detail that terrorists tend to claim responsibility,' Halvorsen said. 'The four cases we received from Europol were hits, and then it all went quiet afterwards. And the victims have generally been involved in something or other. Both the victims in Zagreb were Serbs who had been acquitted of war crimes, and the one in Munich had been threatening the hegemony of a local baron involved in people smuggling. And the guy in Paris was a paedophile with two previous convictions.'
Harry Hole wandered in with a mug in his hand. Skarre, Li and Li filled their cups and instead of sitting down, ambled off. Halvorsen had noticed that Harry had that effect on colleagues. The inspector sat down, and Halvorsen saw the troubled furrow in his brow.
'Soon be twenty-four hours,' Halvorsen said.
'Yes,' said Harry, staring into his still empty mug.
'Is anything the matter?'
Harry paused. 'I don't know. I called Bjarne Moller in Bergen. To get some constructive ideas.'
'What did he say?'
'Not a great deal. He sounded…' Harry searched for the word. 'Lonely.'
'Isn't his family with him?'
'They were supposed to follow.'
'Trouble?'
'Don't know. I don't know anything.'
'What's bothering you then?'
'He was drunk.'
Halvorsen knocked his mug of coffee and spilt it. 'Moller? Drunk at work? You're kidding?'
Harry didn't answer.
'Perhaps he wasn't well or something like that?' Halvorsen added.
'I know what a drunken man sounds like, Halvorsen. I have to go to Bergen.'
'Now? You're leading a murder investigation, Harry.'
'I'll be there and back in a day. You hold the fort in the meantime.'
