'So that Thea wouldn't find them if she was alone in the flat?'
Jon gave a slow nod.
Harry went out to the steps overlooking the farmyard, took a few final drags on his cigarette, threw it into the snow and took out his mobile phone. Gunnar Hagen answered on the third ring.
'I've moved Jon Karlsen,' Harry said.
'Be specific.'
'Not necessary.'
'Pardon?'
'He's safer now than he was. Halvorsen will stay here tonight.'
'Where, Hole?'
'Here.'
Listening to the silence on the phone, Harry had an inkling of what was coming. Then Hagen's voice came through loud and clear.
'Hole, your commanding officer has just asked you a specific question. Refusing to answer is regarded as insubordination. Am I making myself clear?'
Harry often wished he had been wired in a different way and that he possessed a bit more of the social survival instinct most people have. But he didn't, and he never had done.
'Why is it important for you to know, Hagen?'
Hagen's voice shook with fury. 'I'll tell you when you can ask me questions, Hole. Have you got that?'
Harry waited. And waited. And then, hearing Hagen take a deep breath he said: 'Skansen Farm.'
'What did you say?'
'It's east of Strommen. The police training ground in Loren Forest.'
'I see,' Hagen said at length.
Harry rang off and punched in another number while watching Thea, who, illuminated by the moon, was standing and staring in the direction of the outside toilet. She had stopped shovelling snow and her body was frozen in a strange pose.
'Skarre here.'
'Harry. Anything new?'
'No.'
'No tip-offs?'
'Nothing serious.'
'But people are ringing in?'
'Christ, yes, they've twigged there's a reward on offer. Bad idea, if you ask me. Loads of extra work for us.'
'What do they say?'
'What don't they say! They describe faces they've seen that are similar. The funniest one was a guy who rang the duty officer claiming he had chained Stankic to his bed at home and asked if he was entitled to the reward.'
Harry waited until Skarre's peal of laughter died away. 'How did they establish that he hadn't?'
'They didn't need to. He put down the phone. Obviously confused. He claimed he had seen Stankic before. With a gun in the restaurant. What are you up to?'
'We- What did you say?'
'I asked if-'
'No, the bit about seeing Stankic with a gun.'
'Ha ha, people have got fertile imaginations, haven't they.'
'Put me through to the duty officer you spoke to.'
'Well-'
'Now, Skarre.'
Harry was put through, spoke to the officer in charge and after three sentences asked him to stay on the line.
'Halvorsen!' Harry's shout rang around the farmyard.
'Yes?' Halvorsen appeared in the moonlight in front of the barn.
'What's the name of that waiter who saw a guy in the toilet with a gun covered in soap?'
'How am I supposed to remember that?'
'I don't care how, just do it.'
In the night stillness the echoes rang out between the walls of the house and the barn.
'Tore something or other. Maybe.'
'Bullseye! Tore's the name he gave on the phone. Good man. And now the surname, please.'
'Er… Bjorg? No. Bjorang? No…'
'Come on, Lev Yashin!'
'Bjorgen. That was it. Bjorgen.'
'Drop the spade. You have permission to drive like a maniac.'
A police car stood waiting for them as twenty-eight minutes later Halvorsen and Harry drove past Vestkanttorget and turned into Schives gate to Tore Bjorgen's address, which the duty officer had been given by the head waiter at Biscuit.
Halvorsen came to a halt next to the police car and rolled down the window.
'Second floor,' the policewoman in the driver's seat said, pointing up to an illuminated window in the grey- brick facade.
Harry leaned across Halvorsen. 'Halvorsen and I'll go up. One of you stay here in contact with the station, and one of you come with us to the backyard and keep an eye on the kitchen stairs. Have you got a gun in the boot I can borrow?'
'Yep,' the woman said.
Her male colleague bent forward. 'You're Harry Hole, aren't you?'
'That's right, Officer.'
'Someone at the station said you don't have a gun licence.'
'Didn't have, Officer.'
'Oh?'
Harry smiled. 'Overslept the first shooting test in the autumn. But you will be pleased to know that in the second I was the third best in the whole force. OK?'
The two officers exchanged glances.
'OK,' the man mumbled.
Harry jerked open the car door and the frozen rubber seal groaned. 'OK, let's check if there's anything in this tip-off.'
For the second time in two days Harry had an MP5 in his hands as he buzzed the intercom of someone called Sejerstedt and explained to a nervous lady's voice that they were from the police. She could go to the window and see the police car before she opened up. She did as he suggested. The female officer went into the backyard and took up position while Halvorsen and Harry went up the staircase.
The name Tore Bjorgen was written in black on a brass plate above a doorbell. Harry thought of Bjarne Moller, who the first time they had gone into action together had taught Harry the simplest and still the most effective method of finding out whether someone was at home. He pressed his ear against the glass in the door. There wasn't a sound from inside.
'Loaded and safety catch off?' Harry whispered.
Halvorsen had taken out his service revolver and was standing against the wall on the left of the door.
Harry rang.
Holding his breath, he listened.
Then he rang a second time.
