‘How’s your dad?’
‘Days away.’
‘Sorry to hear that.’
‘Thank you.’
They looked at each other. And suddenly it struck Harry that this was a face he would see at the funeral. A small pale face he had seen at other funerals, tear-stained, with large tragic eyes. A face as if made for funerals.
‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked.
‘I know only one killer who has murdered in this way,’ Harry said, turning back to the view.
‘He reminds you of the Snowman, does he?’
Harry nodded slowly.
She sighed. ‘I promised I wouldn’t say, but Rakel rang.’
Harry stared at the blocks of flats in Helsfyr.
‘She asked about you. I said you were fine. Did I do the right thing, Harry?’
Harry took a deep breath. ‘Sure.’
Beate remained in the doorway for a while. Then she left.
How is she? How is Oleg? Where are they? What do they do when night falls, who looks after them, who keeps watch? Harry rested his head on his arms and covered his ears with his hands.
Only one person knows how Prince Charming thinks.
The afternoon gloom descended without warning. The Captain, the overenthusiastic receptionist, rang to say someone had called to ask if Iska Peller, the Australian lady in Aftenposten, was staying there. Harry said it was probably a journalist, but the Captain thought even the lowest press vermin knew the rules of the game; they had to introduce themselves by name and state where they worked. Harry thanked him and was on the point of asking him to call back if he heard any more. Until he considered what this invitation would involve. Bellman rang to say there was a press conference; if Harry felt like taking part, then…
Harry declined and could hear Bellman’s relief.
Harry drummed on the desk. Lifted the receiver to phone Kaja, but cradled it again.
Raised it again and rang some city centre hotels. None of them could recall being asked questions about anyone called Iska Peller.
Harry looked at his watch. He felt like a drink. He felt like going into Bellman’s office, asking what the hell he had done with his opium, raising his fist and watching him cower…
Only one person knows.
Harry got up, kicked the chair, grabbed his woollen coat and strode out.
He drove to town and parked in a glaringly illegal spot outside the Norwegian Theatre. Crossed the street and went to the hotel reception desk.
The Captain had acquired his nickname while he was working as a doorman at the same hotel. The reason was probably a combination of the gaudy red uniform and the fact that he was continually commenting on, and issuing commands to, everyone and everything around. Furthermore, he saw himself as an intersection for anything of importance that happened in the city centre, the man with his finger on the city’s pulse, the man who knew. The Informant with a capital I, an inestimable part of the police force’s machinery keeping Oslo safe.
‘Right at the very back of my brain, I can hear a rather special voice,’ the Captain said, tasting his own words with an appreciative smack. Harry caught the rolling eyes of his colleague standing next to the Captain behind the reception desk.
‘Sort of gay,’ the Captain concluded.
‘Do you mean high-pitched?’ Harry asked, thinking of something Adele’s friends had mentioned. Adele had said it was a turn-off the way her boyfriend spoke, like her gay flatmate.
‘No, more like this.’ The Captain crooked his hands, fluttered his eyelashes and peformed a parody of a loud-mouthed queen. ‘I’m just sooo cross with you, Soren!’
His colleague, who, sure enough, was wearing a name tag inscribed with SOREN, giggled.
Harry thanked him and again it was on the tip of his tongue to ask the Captain to call him should anything else occur to him. He went outside. Lit a cigarette and looked up at the hotel sign. There was something… At that moment he spotted the Traffic Department car parked behind his and the overalled warden jotting down his registration number.
Harry crossed the street and held up his ID card. ‘I’m on police business.’
‘Makes no difference. No parking is no parking,’ Overalls said without pausing his writing. ‘Send in a complaint.’
‘Well,’ Harry said, ‘you know we also have the authority to dish out parking fines if we want to?’
The man poked up his head and grinned. ‘If you think I’m going to let you write your own fine, you’re wrong, pal.’
‘I was thinking more of that car.’ Harry pointed.
‘That’s mine and the Traffic-’
‘No parking is no parking.’
Overalls sent him a grouchy look.
Harry shrugged. ‘Send in a complaint. Pal.’
Overalls slammed his notepad shut, spun on his heel and walked back to his car.
As Harry drove up Universitetsgata, his phone rang. It was Gunnar Hagen. Harry could hear the quiver of excitement in the usually controlled voice of the Crime Squad boss.
‘Come here right away, Harry.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Just come. The culvert.’
Harry heard the voices and saw the flashes going off long before he had reached the end of the concrete corridor. Gunnar Hagen and Bjorn Holm were standing by the door to his old office. A woman from Krimteknisk was brushing the door and door handle for fingerprints while a Holm lookalike was taking pictures of half a boot print in the corner.
‘The print’s old,’ Harry said. ‘It was here before we moved in. What’s going on?’
The lookalike questioned Holm, who nodded that would be enough.
‘One of the prison wardens discovered this on the floor by the door,’ Hagen said, holding up an evidence bag containing a brown envelope. Through the transparent bag Harry read his name. Printed on an address label stuck to the envelope.
‘The prison warden reckoned it had been lying here for a couple of days max. People don’t go through this culvert every day, of course.’
‘We’re measuring the moisture in the paper,’ Bjorn said. ‘We’ve put a similar envelope here and are waiting to see how long it takes to reach the same level of moisture. Then we work backwards.’
‘There you go. Shades of CSI,’ Harry said.
‘Not that the timing will help us,’ Hagen said. ‘There are no surveillance cameras where I assume he must have been. Which, of course, is fairly straightforward. Into a busy reception area, in the lift, down here, no locked doors before you go up into the prison.’
‘No, why should we lock up here?’ Harry said. ‘Anyone object to me having a smoke?’
No one answered, but looks were eloquent enough. Harry shrugged.
‘I suppose at some point someone is going to tell me what was in the envelope,’ he said.
Bjorn Holm held up another evidence bag.
It was difficult to see the contents in the poor lighting, so Harry stepped closer.
‘Oh shit,’ he said and recoiled half a step.
‘The middle finger,’ Hagen said.
‘The finger looks as if it might have been broken first,’ Bjorn said. ‘Clean, smooth cut, no ragged skin. Chop. An axe. Or a large knife.’
From the culvert came the resonant sound of rapid strides approaching.
Harry stared. The finger was white, drained of blood, but the tip was a bluish-black.
‘What’s that? Have you taken fingerprints already?’
