‘Since you appear to know me,’ Harry said, ‘who do I have the pleasure of meeting?’
‘I doubt it will be much of a pleasure for either of us, Hole. So I suggest you leave the area now and never show your face near a Kripos crime scene again. Is that understood?’
‘Well, received but not completely understood. What about if I can help the police in the form of a tip about how Marit Olsen-’
‘The only help you’ve given the police’, the gentle voice interrupted, ‘has been to besmirch its reputation. In my book, you’re a drunk, a lawbreaker and vermin, Hole. So my advice to you is this: crawl back under the stone you came from before someone crushes you with their heel.’
Harry looked at the man, and his gut instinct and his brain concurred: Take it. Withdraw. You have no ammunition to counter with. Be smart.
And he really wished he was smart; he would really have appreciated that quality. Harry took out his pack of cigarettes.
‘And that someone would be you, would it, Bellman? You are Bellman, aren’t you? The genius who sent the sauna-ape after me?’ Harry nodded towards the Finn. ‘Judging from that attempt, I doubt you would be able to crush… er… er…’ Harry struggled feverishly to remember the analogy, but it wouldn’t come. Bloody jet lag.
Bellman interceded. ‘Piss off now, Hole.’ The POB jerked his thumb behind him. ‘Come on. Hop it.’
‘I-’ Harry began.
‘That’s it,’ Bellman said with a broad smile. ‘You’re under arrest, Hole.’
‘What?!’
‘You’ve been told three times to vacate the crime scene and you haven’t complied. Hands behind your back.’
‘Now listen here!’ Harry snarled with a niggling feeling that he was a very predictable rat caught in the laboratory maze. ‘I just want-’
Berntsen, alias Beavis, jogged his arm, knocking the cigarette out of his mouth and onto the wet ground. Harry bent down to pick it up, but got Jussi’s boot in his backside and toppled forwards. He banged his head on the ground and tasted earth and bile. And heard Bellman’s soft voice in his ear.
‘Resisting arrest, Hole? I told you to put your hands behind your back, didn’t I? Told you to put them here…’
Bellman placed his hand lightly on Harry’s bottom. Harry breathed hard through his nose without moving. He knew exactly what Bellman was after. Assault on a police officer. Two witnesses. Paragraph 127. Sentence: five years. Game over. And even though this was already as clear as day to Harry, he knew that Bellman would get what he wanted before long. So he concentrated on something else, excluded Beavis’s grunted laugh and Bellman’s eau de cologne from his mind. He thought about her. About Rakel. He put his hands behind his back, on top of Bellman’s hand and turned his head. Now the wind had blown away the fog hanging over them and he could see the slim, white diving tower outlined against the grey sky. Something was dangling aloft, from the platform, a rope perhaps.
The handcuffs clicked gently into place.
Bellman stood in the car park by Middelthunsgate watching them as they drove away. The wind was tugging gently at his coat.
The custody officer was reading the newspaper when he noticed the three men in front of the counter.
‘Hi, Tore,’ Harry said. ‘Got a non-smoker with a view?’
‘Hi, Harry. Long time no see.’ The officer picked up a key from the cupboard behind him and passed it to Harry. ‘Honeymoon suite.’
Harry saw the confusion on Tore’s face when Beavis leaned forward, grabbed the key and snarled, ‘He’s the prisoner, you old git.’
Harry grimaced an apology to Tore as Jussi frisked him and turned up some keys and a wallet.
‘Would you mind ringing Gunnar Hagen, Tore? He-’
Jussi snatched at the handcuffs, cutting into Harry’s skin, and Harry tumbled backwards after the two men heading for the custody block.
Once they had locked him in the two-and-a-half by one-and-a-half-metre cell, Jussi went back to Tore to sign the papers while Beavis stood outside the barred door, peering in at Harry. Harry could see he had something on his chest and waited. And at last it came, in a voice shaking with suppressed fury.
‘How does it feel, eh? You being such a bloody hotshot, catching two serial killers, being on TV and all that? And here you are now, looking at bars from the inside, eh?’
‘What are you so angry about, Beavis?’ Harry asked softly and closed his eyes. He could feel the swell in his body as if he had just come ashore after a long voyage.
‘I’m not angry. But as far as punks shooting good policemen are concerned, I’m furious with them.’
‘Three mistakes in one sentence,’ Harry said, lying down on the cell bed. ‘First of all, it’s “is” not “are”, secondly Inspector Waaler was not a good policeman and thirdly I didn’t shoot him. I pulled off his arm. Here, up by the shoulder.’ Harry demonstrated.
Beavis’s mouth opened and shut, but nothing emerged.
Harry closed his eyes again.
13
Office
The next time Harry opened his eyes, he had been lying in the cell for two hours, and Gunnar Hagen was standing outside struggling to open the door with the key.
‘Sorry, Harry, I was in a meeting.’
‘Suited me fine, boss,’ Harry said, stretching on the bed with a yawn. ‘Am I being released?’
‘I spoke to the police lawyer, who said it was OK. Custody is detention, not a punishment. I heard two Kripos men brought you in. What happened?’
‘I’m hoping you can tell me.’
‘I can tell you?’
‘Ever since I landed in Oslo I’ve been followed by Kripos.’
‘Kripos?’
Harry sat up and ran a hand through the brush-like bristles on his head. ‘They tracked me down to Rikshospital. They arrested me on a formality. What’s going on, boss?’
Hagen raised his chin and stroked the skin over his larynx. ‘Hell, I should have anticipated this.’
‘Anticipated what?’
‘That it would leak out that we were trying to run you to earth. That Bellman would try to stop us.’
‘A few main clauses would be nice.’
‘It’s pretty complicated, as I told you. It’s all about cuts and rationalisation in the force. About jurisdiction. The old fight, Crime Squad versus Kripos. Whether there are enough resources for two specialist branches with parallel expertise in a small country. The discussion flared up when Kripos got a new second in command, one Mikael Bellman.’
‘Tell me about him.’
‘Bellman? Police College, brief period of service in Norway before washing up in Europol in The Hague. Came back to Kripos a wonder boy, ready to move upwards and onwards. Nothing but grief from day one when he wanted to employ an ex-colleague from Interpol, a foreigner.’
‘Not Finnish, by any chance, was he?’
Hagen nodded. ‘Jussi Kolkka. Police training in Finland, but has none of the formal qualifications required for police status in Norway. The trade union went ballistic. The solution was, of course, that Kolkka would be temporarily employed on an exchange. Bellman’s next initiative was to make it clear that the rules should be interpreted in such a way that on bigger murder investigations Kripos would decide whether it was their case or the police district’s, not vice versa.’
