“It’s not up to me to determine your sentence. If you’re guilty, that is. But it could definitely be to your advantage if I was able to say something positive about your willingness to cooperate and so on when I have to testify in court.”
Hakon recognised the feeling from when he was a child and had been allowed to watch a detective story on television. He would be dying to go to the loo, but didn’t dare say so for fear of missing something exciting.
“Where did you find him?”
The Dutchman’s question took Hakon completely by surprise, and he noticed for the first time a hint of uncertainty in the Inspector’s face.
“Where you killed him,” she replied, with exaggerated slowness.
“Answer me. Where did you find the guy?”
Both police officers hesitated.
“By the River Aker at Hundremanns Bridge. As you well know,” Hanne said, holding him steadily in her gaze so as not to miss even a flicker of reaction in his expression.
“Who found the body? Who reported it to the police?”
This time Hanne Wilhelmsen’s hesitation created a vacuum that Sand was sucked into.
“It was someone out for a walk. A lawyer, a friend of mine in fact. Must have been a dreadful experience.”
Hanne was livid, but Hakon realised it too late. He hadn’t picked up on her warning gesture as he started to speak. He flushed deeply at her fierce look of reproof.
Van der Kerch stood up.
“I would like a lawyer after all,” he declared. “I want that woman. If you get her here, I’ll think about talking, at any rate. If I can’t have her, I’d rather have ten lonely years in prison at Ullersmo.”
He went across to the door unbidden, stepping over Hakon Sand’s legs, and waited politely to be taken back to his cell. Hanne Wilhelmsen escorted him, without a backward glance at her red-faced colleague.
The coffee had been drunk. It hadn’t been particularly good, even though it was freshly made. Decaffeinated, Hakon Sand explained. There were six cigarette stubs in a tawdry brown and orange ashtray.
“She was bloody mad at me afterwards. Understandably so. It’ll be some time before I’ll be allowed to be present at an interrogation again. But the man won’t be budged. It’s you or no one.”
He seemed no less exhausted now than when Karen Borg had arrived. He was massaging his temples and running his fingers through his hair, which was now quite dry.
“I asked Hanne to give him all the counterarguments. She says he remains adamant. I’ve kept well out of it. It’ll smooth things over a bit if I can get you to help us.”
Karen Borg sighed. For six years of her life she’d done little else but favours for Hakon Sand. She knew she wouldn’t be able to refuse this time either. But she would play hard to get.
“I’m only agreeing to have a talk with him. I’m not promising anything,” she said curtly, and stood up.
They went out the door, she first, he following. Just like the old days.
The young Dutchman had insisted on speaking to Karen Borg, with a vague intimation that he would open up to her. But that seemed to have been forgotten now. He looked full of bile. Karen Borg had moved over to Hakon Sand’s chair, and Hakon had discreetly withdrawn. The lawyers’ room in the custody suite was a miserable place, so in justified apprehension that she might renege on her promise to talk to the young Dutchman, he’d put his own office at her disposal.
Their suspect should have been handsome, yet was somehow unprepossessing. An athletic body, fair hair that looked as if it might have been expensively styled a month or so back. His hands were delicate, almost feminine. Did he play the piano? A lover’s hands, Karen thought, with no idea of how she was going to deal with the situation. She was used to boardrooms, meeting rooms with heavy oak furniture, airy offices with curtains costing five hundred kroner per metre. She could tackle men in suits with fashionable or garish ties, and women with briefcases and Shalimar perfume. She knew all about the laws relating to shares and the formation of companies, and only three weeks ago had earned herself a nice 150,000 kroner fee for checking over a comprehensive contract for one of her biggest clients. It hadn’t involved much more than reading five hundred pages of contractual agreements, ensuring they contained what they purported to, and writing “OK” on the cover. That worked out to 75,000 kroner per letter.
The prisoner’s words were obviously just as valuable.
“You asked to speak to me,” Karen Borg began. “I don’t know why. Perhaps we could take that as our starting point?”
He measured her up with his eyes, but maintained his silence. He kept tilting his chair backwards and forwards; up and down, up and down. That sort of thing put Karen Borg on edge.
“I have to say I’m not the right kind of lawyer for you. I know a few suitable people, and I can make some phone calls and get you a top lawyer in a matter of moments.”
“No!”
The front legs of the chair hit the floor with a crash. He leant forward, looked directly at her for the first time, and said it again.
“No. I want you. Don’t make any phone calls.”
Suddenly it occurred to her that she was alone with a man who was presumably a murderer. The faceless corpse had been haunting her ever since she’d found it on Friday evening. Then she pulled herself together. No lawyer had ever been killed by a client here in Norway. Certainly not in a police station. She repeated this reassurance to herself three times and felt more relaxed. The cigarette helped too.
“Answer me then! What do you want from me?”
Still no response.
“You’ll be up in front of the judge this afternoon for remand in custody. I’ll have to refuse to meet you there unless I have some idea of what you’re going to say.”
Threats didn’t have any effect either. Nevertheless she thought she could detect a glimmer of concern in his eyes. She made one last attempt.
“Besides, I’m running out of time now.”
She glanced quickly at her Rolex. Her fear was giving way to irritation. Which was increasing. He evidently noticed it. He was rocking back and forth in the chair again.
“Stop that!”
The legs of the chair banged down on the floor a second time. She’d won a modest victory.
“I’m not necessarily asking for the complete truth.” Her voice was calmer now. “I just want to know what you’re going to say in court. And I have to know that right now.”
Karen Borg’s experience of criminals without white collars and silk ties was entirely limited to having yelled after a bicycle thief who was making off down Markveien with her new fifteen-gear bike. But-she had seen this on TV. Defence Counsel Matlock had said: “I don’t want to know the truth, I want to know what you’re going to say in court.” Somehow it didn’t sound quite as convincing coming from her own lips. More hesitant, perhaps. But it might be a way of eliciting something.
Several minutes passed. The suspect had stopped rocking the chair, but was scraping it on the linoleum instead. The noise was getting on her nerves.
“It was me that killed the man you found.”
Karen was more relieved than surprised. She’d known it was him. He’s telling the truth, she thought, and offered him a throat pastille. He’d acquired the habit of smoking with a pastille in his mouth, just as she had. She’d started many years ago in the vague belief that it prevented the smell of smoke on the breath. By the time she’d realised it didn’t, she’d already become hooked.
“I was the one who killed the guy.”
It was as if he wanted to convince someone. It wasn’t necessary.
“I don’t know who he is. Was, I mean. That is, I know his name, and what he looks like. Looked like. But I
