Harry Hole 02 - Cockroaches (17 page)

‘You’re early,’ she said with delight.

‘It’s difficult to get the times right with the traffic,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to be late.’

She grabbed a seat and ordered an iced tea.

‘Yesterday. Your mother—’

‘Was asleep,’ she said curtly. So curt that Harry guessed it was meant as a warning. But he didn’t have time to beat around the bush any more.

‘Drunk, you mean?’

She looked up at him. The happy smile had evaporated.

‘Was it my mother you wanted to talk about?’

‘Among other things. What was your parents’ relationship like?’

‘Why don’t you ask her?’

‘Because I think you’re worse at lying,’ he answered honestly.

‘Oh yes? In that case they got on like a house on fire.’ She had the defiant expression back.

‘That bad, eh?’

She squirmed.

‘Sorry, Runa, but this is my job.’

She shrugged. ‘My mother and I don’t get on so well. But Pappa and I were great friends. I think she was jealous.’

‘Of whom?’

‘Of both of us. Of him. I don’t know.’

‘Why of him?’

‘He didn’t seem to need her. She was so much air to him . . .’

Harry couldn’t believe what he was about to ask. But he had seen so many terrible things over the years. He paused. ‘Did your father sometimes take you to a hotel, Runa? The Maradiz Hotel, for example.’

He saw the astonishment on her face.

‘What do you mean? Why would he?’

He stared down at the newspaper on the table, but forced himself to lift his gaze.

‘What?’ she burst out, stirring the spoon in her cup vigorously and making the tea slop over. ‘You say the weirdest things. What are you getting at?’

‘Well, Runa, I know this is difficult, but I think your father has done things he would have regretted.’

‘Pappa? Pappa always regretted. He regretted and shouldered the blame and complained . . . but the witch wouldn’t leave him in peace. She hounded him all the time, you’re not this and you’re not that and you’ve dragged me here and so on. She thought I didn’t hear, but I did. Every word. She wasn’t made to live with a eunuch, she was a full-blooded woman. I told him he should leave, but he stuck it out. For my sake. He didn’t say that, but I knew that was why.’

‘What I’m trying to say,’ he said, lowering his head to catch her eyes, ‘is that your father didn’t have the same sexual feelings as some others.’

‘Is that why you’re so bloody stressed? Because you think I didn’t know my father was gay?’

Harry resisted the impulse to drop his jaw. ‘What do you mean by gay exactly?’ he asked.

‘Poof. Homo. Faggot. Bender. Buttfucker. I’m the result of the few shags the witch managed to get off Pappa. He thought she was disgusting.’

‘Did he
say
that?’

‘He was far too decent to say something like that. But I knew. I was his best friend. He said
that
. Now and then it seemed as if I was his
only
friend. ‘You and horses are the only things I like,’ he said to me once. Me and horses. That’s a good one, eh? I think he had a lover – a guy – when he was a student, before he met my mother. But the guy left him, didn’t want to acknowledge the relationship. Fair enough. Pappa didn’t want to, either. It was a long time ago. Things were different then.’

She said that with the unshakeable confidence of a teenager. Harry lifted the Coke to his mouth and sipped slowly. He had to gain time. This hadn’t developed in the way he had anticipated.

‘Do you want to know who was at the Maradiz Hotel?’ she asked. ‘Mum and her lover.’

21

Tuesday 14 January

WHITE, FROZEN BRANCHES
spread their fingers towards the pale winter sky over the Palace Gardens. Dagfinn Torhus stood by the window and watched a man run shivering up Haakon VIIs gate with his head buried between his shoulders. The telephone rang. Torhus saw from the clock that it was lunchtime. He followed the man until he was out of sight by the Metro station, then he lifted the receiver and said his name. There was a hissing and crackling until the voice reached him.

‘I’ll give you one more chance, Torhus. If you don’t take it I’ll make sure the Ministry advertises your job faster than you can say “Norwegian police intentionally misled by Foreign Office Director”. Or “Norwegian ambassador victim of gay murder”. Both make for passable headlines, don’t you think?’

Torhus sat down. ‘Where are you, Hole?’ he asked, for lack of anything better to say.

‘I’ve just had a long conversation with my boss at Crime Squad. I’ve asked him in fifteen different ways what on earth this Atle Molnes was doing in Bangkok. All I’ve uncovered so far suggests he’s the least likely ambassador this side of the outspoken Reiulf Steen. I was unable to lance the boil, but I was able to confirm that there is one. He’s sworn to secrecy, I suppose, so he referred me to you. Same question as before. What don’t I know that you do? For your information, I’m sitting here with a fax machine beside me and the numbers of
Verdens Gang
,
Aftenposten
and
Dagbladet
newspapers.’

Torhus’s voice brought the winter cold all the way to Bangkok. ‘They won’t print unsupported claims from an alcoholic policeman, Hole.’

‘If it’s an alcoholic
celebrity
policeman they will.’

Torhus didn’t answer.

‘By the way, I think they’re going to cover the case in
Sunnmørsposten
as well.’

‘You’ve taken the oath of confidentiality,’ Torhus said in a subdued tone. ‘You’ll be prosecuted.’

Hole laughed. ‘Rock and a hard place, eh? Knowing what I know and not following it up would be a dereliction of duty. That’s punishable too, you know. For some reason I have the feeling I have less to lose than you if confidentiality is broken.’

‘What guarantee—’ Torhus started, but was interrupted by crackling on the line. ‘Hello?’

‘I’m here.’

‘What guarantee do I have that you’ll keep what I say to yourself?’

‘None.’ The echo made it sound as if he had emphasised his answer three times.

Silence.

‘Trust me,’ Harry said.

Torhus snorted. ‘Why should I?’

‘Because you’ve got no choice.’

The Director saw from the clock that he was going to be late for lunch. The roast beef on rye in the canteen was probably already gone, but that didn’t matter much, he had lost his appetite.

‘This must not get out,’ he said. ‘And I mean that in all seriousness.’

‘The intention isn’t that it will get out.’

‘OK, Hole. How many scandals involving the Christian Democratic Party have you heard about?’

‘Not many.’

‘Exactly. For years the Christian Democrats had been this cosy little party no one had bothered about much. While the press was digging up stuff on the power elite in the Socialist Party and the weirdos in the Progress Party, the Christian Democrat MPs were largely allowed to lead their lives without much scrutiny. With the change of government that was no longer possible. When there was a reshuffle it soon became clear that Atle Molnes, despite his undoubted competence and long experience of Storting, would not be considered as a minister. Rooting around in his private life would entail a risk that a Christian party with personal values on its agenda could not take. The party can’t reject the ordination of homosexual priests and at the same time have homosexual ministers. I believe even Molnes could see that. But when the names of the new government were presented there were several reactions in the press. Why wasn’t Atle Molnes included? After he stepped aside some time ago to give the Prime Minister room as party leader most observers saw him as a number two, or at least a three or four. Questions were asked and the homosexuality rumours which had first arisen when he resigned as a candidate for party leader were rekindled. Now of course we know that there are many MPs who are gay, so why the fuss, one might ask. Well, the interesting thing about this case, apart from the fact that the man was a Christian Democrat, is that he was a close friend of the Prime Minister; they had studied together, even shared a bedsit. And it was just a matter of time before the press got hold of it. Molnes wasn’t in the government, but still it was becoming a personal strain on the PM. Everyone knew the PM and Molnes had been each other’s most important political supporters right from the start, and who would believe him if he said he’d been unaware of Molnes’s sexual inclinations all those years? What about all the voters who had supported the PM because of the party’s clear views on civil partnerships and other depravity, when he himself nurtured a viper in his bosom, to be a bit biblical? How would that help to create trust? The PM’s personal popularity had so far been one of the most important guarantees for a minority government to continue, and what they least needed was a scandal. It was obvious they had to get Molnes out of the country as swiftly as possible. It was decided that a post as an ambassador abroad would be best because then you couldn’t accuse the PM of pushing a party colleague with long and faithful service into the cold. That was the point at which I was contacted. We moved fast. The ambassador post in Bangkok still hadn’t been formally appointed and that would put him far enough away for the press to leave him in peace.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Harry said after a pause.

‘Agreed,’ Torhus said.

‘Did you know his wife had a lover?’

Torhus chuckled quietly. ‘No, but you’d have had to give me very good odds if I was betting she
didn’t
have one.’

‘Why?’

‘First of all, because I assume homosexual husbands would turn a blind eye to that kind of thing. Secondly, there is something in the culture of the Ministry that seems to encourage extra-marital affairs. Indeed, sometimes new marriages spring up from them. Here at the Ministry you can barely move in the corridors for bumping into ex-spouses, or lovers, ex or current. The service is notorious for its inbreeding. We’re worse than the bloody Norwegian Broadcasting Company.’

Torhus continued to chuckle.

‘The lover isn’t from the Ministry,’ Harry said. ‘There’s a Norwegian who’s a kind of local Gekko here, a big-time currency broker. Jens Brekke. I thought at first he was involved with the daughter, but it turns out it’s Hilde Molnes. They met almost as soon as the family arrived and according to the daughter it’s more than the odd roll in the hay. In fact, it’s quite serious and the daughter reckons they’re going to move in together sooner or later.’

‘News to me.’

‘At least that gives the wife a possible motive. And the lover.’

‘Because Molnes was an obstruction?’

‘No, on the contrary. According to the daughter, Hilde Molnes refused to let go of her husband. After he pared down his political aspirations I suppose the cover his marriage afforded wasn’t so important any more. She must have used visiting rights to her daughter as blackmail. Isn’t that what usually happens? No, the motive is probably even less noble. The Molnes family owns half of Ørsta.’

‘Exactly.’

‘I asked Crime Squad to check if there was a will and what Atle was sitting on in terms of family shares and other assets.’

‘Well, this isn’t my field, Hole, but aren’t you making things a bit complicated now? It could quite simply have been a nutter who knocked on the ambassador’s door and stabbed him to death.’

‘Maybe. Does it matter in principle if this nutter is Norwegian, Torhus?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Real nutters don’t stab a guy and then remove all useful evidence from the crime scene. They leave a series of puzzles so that we can play cops and robbers afterwards. In this case we have a decorative knife, and that’s it. Believe me, this was a carefully planned murder by someone not disposed to playfulness, who wanted the job done and the case dropped for lack of evidence. But who knows – perhaps you need to be just as insane to commit such a murder. And the only nutters I’ve met so far on this case have been Norwegian.’

22

Tuesday 14 January

AT LENGTH HARRY
found the entrance between two strip bars in Soi 1 in Patpong. He went up the stairs and entered a semi-dark room where a gigantic fan in the ceiling circled lazily. Harry ducked involuntarily under the immense blades; he already had the marks to show that doorways and other domestic constructions were not adapted to his one metre ninety-two.

Hilde Molnes was sitting at a table at the back of the restaurant. Her sunglasses, meant to give her anonymity, had the effect of attracting attention to her, he thought.

‘Actually I don’t like rice wine,’ she said, draining the glass. ‘Mekhong is the exception. May I offer you a glass, Officer?’

Harry shook his head. She flicked her fingers and had the glass filled.

‘They know me here,’ she said. ‘They stop when they think I’ve had enough. And by then as a rule I have had enough.’ She laughed huskily. ‘I hope it’s all right meeting here. Home is . . . a bit sad now. What’s the purpose of this consultation, Officer?’

She enunciated the words clearly, the way people who habitually try to hide that they’ve been drinking do.

‘We’ve just been told that you and Jens Brekke regularly went to the Maradiz Hotel together.’

‘There you go!’ Hilde Molnes said. ‘Finally someone who does his job. If you talk to the waiter here he’d be able to confirm that herr Brekke and I also met here
on a regular basis
.’ She spat the words out. ‘Dark, anonymous, never any other Norwegians, and on top of that they serve the town’s best
plaa lòt
. Do you like eel, Hole? Saltwater eels?’

Harry was reminded of the man they dragged ashore outside Drøbak. He had been in the sea some days, and his pale cadaverous face had looked at them with a child’s surprise. Something had eaten his eyelids. But what had caught their attention was the eel. Its tail protruded from the man’s mouth and lashed back and forth like a silver whip. Harry could still remember the salty aroma in the air, so it must have been a saltwater eel.

‘My grandfather ate almost nothing but eels,’ she said. ‘From just before the war until he died. Stuffed them down, couldn’t get enough.’