Harry Hole Mysteries 3-Book Bundle (66 page)

‘So it’s just a question of solving the case before Kripos?’

‘As I said, it’s complicated. Kripos refuses to share info with us even though they’ve made no headway. Instead they went to the ministry. The Chief Constable here received a call to say that the ministry
would like to see
Kripos being allowed to run this case until they’ve made up their mind about how to allocate areas of responsibility in the future.’

Harry shook his head slowly. ‘It’s beginning to sink in. You all got desperate …’

‘I wouldn’t use that word.’

‘Desperate enough to dig up the old serial-killer hunter, Hole. An outsider no longer on the payroll, who could investigate the matter on the q.t. That was why I couldn’t say anything to anyone.’

Hagen sighed. ‘Bellman found out anyway, obviously. And stuck a tail on you.’

‘To see whether you seemed to be complying with the ministry’s request. To catch me in flagrante delicto reading old reports or questioning old witnesses.’

‘Or even more effective: to disqualify you from the game. Bellman knows one single mistake would be enough to have you suspended, one single beer while on duty, one single breach of service rules.’

‘Mm. Or resisting arrest. He’s thinking of taking the case further, the prick.’

‘I’ll talk to him. He’ll drop it when I tell him you don’t want the case anyway. We don’t dump police officers in the shit when there’s no point.’ Hagen glanced at his watch. ‘I’ve got work waiting for me. Let’s get you out.’

They walked out of the custody block, across the car park and stopped at the entrance to Police HQ, a tower of concrete and steel presiding over the park. Beside them, attached to Police HQ by an underground culvert, stood the old grey walls of Botsen, Oslo District Prison. Beneath them, the area of Grønland stretched down to the fjord and harbour. The facades were winter-pale and filthy as though ash had rained down on them. The cranes by the harbour stood like gallows outlined against the sky.

‘Not a pretty sight, eh?’

‘No,’ Harry said, breathing in.

‘But there’s something about this town nonetheless.’

Harry nodded. ‘There is that.’

They stood there for a while, rocking back on their heels, hands in pockets.

‘Chilly,’ Harry said.

‘Not really.’

‘S’pose not, but my thermostat is still set to Hong Kong temperatures.’ ‘I see.’

‘You’ve got a cup of coffee waiting for you upstairs, have you?’ Harry motioned to the sixth floor. ‘Or was it work? The Marit Olsen case?’

Hagen didn’t answer.

‘Mm,’ Harry said. ‘So Bellman and Kripos have got that, too.’

Harry received the odd measured nod on his way through the corridors of the red zone on the sixth floor. A legend in the building he might have been, but he had never been a popular man.

They passed an office door on which someone had glued an A4 piece of paper saying ‘I SEE DEAD PEOPLE’.

Hagen cleared his throat. ‘I had to let Magnus Skarre take over your office. Everywhere else is bursting at the seams.’

‘No worries,’ Harry said.

They each took their paper cup of the infamous percolated coffee from the kitchenette.

Inside Hagen’s office Harry settled in the chair facing the POB’s desk, where he had sat so many times.

‘You’ve still got it, I see,’ Harry said, pointing with his head to the memento on the desk that, at first sight, resembled a white exclamation mark. It was a stuffed little finger. Harry knew it had once belonged to a Japanese Second World War commander. In retreat, the commander had cut off his finger in front of his men to apologise for not being able to return and pick up their dead. Hagen loved to use the story when he was teaching middle management about leadership.

‘And you still haven’t.’ Hagen nodded towards the hand, minus middle finger, Harry was using to hold the paper cup.

Harry conceded the point and drank. The coffee hadn’t changed, either. Liquefied tarmac.

Harry grimaced. ‘I need a team of three.’

Hagen drank slowly and put down the cup. ‘Not more?’

‘You always ask that. You know I don’t work with large teams of detectives.’

‘In that case I won’t complain. Fewer people means less chance of Kripos and the Ministry of Justice catching wind of our investigations into the double murder.’

‘Triple murder,’ Harry said with a yawn.

‘Hold on, we don’t know if Marit Olsen—’

‘Woman alone at night, abducted, murdered in an unconventional manner. The third time in little old Oslo. Triple. Believe me. But however many there are of us, you can take it from me that we will take bloody good care that our paths don’t cross those of Kripos.’

‘Yes,’ Hagen said. ‘I do know that. That’s why it’s a condition that if the investigation were to be brought to light, it has nothing to do with Crime Squad.’

Harry closed his eyes. Hagen went on.

‘Of course we will regret that some of our employees have been involved, but make it clear that this is something the notorious maverick Harry Hole initiated off his own bat, without the knowledge of the unit head. And you will confirm that version of events.’

Harry opened his eyes again and stared at Hagen.

Hagen met his stare. ‘Any questions?’

‘Yes.’

‘Shoot.’

‘Where’s the leak?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Who’s informing Bellman?’

Hagen rolled his shoulders. ‘I don’t have the impression that he has any systematic access to what we’re doing. He could have caught a sniff of your return in lots of places.’

‘I know Magnus Skarre has a habit of talking anywhere and anyhow.’

‘Don’t ask me any more questions, Harry.’

‘OK. Where should we set up shop?’

‘Right. Right.’ Gunnar Hagen nodded several times as if that were something they had already discussed. ‘As far as an office is concerned …’

‘Yes?’

‘As I said, the place is full to bursting, so we’ll have to find somewhere outside, but not too far away.’

‘Fine. Where then?’

Hagen looked out of the window. At the grey walls of Botsen.

‘You’re kidding,’ Harry said.

B
JØRN
H
OLM ENTERED THE CONFERENCE ROOM AT
K
RIMTEKNISK
in the Bryn district of Oslo. Outside the windows, the sun was relinquishing its grip on the house fronts and casting the town into afternoon gloom. The car park was packed, and in front of the entrance to Kripos, across the road, there was a white bus with a soup dish on the roof and the Norwegian Broadcasting Company logo on its side.

The only person in the room was his boss, Beate Lønn, an unusually pale, petite and quiet-mannered woman. Had one not known any better, one might have thought a person like this would have problems leading a group of experienced, professional, self-aware, always quirky and seldom conflict-shy forensics officers. Had one known better, one would have realised she was the only person who could deal with them. Not primarily because they respected the fact that she stood erect and proud despite losing two policemen to the eternity shift, first her father and later the father of her child. But because, in their group, she was the best, and radiated such unimpeachability, integrity and gravity that when Beate Lønn whispered an order with downcast gaze and flushed cheeks, it was carried out on the spot. So Bjørn Holm had come as soon as he was informed.

She was sitting in a chair drawn up close to the TV monitor.

‘They’re recording live from the press conference,’ she said without turning. ‘Take a seat.’

Holm immediately recognised the people on the screen. How strange
it was, it struck him, to be watching signals that had travelled thousands of kilometres out into space and back, just to show him what was happening right now on the opposite side of the street.

Beate Lønn turned up the volume.

‘You have understood correctly,’ said Mikael Bellman, leaning towards the microphone on the table in front of him. ‘For the present we have neither leads nor suspects. And to repeat myself once again: we have not ruled out the possibility of suicide.’

‘But you said—’ began a voice from the body of journalists present.

Bellman cut her off. ‘I said we regard the death as
suspicious.
I am sure you’re familiar with the terminology. If not, you should …’ He left the end of the sentence hanging in the air and pointed to a person behind the camera.

‘Stavanger Aftenblad
,’ came the slow bleat of the Rogaland dialect. ‘Do the police see a connection between this death and the two in—?’

‘No! If you’d been following, you would have heard me say that we
do not rule out
a connection.’

‘I caught that,’ continued the slow, imperturbable dialect. ‘But those of us here are more interested in what you think rather than what you
don’t rule out.’

Bjørn Holm could see Bellman giving the man the evil eye as impatience strained at the corners of his mouth. A uniformed woman officer at Bellman’s side placed her hand over the microphone, leaned in to him and whispered something. The POB’s face darkened.

‘Mikael Bellman is getting a crash course in how to deal with the media,’ said Bjørn Holm. ‘Lesson one, stroke the ones
with
hair, especially the provincial newspapers.’

‘He’s new to the job,’ Beate Lønn said. ‘He’ll learn.’

‘Think so?’

‘Yes. Bellman’s the type to learn.’

‘Humility’s hard to learn, I’ve heard.’

‘Genuine humility, that’s true. But to grovel when it suits you is basic to modern communication. That’s what Ninni’s telling him. And Bellman’s smart enough to appreciate that.’

On-screen, Bellman coughed, forced an almost boyish smile and leaned
into the microphone. ‘I apologise if I sounded a bit brusque, but it’s been a long day for all of us, and I hope you understand that we are simply impatient to get back to the investigation into this tragic case. We have to finish here, but if any of you have any further questions, please direct them to Ninni, and I promise I will try to return to you later this evening. Before the deadline. Is that OK?’

‘What did I say?’ Beate laughed triumphantly.

‘A star is born,’ Bjørn said.

The picture imploded and Beate Lønn turned. ‘Harry called. He wants me to hand you over.’

‘Me?’ said Bjørn Holm. ‘To do what?’

‘You know very well what. I heard you were with Gunnar Hagen at the airport when Harry arrived.’

‘Whoops.’ Holm smiled, revealing both top and bottom sets of teeth.

‘I assume Hagen wanted to use you in Operation Persuasion since he knows you are one of the few people Harry likes working with.’

‘We never got that far, and Harry turned down the job.’

‘But now it seems he has changed his mind.’

‘Uh-huh? What made him do that?’

‘He didn’t say. He just said he thought it was right to go through me.’

‘Sure. You’re the boss here.’

‘You can take nothing for granted where Harry is concerned. I know him pretty well, as you’re aware.’

Holm nodded. He was aware. Knew Jack Halvorsen, Beate’s partner and soon-to-be father of their child, had been killed while working for Harry. One freezing cold winter’s day, in broad daylight, in Grünerløkka, stabbed in the chest. Holm had arrived straight afterwards. Hot blood soaking down into the blue ice. A policeman’s death. No one had blamed Harry. Apart from Harry, that is.

He scratched his sideburns. ‘So what did you say?’

Beate took a deep breath and watched the journalists and photographers hurrying out of the Kripos building. ‘The same as I’m going to tell you now. The Ministry of Justice has let it be known that Kripos has priority, and accordingly there is no chance that I can pass on forensics officers to anyone other than Bellman for this case.’

‘But?’

Beate Lønn drummed a Bic pen on the table, hard. ‘But there are other cases besides this double murder.’

‘Triple murder,’ Holm said, and after a sharp look from Beate, he added, ‘Believe me.’

‘I don’t know exactly what Inspector Hole is investigating, but it is definitely not any of these murder cases. He and I are totally agreed on that,’ Beate said. ‘And you are thereby transferred to that case or those cases – of which I know nothing. For two weeks. Copy of first report on whatever you do to be on my desk five working days from now. Understood?’

Inwardly, Kaja Solness was beaming like a sun and felt an almost irresistible desire to do a couple of spins in her swivel chair.

‘If Hagen says OK, of course I’ll join you,’ she said, trying to contain herself, but she could hear the exultation in her voice.

‘Hagen says OK,’ said the man leaning against the door frame with his arm over his head, forming a diagonal in her doorway. ‘So it’s just Holm, you and me. And the case we’re working on is confidential. We start tomorrow. Meet at seven in my office.’

‘Er … seven?’

‘Sieben.
Seven. O seven hundred hours.’

‘I see. Which office?’

The man grinned and explained.

She looked at him in disbelief. ‘We’ve got an office in the prison?’

The diagonal in the doorway relaxed. ‘Meet up, all systems go. Questions?’

Kaja had several, but Harry had already left.