Nemesis (17 page)

‘Gentlemen, I’m sorry to disturb,’ Harry said.

‘Ah, finally,’ one of the three at the table exclaimed, flicking his fringe back. ‘Would you call this wine room temperature, waiter?’

‘I’d call it Norwegian red wine decanted into a Clos des Papes bottle,’ Harry said.

Taken aback, the Fringe ran his eye down Harry in his dark suit.

‘A joke.’ Harry smiled. ‘I’m a policeman.’

The surprise segued into alarm.

‘Not environmental crime.’

Relief segued into question marks. Harry heard boyish laughter and breathed in. He had decided how he was going to do it, but had no idea how it would turn out. ‘Arne Albu?’

‘That’s me,’ answered the one who was laughing. He was slim with short, curly, dark hair and laughter lines around his eyes, which told Harry that he laughed a lot and was older than the thirty-five years he would have guessed initially. ‘Apologies for the misunderstanding,’ he continued, still with laughter in his voice. ‘Can I help you, Constable?’

Harry observed him, quickly trying to form a picture of him before going on. The voice was the sonorous variety. Fixed gaze. Shiny white collar behind a tie that was not too loose and not too tight. The fact that he hadn’t left it at ‘That’s me,’ but had added an apology and ‘Can I help you, Constable?’ – with a slightly ironic stress on ‘Constable’ – suggested that Arne Albu was either very self-confident or had a lot of practice giving that impression.

Harry concentrated. Not on what he was going to say, but on how Albu would react.

‘Yes, you can, Albu. Do you know Anna Bethsen?’

Albu looked at Harry with the same blue eyes as his wife’s and after a moment’s reflection gave a loud, clear answer: ‘No.’

Albu’s face revealed no more to Harry than the mouth said. Not that Harry had thought it would. He had long given up believing the myth that people whose professions brought them face to face with lies on a daily basis learn to recognise them. A policeman had once claimed during a court case that from his long experience he knew when the accused was lying. Ståle Aune, once again a tool of the defence, had answered that research showed that no one single professional group was any better than another at spotting lies; a cleaner was just as good as a psychologist or a policeman, that is to say, just as bad. The only group in the comparative study to have acquitted itself with an above-average score was that of the Secret Service agents. Harry was no Secret Service agent, though. He was an Oppsal boy pressed for time, in a bad mood and right now showing poor judgement. To confront a man with potentially compromising circumstances in the presence of others, without any grounds for suspicion, was hardly very effective and not what anyone would call fair play. So Harry knew he shouldn’t be doing what he was doing: ‘Any idea who could have given her this photo?’

All three men studied the photograph Harry set on the table.

‘Haven’t a clue,’ Albu said. ‘My wife? The kids maybe?’

‘Mm.’ Harry looked for changes in the pupils, signs of an increased pulse such as sweating or blushing.

‘I don’t know what this is about, Constable, but since you have taken the trouble to find me, I assume it is not a bagatelle. Perhaps we could discuss this in private after my meeting with these gentlemen from Handelsbanken is over. If you would like to wait, I can ask the waiter to give you a table down in the smoking area.’

Harry could not decide whether Albu’s smile was mocking or simply obliging. Not even that.

‘I haven’t time,’ Harry said. ‘So if we could sit down—’

‘I’m afraid I don’t have time, either,’ Albu interposed in a calm but firm voice. ‘This is my working time, so we’ll have to talk this
afternoon. If you are still of the opinion there is something I can help you with, that is.’

Harry swallowed. He was powerless and he could see Albu knew.

‘Let’s say that then,’ Harry said and could hear how pathetic it sounded.

‘Thank you, Constable.’ Albu inclined his head with a smile. ‘And you’re probably right about the wine.’ He turned to face Handelsbanken. ‘You were saying, Stein, about Opticom?’

Harry picked up the photograph and had to endure the barely concealed smile from the broker with the fringe before leaving.

At the edge of the quay, Harry lit a cigarette, but it didn’t have any taste and he threw it away with a growl. The sun glinted off a window in Akershus fortress and the sea was so calm there seemed to be a thin layer of clear ice on top. Why had he done it? Why this kamikaze attempt to humiliate a man he didn’t know? Just to be lifted with silk gloves and gently thrown out.

He faced the sun, closed his eyes and wondered if today he ought to do something intelligent for a change. Like dropping the whole case. Nothing seemed to make sense; it was just the usual state of chaos and bafflement. The bells in the City Hall started chiming.

Little did Harry know that Møller was to be proved right. It was the last warm day of the year.

B
RAVE
O
LEG
.

‘It’ll be fine,’ he had said on the telephone. Again and again as if he had a secret plan. ‘Mummy and I will be back soon.’

Harry stood by the window looking at the sky over the roof of the block facing him, where the evening sun was painting the underside of a thin, creased layer of cloud in orange and red. On his way home the temperature had fallen sharply and inexplicably, as though someone had opened an invisible door and all the heat had been sucked out. In the flat, the cold had begun to creep up through the floorboards. Where had he put his felt slippers? In the cellar or in the attic? Did he have any slippers? He couldn’t remember. Fortunately, he had written down the name of the Playstation kit he had promised to buy Oleg if he managed to beat Harry’s Tetris record on the Gameboy. Namco G-Con 45.

The news droned on the 14-inch TV behind him. Another gala to collect money for victims. Julia Roberts showing her sympathy and Sylvester Stallone receiving donors’ incoming calls. And the hour of vengeance had come. Pictures showing the sides of mountains being carpet-bombed. Black pillars of smoke from the rocks and
nothing growing in the desolate landscape. The telephone rang.

It was Weber. At Police HQ the general reputation of Weber was that he was a stubborn old sourpuss and difficult to work with. Harry thought the contrary. You just had to be aware that he would be intractable if you were disrespectful or hassled him.

‘I know you’re waiting for results,’ Weber said. ‘We didn’t find any DNA on the bottle, but we did find a couple of faint fingerprints.’

‘Good. I was afraid they might be destroyed even if they were in a plastic bag.’

‘Luckily it was a glass bottle. The grease in the prints on a plastic bottle would have been absorbed after so many days.’

Harry could hear the clicking sound of swabbing in the background. ‘Are you still at work, Weber?’

‘Yes.’

‘When will you have checked the prints against the data bank?’

‘Are you hassling me?’ the old forensics man growled suspiciously.

‘Not at all. I’ve got oceans of time, Weber.’

‘Tomorrow. I’m no computer whizz and the young guys have gone home for the night.’

‘And you?’

‘I’ll just check the prints against a few possibilities in the old way. Sleep tight, Hole. Uncle Plod will keep an eye open.’

Harry put down the telephone, went into the bedroom and switched on his computer. The chirpy Windows jingle drowned the American revenge rhetoric from the sitting room for a second. He clicked his way through to the video of the robbery in Kirkeveien. Ran the jerky clip several times without becoming any the wiser, or more foolish. He clicked on the e-mail icon. The hourglass and
You have 1 message
came up. The hall telephone rang again. Harry cast a glance at his watch before lifting the receiver and saying hi with the soft voice reserved for Rakel.

‘Arne Albu. I apologise for calling you in the evening, but I was given your name by my wife and thought I would clear up this matter
at once. Is it convenient?’

‘Fine,’ Harry said sheepishly in his usual voice.

‘Well, I’ve had a chat with my wife, and neither of us has heard of this woman or knows how she got hold of the photo. But it was developed by a professional, perhaps someone working in the shop took a copy. Also, there is a lot of coming and going in our house and so there could be many,
many
possible explanations.’

‘Mm.’ Harry noticed that Arne Albu’s voice didn’t have the same assured composure it had had earlier in the day. After a few seconds of crackly silence Albu continued: ‘If you need to talk about this more, I would appreciate it if you would contact me at the office. I understood from my wife that she gave you my number.’

‘And I understood that you didn’t want to be disturbed during your working hours.’

‘I don’t want . . . my wife to be stressed. A dead woman with a photo in a shoe, my God! I would like you to deal with me.’

‘I understand. But the photo is of your wife and the children!’

‘She knows nothing about it, I’m telling you!’ And then apparently regretting his angry tone, he added: ‘I promise I will examine every possibility I can envisage to explain how this might have happened.’

‘Thank you for the offer, but I still reserve the right to talk to whoever I think fit.’ Harry listened to Albu’s breathing before adding: ‘I hope you understand.’

‘Listen here—’

‘I’m afraid this is not a topic for discussion. I’ll contact you or your wife if there is something I need to know.’

‘Wait a minute! You don’t understand. My wife gets . . . very upset.’

‘You’re right, I don’t understand. Is she ill?’

‘Ill?’ said Albu with surprise in his voice. ‘No, but—’

‘Then I suggest we conclude this conversation now.’ Harry saw himself in the mirror. ‘These are not my working hours. Good evening.’

He put down the telephone and looked in the mirror again. It was
gone now, the little smile, the glee that Spite gives. The Small-mindedness. The Self-righteousness. The Sadism. The four ‘S’s of revenge. There was something else, too, though. Something looked wrong. Something was missing. He studied the reflected image. Perhaps it was just the way the light fell.

Harry sat down in front of the computer while thinking that he would have to tell Aune about the four ‘S’s. He collected that sort of thing. The e-mail he had received came from an address he had never seen before:
[email protected]
He clicked on it.

As he was sitting there, a chill spread through Harry Hole’s body that would linger for a good year.

It happened while he was reading from the screen. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and the skin around his body tightened like shrinking clothes.

Shall we play? Let’s imagine you’ve been to dinner with a woman and the next day she’s found dead. What do you do?

S
²
MN

The telephone chirruped its lament. Harry knew it was Rakel. He let it ring.

H
ALVORSEN WAS VERY SURPRISED TO SEE
H
ARRY AS HE
entered their office.

‘Here already? You are aware it’s only—’

‘Couldn’t sleep,’ Harry mumbled, sitting in front of the computer screen with crossed arms. ‘These machines are so bloody slow.’

Halvorsen peered over his shoulder. ‘It all depends on the data transfer rate when you’re on the Net. You’re using a standard ISDN line now, but, rejoice, we’ll soon be on broadband. Looking for articles in
Dagens Næringsliv
?’

‘Eh? . . . Yes.’

‘Arne Albu? Did you talk to Vigdis Albu?’

‘Yes.’

‘What have they actually got to do with the bank robbery?’

Harry didn’t look up. He hadn’t said it was anything to do with the robbery, but he hadn’t said it wasn’t either, so it was quite natural for his colleague to make the assumption. Harry was spared answering him as at that moment Arne Albu’s face filled the screen. By far the broadest smile Harry had seen today presided over the tightly knotted tie. Halvorsen smacked his lips and read aloud:

‘
Thirty million for family business. Today Arne Albu can salt away thirty million kroner after the hotel chain
Choice
bought up all the shares in Albu AS yesterday. Albu says he wants to devote more time to his family, which was the biggest reason for him selling his successful company. “I want to see my children grow up,” Albu said when interviewed. “The family is my most important investment.” ’

Harry pressed PRINT.

‘Don’t you want the rest of the article?’

‘No, I just want the picture,’ Harry said.

‘Thirty mill in the bank and now he’s started holding up banks, too?’

‘I’ll explain later,’ Harry said, rising from his chair. ‘In the meantime, I wonder if you could explain to me how you find out who sends an e-mail.’

‘The address is in the e-mail.’

‘And that’s in the telephone book, is it?’

‘No, but you can find out which mail server sent it. That’s in the address. The server has a list of which clients own which addresses. Very simple. Have you received an interesting e-mail?’

Harry shook his head.

‘Give me the address and I’ll find it for you in no time,’ Halvorsen said.

‘OK. Have you heard of a server called
bolde.com
?’

‘No, but I’ll check it out. What’s the rest of the address?’

Harry hesitated. ‘Forgotten,’ he said.

Harry requisitioned a car from the garage and drove slowly through Grønland. A biting wind swirled the leaves which had dried on the pavement in yesterday’s sun. People walked with their hands buried in their pockets and their heads drawn in between their shoulders.

In Pilestredet Harry tucked in behind a tram and found the NRK news broadcast on the radio. They didn’t say anything about the Stine Grette case. There were fears that hundreds of thousands of refugee children would not survive the tough Afghan winter. An
American soldier had been killed. There was an interview with his family. They wanted revenge. Bislett was closed to traffic and there was a diversion.