Harry Hole 02 - Cockroaches (2 page)

2

Wednesday 8 January

‘NATIONAL THEATRE,’ A
sleepy, nasal voice announced over the speakers before the tram doors flipped open and Dagfinn Torhus stepped out into the cold, damp darkness. The air stung his freshly shaved cheeks, and in the glow from Oslo’s frugal neon lighting he could see frozen breath streaming from his mouth.

It was early January, and he knew it would be better later in the winter when the fjord was frozen over and the air became drier. He started to walk up Drammensveien towards the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A couple of solitary taxis passed him; otherwise the streets were as good as deserted. The Gjensidig clock shone red against the black winter sky above the building opposite, informing him it was only six.

Outside the door he took out his entrance card. ‘Post: Director’ it said above a photo of a ten-years-younger Dagfinn Torhus staring into the camera, chin jutting, gaze determined, from behind steel-rimmed glasses. He swiped the card, tapped in the code and pushed open the heavy glass door in Victoria Terrasse.

Not all doors had opened as easily since he came here as a twenty-five-year-old almost thirty years ago. At the Diplomatic School, the Foreign Office institute for aspiring officials, he had not exactly melted into his surroundings with his broad Østerdal accent and rural ways, as one of the posh Bærum boys in his year’s intake had pointed out. The other aspirants had been students of politics, economics and law with parents who were academics, politicians or themselves members of the FO aristocracy to which they were seeking admission. He was a farmer’s son with qualifications from the Agricultural High School in Ås. Not that it bothered him much, but he knew that real friends were important for his career. As Dagfinn was trying to learn the social codes, he compensated by grafting even harder. Whatever the differences, they all shared the fact that they had only vague notions of where they wanted to go in life and the knowledge that only one direction counted: up.

Torhus sighed and nodded to the security guard, who pushed his newspapers and an envelope under the glass window.

‘Any other . . .?’

The guard shook his head.

‘First to arrive as always, Torhus. The envelope’s from Communications. It was delivered last night.’

Torhus watched the floor numbers flash by as the lift raised him higher in the building. He had this idea that every floor represented a certain period in his career, and so it was subject to review every morning.

The first floor was the first two years on the diplomatic course, the long, non-committal discussions about politics and history and the French lessons he had hauled himself through by the bootstraps.

The second floor was the placement. He had been stationed in Canberra for two years, then Mexico City for three. Wonderful cities, for that matter, no, he couldn’t complain. True, he had put London and New York as his first two choices, but these were prestigious postings that everyone else had also applied for, so he had made up his mind not to regard them as a defeat.

On the third floor he was back in Norway without the generous foreign benefits and housing supplements which had allowed him to live a life of insouciance and plenty. He had met Berit, she had become pregnant, and when it had been time to apply for a new foreign posting number two was already on the way. Berit was from the same region as he was and chatted to her mother every day. He had decided to wait a little and opted to work like a Trojan, writing kilometre-long reports on bilateral trade with developing countries, composing speeches for the Minister of Foreign Affairs and reaping acknowledgement as he made his way up the building. Nowhere else in the state system is competition as fierce as at the Foreign Office, where the hierarchy is so obvious. Dagfinn Torhus had gone to the office like a soldier to the Front, kept his head down, back covered and fired whenever he had someone in his sights. A few pats on the shoulder came his way, he knew he had been ‘noticed’ and had tried to explain to Berit that he could probably get Paris or London, but for the first time in their hitherto humdrum marriage she had put her foot down. He had given in.

His upwardly mobile trend had vanished almost without a trace, and suddenly one morning in the bathroom mirror he saw a director shunted into the sidings, a moderately influential bureaucrat who would never manage the leap to the fifth floor, not with him being ten years or so from retirement age. Unless he pulled off a sensational coup, of course. But while that kind of stunt could lead to promotion, it could just as easily lead to the boot.

Nevertheless, he continued as before, trying to keep his nose in front of the others’. He was first in the office every morning so that he could read the newspapers and faxes in peace and quiet, and already had his conclusions to hand at morning meetings by the time the others sat rubbing sleep out of their eyes. It was as though striving had entered his bloodstream.

He unlocked his office door and hesitated for a moment before switching on the light. That, too, had a history. Unfortunately it had leaked out, and he knew it had attained legendary status in Ministry circles. Many years ago the then American ambassador in Oslo had rung Torhus early one morning and asked what he thought about President Carter’s remarks the previous night. Torhus had just come in the office door; he hadn’t read the newspapers or the faxes and was lost for an answer. Needless to say, that had ruined his day. And it was to get worse. The next morning the ambassador had rung as he was opening the newspaper and asked how the events of the night would affect the situation in the Middle East. The following morning the same thing happened. Torhus, undermined by doubts and lack of information, had stuttered an incoherent response.

He had started to arrive at the office even earlier, but the ambassador appeared to have a sixth sense, for every morning the telephone rang just as he was settling into his chair.

It was only when he discovered that the ambassador was staying at the small Aker Hotel, directly opposite the Foreign Office, that he worked out the connection. The ambassador, who everyone knew liked to get up early, had of course noticed that the light in Torhus’s office came on before the others and wanted to tease the zealous diplomat. Torhus had gone out and bought a head lamp, and the next morning he had read all the newspapers and faxes before switching on the office light. He did this for almost three weeks before the ambassador gave up.

At this moment, however, Dagfinn Torhus couldn’t give a damn about the fun-loving ambassador. He had opened the envelope from Communications, and on the decoded paper copy of the cryptofax stamped TOP SECRET there was a message that caused him to spill coffee over the notes strewn around his desk. The short text left a lot to the imagination, but the essence was basically this: Norway’s ambassador in Thailand, Atle Molnes, had been found with a knife in his back in a Bangkok brothel.

Torhus read the fax once more before putting it down.

Atle Molnes, former Christian Democrat politician, former chairman of the Finance Committee, was now a former everything else as well. It was so incredible that he was forced to glance over at Aker Hotel to see if anyone was standing behind the curtains. Reasonably enough, the sender was the Norwegian Embassy in Bangkok. Torhus swore. Why did this have to happen now of all times, in Bangkok of all places? Should he inform Secretary of State Askildsen first? No, he would find out soon enough. Torhus looked at his watch and lifted the telephone receiver to call the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Bjarne Møller tapped gently on the door and opened it. The voices in the meeting room fell quiet, and the faces turned towards him.

‘This is Bjarne Møller, head of Crime Squad,’ said the Police Commissioner, motioning him to take a seat. ‘Møller, this is Secretary of State Bjørn Askildsen from the Prime Minister’s office and HR Director Dagfinn Torhus from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.’

Møller nodded, pulled out a chair and tried to manoeuvre his unbelievably long legs under the large, oval oak table. He thought he had seen Askildsen’s sleek young face on TV. The Prime Minister’s office? It had to be serious trouble.

‘Great you could make it at such short notice,’ the Secretary of State said, rolling his
rrr
s and drumming the table nervously with his fingers. ‘Commissioner, could you give a brief résumé of what we’ve been discussing.’

Møller had received a call from the Police Commissioner twenty minutes before. Without any explanation, she had given him fifteen minutes to make his way to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

‘Atle Molnes has been found dead, probably murdered, in Bangkok,’ the Police Commissioner began.

Møller saw Director Torhus roll his eyes behind his steel-rimmed glasses, and after he had been given the rest of the story he understood his reaction. You would definitely have to be a policeman to state that a man who had been found with a knife protruding from one side of his spine, through a lung and into the heart, had ‘probably’ been murdered.

‘He was found in a hotel room by a woman—’

‘In a brothel,’ the man with the steel glasses interrupted. ‘By a prostitute.’

‘I’ve had a chat with my colleague in Bangkok,’ the Police Commissioner said. ‘A fair-minded man. He’s promised to keep a lid on the matter for a while.’

Møller’s first instinct had been to ask why they should wait before going public with the murder. Immediate press coverage often produced tip-offs for the police, as people’s memories were clear and the evidence was still fresh. But something told him this question would be regarded as very naive. Instead he asked how long they counted on being able to keep a lid on this sort of matter.

‘Long enough for us to establish a palatable version of events, I hope,’ the Secretary of State said. ‘The present one won’t do, you see.’

The present one? So the real version had been considered and rejected. As a relatively new
politiavdelingssjef
– or PAS – Møller had so far been spared any dealings with politicians, but he knew the higher up the service you went, the harder it was to keep them at arm’s length.

‘I appreciate that the present version is uncomfortable, but what do you mean by it “won’t do”?’

The Police Commissioner gave Møller an admonitory look.

The Secretary of State looked unimpressed. ‘We haven’t got much time, Møller, but let me give you a swift course in practical politics. Everything I say now is of course strictly confidential.’

Askildsen instinctively adjusted the knot of his tie, a movement Møller recognised from his television interviews. ‘Well, for the first time in post-war history we have a centre party with a reasonable chance of survival. Not because there is any parliamentary basis for it, but because the Prime Minister happens to be on the way to becoming one of the country’s least unpopular politicians.’

The Police Commissioner and the Director from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs smiled.

‘However, his popularity rests on the same fragile foundation that is the stock-in-trade for all politicians: trust. The most important thing is not to be likeable or charismatic, it is to enjoy trust. Do you know why Gro Harlem Brundtland was such a popular prime minister, Møller?’

Møller had no idea.

‘Not because she was a charmer, but because people were confident that she was the person she claimed to be. Trust, that’s the key word.’

The others around the table nodded. This was clearly part of the core curriculum.

‘Now, Ambassador Molnes and our current Prime Minister were closely connected, through friendship as well as their political careers. They studied together, rose up through the party ranks together, battled through the modernisation of the youth movement and even shared a flat when they were both elected to Storting at a very young age. Molnes voluntarily stepped out of the limelight when they were joint heirs apparent in the party. He gave the Prime Minister his full support and hence we were spared an agonising party duel. All this obviously means that the Prime Minister owed Molnes a debt of gratitude.’

Askildsen moistened his lips and looked out of the window.

‘In other words, Ambassador Molnes didn’t have any diplomatic training and wouldn’t have got to Bangkok if the Prime Minister hadn’t pulled strings. Perhaps this sounds like cronyism, but it’s an acceptable form of it, introduced and given general currency by the Socialist Party. Reiulf Steen didn’t have any Foreign Office experience when he was made ambassador in Chile.’

The eyes refocused on Møller, a playful glint dancing inside somewhere.

‘I’m sure I don’t need to emphasise how this could damage trust in the Prime Minister if it comes out that a friend and party comrade, whom he appointed himself, was caught in flagrante in a brothel. And murdered into the bargain.’

The Secretary of State motioned to the Police Commissioner to continue, but Møller couldn’t restrain himself.

‘Who hasn’t got a pal who’s been to a brothel?’

Askildsen’s smile curled at the edges.

The Foreign Office Director with the steel glasses coughed. ‘You’ve been told what you need to know, Møller. Please leave the judgements to us. What we need is someone to ensure that the investigation of this matter does not take . . . an unfortunate turn. Naturally, we all want the murderer, or murderers, to be apprehended, but the circumstances surrounding the murder should remain under wraps until further notice. For the good of the country. Do you understand?’

Møller looked down at his hands. For the good of the country. Bloody hell. They had never been much good at doing what they were told in his family. His father had never risen through the police ranks.

‘Experience tells us that the truth tends to be hard to conceal, herr Torhus.’

‘Indeed. I’ll take responsibility for this operation on behalf of the Foreign Office. As you appreciate, this is a somewhat delicate matter which will demand close cooperation with the Thai police. As the embassy is involved we have some leeway – diplomatic immunity and all that – but we’re walking a tightrope here. Therefore, we wish to send someone with honed investigative skills and experience of international police work and who can produce results.’