Harry Hole 02 - Cockroaches (25 page)

Harry didn’t require a moment to consider; he knew this was the truth. Everything clicked into place, as though deep down he had known all along. The secrecy around Løken’s job, the photographic equipment, the night-vision binoculars, the trips to Vietnam and Laos, everything fitted. And the man bleeding from the nose opposite him was suddenly no longer his enemy but a colleague, an ally whose nose he had made a serious attempt to smash.

He nodded slowly and put the gun down on the table.

‘Fine, I believe you. Why so secret?’

‘Do you know about the agreement Sweden and Denmark have with Thailand to investigate sexual abuse cases here?’

Harry nodded.

‘Well, Norway is negotiating with the Thai authorities, and in the meantime, I’m conducting a highly unofficial investigation. We have enough to arrest him, but we have to wait. If we arrest him now we would reveal that we’ve been looking into the case illegally on Thai territory, and that is politically unacceptable.’

‘So who are you working for?’

Løken splayed his palms. ‘The embassy.’

‘I know that but who do you take orders from? Who’s behind all this? What about parliament? Do they know?’

‘Are you sure you want to know so much, Hole?’

The intense eyes met Harry’s. He was about to say something, but held back and shook his head.

‘Tell me who the man in the photo is then.’

‘I can’t. Sorry, Hole.’

‘Is it Atle Molnes?’

Løken stared at the table and smiled. ‘No, it isn’t the ambassador. He was the prime mover in this case.’

‘Is it—?’

‘As I said, I don’t have any reason to tell you now. If our cases turn out to be connected it may be a matter for discussion, but that’s up to our superiors to decide.’ He got up. ‘I’m tired.’

‘How did it go?’ Sunthorn asked when Harry was back in the car.

Harry asked him if he could bum a cigarette and hungrily inhaled the smoke into his lungs.

‘Didn’t find anything. Waste of a trip. My guess is the guy’s clean.’

Harry sat in his flat.

Once he’d got back from Løken’s apartment, he had spoken to his sister on the phone for almost half an hour. That is, she did most of the talking. It is unbelievable how much can happen in a life in little more than a week. She said she had called their father and that she was going over for dinner. Meatballs. Sis was going to cook, and she hoped her father would open up a bit. Harry hoped so too.

Afterwards he flipped through his notebook and rang another number.

‘Hello?’ a voice said at the other end.

Harry held his breath.

‘Hello?’ the voice repeated.

Harry rang off. There had been something verging on pleading in Runa’s voice. He really didn’t have a clue why he had called her. A few seconds later the telephone peeped. He lifted the receiver and waited to hear her voice. It was Jens Brekke.

‘I’ve got it,’ he said. The voice was excited. ‘When I took the lift from the car park to the office I bumped into a woman on the ground floor. She got out on the fourth. And I think she’ll remember me.’

‘Why’s that?’

There was a slightly nervous chuckle. ‘Because I asked her out.’

‘You asked her out?’

‘Yes, she’s one of the girls who work for McEllis. I’ve seen her a couple of times before. We were the only two in the lift and her smile was so sweet I couldn’t restrain myself.’

There was a pause.

‘You remembered that
now
?’

‘No, now I remembered
when
it happened, after I’d accompanied the ambassador to his car. For some reason I imagined it had happened the day before. But then it struck me she had got into the lift on the ground floor and that must mean I was coming from lower down. And I don’t usually go to the underground car park.’

‘So what did she say?’

‘She accepted, and I regretted it at once. It was just a flirtation, so I asked for her card and said I’d ring one day so that we could agree on a date. That hasn’t materialised of course, but I’m pretty sure she won’t have forgotten me.’

‘Have you still got her card?’

‘Yes, isn’t that great?’

Harry deliberated. ‘Listen, Jens, that’s all well and good, but it isn’t that easy. You still don’t have an alibi. Theoretically, you could have taken the lift back down. You might have just picked up something you left in your office, right?’

‘Oh.’ He sounded puzzled. ‘But . . .’

Jens stopped and Harry heard a sigh.

‘Hell, you’re right, Harry.’

Harry hung up.

34

Sunday 19 January

HARRY WOKE WITH
a start. Above the monotonous hum coming from Taksin Bridge he heard the roar of a riverboat starting up on Chao Phraya. A whistle sounded and the light made his eyes smart. He sat up in bed, buried his face in his hands and waited for the whistle to stop until he realised it was the telephone. Reluctantly he lifted the receiver.

‘Did I wake you?’ It was Jens again.

‘Never mind,’ Harry said.

‘I’m an idiot. I’m so stupid I don’t know if I dare tell you this.’

‘Then don’t.’

Silence except for the click of a coin being pressed into a machine.

‘I’m joking. Come on.’

‘OK, Harry. I’ve been lying awake all night and thinking, trying to remember what I was doing while I was in the office that night. You know, I can remember to the decimal currency transactions I made several months ago, but I’m not capable of remembering simple, factual things while I’m in prison with a murder sentence hanging over me. Can you understand that?’

‘That might be the reason why. Haven’t we been through this before?’

‘OK, well, this is what happened. You remember I said I’d blocked my calls when I was in the office that night? I was lying there thinking that was Sod’s Law. If it had been connected and someone had called I would have had it on the recorder and could have proved where I was. And with this one you can’t mess around with the time either, as the park attendant did with the video.’

‘What’s your point?’

‘I remembered, thank God, that I could ring out even if I’d blocked incoming calls. I rang our receptionist and got her to go up and check the recorder. And, you know, she found a call I’d made, and then I remembered the whole thing. At eight I phoned my sister in Oslo. Beat that!’

Harry had no intention of trying.

‘Your sister can give you an alibi and you really didn’t remember?’

‘No. And do you know why? Because she wasn’t at home. I just left a message on her answerphone to say that I’d rung.’

‘And you didn’t remember?’ Harry repeated.

‘Christ, Harry, you forget that kind of call before you’ve even put the phone down, don’t you. Do you remember all the calls you’ve made when there was no answer?’

Harry had to concede he was right.

‘Have you spoken to your lawyer?’

‘Not today. I wanted to tell you first.’

‘OK, Jens. Call your lawyer now and I’ll send someone up to your office to verify what you’ve said.’

‘This kind of recorder is valid in law, you know.’ There was a strained tone to his voice.

‘Relax, Jens. Not much longer. They’ll have to let you go now.’

The receiver crackled as Brekke breathed out. ‘Please say that again, Harry.’

‘They’ll have to let you go.’

Jens laughed a strangely dry laugh. ‘In which case, I’ll treat you to a meal, Harry.’

‘You’d better not.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I’m a policeman.’

‘Call it an interview.’

‘I don’t think so, Jens.’

‘As you wish.’

A bang came from the street below, perhaps a firework or a puncture.

‘I’ll think about it.’

Harry cradled the receiver, went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. He asked himself how it was possible to spend so long in tropical climes and still be so pale. He had never liked the sun particularly, but it hadn’t taken this long to tan before. Perhaps his lifestyle over the last year had put paid to his pigment production? He threw cold water in his face, thought of the swarthy drinkers at Schrøder’s and looked in the mirror again. Well, at any rate the sun had given him a port wine nose.

35

Sunday 19 January

‘WE’RE BACK TO
Square one,’ Liz said. ‘Brekke’s got an alibi and we have to forget Løken for the moment. Oh, and a giant psychopath who tried to kill a visiting officer is on the loose.’ She tipped her chair back and studied the ceiling. ‘Any suggestions, folks? If not, this meeting is over, you can do what the hell you like, but I’m still short of a few reports and I’m counting on seeing them by early tomorrow at the latest.’

The officers shuffled out of the door. Harry stayed put.

‘Well?’

‘Nothing,’ he said with an unlit cigarette bobbing up and down in his mouth. The inspector had imposed a smoking ban in her office.

‘I can see there’s something.’

A faint smile curled the corners of Harry’s mouth. ‘That was what I wanted to know, Inspector. That you can see there is something.’

She had a serious wrinkle between her eyebrows. ‘Let me know when you have something to tell me.’

Harry took out his cigarette and put it back in the packet. ‘Yes,’ he said, getting up. ‘I’ll do that.’

Jens leaned back in his chair and smiled, his cheeks flushed, his bow tie glittering. He reminded Harry of a birthday boy.

‘I’m almost glad I was locked up for a while. It makes you appreciate the simple things so much more. Like a bottle of Dom Perignon 1985, for example.’

He snapped his fingers at the waiter, who hurried over to the table, lifted the dripping champagne bottle out of the cooler and filled his glass.

‘I love it when they do that. Makes you feel like Superman. What do you say, Harry?’

Harry fingered the glass. ‘Fair enough. Not my thing actually.’

‘We’re different, Harry.’

Jens made this declaration with a smile. He seemed to have filled out his suit again. Or else he had just changed into an almost identical one. Harry wasn’t sure.

‘Some people need luxury like others need air,’ Jens said. ‘An expensive car, nice clothes and a bit of good service are simply a must for me to feel, well, for me to feel that I exist. Can you understand that?’

Harry shook his head.

‘Mmm.’ Jens held the champagne glass by the stem. ‘I’m the decadent one of the two of us. You should trust your first impressions. I
am
a sack of shit. And for as long as there is room for us sacks of shit in this world I intend to continue being one.
Skål
.’

He savoured the champagne in his mouth before swallowing. Then he grinned and groaned with delight. Harry had to smile and raised his own glass, but Jens gave him a look of disapproval.

‘Water? Isn’t it time you began to enjoy life, Harry? You really don’t have to be so strict with yourself.’

‘Sometimes you do.’

‘Rubbish. All humans are basically hedonists, some just take longer to realise it. Have you got a woman?’

‘No.’

‘Isn’t it about time?’

‘Certainly is. But I can’t see what that has to do with enjoying life.’

‘True enough.’ Jens peered into his glass. ‘Have I told you about my sister?’

‘The one you rang?’

‘Yes. She’s single, you know.’

Harry laughed. ‘Don’t imagine you owe me a debt of gratitude, Jens. I didn’t do much, apart from getting you arrested.’

‘I’m not joking. Wonderful girl. She’s an editor, but I think she works too hard to have time to find herself a man. She also frightens them away. She’s like you, strict, a mind of her own. By the way, have you noticed that that’s what all Norwegian girls say after they’ve won some Miss Something-Or-Other award when they have to describe themselves to journalists: that they’ve got a mind of their own? Minds of their own seem to be two a krone.’

Jens looked pensive.

‘My sister took my mother’s name when she came of age. And when she came of age, she did it with a vengeance.’

‘I’m not so sure your sister and I would be a great match.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, I’m a coward. What I’m looking for is a self-effacing woman in a social profession who is so beautiful no one has dared tell her.’

Jens laughed. ‘You can marry my sister with a clear conscience. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like her; she works so hard you won’t see much of her anyway.’

‘So why did you ring her at home and not at work? It was two in the afternoon when you called?’

Jens shook his head. ‘Don’t tell anyone, but I can never keep track of the time differences. Whether I have to add or subtract hours, I mean. It’s very embarrassing. My father says I’m pre-senile. Says it comes from my mother’s side.’

He hastened to add, with an assurance to Harry, that his sister didn’t show any signs of the same, more the opposite.

‘That’s enough, Jens. Tell me more about yourself. Have you begun to think about marriage?’

‘Shh, don’t say things like that. The word alone gives me palpitations. Marriage . . .’ Jens shuddered. ‘The problem is that, on the one hand, I’m not cut out for monogamy, but on the other I am a romantic. Once I’m married I can’t mess around with other women. Do you know what I mean? And the thought of never having sex with any other women is quite overwhelming, don’t you think?’

Harry tried to be empathetic.

‘Suppose I do actually go out with the girl from the lift, what do you think would come of it? Utter panic, right? All that just to prove to myself that I’m still capable of taking an interest in another woman. Bit of a failure really. Hilde is . . .’ Jens searched for the words. ‘She has something I haven’t found with anyone else. And believe me, I have looked. I’m not sure I can quite explain what it is, but I don’t want to lose it because I know it could be difficult to find again.’

Harry thought that was just as good a reason as any he had heard. Jens rolled the glass between his fingers and gave a lopsided smile.

‘Being held on remand must have really got to me because I don’t normally talk about these things. Promise you won’t tell any of my friends.’