Nemesis (31 page)

‘Well, it could have been worse. You saved my bacon.’

Trond shook his head. ‘I was a fair distance away when I saw you. I just shouted. I’m not sure that was what made him call off the dog. Sorry I didn’t get the registration number, but I did see it was a Jeep Cherokee they made off in.’

Harry dismissed this with a wave of his hand. ‘I know who he is.’

‘Oh?’

‘He’s under investigation. But perhaps you’d better tell me what you were doing around here, Grette.’

Trond fidgeted with his teacup. ‘You should definitely go to casualty with that wound.’

‘I’ll consider it. Have you had a little think since we last talked?’

Trond nodded slowly.

‘And what conclusion did you come to?’

‘I can’t help him any longer.’ It was difficult for Harry to determine whether it was only the sore larynx which made Trond whisper the last sentence.

‘So where’s your brother?’

‘I want you to tell him it was me who told you. He’ll understand.’

‘Alright.’

‘Porto Seguro.’

‘Uhuh.’

‘It’s a town in Brazil.’

Harry wrinkled his nose. ‘Fine. How will we find him there?’

‘He’s just told me he has a house there. He refused to give me an address, only a telephone number.’

‘Why? He’s not a wanted man.’

‘I’m not sure that is correct.’ Trond took another sip. ‘At any rate, he said it would be better if I didn’t have his address.’

‘Mm. Is it a large town?’

‘About a million, according to Lev.’

‘Right. You haven’t got anything else? Other people who knew him and might have his address?’

Trond hesitated before shaking his head.

‘Out with it,’ Harry said.

‘Lev and I went for a coffee last time we met in Oslo. He said it tasted even worse than usual. Said he’d taken to drinking
cafezinho
at a local
ahwa.’

‘
Ahwa
? Isn’t that an Arab coffee house?’

‘Correct.
Cafezinho
is a kind of strong Brazilian variant of espresso. Lev says he goes there every day. Drinks coffee, smokes a hookah and plays dominoes with the Syrian owner who has become a kind of pal. I can remember his name – Muhammed Ali. Like the boxer.’

‘And fifty million other Arabs. Did your brother say which coffee bar it was?’

‘Probably, but I don’t remember. There can’t be so many
ahwas
in a Brazilian town, can there?’

‘Maybe not.’ Harry thought. Definitely something concrete to work on. He was about to put a hand to his forehead, but as soon as he tried to raise his hand his neck hurt.

‘One last question, Grette. What made you decide to tell me this?’

Trond’s teacup did a few circuits. ‘I knew he was here in Oslo.’

The towel felt like a heavy rope around Harry’s neck. ‘How?’

Trond scratched under his chin for a long time before answering. ‘We hadn’t spoken for over two years. Out of the blue he rang me and said he was in town. We met at a café and had a long chat. Hence, the coffee.’

‘When was this?’

‘Three days before the bank raid.’

‘What did you talk about?’

‘Everything. And nothing. When you’ve known one another for as long as we have, the big things have often grown so big it’s the small things you talk about. About . . . the old man’s roses, etc.’

‘What sort of big things?’

‘Things done that were best undone. And things said best unsaid.’

‘So you talk about roses instead?’

‘I tended the roses when Stine and I were left in the house. It was where Lev and I had grown up. It was where I wanted our children to grow up.’ He bit his lower lip. His gaze was fixed on the brown-and-white wax cloth; the cloth was the only thing Harry had taken when his mother died.

‘He didn’t say anything about the robbery?’

Trond shook his head.

‘You’re aware the robbery must have been planned at that point. That your wife’s bank was going to be hit?’

Trond let out a deep sigh. ‘Had that been the case, I might have known and could have prevented it. Lev relished telling me about his bank robberies, you see. He got hold of copies of the videos, which he kept in the loft in Disengrenda, and every so often insisted
we watch them together. To see what a clever big brother he was. When I married Stine and started working, I made it clear I wouldn’t listen to any more of his plans. It would put me in a delicate position.’

‘Mm. So he didn’t know Stine worked in the bank?’

‘I had told him she worked for Nordea, but not which branch, I don’t think.’

‘But they knew each other?’

‘They had met a few times, yes. A couple of family gatherings. Lev was never a big fan of that sort of thing.’

‘How did they get on?’

‘Well, Lev can be a charmer when he wants to be.’ Trond smiled wryly. ‘As I said, we shared one set of genes. I was happy he could be bothered to show his good side to her. And since I had told her how he could behave towards people he didn’t appreciate, she was flattered. The first time she came to our house he took her around our neighbourhood and showed her all the places he and I had played when we were small.’

‘Not the footbridge though?’

‘No, not that.’ Trond lifted his hands pensively and looked at them. ‘But you mustn’t believe that was for his own sake. Lev was more than happy to talk about all the bad things he had done. It was because he knew I didn’t want her to know I had a brother like that.’

‘Mm. Are you sure you’re not painting a nobler picture of your brother than he deserves?’

Trond shook his head. ‘Lev has a dark and a light side. Like all of us. He would die for those he likes.’

‘But not in prison?’

Trond opened his mouth, but no answer came out. His skin twitched under one eye. Harry sighed and, with difficulty, stood up. ‘I have to get a taxi to A&E.’

‘I’ve got a car,’ Trond said.

The engine hummed quietly. Harry stared at the streetlights gliding by in the dark night sky, the dashboard and the diamond ring glinting on Trond’s little finger as he held the steering wheel.

‘You lied about the ring you’re wearing,’ Harry whispered. ‘The diamond is too small to cost thirty thousand. I reckon it cost about five and you bought it for Stine at a jeweller’s here in Oslo. Am I right?’

Trond nodded.

‘You met Lev in São Paulo, didn’t you. The money was for him.’

Trond nodded again.

‘Enough money to keep him going,’ Harry said. ‘Enough for a plane ticket when he decided to return to Oslo to do another job.’

Trond didn’t answer.

‘Lev’s still in Olso,’ Harry whispered. ‘I want his mobile number.’

‘Do you know what?’ Trond carefully turned right by Alexander Kiellands plass. ‘Last night I dreamed that Stine came into the bedroom and talked to me. She was dressed as an angel. Not like a real angel, but the kind of outfit you wear at carnivals. She said she didn’t belong up there. And when I awoke, I thought of Lev. I thought of him sitting on the edge of the school roof with his legs dangling down as we went into the next lesson. He was a small dot, but I remember what I was thinking. He belonged up there.’

T
HREE PEOPLE WERE SITTING IN
I
VARSSON’S OFFICE
: Ivarsson, behind the tidy desk, and Beate and Harry each in their – slightly lower – chairs. The trick with the low chairs is such a well-known dominance technique that one could be excused for thinking it was no longer used, but Ivarsson knew better. His experience was that basic techniques never went out of fashion.

Harry had tipped his chair back so that he could see out of the window. The view took in the Hotel Plaza. Rounded clouds swept over the glass tower and the town without releasing any rain. Harry hadn’t slept, even though he had taken painkillers after the tetanus injection he had received at the hospital. The explanation he had given to his colleagues of a stray feral dog had been original enough to be credible and close enough to the truth for him to be able to carry it off with some conviction. His neck was swollen and the tight bandage chafed against his skin. Harry knew exactly how much it would hurt if he twisted his head towards Ivarsson, who was talking. He also knew he wouldn’t have turned his head, even if it hadn’t hurt.

‘So you want air tickets to Brazil to search there?’ Ivarsson said, brushing the tabletop clean and pretending to stifle a smile. ‘While
the Expeditor is demonstrably busy robbing banks here in Oslo?’

‘We don’t know where in Oslo he is,’ Beate said. ‘Or whether he is in Oslo. But we hope we can trace the house his brother says he has in Porto Seguro. If we find it, we’ll also find his fingerprints. And if they match the prints we have on the Coca-Cola bottle, we have damning evidence. That ought to make the trip worthwhile.’

‘Really? And which prints are these that no one else has?’

Beate struggled in vain to catch Harry’s eye. She swallowed. ‘Since the principle is that we are meant to be independent of each other, we decided to keep it to ourselves. Until further notice.’

‘Dear Beate,’ Ivarsson began, winking his right eye. ‘You say “we” but I only hear Harry Hole. I appreciate Hole’s keenness to adhere to my method, but we mustn’t let principles stand in the way of results we can achieve together. So I repeat: which prints?’

Beate sent Harry a desperate look.

‘Hole?’ Ivarsson said.

‘This is how we’re running it,’ Harry said. ‘Until further notice.’

‘As you like,’ Ivarsson said. ‘But forget the trip. You’ll have to talk to the Brazilian police and ask them to help you to get hold of prints.’

Beate cleared her throat. ‘I’ve checked. We have to send written applications via the Chief Constable in Bahia province and have a Brazilian district attorney go through the case, which will eventually result in a search warrant. The person I spoke to said that from experience this would take, without contacts in the Brazilian administration, somewhere between two months and two years.’

‘We’ve got seats on the plane leaving tomorrow evening,’ Harry said, studying a fingernail. ‘What’s the decision?’

Ivarsson laughed. ‘What do you think? You come to ask me for money for plane tickets to the other side of the globe without even bothering to state the reasons for such a trip. You plan to search a house without a warrant, so that even if you found forensic evidence, the court would probably be obliged to reject it because you used illegal means to acquire it.’

‘The old brick trick,’ Harry said softly.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘An unknown person heaves a brick through a window. The police happen to chance by and do not need a warrant to enter. They think there is a smell of marijuana in the sitting room. A subjective perception, but a justified reason for an immediate search. You secure forensic evidence, such as fingerprints, from the place. Very legal.’

‘In short – we’ve thought about what you’re saying,’ Beate hastened to add. ‘If we find the house, we’ll collect the prints by legal means.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Hopefully without the brick.’

Ivarsson shook his head. ‘Not good enough. The answer is a loud, resounding no.’ He looked at his watch to signal the meeting was over and added with a thin reptilian smile: ‘Until further notice.’

‘Couldn’t you have given him a bone?’ Beate said on leaving Ivarsson’s office and heading down the corridor.

‘Such as what?’ Harry said, carefully turning his neck. ‘He’d made up his mind beforehand.’

‘You didn’t even give him a chance to give us tickets.’

‘I gave him a chance not to be overruled.’

‘What do you mean?’ They stopped in front of the lift.

‘What I told you. On this case we’ve been given certain freedoms.’

Beate turned towards him and stared. ‘I think I see,’ she said slowly. ‘So what happens now?’

‘He’ll be overruled. Don’t forget suncream.’ The lift doors opened.

Later that day Bjarne Møller told Harry that Ivarsson had taken the Chief Constable’s decision to let Harry and Beate go to Brazil and charge the travel and accommodation costs to the Robberies Unit very badly.

‘Pleased with yourself now?’ Beate said to Harry before he went home.

However, as Harry passed the Plaza and the heavens finally opened, strangely enough, he felt no satisfaction at all. Just embarrassment, and exhaustion from pain and lack of sleep.