Adam took his time putting the top back on the felt tip and then put it down. He still did not say a word.
‘And what the fuck has happened to Ove Rønbeck?’ Gerhard complained, obviously having thrown his original strategy overboard. ‘You’re not allowed to talk to me without my lawyer being present, you know!’
‘Yes, yes,’ Adam said. ‘I am. I can, for example, ask you whether you would like a fresh coffee. You haven’t even touched that one and it’ll be cold by now.’
Gerhard gave a sullen shake of the head.
‘And I can do you another favour.’ Adam stood up and walked along beside the table for a couple of steps, then sat down on the edge, half turned away from Gerhard.
‘What’s that?’ muttered the arrestee into his bottle.
‘Are you happy for me to do you a favour before your lawyer gets here?’
‘Fuck it, Stubo! What the hell are you talking about?’
Adam sniffed and wiped his nose on his shirt sleeve. It was unexpectedly cold in the room. The air-conditioning must have been put on the wrong setting. Perhaps it had been done on purpose, to expel the heat of so many officers working round the clock in the building. Even now, at half past seven in the evening, when the corridors were normally pretty deserted, with rows and rows of closed rooms, you could hear doors slamming and footsteps, voices and the jangling of keys; as much noise as on a busy Friday morning in June.
His jacket was hanging over the chair. He slipped down from the table and grabbed it. As he put it on, he smiled and said in a friendly tone: ‘I have never liked you, Gerhard.’
The man picked at a scab and didn’t answer.
‘And perhaps that’s why,’ Adam continued, straightening his jacket, ‘for once, I’m quite happy that you’re keeping your mouth shut.’
Gerhard played with his cap and opened his mouth to say something. He changed his mind a little too late and the word mutated into a strange grunt before he clenched his teeth. He slouched back in the chair again and vigorously scratched his crotch.
‘Very happy.’ Adam nodded in emphasis. He was standing with his back to the arrestee now, as if he was speaking to an imaginary third person. ‘Because I don’t like you. And because you’re behaving in the way that you are, I can just release you.’
He spun round and made an inviting gesture towards the closed door.
‘I can let you go,’ he said. ‘Because the people out there use completely different methods from the ones that I’m allowed to use. Completely different.’
He laughed, as if the thought of letting Gerhard Skrøder go pleased him greatly.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘I think I’ve made up my mind,’ Adam said, again as if he was talking to someone else. ‘Then I don’t have to put up with all this nonsense. I can go home. Call it a day.’ He patted down his jacket, as if to check that he had his wallet and keys with him before leaving. ‘And then I’ll never have to see you again. One crook fewer for the police to waste resources on.’
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
Gerhard slammed his fist down on the table.
‘You said we should wait for your lawyer.’ Adam smiled. ‘So you can sit here and do just that. Only alone. I’ll make sure that his job is simple. You’ll be released when the paperwork is done. A very good evening to you, Gerhard.’
He walked over to the door, unlocked it and was about to open it.
‘Wait. Wait!’
Adam paused with his hand on the door handle.
‘What is it?’
‘Who are you talking about? Who is it who… What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Gerhard, come on… they call you the Chancellor, don’t they? I would have thought you’d have some idea about international relations with a name like that.’
‘Fuck, I…’
A thin layer of sweat had appeared on his pallid face, and finally Gerhard pulled off his cap. His hair was flat and greasy, and a matted lock fell down over his eyes. He tried to blow it away.
‘D’you mean the Americans?’ he asked.
‘Bingo,’ Adam grinned. ‘Good luck.’
He pressed down the door handle.
‘Wait. Wait a moment, Stubo! The Americans don’t bloody well have any authority to-’
Adam burst out laughing. He threw back his head and roared. The bare walls in the sterile room made the laughter sound sharp and hard.
‘Americans? Authority? The Americans!’
He was laughing so hard that he could scarcely speak. He let go of the door handle and clutched his stomach, shook his head and hiccuped.
The arrestee sat watching, with his mouth open. He had a long history with the police and had lost count of the number of times he had been questioned by some idiot pig or other. But he had never experienced anything like this before. His pulse started racing. He could hear the blood pounding in his ears, and his throat tightened. He saw red specks in front of his eyes. He twisted his cap in his hands. When Adam Stubo had to put his hand against the wall to stop himself from collapsing with laughter, Gerhard Skrøder frantically rummaged in his pocket for his inhaler. It was the only thing he had been allowed to keep when he was searched and his belongings were confiscated. He put it to his mouth. His hands were shaking.
‘It’s a long time since I’ve enjoyed myself so much,’ Adam gasped and wiped his eyes.
‘But what could the Americans do to me?’ Gerhard Skrøder asked in a feeble voice, high as that of a pubescent boy. ‘We’re in Norway…’
He tried to stuff the inhaler back in his pocket, but missed. It fell on the floor and he bent down to pick it up. When he straightened up, Adam Stubo was standing in front of him, fists firmly planted on the table, with his face only ten centimetres from Gerhard’s. His paunch and his unusually broad shoulders made the policeman look like a fair-haired gorilla, and there was not even a hint of humour in his pale blue eyes.
‘You think you’re king of the world,’ Adam snarled. ‘You think you’re a star out there. You con yourself into believing that you’re one of the big boys, because you move on the periphery of the Russian mafia. You think you can look after yourself. You think that you’re hard enough to deal with hardboiled Albanian criminals and other Balkan bastards. Forget it! It’s now… It’s now…’ He raised a finger and stuck it up right under Skrøder’s nose. His voice was much louder. ‘It’s now that you’ll discover that you’re small fry. If you for one moment believe that the Americans will sit still and watch us release a shit like you, you are so fucking wrong. Every day, several times a day, we inform them about where we are in the investigation. They know that you’re here right now. They know what you’ve done, and they will-’
‘But I haven’t done anything,’ Gerhard Skrøder protested. He was wheezing and obviously found it difficult to speak. ‘I… only…’
‘Breathe deeply,’ Adam said briskly. ‘Take more of your medicine.’
He pulled back a touch and lowered his finger.
‘I want to know everything,’ he said while the arrestee inhaled from the round blue receptacle. ‘I want to know who gave you the job. When, where and how. I want to know how much you got paid, where the money is now, who else you’ve talked to in connection with the job. I want names and descriptions. Everything.’
‘They won’t send me to Guantomo?’ gasped Gerhard.
‘Guantánamo,’ Adam corrected him and had to bite his lip hard to stop himself laughing, and this time it would be real. ‘Who knows? Who knows these days? They’ve lost their president, Gerhard. And in practice, they view you as a… terrorist.’
Adam could have sworn that Gerhard’s pupils dilated. For a moment he thought that his arrestee had stopped breathing. But then he gulped and gasped in deep breaths of air. He wiped his forehead again and again with the back of his hand, as if he thought some fateful word was written there in big letters.