He took it.
Then they walked on.
Thanh wondered if she was in love. In which case how long she had been. And — if she actually was — how difficult it was going to be to make him aware of it.
51
Friday
Prim
‘You ought to look more relieved, Harry,’ Aune said. ‘What is it now?’
Øystein and Truls had just left room 618 ahead of him.
Harry looked down at his dying friend. ‘There was an old woman in Los Angeles. She got into some trouble and I’ve been trying to... well, fix things.’
‘Is that why you came home?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I guessed the reason was something other than working for Markus Røed.’
‘Mm. I’ll tell you about it next time, I’d say it’ll be just a psychologist’s cup of tea.’
Aune chuckled and took his friend’s hand. ‘Next time, Harry.’
Harry was completely unprepared for the tears he suddenly felt welling up. He squeezed Ståle’s hand. Didn’t say anything because he knew his voice wouldn’t hold. Buttoned his jacket and walked quickly into the corridor.
Øystein and Truls, standing in front of the lift doors a few metres further along the corridor, turned towards him.
Harry’s phone rang. What would he say if it was the Los Angeles Police? He took out the phone and looked at it. It was Alexandra — he should of course have let her know he wouldn’t make it for the eclipse. He delayed answering while he tried to decide if he could face heading up there. Right now a drink or six on his lonesome in the bar at the Thief seemed much more tempting. No, not that. A lunar eclipse from the roof of the Forensic Medical Institute. That would be nice. As he tapped to take the call, a text message appeared on the screen. It was from Sung-min Larsen.
‘Hi,’ he said, as he began to read the text.
‘Hi, Harry.’
‘Is that you, Alexandra?’
‘Yes.’
‘It was just your voice,’ Harry said, letting his eyes wander over the text message. ‘You sounded so different.’
The cocaine wasn’t analysed at Krimteknisk because they didn’t have the capacity, so it was sent to the Forensic Medical Institute. There it was dealt with by a Helge Forfang, who has also dated and signed the analysis.
Harry felt like his heart had stopped beating. They flickered in front of his eyes, those fragmented pieces that had failed to fit with one another and which now, within a few astonishing seconds, dovetailed. Alexandra, showing him around the Forensic Medical Institute and informing him that when Krimteknisk couldn’t handle the analysis workload, they just sent it up there. Helge plainly telling Harry that the Toxoplasma gondii parasite was his field. Alexandra telling him she had invited Helge to the rooftop party, the sort people just crashed. The post-mortem technician could easily have placed DNA material on the corpses of Susanne and Bertine to steer suspicion towards a particular person, he could have done it in the autopsy room after the bodies were found. But above alclass="underline" the odour of musk in the autopsy room when Helge had just been in there, and which Harry thought came from the body. The same odour as when Harry leaned closer to Helge, when he had just cut open Susanne Andersen’s eye and which Harry — idiot that he was — thought came from the eye.
Multiple pieces. And they all fitted together to form a mosaic, a large, but clear and sharp picture. And as always when things fell into their proper place, Harry wondered how he had not been able to see it before now.
Alexandra’s voice, so frightened that he had hardly recognised it, was there again.
‘Can you come over here, Harry?’
An imploring tone. Overly so. Not like the Alexandra Sturdza he knew.
‘Where are you?’ Harry asked, playing for time to think.
‘You know that. On the roof of—’
‘The Forensic Medical Institute, right.’ Harry waved towards Øystein and Truls as he backed into 618 again. ‘Are you on your own?’
‘Almost.’
‘Almost?’
‘I told you that Helge and I were going to be here.’
‘Mm.’ Harry drew a deep breath and lowered his voice to almost a whisper. ‘Alexandra?’ Harry sank into the chair next to the bed as Truls and Øystein entered the room.
‘Yes, Harry?’
‘Listen to me carefully now. Don’t so much as bat an eyelid, and just answer yes or no. Can you get away from there without arousing suspicion, say you need to go to the toilet or fetch something?’
No answer. Harry held the phone a little from his ear and the other three in the Aune group inclined their heads towards the Samsung.
‘Alexandra?’ Harry whispered.
‘Yes,’ she said in a toneless voice.
‘Helge is the killer. You need to get away. Out of the building or lock yourself inside somewhere until we arrive. OK?’
There was a crackling noise. And then another voice, a man’s voice.
‘No, Harry. Not OK.’
The voice was familiar but unfamiliar at the same time, like another version of a person you know. Harry took a deep breath. ‘Helge,’ he said. ‘Helge Forfang.’
‘Yes,’ the voice confirmed. It wasn’t just deeper than Harry remembered. It sounded more relaxed, confident. Like it belonged to someone who had already won. ‘Or actually you can call me Prim. Everyone I hated did.’
‘As you wish, Prim. What’s going on?’
‘That’s exactly the right question to ask, Harry. What’s going on is that I’m sitting here with a knife to Alexandra’s throat wondering what the future has in store for the two of us. For the three of us, perhaps, as you’re a part of this too, aren’t you? I realise I’ve been found out, a lost position, as they say in chess. I was holding out, hoping to avoid that, but even if I’d known things would work out this way, I wouldn’t have changed what I’ve done. I’m quite proud of what I’ve accomplished. I think even my uncle will be when he reads about it — if he reads about it. If his parasite-ridden brain manages to cling on to life.’
‘Prim...’
‘No, Harry, I certainly haven’t thought of avoiding punishment for what I’ve done. In fact, I was planning on taking my own life when all this was over, but things have happened. Things that have given me the desire to live on. That’s why I’m interested in negotiating that my punishment is as lenient as possible. But in order to have a bargaining position you need to have something to bargain with, and I have a hostage that I can choose to spare or not. I’m pretty sure you understand, Harry.’
‘The best move you can make to get a more lenient sentence is to let Alexandra go and hand yourself over to the police right away.’
‘The best for you, you mean. Get me out of the way so you have a clear shot.’
‘A clear shot at what, Prim?’
‘Don’t act stupid. A clear shot at Alexandra. You’ve infected her, made her desire you, made her believe that you have something to offer her. Like true love for example. Well, here’s your chance to prove it’s true. What do you say to an exchange, you swapping places with her?’
‘And you’ll let her go?’
‘Of course. Neither of us wants Alexandra to be harmed.’
‘OK. Then I have a suggestion about how to go about it.’
Helge’s laughter was lighter than his voice. ‘Nice try, Harry, but I think we’ll do things according to my plan.’
‘Mm. And that is?’
‘You drive here together with one other person; you park out in front of the building so I can see the two of you — and only the two of you — get out of the car and walk towards the building. I’ll open the door from here. As soon as you get out of the car, I want to see your hands being handcuffed behind your back. Understand?’