A text from Katrine.
Home now. Where are you two?
‘Time to go home to Mummy,’ Harry said, tapping a message to say they were on the way.
‘Whew aw you going?’ Gert asked, kicking the table leg.
‘I’m going to the hotel,’ Harry said.
‘Nooo.’ The boy lay a small, warm hand upon his. ‘You aw going to sing dat song when I go to bed. About the dwink.’
‘The drink?’
‘Coke-cane...’ Gert sang.
Harry wanted to laugh but had to swallow the lump in his throat instead. Bloody hell. What was that exactly? Was it what Ståle called priming? Did Harry only feel this way because the certainty that he was the father of the child had been planted in him? Or was it something more physical or biological, something in the blood calling, pulling two people helplessly towards one another?
Harry got to his feet.
‘Which animal ah you?’ Gert asked.
‘Orangotango,’ Harry said, and lifted Gert out of his chair and performed a pirouette that earned applause from one of the lonely guests. He put Gert down, and they walked hand in hand towards the door.
It was ten o’clock at night, and Prim had just fed Boss and Lisa. He sat down in front of the TV to watch the news again. To enjoy once again the results of what he had staged. Although the police didn’t say it directly, he could tell by the platitudes they were spouting that they hadn’t found any evidence at the scene. He had made the right decision when Helene got out of the car, and he’d had to kill her on the gravel road. Leaving behind DNA was unavoidable — a hair, a flake of skin or sweat — and seeing as he couldn’t carry out such a thorough clean-up on a road where witnesses might show up, he’d had to ensure that the gravel road wasn’t identified as the crime scene. So, he had taken the body in the car and deposited it at the end of the island, which he could be fairly certain was deserted late on an autumn night leaving him to carry out his work behind the cover of the tall reeds. And be fairly certain also that Helene’s body would be found when families and children descended on the area the next day. First, he had cut off her head, then gone over her body, washing and scraping off his own DNA from under the nails she had dug into his thighs when she had ridden him in the car. Care had to be taken, because although he had never been convicted of anything, the police had his DNA profile in their database.
The female news presenter on the TV was speaking via telephone to a male police lawyer, while a photo of him along with his name — Chris Hinnøy — appeared in the top-right corner of the screen. They were talking about Røed being remanded in custody. It was no wonder they were beginning to run out of exciting angles, the news channels had largely focused on the arrest of Markus Røed and the murder of his wife all day, even Bodø/Glimt’s narrow victory over Molde had received scant coverage. The same with the online newspapers, everything was about Markus Røed. Which, in an indirect way, meant that it was about him, Prim. Granted, now that the online editions had put up so many pictures of Markus Røed, pictures of Harry Hole had begun to crop up as well. They wrote that it had been he — the outsider, the private investigator — who had linked Markus Røed’s DNA to the saliva on Susanne’s breast. As if that was so amazing. As if the police shouldn’t have found out something like that by themselves ages ago. He was actually beginning to get pretty annoying, this Harry Hole. What business had he being in the limelight? The stage ought to be reserved for the case, the mystery, his mystery. They should dwell even more on the fact that Markus Røed, a man of privilege, a man who thought himself above the law, had now been wonderfully exposed and put in the stocks. People loved that sort of thing, Prim certainly did, it was sugar for the soul. Still, the public had received a hefty dose. He hoped his stepfather had access to the newspapers where he was, that he had ample opportunity to suffer, that this public humiliation was now the acid bath Prim had drawn for him. The confusion, desperation and fear Markus Røed must be feeling. Had the thought of taking his own life occurred to him yet? Prim wondered. No, the trigger for suicide, the factor that had pushed his mother to suicide, was hopelessness, and his stepfather still had hope. He had Johan Krohn himself acting on his behalf, and the only evidence the police had was some saliva. They were going to have to balance that against the false alibi Helene had given Markus for the nights Susanne and Bertine went missing. But what the police lawyer on TV had just said disturbed Prim.
This Chris Hinnøy had explained that there would be a preliminary hearing tomorrow where the judge would doubtless grant the police the usual four weeks of remand in custody, and — given the evidence and serious nature of the crime — further detention thereafter if required. That, in Norwegian law, there was no time limit on how long a person could be held in custody, so in principle years could pass. And it was of particular importance that the police were afforded generous access to the detention of people of advantage and means who could otherwise use their money or influence to have evidence destroyed, tamper with witnesses, yes, there were even examples of them attempting to influence investigators.
‘Like Harry Hole?’ the interviewer asked, as if that had anything to do with it!
‘Hole is paid by Røed,’ the police lawyer said. ‘But Hole has been educated and trained within the Norwegian police and clearly possesses the integrity we expect of members of the force, both past and present.’
‘Thank you for joining us, Chris Hinnøy...’
Prim turned the volume down. Swore while he pondered matters. If the police lawyer was right, then Markus Røed could stay locked up indefinitely, safe in a cell where he couldn’t be reached. That wasn’t the plan.
He tried to think.
Did the plan — the grand plan — need changing?
He looked at the pink slug on the coffee table. At the slimy trail it had left behind after a half-hour’s exertion. Where was it going? Did it have a plan? Was it hunting something? Or fleeing? Was it aware that sooner or later the cannibal slugs would find the trail and take up pursuit? That coming to a standstill was death?
Prim pressed his fingers against his temples.
Harry ran, felt his heart pump blood out to his body as he watched the news presenter thank Hinnøy.
Chris Hinnøy was one of the three police lawyers Harry and Johan Krohn had contacted a couple of hours ago to ask them to provide a subjective and unofficial assessment of the likelihood of Markus Røed being found guilty given the evidence in the case. Two of them had wanted to answer straight off, but Krohn had asked them to sleep on it until the morning.
The trainer of Bodø/Glimt was being interviewed on the news, and Harry shifted his gaze from the TV screen attached to the treadmill to the mirror in front of him.
He had the hotel’s small gym to himself. He had left his suit hanging in his room and put on a hotel bathrobe, which was now hanging on a peg behind him. The mirror in front covered the entire wall. He was running in underwear, a T-shirt and his handmade John Lobb shoes, which functioned surprisingly well as running shoes. He looked ridiculous, of course, but didn’t give a shit. On his way down he had even stopped by the reception in this outfit and said he had met an affable priest in the bar but forgotten his name. The black female receptionist had nodded and smiled. ‘He isn’t a guest at the hotel, but I know who you mean, Mr Hole. Because he was here enquiring about you as well.’