‘Do we know that?’ Aune asked.
‘Yeah,’ Truls said. ‘The police checked with the ticket office and found out which seat numbers they’d sent to Røed and who’d been sitting next to her as well. And they said the woman sitting beside them hadn’t returned after the interval. The cloakroom attendant also remembered a lady picking up her coat, and a man standing waiting a little way off with his back turned. She remembered because they were the only people she had seen leave that particular play during the break.’
‘I spoke to Helene Røed,’ Harry said. ‘She was a smart woman and capable of taking care of herself. It just doesn’t make sense to me that she would willingly leave a play with a drug dealer she doesn’t know. Not after everything that’s happened.’
‘You keep bringing up willingly,’ Aune said.
‘Yes,’ Harry said. ‘They ought to be... scared.’
‘Go on.’
‘Yes. Terrified.’ Harry was no longer sitting in his usual slumped position, but on the edge of the chair, leaning forward. ‘It reminds me of this mouse I saw one morning when I woke up in Los Angeles. It just walked right over to the house cat. Who of course killed it. And a few days ago I saw the same thing happen in a backyard here in Oslo. I don’t know what’s wrong with these mice, maybe they were drugged or had lost their natural instinct of fear.’
‘Fear is good,’ Øystein said. ‘A little bit at least. Fear of strangers, for instance. Xenophobia is a pretty negatively charged word, and yeah, it’s to blame for a lot of seriously evil shit. But the world we live in is eat or be eaten, and if you’re not suitably scared of what’s unfamiliar to you, then sooner or later you’re fucked. Don’t you think, Ståle?’
‘Certainly,’ Aune said. ‘When our senses perceive something they recognise as a danger, the amygdala excretes neurotransmitters like glutamate, so we become fearful. It’s a smoke alarm from evolution, and without it...’
‘We burn up,’ Harry said. ‘So what’s wrong with these murder victims? And the mice?’
The four of them looked at one another in silence.
‘Toxoplasmosis.’
They turned to the fifth person.
‘The mice have toxoplasmosis,’ Jibran Sethi said.
‘What’s that?’ Harry asked.
‘It’s a parasite that’s infected the mouse, blocking the fear response, and replacing it with sexual attraction instead. The mouse approaches the cat because it’s sexually attracted.’
‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ Øystein said.
Jibran smiled. ‘No, the parasite is called Toxoplasma gondii and is actually one of the most common in the world.’
‘Wait,’ Harry said. ‘Is it only found in mice?’
‘No, it can live in almost any warm-blooded animal. But its life cycle goes through animals which are prey for cats because the parasite needs to get back into the intestines of the main host to reproduce, and that has to be a feline.’
‘So the parasite can in principle be present in people?’
‘Not just in principle. In certain areas of the world it’s quite common for humans to be infected with the gondii parasite.’
‘And they are then sexually attracted to... eh, cats?’
Jibran laughed. ‘Not that I’ve heard of. Perhaps our psychologist knows something about that?’
‘I’m familiar with the parasite, so I should have made the connection,’ Aune said. ‘The parasite attacks the brain and the eyes, and there’s research to show that people with no history of mental problems begin to display abnormal behaviour. Not that they start carrying on with cats, but they do exhibit violence, directed primarily at themselves. There are numerous instances of suicide where it’s believed the parasite is to blame. I read in a research paper that the reaction times of people with the gondii parasite are diminished, and that the probability of them being involved in road accidents is three to four times greater. And there’s an interesting study showing that students with toxoplasmosis are more likely to become businessmen. They reasoned that this was due to an absence of fear of failure.’
‘Absence of fear?’ Harry said.
‘Yes.’
‘But not sexual attraction?’
‘What are you thinking?’
‘I’m thinking that the women didn’t just leave willingly, they went all the way across town or left a theatre production they liked to be with their killer. No signs of rape were found, and the footprints in the forest may indicate that they had their arms linked as they walked, like lovers.’
‘It’s the scent of the cat and cat’s urine that attracts infected mice,’ Jibran said. ‘Imagine, the parasite eats away at the mouse’s brain and eyes, while at the same time it knows it needs to return to the cat because it’s only within the bowels of the cat that the environment is conducive to reproduction. So it alters and manipulates the mouse’s brain to be attracted sexually by the smell of the cat. So that the mouse voluntarily helps the parasite return to the cat’s intestines.’
‘Holy shit,’ Truls said.
‘Yes, it’s gruesome,’ Jibran conceded. ‘But that’s how parasites function.’
‘Mm. Is it conceivable that the killer has taken on the role of the cat, as it were, after he’s infected them with the parasite?’
Jibran shrugged. ‘It’s perfectly conceivable that it’s a mutated parasite or that someone could breed a gondii parasite that requires human intestines as a primary host. I mean, in this day and age even a biology student can engage in gene manipulation on a cellular level. But you’d have to ask a parasitologist or a microbiologist about that.’
‘Thanks, but first we’ll hear what Al has to say.’ Harry checked the time. ‘Katrine said they were going to question him as soon as he’s had a chance to talk to the lawyer appointed to him.’
It was rare anyone at the Custody Unit dared to ask Duty Officer Groth the reason behind his chronically bad humour and ill temper. Those who had were now gone. His haemorrhoids, however, were not. They had been at the Custody Unit as long as Groth — for twenty-three years. He had been interrupted in the middle of a promising game of patience on the PC, and now winced in pain on the chair as he looked at the ID card the man in front of him had placed on the counter. The man had introduced himself as the lawyer for the prisoner arrested at Jernbanetorget earlier that day. Groth didn’t care much for lawyers in expensive suits, even less for ones like this, slumming it in a bomber jacket and wearing a flat cap like some dock worker.
‘Would you like an officer present in the room, Beckstrøm?’ Groth asked.
‘No thank you,’ the lawyer said. ‘And no one listening at the door either.’
‘He’s killed three—’
‘Suspected of having killed.’
Groth shrugged and pressed the button that opened the full-height turnstile. ‘The guard on the inside will search you and open the cell door.’
‘Thanks,’ the lawyer said, picking up his ID card and going through.
‘Idiot,’ Groth said, not bothering to look up from the PC screen to see if the lawyer had heard.
Four minutes later it was clear the game of patience wasn’t working out after all.
Groth swore, and just then heard someone clear their throat and saw a man wearing a face mask standing behind the full-height turnstile. Groth was momentarily taken aback before he recognised the flat cap and the bomber jacket.