‘Ugh,’ Helge said. ‘Don’t blame you for not going.’
‘Fuck that, course I would’ve gone! If I hadn’t had so much work on here that day. And you would have come with.’
‘Would I?’ Helge smiled.
‘Of course.’ Alexandra laughed. ‘I’m your fag hag. Can’t you picture it, you, me and the beautiful people?’
‘Yes.’
‘You see, you are gay.’
‘What? Because?’
‘Tell me truthfully, Helge. Have you ever slept with a man?’
‘Let me see...’ Helge wheeled the table with the corpse towards one of the cold lockers. ‘Yes.’
‘More than once?’
‘Doesn’t mean I’m gay,’ he said, opening the large metal drawer.
‘No, that’s only circumstantial evidence. The proof, Watson, is that you tie your sweater over one shoulder and under the other arm.’
Helge chuckled, grabbed one of the white cloths on the instrument table and flicked it at her. Alexandra smiled as she ducked down behind the top end of the table. She remained like that, stooped over, her eyes fixed on the body.
‘Helge,’ she said in a low voice.
‘Yeah.’
‘I think we’ve missed something.’
‘What?’
Alexandra reached out towards Susanne Andersen’s head, lifted the hair and pulled it to the side.
‘What is it?’ Helge asked.
‘Stitches,’ Alexandra replied. ‘Fresh stitches.’
He came round the other side of the trolley. ‘Hm. Guess she must have hurt herself then?’
Alexandra lifted away more hair, followed the stitches. ‘These weren’t carried out by a trained doctor, Helge, no one uses thread this thick or stitches this loosely. This was just done in a hurry. And look, the stitches continue all the way round the head.’
‘As though she’s...’
‘As though she’s been scalped,’ Alexandra said, feeling a cold shudder go through her. ‘And then the scalp has been sewn back on.’
She looked up at Helge, saw his Adam’s apple rise and fall. ‘Will we...’ he began. ‘Will we check what’s... underneath?’
‘No,’ Alexandra said firmly, straightening up. She had taken home enough nightmares from this job, and the pathologists earned two hundred thousand kroner a year more than her, they could earn it.
‘This is outside our field of competence,’ she said. ‘So it’s the kind of thing Dieners like you and me leave to the grown-ups.’
‘OK. And OK to partying tonight too, by the way.’
‘Good,’ Alexandra said. ‘But we need to finish the report and send it along with the photos to Bratt at Crime Squad. Oh fuck!’
‘What is it?’
‘I just realised that Bratt is bound to ask me to run an express DNA analysis when she reads about that saliva or whatever it is. In which case I won’t make it out on the town tonight.’
‘Come on, you can say no, everyone needs time off, even you.’
Alexandra put her hands on her hips, tilted her head to one side and looked sternly at Helge.
‘Right.’ He sighed. ‘Where would we be if everyone just took time off?’
4
Saturday
Rabbit hole
Harry Hole woke up. The bungalow lay in semi-darkness, but a white strip of sunlight, coming from under the bamboo blind, stretched across the coarse wooden floor, via the stone slab serving as a coffee table, and over to the kitchen worktop.
A cat was sitting there. One of Lucille’s cats; she had so many of them up in the main house that Harry couldn’t tell one from the other. The cat looked like it was smiling. Its tail was waving slowly as it calmly observed a mouse scuttling along the wall, stopping now and then to stick its snout in the air to sniff, before continuing. Towards the cat. Was the mouse blind? Did it lack a sense of smell? Had it eaten some of Harry’s marijuana? Or did it believe, like so many others seeking happiness in this city, that it was different, special? Or that this cat was different, that it meant well and wouldn’t just eat him?
Harry reached for the joint on the nightstand while keeping his eyes on the mouse, who was headed straight towards the cat. The cat struck, sinking its teeth into the mouse and lifting it up. It writhed a few moments in the predator’s jaws before going limp. The cat laid its prey on the floor, then viewed it with its head cocked slightly to one side, as though undecided on whether to eat the mouse or not.
Harry lit up the joint. He had come to the conclusion that joints didn’t count with regard to the new drinking regimen he had embarked upon. Inhaled. Watched the smoke curl upward to the ceiling. He had dreamt about the man behind the wheel of the Camaro again. And the number plate that read Baja California Mexico. The dream was the same, he was chasing them. So not exactly hard to interpret. Three weeks had passed since Harry had stood in the parking lot outside Creatures with a Glock 17 aimed at him, fairly certain his imminent demise was a second or two away. Which had been just fine by him. So it was strange that the only thing that had been in his head after those two seconds had elapsed, and every day since, was not to die. It had begun with the hesitation on the part of the man in the polo shirt; perhaps he was considering the possibility that Harry was a mental case, a manageable obstacle to be overcome, who didn’t need shooting. He would hardly have had more time to think before Harry’s chisel punch struck him in the throat and put him down for the count. Harry had physically felt the man’s larynx give way. He had lain squirming on the gravel like a worm, his hands to his throat and eyes bulging while he gasped desperately for air. Harry had picked the Glock up off the ground and stared at the man in the car. Due to the tinted windows he hadn’t seen much, only the outline of a face, and that the man looked to be wearing a white shirt buttoned right up to the neck. And that he was smoking a cigarette or a cigarillo. The man made no move, just looked calmly out at Harry, as though evaluating him, committing him to memory. Harry heard someone shout ‘Get in!’ and noticed Lucille had started her own car and pushed open the door on the passenger side.
Then he had jumped in. Down the rabbit hole.
The first thing he asked as she turned down towards lower ground and Sunset Boulevard, was who she owed money to and how much.
The first answer — ‘The Esposito family’ — didn’t mean much to him, but the next — ‘Nine hundred and sixty thousand dollars’ — confirmed what the Glock had already told him. That she wasn’t in a little trouble but a lot. And that from now on that trouble included him.
He explained that under no circumstances could she go back home, and asked if there was anyone whose place she could lay low at. She said, yes, she had a lot of friends in Los Angeles. But after thinking about it for a minute, she said none of them would be willing to run the risk for her. They stopped at a petrol station, and Lucille called her first husband, whom she knew had a house he hadn’t used in several years.
And that was how they had ended up on this property, with its dilapidated house, overgrown garden and guest bungalow. Harry had installed himself in the bungalow with his newly acquired Glock 17 because from there he had a view of both gates, and because it was fitted with an alarm that went off should anyone break into the main house. Any prospective intruders wouldn’t hear that alarm, meaning hopefully he could take them from the rear, given that he would be coming from the outside. Up until now, he and Lucille had hardly left the property, just short trips for the absolute essentials: alcohol, food, clothes and cosmetics — in that order. Lucille had taken up residence on the first floor of the main house, which after just a week was full of cats.