Harry nodded and watched as her long legs wove their way between the chairs to the other end of the table.
Oleg leaned closer to him. “Who’s she? Apart from an old colleague?”
“Long story.”
“So I saw. What’s the short version?”
Harry took a sip of coffee. “That I once let her go in favour of your mother.”
It was three o’clock when the first of the final three guests, Øystein, stood up, misquoted a Bob Dylan lyric in parting and left.
One of the two remaining guests moved to the chair next to Harry’s.
“Haven’t you got a job to go to?” Kaja asked.
“Not tomorrow either. Suspended until further notice. You?”
“I’m on standby for the Red Cross. I mean, I’m getting paid, but right now I’m just waiting at home for shit to kick off somewhere in the world.”
“Which it will, of course?”
“Which it will. When you look at it like that, it’s a bit like working in Crime Squad. You go around almost hoping that something terrible is going to happen.”
“Mm. The Red Cross. That’s a bit of a leap from Crime Squad.”
“Yes and no. I’m in charge of security. My last deployment was two years in Afghanistan.”
“And before that?”
“Another two years. In Afghanistan.” She smiled, revealing her small, pointed teeth, the imperfect feature that made her face interesting.
“What’s so good about Afghanistan?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “To start with it was probably just the fact that you were confronted with problems so big that your own personal problems seemed small. And that you could be useful. And then you get to like the people you meet and work with.”
“Like Roar Bohr?”
“Yes. Did he tell you he was in Afghanistan?”
“No, but he looked like a soldier who doesn’t want to step on any mines. Was he in Special Forces?”
Kaja looked at him thoughtfully. The pupils in the centre of those green irises were large. They didn’t waste energy on the lighting in Schrøder’s.
“Confidential?” Harry asked.
She shrugged again. “Yes, Bohr was a lieutenant colonel in the Special Operations Forces. He was one of the team sent to Kabul with a list of Taliban terrorists that the ISAF wanted taken out.”
“Mm. A desk jockey, or did he shoot the jihadists himself?”
“We both took part in security meetings at the Norwegian Embassy, but I was never told any details. All I know is that Roar and his sister were both shooting champions in Vest-Agder.”
“And he dealt with the list?”
“I assume so. You’re pretty similar, you and Bohr. You don’t give up until you’ve got the people you’re after.”
“If Bohr was so good at the job, why did he leave and start working with human rights?”
She raised an eyebrow. As if to ask why he was so interested in Bohr. But she seemed to conclude that he just needed to talk about something different — anything, as long as it wasn’t Rakel, himself, the current situation.
“ISAF was replaced by Resolute Support, which meant a transition from so-called peacekeeping to non-combat operations. So they were no longer allowed to shoot. Besides, his wife wanted him home. She couldn’t handle being left on her own with two children any longer. A Norwegian officer with ambitions to become a general needs to have completed at least one tour in Afghanistan, so when Roar requested a transfer, he knew he was effectively ruling himself out of a senior position. And it probably just wasn’t as enjoyable anymore. Besides, people with his leadership experience are highly sought-after in other branches.”
“But to go from shooting people to human rights?”
“What do you think he was fighting for in Afghanistan?”
“Mm. An idealist and a family man, then.”
“Roar is a man who believes in things. And who’s prepared to make sacrifices for the people he loves. Like you did.” She pulled a face. A fleeting, painful smile. She buttoned her coat. “That’s worth respect, Harry.”
“Mm. You think I sacrificed something back then?”
“We like to think we’re rational, but we always follow the diktat of our hearts, don’t we?” She pulled out a business card from her bag and laid it down on the table in front of him. “I still live in the same place. If you need someone to talk to, I know a bit about loss and longing.”
The sun had slipped down behind the ridge, colouring the sky orange, when Harry let himself into the wooden house. Oleg was on his way back to Lakselv and had given him the keys so that he could let an estate agent in once a week. Harry had asked Oleg to think about whether he really wanted to sell the house, if it wouldn’t be useful to come back to when he’d completed his year on placement. Somewhere for him and Helga, possibly. Oleg promised to think it through carefully, but it sounded like he’d made his mind up.
The crime-scene investigators had finished their work, and had cleaned up after themselves. That’s to say: the pool of blood was gone, but not the classic chalk outline showing where the body had been lying. Harry could imagine the estate agent anxiously trying to find a tactful way to suggest that the chalk should be removed before the first viewing.
Harry went over to the kitchen window and watched the sky grow pale as the glow disappeared. Darkness took over. He had been sober for twenty-eight hours, and Rakel had been dead for at least 141.
He walked across the floor and stood above the outline. He knelt down. Ran his fingertips over the rough wooden floor. He lay on the floor, crawled inside the lines, and curled up into the same fetal position, trying to stay within the white lines. And then, at last, he started to cry. But there were no tears at first, just hoarse wails that started in his chest, grew and forced their way out through his too-narrow throat before finally filling the room, sounding like a man who was struggling to stay alive. When he stopped screaming, he rolled onto his back to catch his breath. And then the tears came. And through the tears, swimming forward as if in a dream, he saw the crystal chandelier directly above him. And saw that the crystals formed the letter S.
14
The birds were singing with joy in Lyder Sagens gate.
Possibly because it was nine o’clock in the morning and nothing had spoiled the day yet. Possibly because the sun was shining and it looked like it was going to be the perfect start to what was forecast to be a warm weekend. Or possibly because the birds in Lyder Sagens gate were happier than in the rest of the world. Because even in a country that regularly topped the statistics of the happiest countries in the world, this not particularly striking street named after a teacher from Bergen was a particular high point: 470 metres of happiness, free not only from financial worries, but also from exaggerated materialism, with solid, unfussy villas and large but not excessively neat gardens, where children’s toys lay scattered with a charm that left no doubt as to the families’ priorities. Bohemian, but with a new Audi, though not one of the flashy ones, in a garage full of old, heavy and delightfully impractical garden furniture made of well-seasoned wood. Lyder Sagens gate may have been one of the most expensive streets in the country, but its ideal resident seemed to be an artist who had inherited the house from their grandmother. Either way, the residents largely appeared to be good social democrats who believed in sustainable development and had values as solid as the outsized wooden beams that jutted out here and there from their old-fashioned houses.
Harry pushed the gate open and the creak sounded like an echo from the past. Everything seemed the same as before. The creak of the steps that led up to the door. The bell with no nameplate. The man’s shoes, size forty-six, that Kaja Solness left outside to deter burglars and other unwelcome visitors.