“No?”
“The idea that he killed Rakel just because you were doing your job as a police officer? That he hates you, had made threats against you, fine. But men like Finne are driven by sexual lust, not revenge. No more than other criminals, anyway. And I’ve never felt threatened by anyone I sent to jail, no matter how loud-mouthed they were. There’s a long way between firing off a cheap threat and taking the risk of actually committing murder. I think Finne would have needed a far stronger motive to risk twelve years, possibly the rest of his life, in prison.”
Harry sucked hard, angrily, on his cigarette. Angrily because he could feel every fibre of his being fighting against what she had said. Angrily because he knew she was right. “So what sort of revenge motive would you consider strong enough?”
Once again, the dancing, almost childish shrug of the shoulders. “I don’t know. Something personal. Something that fits with what he’s done to you.”
“But that’s what I’ve done. I took his freedom from him, the life he loved. So he’s taken what I loved most away from me.”
“Rakel.” Kaja pushed her bottom lip out and nodded. “To make you live with the pain.”
“Exactly.” Harry noticed that he had smoked the cigarette down to the filter. “You see things, Kaja. That’s really why I came.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can tell I’m not really functioning.” Harry tried to smile. “I’ve become my own worst example of an emotion-led detective who starts with a conclusion and then looks for questions whose answers he hopes will confirm it. And that’s why I need you, Kaja.”
“I don’t follow.”
“I’ve been suspended and am no longer allowed to work with anyone in the department. As detectives, we all need someone to bounce ideas off. Someone to offer a bit of resistance. New ideas. You used to be a murder detective, and you haven’t got anything to fill your days.”
“No. No, Harry.”
“Hear me out, Kaja.” Harry leaned forward. “I know you don’t owe me anything, I know I walked away from you that time. The fact that my heart was broken may have been the explanation, but that was still no excuse for me to break yours. I knew what I was doing, and I’d do the same thing again. Because I had to, because I loved Rakel. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’m asking anyway. Because I’m going mad, Kaja. I’ve got to do something, and the only thing I can do is investigate murders. And drink. I can drink myself to death if I have to.”
Harry saw Kaja flinch again.
“I’m just saying it like it is,” he said. “You don’t have to reply now, all I’m asking is that you think about it. You’ve got my number. And now I’m going to leave you in peace.”
Harry stood up.
He pulled his boots on, walked out of the door, down to Suhms gate, down past Norabakken and Fagerborg Church, successfully passed two open pubs with their own congregations crowded around the bar, saw the entrance to Bislett Stadium, which had once had its own congregation but now seemed more like a prison, and looked up at the pointlessly clear sky above him, where he caught a glimpse of an S twinkling in the sunlight as he crossed the street. There was a shriek as a tram braked hard, echoing his own scream when he got up from the floor and one of his boots slipped on blood.
Truls Berntsen was sitting in front of his PC watching the third episode of the first season of The Shield. He had watched the whole series twice already, and had started again. Television series were like porn films: the old, classic ones were the best. Besides, Truls was Vic Mackey. OK, not entirely, but Vic was the man Truls Berntsen would like to be: corrupt through and through, but with a moral code that made it all right. That was what was so cool. That you could be so bad, but only because of how you looked at it. From which angle. The Nazis and Communists had made their own war films, after all, and got people to cheer on their own bastards. Nothing was entirely true, and nothing was absolutely false. Point of view. That was everything. Point of view.
The phone rang.
That was disconcerting.
It was Hagen who had insisted that the Crime Squad Unit should be staffed at weekends too. With just the one officer, but that suited Truls fine, he was happy to take other people’s shifts too. To start with, he had nothing better to be doing, and he needed the money and time owing for his trip to Pattaya in the autumn. And there was absolutely nothing to do, seeing as the duty officer fielded all the calls. He wasn’t entirely sure that they knew there was anyone sitting in Crime Squad at the weekend, but he had no intention of telling them.
Which was why this call was disconcerting, seeing as the screen said it was the duty officer.
After five rings, Truls swore quietly, turned the volume of The Shield down but left it playing, and picked up the receiver.
“Yes?” he said, managing to make that single, positive syllable sound like a rejection.
“Duty officer here. We’ve got a lady who needs assistance. She wants to see pictures of rapists, in connection with a rape.”
“That’s the Vice Squad’s job.”
“You’ve got the same pictures, and they don’t have anyone there at the weekend.”
“Better if she comes back on Monday.”
“Better if she sees the pictures while she remembers the face. Are you open at weekends or not?”
“Fine,” Truls Berntsen grunted. “Bring her up, then.”
“We’re pretty busy down here, so how about you come down and get her?”
“I’m busy too.” Truls waited, but got no response. “OK, I’ll come down,” he sighed.
“Good. And listen, it’s been a while since it was called the Vice Squad. It’s called the Sexual Offences Unit these days.”
“Fuck you too,” Truls muttered, almost too quietly to be heard, then hung up and pressed Pause, making The Shield freeze just before one of Truls Berntsen’s favourite scenes, the one where Vic liquidates his police colleague Terry with a bullet just below his left eye.
“So we’re not talking about a rape that you were subjected to, but one you’re saying you witnessed?” Truls Berntsen said, pulling an extra chair over to his desk. “You’re sure it was rape?”
“No,” the woman said. She had introduced herself as Dagny Jensen. “But if I recognise any of the rapists in your archive, I’d be pretty sure.”
Truls scratched his protruding Frankenstein’s-monster forehead. “So you don’t want to file a report until you’ve recognised the perpetrator?”
“That’s right.”
“That’s not the way we usually do things,” Truls said. “But let’s say I run a ten-minute slideshow here and now, and if we find the guy, you can go back to the duty officer to file the report and explain. I’m on my own up here and I’ve got my hands full. Deal?”
“OK.”
“Let’s get going. Estimated age of the rapist?”
Just three minutes later, Dagny Jensen pointed at one of the pictures on the screen.
“Who’s that?” He noted that she was trying to suppress a tremble in her voice.
“The one and only Svein Finne,” Truls said. “Was it him you saw?”
“What’s he done?”
“What hasn’t he done? Let’s see.”
Truls typed, pressed Enter and a detailed criminal record appeared.
He saw Dagny Jensen’s eyes move down the page, and the growing horror on her face as the monster materialised in dry police language.
“He’s murdered women he got pregnant,” she whispered.
“Mutilation and murder,” Truls corrected. “He’s served his time, but if there’s one man we’d be happy to receive a new report about, it’s Finne.”