“Hole?” The voice was slightly higher now. “Hole, don’t...” Finne jerked at the cuffs, and Harry could feel his body trembling.
Finally, a sign of angst in the face of death.
Harry breathed out and dropped the knife into his coat pocket. Still holding Finne’s head tight, he pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped Finne’s face with it. He wiped the blood from around his nose, mouth and chin. Finne sniffed and cursed, but didn’t try to struggle. Harry tore two strips off the handkerchief and stuck them in his nostrils. Then he put the handkerchief back in his pocket, walked around the bench and looked at the result. Finne was panting as if he’d just run the 400 metres. Because Harry had mostly had Finne’s T-shirt wrapped round his fist when he hit him, there were no cuts, just swelling and the nosebleed.
Harry went outside and put some snow in the T-shirt, then went back inside and held it to Finne’s face.
“Trying to make me presentable so you can claim this never happened?” Finne said. He had already calmed down.
“It’s probably too late for that,” Harry said. “But whatever punishment they give me will be based on the amount of damage, so let’s call it damage limitation. And you provoked me because you wanted me to hit you.”
“I did, did I?”
“Of course. You wanted to get some physical evidence to prove to your lawyer that you were assaulted when the police were questioning you. Because any judge would refuse to allow the police to present evidence acquired using unlawful means. That’s why you confessed. Because you assumed the confession would get you out of here but still wouldn’t cost you anything later.”
“Maybe. At least you’re not thinking of killing me.”
“No?”
“You’d already have done it by now. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe you haven’t got it in you after all.”
“You’re suggesting I should?”
“Like you said yourself, it’s too late now, an ice pack isn’t going to fix this. I’ll end up walking free.”
Harry picked his phone up from the bench. Switched the recording off and called Bjørn Holm.
“Hello?”
“It’s Harry. I’ve got Svein Finne. He’s just confessed to me that he murdered Rakel, and I’ve got it recorded.”
Harry heard a baby crying in the pause that followed.
“Really?” Bjørn said slowly.
“Really. I want you to come and arrest him.”
“What? Didn’t you say you’ve already arrested him?”
“Not arrested, no,” Harry said, and looked at Finne. “I’m suspended, aren’t I, so right now I’m just a private citizen holding another private citizen here against his will. Finne can always file a complaint, but I’m pretty sure I’d be treated fairly leniently given the fact he murdered my wife. The important thing now is that he’s arrested and questioned properly by the police.”
“I get it. Where are you?”
“The German bunkers above Sjømannsskolen. Finne’s sitting cuffed to a bench in here.”
“I see. What about you?”
“Mm.”
“No, Harry.”
“No what?”
“I don’t want to have to carry you out of some bar later tonight.”
“I’ll send the audio file to your email address.”
Mona Daa stopped in the doorway of her editor’s office. He was talking on the phone.
“They’ve arrested someone for Rakel Fauke’s murder,” she said loudly.
“I’ve got to go,” the editor said, then hung up without waiting for a response and looked up. “Are you on it, Daa?”
“It’s already written,” Mona said.
“Get it out there! Has anyone else published it yet?”
“We got notification five minutes ago, there’s a press conference at four o’clock. What I wanted to talk to you about is whether or not we should name the suspect.”
“Did they give his name in the announcement?”
“Of course not.”
“So how have you got it?”
“Because I’m one of your best reporters.”
“In five minutes?”
“OK, the best.”
“So who is it?”
“Svein Finne. Previous convictions for assault and rape, and a criminal record as long as a plague year. Do we publish his name?”
The editor ran his hand over his thinning hair. “Hm. Tricky.”
Mona was well aware of the dilemma. Under paragraph 4.7 of the Ethical Code of Practice for the Norwegian Press, the press agreed to deal sensitively with the publication of names in criminal cases, especially during the early stages of an investigation. Any identification had to be justifiable on grounds of public interest. On the other hand, her paper, VG, had published the name of a professor whose offense was that he had sent inappropriate text messages to women. Everyone had agreed that the man was a pig, but as far as they were aware no laws had been broken, and it was hard to claim that the public needed to know the professor’s name. In Finne’s case they could obviously justify publication of his name by saying the public needed to know who they should be looking out for. On the other hand, was there any possibility of what the code called “imminent danger of offenses against innocent people, with serious and repeated criminal acts,” as long as Finne was in custody?
“We’ll hold back his name,” the editor said. “But include his criminal record and say that VG knows who he is. Then at least we’ll get a gold star from the Press Association.”
“That’s how I’ve already written it, so it’s ready to go. We’ve also managed to get hold of a new, previously unpublished picture of Rakel as well.”
“Fantastic.”
Her editor wasn’t wrong. After a week and a half of intense press coverage of the murder, their choice of pictures was getting pretty repetitive.
“But maybe run a picture of the husband, the policeman, under the headline.”
Mona blinked. “You mean Harry Hole, right under Suspect Arrested for Rakel’s Murder? Isn’t that a bit misleading?”
The editor shrugged. “They’ll find out soon enough when they read the article.”
Mona nodded slowly. The shock effect of Harry Hole’s familiar, ruggedly attractive face below that sort of headline would obviously get more clicks than another picture of Rakel. And their readers would forgive them the ostensibly unintentional misunderstanding; they always did. Nobody wanted to be properly deceived, but people had nothing against being misled in an entertaining way. So why did Mona dislike this part of the job so much, when she loved the rest of it?
“Mona?”
“Will do,” she said, pushing herself off the door frame. “This is going to be big.”
21
Katrine Bratt stifled a yawn and hoped that none of the three other people around the table in the Chief of Police’s office had noticed. Yesterday had been a very long day, after the press conference about the arrest in Rakel’s case. And when she finally got home and went to bed, her son had kept her up most of the night.
But there was a chance that today wasn’t going to turn into a marathon. Because Svein Finne’s name hadn’t been made public in the media, a vacuum had arisen, the eye of the storm in which — for the moment, at least — things really were calm. But it was still too early in the morning to say what the day would bring.
“Thanks for agreeing to see us at such short notice,” Johan Krohn said.
“No problem,” Police Chief Gunnar Hagen said with a nod.