“Eikeland?”
Ringdal had come into the back room. “Eikeland!”
“In here,” Øystein mumbled.
“I thought you were changing the barrel?”
“It wasn’t empty after all. I’m on the bog.”
“I’ll wait.”
“On the bog, as in having a shit.” Øystein underlined the claim by straining his stomach muscles and pressing the air from his lungs in a long, loud groan. “Help out in the bar and I’ll be out soon.”
“Push the keys under the door. Come on, Eikeland, I want to get home!”
“I’ve got a magnificent cable halfway out, boss, we could be talking a world record here, so I’m reluctant to pinch it off halfway.”
“Keep your toilet humour for people who appreciate it, Eikeland. Now.”
“OK, OK, just give me a minute.”
Silence.
Øystein wondered how long he could delay things. Delaying was everything. Wasn’t that what life came down to in the end, anyway?
After counting slowly to twenty and still not managing to come up with a better excuse than the ten hopeless ones he had already thought of, he flushed the toilet, unlocked the door and went out into the bar.
Ringdal was handing a customer a glass of wine, took his bank card and turned towards Øystein, who had put his hands in his pockets and adopted an expression that he hoped conveyed surprise and dismay. That wasn’t far from what he was actually feeling.
“I had them right here!” Øystein called over the music and buzz of conversation. “I must have lost them somewhere.”
“What’s going on, Eikeland?” More abstract than interested.
“Going on?”
Ringdal’s eyes narrowed. “Go-ing on,” he said. Slowly, almost in a whisper, yet it still cut through the noise like a knife.
Øystein swallowed hard. And decided to give up. He had never understood people who let themselves be tortured and then told the truth. He couldn’t help thinking that was just lose-lose.
“OK, boss. It’s—”
“Øystein!”
It wasn’t the girl this time, finally getting his name right. The cry came from over by the door, and this person didn’t pass below the canopy of customers, but stood a head taller than them, as if he were swimming through them. “Øystein, my Øystein!” Harry repeated, with a wild grin. And seeing as Øystein had never seen Harry with that sort of grin before, it was quite a disconcerting sight. “Happy birthday, old friend!”
The other customers turned towards Harry, and a few glanced at Øystein. Harry reached the bar and threw his arms round Øystein, pressing him to him with one hand between his shoulder blades and the other at the base of his spine. In fact it slid even lower down, and came dangerously close to his buttocks.
Harry let him go and straightened up. Someone began to sing. And someone — it must have been the girl — turned the music off. Then more of them joined in.
“Happy birthday to you...”
No, Øystein thought, not that, I’d prefer the rack and having my fingernails pulled out.
But it was too late, even Ringdal joined in, somewhat reluctantly, presumably keen to show everyone what a great guy he was. Øystein bared his brown teeth in a stiff smile as embarrassment burned his cheeks and ears, but that just made them laugh and sing even louder.
The song ended with everyone raising their glasses to Øystein, and with Harry giving him a hard slap on the backside. And only when he noticed something sharp pressing into his buttock did he realise what the opening hug had been about.
The music came back on, and Ringdal turned to Øystein and offered him his hand. “Happy birthday, Eikeland. Why didn’t you say it was your birthday when you asked to have the evening off?”
“Well, I didn’t want...” Øystein shrugged. “I suppose I just like to keep things to myself.”
“Really?” Ringdal said, looking genuinely surprised.
“Oh, by the way,” Øystein said. “I remembered where I put your keys.” With what he hoped didn’t look like too exaggerated a gesture, he put his hand in the back pocket of his trousers.
“Here.”
He held up the key ring. Ringdal stared at it for a moment, then glanced at Harry. Then he snatched it from Øystein.
“Have a good night, boys.”
Ringdal strode towards the door.
“Fucking hell, Harry,” Øystein hissed as he watched him leave. “Fucking hell!”
“Sorry,” Harry said. “A quick question. After Bjørn got me out of here on the night of the murder, what did Ringdal do?”
“Do?” Øystein thought. He stuck one finger in his ear as if the answer might be in there. “That’s right, he went straight home. He said his nose wouldn’t stop bleeding.”
Øystein felt something wet against his cheek. He turned towards the girl, who was standing there, her lips still in a pout. “Happy birthday. I’d never have guessed you were an Aries, Øyvind.”
“You know what they say.” Harry smiled, putting one hand on Øystein’s shoulder. “Up like a lion, down like a ram.”
“What did he mean by that?” the girl asked as she watched Harry march off towards the door in Ringdal’s wake.
“You tell me. He’s a man of mystery,” Øystein mumbled, hoping Ringdal wouldn’t pay any attention to his date of birth on his next wage slip. “Let’s put some Stones on and get this place going, OK?”
His phone woke up after a few minutes’ charging in the car. Harry brought up a name, pressed Call and got an answer as he braked at a red light on Sannergata.
“No, Harry, I don’t want to have sex with you!”
The acoustics suggested Alexandra was in her office at the Forensic Medical Institute.
“Great,” Harry said. “But I’ve got a bloodstained sweater that—”
“No!”
Harry took a deep breath. “If Rakel’s DNA is in the blood, that puts the owner of the sweater at the scene on the night Rakel died. Please, Alexandra.”
There was silence at the other end of the line. A noisy drunk stopped on the crossing in front of the car, swayed, stared at Harry with a dark, foggy look in his eyes, hit the hood with his fist, then wandered off into the darkness.
“You know what?” she said. “I hate bed-hoppers like you.”
“OK, but you love solving murders.”
Another pause.
“Sometimes I wonder if you even like me at all, Harry.”
“Of course I do. I may be a desperate man, but not when it comes to who I go to bed with.”
“Someone you go to bed with? Is that all I am?”
“No, don’t be daft. We’re professional colleagues who catch criminals who would otherwise plunge our society into chaos and anarchy.”
“Ha ha,” she groaned drily.
“Obviously I’m willing to lie to you to get you to do this,” Harry said. “But I like you, OK?”
“Do you want to have sex with me?”
“Well. No. Yes, but no. If you get what I mean.”
It sounded like there was a radio playing quietly in her office. She was on her own.
She let out a deep sigh. “If I do this, Harry, you need to be clear that it isn’t for your sake. But I still can’t do a full DNA analysis for a while — there’s a long queue, and Kripos and Bratt’s team are breathing down my neck the whole time.”
“I know. But a partial profile that excludes matches against certain other profiles takes less time, doesn’t it?”
Harry heard Alexandra hesitate. “And who do you want to have excluded?”
“The owner of the sweater’s DNA. Mine. And Rakel’s.”