“Miss Sturdza?”
She spun round in surprise. It wasn’t just the time of the encounter that was un-Norwegian, but the mode of address. And, sure enough, the man standing there wasn’t quite Norwegian. Or rather, he didn’t look Norwegian. Not only did he have Asiatic features, but his outfit — suit, crisp white shirt and a tie with a tie clip — definitely wasn’t usual work attire for a Norwegian. Unless the Norwegian in question was one of those overconfident idiots with a job description ending in “agent” or “broker,” which was usually one of the first things they told you if you met them in a bar, where they tried to look like they’d just come from the office because they had to work so hard. That, at least, was the signal they hoped to give off. And when they “revealed” their job after discreetly maneuvering the conversation to a place where it wasn’t utterly ridiculous to mention it, they did so with feigned embarrassment, as if she had just uncovered some fucking crown prince in disguise.
“Sung-min Larsen,” the man said. “I’m a detective at Kripos. Can I sit down?”
Well. Alexandra studied him. Tall. He went to the gym. Not too much, everything in proportion, he was aware of the cosmetic value, but enjoyed the exercise itself. Like her. Brown eyes, of course. A little over thirty? No ring. Kripos. Yes, she’d heard a couple of the girls mention his name, that odd combination of Asian and Norwegian. Strange that she’d never met him before. At that moment the sun reached the canteen window of the Rikshospital, lit up Sung-min Larsen’s face and warmed one of Alexandra’s cheeks with surprising intensity. Miss Sturdza. Perhaps spring was coming early this year? Without putting her cup down she pushed a chair out with her foot.
“Be my guest.”
“Thanks.”
As he leaned forward to sit down, he instinctively put his hand over his tie, even though he was wearing a tie clip. There was something familiar about the clip, something that reminded her of her childhood. She remembered what it was. The bird-like logo of the Romanian airline, TAROM.
“Are you a pilot, Larsen?”
“My father was,” he said.
“My uncle was too,” she said. “He flew IAR-93 fighters.”
“Really? Produced in Romania.”
“You know the plane?”
“No, I just remember that they were the only Communist planes that weren’t made in the Soviet Union in the seventies.”
“Communist planes?”
Larsen gave a wry smile. “The sort my father was supposed to shoot down if they came too close.”
“The Cold War. So you dreamed of becoming a pilot yourself?”
He looked surprised. Something about him told her that didn’t happen very often.
“It’s fairly unusual to know about IAR-93s and wear a TAROM tie clip,” she added.
“I applied to the Air Force,” he admitted.
“But didn’t get in?”
“I would have got in,” he said with such natural confidence that she didn’t doubt it. “But my back was too long. I couldn’t fit in the cockpit of the fighters.”
“You could have flown other things. Transport planes, helicopters.”
“I suppose so,” he said.
Your father, she thought. He flew fighters. You couldn’t be happy being a lesser version of him, someone lower down on the uncomplicated pilots’ hierarchy than your father. Sooner something else altogether. So he was an alpha male. Someone who might not have got to where he was going, but was on the way. Like her.
“I’m investigating a murder...” he said, and she realised from his quick glance that the introduction was intended as a warning. “I’ve got some questions about a Harry Hole.”
It felt like the sun outside had gone behind a cloud, as if Alexandra’s heart had stopped.
“From the call log on his phone I see that the two of you have called each other several times in the past few weeks, the past few days.”
“Hole?” she said, as if she needed to dig the name out, and saw from the look on his face how fake it sounded. “Yes, we’ve talked on the phone. He’s a detective.”
“Maybe you’ve done more than talked?”
“More?” She tried to raise an eyebrow, but wasn’t sure if she managed it, it felt like all the muscles in her face were out of control. “What makes you think that?”
“Two things,” Larsen said. “That you instinctively pretended not to remember his name even though you’ve spoken to him six times and called his number twelve times in the past three weeks, two of them on the evening before Rakel Fauke was found murdered. And that during those same three weeks, his phone has been tracked to base stations that overlap with your home address.”
He said this without aggression, suspicion or anything else that gave her any sense of manipulation or game-playing. Or rather, he said it as if the game was already over, like a croupier who had no stake in the game reading out the number before raking in the chips.
“We’re... we were lovers,” she said. And realised when she heard herself say it that that’s exactly how it was. That they had been lovers, no more, no less. And that it was over.
But the second implication only dawned on her when Sung-min Larsen said: “Before we go on, I ought to advise you to consider if you’d like a lawyer present.”
She must have looked aghast, because Larsen hurried to add: “You’re not suspected of anything, this isn’t an official interview, and I’m primarily trying to get information about Harry Hole, not you.”
“So why would I need a lawyer?”
“For advice not to talk to me, seeing as your close relationship to Harry Hole could potentially connect you to a murder.”
“You mean I might have murdered his wife?”
“No.”
“Ah! You think I murdered her out of jealousy.”
“Like I said, no.”
“I told you we weren’t seeing each other anymore.”
“I don’t think you’ve killed anyone. But I’m cautioning you because the answers you give could lead to you being suspected of having helped him to avoid being charged with the murder of his wife.”
Alexandra realised that she had made the most classic of all drama-queen gestures, and had clutched the string of pearls that she was actually wearing.
“So,” Sung-min Larsen said, lowering his voice when the first of the Norwegian early birds entered the canteen. “Shall we continue this conversation?”
He had informed her that she could have a lawyer present, even if it would make his job more complicated. He would have lowered his voice out of consideration to her even if they’d been alone in the room. Maybe he could be trusted. Alexandra looked into his warm brown eyes. She let her hand fall. Straightened her back, pushing — perhaps unconsciously — her breasts forward.
“I’ve got nothing to hide,” she said.
Again, that half-smile of his. She realised she was already looking forward to seeing the rest of it.
Sung-min looked at the time. Four o’clock. He needed to take Kasparov to an appointment at the vet’s, so this summons to Winter’s office was doubly inconvenient.
But he was finished with the investigation. He didn’t have absolutely everything, but he had all he needed.