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Firstly, he had proved that Hole’s alibi — provided by his neighbour, Gule — was worthless. The reconstruction had proved that he couldn’t possibly have heard if Hole was in his flat, or if he had arrived or then left. Hole had evidently also thought about this, because Gule had said he had been there asking exactly the same questions.

Secondly, the 3-D expert, Freund, had completed his analysis. There wasn’t much to be gleaned from the hunched figure who had stumbled into Rakel’s house at almost half past eleven on the night of the murder. The figure looked twice as fat as Harry Hole, but Freund said that was probably because he was leaning forward and his coat was hanging down in front of him. His posture also made it impossible to determine his height. But when he came out again three hours later, at half past two in the morning, he was clearly more sober, was standing upright in the doorway, showing his true, slim self, and he was the same height as Harry Hole, around 1.92 metres. He had got into a Ford Escort before remembering to remove his wildlife camera, then he drove away.

Thirdly, he had got hold of a final, decisive piece of evidence from Alexandra Sturdza.

There had been a look of quiet despair on that hard but lively face when he told her about the evidence they had against Harry Hole. And gradually a look of resignation. In the end he had seen her let go of the man she claimed to have already given up. Then he had gently prepared her for some even worse news. And told her that Hole was dead. That he had taken his own life. That — looking at the situation as a whole — perhaps it was for the best. At that point there had been tears in her dark eyes, and he had considered putting his hand on hers as it lay motionless and dead on the table. Just a gentle, comforting touch, then take his hand away again. But he hadn’t. Perhaps she sensed his half-intention, because the next time she lifted her coffee cup, she did so with her left hand, leaving her right motionless, like an invitation.

Then she had told him — as far as he could judge — everything. And that reinforced Sung-min’s suspicion that Hole had committed the murder when he was drunk and lost his temper, and that he had forgotten large parts of it and had spent the last days of his life investigating himself, hence the business with Gule.

A tear had trickled down one of Alexandra’s cheeks, and Sung-min had passed her his handkerchief. He had seen her surprise, presumably because she wasn’t used to Norwegian men carrying freshly ironed handkerchiefs.

They had left the canteen, which was starting to fill up, and went to the Forensic Medical Institute laboratory, where she showed him the bloodstained trousers Hole had given her. She told him that the analysis was almost finished, and that there was a more than 90 percent probability that the blood was Rakel Fauke’s. She had repeated Harry’s explanation as to how the blood had got there, that he had knelt down beside the body after Rakel had been found, and that his trousers had come into contact with the pool of blood.

“That’s not correct,” Sung-min had said. “He wasn’t wearing those trousers when he was at the scene.”

“How do you know that?”

“I was there. I spoke to him.”

“And you remember what sort of trousers he was wearing?”

Sung-min suppressed a spontaneous “of course” and made do with a simple “yes.”

So he had all he needed. Motive, opportunity, and forensic evidence that placed the suspect at the scene at the time of the crime. He had considered contacting someone else who, according to Harry Hole’s call log, he had spoken to several times, a Kaja Solness, but decided it wasn’t a priority seeing as their interaction hadn’t started until after the murder. The important thing now was to find one of the pieces that were missing. Because even if he had everything he needed, he didn’t have everything. He didn’t have the murder weapon.

With so much concrete evidence, the police lawyer had had no hesitation in granting Larsen a warrant to search Harry Hole’s flat, but they hadn’t found the murder weapon or anything else of interest there. Except for that fact in itself: that they hadn’t found anything of interest. Such a striking absence of incriminating evidence suggested one of two things. That the person living in the flat was a robot. Or that he knew his home would be searched and had removed anything potentially incriminating.

“Interesting,” lead investigator Ole Winter said, leaning back behind his desk as he listened to Sung-min Larsen’s minutely detailed report.

Not impressive, then, Sung-min thought. Not astonishing, not brilliant, not even so much as good police work.

Just interesting.

“So interesting that it surprises me that you haven’t reported any of this to me before now, Larsen. And that I probably wouldn’t have this information now either if I hadn’t, as lead detective, asked for it. When were you planning to share this with the rest of us who have been working on this case?”

Sung-min ran one hand over his tie and moistened his lips.

He felt like saying that here he was, serving up Harry Hole, the biggest fish around, to Kripos, neatly wrapped up with a bow. That he had single-handedly outmaneuvered the legendary detective in his own field: murder. And that was all Winter had to say, that he could have reported a bit earlier?

There were three reasons why Sung-min decided not to say this.

The first was that there were only the two of them in Winter’s office, so there was no third person whose common sense he could appeal to.

The second was that as a rule there’s nothing to be gained by contradicting your boss, whether or not there’s a third person present.

Thirdly, and most important, Winter was right.

Sung-min had delayed reporting on developments in the case. Who wouldn’t have done, when they’d got the fish on the hook, had reeled it back in close to the shore and all that remained was to get it in the net? When you knew that the murder of the decade, to be known in perpetuity as the Harry Hole case, would bear your name, and yours alone. It was the police lawyer who had mentioned it to Winter, when he congratulated him on having caught Harry Hole himself. Yes, Sung-min had to admit that he was selfish, and no, he hadn’t stood in front of an open goal looking around for a Messi he could pass the ball and the goal to, because there was no Messi on this team. If there was, it was probably him. It certainly wasn’t Winter, who was sitting there with veins throbbing in his temples and eyebrows like thunderclouds over his eyes.

Sung-min chose this response instead:

“It all happened so quickly, one thing kept leading to another, and I didn’t want to risk any delay. There wasn’t really any time to pause for breath.”

“Until now?” Winter said, leaning back in his chair and looking as if he were using the ridge of his nose to take aim at Sung-min.

“The case is solved now,” Sung-min said.

Winter let out a short, hard laugh, like a go-kart braking suddenly. “If it’s OK with you, let’s agree that it’s the lead detective who decides when the case is solved. What do you say, Larsen?”

“Of course, Winter.” Sung-min had intended to signal his submission, but realised that the older man had seen through him and decided to take offence at the fact the younger man had returned the sarcastic, drawn-out pronunciation of his surname.

“Seeing as you consider the case solved, Laaar-sen, I assume you have no objection to me taking it away from you while we tie up a few loose ends.”

“As you wish.”

Sung-min could have bitten his tongue when he saw how Winter took this arrogantly submissive, bourgeois “as you wish.”