How irritating that Harry Hole should die like this.
Like a bloody hero.
Giving his place to, sacrificing himself for, an enemy.
And the enemy would have to cope with the fact that he was alive because a better man had chosen to die for him.
Truls felt it coming from the small of his back, the chill the pain was pushing ahead of it. To die for something, anything, just something different from the wretchedness which was yourself. Perhaps that was what this was about ultimately. In which case, fuck you, Hole.
He looked for the medic, saw the window was wet, it must have started to rain.
‘More morphine, for Christ’s sake!’
47
The policeman with the phonetic tripwire of a name — Karsten Kaspersen — was sitting in the duty office at PHS staring at the rain. It was falling like stair rods in the black of the night, drumming on the gleaming black tarmac, dripping from the gate.
He had switched off the light so that no one could see the office was manned so late. By ‘no one’ he meant the types who steal batons and other equipment. Some of the old cordon tape they used in training was gone too. And as there were no signs of a break-in it had to be someone with a pass. And as it was someone with a pass this was not just a matter of a few lousy batons or cordon tape but the fact that they had thieves in their midst. Thieves who might be walking around as police officers in the not-too-distant future. And they weren’t damn well having any of that, not in his police force.
Now he could see someone approaching in the rain. The figure had emerged from the darkness down by Slemdalsveien, passed under the lights by Chateau Neuf and was heading for the gate. Not a walk he recognised, exactly. More like a stagger. And the guy was listing, as though there was a gale on the port side.
But he swiped a card in the machine and next minute he was inside the college. Kaspersen — who knew the walks of everyone who belonged to this section of the building — jumped up and stepped out. For this was not something that could be explained away. Either you had access or you didn’t, there was no middle ground.
‘Hello there!’ Kaspersen shouted, leaving the office, having already puffed himself up, something from the animal kingdom making itself look as big as possible; he didn’t really know why it worked, only that it did. ‘Who the hell are you? What are you doing here? How did you get hold of that card?’
The stooped, drenched individual in front of him turned, tried to straighten up. The face was hidden in the shadow from the hoodie, but a pair of eyes sparkled inside, and it struck Kaspersen that he could feel the heat, so intense was the gaze. He instinctively gasped for breath, and for the first time he remembered he wasn’t armed. How on earth had he not thought about that? He should have brought something to deter thieves.
The individual pushed the hood back.
Forget deter, Kaspersen thought. I need something to defend myself with.
The individual in front of him was not from this world. His coat was torn with great gaping holes, and the same applied to his face.
Kaspersen backed into his office, wondering if the key was on the inside of the door.
‘Kaspersen.’
The voice.
‘It’s me, Kaspersen.’
Kaspersen stopped. Angled his head. Could that really be. .?
‘Jesus, Harry. What happened to you?’
‘Only an explosion. It looks worse than it is.’
‘Worse? You look like a Christmas orange studded with cloves.’
‘It’s just-’
‘I mean a Christmas blood orange, Harry. You’re bleeding. Hang on a sec, I’ll get the first-aid box.’
‘Can you come up to Arnold’s office? I’ve got to sort something urgently.’
‘Arnold isn’t there now.’
‘I know.’
Karsten Kaspersen dashed towards the medicine cabinet in the office. And while he was removing plasters, gauze bandages and scissors it was as if his subconscious was re-examining the conversation and stopping at the final sentence. The way Harry had said it. The emphasis. I know. As though he hadn’t said it to him, Karsten Kaspersen, but to himself, Harry Hole.
Mikael Bellman woke up and opened his eyes.
And pinched them shut again as the light broke into the membranes and lenses of his eyes, but still it felt as though the light was burning a bare nerve.
He was unable to move. He twisted his head and tried to look around him. He was still in the same room. He looked down. Saw the white tape used to bind him to the bed. To bind his arms to his sides and his legs together. He was a mummy.
Already.
He heard the clink of metal behind him and twisted his head the other way. The person standing by his side fiddling with the instruments was dressed in green and wore a mask over his mouth.
‘Oh dear,’ said the man in green. ‘Has the anaesthetic worn off already? Yes, well, I’m not exactly an anaesthetics expert, am I? To tell the truth, I’m not a specialist in anything at all in the hospital.’
Mikael engaged his mind, tried to hack his way out of the confusion. What the hell was going on?
‘By the way, I found the money you brought with you. Nice of you, but I don’t need it. And it’s impossible to compensate for what you did, Mikael.’
If he wasn’t the anaesthetic nurse, how did he know about the connection between Mikael and Asayev?
The man in green held up an instrument to the light.
Mikael could hear the fear pounding. He didn’t feel it yet; the drug was still floating through his brain like wisps of fog, but when the veil of anaesthetics had lifted completely what was behind would be revealed: pain and fear. And death.
Because Mikael had understood now. It was so obvious that he should have known before he left home. This was the scene of an unsolved murder.
‘You and Truls Berntsen.’
Truls? Did he believe that Truls had anything to do with the murder of Asayev?
‘But he’s already received his punishment. What do you think it’s best to use when you cut off a face? A handle number three with a blade number ten is for skin and muscles. Or this one: a handle number seven with a blade number fifteen?’ The man in green held up two seemingly identical scalpels. The light was reflected in one of the blades, casting a thin stripe of light over the man’s face, including one eye. And in that eye he saw something he vaguely recognised.
‘The supplier didn’t write which one was best for this particular operation, you see.’
There was something familiar about his voice as well, wasn’t there?
‘Yes, well, we’ll have to manage with what we’ve got. I’m going to have to tape your face down, Mikael.’
Now the fog had lifted completely and he saw it. The fear.
And it saw him and rose in his throat.
Mikael gasped as he felt his head being forced down onto the mattress and the tape stretched across his forehead. Then the man’s face was directly above his. The mask had slipped. But Mikael’s brain was slowly rotating his vision, upside down became downside up. And he recognised him. And knew why.
‘Do you remember me, Mikael?’ he asked.
It was him. The homo. The one who had tried to kiss him when he was working at Kripos. In the toilet. Someone had come in. Truls had beaten him black and blue in the boiler room, and he had never returned to work. He had known what would be awaiting him. As Mikael did now.
‘Mercy.’ Mikael felt his eyes filling with tears. ‘I stopped Truls. He would have killed you if I hadn’t-’
‘-hadn’t stopped him so that you could save your career and become Chief of Police.’
‘Listen, I’m ready to pay whatever-’
‘Oh, you’ll pay all right, Mikael. You’ll pay in full for what you took from me.’
‘Took. . What did we take from you?’
‘You took revenge from me, Mikael. Punishment for the person who killed René Kalsnes. You all let the murderer off the hook.’