‘And where is he?’
‘That’s the point,’ Katrine Bratt said, and could hear she was repeating herself. Her fingers flitted across the keyboard. ‘I can’t find him.’
‘Is he missing too?’
‘He’s not on the missing persons list. And that’s strange because it’s as if he’s vanished off the face of the earth. No known address, no registered phones, no use of credit card, not even a registered bank account. Didn’t vote at the last election, hasn’t caught a train or a plane in the last year.’
‘Have you tried Google?’
Katrine laughed until she realised Hagen wasn’t joking.
‘Relax,’ she said. ‘I’ll find him.’
They rang off. And Katrine got up, put on her jacket and started to hurry; clouds were already on their way across the island of Askøy. She was about to switch off her computer when she remembered something. Something Harry Hole had once said to her. About how often you forget to check the patently obvious. She typed quickly. Waited for the page to come up.
She noticed heads turn in the open-plan office as she let rip with a few Bergen oaths. But she couldn’t be bothered to reassure them that this was not a psychosis in full bloom. As usual, Harry had been right.
She picked up the phone and pressed redial. Gunnar Hagen answered on the second ring.
‘Thought you had a meeting,’ Katrine said.
‘Postponed. I’m detailing people to find this Valentin Gjertsen.’
‘You don’t need to. I’ve just found him.’
‘Oh?’
‘It’s not so weird that he’s vanished off the face of the earth. In fact he has vanished off the face of the earth, I think.’
‘Are you saying. .?’
‘He’s dead, yes. It’s in black and white in the national register. Sorry for this ditsiness from Bergen. I’ll go home and eat fish heads in shame.’
By the time she put down the receiver, it was raining.
Anton Mittet looked up from his cup of coffee as Gunnar Hagen rushed into the almost deserted canteen on the sixth floor of Police HQ. Anton had been staring at the view for some time. Thinking. Of how it could have been. And reflecting on the fact that he had stopped thinking about how it could be. Perhaps this was what it was like getting old. He had lifted the cards he had been dealt, he had seen them. You didn’t get new ones. So all that was left was to play the ones you had as well as you could. And dream about the cards you might have been given.
‘Sorry I’m late, Anton,’ Gunnar Hagen said, slumping down in the chair opposite him. ‘A hare-brained call from Bergen. How’s it going?’
Anton shrugged. ‘Don’t stop working. I watch the young ’uns passing me on the way up. I try to give them some advice, but they don’t see any reason to listen to a middle-aged man who hasn’t made it. They seem to think life’s a red carpet rolled out just for them.’
‘And at home?’ Hagen asked.
Anton repeated the shrug. ‘Fine. Wife moans that I work too hard. But when I’m at home she moans just as much. Sound familiar?’
Hagen made a non-committal sound that could have meant whatever the listener wanted it to mean.
‘Do you remember your wedding day?’
‘Yes,’ Hagen said, casting a discreet glance at the clock. Not because he didn’t know what the time was, but to give Anton a hint.
‘The worst thing is that you really mean it when you’re standing up there saying yes for all eternity.’ Anton gave a hollow laugh and shook his head.
‘Was there something specific you wanted to talk to me about?’ Hagen asked.
‘Yes.’ Anton ran a forefinger down his nose. ‘There was a nurse there while I was on duty last night. He seemed a bit fishy. Dunno exactly what it was, but you know old hands like us notice these things. So I checked up on him. Turns out he was involved in some murder case several years ago. He was released, eliminated from inquiries. But nevertheless.’
‘I see.’
‘Thought it best to talk to you about it. You could talk to hospital management. Perhaps get him discreetly moved.’
‘I’ll take care of the matter.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Thank you. Well done, Anton.’
Anton Mittet half bowed. He was happy to hear Hagen thanking him. Happy because the monk-like Crime Squad boss was the only man in the force he felt any sort of gratitude towards. It had been Hagen who had saved Anton’s skin after the Case. He had rung the Police Commissioner in Drammen and said they were being too hard on Anton and that if they didn’t need his experience in Drammen they did at Police HQ in Oslo. And that was what had happened. Anton had worked on the first floor in Grønland, but lived in Drammen, which was the condition that Laura had set. And as Anton Mittet caught the lift down to the first floor, he could feel he had more of a spring in his step, a straighter back and even a smile on his lips. And he felt, yes he did, this could be the beginning of something good. He would buy some flowers for. . He deliberated. For Laura.
Katrine stared out of the window as she tapped in the number. Her flat was on what Norwegians called the high ground floor. It was high enough for her not to see people passing outside, low enough to see the tops of their opened umbrellas. And behind the raindrops trembling on the windowpane in the gusting wind she could see Puddefjord Bridge linking the town with a hole in the mountain on the Laksevåg side. But right now she was looking at the fifty-inch TV screen, where a chemistry teacher and cancer victim was cooking up methamphetamine. Which she found strangely entertaining. She had bought the TV under her personal slogan, why should single men have the biggest TVs? And had her DVDs arranged and categorised according to highly subjective criteria under the Marantz player. The first and second places, furthest to the left on the classics shelf, were taken by Sunset Boulevard and Singin’ in the Rain while more recent films on the shelf beneath had a surprising new leader: Toy Story 3. Shelf number three was devoted to the CDs that for sentimental reasons she hadn’t given to the Salvation Army even though she had copied them onto her hard drive. She had narrow taste in music: exclusively glam rock and progressive pop, preferably British and often of the androgynous variety: David Bowie, Sparks, Mott the Hoople, Steve Harley, Marc Bolan, Small Faces, Roxy Music, with Suede as a contemporary bookend.
The chemistry teacher was having one of the recurrent arguing-with-the-wife scenes. Katrine put the DVD player on fast forward while ringing Beate.
‘Lønn.’ The voice was high-pitched, girlish almost. And the response revealed no more than was necessary. In Norway, didn’t answering with the surname imply there was a bigger family, that you had to specify which Lønn you wanted? However, in this case, Lønn was just Beate Lønn, the widow, and her son.
‘Katrine here.’
‘Katrine! It’s been a long time. What are you doing?’
‘Watching TV. And you?’
‘Being beaten at Monopoly by this young man. Comfort eating. Pizza.’
Katrine racked her brain. How old was her son now? Old enough to beat his mum at Monopoly anyway. Another reminder how terrifyingly fast time went. Katrine was about to add she was comfort eating as well. Cod heads. But remembered it had become a cliché among women, a kind of ironic, quasi-depressed phrase single girls were expected to use rather than telling it like it was: that she didn’t think she could live without total freedom. Over the years she had sometimes thought she should contact Beate just for a chat. Chat the way she used to do with Harry. She and Beate were both unattached police officers in their thirties, they had grown up with policemen as fathers, they were of above-average intelligence, realists without illusions or even the desire for a prince on a white charger. Well, maybe the horse, if it would take them where they wanted to go.
They could have had so much to talk about.