‘What sort of tattoo was it?’
‘What sort?’
‘Yes, wh. .’ Katrine noticed she was slipping out of the friendly police officer role and pulled herself together, so as not to reveal her irritation. ‘What was the tattoo of?’
‘Well, who knows? There was a face. Gruesome. Sort of drawn out at the sides. As if it was stuck and was struggling to break away.’
Katrine nodded slowly. ‘Couldn’t get away from the body it was trapped in?’
‘Yes, that’s it, yes. Do you know-?’
‘No,’ Katrine said. But I know the feeling, she thought. ‘And you didn’t ever find this Judas again?’
‘You didn’t ever find Judas again.’
‘No. Why didn’t we, do you think?’
The warder shrugged. ‘How would I know? I do know, however, that Judas isn’t top priority for you. As I said, there were mitigating circumstances, and the risk of any repetition was minimal. He would soon have done his time, but the idiot must have got the fever.’
Katrine nodded. Demob fever. The date approaches, the prisoner starts thinking about freedom and suddenly being locked up for another day is intolerable.
‘Is there anyone else here who can tell me about Valentin?’
The warder shook his head. ‘Apart from Judas, no one wanted anything to do with him. Shit, he intimidated people. Something seemed to happen to the air when he came into a room.’
Katrine stood asking more questions until she realised she was trying to justify the time and her plane ticket.
‘You started to tell me about what Valentin had done,’ she said.
‘Did I?’ he said quickly, looking at his watch. ‘Oops, I’ve got to. .’
On the way back through the recreation room Katrine saw only the thin man with the red scalp. He was standing straight, his arms at his side, staring at the empty dartboard. No darts anyway. He turned slowly, and Katrine couldn’t help but return his gaze. The grin was gone, and his eyes were matt and as grey as jellyfish.
He shouted something. Four words which were repeated. Loud and piercing, like a bird warning others of danger. Then he laughed.
‘Don’t worry about him,’ the warder said.
The laughter behind them faded as they hurried down the corridor.
Then she was outside and breathing in the dank, rain-soaked air.
She took out her phone, switched off the voice recorder, which had been on all the time she had been inside, and called Beate.
‘Finished at Ila,’ she said. ‘Got time now?’
‘I’ll put the coffee machine on.’
‘Agh, haven’t you-?’
‘You’re police, Katrine. You drink machine coffee, OK?’
‘Listen, I used to eat at Café Sara in Torggata, and you need to get out of your lab. Lunch. I’m paying.’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’ve found her.’
‘Who?’
‘Irja Jacobsen. She’s alive. At least if we hurry.’
They agreed to meet in three-quarters of an hour and rang off. While Katrine was waiting for a taxi she played the recording, winding forward to the end and Red Scalp’s repeated warning cries.
‘Valentin’s alive. Valentin kills. Valentin’s alive. Valentin kills.’
‘He woke up this morning,’ Anton Mittet said as he and Gunnar Hagen rushed down the corridor.
Silje got up from her chair when she saw them coming.
‘You can go now, Silje,’ Anton said. ‘I’ll take over.’
‘But your shift isn’t for another hour.’
‘You can go, I said. Take the time off.’
She sent Anton an appraising look. Observed the other man.
‘Gunnar Hagen,’ he said, leaning forward with a hand outstretched. ‘Head of Crime Squad.’
‘I know who you are,’ she said, shaking his hand. ‘Silje Gravseng. I hope to work for you one day.’
‘Great,’ he said. ‘You can start by doing as Anton says.’
She nodded to Hagen. ‘It’s your name on my orders, so of course. .’
Anton watched as she packed her things in her bag.
‘By the way, this is the last day of my practical training,’ she said. ‘Now I have to start thinking about exams.’
‘Silje’s a police trainee,’ Anton said.
‘Student at Politihøyskole, PHS, it’s called now,’ Silje said. ‘There was one thing I was wondering about, Politioverbetjent.’
‘Yes?’ Hagen said, smiling wryly at the long words she used.
‘This legend who worked for you, Harry Hole. They say he didn’t make a single blunder. He solved all the cases he investigated. Is that true?’
Anton intervened with a cautionary cough and looked at Silje, but she ignored him.
Hagen’s wry smile widened. ‘First of all, can you have unsolved cases on your conscience without it meaning you’ve made a blunder?’
Silje Gravseng didn’t answer.
‘As far as Harry and unsolved cases are concerned. .’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Well, they’re probably right. But it depends how you look at it.’
‘How you look at it?’
‘He returned from Hong Kong to investigate the murder for which his girlfriend’s son had been arrested. And even though he managed to get Oleg released, and someone else confessed, the murder of Gusto Hanssen was never really solved. Not officially at any rate.’
‘Thank you,’ Silje said with a quick smile.
‘Good luck with your career,’ Gunnar Hagen said.
He watched her as she made her way down the corridor. Not so much because men always like watching attractive, young women, Anton thought, but to defer what was to come for a few seconds. He had noticed the head of Crime Squad’s nerves. Then Hagen turned to the closed door. Buttoned up his jacket. Rocked on the balls of his feet like a tennis player waiting for an opponent’s serve.
‘I’ll go in then.’
‘Do that,’ Anton said. ‘I’ll keep watch here.’
‘Right,’ Hagen said. ‘Right.’
Halfway through lunch Beate asked Katrine if she and Harry had had sex that time.
To start with, Beate had explained how one of the undercover guys had recognised the picture of the woman who had given the false alibis, Irja Jacobsen. He had said that by and large she stayed indoors and lived in a house by Alexander Kiellands plass they had been keeping under surveillance because amphetamines were being sold there. But the police weren’t interested in Irja, she didn’t do any dealing, at worst she was a customer.
Then their conversation had meandered via work and their private lives, to the good old days. Katrine had mildly protested when Beate claimed that Katrine had given half the Crime Squad a crick in the neck as she swept through the corridors. At the same time Katrine reflected that this was the way women put each other in their place, by emphasising how beautiful they had once been. Especially if they weren’t objects of beauty themselves. But even though Beate had never given anyone a crick in the neck she had never been the type to shoot poisoned darts either. She had been quiet, flushed, hard-working, loyal, someone who never resorted to dirty tactics. But something had obviously changed. Perhaps it was the glass of white wine they had allowed themselves. At any rate it was not like Beate to ask such direct, personal questions.
Katrine was glad her mouth was so full of pitta bread that all she could do was shake her head.
‘But OK,’ she said after she had swallowed, ‘I admit it did cross my mind. Did Harry ever say anything?’
‘Harry told me most things,’ Beate said, raising her glass with the last drops. ‘I was wondering if he was lying when he denied that you and he. .’
Katrine waved for the bill. ‘Why did you think we might have been together?’
‘I saw the way you looked at each other. Heard the way you spoke to each other.’
‘Harry and I fought, Beate!’
‘That’s what I mean.’
Katrine laughed. ‘What about you and Harry?’