‘Don’t try those questioning techniques on me, Harry. I brought them to Norway from Interpol. Anyone can stumble across gay pictures online, they’re everywhere. And we have no need for groups of detectives who use that sort of thing as valid evidence in a serious investigation.’
‘You didn’t stumble across it, Bellman. You paid for films with your credit card and downloaded them.’
‘You’re not listening! Aren’t you curious about taboos? When you download pictures of a murder that doesn’t mean you’re a murderer. If a woman is fascinated by the thought of rape, it doesn’t mean she wants to be raped!’ Bellman had his other leg over. He was standing on the other side now. Off the hook. He adjusted his jacket.
‘Just a final word of advice, Harry. Don’t come after me. If you know what’s good for you. For you and your woman.’
Harry watched Bellman’s back recede into the darkness, and heard only the heavy footsteps sending a dull echo around the stands. He dropped the cigarette end and stamped on it. Hard. Trying to force it through the concrete.
39
Harry found Øystein Eikeland’s battered Mercedes in the taxi rank to the north of Oslo Central Station. The taxis were parked in a circle and looked like a wagon train forming a defensive ring against Apaches, tax authorities, competitors and anyone else who came to take what they considered legally theirs.
Harry took a seat in the front. ‘Busy night?’
‘Haven’t taken my foot off the gas for a second,’ Øystein said, carefully pinching his lips around a microscopic roll-up and blowing smoke at the mirror, where he could see the queue behind him growing.
‘How often in the course of a night do you actually have a paying passenger in the car?’ Harry asked, taking out his packet of cigarettes.
‘So few that I’m thinking about switching on the taxi meter now. Hey, can’t you read?’ Øystein pointed to the No Smoking sign on the glove compartment.
‘I need some advice, Øystein.’
‘I say no. Don’t get married. Nice woman, Rakel, but marriage is more trouble than fun. Listen to someone who’s been around the block a few times.’
‘You’ve never been married, Øystein.’
‘That’s exactly the point.’ His childhood pal bared yellow teeth in his lean face and tossed his head, lashing the headrest with his ultra-thin ponytail.
Harry lit a cigarette. ‘And to think that I asked you to be my best man. .’
‘The best man has to have his wits about him, Harry, and a wedding without getting smashed is as meaningless as tonic without gin.’
‘OK, but I’m not asking you for marriage guidance.’
‘Spit it out then. Eikeland’s listening.’
The smoke stung Harry’s throat. The mucous membranes were no longer used to two packs of cigarettes a day. He knew all too well that Øystein couldn’t give him any advice on the case, either. Not good advice anyway. His homespun logic and principles had formed a lifestyle so dysfunctional that it could only tempt those with very specific interests. The pillars of the Eikelandian house were alcohol, bachelorhood, women from the lowest rung, an interesting intellectuality — which was unfortunately in decline — a certain pride and a survival instinct which despite everything resulted in more taxi driving than drinking and an ability to laugh in the face of life and the devil, which even Harry had to admire.
Harry breathed in. ‘I suspect an officer is behind all these police murders.’
‘Then bang him up,’ Øystein said, taking a flake of tobacco off the tip of his tongue. Then stopped suddenly. ‘Did you say police murders? As in police murders?’
‘Yup. The problem is that if I arrest this man he’ll drag me down with him.’
‘How come?’
‘He can prove it was me who killed the Russian in Come As You Are.’
Øystein stared wide-eyed into the mirror. ‘Did you snuff a Russian?’
‘So what do I do? Do I arrest the man and go down with him? In which case Rakel has no husband and Oleg no father?’
‘Quite agree.’
‘Quite agree with what?’
‘Quite agree that you should use them as a front. Very smart to have that kind of philanthropic pretext up your sleeve. You sleep a lot better then. I’ve always gone in for that. Do you remember when we were apple scrumping and I legged it and left Tresko to face the music? Of course he couldn’t run that fast with all the weight and the clogs. I told myself that Tresko needed a thrashing more than me, to stiffen his spine, morally speaking, to point him in the right direction. Because that was where he really wanted to go, privet-hedge country, wasn’t it? While I wanted to be a bandit, didn’t I? What good was a flogging to me for a few lousy apples?’
‘I’m not going to let other people take the rap here, Øystein.’
‘But what if this guy snuffs a few more cops and you know you could have stopped him?’
‘That’s the point,’ Harry said, blowing smoke at the No Smoking sign.
Øystein stared at his pal. ‘Don’t do it, Harry. .’
‘Don’t do what?’
‘Don’t. .’ Øystein lowered the window on his side and flicked out what was left of the roll-up, two centimetres of spit-stained Rizla paper. ‘I don’t want to hear about it. Just don’t do it.’
‘Well, the most cowardly option is to do nothing. To tell myself I have no absolute proof, which is true by the way. To turn a blind eye. But can a man live with that, Øystein?’
‘Certainly bloody can. But you’re a bit of a weirdo in that regard, Harry. Can you live with it?’
‘Not normally. But, as I said, I have other considerations now.’
‘Can’t other officers arrest him?’
‘He’s going to use everything he knows about everyone in the force to negotiate himself a reduced punishment. He’s worked as a burner and a detective and he knows all the tricks in the book. On top of that, he’ll be rescued by the Chief of Police. The two of them know too much about each other.’
Øystein took Harry’s packet of cigarettes. ‘Do you know what, Harry? Sounds to me like you’ve come here to get my blessing for murder. Does anyone else know what you’re up to?’
Harry shook his head. ‘Not even my team of detectives.’
Øystein took out a cigarette and lit it with his lighter.
‘Harry.’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re the fucking lonesomest guy I know.’
Harry looked at his watch, midnight soon, peered through the windscreen. ‘Loneliest, I think the word is.’
‘No. Lonesomest. It’s your choice. And you’re weird.’
‘Anyway,’ Harry said, opening the door, ‘thanks for your advice.’
‘What advice?’
The door slammed.
‘What fucking advice?’ Øystein shouted to the door and the hunched figure heading into the Oslo murk. ‘And what about a taxi home, you stingy bastard?’
The house was dark and still.
Harry sat on the sofa staring at the cupboard.
He hadn’t said anything about his suspicions regarding Truls Berntsen.
He had rung Bjørn and Katrine and said he’d had a brief conversation with Mikael Bellman. And that as the Police Chief had an alibi for the night of the murder, there had to be a mistake or the evidence had been planted, so they would keep quiet about the bullet in the evidence box matching Bellman’s gun. Not a word about what they had discussed.
Not a word about Truls Berntsen.
Not a word about what had to be done.
This was how it had to be; it was the kind of case where you had to be alone.
The key was hidden on the CD shelf.
Harry closed his eyes. Tried to give himself a break, tried not to listen to the dialogue churning round and round in his head. But it was no good; the voices began to scream as soon as he relaxed. Truls Berntsen was crazy, they said. This was not an assumption, it was a fact. No sane person would embark on a killing spree targeting their own colleagues.