‘Congratulations, you two!’ Rakel said, and hugged them both.
‘Thanks!’ Katrine beamed, stroking her bulging stomach.
‘When …?’
‘In June.’
‘June,’ Rakel repeated, and saw Katrine’s smile twitch.
Rakel leaned forward, put a hand on Katrine’s arm and whispered: ‘Don’t think about it, it’ll be fine.’
Rakel saw Katrine look at her as if in shock.
‘Epidural,’ Rakel said. ‘They’re brilliant things. They get rid of any pain just like that!’
Katrine blinked twice. Then she laughed. ‘Do you know, I’ve never been to a disputation before. I had no idea it was so formal until I saw Bjørn putting on his finest bootlace tie. What actually happens?’
‘Oh, it’s fairly straightforward really,’ Rakel said. ‘We go into the auditorium first, stand as the chair of the defence, the candidate and the two opponents come in. Smith is probably pretty tense even if he’s already had to give an examination lecture to them either yesterday or this morning. He’s probably most worried that Ståle Aune’s going to be awkward, but there can’t be much chance of that.’
‘No?’ Bjørn Holm said. ‘But Aune’s said he doesn’t believe in vampirism.’
‘Ståle believes in serious scholarship,’ Rakel said. ‘The opponents are supposed to be critical, and get to the heart of the subject of the dissertation, but they have to stay within the bounds of the subject and the premise of the occasion, not ride their own hobbyhorses.’
‘Wow, you’ve done your homework!’ Katrine said as Rakel took a deep breath.
Rakel nodded and went on. ‘The opponents have three-quarters of an hour each, and between them brief questions from the hall are permitted, known as ex auditorio, but that doesn’t usually happen. After that there’s the disputation dinner, paid for by the candidate, but we’re not invited to that. Which Harry thinks is a great shame.’
Katrine turned towards Harry. ‘Is that true?’
Harry shrugged. ‘Who doesn’t like a bit of meat and gravy and dozing off to half-hour speeches made by the relatives of someone you really don’t know that well?’
People started to move around them, and a few cameras flashed.
‘The next Justice Minister,’ Katrine said.
It was as if the waters parted before Mikael and Ulla Bellman as they walked in, arm in arm. They were smiling, but Rakel didn’t think that Ulla was really smiling. Perhaps she wasn’t the smiling type. Or perhaps Ulla Bellman had been that beautiful, bashful girl who had learned that an exaggerated smile only led to more unwanted attention, and that a chilly exterior made life easier. If that was the case, Rakel couldn’t help wondering what she was going to make of life as the wife of a cabinet minister.
Mikael Bellman stopped next to them when a question was yelled out and a microphone stuck in front of his face.
‘Oh, I’m just here to celebrate one of the men who contributed to us solving the vampirist case,’ he said in English. ‘Dr Smith is the one you should be talking to today, not me.’ But Bellman did as he was asked and posed happily as the photographers called out their requests.
‘International press,’ Bjørn said.
‘Vampirism is hot,’ Katrine said, looking at the crowd. ‘All the crime reporters are here.’
‘Except Mona Daa,’ Harry said as he looked around.
‘And everyone from the boiler room,’ Katrine said, ‘except Anders Wyller. Do you know where he is?’
The others shook their heads.
‘He called me this morning,’ Katrine said. ‘Asked if he could have a chat with me on his own.’
‘What about?’ Bjørn wondered.
‘God knows. Ah, there he is!’
Anders Wyller had appeared at the far side of the crowd. He looked breathless and red-faced as he took his scarf off. At that moment the doors to the auditorium opened.
‘Right, we need to get seats,’ Katrine said, and hurried towards the door. ‘Make way, pregnant woman coming through!’
‘She’s so pretty,’ Rakel whispered, sticking her hand under Harry’s arm and leaning against his shoulder. ‘I’ve always wondered if you and she ever had a thing.’
‘A thing?’
‘Just a little one. When we weren’t together, for instance.’
‘’Fraid not,’ Harry said gloomily.
‘Afraid not? Meaning?’
‘Meaning sometimes I regret not making more use of our little gaps.’
‘I’m not joking, Harry.’
‘Nor am I.’
Hallstein Smith opened the door to the imposing room a crack and peered in. Looked at the chandelier hanging above the crowd filling all the seats in the auditorium. There were even people standing in the gallery. Once this room had housed Norway’s national assembly, and now he – little Hallstein – was going to stand at the podium and defend his research, and be awarded the title of doctor! He looked at May, who was sitting in the front row, nervous, but as proud as a mother hen. He looked at his foreign colleagues who had come even though he had warned them that the disputation would be in Norwegian; he looked at the journalists, at Bellman, who was sitting with his wife in the front row, right in the middle. At Harry, Bjørn and Katrine, his new friends in the police, who had played such a part in his dissertation about vampirism, in which the case of Valentin Gjertsen had obviously become one of the central planks. And even if the image of Valentin had changed dramatically in light of the events of recent days, they had only strengthened his conclusions about the vampiristic personality. Because of course Hallstein had pointed out that vampirists primarily act on instinct, and are driven by their desires and impulses – so the revelation that Lenny Hell had been the mastermind behind the well-planned murders had come in the nick of time.
‘Let’s get started,’ the chairman said, picking a speck of dust from his academic gown.
Hallstein took a deep breath and walked in. The audience rose to its feet.
Smith and the two opponents sat down, while the chairman explained how the disputation was going to proceed. Then he gave the floor to Hallstein.
The first opponent, Ståle Aune, leaned forward and whispered good luck.
Hallstein walked up to the podium, and looked out across the auditorium. Felt silence descend. The examination lecture that morning had gone well. Well? It had been fantastic! He couldn’t help noting that the adjudication committee had seemed happy, and even Ståle Aune had nodded appreciatively at his best points.
Now he was going to give a shorter version of the lecture, twenty minutes maximum. He began to speak, and soon got the same feeling he had had that morning, and departed from the script he had in front of him. His thoughts became words instantly, and it was as if he could see himself from outside, could see the audience, could see the expressions on their faces, hanging on his every word, their senses entirely focused on him, Hallstein Smith, professor of vampirism. Obviously there was no such thing yet, but he was going to change that, and today marked the start. He was approaching his conclusion. ‘During my brief time in the independent investigative group led by Harry Hole, I managed to learn many things. One of them was that the central question in any murder case is “Why?”. But that that doesn’t help if you can’t also answer “How?”.’ Hallstein went over to the table next to the podium, on which lay three objects covered by a felt cloth. He took hold of one end of the cloth and waited. A bit of theatre was forgivable.
‘This is how,’ he declared, and pulled the cloth away.
A gasp ran through the audience as they saw the large revolver, the grotesque handcuffs, and the black iron teeth.
He pointed at the revolver. ‘One tool to threaten and compel.’
At the handcuffs. ‘One to control, incapacitate, imprison.’
The iron teeth. ‘And one to get to the source, to gain access to the blood, to conduct the ritual.’