They passed Bygdøy. Snarøya. Harry was counting the seconds automatically. Ten minutes since they had driven away from Universitetsplassen. He looked up at the empty blue sky.
‘Marte Ruud was never assaulted. I shot her as soon as I brought her from the forest down into the cellar. Valentin had wrecked her, so it was an act of mercy to put her down.’ Smith turned towards him. ‘I hope you appreciate that, Harry. Harry? Do you think I talk too much, Harry?’
They were approaching Høvikodden. The Oslo Fjord appeared again to their left. Harry calculated. The police might have time to set up a roadblock at Asker, they’d be there in ten minutes.
‘Can you imagine what a gift it was to me when you asked me to join the investigation, Harry? I was so surprised that I said no at first. Before I realised that if I was sitting there getting hold of all the information, I could warn Valentin when you were getting so close that he could no longer carry on. My vampirist was going to outshine Kürten, Haigh and Chase and become the greatest of them all. But I still didn’t know that his hamam was under surveillance until we were sitting in this car on the way there. And I was starting to lose control of Valentin – he killed that bartender, and kidnapped Marte Ruud. Luckily I found out that Alexander Dreyer had been identified at that cashpoint machine in time to be able to warn him to get out of his flat. By that point Valentin had worked out that it was me, his former psychologist, who was pulling the strings, but so what? The identity of the person who was in the boat with him didn’t make any difference. But I knew that the net was closing in. That it was time for the grand finale I had been planning for a while. I had got him to leave the flat and book into the Plaza Hotel, which obviously wasn’t somewhere he could stay for long, but I was at least able to send him an envelope containing copies of the keys to the barn and office, and instructions telling him to hide until midnight, when everyone had gone to bed. Naturally I couldn’t rule out that he might have started to suspect something, but what alternative did he have now that his cover was blown? He simply had to gamble that I could be trusted. And you have to give me credit for the way that was set up, Harry. Calling you and Katrine so that I had witnesses on the phone, as well as the security camera footage. Yes, of course it could be regarded as a cold-blooded liquidation, fabricating the story of the heroic researcher who had upset the serial killer with his public statements, and then killed him in self-defence. Yes, I accept that it meant that a perfectly ordinary disputation was attended by international media, and that fourteen companies have bought the rights to publish my thesis. But in the end it comes down to research, scholarship. It’s progress, Harry. And it’s possible that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but it’s also the road to an enlightened, humane future.’
Oleg turned the ignition key.
‘A&E at Ullevål!’ the young blond detective shouted from the back seat, where he was sitting with Truls Berntsen’s head in his lap. They were both soaked with Berntsen’s blood. ‘Foot on the floor and sirens on!’
Oleg was about to release the clutch when the back door was yanked open.
‘No!’ the detective shouted furiously.
‘Move, Anders!’ It was Steffens. He pushed his way in, forcing the young detective to move to the other side.
‘Hold his legs up,’ Steffens barked, now holding Berntsen’s head. ‘So he gets—’
‘Blood to his heart and brain,’ Anders said.
Oleg released the clutch and they pulled away from the car park, out onto the road between a clanging tram and an angry taxi.
‘How’s it looking?’
‘See for yourself,’ Anders snarled. ‘Unconscious, weak pulse, but he’s breathing. As you can see, the bullet hit him in the right hemithorax.’
‘That’s not the problem,’ Steffens said. ‘The big problem’s at the back. Help me turn him over.’ Oleg glanced in the rear-view mirror. Saw them turn Truls Berntsen onto his side and tear his sweater and shirt off. He concentrated on the road again, used his horn to get past a lorry, accelerated as he crossed a junction on red.
‘Oh, fuck,’ Anders groaned.
‘Yes, it’s a big hole,’ Steffens said. ‘The bullet probably blew part of his rib out. He’s going to bleed out before we get to Ullevål unless …’
‘Unless …?’
Oleg heard Steffens take a deep breath. ‘Unless we do a better job than I did with your mother. Use the backs of your hands on either side of the wound – like that – and press them together. Just close the wound as well as you can, there’s no other way.’
‘My hands are just sliding.’
‘Tear off some of his shirt and use that to get more friction.’
Oleg heard Anders breathing heavily. He glanced in the rear-view mirror again. Saw that Steffens had put one finger on Berntsen’s chest while he tapped it with another finger.
‘I’m trying percussion, but I’m too cramped to be able to put my ear alongside,’ Steffens said. ‘Can you manage to …?’
Anders leaned forward without taking his hands away from the wound. Put his head to Berntsen’s chest. ‘Very muffled,’ he said. ‘No air. Do you think …?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid it’s a haemothorax,’ his father said. ‘The pleural cavity’s filling with blood, and his lungs will soon collapse. Oleg …’
‘I hear you,’ Oleg said, and put his foot down.
Katrine was standing in the middle of Universitetsplassen with her phone pressed to her ear, looking up at the empty, cloudless sky. It wasn’t yet visible, but she had requisitioned the police helicopter from Gardermoen with orders to scan the E6 motorway as it approached Oslo from the north.
‘No, there are no mobile phones we can track,’ she called over the noise of sirens approaching from different parts of the city and merging together. ‘Nothing registered by the toll stations. We’re setting up roadblocks on the southbound E6 and E18. I’ll let you know as soon as we’ve got anything.’
‘OK,’ Falkeid said at the other end. ‘We’re on standby.’
Katrine ended the call. Another one came through.
‘Asker Police, on the E18,’ the voice said. ‘We’ve stopped an articulated lorry here and are positioning it across the road just after the slip road to Asker, and are filtering the traffic off there and back onto the motorway after the roundabout. A black 1970s Amazon with rally stripes?’