Truls Berntsen stopped and looked at Mona Daa looking at herself.
She no longer reminded him of a penguin. Well, she actually reminded him of a penguin that was being tightly squeezed around the middle.
Truls had detected a certain reluctance when he had asked the girl in gym gear behind the counter at Gain Gym to let him in so he could take a look at the facilities. Possibly because she didn’t buy the idea that he was considering joining, and possibly because they didn’t want people like him as members. Because a long life as someone who aroused other people’s disapproval – often on good grounds, he had to admit – had taught Truls Berntsen to perceive disapproval in most faces he encountered. Either way, after passing machines that were supposed to tighten stomachs and buttocks, rooms for Pilates, rooms for spinning and rooms containing hysterical aerobics instructors (Truls had a vague idea it wasn’t called aerobics any more), he found her in the boys’ area. The weights room. She was doing deadlifts. Her squat, splayed legs were still a bit penguiny. But the combination of broad backside and the wide leather belt that was squeezing her waist and making her bulge out both above and below made her look more like a number 8.
She let out a hoarse, almost frightening roar as she straightened her back and took the strain, staring at her own red face in the mirror. The weights clanked against each other as they left the floor. The bar didn’t bend as much as he’d seen them do on television, but he could see that it was heavy from the two grunting Paki types who were doing curls to get biceps that were big enough for their pathetic gang tattoos. Christ, how he hated them. Christ, how they hated him.
Mona Daa lowered the weights. Roared and raised them again. Down. Up. Four times.
She stood there trembling afterwards. Smiled the way that crazy woman out in Lier did when she’d had an orgasm. If she hadn’t been quite so fat and lived quite so far away, maybe something could have come of that. She said she’d dumped him because she was starting to like him. That once a week wasn’t enough. At the time he had been relieved, but Truls still found himself thinking about her from time to time. Not the way he thought about Ulla, of course, but she had been nice, no question.
Mona Daa caught sight of him in the mirror. Pulled out her earphones. ‘Berntsen? I thought you had a gym in Police HQ?’
‘We have,’ he said, going closer. Gave the Paki types an I’m-a-cop-so-get-lost look, but they didn’t seem to understand. Perhaps he’d been wrong about them. Some of those kids were even in Police College these days.
‘So what brings you here?’ She loosened the belt and Truls couldn’t help staring to see if she was going to balloon back out and become an ordinary penguin again.
‘I thought we might be able to help each other.’
‘With what?’ She squatted down in front of the weights and undid the nuts holding them on each side.
He crouched down beside her and lowered his voice. ‘You said you paid well for tip-offs.’
‘We do,’ she said, without lowering hers. ‘What have you got?’
‘It’ll cost fifty thousand.’
Mona Daa laughed out loud. ‘We pay well, Berntsen, but not that well. Ten thousand is the maximum. And then we’re talking a really tasty morsel.’
Truls nodded slowly as he moistened his lips. ‘This isn’t a tasty morsel.’
‘What did you say?’
Truls raised his voice a bit more. ‘I said: this isn’t a tasty morsel.’
‘What is it, then?’
‘It’s a three-course meal.’
‘Not going to happen,’ Katrine cried over the cacophony of voices and took a sip of her White Russian. ‘I’ve got a partner and he’s at home. Where do you live?’
‘Gyldenløves gate. But there’s nothing to drink, it’s a real mess, and—’
‘Clean sheets?’
Ulrich shrugged.
‘You change the sheets while I take a shower,’ she said. ‘I’ve come straight from work.’
‘What do you—?’
‘Let’s just say that all you need to know about my job is that I have to be up early tomorrow, so shall we …?’ She nodded towards the door.
‘OK, but maybe we could finish our drinks first?’
She looked at the cocktail. The only reason she’d started drinking White Russians was because that’s what Jeff Bridges drinks in The Big Lebowski.
‘That depends,’ she said.
‘On what?’
‘On what effect alcohol has … on you.’
Ulrich smiled. ‘Are you trying to give me performance anxiety, Katrine?’
She shivered at the sound of her own name in this stranger’s mouth. ‘Do you get performance anxiety, then, Ul-rich?’
‘No,’ he grinned. ‘But do you know what these drinks cost?’
Now she smiled. Ulrich was OK. Thin enough. That was the first and really the only thing she looked for in a profile. Weight. And height. She could calculate their BMI as quickly as a poker player figured out the odds. 26.5 was OK. Before she met Bjørn she’d never have believed she’d accept anyone over 25.
‘I need to go to the toilet,’ she said. ‘Here’s my cloakroom ticket, black leather jacket, wait by the door.’
Katrine stood up and walked across the floor, assuming – seeing as this was his first chance to look at her from behind – that he was checking out what people where she came from usually called her arse. And knew that he’d be happy.
The back of the bar was more crowded and she had to push her way through, seeing as ‘Excuse me!’ didn’t have the open-sesame effect it had in what she considered to be the more civilised parts of the world. Bergen, for instance. And she must have been getting squeezed harder than she thought between the sweaty bodies, because suddenly she couldn’t breathe. She broke free, and the giddy feeling of a lack of oxygen disappeared after a few steps.
In the corridor beyond there was the usual queue for the women’s toilet and no one waiting for the men’s. She looked at her watch again. Lead detective. She wanted to get to work first tomorrow. What the hell. She yanked open the door to the men’s toilet, marched in and walked past the row of urinals, unnoticed by two men standing there, and locked herself in one of the cubicles. Her few female friends had always said they’d never set foot in a men’s toilet, that they were much dirtier than the ladies’. That wasn’t Katrine’s experience.
She had pulled her trousers down and was sitting on the toilet when she heard a cautious knock on the door. That struck her as odd – it ought to be obvious from the outside that the cubicle was occupied, and, if you thought it was empty, why knock? She looked down. In the gap between the bottom of the door and the floor she saw the toes of a pair of pointed snakeskin boots. Her next thought was that someone must have seen her go into the men’s toilet and had followed her to see if she was the more adventurous sort.
‘Get los—’ she began, but the ‘t’ at the end vanished in a shortness of breath. Was she coming down with something? Had one single day heading up what she already knew was going to be a big murder investigation turned her into a nervous wreck who could hardly breathe? Christ …
She heard the door to the men’s open and two squawking man-boys came in.
‘It’s, like, so fucking sick, man!’
‘Totally sick!’
The pointed boots disappeared from below the door. Katrine listened, but couldn’t hear any footsteps. She finished off, opened the door and went over to the washbasins. The conversation between the man-boys at the urinals tailed off as she turned the tap.
‘What are you doing here?’ one of them asked.
‘Having a piss and washing my hands,’ she said. ‘Try to do it in that order.’
She shook her hands and walked out.
Ulrich was waiting by the door. He reminded her of a dog wagging its tail with a stick in its mouth as he stood there holding her jacket. She pushed the image aside.