A third thought appeared.
Harry rested his head in his hands.
The thought of whether he wanted her to survive or not.
Damn, damn.
And then a fourth thought.
What Valentin had said out in the forest.
We all get fooled in the end, Harry.
He must have meant that it was Harry who had fooled him. Or did he mean other people? That someone else had fooled Valentin?
That’s why you’re also being fooled.
He had said that just before he fooled Harry into thinking he was pointing a gun at him, but perhaps that wasn’t what he meant. Perhaps it was about more than that.
He started when he felt a hand on the back of his neck.
Turned and looked up.
Oleg was standing behind his chair.
‘I didn’t hear you come in,’ Harry tried to say, but his voice couldn’t seem to settle.
‘You were asleep.’
‘Asleep?’ Harry pushed himself up from the table. ‘No, I was just sitting and—’
‘You were asleep, Dad,’ Oleg interrupted with a little smile.
Harry blinked away the fog. Looked around. Put his hand out and felt the coffee cup. It was cold. ‘Bloody hell.’
‘I’ve been doing some thinking,’ Oleg said, pulling out the chair next to Harry and sitting down.
Harry smacked his lips, loosened the saliva in his mouth.
‘And you’re right.’
‘Am I?’ Harry took a sip of the cold coffee to take away the taste of stale bile.
‘Yes. You have a responsibility that stretches beyond those closest to you. You have to be there for people who aren’t so close. And I have no right to demand that you let them all down. The fact that murder cases are like a drug to you doesn’t change that.’
‘Hm. And you came to this conclusion all on your own?’
‘Yes. With a bit of help from Helga.’ Oleg looked down at his hands. ‘She’s better than me at seeing things from other angles. And I didn’t mean what I said, about not wanting to be like you.’
Harry put his hand on Oleg’s shoulder. Saw that he was wearing Harry’s old Elvis Costello T-shirt to sleep in. ‘My boy?’
‘Yes?’
‘Promise me that you won’t be like me. That’s all I ask of you.’
Oleg nodded. ‘One other thing,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘Steffens called. It’s Mum.’
It felt like an iron claw was squeezing Harry’s heart, and he stopped breathing.
‘She’s woken up.’
33
THURSDAY MORNING
‘YES?’
‘Anders Wyller?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good morning, I’m calling from the Forensic Medical Institute.’
‘Good morning.’
‘It’s about that strand of hair you sent for analysis.’
‘Oh?’
‘Did you get the printout I sent you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, that isn’t the full analysis, but as you can see there’s a link between the DNA in the hair and one of the DNA profiles we registered in the vampirist case. To be more precise, DNA profile 201.’
‘Yes, I saw that.’
‘I don’t know who 201 is, but we do at least know that it isn’t Valentin Gjertsen. But seeing as it’s a partial match and I haven’t heard anything from you, I just wanted to make sure you’d got the results. Because I’m assuming you want us to complete the analysis?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘No? But—’
‘The case is solved, and you’ve got a lot of other work to be getting on with. By the way, was that printout sent to anyone else but me?’
‘No, I can’t see that there was any request to that effect. Do you want—?’
‘No, there’s no need. You can close the case. Thanks for your help.’
PART THREE
34
SATURDAY DAYTIME
MASA KANAGAWA USED the tongs to lift the red-hot iron from the oven. He put it on the anvil and started to beat it with one of the smaller hammers. The hammer was the traditional Japanese design, with a head that stuck out at the front in a sort of gallows shape. Masa had taken over the little smithy from his father and grandfather, but like plenty of the other smiths in Wakayama he had found it a struggle to make ends meet. The steel industry, which had long been the backbone of the city’s economy, had moved to China, and Masa had had to concentrate on niche products. Such as the katana, a samurai sword that was particularly popular in the USA, and which he produced to order for private customers all over the world. Japanese law dictated that a sword-smith needed a licence, must have served a five-year apprenticeship, and was only permitted to produce two long swords per month, all of which had to be registered with the authorities. Masa was just a simple smith, who made good swords for a fraction of the price charged by the licensed smiths, but he knew he could get caught, so kept a low profile. He neither knew nor wanted to know what his clients used the swords for, but he hoped it was for exercise, for decoration or collecting. All he knew was that it helped feed him and his family, and enabled him to keep the little smithy running. But he had told his son that he ought to find a different profession, that he ought to study, that being a smith was too hard and the rewards too meagre. His son had followed his father’s advice, but it cost money to keep him at university, so Masa accepted whatever commissions he was offered. Such as this one, to make a replica of a set of iron teeth from the Heian period. It was for a client in Norway, and this was the second time he had ordered the same thing. The first time was six months ago. Masa Kanagawa didn’t know the client’s name, he just had the address of a post office box. But that was fine, the goods had been paid for in advance and the price Masa had asked for was high. Not just because it was complicated work, making the little teeth to match the design the customer had sent him, but because it felt wrong. Masa couldn’t explain why it felt more wrong than forging a sword, but when he looked at the iron teeth they made him shudder. And as he drove home along Highway 370, the singing road where the carefully designed and constructed ridges in the surface created a tune as the tyres rolled over them, he no longer heard it as beautiful, soothing choral music. He heard a warning, a deep rumble that grew and grew until it became a scream. A scream like a demon’s.
Harry woke up. He lit a cigarette and reflected. What sort of awakening was this? This wasn’t waking up to work. It was Saturday, his first lecture after the winter break wasn’t until Monday, and Øystein was looking after the bar today.
It wasn’t waking up alone. Rakel was lying by his side. During the first few weeks after she came home from hospital, whenever he lay and looked at her sleeping he had been terrified that she wouldn’t wake up, that the mysterious ‘it’ that the doctors hadn’t identified was going to come back.
‘People can’t cope with doubt,’ Steffens had said. ‘People like to believe that you and I know, Harry. The accused is guilty, the diagnosis is definite. Admitting that we have doubts is taken as an admission of our own inadequacy, not an indication of the complexity of the mystery or the limitations of our profession. But the truth is that we will never know for certain what was wrong with Rakel. Her mast cell count was slightly elevated, so at first I thought it was a rare blood disease. But all the signs are gone and there’s a lot to suggest that it was some sort of poison. In which case you don’t have to worry about it recurring. Just like these vampirist murders, wouldn’t you say?’
‘But we know who killed those women.’
‘You’re right. Bad analogy.’