‘Hm. So you’ve been spying. Well, after you, chairwoman.’
Harry glanced at the front of the paper again. 4 March. The day of his release. He followed her to the stairs. Passed the mirror without looking in it.
Svein Finne, ‘the Fiancé’, walked into Vår Frelsers Cemetery. It was daybreak, and there was no one about. Only an hour earlier he had walked out through the gate of Ila Prison a free man, and this was his first errand. Against the white snow the small, black, rounded headstones looked like dots on a sheet of paper. He walked along the icy path, taking cautious steps. He was an old man now, and he hadn’t walked on ice for many years. He stopped in front of a particularly small headstone, just neutral initials – VG – beneath the cross.
Valentin Gjertsen.
No words of remembrance. Of course. No one wanted to remember. And no flowers.
Svein Finne took out the feather he had in his coat pocket, knelt down and stuck it in the snow in front of the headstone. In the Cherokee tribe they used to place an eagle’s feather in the coffins of their dead. He had avoided contact with Valentin when they had both been in Ila. Not for the same reason as the other inmates, whom Valentin scared the life out of. But because Svein Finne didn’t want the young man to recognise him. Because he would, sooner or later. It had taken Svein one single glance on the day Valentin arrived in Ila. He had his mother’s narrow shoulders and high-pitched voice, just as he remembered her from their engagement. She was one of the ones who had tried to get an abortion while Svein was busy elsewhere, so he had forced his way in and lived there to watch over his offspring. She had lain beside him, trembling and sobbing every night until she gave birth to the boy in a magnificent bloodbath there in the room, and he had cut the umbilical cord with his own knife. His thirteenth child, his seventh son. But it wasn’t when Svein learned the name of the new inmate that he was one hundred per cent certain. It was when he was told the details of what this Valentin had been convicted of.
Svein Finne got to his feet again.
The dead were dead.
And the living would soon be dead.
He took a deep breath. The man had contacted him. And had woken the thirst inside him, the thirst he’d thought the years had cured him of.
Svein Finne looked at the sky. The sun would soon be up. And the city would wake, rub its eyes, shake off the nightmare of the murderer who had rampaged last autumn. Smile and see that the sun was shining on them, blissfully unaware of what was coming. Something that would make the autumn look like a tame prelude. Like father, like son. Like son, like father.
The policeman. Harry Hole. He was out there somewhere.
Svein Finne turned and began to walk. His steps were longer, faster, more sure.
There was so much to do.
Truls Berntsen was sitting on the sixth floor, watching the red glow of the sun try to force its way over Ekebergsåsen. In December Katrine Bratt had moved him from the doghouse to an office with a window. Which was nice. But he was still archiving reports and incoming material about closed or cold cases. So the reason why he got there so early had to be that at minus twelve degrees, it was warmer in the office than in his flat. Or that he was having trouble sleeping these days.
In recent weeks most of the material that needed archiving had naturally enough been late tip-offs and unnecessary witness statements relating to the vampirist murders. Someone claiming to have seen Valentin Gjertsen, probably someone who also thought Elvis was still alive. It didn’t matter that the DNA test of the corpse had provided incontrovertible evidence that it really had been Valentin Gjertsen that Harry Hole had killed, because for some people facts were just minor irritants that got in the way of their obsessions.
Got in the way of their obsessions. Truls Berntsen didn’t know why the sentence stuck, it was just something he had thought rather than said out loud.
He picked up the next envelope from the pile. Like the others, it had been opened and its contents listed by another officer. This one featured the Facebook logo, a stamp that showed it had been sent by special delivery, and an archiving order attached with a paper clip, on which it said ‘Vampirist Case’ beside the case number, and Magnus Skarre’s name and signature next to the word case manager.
Truls Berntsen took out the contents. On top was a letter in English. Truls didn’t understand all of it, but enough to recognise that it referred to a court disclosure order, and that the enclosed material was printouts of the Facebook accounts of all the murder victims in the vampirist case, plus the still missing Marte Ruud. He leafed through the pages and noticed that some of them were stuck together, so he guessed that Skarre hadn’t looked through everything. Fine, the case had been solved and the perpetrator would never find himself in the dock. But obviously Truls would dearly love to catch that bastard Skarre with his trousers down. He checked the names of the people the victims had been in contact with. Looked rather optimistically for Facebook messages to or from Valentin Gjertsen or Alexander Dreyer which he could accuse Skarre of having missed. He scanned page after page, only stopping to check senders and recipients. He sighed when he got to the end. No mistakes there. The only names he had recognised apart from the victims had been a couple that he and Wyller had dismissed because they had been in touch with the victims by phone. And it was surely only natural that some of the same people who had been in touch by phone, such as Ewa Dolmen and that Lenny Hell, had also been in contact on Facebook.
Truls put the documents back in the envelope, stood up and went over to the filing cabinet. He pulled out the top drawer. Let go of it. He liked the way it glided out, with a sigh, like a goods train. Until he stopped the drawer with one hand.
Looked at the envelope.
Dolmen, not Hermansen.
He hunted through the drawer until he found the file containing the interviews from the phone list, then took it and the envelope back to the desk. He leafed through the printouts until he found the name again. Lenny Hell. Truls remembered the name because it had made him think of Lemmy, even if the guy he had spoken to over the phone had sounded more like a terrified bastard with that tremble in his voice that so many people – regardless of how innocent they were – got when they found out it was the police calling them. So, Lenny Hell had been in touch with Ewa Dolmen on Facebook. Victim number two.
Truls opened the file of interviews. Found the report of his own brief conversation with Lenny Hell. And his conversation with the owner of Åneby Pizza & Grill. And a note he didn’t understand, in which Wyller reported that Nittedal Police Station had vouched for both Lenny and the owner of the pizzeria, confirming that Lenny had been in the restaurant at the time of Elise Hermansen’s murder.
Elise Hermansen. Victim number one.
They had questioned Lenny because he had called Elise Hermansen several times. And he had been in touch with Ewa Dolmen on Facebook. There was the mistake. Magnus Skarre’s mistake. And, possibly, Lenny Hell’s mistake. Unless it was just a coincidence. Single men and women of a similar age seeking each other within the same geographic area of what was after all a fairly sparsely populated country. There were more improbable coincidences. And the case was closed, there was nothing to consider. Not really. But on the other hand … The papers were still writing about the vampirist. In the USA, Valentin Gjertsen had acquired an obscure little fan club, and someone had bought the book and film rights to his life story from his estate. It may not have been on the front pages any more, but it could be again. Truls Berntsen got his phone out. Found Mona Daa’s number. Looked at it. Then he stood up, grabbed his coat and walked towards the lift.