Текст книги "Phantom"

Автор книги: Jo Nesbo

Соавторы: Jo Nesbo,Jo Nesbo
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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

The first thing Harry did when he got into the rental car was to check his mobile phone. He saw one missed call from Beate Lonn, but still nothing from Isabelle Skoyen. By Ulleval Stadium Harry realised he had timed his journey out of town badly. The nation with the shortest working hours was on its way home. It took him fifty minutes to reach Karihaugen.

Sergey was sitting in his car drumming his fingers on the wheel. In theory, his workplace was situated on the right side of rush-hour traffic, but when he was on the evening shift he ended up stuck in the gridlock leaving town anyway. The cars edged towards Karihaugen like cooling lava. He had googled the policeman. Clicked on old news stories. Murder cases. He had taken out a serial killer in Australia. Sergey had noticed that because the same morning he had been watching a programme from Australia on Animal Planet. It was all about the intelligence of crocodiles in the Northern Territory, about how they learned the habits of their prey. When men camped in the bush they usually took a path along a billabong to collect water after waking in the morning. On the path they were safe from crocodiles lying in the water and watching. If they stayed a second night the same would be repeated the next day. If they stayed a third night they would walk along the path once more, but this time they wouldn’t see a crocodile. Not until it rushed out of the bush and dragged its prey into the water.

The policeman had seemed ill at ease in the pictures on the Net. As though he didn’t like being photographed. Or watched.

The phone rang. It was Andrey. He got straight to the point.

‘He’s staying at Hotel Leon.’

The south Siberian dialect was in fact like a machine gun, staccato, but Andrey made it sound soft and flowing. He said the address twice, slowly and clearly, and Sergey memorised it.

‘Good,’ he said, trying to sound keen. ‘I’ll ask for his room number. And unless it’s at the end of a corridor I’ll wait there, at the end. So that when he leaves his room for the stairs or the lift he’ll have to turn his back on me.’

‘No, Sergey.’

‘No?’

‘Not in the hotel. He’ll be ready for us at Leon.’

Sergey started with surprise. ‘Ready?’

He changed lane and slipped in behind a rental car as Andrey explained that the policeman had contacted two sellers and invited ataman to Hotel Leon. It stank of a trap from some distance. Ataman had given clear orders that Sergey was to do the job somewhere else.

‘Where?’

‘Wait for him in the street outside the hotel.’

‘But where shall I do it?’

‘You can choose,’ Andrey said. ‘But my personal favourite is an ambush.’

‘Ambush?’

‘Always an ambush, Sergey. And one more thing…’

‘Yes?’

‘He’s beginning to advance into areas where we don’t want him to advance. That means this is becoming a matter of urgency.’

‘What… does that mean?’

‘ Ataman says you should take whatever time you need, but no more. Today is better than tomorrow. Which is better than the day after. Understand?’

When they rang off Sergey was still in the traffic jam. He had never felt so alone in all his life.

Rush hour was at its peak, and the tailback did not lighten until Berger, just before the Skedsmo intersection. By then Harry had been sitting in the car for an hour and had scanned all the radio channels before ending up with NRK Classical out of sheer protest. Twenty minutes later he saw the turn-off to Gardermoen. He had rung Tord Schultz’s number a dozen times during the day without getting through. Schultz’s colleague, whom he eventually located at the airline, said he had no idea where Tord could be and that he generally stayed at home when he wasn’t flying. And confirmed the address Harry had found on the Net.

Darkness was falling when Harry inferred from the road sign that he was in the right place. He drove slowly between the identical shoeboxes on either side of the newly asphalted road. From the houses which were illuminated enough for him to be able to read the numbers he worked out which was Tord Schultz’s. It lay in total darkness.

Harry parked the car. Looked up. Silver came out of the black sky, a plane, as soundless as a bird of prey. Lights swept across rooftops, and the plane disappeared behind him carrying the noise after it like a bridal train.

Harry walked up to the front door, placed his face against the glass panel and rang. Waited. Rang again. Waited for a minute.

Then he kicked in the panel.

He passed his hand through, found the latch and opened the door.

Stepping over the shards of glass, he continued into the living room.

The first thing that struck him was the darkness, that it was darker than a room should be, even unlit. He realised that the curtains were drawn. Thick blackout curtains of the kind they used at the military camp in Finnmark to keep out the midnight sun.

The second thing that struck him was the sense that he was not alone. And since Harry’s experience was that such feelings were almost always accompanied by quite tangible sensory impressions he concentrated on what they could be, and repressed his own natural reaction: a faster pulse rate and the need to go back the same way he had come. He listened, but all he could hear was a clock ticking somewhere, probably in an adjacent room. He sniffed. A pungent, stale smell, but there was something else, distant, but familiar. He closed his eyes. As a rule he could see them before they came. Over the years he had developed coping strategies to ward them off. But now they were on him before he could bolt the door. The ghosts. It smelt of a crime scene.

He opened his eyes and was dazzled. The light. It swept across the living-room floor. Then came the sound of the plane, and in the next second the room was plunged into darkness again. But he had seen. And it was no longer possible to repress the faster pulse and the urge to get out.

It was the Beetle. Zjuk. It hovered in the air in front of his face.

21

The face was a mess.

Harry had switched on the living-room light and was looking down at the dead man.

His right ear had been nailed to the parquet floor and his face displayed six black, bloody craters. He didn’t need to search for the murder weapon: it hung at head height right in front of him. At the end of a rope suspended from a beam was a brick. From the brick protruded six blood-covered nails.

Harry crouched down and stretched out his hand. The man was cold, and rigor mortis had definitely set in, despite the heat of the room. The same applied to livor mortis; the combination of gravity and the absence of blood pressure had allowed the blood to settle at the body’s lowest points and lent the underside of the arms a slightly reddish colour. The man had been dead for more then twelve hours, Harry guessed. The white, ironed shirt had rucked up and some of the stomach could be seen. It did not yet have the green hue which showed that bacteria had started to consume him, a feast which generally started after forty-eight hours and spread outwards from the stomach.

In addition to the shirt, he was wearing a tie, which had been loosened, black suit trousers and polished shoes. As though he had come straight from a funeral or a job with a dress code, Harry thought.

He took out his phone and wondered whether to ring the Ops Room or Crime Squad directly. He tapped in the number for the Ops Room while looking around. He hadn’t noticed any signs of a break-in, and there was no evidence of a struggle in this room. Apart from the brick and the corpse there was no evidence of any kind, and Harry knew that when the SOC people came they would not find a shred. No fingerprints, no shoe prints, no DNA. And the detectives would be none the wiser; no neighbours who had seen anything, no surveillance cameras at nearby petrol stations with shots of familiar faces, no revealing telephone conversations to or from Schultz’s line. Nothing. While Harry waited for an answer he went into the kitchen. Instinctively he trod with care and avoided touching anything. His glance fell on the kitchen table and a plate with a half-eaten piece of bread and cervelat. Over the back of the chair was a suit jacket matching the trousers on the corpse. Harry searched the pockets and found four hundred kroner, a visitor’s pass, a train ticket and an airline ID card. Tord Schultz. The professional smile on the face in the picture resembled the remains of the one he had seen in the living room.

‘Switchboard.’

‘I have a body here. The address is-’

Harry noticed the visitor’s pass.

‘Yes?’

There was something familiar about it.

‘Hello?’

Harry picked up the visitor’s pass. At the top was OSLO POLITIDISTRIKT. Beneath it was TORD SCHULTZ and a date. He had visited a police HQ or a station two days ago. And now he was dead.

‘Hello?’

Harry rang off.

Sat down.

Pondered.

He spent ninety minutes searching the house. Afterwards he wiped all the places where he might have left prints and removed the plastic bag he had put around his head with an elastic band so as not to drop hairs. It was an established rule that all detectives and other officers who might conceivably enter a crime scene should register their fingerprints and DNA. If he left any clues it would take the police five minutes to find out that Harry Hole had been there. The fruits of his labours were three small packages of cocaine and four bottles of what he assumed was contraband booze. Otherwise there was exactly what he presumed: nothing.

He closed the door, got in the car and drove off.

Oslo Politidistrikt.

Shit, shit, shit.

When he reached the city centre, he parked and sat staring out of the windscreen. Then he rang Beate’s number.

‘Hi, Harry.’

‘Two things. I’d like to ask you a favour. And give you an anonymous tip-off that there is another man dead in this case.’

‘I’ve just been told.’

‘So you know?’ Harry said in surprise. ‘The method is called Zjuk. Russian for “beetle”.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The brick.’

‘Which brick?’

Harry breathed in. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Gojke Tosic.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘The guy who attacked Oleg.’

‘And?’

‘He’s been found dead in his cell.’

Harry looked straight into a pair of headlights coming towards him. ‘How…?’

‘They’re checking now. Looks like he hanged himself.’

‘Delete himself. They killed the pilot as well.’

‘What?’

‘Tord Schultz is lying on the living-room floor of his house by Gardermoen.’

Two seconds passed before Beate answered. ‘I’ll inform the Ops Room.’

‘OK.’

‘What was the second thing?’

‘What?’

‘You said you wanted to ask me for a favour?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Harry pulled the visitor’s pass from his pocket. ‘I wonder whether you could check the visitors’ register in reception at Police HQ. See who Tord Schultz visited two days ago.’

Silence again.

‘Beate?’

‘Are you sure this is something I’ll want to be mixed up in, Harry?’

‘I’m sure this is something you won’t want to be mixed up in.’

‘Sod you.’

Harry rang off.

Harry left his vehicle in the multi-storey car park at the bottom of Kvadraturen and headed for Hotel Leon. He passed a bar, and the music floating through the open door reminded him of the evening he arrived: Nirvana’s inviting ‘Come As You Are’. He was not aware that he had entered the bar until he was standing in front of the counter in the winding intestine of a room.

Three customers sat hunched on bar stools. It looked like a month-old wake no one had broken up. There was a smell of corpses and creaking flesh. The barman sent Harry an order-now-or-go-to-hell look while slowly removing a cork from a bottle opener. He had three large Gothic letters tattooed across a broad neck. EAT.

‘What’s it to be?’ he shouted, managing to drown out Kurt Cobain, who was asking Harry to come as a friend.

Harry moistened his lips, which had suddenly gone dry. Looked at the barman’s hands twisting. It was a corkscrew of the simplest kind, one that requires a firm, trained hand, but only a couple of turns to penetrate, followed by a quick pull. The cork was pierced right through. This however was not a wine bar. So what else did they serve? He saw the distorted image of himself in the mirror behind the barman. The disfigured face. But it was not only his face; all of their faces, all the ghosts, were there. And Tord Schultz was the latest to join. His gaze scanned the bottles on the mirror shelf and like a heat-seeking rocket found its target. The old enemy. Jim Beam.

Kurt Cobain didn’t have a gun.

Harry coughed. Just one.

No gun.

He gave his order.

‘Eh?’ shouted the bartender, leaning forward.

‘Jim Beam.’

There is no gun.

‘Gin what?’

Harry swallowed. Cobain repeated the word ‘memoria’. Harry had heard the song a hundred times before, but he realised he had always thought Cobain sang ‘The more’ followed by something else.

In memoriam. Where had he seen it? On a gravestone?

He saw a movement in the mirror. At that moment the phone in his pocket began to vibrate.

‘Gin what?’ shouted the barman, placing the corkscrew on the counter.

Harry pulled out his mobile. Looked at the display. R. He took the call.

‘Hi, Rakel.’

‘Harry?’

Another movement behind him.

‘All I can hear is noise, Harry. Where are you?’

Harry turned and walked with hurried strides to the exit. Inhaled the exhaust-polluted yet fresher air outside.

‘What are you doing?’ Rakel asked.

‘Wondering whether to turn left or right,’ Harry said. ‘And you?’

‘I’m going to bed. Are you sober?’

‘What?’

‘You heard me. And I can hear you. I notice when you’re stressed. And that sounds like a bar.’

Harry took out a pack of Camel. Tapped out a cigarette. Saw his hand was shaking. ‘It’s good you rang, Rakel.’

‘Harry?’

He lit his cigarette. ‘Yeah?’

‘Hans Christian’s arranged for Oleg to be held in custody at a secret location. It’s in Ostland, but no one knows where.’

‘Not bad.’

‘He’s a good man, Harry.’

‘Don’t doubt it.’

‘Harry?’

‘I’m here.’

‘If we could plant some evidence. If I took the rap for the murder. Would you help me?’

Harry inhaled. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

The door opened behind Harry. But he didn’t hear any footsteps walking away.

‘I’ll ring you from the hotel. OK?’

Harry rang off and strode down the street without a backward glance.

Sergey watched the man jog across the street.

Watched him go into Hotel Leon.

He had been so close. So close. First of all in the bar and now here on the street.

Sergey’s hand was still pressed against the deer-horn handle of the knife in his pocket. The blade was out and cutting the lining. Twice he had been on the point of stepping forward, grabbing his hair with his left hand, knife in, carving a crescent. True, the policeman was taller than he had imagined, but it wouldn’t be a problem.

Nothing would be a problem. And as his pulse slowed he could feel his calm return. The calm he had lost, the calm his terror had repressed. And again he could feel himself looking forward, looking forward to the completion of his task, to becoming at one with the story that was already told.

For this was the place, the place for the ambush. Sergey had seen the eyes of the policeman when he was staring at the bottles. It was the same look his father had when he returned home from prison. Sergey was the crocodile in the billabong, the crocodile that knew the man would take the same path to get something to drink, that knew it was only a question of waiting.

Harry lay on the bed in room 301, he blew smoke at the ceiling and listened to her voice on the phone.

‘I know you’ve done worse things than planting evidence,’ she said. ‘So, why not? Why not for a person you love?’

‘You’re drinking white wine,’ he said.

‘How do you know it’s not red wine?’

‘I can hear.’

‘So, explain why you won’t help me.’

‘May I?’

‘Yes, Harry.’

Harry stubbed out the cigarette in the empty coffee cup on the bedside table. ‘I, lawbreaker and discharged police officer, consider that the law means something. Does that sound weird?’

‘Carry on.’

‘Law is the fence we’ve erected at the edge of the precipice. Whenever someone breaks the law they break the fence. So we have to repair it. The guilty party has to atone.’

‘No, someone has to atone. Someone has to take the punishment to show society that murder is unacceptable. Any scapegoat can rebuild the fence.’

‘You’re gouging out chunks of the law to suit you. You’re a lawyer. You know better.’

‘I’m a mother, I work as a lawyer. What about you, Harry? Are you a policeman? Is that what you’ve become? A robot, a slave of the anthill and ideas other people have had? Is that where you are?’

‘Mm.’

‘Have you got an answer?’

‘Well, why do you think I came to Oslo?’

Pause.

‘Harry?’

‘Yes?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t cry.’

‘I know. Sorry.’

‘Don’t say sorry.’

‘Goodnight, Harry. I…’

‘Goodnight.’

Harry woke. He had heard something. Something that drowned the sound of his running footsteps in the corridor and the avalanche. He looked at his watch. 01.34. The broken curtain pole leaned against the window frame and formed the silhouette of a tulip. He got up and went to the window and peered down into the backyard. A bin lay on its side, still rattling around. He rested his forehead against the glass.

22

It was early, and the morning rush-hour traffic was creeping along at a whisper towards Gronlandsleiret as Truls walked up to Police HQ. He caught sight of the red poster on the linden tree just before he arrived at the doors with the curious portholes. Then he turned, walked calmly back. Past the slow-moving queues in Oslo gate to the cemetery.

The cemetery was as deserted as usual at this time. At least with respect to the living. He stopped in front of the headstone to A. C. Rud. There were no messages written on it, ergo it had to be pay day.

He crouched down and dug the earth beside the stone. Caught hold of the brown envelope and pulled it out. Resisted the temptation to open it and count the money there and then, stuffed it in his jacket pocket. He was about to get up, but a sudden sense that he was being watched made him stay in the crouch for a couple of seconds, as if meditating about A. C. Rud and the transient nature of life or some such bullshit.

‘Stay where you are, Berntsen.’

A shadow had fallen over him. And with it a chill, as if the sun was hidden behind a cloud. Truls Berntsen felt as though he were in free fall, and his stomach lurched into his chest. So this was what it would be like. Being exposed.

‘We have a different type of job for you this time.’

Truls felt terra firma beneath his feet again. The voice. The slight accent. It was him. Truls glanced to his side. Saw the figure standing with bowed head two gravestones away, apparently praying.

‘You have to find out where they’ve hidden Oleg Fauke. Look straight ahead!’

Truls stared at the stone in front of him.

‘I’ve tried,’ he said. ‘But the move hasn’t been recorded anywhere. Nowhere I can access at any rate. And no one I’ve spoken to has heard anything about the guy, so my guess is they’ve given him another name.’

‘Talk to those in the know. Talk to the defence counsel. Simonsen.’

‘Why not the mother? She must-’

‘No women!’ The words came like a whiplash. Had there been other people in the cemetery they would surely have heard them. Then, calmer: ‘Try the defence counsel. And if that doesn’t work…’

In the ensuing pause Berntsen heard the whoosh through the cemetery treetops. It must have been the wind; that was what had suddenly made everything so cold.

‘… then there’s a man called Chris Reddy,’ the voice continued. ‘On the street he’s known as Adidas. He deals in-’

‘Speed. Adidas means amphet-’

‘Shut up, Berntsen. Just listen.’

Truls shut up. And listened. The way he had shut up whenever anyone with a similar voice had told him to shut up. Listened when they told him to dig muck. Told him…

The voice gave an address.

‘You’ve heard a rumour that Adidas has been going round boasting he shot Gusto Hanssen. So you take him in for questioning. And he makes a no-holds-barred confession. I’ll leave it to you to agree on the details so that it’s a hundred per cent credible. First, though, try to make Simonsen talk. Have you understood?’

‘Yes, but why would Adidas-’

‘Why is not your problem, Berntsen. Your sole question should be “how much”.’

Truls Berntsen swallowed. And kept swallowing. Dug shit. Swallowed shit. ‘How much?’

‘That’s right, yes. Sixty thousand.’

‘Hundred thousand.’

No answer.

‘Hello?’

But all that could be heard was the whisper of the morning congestion.

Bernsten sat still. Glanced to the side. No one there. Felt the sun beginning to warm him again. And sixty thousand was good. It was.

There was still mist on the ground as Harry swung up in front of the main building on Skoyen farm at ten in the morning. Isabelle Skoyen stood on the steps, smiling and slapping a little riding whip against the thigh of her black jodhpurs. While Harry was getting out of the car he heard the gravel crunch under her boots.

‘Morning, Harry. What do you know about horses?’

Harry slammed the car door. ‘I’ve lost a lot of money on them. Does that help?’

‘So you’re a gambler as well?’

‘As well?’

‘I’ve done a bit of detective work too. Your achievements are offset by your vices. That, at least, is what your colleagues claim. Did you lose the money in Hong Kong?’

‘Happy Valley racecourse. It only happened once.’

She began to walk towards a low, red building, and he had to quicken his pace to keep up with her. ‘Have you ever done any riding, Harry?’

‘My grandfather had a sturdy old horse in Andalsnes.’

‘Experienced rider then.’

‘Another one-off. My grandfather said horses weren’t toys. He said riding for pleasure showed a lack of respect for working animals.’

She stopped in front of a wooden stand holding two narrow leather saddles. ‘Not a single one of my horses has ever seen or will ever see a cart or plough. While I saddle up I suggest you head over there…’ She pointed to the farmhouse. ‘You’ll find some suitable clothes belonging to my ex-husband in the hall wardrobe. We don’t want to ruin your elegant suit, do we?’

In the wardrobe Harry found a sweater and a pair of jeans that were in fact big enough. The ex-husband must have had smaller feet, though, because he couldn’t get any of the shoes on, until he found a pair of used blue Norwegian Army trainers at the back.

When he re-emerged in the yard Isabelle was ready and waiting with two saddled horses. Harry opened the passenger door of the hired car, sat inside with his legs out, changed shoes, removed the insoles, left them on the car floor and reached for his sunglasses from the glove compartment. ‘Ready.’

‘This is Medusa,’ Isabelle said, patting a large sorrel on the muzzle. ‘She’s an Oldenburger from Denmark, perfect breed for dressage. Ten years old and the boss of the herd. And this is Balder, he’s five years old, a gelding, so he’ll follow Medusa.’

She passed him the reins to Balder and swung herself up on Medusa.

Harry put his left foot in the left stirrup and rose into the saddle. Without waiting for a command the horse began to walk briskly after Medusa.

Harry had understated the case when he said he had ridden only once, but this was quite different from his grandfather’s steadfast battleship of a jade. He had to balance in the saddle, and when he squeezed his knees against the slim horse’s sides he could feel its ribs and the movement of its muscles. And when Medusa accelerated on the path across the field and Balder responded, even this minor increase in pace made Harry feel he had a Formula One animal between his legs. At the end of the field they joined a path that disappeared into the forest and onto the ridge. Where the path forked round a tree Harry tried to steer Balder to the left, but the horse ignored him and followed in Medusa’s hoof prints to the right.

‘I thought stallions were the leaders of a herd,’ Harry said.

‘As a rule they are,’ Isabelle said over her shoulder. ‘But it’s all about character. A strong, ambitious and smart mare can outcompete all of them if she wants.’

‘And you want.’

Isabelle Skoyen laughed. ‘Of course. If you want something you have to be willing to compete. Politics is all about acquiring power.’

‘And you like competing?’

He saw her shrug her shoulders in front of him. ‘Competition is healthy. It means the strongest and the best make the decisions, and that’s to the benefit of the whole herd.’

‘And she can also mate with whoever she likes?’

Isabelle didn’t answer. Harry watched her. Her back was willowy and her firm buttocks appeared to be massaging the horse, moving from side to side with gentle hip movements. They came into a clearing. The sun was shining, and beneath them lay scattered puffs of mist across the countryside.

‘We’ll let them have a rest,’ Isabelle Skoyen said, dismounting. After they had tethered the horses to a tree, Isabelle lay down on the grass and waved for Harry to follow. He sat beside her and adjusted his sunglasses.

‘Are those glasses for men?’ she teased.

‘They protect against the sun,’ Harry said, taking out a pack of cigarettes.

‘I like that.’

‘What do you like?’

‘I like men who are secure with their masculinity.’

Harry looked at her. She was leaning on her elbows and had undone a button on her blouse. He hoped his sunglasses were dark enough. She smiled.

‘So, what can you tell me about Gusto?’ Harry said.

‘I like men who are genuine,’ she said. The smile broadened.

A brown dragonfly whizzed past on the last flight of the autumn. Harry didn’t like what he saw in her eyes. What he had seen ever since he arrived. Expectant relish. And none of the tormented unease there ought to be in someone facing a career-threatening scandal.

‘I don’t like falseness,’ she said. ‘Such as bluffing, for example.’

Triumph shone from her blue mascara-wreathed eyes.

‘I rang a police contact, you see. And apart from telling me a little about the legendary detective Harry Hole, he was able to tell me that no blood had been analysed in the Gusto Hanssen case. The sample had apparently been destroyed. There are no nails with my blood type under them. You were bluffing, Harry.’

Harry lit a cigarette. No blood in his cheeks or ears. He wondered if he had become too old to blush.

‘Mm. If all the contact you had with Gusto was some innocent interviews why were you so frightened I would send the blood to be tested?’

She chuckled. ‘Who says I was frightened? Perhaps I just wanted you to come out here. Enjoy the nature and so on.’

Confirming that he was not too old to blush, Harry lay down and blew smoke up into the ludicrously blue sky. Closed his eyes and tried to find some good reasons not to fuck Isabelle Skoyen. There were many.

‘Was that wrong?’ she asked. ‘All I’m saying is that I’m a single adult woman with natural needs. That doesn’t mean I’m not serious. I would never get involved with anyone I didn’t consider my equal, such as Gusto.’ He heard her voice coming closer. ‘With a tall adult man, on the other hand…’ She laid a hot hand on his stomach.

‘Did you and Gusto lie where we’re lying now?’ Harry asked softly.

‘What?’

He wriggled up onto his elbows and nodded towards the blue trainers. ‘Your wardrobe was full of exclusive men’s shoes, size 42. These barges were the only 45s.’

‘So what? I can’t guarantee that I haven’t had a male visitor who takes size 45 at some point.’ Her hand stroked backwards and forwards.

‘This trainer was made a while ago for the Armed Services, and when they changed model, the surplus stock was taken over by charitable organisations who distributed them to the needy. In the police we call them junkie shoes as they were doled out by the Salvation Army at the Watchtower. The question is of course how a casual visitor, a size 45, would leave behind a pair of shoes. The obvious explanation is that he probably acquired a new pair.’

Isabelle Skoyen’s hand stopped moving. So Harry continued.

‘I’ve seen a picture of the crime scene. When Gusto died he was wearing a cheap pair of trousers, but a very expensive pair of shoes. Alberto Fasciani, unless I’m much mistaken. A generous gift. How much did you pay for them? Five thousand?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ She pulled away her hand.

Harry regarded his erection with disapproval; it was already pressing against the inside of the borrowed trousers. He stretched his feet.

‘I left the insoles in the car. Did you know that foot sweat is excellent for DNA testing? We’ll probably find some microscopic remains of skin, too. And there can’t be that many shops in Oslo that sell Alberto Fasciani shoes. One, two? Anyway, it’ll be a simple job to cross-check against your credit card.’

Isabelle Skoyen had sat up. She stared into the distance.

‘Can you see the farms?’ she asked. ‘Aren’t they beautiful? I love cultivated landscapes. And I hate forests. Apart from planted ones. I hate chaos.’

Harry studied her profile. The axe-nose looked downright dangerous.

‘Tell me about Gusto Hanssen.’

She shrugged. ‘Why? You’ve obviously worked most of it out.’

‘Who do you want questioning you? Me or Verdens Gang.’

She gave a short laugh. ‘Gusto was young and good-looking. That kind of stallion is a great sight, but it has dubious genes. Biological father’s a criminal and mother’s a drug addict, according to the foster-father. Not a horse you breed, but one that’s fun to ride if you…’ She took a deep breath. ‘He came here and we had sex. Now and then I gave him money. He met other people as well, it was nothing special.’

‘Did that make you jealous?’

‘Jealous?’ Isabelle shook her head. ‘Sex has never made me jealous. I met other people, too. And after a while someone special. Then I dropped Gusto. Or maybe he had already dropped me. He no longer seemed to need the pocket money anyway. But then he contacted me again. He became a nuisance. I think he had financial problems. And also a drug problem.’

‘What was he like?’

‘He was selfish, unreliable, charming. A self-confident bastard.’

‘And what did he want?’

‘Do I look like a psychologist, Harry?’

‘No.’

‘No. People don’t interest me that much.’

‘Really?’

Isabelle Skoyen shook her head. Looked into the distance. Her eyes glistened.

‘Gusto was lonely,’ she said.