Nemesis

16

Namco G-Con 45

Brave Oleg.

'It'll be fine,' he had said on the telephone. Again and again as if he had a secret plan. 'Mummy and I will be back soon.'

Harry stood by the window looking at the sky over the roof of the block facing him, where the evening sun was painting the underside of a thin, creased layer of cloud in orange and red. On his way home the temperature had fallen sharply and inexplicably, as though someone had opened an invisible door and all the heat had been sucked out. In the flat, the cold had begun to creep up through the floorboards. Where had he put his felt slippers? In the cellar or in the attic? Did he have any slippers? He couldn't remember. Fortunately, he had written down the name of the Playstation kit he had promised to buy Oleg if he managed to beat Harry's Tetris record on the Gameboy. Namco G-Con 45.

The news droned on the 14-inch TV behind him. Another gala to collect money for victims. Julia Roberts showing her sympathy and Sylvester Stallone receiving donors' incoming calls. And the hour of vengeance had come. Pictures showing the sides of mountains being carpet-bombed. Black pillars of smoke from the rocks and nothing growing in the desolate landscape. The telephone rang.

It was Weber. At Police HQ the general reputation of Weber was that he was a stubborn old sourpuss and difficult to work with. Harry thought the contrary. You just had to be aware that he would be intractable if you were disrespectful or hassled him.

'I know you're waiting for results,' Weber said. 'We didn't find any DNA on the bottle, but we did find a couple of faint fingerprints.'

'Good. I was afraid they might be destroyed even if they were in a plastic bag.'

'Luckily it was a glass bottle. The grease in the prints on a plastic bottle would have been absorbed after so many days.'

Harry could hear the clicking sound of swabbing in the background. 'Are you still at work, Weber?'

'Yes.'

'When will you have checked the prints against the data bank?'

'Are you hassling me?' the old forensics man growled suspiciously.

'Not at all. I've got oceans of time, Weber.'

'Tomorrow. I'm no computer whizz and the young guys have gone home for the night.'

'And you?'

'I'll just check the prints against a few possibilities in the old way. Sleep tight, Hole. Uncle Plod will keep an eye open.'

Harry put down the telephone, went into the bedroom and switched on his computer. The chirpy Windows jingle drowned the American revenge rhetoric from the sitting room for a second. He clicked his way through to the video of the robbery in Kirkeveien. Ran the jerky clip several times without becoming any the wiser, or more foolish. He clicked on the e-mail icon. The hourglass and You have 1 message came up. The hall telephone rang again. Harry cast a glance at his watch before lifting the receiver and saying hi with the soft voice reserved for Rakel.

'Arne Albu. I apologise for calling you in the evening, but I was given your name by my wife and thought I would clear up this matter at once. Is it convenient?'

'Fine,' Harry said sheepishly in his usual voice.

'Well, I've had a chat with my wife, and neither of us has heard of this woman or knows how she got hold of the photo. But it was developed by a professional, perhaps someone working in the shop took a copy. Also, there is a lot of coming and going in our house and so there could be many, many possible explanations.'

'Mm.' Harry noticed that Arne Albu's voice didn't have the same assured composure it had had earlier in the day. After a few seconds of crackly silence Albu continued: 'If you need to talk about this more, I would appreciate it if you would contact me at the office. I understood from my wife that she gave you my number.'

'And I understood that you didn't want to be disturbed during your working hours.'

'I don't want…my wife to be stressed. A dead woman with a photo in a shoe, my God! I would like you to deal with me.'

'I understand. But the photo is of your wife and the children!'

'She knows nothing about it, I'm telling you!' And then apparently regretting his angry tone, he added: 'I promise I will examine every possibility I can envisage to explain how this might have happened.'

'Thank you for the offer, but I still reserve the right to talk to whoever I think fit.' Harry listened to Albu's breathing before adding: 'I hope you understand.'

'Listen here-'

'I'm afraid this is not a topic for discussion. I'll contact you or your wife if there is something I need to know.'

'Wait a minute! You don't understand. My wife gets…very upset.'

'You're right, I don't understand. Is she ill?'

'Ill?' said Albu with surprise in his voice. 'No, but-'

'Then I suggest we conclude this conversation now.' Harry saw himself in the mirror. 'These are not my working hours. Good evening.'

He put down the telephone and looked in the mirror again. It was gone now, the little smile, the glee that Spite gives. The Small-mindedness. The Self-righteousness. The Sadism. The four 'S's of revenge. There was something else, too, though. Something looked wrong. Something was missing. He studied the reflected image. Perhaps it was just the way the light fell.

Harry sat down in front of the computer while thinking that he would have to tell Aune about the four 'S's. He collected that sort of thing. The e-mail he had received came from an address he had never seen before: furie@bolde. com. He clicked on it.

As he was sitting there, a chill spread through Harry Hole's body that would linger for a good year.

It happened while he was reading from the screen. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and the skin around his body tightened like shrinking clothes.

Shall we play? Let's imagine you've been to dinner with a woman and the next day she's found dead. What do you do?

The telephone chirruped its lament. Harry knew it was Rakel. He let it ring.