Nemesis

25

Baksheesh

Three people were sitting in Ivarsson's office: Ivarsson, behind the tidy desk, and Beate and Harry each in their-slightly lower-chairs. The trick with the low chairs is such a well-known dominance technique that one could be excused for thinking it was no longer used, but Ivarsson knew better. His experience was that basic techniques never went out of fashion.

Harry had tipped his chair back so that he could see out of the window. The view took in the Hotel Plaza. Rounded clouds swept over the glass tower and the town without releasing any rain. Harry hadn't slept, even though he had taken painkillers after the tetanus injection he had received at the hospital. The explanation he had given to his colleagues of a stray feral dog had been original enough to be credible and close enough to the truth for him to be able to carry it off with some conviction. His neck was swollen and the tight bandage chafed against his skin. Harry knew exactly how much it would hurt if he twisted his head towards Ivarsson, who was talking. He also knew he wouldn't have turned his head, even if it hadn't hurt.

'So you want air tickets to Brazil to search there?' Ivarsson said, brushing the tabletop clean and pretending to stifle a smile. 'While the Expeditor is demonstrably busy robbing banks here in Oslo?'

'We don't know where in Oslo he is,' Beate said. 'Or whether he is in Oslo. But we hope we can trace the house his brother says he has in Porto Seguro. If we find it, we'll also find his fingerprints. And if they match the prints we have on the Coca-Cola bottle, we have damning evidence. That ought to make the trip worthwhile.'

'Really? And which prints are these that no one else has?'

Beate struggled in vain to catch Harry's eye. She swallowed. 'Since the principle is that we are meant to be independent of each other, we decided to keep it to ourselves. Until further notice.'

'Dear Beate,' Ivarsson began, winking his right eye. 'You say "we" but I only hear Harry Hole. I appreciate Hole's keenness to adhere to my method, but we mustn't let principles stand in the way of results we can achieve together. So I repeat: which prints?'

Beate sent Harry a desperate look.

'Hole?' Ivarsson said.

'This is how we're running it,' Harry said. 'Until further notice.'

'As you like,' Ivarsson said. 'But forget the trip. You'll have to talk to the Brazilian police and ask them to help you to get hold of prints.'

Beate cleared her throat. 'I've checked. We have to send written applications via the Chief Constable in Bahia province and have a Brazilian district attorney go through the case, which will eventually result in a search warrant. The person I spoke to said that from experience this would take, without contacts in the Brazilian administration, somewhere between two months and two years.'

'We've got seats on the plane leaving tomorrow evening,' Harry said, studying a fingernail. 'What's the decision?'

Ivarsson laughed. 'What do you think? You come to ask me for money for plane tickets to the other side of the globe without even bothering to state the reasons for such a trip. You plan to search a house without a warrant, so that even if you found forensic evidence, the court would probably be obliged to reject it because you used illegal means to acquire it.'

'The old brick trick,' Harry said softly.

'I beg your pardon?'

'An unknown person heaves a brick through a window. The police happen to chance by and do not need a warrant to enter. They think there is a smell of marijuana in the sitting room. A subjective perception, but a justified reason for an immediate search. You secure forensic evidence, such as fingerprints, from the place. Very legal.'

'In short-we've thought about what you're saying,' Beate hastened to add. 'If we find the house, we'll collect the prints by legal means.'

'Oh, yes?'

'Hopefully without the brick.'

Ivarsson shook his head. 'Not good enough. The answer is a loud, resounding no.' He looked at his watch to signal the meeting was over and added with a thin reptilian smile: 'Until further notice.'

'Couldn't you have given him a bone?' Beate said on leaving Ivarsson's office and heading down the corridor.

'Such as what?' Harry said, carefully turning his neck. 'He'd made up his mind beforehand.'

'You didn't even give him a chance to give us tickets.'

'I gave him a chance not to be overruled.'

'What do you mean?' They stopped in front of the lift.

'What I told you. On this case we've been given certain freedoms.'

Beate turned towards him and stared. 'I think I see,' she said slowly. 'So what happens now?'

'He'll be overruled. Don't forget suncream.' The lift doors opened.

Later that day Bjarne Mшller told Harry that Ivarsson had taken the Chief Constable's decision to let Harry and Beate go to Brazil and charge the travel and accommodation costs to the Robberies Unit very badly.

'Pleased with yourself now?' Beate said to Harry before he went home.

However, as Harry passed the Plaza and the heavens finally opened, strangely enough, he felt no satisfaction at all. Just embarrassment, and exhaustion from pain and lack of sleep.

'Baksheesh?' Harry screamed down the phone. 'What the hell is baksheesh?'

'Slush fund,' Шystein said. 'No one lifts a finger in this damned country without slush.'

'Fuck!' Harry kicked the table in front of the mirror. The telephone slid off the table and the receiver was tugged out of his hand.

'Hello? Are you there, Harry?' the phone on the floor crackled. Harry felt like leaving it where it was. Going away. Or putting on a Metallica record at full blast. One of the old ones.

'Don't go to pieces now, Harry!' the voice squeaked.

Harry bent down with a straight neck and picked up the receiver. 'Sorry, Шystein. How much did you say they wanted?'

'Twenty thousand Egyptian. Forty thousand Norwegian. Then I'll get the client served on a silver platter, they said.'

'They're screwing us, Шystein.'

'Of course they are. Do we want the client or not?'

'Money's on its way. Make sure you get a receipt, OK?'

Harry lay in bed staring at the ceiling as he waited for the triple dose of painkillers to kick in. The last thing he saw before tumbling into the darkness was a boy sitting up above, dangling his legs and looking down at him.