Nemesis

28

Lava Pe

Beate couldn't stand the stench for more than a couple of minutes and had to dash out. She was bent double as Harry strolled out and sat down on the steps for a cigarette.

'Couldn't you smell it?' Beate groaned, with saliva dribbling down from her mouth and nose.

'Dysosmia.' Harry contemplated the glow of his cigarette. 'Partial loss of smell. There are some things I can't smell any more. Aune says it's because I've smelt too many bodies. Emotional trauma and so on.'

Beate retched again.

'I apologise,' she groaned. 'It was the ants. I mean, why do the disgusting creatures have to use the nostrils as a kind of two-lane highway?'

'Well, if you insist, I can tell you where you'll find the richest protein sources in the human body.'

'No, thank you!'

'Sorry.' Harry flicked the cigarette onto the dry ground. 'You coped very well in there, Lшnn. It's not the same as videos.' He stood up and went back in.

Lev Grette was hanging from a short piece of rope tied to the lamp hook in the ceiling. He hovered a good half-metre off the floor and the overturned chair, and that was the reason the flies had enjoyed the monopoly of the corpse before the yellow ants, who continued their procession up and down the rope.

Beate had found the mobile phone with the charger on the floor beside the sofa and said she could find out when he last had a conversation. Harry went into the kitchen and switched on the light. A blue metallic cockroach stood on an A4 piece of paper, swinging its feelers towards him, and then made a rapid retreat to the cooker. Harry lifted the piece of paper. It was handwritten. He had read all sorts of suicide letters and very few had been great literature. The famous last words were usually confused babble, desperate cries for help or prosaic instructions about who would inherit the toaster and the lawnmower. One of the more meaningful ones Harry had seen was when a farmer from Maridalen had written in chalk on the barn wall: A man has hanged himself in here. Please call the police. Apologies. In light of this, Lev Grette's letter was, if not unique, then at least unusual.

Dear Trond,

I've always wondered how it felt when the footbridge suddenly disappeared beneath him. When the precipice opened and he knew something completely devoid of meaning was about to happen. He was going to die for no purpose. Perhaps he still had things he wanted to do. Perhaps someone was sitting and waiting for him that morning. Perhaps he thought that day would be the start of something new. In a way he was right about that…

I never told you I visited him in hospital. I took a large bunch of flowers with me and told him I had seen the whole thing from the window of my flat; I rang for the ambulance and gave the police a description of the boy and his bike. He lay there in bed, so small and grey, and he thanked me. Then I asked him a silly sports commentator question: 'How did it feel?'

He didn't answer. He just lay there with all the tubes and the drips, and watched me. Then he thanked me again and a nurse said I had to go.

So I never knew what it felt like. Until one day when the precipice opened beneath me too. It didn't happen when I was running up Industrigata after the robbery. Or while I was counting the money afterwards. Or while I was watching the news. It happened the same way it happened to the old man. One morning I was walking along happily, unaware of any danger. The sun was shining, I was safely back in d'Ajuda, I could relax and began to think. I had taken from the person I loved most what they loved most. I had two million kroner to live off, but nothing to live for. That was this morning.

I don't expect you to understand this, Trond. I robbed a bank, I saw she recognised me, I was caught in a game with its own rules, none of this has any place in your world. I don't expect you to understand what I am doing now, but perhaps you can see that it is possible to get tired of this, too. Of living.

Lev

PS It didn't strike me at the time that the old man didn't smile when he thanked me. I thought about it today, though, Trond. Perhaps he didn't have anything or anyone waiting for him after all. Perhaps he just felt relief when the precipice opened and he thought he wouldn't have to do it himself.

Beate was standing on a chair beside Lev's body when Harry came in. She was struggling to bend one of Lev's fingers so she could press it against the inside of a small shiny metal box.

'Blast,' she said. 'The ink pad has been standing in the sun at the hotel and it's dried out.'

'If you can't get a good print, we'll have to use the firemen's method.'

'And that is?'

'People caught in a fire automatically use their hands. Even on charred bodies the skin on the fingertips may be intact and you can use fingerprints to identify bodies. Sometimes, for practical reasons, firemen cut off a finger and take it to Forensics.'

'That's called desecration of a body.'

Harry shrugged. 'If you look at his other hand, you can see he's already missing one finger.'

'I can see,' she said. 'Looks like it's been cut off. What might that mean?'

Harry went closer and shone the torch. 'It means the finger was cut off long after he hanged himself. Someone may have come here and seen he'd already done the job for them.'

'Who?'

'Well, in some countries gypsies punish thieves by cutting their fingers off,' Harry said. 'If they stole from gypsies, that is.'

'I think I've got a good print,' Beate said, wiping the sweat off her brow. 'Shall we cut him down?'

'No,' Harry said. 'As soon as we've had a look around, we'll tidy up after us and clear off. I saw a phone box in the main street. I'll phone the police anonymously from there and report the death. When we get to Oslo, you can phone the Brazilian police and have the medical report sent. I have no doubt he died of asphyxiation, but I want the time of death.'

'What about the door?'

'Not much we can do about that.'

'And your neck? The bandage is all red.'

'Forget it. My arm hurts more. I landed on it when I went through the door.'

'How bad is it?'

Harry gingerly raised his arm and grimaced. 'It's fine so long as I don't move it.'

'Think yourself lucky you haven't got the Setesdal Twitch.'

Two out of three in the room laughed, but their laughter quickly subsided.

On the way back to the hotel, Beate asked Harry if it all made sense to him.

'From a technical point of view, yes. Beyond that, I'll never get suicide to make sense.'

He flicked his cigarette away. It described a glowing arc in the almost tangible night. 'But that's me.'