Nemesis

49

Stone Roses

The rain showers petered out later in the day. The Sun peeped out in between all the leaden grey, and then the clouds parted like curtains opening on the final act. It would turn out to be the last hours of a blue sky before the city of Oslo pulled the grey winter duvet over its head. Disengrenda lay bathed in sun as Harry pressed the bell for the third time.

He could hear the bell like a grumbling in the terraced house's abdomen. The neighbour's window opened with a bang.

'Trond's not here,' a voice trilled. Her face wore a different brown hue now, a kind of golden brown, which made Harry think of nicotine-stained skin. 'Poor boy,' she added.

'Where is he?' Harry asked.

She rolled her eyes in answer and pointed her thumb over her shoulder.

'The tennis court?'

Beate made to go, but Harry stayed put.

'I've been thinking about what we discussed last time,' Harry said. 'About the footbridge. You said everyone was surprised because he was such a quiet, polite boy.'

'I did?'

'But everyone here in Grenda knew he had done it?'

'We saw him cycling off in the morning.'

'Wearing the red jacket?'

'Yes.'

'Lev?'

'Lev?' She laughed and shook her head. 'I'm not talking about Lev. He did a lot of weird things, but he was never wicked.'

'Who was then?'

'Trond. I was talking about him the whole time. I did say he was completely ashen when he returned. Trond can't stand the sight of blood.'

The wind was picking up. In the west, black popcorn clouds were beginning to gobble up the blue sky. The gusts gave the puddles on the red clay court goose pimples and erased the reflected image of Trond Grette, who tossed the ball up for another serve.

'Hello,' Trond said, hitting a ball which gently spun through the air. A little cloud of white chalk puffed up at the back of the server's box and was immediately blown away as the ball bounced, high and unreturnable, past the imaginary opponent on the other side of the net.

Trond faced Harry and Beate standing outside the wire fence. He was wearing a white tennis shirt, white tennis shorts, white socks and white shoes.

'Perfect, wasn't it.' He smiled.

'Almost,' said Harry.

Trond beamed even wider, shaded his eyes and scanned the sky. 'Looks like it's clouding over. How can I help you?'

'You can come with us to Police HQ,' Harry said.

'Police HQ?' He eyed them in surprise. That is, he seemed to be trying to appear surprised. His widening eyes were a touch too theatrical and there was something affected about his voice they hadn't heard before when they questioned him. The intonation was too low and gave a little jump at the end: Police H-Q? Harry could feel his hackles rising.

'Right now,' Beate said.

'Right.' Trond nodded as if something had just clicked into place and smiled again. 'Of course.' He made for the bench where a couple of tennis racquets peered out from underneath a grey coat. His shoes shuffled along in the shale.

'He's lost it,' Beate whispered. 'I'll cuff him.'

'Don't…' Harry began and grabbed her arm, but she had already shoved open the door and stepped in. Time expanded, inflated like an airbag and trapped Harry, immobilised him. Through the wire netting he saw Beate go for the handcuffs she had attached to her belt. He heard the sound of Trond's shoes on the shale. Small steps. Like an astronaut. Harry's hand automatically moved towards the gun in his shoulder holster under his jacket.

'Grette, I'm sorry…' was all Beate managed to say before Trond reached the bench and put his hand under the coat. Time had begun to breathe now, it shrank and expanded in one movement. Harry felt his hand close around the butt of his gun, knowing there was an eternity between this second and getting the weapon out, loading, releasing the safety catch and aiming. Beneath Beate's raised arm he caught a flash of reflected sunlight.

'Me, too,' Trond said, lifting the steel-grey and olive-green AG3 to his shoulder. She took a step back.

'My dear,' Trond said softly. 'Stand quite, quite still if you want to stay alive for a few more seconds.'

'We've made a mistake,' Harry said, turning away from the window and addressing the assembled detectives. 'Stine Grette was not killed by Lev but by her own husband, Trond Grette.'

The conversation between the Chief Superintendent and Ivarsson stopped, Mшller sat up in his chair, Halvorsen forgot to take notes and even Weber's face lost its lethargic expression.

Mшller, it was, who finally broke the silence. 'The accountant guy?'

Harry nodded to the disbelieving faces.

'It's not possible,' Weber said. 'We have the video from the 7-Eleven, and we have the fingerprint on the Coke bottle. There is no doubt that Lev Grette was the killer.'

'We have the handwriting on the suicide letter,' Ivarsson said.

'And unless I'm much mistaken, the robber was identified as Lev Grette by Raskol himself,' the Chief Superintendent said.

'The case looks pretty cut and dried,' Mшller said.

'Let me explain,' Harry said.

'Yes, would you be so kind?' said the Chief Superintendent.

The clouds had gathered pace now and sailed in over Aker hospital like a black armada.

'Don't do anything stupid, Harry,' Trond said. The muzzle of the gun was pressed against Beate's forehead. 'Drop the gun I know you're holding.'

'Or what?' Harry asked, pulling out his gun.

Trond gave a low chuckle. 'Elementary. I'll shoot your colleague.'

'Like you shot your wife?'

'She deserved it.'

'Oh? Because she liked Lev more than you?'

'Because she was my wife!'

Harry breathed in. Beate stood between Trond and him, but with her back to Harry so he was unable to read any of her facial expressions. There were several possible routes to take. Option number 1 was to tell Trond he was being stupid and hasty, and hope he would see that. Against that: a man who took a loaded AG3 with him onto the tennis court had already worked out what he was going to use it for. Option number 2 was to do what Trond said, put down his gun and wait to be slaughtered. Option number 3 was to put pressure on Trond, make something happen, something which would make him change his plans. Or explode and pull the trigger. The first option was hopeless, the second the worst possible outcome and the third, well, if the same happened to Beate as happened to Ellen, Harry knew he would never be able to live with himself-if he survived.

'Perhaps she didn't want to be your wife any longer,' Harry said. 'Was that what happened?'

Trond's finger tightened round the trigger and his eyes met Harry's above Beate's shoulder. Inside, Harry instinctively began to count. 'One-thousand-and-one, one-thousand-and-two…'

'She thought she could just leave me,' Trond said in a low voice. 'Me-who had given her everything.' He laughed. 'For a guy who had never done anything for anyone, who thought life was a birthday party and all the presents were for him. Lev didn't steal. He was just confused by the prepositions from and to.' Trond's laughter was carried away on the wind like the crumbs of alphabet biscuits.

'Like from Stine to Trond,' Harry said.

Trond blinked hard with both eyes. 'She said she loved him. Loved. She didn't even use those words on the day we married. Fond of, she said. She was fond of me. Because I was so good to her. But she loved the boy who dangled his legs from a roof and waited for applause. That was what it was about for him. Applause.'

There were fewer than six metres between them and Harry could see the knuckles on Trond's left hand whiten as he held the gun barrel.

'But not for you, Trond. You didn't need any applause, did you. You enjoyed your triumphs in silence. Alone. Like that time by the bridge.'

Trond pushed out his lower lip. 'Own up, you believed me, didn't you.'

'Yes, we believed you, Trond. We believed every word you said.'

'So where did I slip up?'

'Beate has checked Trond and Stine Grette's bank accounts for the last two quarters,' Harry said.

Beate held up a pile of papers for the others in the room. 'They've both transferred money to Brastour, the travel agency,' she said. 'The agency has confirmed that in March of this year Stine Grette booked a trip to Sгo Paulo for June, and Trond Grette followed a week later.'

'So far, that tallies with what Trond Grette told us,' Harry said. 'The strange thing is that Stine told Klementsen, the branch manager, she was going on holiday to Greece. Also that Trond Grette booked and bought his ticket the same day he left. Pretty bad planning if you're going on holiday together to celebrate ten years of marriage, isn't it?'

The room was so quiet they could hear the refrigerator motor on the other side of the corridor switch itself on.

'Suspiciously reminiscent of a wife who has lied to everyone about where she's going, and an already sceptical husband who has checked her bank statement and been unable to make Brastour square with a trip to Greece. Who then rang Brastour, found the name of the hotel where his wife was staying and followed her to bring her back.'

'And so?' Ivarsson said. 'Did he find her with a darkie?'

Harry shook his head. 'I don't think he found her at all.'

'We've checked and she didn't stay at the hotel she booked,' Beate said. 'Trond returned on an earlier flight.'

'Furthermore, Trond took out thirty thousand kroner on his bank card in Sгo Paulo. At first, he said he'd bought a diamond ring, then that he'd met Lev and given him the money because he was broke. I'm fairly sure, though, that neither is true. I believe the money was for a service for which Sгo Paulo is even more famous than jewellery.'

'And that is?' Ivarsson asked, clearly irritated by the silence, which had become unbearable.

'Contract murder.'

Harry had felt like dragging it out even longer, but a glance from Beate told him he was already being melodramatic. 'When Lev came back to Oslo this autumn, it was for his own money. He wasn't broke at all and had no intention of robbing any bank. He had returned to take Stine with him to Brazil.'

'Stine?' Mшller exclaimed. 'His brother's wife?'

Harry nodded. The detectives present exchanged glances.

'And Stine was supposed to move to Brazil without telling anyone?' Mшller continued. 'Not her parents, not her friends? Without even giving notice to her employers?'

'Well,' Harry said, 'when you've decided to spend your life with a bank robber wanted by both the police and your colleagues you don't announce your plans and leave a forwarding address. There was only one person she had told, and that was Trond.'

'The last person she should have told,' Beate added.

'She probably thought she knew him, after being with him for thirteen years.' Harry walked over to the window. 'The sensitive but kind, safe accountant who loved her so dearly. Let me speculate a little about what happened afterwards.'

Ivarsson sniffed. 'And what do you call what you've been doing so far?'

'When Lev comes to Oslo, Trond gets in touch. Says they're adults and brothers so they should be able to talk about things. Lev is relieved and happy. But he doesn't show his face around town, it's too risky, so they agree to meet in Disengrenda while Stine's at work. Lev goes and is well received by Trond, who says he had been sad at first, but now he was basically over that and happy for them. He opens a bottle of Coke for each of them and they drink and talk about practical details. Trond has Lev's secret address in d'Ajuda so he can forward post, back-payments and so on to Stine. Lev doesn't realise he has just given Trond the final details he needs to implement a plan which Trond had initiated when he was in Sгo Paulo.'

Harry saw Weber slowly nodding his head.

'Friday morning. D-day. In the afternoon Stine is flying to London with Lev and from there to Brazil the following morning. The trip has been booked through Brastours. The suitcases are packed and ready at home, but she and Trond go to work as usual. At two Trond leaves work and goes to Focus in Sporveisgata. He arrives, pays for the squash court he has booked, but says he hasn't found a partner. That's the first alibi in place: a registered payment at 14.34. Then he says he'll do some training in the fitness room instead and goes into the changing room. There are lots of people moving in and out at that time. He locks himself in the toilet with the bag, changes into the boiler suit with something over it, probably a long coat, waits until he can be sure the people he saw in the toilet have gone, puts on his sunglasses, takes the bag and passes quickly and unnoticed out of the changing room through the reception area. I would guess he walks towards Stenspark and then up Pilestredet by the building site where they clock off at three. He nips in, tears off his coat, puts on a folded balaclava he has hidden under his cap. Then he walks up the hill and turns left down Industrigata. At the Bogstadveien crossroads he goes into the 7-Eleven. He'd been there a couple of weeks earlier to check the camera angles. And the skip he ordered is in position. The scene is set for the diligent police officers he obviously knows will check all the video footage in the shops and petrol stations around. So he puts on this little show for us: we don't see his face but we do see very clearly a bottle of Coke he's holding in his bare hand and drinking from. He puts it in a plastic bag, so we're all convinced the fingerprints have not been wiped off by the rain and places it in the green skip he knows won't be collected for a good while. He must have had a fairly high opinion of our efficiency, and we nearly lost the evidence, but he got lucky-Beate drove like crazy and we managed it: to give Trond Grette a watertight alibi by acquiring the final, incontrovertible piece of evidence against Lev.'

Harry broke off. The faces in front of him expressed mild perplexity.

'The bottle of Coke was the one Lev had drunk from in Disengrenda,' Harry said. 'Or somewhere. Trond had taken it for precisely this purpose.'

'I'm afraid you've forgotten something, Hole,' Ivarsson whinnied. 'You saw yourself that the bank robber was holding the bottle in his bare hands. If it was Trond Grette, it must be his prints on the bottle.'

Harry motioned towards Weber.

'Glue,' said the experienced detective.

'I beg your pardon?' The Chief Superintendent turned to Weber.

'An old trick used by bank robbers. You spread a little glue over your fingertips, let it harden and, bingo, no prints.'

The Chief Superintendent shook his head. 'But where has this accountant, as you call him, learned these tricks?'

'He was the little brother of one of the most professional bank robbers Norway has seen,' Beate said. 'He knew Lev's methods and style inside out. Amongst other things, Lev kept video recordings of his raids at his home in Disengrenda. Trond had taught himself his brother's techniques so well that even Raskol was deceived into thinking he recognised Lev Grette. On top of that, there is the physical similarity of the two brothers, which meant that computer manipulation of the videos showed the robber could have been Lev.'

'Shit!' Halvorsen exclaimed involuntarily. He ducked and sent a fearful glance at Bjarne Mшller, but Mшller was sitting with mouth wide open, staring blankly in front of him as if a bullet had passed through his head.

'You haven't put down the gun, Harry. Can you explain?'

Harry attempted to breathe regularly even though his heart was running amok. Oxygen to the brain, that was crucial. He tried not to look at Beate. The wind puffed up thin, blonde strands of her hair. Muscles in the thin neck were straining and her shoulders had begun to tremble.

'Elementary,' Harry said. 'You'll shoot us both. You have to give me a better deal than that, Trond.'

Trond laughed and rested his cheek against the green butt of the gun. 'What do you say to this deal, Harry? You've got twenty-five seconds to think through the alternatives and put down the weapon.'

'The usual twenty-five?'

'Correct. I suppose you recall how quickly the time went. Think fast, Harry.'

'Do you know what put the idea in my head about Stine knowing the robber?' Harry shouted. 'They were standing too close. Much closer than you and Beate now. It's odd, but, even in life-and-death situations, people respect others' intimate spaces if they can. Isn't that strange?'

Trond placed the barrel under Beate's chin and raised her face. 'Beate, would you be so kind as to count for us?' He was using the theatrical tone again. 'From one to twenty-five. Not too fast and not too slow.'

'I was wondering about something,' Harry said. 'What did she say before you shot her?'

'Would you really like to know, Harry?'

'Yes, I would.'

'Beate has two seconds to start counting. One…'

'Count, Beate!'

'One.' Her voice was a dry whisper. 'Two.'

'Stine pronounced the final death sentence for herself and Lev,' Trond said.

'Three.'

'She said I could shoot her, but I should spare him.'

Harry felt his throat constrict and his grip on the gun weaken.

'Four.'

'In other words, he would have shot Stine however long the branch manager took to put the money in the bag?' Halvorsen asked.

Harry nodded gloomily.

'Since you seem to know everything, I take it you also know his escape route,' Ivarsson said. The tone was intended to be sarcastic and amusing, but the irritation shone through all too clearly.

'No, but I assume he took the same route back. Up Industrigata, down Pilestredet, into the building site where he took off the balaclava and stuck the POLITI label on the back of the boiler suit. When he was back in Focus, he was wearing a cap and sunglasses, and failed to attract the attention of the centre staff since they didn't recognise the photos of him. He went into the changing room and put on the sports gear he had been wearing when he arrived from work, then joined the general hubbub in the fitness rooms, did a bit of cycling, maybe lifted a few weights. Then he showered, went to the reception desk and reported his squash racquet missing. The girl who took his details gave the exact time as 16.02. The alibi was cemented and he went into the street, heard the sirens and drove home. Possibly.'

'I don't know if I understand the purpose of the police labels,' the Chief Inspector said. 'We don't even have boiler suits in the force.'

'Elementary psychology,' Beate said and her cheeks glowed when she saw the Chief Superintendent's raised eyebrow. 'I mean…not elementary in the sense that it's…erm, obvious.'

'Go on,' the Chief Superintendent said.

'Trond Grette knew, of course, that the police would search for anyone wearing a boiler suit observed in the area. He, therefore, had to have something on his boiler suit which would cause all the police swarming around to pay little attention to this unidentified person in Focus. The public always shies away from the police.'

'Interesting theory,' Ivarsson said with a sour smile and the tips of two fingers under his chin.

'She's right,' the Chief Superintendent said. 'Everyone has a fear of authority. Go on.'

'But, to be absolutely sure, he pretended to be a witness and volunteer information about a man he had seen walking past the fitness room wearing a boiler suit with POLITI on.'

'Which was a stroke of genius in itself,' Harry said. 'Grette told us this as if he was unaware that the police strip ruled the man out of our inquiries. Of course, it also strengthened Trond Grette's credibility in our eyes that he volunteered information which-seen from his point of view-might place him on the murderer's escape route.'

'Eh?' said Mшller. 'Repeat that one more time, Harry. Slowly.'

Harry took a deep breath. 'Oh, never mind,' Mшller said. 'I've got a headache.'

'Seven.'

'But you didn't do what she asked,' Harry said. 'You didn't spare your brother.'

'Of course not,' Trond said.

'Did he know you had killed her?'

'I had the pleasure of telling him myself. On the mobile. He was waiting in Gardemoen airport. I told him if he didn't get on the plane, I would go after him too.'

'And he believed you when you said you'd killed Stine?'

Trond laughed. 'Lev knew me. He didn't doubt it for a second. While I was giving him the details, he was reading about the raid on teletext in the business lounge. He switched off his phone when I heard them call his flight. His and Stine's. Hey, you!' He put the gun to Beate's head.

'Eight.'

'He must have thought he had a safe passage home,' Harry said. 'Didn't know about the contract in Sгo Paulo, though, did he.'

'Lev was a thief, but a naive thief. He should never have given me the secret address in d'Ajuda.'

'Nine.'

Harry tried to ignore Beate's robotic monotones. 'Then you sent instructions to the hired killer, and the suicide letter. Which you wrote with the same handwriting style you used to do Lev's essays.'

'Bravo,' Trond said. 'Good work, Harry. Apart from the fact that they had been sent before the bank job.'

'Ten.'

'Well,' Harry said, 'the contract killer also did good work. It really did look as if Lev had hanged himself. Even though the missing little finger business was perplexing. Was that the receipt?'

'Let's put it this way. A little finger fits nicely in a standard envelope.'

'Didn't think you could stand the sight of blood, Trond?'

'Eleven.'

Harry heard a distant rumble of thunder over the whistling, roaring wind. The field and the paths around them were deserted. Everyone had taken shelter from the looming storm.

'Twelve.'

'Why don't you just give yourself up?' Harry said. 'You know it's hopeless.'

Trond chuckled. 'Of course it's hopeless. That's the point, isn't it. No hope. Nothing to lose.'

'Thirteen.'

'So what's the plan, Trond?'

'The plan? I have two million kroner from the bank job and I'm planning a long-if not happy-life in exile. The travel plans have had to be put forward, but I was prepared for that. The car has been packed and ready ever since the robbery. You can choose between being shot or handcuffed to the fence.'

'Fourteen.'

'You know it won't work,' Harry said.

'Believe me, I know a lot about disappearing. Lev did nothing but. Twenty minutes' head start is all I need. I'll have changed transport and identity twice. I have four cars and four passports en route, and I have good contacts. In Sгo Paulo, for example. Twenty million inhabitants. You can start the search there.'

'Fifteen.'

'Your colleague will die soon, Harry. What's it going to be?'

'You've said too much,' Harry said. 'You're going to kill us anyway.'

'You'll have to take a risk and find out. What options have you got?'

'That you die before me,' Harry said, loading his gun.

'Sixteen,' whispered Beate.

Harry had finished.

'Amusing theory, Hole,' Ivarsson said. 'Especially the one about the contract killer in Brazil. Extremely…' He bared his small teeth into a thin smile: 'Exotic. There's no more? Proof, for example?'

'Handwriting. The suicide letter,' Harry said.

'You've just said it doesn't match Trond Grette's writing.'

'Not his usual writing, no. But the essays…'

'Have you got a witness to swear he wrote them?'

'No,' Harry said.

Ivarsson groaned: 'In other words, you don't have one single shred of incriminating evidence in this robbery case.'

'Murder case,' Harry said softly, eyeing Ivarsson. At the edge of his vision he could see Mшller staring at the floor, ashamed, and Beate wringing her hands in despair. The Chief Superintendent cleared his throat.

Harry released the safety catch.

'What are you doing?' Trond scrunched up his eyes and shoved the gun barrel into Beate's head so hard he forced it backwards.

'Twenty-one,' she groaned.

'Isn't it liberating?' Harry said. 'When you finally realise you have nothing to lose. That makes all decisions so much easier.'

'You're bluffing.'

'Am I?' Harry placed the gun against his left forearm and fired. The crack was loud and sharp. A few tenths of a second passed before the echo from the tall blocks came crashing back. Trond stared. A jagged edge stood up around the hole in the policeman's leather jacket and a white tuft of wool lining swirled away in the wind. The blood trickled through. Heavy, red droplets hit the ground with a muffled tick-tick clock-like sound, vanished in the mixture of shale and rotting grass to be absorbed by the soil. 'Twenty-two.'

The droplets grew and fell faster and faster, sounding like an accelerating metronome. Harry raised his gun, poked the barrel through a gap in the wire netting fence and took aim. 'That's what my blood looks like, Trond,' he said in a voice so low it was barely audible. 'Shall we have a peek at yours?'

At that moment the clouds covered the sun.

'Twenty-three.'

A dark shadow fell like a wall from the west, firstly across the fields, then across the terraced houses, the blocks, the red shale and the three people. The temperature fell, too. Like a stone, as though the obstruction in front of the light not only cut off the heat but also radiated cold. But Trond didn't notice. All he sensed and saw was the policewoman's brief, hurried gulps of air, her wan, expressionless face and the muzzle of the policeman's gun staring at him like a black eye which had finally found what it was seeking and was already boring through him, dissecting him and stretching him out. The distant thunder rumbled. But all he heard was the sound of blood. The policeman's flesh was open and the contents were spilling out. The blood, his insides, his life dripped loudly onto the grass. It wasn't being devoured; it did the devouring, burned its way into the ground. Trond knew that even if he closed his eyes and covered his ears, he would still hear his own blood rushing in his ears, singing and throbbing to get out.

He felt the nausea like a kind of mild labour pain, a foetus which would be born through his mouth. He swallowed, but the water was running from all his glands, greasing his insides, preparing him. The fields, the blocks and the tennis court began to revolve. He huddled up, tried to hide behind the policewoman, but she was too small, too transparent, just a gossamer veil of life trembling in the squalls. He clung to the gun as though it was holding him up and not the opposite, tightened his finger on the trigger, then waited. Had to wait. What for? For the fear to release its grip? For things to recover their equilibrium? But they wouldn't, they just whirled around and would not come to rest until they had smashed on the bottom. Everything had been in free fall from the moment Stine had said she was leaving, and the blood rushing in his ears had been a constant reminder that the pace was gathering. He had woken every morning thinking that now he must have got used to falling, now the horror must have let go, the end was in sight, he had been through the pain barrier. But it wasn't true. Then he had begun to long to hit rock bottom, the day he would stop being frightened. And now he could see the bottom he was even more frightened. The ground on the other side of the wire fence rushed towards him.

'Twenty-four.'

The countdown was nearing the end. Beate had the sun in her eyes, she was standing inside in a bank in Ryen and the light outside was dazzling, making everything white and harsh. Her father stood beside her, as silent as ever. Her mother was shouting from somewhere, but she was far away, she always had been. Beate counted the images, the summers, the kisses and the defeats. There were a lot, she was surprised how many there were. She recalled faces, Paris, Prague, a smile from under a black fringe, a clumsily expressed declaration of love, a breathless, fearful: Does it hurt? And a restaurant she hadn't been able to afford in San Sebastian, but where she had reserved a table anyway. Perhaps she should be grateful after all?

She had woken from these thoughts when the gun nudged her forehead. The images disappeared and there was only a white, crackling snowstorm on the screen. She wondered: Why did Father only stand beside me? Why didn't he ask me for something? He had never done that. And she hated him for it. Didn't he know it was the only thing she desired, to do something for him, anything at all? She had walked where he had walked, but when she found the bank raider, the killer, the widow-maker and wanted to give her father his vengeance, their vengeance, he had stood beside her, as silent as ever, and refused.

Now she was standing where he had stood. All the people she had watched on the bank videos from all over the world at night in the House of Pain, wondering what they were thinking. Now it was her turn and still she didn't know.

Then someone had turned off the light, the sun disappeared and she was immersed in the cold. She had awoken again in the cold. As if the first awakening had only been part of a new dream. And she had started counting again. But now she was counting places she had never been, people she had never met, tears she had never cried, words she had never heard said as yet.

'Yes, I do,' Harry said. 'I have this piece of evidence.' He produced a sheet of paper and set it on the long table.

Ivarsson and Mшller leaned forward together, clunking heads.

'What is this?' Ivarsson barked. ' "A Wonderful Day".'

'Scribbles,' Harry said. 'Written on a notepad at Gaustad hospital. Two witnesses, Lшnn and myself, were present and can testify that the writer was Trond Grette.'

'So?'

Harry looked at them. He turned his back and walked slowly to the window. 'Have you examined your own scribbles when you imagine you're thinking about something else? They can be quite revealing. That was why I took the piece of paper, to see if it made any sense. At first, it didn't. I mean when your wife has just been killed and you're sitting in a closed psychiatric ward writing "A Wonderful Day" again and again, then you're absolutely barking mad or you're writing the opposite of what you think. Then I discovered something.'

Oslo was pale grey, like the face of a tired old man, but today in the sun the few colours still remaining shone. Like a final smile before saying goodbye, Harry mused.

' "A Wonderful Day",' he said. 'It's not a thought, a comment or an assertion. It's a title. Of the kind of essay you write at primary school.'

A hedge sparrow flew past the window.

'Trond Grette wasn't thinking, he was just scribbling on automatic pilot. As he had done from his school days when he sat practising the new handwriting style. Jean Hue, the handwriting expert at Kripos, has already confirmed the same person wrote the suicide letter and the school essays.'

The film seemed to be stuck, the image frozen, not a movement, not a word, only the repeated actions of a photocopier outside in the corridor.

Finally, Harry turned around and broke the silence: 'Seems like the mood is for Lшnn and me to bring Trond Grette in for a little bit of questioning.'

Fuck, fuck, fuck! Harry tried to hold the gun steady, but the pain was making him giddy and the blasts of wind were pulling and pushing at his body. Trond had reacted to the blood as Harry had hoped, and for a moment Harry had a clear line of fire. But Harry had hesitated and now Trond had Beate in front of him so that Harry could only see part of his head and his shoulder. She was similar, he could see that now, my God she was so similar. Harry blinked hard to get them in focus. The next blast of wind was so strong it caught hold of the grey coat on the bench and for a moment it seemed as if an invisible man clad only in a coat was running across the tennis court. Harry knew a downpour was on its way; this was the air mass the wall of rain was pushing forward as the final warning. Then it went as dark as night, the two bodies in front of him merged and then the rain was overhead; large, heavy drops hammered down.

'Twenty-five.' Beate's voice was suddenly loud and clear.

In the flash of light Harry could see their bodies casting shadows on the red shale. The crack which followed was so loud it attached itself to their ears like a lining. One body slipped away from the other and fell to the ground.

Harry sank to his knees and heard his voice roar: 'Ellen!'

He saw the figure still standing turn and begin to walk towards him, gun in hand. Harry took aim, but the rain was streaming down his face and blinding him. He blinked and aimed. He no longer felt anything, neither pain nor cold, sorrow nor triumph, only a huge void. Things were not meant to make sense; they just repeated themselves in an eternal, self-explanatory mantra-living, dying, being reborn, living, dying. He squeezed the trigger halfway. Took aim.

'Beate?' he whispered.

She kicked open the door and passed the AG3 to Harry, who grabbed it.

'What…happened?'

'The Setesdal Twitch,' she said.

'The Setesdal Twitch?'

'He went down like a pile of bricks, poor thing.' She showed him her right hand. The rain washed and rinsed away the blood from the two wounds on her knuckles. 'I was just waiting for something to distract him. And the clap of thunder scared the living daylights out of him. You too, it seems.'

They looked at the motionless body in the left-hand service box.

'Will you help me with the handcuffs, Harry?' Her blonde hair was stuck to her face, but she didn't seem to notice. She smiled.

Harry raised his face into the rain and closed his eyes. 'God in heaven above,' he mumbled. 'This poor soul will not be set free until 12 July 2022. Have mercy.'

'Harry?'

He opened his eyes. 'Yes?'

'If he's not to be set free before 2022 we'd better get him to Police HQ right now.'

'Not him,' Harry said, getting up. 'Me. That's when I retire.'

He put his arm around her shoulders and smiled. 'You Setesdal Twitch, you…'