Police

29

She had a bag over her shoulder, which she let slide down. It hit the floor with a surprisingly heavy thud.

‘What are you doing here?’ Harry asked gruffly, aware this was a repeat performance. The same as her answer.

‘I’ve been doing some training. Martial arts.’

‘That’s no answer, Silje.’

‘Yes, it is,’ Silje Gravseng said, thrusting one hip forward. She was wearing a thin tracksuit top, black leggings, trainers, a ponytail and a sly smile. ‘I’d finished my training and saw you leaving the college. I followed you.’

‘Why?’

She shrugged. ‘To give you another chance perhaps.’

‘A chance to do what?’

‘To do what you want.’

‘Which is?’

‘I don’t think I need to spell it out, do I?’ She tilted her head. ‘I saw it on your face in Krohn’s office.You don’t exactly have a poker face, Harry. You want to shag me.’

Harry nodded towards the bag. ‘Your training, is it the ninja stuff with a cane sword?’ His voice rasped from the dryness in his mouth.

Silje Gravseng’s gaze took in the room. ‘Something like that. We even have a bed here.’ She grabbed her bag, walked past him and pulled out a chair. Put the bag on the bed and tried to move a large sofa which was in the way, but it was stuck. Leaned forward, held the back of the sofa and pulled. Harry looked at her bottom, where her tracksuit top had ridden up, the muscles tightening in her thighs and heard her low groan. ‘Aren’t you going to help me?’

Harry swallowed.

Shit, shit, shit.

Watched the blonde ponytail dancing on her back. Like a bloody handle. The material pulled up between her buttocks. She had stopped moving, just stood there, as though she had noticed something. Noticed it. Noticed what he was thinking.

‘Like this?’ she whispered. ‘Do you want me like this?’

He didn’t answer, his erection grew; like delayed pain from a punch to the stomach, it spread from a point in his groin. His head began to fizz, bubbles rose and burst with a rushing noise that grew and grew. He took a step forward. Stopped.

She half turned her head, but cast her eyes down, looking at the floor.

‘What are you waiting for?’ she whispered. ‘Do you. . do you want me to put up some resistance?’

Harry swallowed. He wasn’t on autopilot. He knew what he was doing. This was him. This was the kind of person he was. Even though he was talking to himself aloud now, he was going to do it. Didn’t he want to?

‘Yes,’ he heard himself say. ‘Stop me.’

He saw her raise her bottom now; it struck him this was like a ritual from the animal world, perhaps he was programmed to do this after all. He placed a hand on the small of her back, on the arch, felt bare, sweaty skin where her leggings finished. Two fingers under the elastic. All he had to do was pull them down now. She had one hand resting on the back of the chair and the other on the bed, on the bag. The bag was open.

‘I’ll try,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll try.’

Harry drew a long, quivering breath.

Noticed a movement. It happened so fast he hardly had time to react.

‘What’s up?’ Ulla asked as she was hanging up Mikael’s coat in the inbuilt cupboard.

‘What should be up?’ he asked, rubbing his face with the palms of his hands.

‘Come on,’ she said, leading him into the living room. Placed him on the sofa. Stood behind him. Rested her fingers on the transition behind the shoulders and his neck, let the tips find the middle of the trapezius and squeezed. He groaned aloud.

‘Well?’ she said.

He sighed. ‘Isabelle Skøyen. She’s proposed that the old Police Chief should assist us until the present case is solved.’

‘I see. Is there anything wrong with that? You said yourself you need more resources.’

‘In practice it would mean he would be the de facto Chief of Police and I’d be brewing the coffee. It would be a vote of no confidence, which I couldn’t accept. Surely you can see that.’

‘But it’s only temporary, isn’t it?’

‘And afterwards? When the case is solved with him at the helm? Will the council say now it’s all over you can have your job back? Ow!’

‘Sorry, but it’s just here. Try to relax, darling.’

‘It’s her revenge, of course, you know. Dumped women. . ouch!’

‘Oh dear, did I hit the sore spot again?’

Mikael wriggled out of her hands. ‘The worst of it is that there’s nothing I can do. She’s good at this game; I’m just a beginner. If I’d only had a bit of time, time to build some alliances, see who was scratching whose back.’

‘You’ll have to use the alliances you’ve got,’ Ulla said.

‘All the important alliances are in her half of the court,’ Mikael said. ‘Sodding politicians, they don’t think about outcomes like we do. For them it’s all about votes, how things look to the stupid voters.’

Mikael lowered his head. Her hands started to work again. Gentler this time. Massaged him, stroked his hair. And as he was about to let his mind float away, it seemed to apply the brakes and returned to what she had said. Use the alliances you’ve got.

Harry was blinded. He had automatically let go of Silje and turned. The plastic curtain had been drawn to one side and he stared into white light. Harry raised his hand above his eyes.

‘Sorry,’ said a familiar voice and the torch was lowered. ‘Brought a torch along. Didn’t think you. .’

Harry drained his lungs with a groan. ‘Jesus, Katrine, you frightened me! Er. . us.’

‘Oh, yes, isn’t that the student. . I saw you at PHS.’

‘I’m not there any more.’ Silje’s voice sounded completely unruffled, almost as though she was bored.

‘Oh? So what are you doing. .?’

‘Moving furniture,’ Harry said, with a quick sniff, pointing to the gap in the ceiling. ‘Trying to find something more robust to stand on.’

‘There’s a stepladder outside,’ Katrine said.

‘Is there? I’ll go and fetch it.’ Harry dashed past Katrine and through the sitting room. Shit, shit, shit and bugger.

The stepladder was leaning against the wall between the paint pots.

There was total silence when he returned, pushed away the armchair and positioned the aluminium ladder beneath the opening. No suggestion that they had spoken either. Women with arms crossed and faces devoid of expression.

‘What’s the stink?’ Katrine asked.

‘Pass me the torch,’ Harry said, climbing up the ladder. Tore off a chunk of plasterboard, poked the torch inside, then his head. Reached for the green jigsaw. The blade was broken. He held it between two fingers and passed it to Katrine. ‘Careful. There may be fingerprints.’

He shone the torch inside again. Stared. The dead body lay on its side, squeezed between the old and the new ceiling. Harry was thinking he bloody deserved to be here inhaling the stench of death and rotting flesh, no, he deserved to be the rotting flesh. He was a sick man, a very sick man. And if he wasn’t shot on the spot, he needed help. He had been about to do it, hadn’t he? Or had he stopped? Or was the idea that he might have stopped something he invented to sow doubt?

‘Can you see anything?’ Katrine asked.

‘I can indeed,’ Harry said.

‘Do we need a forensics team?’

‘That depends.’

‘On what?’

‘Whether Crime Squad wants to investigate this death.’