Police

30

‘This is a bit tricky to talk about,’ Harry said, stubbing out the cigarette on the windowsill, leaving the window overlooking Sporveisgata open and going back to his chair. Ståle Aune had said he could come before the first patient at eight when Harry had rung him at six and said he was in a mess again.

‘You’ve been here before to talk about tricky matters,’ Ståle said. For as long as Harry could remember he had been the psychologist the officers in Crime Squad went to when things got tough. Not just because they had his phone number, but because Ståle Aune was one of the few psychologists who knew what their everyday working life was like. And they knew they could rely on him keeping his mouth shut.

‘Yes, but that was about drinking,’ Harry said. ‘This is. . quite different.’

‘Is it?’

‘Don’t you think it is?’

‘I think that since the first thing you did was to ring me, you think it may be more of the same.’

Harry sighed, leaned forward in the chair and rested his forehead against his folded hands. ‘Maybe it is. I always had the feeling I chose the worst possible times to drink. I always succumbed when it was important to be at my most alert. As though there was a demon inside me who wanted everything to go down the Swanee. Wanted me to go down the Swanee.’

‘That’s what demons do, Harry.’ Ståle concealed a yawn.

‘In that case, this one has done a good job. I was about to rape a girl.’

Ståle was no longer yawning. ‘What did you say? When was this?’

‘Last night. The girl’s an ex-student of mine at PHS. She turned up while I was searching a flat where Valentin had lived.’

‘Oh?’ Ståle removed his glasses. ‘Did you find anything?’

‘A jigsaw with a broken blade. Must have been there for years. Of course, the builders may have left it there when they were lowering the ceiling, but they’re checking the serrated edge against what they found in Bergslia.’

‘Anything else?’

‘No. Yes. A dead badger.’

‘Badger?’

‘Yes. Looked as if it had been hibernating there.’

‘Heh heh. We had a badger once, but fortunately it stayed in the garden. It has a fearsome bite on it. Did it die during its hibernation then?’

Harry smirked. ‘If you’re interested I can get forensics on the case.’

‘Sorry, I. .’ Ståle shook his head and put his glasses back on. ‘The girl arrived and you felt tempted to rape her, is that how it was?’

Harry raised his arms over his head. ‘I’ve just proposed to the woman I love more than anything else in the world. I want nothing more than for us to have a good life together. And just as I’ve articulated the thought, the devil jumps out and. . and. .’ He lowered his arms again.

‘Why have you stopped?’

‘Because I’m sitting here and making up a devil and I know what you’ll say. I’m absolving myself of all responsibility.’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘Of course I am. It’s the same guy in new clothes. I thought he was called Jim Beam. I thought he was called the mother who died young or the pressure of the job. Or testosterone or booze genes. And perhaps all of that’s true too, but when you undress him he’s still called Harry Hole.’

‘And you’re saying Harry Hole almost raped this girl last night.’

‘I’ve been dreaming about it for a long time.’

‘Rape? In general?’

‘No. This girl. She asked me to do it.’

‘Rape her? Strictly speaking, that’s not rape, is it?’

‘The first time she just asked me to fuck her. She provoked me, but I couldn’t. She was a student at PHS. And afterwards I began to fantasise about raping her. I. .’ Harry ran a hand across his face. ‘I didn’t think I had it in me. Not a rapist. What’s happening to me, Ståle?’

‘So you had the inclination and the opportunity to rape her, but you chose to desist?’

‘Someone interrupted us. Was it rape? I don’t know, but she invited me to take part in a role play. And I was willing to take the role, Ståle. Very willing.’

‘Yes, but I still can’t see that as rape.’

‘Perhaps not in a legal sense, but. .’

‘But what?’

‘But if we’d got going and she’d asked me to stop, I don’t know whether I would have done.’

‘You don’t know?’

Harry shrugged. ‘Have you got a diagnosis, Doctor?’

Ståle looked at his watch. ‘I need you to tell me a bit more, but my first patient’s waiting for me now.’

‘I haven’t got any time for therapy, Ståle. We’ve got a murderer to catch.’

‘In that case,’ Aune said, rocking his podgy stomach to and fro in his chair, ‘you’ll have to make do with me shooting from the hip. You’ve come to me because you feel something you can’t identify, and the reason you can’t identify it is that the feeling is trying to disguise itself as something which it is not. Because what the feeling really is, is something you don’t want to feel. It’s classic denial, just like men who refuse to accept they’re homosexual.’

‘But I’m not denying that I’m a potential rapist! I’m asking you straight out.’

‘You’re not a rapist, Harry, you don’t become one overnight. I think this may be about one of two things. Or perhaps both. One is, you may feel some form of aggression towards this girl. And what it’s really about is you exercising control. Or to use layman’s language, a punishment fuck. Am I close?’

‘Mm. Maybe. What was the other one?’

‘Rakel.’

‘Sorry?’

‘What you’re being drawn towards is neither rape nor this girl, but being unfaithful. Unfaithful to Rakel.’

‘Ståle, you-’

‘Easy now. You’ve come to me because you need someone to tell you what you’ve already realised. To say it loud and clear. Because you’re unable to tell yourself. You don’t want to have to feel like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘That you’re petrified of committing yourself to her. The thought of marriage has driven you to the edge of panic.’

‘Oh? Why’s that?’

‘Since I may venture to claim that I know you a bit after all these years, I believe that in your case this is more about the fear of taking responsibility for other people. You’ve had bad experiences. .’

Harry gulped. Felt something growing in his chest, like a cancerous tumour on fast forward.

‘. . you start drinking when the world around you is dependent on you and because you can’t take the responsibility, you want things to go down the pan. It’s like when a house of cards is almost finished and the pressure’s so great you can’t cope, so instead of persisting you knock it down. To get the defeat over with. And I think that’s what you’re doing now. You want to fail Rakel as quickly as possible because you’re convinced it’s going to happen anyway. You can’t bear the long-drawn-out torment, so you’re proactive; you knock down the damned house of cards, which is how you see your relationship with Rakel.’

Harry wanted to say something. But the lump had reached his throat and blocked the way for words, so he made do with one: ‘Destructive.’

‘Your basic attitude is constructive, Harry. You’re just scared. Scared it will hurt too much. You and her.’

‘I’m a coward. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?’

Ståle eyed Harry, took a breath, as though on the point of correcting him, then seemed to change his mind.

‘Yes, you’re a coward. You’re a coward because I think you want this. You want Rakel, you want to be in the same boat, you want to tie her to the mast, to sail in this boat or go down in the process. That’s how it is with you, Harry, on those rare occasions when you make a promise. How does that song go again?’

Harry mumbled something about not retreating or surrendering.

‘There you have it, that’s you.’

‘That’s me,’ Harry repeated softly.

‘Give it some thought. We can talk again after the meeting in the Boiler Room this afternoon.’

Harry nodded and got up.

In the corridor sat a man impatiently shuffling his feet and sweating in training gear. He looked at his watch and glared at Harry.

Harry set off down Sporveisgata. He hadn’t slept all night, and he hadn’t had breakfast either. He needed something. He took stock. He needed a drink. He dismissed the thought and went into the cafe just before Bogstadveien. Asked for a triple espresso. Tossed it back at the counter and asked for another. Heard low laughter behind him, but didn’t turn. Drank number two slowly. Picked up the newspaper lying there. Saw the front-page teaser and leafed through.

Roger Gjendem was speculating that the City Council, in light of the police murders, was going to have a reshuffle at Police HQ.

After letting in Paul Stavnes, Ståle resumed his position behind the desk while Stavnes went into the corner to change into a dry T-shirt. Ståle took the opportunity to yawn without inhibition, pull out the top drawer and position his mobile so that he could see it easily. Then he looked up. Gazed at his patient’s naked back. After Stavnes had started cycling to the sessions it had become a fixed routine that he would change his T-shirt in the office. Always with his back turned. The only change was that the window where Harry had been smoking was still open. The light fell in such a way that Ståle Aune could see Paul Stavnes’s bare chest in the reflection.

Stavnes quickly pulled down his T-shirt and turned.

‘Your timing needs-’

‘-tightening up,’ Ståle said. ‘I agree. It won’t happen again.’

Stavnes looked up. ‘Is there something the matter?’

‘Not at all. Just got up a bit earlier than normal. Could you leave the window open so there’s a bit of air in here?’

‘There’s a lot of air in here.’

‘As you wish.’

Stavnes was about to close the window. Then held back. Stood staring at it. Turned slowly towards Ståle. A little smile appeared on his face.

‘Finding it hard to breathe, Aune?’

Ståle Aune was aware of pains in his chest and arms. All of which were familiar symptoms of a heart attack. Except that this wasn’t a heart attack. It was pure, unmitigated fear.

Ståle Aune forced himself to speak calmly, in a low key.

‘Last time we talked again about you playing Dark Side of the Moon. Your father came into the room and switched off the amplifier and you watched the red light die as the girl you were thinking about also died.’

‘I said she went mute,’ Paul Stavnes said, annoyed. ‘I didn’t say she died. That’s different.’

‘Yes, it is,’ Ståle Aune said, reaching carefully for the phone in his drawer. ‘Did you wish she could speak?’

‘I don’t know. You’re sweating. Are you unwell, Doctor?’

Again this jeering tone, this small, repugnant smile.

‘I’m fine, thank you.’

Ståle’s fingers rested on the phone. He had to get the patient speaking so that he wouldn’t hear him texting.

‘We haven’t talked about your marriage. What can you say about your wife?’

‘Not much. Why do you want to talk about her?’

‘A close relative. You seem to dislike people who are close. Despise was the word you used.’

‘So you have been paying some attention after all?’ Brief, sullen laugh. ‘I despise people because most of them are weak, stupid and down on their luck.’ More laughter. ‘Zero out of three. Tell me, did you sort out X?’

‘What?’

‘The policeman. The homo who tried to kiss another cop on the toilet. Did he recover?’

‘Not really.’ Ståle Aune pressed the keys, cursing his fat sausage-fingers, which felt as if they had swollen even more with the tension.

‘So if you think I’m like him, why do you reckon you can sort me out?’

‘X was schizophrenic. He heard voices.’

‘And you think I’m in better shape?’ The patient laughed bitterly as Ståle texted. Trying to write while the patient continued to talk, trying to camouflage the clicks by scraping his shoes against the floor. One letter. One more. Bastard fingers. There we are. He realised the patient had stopped talking. The patient, Paul Stavnes. Wherever he got that name from. You could always find a new name. Or get rid of the old one. It wasn’t so easy with tattoos. Especially if they were big and covered your whole chest.

‘I know why you’re sweating, Aune,’ the patient said. ‘You happened to see the reflection in the window when I was changing, didn’t you?’

Ståle Aune felt the pains in his chest increase, as though his heart couldn’t make up its mind whether to beat faster or not at all, and he hoped the expression he put on looked as uncomprehending as he intended.

‘What?’ he said in a loud voice to drown the click as he pressed the Send button.

The patient pulled his T-shirt up to his throat.

A mute, screaming face stared at Aune from the man’s chest.

The face of a demon.

‘OK, shoot,’ Harry said, holding the phone to his ear as he drained the second cup of coffee.

‘The jigsaw has got Valentin Gjertsen’s fingerprints on,’ Bjørn Holm said. ‘And the cutting surface of the blade matches. It’s the same blade that was used in Bergslia.’

‘So Valentin Gjertsen is the Saw Man,’ Harry said.

‘Looks like it,’ Bjørn Holm said. ‘What surprises me is that Valentin Gjertsen would hide a murder weapon at home instead of dumping it.’

‘He was planning to use it again,’ Harry said.

Harry felt his phone vibrate. A text. He looked at the display. The sender was S, so Ståle Aune. Harry read it. And read it again.

valentin is here sos

‘Bjørn, send a patrol car to Ståle’s office in Sporveisgata. Valentin’s there.’

‘Hello? Harry? Hello?’

But Harry was already running.