Police

51

Katrine shivered and snuggled up under Bjørn’s arm. It was cold in the large church. Cold inside, cold outside, and she should have put on more clothes.

They were waiting. Everyone in Oppsal Church was waiting. Coughing. Why was it that people started coughing as soon as they entered a church? Was it the room itself that provoked tight throats and pharynxes? Even in a modern church made of glass and concrete like this? Was it their anxiety not to make a sound which they knew would be amplified by the acoustics that created this compulsive action? Or was it just a human way of releasing pent-up emotion, coughing it out instead of bursting into tears or laughter?

Katrine craned her head. There was a small turnout, only those closest. Few enough people to have only an initial in Harry’s contacts list. She saw Ståle Aune. Wearing a tie for once. His wife. Gunnar Hagen, also with wife.

She sighed. She should have worn more. Even if Bjørn didn’t seem to be cold. Dark suit. She hadn’t known he would look so good in a dark suit. She brushed his lapel. Not that there was anything on it, it was just what you did. An intimate act of love. Monkeys picking lice from the coat of another monkey.

The case was solved.

For a while they had been afraid they’d lost him, that Arnold Folkestad — now also known as the Cop Killer — had managed to escape abroad or find a hidey-hole in Norway. It would have had to be a deep, dark hole, for during the twenty-four hours after the initial alert, his description and personal information had been broadcast on every media outlet in such detail that every person of sound mind in the country had grasped who Arnold Folkestad was and what he looked like. And Katrine had at that point come to her own conclusions about how close they had been earlier in the case when Harry had asked her to check the connections between René Kalsnes and other police officers. If she had only widened her search to include former officers they would have found Arnold Folkestad’s ties to the young man.

She stopped brushing Bjørn’s lapel and he flashed her a smile of gratitude. A quick, forced smile. A little tremble around the chin. He was going to cry. She saw it now, for the first time she was going to see Bjørn Holm cry today. She coughed.

Mikael Bellman slipped into the end of the row. Glanced at his watch.

He had another interview in three-quarters of an hour. Stern. A million readers. Another foreign journalist wanting the story of how the young Chief of Police had worked indefatigably week after week, month after month, to catch this murderer, and how in the end he had himself almost become the Cop Killer’s victim. And Mikael would once again pause briefly before saying that the eye he had sacrificed was a cheap price for what he had achieved: preventing an insane murderer from taking even more of his officers’ lives.

Mikael Bellman pulled the sleeve over his watch. They should have started by now. What were they waiting for? He had given some thought to his choice of dress today. Black, to match the moment and the eyepatch? The patch was a real hit; it told his story in such a dramatic and effective way that according to Aftenposten he was the most photographed Norwegian in the international press this year. Or should he choose something dark but more neutral, which would be acceptable and not so conspicuous for the interview afterwards? He would have to go straight from the interview to a meeting with the City Council chairman, so Ulla had opted for dark, neutral colours.

If they didn’t start soon he would be late.

He mused. Did he feel anything? No. What should he feel? After all, it was only Harry Hole, not exactly a close friend, nor one of his officers in Oslo Police District. But there was a certain possibility that the press were waiting outside, and of course it was good PR to show your face in church. It was indeed impossible to get around the fact that Harry Hole had been the first to point the finger of guilt at Arnold Folkestad, and with the dimensions this case had taken on that linked Mikael and Harry. And PR was going to be even more important than ever. He already knew what the meeting with the City Council chairman was going to be about. The party had lost a strong personality with Isabelle Skøyen and was on the lookout for someone new. A popular, respected person they would like to have on the team, to lead Oslo forward. When the chairman had rung he had opened by singing the praises of the warm, contemplative impression Bellman had made in the Magasinet interview. And then wondered if their party political programme chimed with Mikael Bellman’s own political standpoints.

Chimed.

Lead Oslo forward.

Mikael Bellman’s town.

So get that organ cranked up!

Bjørn Holm could feel Katrine trembling under his arm, felt the cold sweat under his suit trousers and reflected that it was going to be a long day. A long day before he and Katrine could take off their clothes and crawl into bed. Together. Let life carry on. The way life carried on for those of them who were left, whether they wanted it to or not. And as his gaze swept across the rows of pews he thought of all those who were not here. Of Beate Lønn. Of Erlend Vennesla. Anton Mittet. Roar Midtstuen’s daughter, Fia. And of Rakel Fauke and Oleg Fauke, who weren’t here either. Who had paid the price for attaching themselves to the man who was being positioned in front of them by the altar. Harry Hole.

And in a strange way it was as though the man at the front was continuing to be what he had always been: a black pit sucking in everything that was good around him, consuming all the love he was offered and also the love he wasn’t.

Katrine had said yesterday after they had gone to bed that she had also been in love with Harry Hole. Not because he deserved it, but because he had been impossible not to love. As impossible as he was to catch, keep or live with. Yes, of course she had loved him. But it had passed, the desire had cooled, or at least she had tried to cool it. But the delicate little scar after the short heartbreak she shared with several women would always be there. He had been someone they’d had on loan for a while. And now it was over. Bjørn had asked her to drop the subject there.

The organ piped up. Bjørn had always had a weakness for organs. His mother’s organ in the sitting room in Skreia, Gregg Allman’s B3 organ, creaking pump organs squeezing out an old hymn, to Bjørn it was all the same, like sitting in a bathtub of warm notes and hoping the tears didn’t get you.

They had never caught Arnold Folkestad; he had caught himself.

Folkestad had probably come to the conclusion that his mission had ended. And with it, his life. So he had done the only logical thing. It took them three days to find him. Three days of desperate searching. BjØrn had had the feeling the whole country had been on the march. And perhaps that was why it felt like a bit of an anticlimax when the news came that he’d been found in the forest in Maridalen, only a few hundred metres from where Erlend Vennesla had been spotted. With a small, almost discreet, hole in his head and a gun in his hand. It was his car that had put them on the track; it had been seen in a car park close to where the trail paths started: an old Fiat that had also featured in the nationwide alert.

Bjørn himself had led the forensics team. Arnold Folkestad had looked so innocent lying on his back in the heath, like a leprechaun with his red beard. He lay beneath a patch of open sky unprotected by the trees clumped together around him. In his pockets they had found the keys for the Fiat and the door that was blown up in Hausmanns gate 92, a standard Heckler amp; Koch gun as well as the one he held in his hand, together with a wallet containing a dog-eared photo of a man Bjørn immediately recognised as René Kalsnes.

As it had rained non-stop for at least twenty-four hours and the body had been out in the open for three days there hadn’t been much evidence to examine. But it didn’t matter; they had what they needed. The skin around the entry wound in his right temple had scorch marks from the flame discharge of the weapon and the residue of burnt powder, and the ballistic results showed the bullet in his head came from the gun in his hand.

For that reason it was not there they concentrated their efforts. The investigation began when they broke into his house, where they found most of what they needed to clear up all the police murders. Batons covered with blood and hair from the victims, a bayonet saw with Beate Lønn’s DNA on it, a spade smeared with soil and clay that matched the ground in Vestre Cemetery, plastic ties, police cordon tape of the same kind that had been found outside Drammen, boots that tallied with the footprint at Tryvann. They had everything. And afterwards, as Harry had so often said, but which only Bjørn Holm had experienced, the void.

Because there was suddenly nothing else.

It wasn’t like breasting a tape, drifting into a harbour or pulling into a station.

It was more like the tarmac, the bridge, the rails had disappeared. It was the end of the road, and that was where the dive into nothingness began.

Finished. He hated the word.

So, almost in desperation, he had delved even deeper into the investigation of the original murders. And had found what he had been searching for, a link between the murder of the girl at Tryvann, Judas Johansen and Valentin Gjertsen. A quarter of a fingerprint didn’t give a match, but thirty per cent probability wasn’t to be sneered at. No, it wasn’t finished. It was never finished.

‘They’re starting now.’

It was Katrine. Her lips were almost touching his ear. The organ notes soared, grew into music, music he knew. Bjørn swallowed hard.

Gunnar Hagen closed his eyes for a second and listened only to the music, not wanting to think. But thoughts came. The case was over. Everything was over. They had buried what had to be buried now. Yet there was this one matter, one he could not bury, never managed to get underground. And which he still hadn’t mentioned to anyone. He hadn’t mentioned it because it could no longer be of any use. The Swedish words Asayev had whispered in his hoarse voice the seconds he had spent with him that day at the hospital. ‘What can you offer me if I agree to testify against Isabelle Skøyen?’ and ‘I don’t know who, but I know she worked with someone high up in the police force.’

The words were dead echoes of a dead man. Unprovable claims that would be damaging rather than beneficial now that Skøyen was off the scene.

So he had kept this to himself.

Like Anton Mittet with the bloody baton.

The decision had been taken, but it still kept him awake at night.

‘I know she worked with someone high up in the police force.’

Gunnar Hagen opened his eyes again.

Slowly, he ran his eyes across the assembled congregation.

Truls Berntsen sat with the window of the Suzuki Vitara rolled down so that he could hear the organ music from the small church. The sun shone from a cloudless sky. Warm and awful. He had never liked Oppsal. Just hooligans. He had given a lot of beatings. Taken a lot of beatings. Not as bad as in Hausmanns gate of course. Luckily it had looked worse than it was. And in hospital Mikael had said it didn’t matter with people as ugly as he was and how serious could concussion be for someone who didn’t have a brain?

It was meant to be a joke, and Truls had tried with his grunted laughter to show he appreciated it, but the broken jawbone and the smashed nose had hurt too much.

He was still taking strong painkillers, he still wore big bandages around his head, and of course he was not allowed to drive, but what could he do? He couldn’t sit at home waiting for the dizziness to go and the wounds to heal. Even Megan Fox had begun to bore him and he didn’t actually have the doctor’s permission to watch TV either. So he might just as well sit here. In a car outside a church to. . well, to do what? To show his respect for a man he had never had any respect for? An empty gesture for a sodding idiot who didn’t know what was good for him, who saved the life of the one man whose death he had everything to gain by? Truls Berntsen couldn’t bloody fathom it. He only knew he wanted to be back working as soon as he was well enough. And the town to be his again.

Rakel breathed in and out. Her fingers round the bouquet felt clammy. Stared at the door. Thought about the people sitting inside. Friends, family, acquaintances. The priest. Not that there were so many, but they were waiting. Couldn’t start without her.

‘You promise you won’t cry?’ Oleg said.

‘No,’ she said, smiled fleetingly and stroked his cheek. He had grown so tall. He was so good-looking. Towered above her. She’d had to buy a dark suit for him, and it was only when they were standing in the shop and measuring up that she realised her son was close to Harry’s one metre ninety-two. She sighed.

‘We’d better go in,’ she said, threading her arm through his.

Oleg opened the door, was given a nod by the verger inside and they began to walk up the aisle. And when Rakel saw all the faces turned to her, she felt her nervousness vanish. This had not been her idea, she had been against it, but in the end Oleg had persuaded her. He thought it was only right that it should all finish like this. That was precisely the word he had used: finish. But wasn’t it above all else a beginning? The start of a new chapter in their lives? At least that was how it felt. And suddenly this did feel right. Being here, now.

And a smile spread across her face. She smiled at all the other smiling faces. For a moment she thought that if their smiles or her own got any broader there could be a serious accident. And the notion of this, the sound of tearing faces, which ought to have made her shudder, caused bubbles of laughter in her stomach. Don’t laugh, she told herself. Not now. She noticed that Oleg, who so far had been concentrating on walking in time with the organ, sensed her mood, and she glanced at him. Met his surprised, admonitory expression. But then he had to look away; he had seen. That his mother was having a fit of the giggles. Here, now. And he found that so inappropriate that he started laughing as well.

To focus her mind on something else, on what was about to happen, on the solemnity, she fixed her gaze on the man who was waiting by the altar. Harry. In black.

He stood facing them with an idiotic grin plastered across his handsome, pug-ugly face. As tall and proud as a peacock. When he and Oleg had stood back-to-back at Gunnar Øye’s, the outfitter’s, the assistant with the tape measure had announced that only three centimetres separated them, in Harry’s favour. And the two overgrown schoolboys had high-fived as though both were satisfied with the outcome of some competition.

But now, at this moment, Harry looked very adult. The rays from the June sun falling through the stained-glass windows enveloped him in a kind of celestial light and he seemed taller than ever. And as relaxed as he had been throughout. At first she didn’t understand how he could be so relaxed after all that had happened. But gradually it had rubbed off, this calm, this unshakeable belief that everything had sorted itself out. She hadn’t been able to sleep for the first few weeks after Arnold Folkestad had come to their home, even though Harry had snuggled up close and whispered in her ear that it was over. That it had gone well. That they were out of danger. He had repeated the same words night after night like a soporific mantra, which still hadn’t been enough. But then, gradually, she had begun to believe it. And after a few more weeks to know it. Everything had sorted itself out. And she had begun to sleep. Deep sleep without any dreams she could remember, until she was woken by him slipping out of bed in the morning light, thinking as usual she didn’t notice, and as usual she pretended she didn’t notice because she knew how proud and happy he would be if he thought she had only woken up when he coughed and stood there with a breakfast tray in his hands.

Oleg had given up trying to keep in rhythm with Mendelssohn and the organist now, and it made no difference to Rakel, she had to take two steps for his one anyway. They had decided that Oleg would perform a double function. It had felt completely natural as soon as she’d thought about it. Oleg should accompany her to the altar, give her away to Harry and also be best man.

Harry didn’t have a best man. He had the witness he had first chosen, though. The chair on his side by the altar was empty, but a photo of Beate Lønn had been placed on the seat.

They were there now. Harry hadn’t let her out of his sight for an instant.

She had never understood how a man with such a low resting pulse, who could go for days in his own world, almost without speaking and without any need for outside stimulation, could press a switch and was suddenly conscious of everything, every ticking second, every quivering tenth and hundredth of a second. With a calm, husky voice that in very few words could express more emotions, information, astonishment, foolishness and wisdom than all the windbags she had ever met could manage over a seven-course meal.

And then there were the eyes. Which in their own good-natured, almost bashful, way had this ability to hold your attention, to force you to be there.

Rakel Fauke was going to marry the man she loved.

Harry looked at her as she stood there. She was so beautiful he had tears in his eyes. He simply hadn’t expected this. Not that she wouldn’t be beautiful. It was obvious that Rakel Fauke would look amazing in a white bridal gown. He hadn’t expected that he would react in this way. His uppermost thoughts had been that he hoped it wouldn’t take too long and the priest wouldn’t get too spiritual or inspired. And he had imagined that as usual on occasions which called for great emotions, he would become immune, numb, a cold and slightly disappointed observer of other people’s floods of feelings and his own drought. But he had determined that at any rate he would play the role as best he could. After all, he was the one who had insisted on a church wedding. And now here he was, with tears, genuine, big, fat, salty drops, in the corners of his eyes. Harry blinked, and Rakel watched him. Met his gaze. Not with that now-I’m-looking-at-you-and-all-the-guests-can-see-I’m-looking-at-you-and-I’m-trying-to-look-as-happy-as-I-can look.

It was the look of a teammate.

Of someone saying we can nail this, you and I. Let’s do it.

Then she smiled. And Harry discovered that he was smiling too, without knowing which of them had started it. She had started shaking. She was laughing inside and filling up so fast it was only a question of time before the laughter exploded out of her. Solemnity generally had that effect on her. And on him. So, in order not to laugh, she looked over at Oleg. But she got no help there, for the boy looked as if he was going to burst into laughter as well. He just managed to restrain himself by lowering his head and firmly shutting his eyes.

What a team, Harry thought proudly and focused on the priest.

The team that had caught the Cop Killer.

Rakel had understood the text message. Don’t let Oleg see the present. Reasonable enough for Arnold Folkestad not to become suspicious. Clear enough for Rakel to understand what he wanted. The old birthday trick.

So, when he entered the house she had embraced him, grabbed what he had stuffed down his belt at the back and then backed away with her hands in front of her so that Arnold couldn’t see that she was holding something. She was holding a loaded Odessa with the safety catch off.

What was more worrying was that even Oleg had understood. He had stayed quiet, knowing he mustn’t ruin what was looming. Which could only mean that he had never fallen for the birthday trick, and he had never let on. What a team.

What a team, coaxing Arnold Folkestad into moving towards Harry and leaving Rakel behind him, so that she could step forward and, at close quarters, fire a shot through Folkestad’s temple as he was about to dispatch Harry.

An unbeatable team of champions, that’s what it was.

Harry sniffed quickly and wondered if the damned mega-tears would have the sense to stay where they were or if he would simply have to wipe them away before they slid down his cheeks.

He took a risk with the latter.

She had asked him why he’d insisted that they get married in a church. To the best of her knowledge he was about as Christian as a chemical formula. And she was the same, despite her Catholic upbringing. But Harry answered that, outside their house, he had made a promise to a fictional God that if this went well, in recompense he would succumb to this one stupid ritual act: getting married in the sight of this alleged God. And then Rakel had burst out laughing, said that this didn’t show much faith in God, it was an advanced version of bloody knuckles, boys’ stuff, that she loved him and of course they would get married in a church.

After they had freed Oleg, they had embraced one another in a kind of group hug. For one long, silent minute they had just stood there, hugging one another, stroking one another, to make sure they really were unhurt. It was as if the sound and the smell of the shot still hung in the walls, and they had to wait until it was gone before they could do anything. Afterwards Harry had told them to sit round the kitchen table, and he’d poured them a cup of coffee from the machine that was still on. And involuntarily he’d wondered: if Arnold Folkestad had succeeded in killing them all, would he have switched off the machine before he left the house?

He had sat down, taken a swig from his cup, cast a glance at the body lying on the floor in the room a few metres from them, and when he had turned back he had met the questioning look in Rakel’s eyes: why hadn’t he already rung the police?

Harry had taken another swig from his cup, nodded at the Odessa lying on the table and looked at her. She was an intelligent woman. So it was just a question of giving her a bit of time. She would reason her way through to the same conclusion. That if he picked up the phone he would be sending Oleg to prison.

And then Rakel had nodded slowly. She had understood. When the forensics people examined the gun to check if it matched the bullet that the pathologists would extract from Folkestad’s head, they would immediately link it to the murder of Gusto Hanssen, where the murder weapon was never found. After all, it wasn’t every day — or every year — that someone was killed with a 9x18mm Makarov bullet. And if they discovered it matched a weapon they could link to Oleg, he would be rearrested. And this time charged and sentenced on the basis of what to everyone in court would seem like irrefutable, damning evidence.

‘You two will have to do what you have to do,’ Oleg had said. He had long grasped the gravity of the situation.

Harry had nodded, but hadn’t taken his eyes off Rakel. There had to be total unanimity. It had to be their joint decision. As now.

The priest finished reading from the Bible, the congregation sat down again and the priest cleared his throat. Harry had asked him to keep the sermon short. He saw the priest’s lips moving, saw the composure on his face and remembered the same composure on Rakel’s that night. The composure after first shutting her eyes tight and then opening them. As though wanting to make sure this was not a nightmare you could wake up from. Then she had sighed.

‘What can we do?’ she’d asked.

‘Burn,’ Harry had answered.

‘Burn?’

Harry had nodded. Burn. What Truls Berntsen did. The difference was that burners like Berntsen did it for money. That was all.

And so they had sprung into action.

He had done what had to be done. They had done what had to be done. Oleg had driven Harry’s car from the road up to the garage while Rakel packed and tied up the body in bin bags, and Harry had made a makeshift stretcher out of a tarpaulin, rope and two aluminium pipes. After putting the body in the boot Harry had gone down to the road with the keys for the Fiat, and Harry and Oleg each drove a car to Maridalen while Rakel set about cleaning up and removing all the traces.

As they had predicted, there was no one around the Grefsenkollen mountain in the rain and darkness. Nevertheless they had taken one of the narrow paths to be sure they didn’t meet anyone.

The rain had made carrying the body a wearing, slippery business; on the other hand, Harry knew the rain would wash away their tracks and they hoped any telltale signs. They didn’t want anything to suggest that the body had been transported there.

It had taken them more than an hour to find a suitable spot, a place where people wouldn’t stumble across the body straight away, yet where their elkhounds would find the scent before too long. Long enough for the forensic evidence to have been destroyed or at least rendered hard to identify. But too short a time for society to have wasted a great deal of resources on a manhunt. Harry almost had to laugh at himself when he realised the latter was indeed a factor. In the end he was a product of his upbringing as well, a brainwashed, herd-following, bloody Social Democrat who suffered physical pain at the thought of leaving a light on all night or discarding plastic in the countryside.

The priest finished his sermon and a girl — a friend of Oleg’s — sang from the gallery. Dylan’s ‘Boots of Spanish Leather’. Harry’s wish, Rakel’s blessing. The sermon had been more about the importance of working together in a marriage and less about being in God’s sight. And Harry had thought about how they had taken the bin bags off Arnold, placed him in a position that would seem logical for a man who had chosen the forest to fire a bullet through his temple. And Harry knew he would never ask Rakel about it, about why she had held the muzzle close to Arnold Folkestad’s right temple before firing instead of doing what nine out of ten people would have done, quickly shot him in the back of the head or the back.

It might of course have been because she had been scared the bullet would go through Folkestad and hit Harry.

But it could also have been because her lightning-fast, almost frighteningly practical brain had managed to think one stage further, about what would have to happen afterwards. There would have to be some camouflage to save them all. A circumlocution of the truth. A suicide. The woman at Harry’s side might have worked out that suicide victims don’t shoot themselves through the back of the head from a range of half a metre. But — given that Arnold Folkestad was right-handed — through the right temple.

What a woman. All the things he knew about her. All the things he didn’t know about her. That was the question he had been obliged to ask himself even after seeing her in action. After spending months with Arnold Folkestad. And more than forty years with himself. How well can you know someone?

The hymn was over and the priest had started on the marriage vows — Will you love and honour her. .? — but he and Rakel ignored the ceremony and still faced each other, and Harry knew he would never let her go, however much he had to lie, however impossible it was to promise you would love a person until their dying day. He hoped the priest would soon shut up so that he could say the yes that was already bubbling joyfully in his chest.

Ståle Aune took the handkerchief from his breast pocket and passed it to his wife.

Harry had just said yes and the echo of his voice still hung beneath the church’s vaulted roof.

‘What?’ Ingrid whispered.

‘You’re crying, love,’ he whispered.

‘No, you’re the one who’s crying.’

‘Am I?’

Ståle Aune checked. He was indeed crying. Not much, but enough for him to detect wet patches on his handkerchief. He didn’t cry proper tears, Aurora would say. It was just thin, invisible water that, without any kind of prior warning, could run down both sides of his nose, although no one around him had considered the situation, film or conversation especially moving. It was just a gasket that blew inside and then the water flowed. He would have liked to have Aurora along with them, but she was taking part in a two-day handball tournament at Nadderud Sports Hall, and had just texted him to say they had won the first match.

Ingrid straightened Ståle’s tie and placed a hand on his shoulder. He put his on hers and knew she was thinking the same thoughts as he was, about their own wedding.

The case was over and he had written a psychological report. In it he had speculated that the weapon Arnold Folkestad had shot himself with was the same one that had been used to murder Gusto Hanssen. And that there were several similarities between Gusto Hanssen and René Kalsnes. Both were very attractive young men who had no scruples about selling sexual favours to men of all ages, and it may have been that Folkestad had a propensity to fall in love with such types. Nor was it improbable that someone with Folkestad’s paranoid schizophrenic symptoms might have murdered Gusto out of jealousy or for a whole string of other reasons based on delusions as a result of a profound psychosis, though this might not necessarily have been noticeable to the outside world. Here Ståle had attached notes from the time Arnold Folkestad had worked in Kripos and come to him complaining about hearing voices. Even though psychologists had long concurred that hearing voices was not always synonymous with schizophrenia, Aune had tended to the view that in Folkestad’s case it was and started preparing a diagnosis that would have finished Folkestad’s career as a detective. But it had never become necessary to send the report as Folkestad decided to resign after telling Aune about his approach towards an unnamed colleague. He had also terminated the treatment and thus disappeared off Aune’s radar. However, it was clear that there had been a couple of events that might have triggered his deterioration. One was the head injuries he had received which had necessitated a longish stay in hospital. There was significant research showing that even light blows to the brain could cause behavioural changes, such as increased aggression and decreased impulse control. The blows, incidentally, bore a likeness to those he dealt to his victims. And the second event was the loss of René Kalsnes, with whom, witnesses’ testimonies suggested, he had been wildly, almost manically, in love. It was no surprise that Folkestad had concluded what he obviously regarded as his mission by taking his own life. The only caveat had to be that he hadn’t left anything in writing or said anything to justify what he had done. It was normal for megalomaniacs to feel a need to be remembered, understood, declared a genius, admired and to find a well-deserved place in history.

The psychological report had been well received. It was the final piece in the puzzle, Mikael Bellman had said.

But Ståle Aune had a suspicion that it was another aspect which had been of paramount importance for the police. With this diagnosis he put an end to what otherwise could have become a bitter and problematic issue: how could one of the force’s own men be behind the massacre? Folkestad was only an ex-policeman, it was true, but nevertheless, what did this say about the profession and what did it say about the culture inside the police force?

Now they could shelve the debate because a psychologist had concluded that Arnold Folkestad had been insane. Insanity has no cause. Insanity just is, a kind of natural disaster that strikes out of the blue, the kind of thing that can happen. And afterwards you have to get on with your life because what else can you do?

That was how Bellman and the others reasoned.

That was not how Ståle Aune reasoned.

But it would have to rest for now. Ståle was back in his consulting room full-time, but Gunnar Hagen had said he would like to have the Boiler Room gang as a unit permanently on call, a bit like Delta. Katrine had already been offered a job as a detective in Crime Squad and had accepted it. She claimed she had several compelling reasons to move from her wonderful, beautiful Bergen to the wretched capital.

The organist started up, Ståle could hear the creak of the pedals, and then came the notes. And then the bride and groom. Now the newly-weds. They didn’t need to nod left and right, there were so few people in the church you could encapsulate them all in one glance.

The party afterwards was to be at Schrøder’s. Harry’s watering hole was of course not quite what you associated with a wedding celebration, but according to Harry it had been Rakel’s decision, not his.

The guests turned and followed Rakel and Harry, who continued past the empty rows of pews at the back towards the door. Towards the June sun, Ståle thought. Towards the rest of the day. Towards the future. The three of them, Oleg, Rakel and Harry.

‘Oh, Ståle,’ Ingrid said, tugging the handkerchief from his breast pocket and handing it to him.

Aurora sat on the bench and could hear from the cheering that her teammates had scored again.

It was the second match today they were on their way to winning, and she reminded herself that she had to text Dad. Actually for herself she didn’t much care whether they won or lost, and Mummy definitely didn’t care. But Dad always reacted as if she was the new world champion whenever she reported another victory in the girls’ under-13s league.

As Emilie and Aurora had played almost all the first match, they were on the bench for most of this one. Aurora had started counting the spectators in the stands on the other side of the court, and there were only two rows left. Most of them were parents of course and players from other teams who were taking part in the tournament, but she thought she had seen a familiar face up there.

Emilie nudged her. ‘Aren’t you following the match?’

‘Yes, I am. I just. . Can you see the man up there in the third row? He’s sitting apart from the others. Have you seen him before?’

‘Don’t know. Too far away. Don’t you wish you’d gone to the wedding?’

‘No, it’s grown-up stuff. I need a pee. Are you coming?’

‘In the middle of the match? What if they want us to go on.’

‘It’s Charlotte’s or Katinka’s turn. Come on.’

Emilie looked at her. And Aurora knew what she was thinking. That Aurora didn’t usually ask anyone to go with her to the toilet. Didn’t usually ask for company anywhere.

Emilie hesitated. Turned back to the court. Glanced at the coach standing with his arms crossed on the sideline. Shook her head.

Aurora wondered whether she could wait until the game was over, and the others were streaming towards the changing rooms and the toilets.

‘I’ll be back in a mo,’ she whispered, getting up and jogging over to the stairs. Turned in the doorway and looked up at the stands. Searched for the face she thought she recognised, but couldn’t see it. Then she ran down the stairs.

Mona Gamlem stood alone in the cemetery by Bragernes Church. She had driven from Oslo to Drammen and it had taken her some time to find the place. And she’d had to ask her way to the gravestone. The sunlight glistened on the crystals in the stone around his name. Anton Mittet. It glistened now more than when he was alive, she thought. But he had loved her. He had, of that she was sure. She popped a piece of mint chewing gum into her mouth. Thinking about what he had said when he had driven her home after the shift at the Rikshospital and they had kissed: he liked the minty taste of her tongue. And the third time, when they were parked in front of her house and she had leaned over to him, unbuttoned his fly and — before she began — discreetly removed the gum from her mouth and stuck it under his seat. And straight afterwards she had started chewing a fresh piece of gum before they kissed again. Because she had to taste of mint; that was the taste he wanted. She missed him. Without having any right to miss him, and that made it even worse. Mona Gamlem heard footsteps crunching up the path behind her. Perhaps it was her. The other woman. Laura. Mona Gamlem started to walk ahead without turning, trying to blink the tears from her eyes, trying to stay on the gravel path.

The church door opened, but Truls couldn’t see anyone coming out yet.

He glanced at the magazine on the passenger seat. Magasinet. An interview with Mikael. The happy family man pictured with his wife and three children. The astute, humble Chief of Police who said that the Cop Killer case would not have been solved without his wife Ulla’s support at home. Without all his excellent colleagues at Police HQ. And that the unmasking of Folkestad meant another case had been cleared up. The ballistics report showed that the Odessa gun Arnold Folkestad had shot himself with was the same one that Gusto Hanssen had been killed with.

Truls had grinned at the thought. No fucking chance. Harry Hole had had a finger in the pie and had been up to his usual tricks. Truls had no idea how or why, but at any rate it meant that Oleg Fauke was off the hook and could stop looking over his shoulder. Hole would get the boy into PHS now as well, you see.

Fair enough. Truls wouldn’t stand in his way. Great burner job. Respect. Anyway, he hadn’t saved the magazine because of Harry, Oleg or Mikael.

It was the photo of Ulla he’d been after.

A temporary setback, that was all, he would get rid of the magazine afterwards. Get rid of her.

He thought about the woman he had met in the cafe the day before. Internet dating. Of course she couldn’t hold a candle to Ulla or Megan Fox. Bit too old, arse a bit too fat and talked a bit too much. But apart from that he’d liked her. If a woman failed in the age, face and arse categories and was totally unable to keep her mouth shut — could she be any good at all?

He wasn’t sure. He only knew that he’d liked her.

Or, to be more precise, he liked the fact that she had apparently liked him.

Perhaps it had been his ravaged face and she’d felt sorry for him. Or perhaps Mikael had been right: his face had been so unattractive in the first place that a slight rearrangement wouldn’t make any difference.

Or in some way or other things had changed inside him. What or how he didn’t know exactly, but some days he woke up and felt new. He thought in a different way. Could even talk to people around him in a new way. And it was as though they noticed. As though they treated him in a new way as well. A better way. And that had given him the courage to take another tiny step in this new direction, although he had no idea where it would lead. Not that he had found redemption or anything. The change was minimal. And on some days he didn’t feel new at all.

Anyway, he thought he would ring her again.

The police radio crackled. He could hear from the voice rather than the words that it was something important, different from the boring traffic jams, basement break-ins, domestics and rabid drunks. A body.

‘Does it look like murder?’ the unit leader asked.

‘I would imagine it is.’ The answer was an attempt to deliver the laconic, cool tone that especially the younger guard aspired to. Not that they didn’t have their own models in the older guard. Even though Hole was no longer among them his sayings were still alive and well. ‘Her tongue. . I think it’s her tongue. It’s been cut off and stuffed up. .’ The young officer couldn’t take the heat; his voice cracked.

Truls could feel the exhilaration coming. The life-giving beats as his heart pumped a little faster.

This sounded nasty. June. She’d had lovely eyes. And he guessed pretty big tits beneath all the clothes. Yes, it was going to be a great summer.

‘Got an address?’

‘Alexander Kiellands plass, number 22. Shit, loads of sharks here.’

‘Sharks?’

‘Yes, on those little surfboards. Place is full of them.’

Truls put the Suzuki into gear. Straightened his sunglasses, pressed the accelerator and let go of the clutch. Some days were new. Others weren’t.

The girls’ toilet was at the end of the corridor. As the door closed behind Aurora it struck her at first how quiet it was. The noise of all the people upstairs was gone, and there was just her.

She quickly locked herself in one of the cubicles, pulled down her shorts, knickers and sat on the cold plastic seat.

Thought about the wedding. Actually she would have preferred to be there. She had never seen anyone get married before, not properly. She wondered if she would get married one day. Tried to imagine it, standing outside a church, laughing and ducking under the shower of confetti, a white dress, a house and a job she liked. A boy she would have children with. She tried to imagine the boy.

The door opened and someone came into the room.

Aurora was sitting on a swing in the garden with the sun straight in her eyes and couldn’t see the boy. She hoped he was great. A boy who thought a bit like her. Bit like Dad, but not so scatty. No, as a matter of fact, just as scatty.

The footsteps were too heavy for a woman.

Aurora stretched out for some toilet paper, but held back. She had tried to take a breath, but there was nothing there. No air. She felt her throat tighten.

Too heavy to be a woman’s footsteps.

They had stopped now.

She looked down. In the big gap between the door and floor she saw a shadow. And the tips of a pair of long, pointed shoes. Like cowboy boots.

Aurora didn’t know if the ringing in her head was the wedding bells or the beating of her heart.

Harry came out onto the steps. Squinted into the bright June sun. Stood with his eyes closed for a moment listening to the church bells pealing out over Oppsal. Feeling that everything was right with the world, at rest, in harmony. Knowing this was how things should end, like this.