The Redeemer

28

Sunday, 21 December. The Kiss.

The press conference was held in the lecture hall on the fourth floor. Gunnar Hagen and the Chief Superintendent were sitting on the podium, their voices reverberating around the large, bare room. Harry had been summoned to attend in case Hagen needed to confer with him over details of the investigation. However, the journalists' questions were mostly about the dramatic shooting incident at the container terminal, and Hagen's answers varied between 'No comment', 'I can't go into that' and 'We'll have to leave SEFO to answer that'.

To the question about whether the police knew if the gunman was in cahoots with anyone, Hagen answered: 'Not for the moment, but this is the subject of intense investigation.'

When the press conference came to an end Hagen called Harry over. As the hall was emptying Hagen went to the edge of the podium and stood looking down at his tall inspector. 'I gave clear instructions that I wanted to see all my inspectors carrying weapons this week. You received a requisition order from me, so where's yours?'

'I've been involved in the investigation and did not prioritise it, boss?'

'Prioritise it.' The words echoed around the hall.

Harry nodded slowly. 'Anything else, boss?'

In his office, Harry sat staring at Halvorsen's empty chair. Then he called the passport office on the first floor and asked them to get him a list of passports issued to the Karlsen family. A nasal female voice asked if he was kidding, there being quite a number of Karlsens in Norway, and he gave her Robert's national identity number. Using the national registration office and a medium-fast computer the search was soon narrowed down to Robert, Jon, Josef and Dorthe.

'The parents, Josef and Dorthe, have passports, renewed four years ago. We haven't issued a passport to Jon. And let's see… the machine's a bit slow today… there, yes. Robert Karlsen has a ten-year-old passport which will soon be invalid, so you can tell him to-'

'He's dead.'

Harry dialled Skarre's internal number and asked him to join him at once.

'Nothing,' said Skarre, who by chance or in a sudden fit of tact, sat on the edge of the desk instead of Halvorsen's chair. 'I've checked the Gilstrups' accounts and there is no link anywhere with Robert Karlsen or with Swiss bank accounts. The only unusual transaction was a cash withdrawal of five million kroner, in dollars, from one of the company accounts. I rang Albert Gilstrup and asked, and he said without any hesitation that they were the Christmas bonuses for the harbour masters in Buenos Aires, Manila and Bombay whom Mads visits in December. Quite a business those boys are in.'

'And Robert's account?'

'Incoming wages and minor outgoings throughout.'

'What about calls from the Gilstrups?'

'None to Robert Karlsen. But we came across something else while going through the itemised telephone bills. Guess who rang Jon Karlsen heaps of times and on occasion in the middle of the night?'

'Ragnhild Gilstrup,' Harry said, looking into Skarre's disappointed face. 'Anything else?'

'No,' Skarre said. 'Apart from a familiar number making an appearance. Mads Gilstrup rang Halvorsen the day he was attacked. Unanswered call.'

'I see,' Harry said. 'I want you to check one more account.'

'Whose?'

'David Eckhoff 's.'

'The commander? What shall I look for?'

'Don't quite know. Just do it.'

After Skarre had gone, Harry phoned Forensics. The female pathologist promised without any delay or fuss to fax a photograph of Christo Stankic's body for identification to a number at Hotel International in Zagreb.

Harry thanked her, put down the telephone and dialled the number of the same hotel.

'There's also the question of what to do with the body,' he said when he had been put through to Fred. 'The Croatian authorities don't know anything about a Christo Stankic and therefore have not requested his extradition.'

Ten seconds later he heard her schooled English.

'I would like to suggest another deal,' Harry said.

Klaus Torkildsen in Telenor Operations Centre for the Oslo region had one aim in life: to be left in peace. And since he was very overweight, always perspiring and for the most part grumpy, by and large his wish was fulfilled. With regard to the contact he was forced to have with others, he made sure there was maximum distance. That was why he sat alone a lot, enclosed in a room in the operations section with several hot machines and cooling fans where few, if any, knew exactly what he got up to; all they knew was that he was indispensable. The need for distance may also have been the motivation for him practising indecent exposure and thus on the odd occasion achieving satisfaction with a partner who was five to fifty metres away. However, Klaus Torkildsen's utmost desire was peace. And he had had enough hassle for this week. First it was that Halvorsen who wanted a line to a hotel in Zagreb monitored. Then Skarre needed a list of the conversations between a Gilstrup and a Karlsen. Both had referred to Harry Hole whom Klaus Torkildsen still owed a certain debt of gratitude. And that was the only reason he did not put down the telephone when Harry Hole himself called.

'There's something called the Police Answering Service,' Torkildsen said in a sulky tone. 'If you go by the book you should ring them if you need help.'

'I know,' Harry said. He didn't need to say any more. 'I've rung Martine Eckhoff four times without getting an answer,' Hole said. 'No one in the Salvation Army knows where she is, not even her father.'

'They're the last to know,' said Klaus, who knew nothing about that kind of thing, but it was the sort of knowledge you could acquire if you were a regular cinema-goer. Or, in Klaus Torkildsen's case, an extremely regular cinema-goer.

'She may have switched off her mobile, but I was wondering whether you could try to locate it for me. So that I know whether she's in town or not, at any rate.'

Torkildsen sighed. A pose, pure and simple, because he adored these little police jobs. Especially when they were of the shady variety.

'May I have her number?'

Fifteen minutes later Klaus rang back to say that her SIM card was definitely not in Oslo. Two base stations, both to the west of the E6 had received signals. He explained where the base stations were, and what range they had. As Hole thanked him and rang off at once, Klaus presumed he had been of some help and returned with relish to the day's cinema screening information.

Jon let himself into Robert's flat.

The walls still smelt of smoke, and there was a dirty T-shirt lying on the floor in front of the cupboard. As though Robert had been in and then popped out to the shop to buy coffee and cigarettes.

Jon put the black bag Mads had given him next to the bed and turned up the radiator. Threw off all his clothes, went into the shower and let the hot water beat down on his skin until it was red and nubbly. He dried himself, left the bathroom, sat down naked on the bed and stared at the bag.

He hardly dared open it. For he knew what was inside, behind the thick, smooth material. Perdition. Death. Jon thought he could smell the stench of decay already. He closed his eyes. He needed to think.

His mobile rang.

Thea must be wondering where he was. He didn't feel like talking to her now. But it kept ringing, insistent and inescapable, like Chinese water torture, and in the end he snatched the phone and said in a voice he could hear was shaking with anger: 'What is it?'

But there was no answer. He read the display but didn't recognise the number. Jon realised it was not Thea calling.

'Hello, this is Jon Karlsen,' he said, guarded.

Still nothing.

'Hello, who is it? Hello, I can hear someone is there. Who… ?'

Panic tiptoed up his spine.

'Hello?' he heard himself say in English. 'Who is this? Is that you? I need to speak to you. Hello!'

There was a click and the connection was cut.

Ridiculous, thought Jon. Probably a wrong number. He swallowed. Stankic was dead. Robert was dead. And Ragnhild was dead. They were all dead. Just the policeman was still alive. And him. He stared at the bag, felt the cold come creeping in and pulled the duvet over him.

After turning off the E6 and driving some way down the narrow roads in the snow-covered rural landscape, Harry looked up and saw the stars were out.

He had a strange trembling feeling that something was going to happen soon. And when he saw a shooting star tear a parabola through the base of the sky ahead of him he thought if omens existed, a planet perishing before his very eyes had to mean something.

He saw light in the windows on the ground floor of Ostgard.

Turning into the drive, he saw the electric car and the feeling that something was looming was reinforced.

He walked towards the house, observing the footprints in the snow. Stood by the door with his ear to it. There was the sound of low voices.

He knocked. Three quick taps. The voices died away.

Then he heard steps and her soft voice. 'Who is it?'

'It's Harry,' he said. 'Hole.' He added the latter so as not to awaken a third party's suspicion that he and Martine Eckhoff had too personal a relationship.

There was some fumbling with the lock, then the door opened.

His first and only thought was that she was pretty. She was wearing a soft, thick, white cotton blouse open at the neck and her eyes were radiant.

'I'm glad,' she laughed.

'I can see,' Harry smiled. 'And I'm glad, too.'

Then her arms were around his neck and he could feel her accelerated pulse.

'How did you find me?' she whispered in his ear.

'Modern technology.'

The heat from her body, the gleam in her eyes, the whole ecstatic welcome gave Harry an unreal sense of happiness, a pleasant dream he, for his part, had no desire to wake from in the immediate future. But he had to.

'Is anyone here?' he asked.

'Er, no…'

'I thought I heard voices.'

'Oh that,' she said, letting him go. 'That was just the radio. I switched it off when I heard the knocking. I got a bit frightened. And then it was you…' She patted him on the arm. 'It was Harry Hole.'

'No one knows where you are, Martine.'

'Wonderful.'

'Some of them are worried.'

'Oh?'

'Especially Rikard.'

'Oh, forget Rikard.' Martine took Harry's hand and led him into the kitchen. She reached down a blue coffee cup from the cupboard. Harry noticed there were two plates and two cups in the sink.

'You don't look that ill to me,' he said.

'I just needed a day off after all that's happened.' She poured and passed him the cup. 'Black, wasn't it?'

Harry nodded. She had the heating on high and he took off his jacket and sweater before sitting at the table.

'But tomorrow it's the Christmas concert and I have to go back,' she sighed. 'Are you coming?'

'Well, I was promised a ticket…'

'Say you're coming!' Then Martine bit her lower lip. 'Oh dear, in fact I had tickets for us in the VIP box. Three rows behind the Prime Minister. But I had to give yours to someone else.'

'That doesn't matter.'

'You would have been left on your own anyway. I have to work back stage.'

'So it really doesn't matter.'

'No!' She laughed. 'I want you to be there.'

She took his hand. Harry looked at her small hand which was squeezing and stroking his large paw. It was so quiet he could hear his blood rushing like a waterfall in his ears.

'I saw a shooting star on the way here,' Harry said. 'Isn't that strange? Seeing the demise of a planet is supposed to bring good luck.'

Martine gave a silent nod. Then she stood up without letting go of Harry's hand, walked round the table and sat astride his lap facing him. Put her hand around his neck.

'Martine…' he began.

'Shh.' She ran her index finger over his lips.

And without taking her finger away she leaned forward and placed her lips gently against his.

Harry closed his eyes and waited, feeling his heart pound, heavy, pleasurable, though he was sitting quite still. It occurred to him he was waiting for her heart to beat in tune with his, but knew for certain only this: he would have to wait. Then he felt her lips part and automatically he opened his mouth and his tongue lay flat in his mouth, against his teeth, ready to receive hers. Her finger had an exciting, bitter taste of soap and coffee that burned the tip of his tongue. Her hand squeezed his neck tighter. Then he felt her tongue. It pressed against his finger so that he had contact on both sides and it made him think it was split, like a snake's tongue. That they were giving each other two half-kisses.

She let go.

'Keep your eyes closed,' she whispered by his ear.

Harry leaned back and resisted the temptation to put his hands on her hips. The seconds passed. Then he felt the soft cotton material on the back of his hand as her blouse slipped to the floor.

'Now you can open them,' she whispered.

Harry did as instructed. And sat watching her. Her face expressed a mixture of anxiety and anticipation.

'You're so beautiful,' he said in a voice which had become constricted and odd. Also bewildered.

He noticed her swallow. Then a triumphant smile spread across her face.

'Raise your arms,' she commanded. She grabbed hold of his T-shirt at the bottom and pulled it over his head.

'And you're ugly,' she said. 'Wonderful and ugly.'

Harry felt an intoxicating stab of pain as she bit into his nipple. One of her hands had moved behind her back and between his legs. Her breathing against his neck began to race and her other hand grabbed his belt. He held his arm against her lithe back. That was when he felt it. An involuntary quiver of her muscles, a tension she had managed to hide. She was frightened.

'Wait, Martine,' Harry whispered. Her hand froze.

Harry lowered his mouth to her ear. 'Do you want this? Do you know what you're getting yourself into here?'

He could feel her breathing, quickened and moist against his skin as she gasped: 'No, do you?'

'No. Then perhaps we shouldn't…'

She sat up. Looking at him with wounded, desperate eyes. 'But I. .. I can feel that you…'

'Yes,' Harry said, caressing her hair. 'I want you. I have wanted you from the first moment I saw you.'

'Is that the truth?' she said, taking his hand and laying it against a hot, flushed cheek.

Harry smiled. 'The second anyway.'

'The second time?'

'OK, the third then. All good music takes a little time.'

'And I'm good music?'

'I'm lying. It was the first time. But that doesn't mean I'm a pushover, OK?'

Martine smiled. Then she started laughing. Harry, too. She leaned forward and rested her forehead against his chest. Sobbed with laughter and banged against his shoulder, and it was only then that Harry felt her tears running down his stomach and realised she was crying.

Jon was woken by the cold. He thought. Robert's flat was dark and there could be no other explanation. But then his brain rewound and he knew that what he assumed were the final fragments of a dream were not. He had heard a key in the lock. And the door opening. Now someone was in the room, breathing.

With a sense of deja vu, that everything in this nightmare was repeating itself, he whirled round.

A figure stood over the bed.

Jon gasped for air as the fear of death attacked, its teeth sinking into his flesh and striking the nerves beneath. For he had total certainty, was quite sure that this person wished him dead.

'Stigla sam,' the figure said.

Jon didn't know many Croatian words, but the ones he had picked up from the tenants from Vukovar were enough for him to be able to work out what the voice had said. 'I have come.'

'Have you always been lonely, Harry?'

'I think so.'

'Why?'

Harry shrugged. 'I've never been the sociable type.'

'Is that all?'

Harry blew a ring of smoke up to the ceiling and could feel Martine sniffing at his sweater and his neck. They were in the bedroom, him on top of the duvet, her beneath.

'Bjarne Moller, my former boss, says people like me always choose the line of most resistance. It's in what he calls our "accursed nature". That's why we always end up on our own. I don't know. I like being alone. Perhaps I have grown to like my self-image of being a loner, too. What about you?'

'I want you to talk.'

'Why?'

'I don't know. I like listening to you. How can anyone like the selfimage of a loner?'

Harry took a deep breath. Held the smoke in his lungs thinking how good it would be if you could blow smoke patterns to explain everything. Then he released the smoke in one long exhalation.

'I think you have to find something about yourself that you like in order to survive. Some people say being alone is unsociable and selfish. But you're independent and you don't drag others down with you, if that's the way you're heading. Many people are afraid of being alone. But it made me feel free, strong and invulnerable.'

'Strong from being alone?'

'Yep. As Dr Stockman said: "The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone."'

'First Suskind and now Ibsen?'

Harry grinned. 'That was a line my father used to quote.' He sighed and then added, 'Before my mother died.'

'You said it made you invulnerable. Is that no longer the case?'

Harry felt the ash fall from his cigarette onto his chest. He left it where it was.

'I met Rakel and… well, Oleg. They attached themselves to me. It opened my eyes to the fact that there could be other people in my life. People who were friends and who cared about me. And that I needed them.' Harry blew on his cigarette making it glow. 'And, even worse, that they might need me.'

'So you weren't free any longer?'

'No. No, I wasn't free any longer.'

They lay staring into the dark.

Martine nestled her nose into his neck. 'You really like them, don't you?'

'Yes.' Harry pulled her close. 'Yes, I do.'

After she had fallen asleep, Harry slipped out of the bed and tucked the duvet in around her. He checked the time. Two o'clock on the dot. He walked into the hall, put on his boots and opened the door to the starry night. Heading for the outside toilet, he studied the footprints while trying to remember whether it had snowed since Saturday morning.

The toilet was not lit, so he struck a match and orientated himself. As it was about to go out he spotted two letters carved into the wall under a fading picture of Princess Grace of Monaco. In the dark Harry mused that someone had been sitting here, as he was, diligently forming the simple declaration: R+M.

Coming out of the toilet, he caught a quick movement by the corner of the barn. He stopped. There was a set of footprints going that way.

Harry hesitated. There it was again. The feeling that something was about to happen, right now, something fated which he could not prevent. He put a hand inside the toilet door and found the spade he had seen standing there. Then he began to follow the prints to the barn.

At the corner he paused and took a firm grip of the spade. His breathing thundered in his ears. He stopped breathing. Now. It was going to happen now. Harry plunged round the corner with the spade at the ready.

Ahead of him, in the middle of the field shining so bewitchingly and so white in the moonlight that he was dazzled, he saw a fox running towards the woods.

He slumped back against the barn door and inhaled trembling lungfuls of air.

There was a knock at the door and he backed away out of instinct.

Had he been seen? The person on the other side of the door must not come inside.

He cursed his carelessness. Bobo would have scolded him for breaking cover in such an amateur way.

The door was locked, but he still cast around for an object he could use in case whoever it was should manage to make their way in.

A knife. Martine's bread knife that he had just been using. It was in the kitchen.

There was another knock.

And then there was his gun. Empty, it was true, but enough to scare off a sensible man. The problem was that he doubted if this one was.

The person had arrived in a car and parked outside Martine's flat in Sorgenfrigata. He hadn't seen him until he chanced by the window and scanned the cars parked by the pavement. That was when he had seen the motionless silhouette inside one of them. On seeing it move, lean forwards to see better, he knew it was too late. He had been seen. He had come away from the window, waited for half an hour, then lowered the blinds and switched off all the lights in Martine's flat. She had said he could leave them on. The radiators all had thermostats and since 90 per cent of the energy of a light bulb is heat, the electricity you save by turning them off would be counterbalanced by the radiators compensating for the heat loss.

'Simple physics,' she had explained. If only she had explained to him what this was instead. A demented suitor? A jealous ex-lover. It wasn't the police anyway because he had started up again: a desperate, pained howl that made his blood run cold.

'Mar-tine! Mar-tine! Then a few tremulous words in Norwegian. And then almost a sob: 'Martine…'

He had no idea how the guy had got in through the front door, but now he could hear one of the other doors opening and a voice. Among the snatches of foreign words there was one he recognised now: politi.

Then the neighbour's door was slammed shut. He heard the person outside groaning in despair and fingers scratching at the door. Then footsteps finally dying away. He heaved a sigh of relief.

It had been a long day. Martine had driven him down to the station in the morning and he had caught the local train to town. The first thing he had done was go to the travel agent at Oslo Central where he had bought a ticket for the last flight to Copenhagen the following evening. They hadn't reacted to the Norwegian-sounding surname he had given them. Halvorsen. He had paid with the cash in Halvorsen's wallet, thanked them and left. From Copenhagen he would call Zagreb and have Fred fly there with a new passport. If he was lucky, he would be back for Christmas Eve.

He had been to three hairdressers, who had all shaken their heads and said they had no appointments left before the festivities. The fourth had nodded to a gum-chewing teenage girl sitting in a corner and looking lost – he guessed she was an apprentice. After several attempts at explaining what he wanted he had at length shown her the photograph. She had stopped chewing, looked up at him with eyes thick with mascara and asked in MTV English: 'You sure, man?'

Afterwards he had taken a taxi to the address in Sorgenfrigata, unlocked the doors with the keys he had been given by Martine and begun the wait. The telephone had rung several times, but otherwise it had been peaceful. Until, that is, he had been stupid enough to go to the window of an illuminated room.

He walked back to the living room.

At that moment there was a bang. The air quivered, the ceiling lamp shook.

'Mar-tine!'

He heard the person take another run-up, sprint and charge the door, which seemed to bulge into the room.

Her name was called out twice, followed by two bangs. Then he heard feet running down the stairs.

He went to the living-room window and watched the person race out. As the guy paused to unlock the car and the street light fell on him, he recognised him.

It was the young man who had helped him at the Hostel. Niclas, Rikard… something like that. The car started up with a roar and accelerated away into the winter night.

An hour later he was asleep, dreaming about landscapes he had once known, and only woke up when he heard the patter of feet and the sound of newspapers landing on doorsteps in the stairwell.

Harry woke up at eight. He opened his eyes and smelt the woollen blanket half covering his face. The smell reminded him of something. Then he threw it off. His sleep had been profound, without dreams, and he was in a curious mood. Exhilarated. Happy, no other word for it.

He went into the kitchen, put on the coffee, washed his face in the sink and hummed Jim Stark's 'Morning Song'. Over the low ridge to the east the sky was reddening like a young maiden; the last star blanching and fading. A new, mysterious, unsullied world lay outside the kitchen window and, white and optimistic, it was surging towards the horizon.

He sliced some bread, found some cheese, poured water into a glass and steaming coffee into a clean cup, put it all on a tray and carried it into the bedroom.

Her black, untidy hair spilt over the duvet and she made no sound. He placed the tray on the bedside table, sat on the edge of the bed and waited.

The aroma of coffee slowly wafted through the room.

Her breathing became irregular. She blinked. Caught sight of him, rubbed her face and stretched with exaggerated, embarrassed movements. It was like someone operating a dimmer switch, and the light shining out of her eyes grew stronger and stronger until the smile reached her lips.

'Good morning,' he said.

'Good morning.'

'Breakfast?'

'Mmm.' Her smile grew broader. 'Don't you want any?'

'I'll wait. I'll make do with one of these if that's alright.' He produced a packet of cigarettes.

'You smoke too much,' she said.

'I always do after I've been boozing. Nicotine curbs the craving.'

She tasted the coffee. 'Isn't that a paradox?'

'What?'

'You who were so frightened of losing your freedom becoming an alcoholic.'

'True.' He opened the window, lit a cigarette and lay down beside her on the bed.

'Is that what frightens you about me?' she asked, snuggling up to him. 'That I will deprive you of your freedom? Is that why… you don't want… to make love to me?'

'No, Martine.' Harry took a drag of the cigarette, grimaced and eyed it with disapproval. 'It's because you are frightened.'

He felt her stiffen.

'Am I frightened?' she asked with surprise in her voice.

'Yes. And I would have been, too, if I were you. I've never been able to understand how women have the courage to share roof and bed with those who are, physically, their complete masters.' He stubbed out his cigarette in the plate on the bedside table. 'Men would never dare.'

'What makes you think I'm frightened?'

'I can sense it. You take the intiative and want to be in charge. But mostly because you're frightened what might happen if you let me take charge. And that's fine, but I don't want you to do it if you're frightened.'

'But it's not up to you to decide whether I want it or not!' she burst out. 'Even if I am frightened.'

Harry looked at her. Without warning she flung her arms around him and hid her face in his neck.

'You must think I'm quite strange,' she said.

'Not at all,' said Harry.

She held him tight. Squeezed him.

'What if I was always frightened?' she whispered. 'What if I never

…' She paused.

Harry waited.

'Something happened,' she said. 'I don't know what.'

And waited.

'Yes, I know what,' she said. 'I was raped. Here on this farm many years ago. And I kind of went to pieces.'

The cold scream of a crow in the woods rent the silence.

'Do you want…?'

'No, I don't want to talk about it. There's not very much to talk about, anyway. It's a long time ago and I'm in one piece now. I'm just

…' she snuggled up to him again, '… a tiny bit frightened.'

'Did you report it?'

'No. I wasn't up to it.'

'I know it's tough, but you should have done.'

She smiled. 'Yes, I've heard you should. Because another girl's next, isn't that right?'

'This is no joke, Martine.'

'Sorry, Daddy.'

Harry shrugged. 'I don't know if crime pays, but I do know it repeats itself.'

'Because it's in your genes, right?'

'That I don't know.'

'Have you read the research into adoption? It shows that children with criminal parents who grow up in a normal family with other children, unaware that they're adopted, have a much greater chance of turning out to be criminals than the other children in the family. So there has to be a criminal gene.'

'Yes, I've read that,' Harry said. 'Behavioural patterns may be hereditary. But I prefer to believe that in our own way each of us is infamous.'

'You think we're programmed creatures of habit?' She curled a finger and tickled Harry under the chin.

'I think we throw everything into one great calculation, lust and fear and excitement and greed and all that kind of thing. And the brain is brilliant. It computes away and almost never makes a mistake; that's why it produces the same answers every time.'

Martine propped herself up on one elbow and gazed down at Harry. 'And morality and free choice?'

'They're in the great calculation, too.'

'So you think a criminal will always-'

'No, otherwise I couldn't do my job.'

She ran a finger across his forehead. 'So people can still change?'

'That's what I hope anyway. That people learn.'

She rested her forehead on his. 'And what can you learn?'

'You can learn…' he began and was interrupted by her lips touching his, '… not to be lonely. You can learn…' the tip of her tongue caressed the bottom of his lower lip. '… not to be frightened. And you can…'

'Learn to kiss?'

'Yes. But not if the girl has just woken up and has a disgusting white coating on her tongue which…'

Her hand hit his cheek with a smack and her laughter tinkled like ice cubes in a glass. Then her hot tongue found his and she covered him with the duvet; she pulled up his sweater and T-shirt and the skin on her stomach glowed bed-warm and soft against his.

Harry's hand wandered under her top and up her back, felt the shoulder blades that moved under the skin and the muscles that tensed and relaxed as she wriggled towards him.

He unbuttoned her top and held her gaze as he moved his hand over her stomach, over her ribs until the soft skin of his thumb and forefinger was holding her stiff nipple. She panted hot air over him as her open mouth closed on him and they kissed. As she forced her hand down between their hips, he knew that this time he would not be able to stop. Nor did he want to.

'It's ringing,' she said.

'What?'

'The phone in your trousers, it's vibrating.' She began to laugh. 'Feel…'

'Sorry.' Harry dragged the silent phone up from his pocket, leaned over her and put it on the bedside table. But it was on its side and the throbbing display faced him. He tried to ignore it, but it was too late. He had seen that it was Beate.

'Shit,' he breathed. 'Just a moment.'

He sat up and studied Martine's face, which studied his as he listened to Beate. And her face was like a mirror; they seemed to be playing a mime game. Apart from seeing himself, Harry could see his fear, his pain and in the end his resignation reflected in her face.

'What's up?' she asked after he rang off.

'He's dead.'

'Who?'

'Halvorsen. He died in the night. Nine minutes past two. While I was out by the barn.'