Killing Moon

51 Friday

Prim

‘You ought to look more relieved, Harry,’ Aune said. ‘What is it now?’

Øystein and Truls had just left room 618 ahead of him.

Harry looked down at his dying friend. ‘There was an old woman in Los Angeles. She got into some trouble and I’ve been trying to... well, fix things.’

‘Is that why you came home?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I guessed the reason was something other than working for Markus Røed.’

‘Mm. I’ll tell you about it next time, I’d say it’ll be just a psychologist’s cup of tea.’

Aune chuckled and took his friend’s hand. ‘Next time, Harry.’

Harry was completely unprepared for the tears he suddenly felt welling up. He squeezed Ståle’s hand. Didn’t say anything because he knew his voice wouldn’t hold. Buttoned his jacket and walked quickly into the corridor.

Øystein and Truls, standing in front of the lift doors a few metres further along the corridor, turned towards him.

Harry’s phone rang. What would he say if it was the Los Angeles Police? He took out the phone and looked at it. It was Alexandra — he should of course have let her know he wouldn’t make it for the eclipse. He delayed answering while he tried to decide if he could face heading up there. Right now a drink or six on his lonesome in the bar at the Thief seemed much more tempting. No, not that. A lunar eclipse from the roof of the Forensic Medical Institute. That would be nice. As he tapped to take the call, a text message appeared on the screen. It was from Sung-min Larsen.

‘Hi,’ he said, as he began to read the text.

‘Hi, Harry.’

‘Is that you, Alexandra?’

‘Yes.’

‘It was just your voice,’ Harry said, letting his eyes wander over the text message. ‘You sounded so different.’

The cocaine wasn’t analysed at Krimteknisk because they didn’t have the capacity, so it was sent to the Forensic Medical Institute. There it was dealt with by a Helge Forfang, who has also dated and signed the analysis.

Harry felt like his heart had stopped beating. They flickered in front of his eyes, those fragmented pieces that had failed to fit with one another and which now, within a few astonishing seconds, dovetailed. Alexandra, showing him around the Forensic Medical Institute and informing him that when Krimteknisk couldn’t handle the analysis workload, they just sent it up there. Helge plainly telling Harry that the Toxoplasma gondii parasite was his field. Alexandra telling him she had invited Helge to the rooftop party, the sort people just crashed. The post-mortem technician could easily have placed DNA material on the corpses of Susanne and Bertine to steer suspicion towards a particular person, he could have done it in the autopsy room after the bodies were found. But above all: the odour of musk in the autopsy room when Helge had just been in there, and which Harry thought came from the body. The same odour as when Harry leaned closer to Helge, when he had just cut open Susanne Andersen’s eye and which Harry — idiot that he was — thought came from the eye.

Multiple pieces. And they all fitted together to form a mosaic, a large, but clear and sharp picture. And as always when things fell into their proper place, Harry wondered how he had not been able to see it before now.

Alexandra’s voice, so frightened that he had hardly recognised it, was there again.

‘Can you come over here, Harry?’

An imploring tone. Overly so. Not like the Alexandra Sturdza he knew.

‘Where are you?’ Harry asked, playing for time to think.

‘You know that. On the roof of—’

‘The Forensic Medical Institute, right.’ Harry waved towards Øystein and Truls as he backed into 618 again. ‘Are you on your own?’

‘Almost.’

‘Almost?’

‘I told you that Helge and I were going to be here.’

‘Mm.’ Harry drew a deep breath and lowered his voice to almost a whisper. ‘Alexandra?’ Harry sank into the chair next to the bed as Truls and Øystein entered the room.

‘Yes, Harry?’

‘Listen to me carefully now. Don’t so much as bat an eyelid, and just answer yes or no. Can you get away from there without arousing suspicion, say you need to go to the toilet or fetch something?’

No answer. Harry held the phone a little from his ear and the other three in the Aune group inclined their heads towards the Samsung.

‘Alexandra?’ Harry whispered.

‘Yes,’ she said in a toneless voice.

‘Helge is the killer. You need to get away. Out of the building or lock yourself inside somewhere until we arrive. OK?’

There was a crackling noise. And then another voice, a man’s voice.

‘No, Harry. Not OK.’

The voice was familiar but unfamiliar at the same time, like another version of a person you know. Harry took a deep breath. ‘Helge,’ he said. ‘Helge Forfang.’

‘Yes,’ the voice confirmed. It wasn’t just deeper than Harry remembered. It sounded more relaxed, confident. Like it belonged to someone who had already won. ‘Or actually you can call me Prim. Everyone I hated did.’

‘As you wish, Prim. What’s going on?’

‘That’s exactly the right question to ask, Harry. What’s going on is that I’m sitting here with a knife to Alexandra’s throat wondering what the future has in store for the two of us. For the three of us, perhaps, as you’re a part of this too, aren’t you? I realise I’ve been found out, a lost position, as they say in chess. I was holding out, hoping to avoid that, but even if I’d known things would work out this way, I wouldn’t have changed what I’ve done. I’m quite proud of what I’ve accomplished. I think even my uncle will be when he reads about it — if he reads about it. If his parasite-ridden brain manages to cling on to life.’

‘Prim...’

‘No, Harry, I certainly haven’t thought of avoiding punishment for what I’ve done. In fact, I was planning on taking my own life when all this was over, but things have happened. Things that have given me the desire to live on. That’s why I’m interested in negotiating that my punishment is as lenient as possible. But in order to have a bargaining position you need to have something to bargain with, and I have a hostage that I can choose to spare or not. I’m pretty sure you understand, Harry.’

‘The best move you can make to get a more lenient sentence is to let Alexandra go and hand yourself over to the police right away.’

‘The best for you, you mean. Get me out of the way so you have a clear shot.’

‘A clear shot at what, Prim?’

‘Don’t act stupid. A clear shot at Alexandra. You’ve infected her, made her desire you, made her believe that you have something to offer her. Like true love for example. Well, here’s your chance to prove it’s true. What do you say to an exchange, you swapping places with her?’

‘And you’ll let her go?’

‘Of course. Neither of us wants Alexandra to be harmed.’

‘OK. Then I have a suggestion about how to go about it.’

Helge’s laughter was lighter than his voice. ‘Nice try, Harry, but I think we’ll do things according to my plan.’

‘Mm. And that is?’

‘You drive here together with one other person; you park out in front of the building so I can see the two of you — and only the two of you — get out of the car and walk towards the building. I’ll open the door from here. As soon as you get out of the car, I want to see your hands being handcuffed behind your back. Understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘Both of you will take the lift up, walk to the door leading to the roof, open it a crack and let me know you’re there. If you come rushing out, I’ll cut Alex’s throat. You understand that too, right?’

Harry swallowed. ‘Yeah.’

‘So, when I tell you, both of you will back out through the door and onto the roof.’

‘Back out?’

‘That’s how they do it in maximum security prisons, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then you understand. You’ll go first. Eight steps backwards. Then you’ll stop and go down on your knees. Whoever’s with you will take four steps backwards and then kneel. If that’s not done exactly as—’

‘I get it. Eight and four steps backwards.’

‘Good, you’re quick. I’ll put the knife to your throat while Alexandra walks to the door of the roof. Your colleague will accompany her down to the car and they will drive away.’

‘And then?’

‘Then the negotiations can begin.’

There was a pause.

‘I know what you’re thinking, Harry. Why swap a good hostage for a bad one? Why give up a young, innocent woman who both the police and the politicians know will stir much stronger feelings among the public than an ageing, male police detective?’

‘Well...’

‘The answer is simply that I love her, Harry. And to make sure she’s willing to wait for me to be a free man I must demonstrate my true love to her. I think the jury will also see it as a mitigating factor.’

‘I’m sure they will,’ Harry said. ‘Shall we say an hour from now?’

The high-pitched laughter came down the line once more. ‘Another nice try, Harry. Surely you don’t think I’m planning on giving you enough time to alert the Rapid Response Unit and gather half the police force before the exchange?’

‘OK, but we’re some distance away. How much time do we have to get there?’

‘I think you’re lying, Harry. I don’t think you’re that far away. Can you see the moon from where you are?’

Øystein walked quickly to the window. Nodded.

‘Yeah,’ Harry said.

‘Then you can see that the eclipse is under way. When the moon is completely covered, I’ll slit Alexandra’s throat.’

‘But—’

‘If the astronomers’ calculations are correct, you have... let me see... twenty-two minutes. Just one more thing. I have eyes and ears in many places and if I see or hear that the police have been alerted before you arrive, Alexandra dies. OK, hurry up now.’

‘But—’ Harry stopped and held up the phone to let the others know the connection had been broken.

He checked the time. Helge Forfang had given them just long enough; if they took Ring 3 it wouldn’t take more than five or six minutes to the Forensic Medical Institute at Rikshospitalet.

‘Did you all get that?’ he asked.

‘Part of it,’ Aune said.

‘His name’s Helge Forfang, he works at the Forensic Medical Institute and he’s holding a colleague hostage on the roof. He wants to exchange her for me. We have twenty minutes. We can’t contact the police, if we do there’s a good chance of him discovering it. We need to go there now, but it’s just me and one more.’

‘Then I’m coming,’ Truls said firmly.

‘No,’ Aune said just as firmly.

The others looked at him.

‘You heard him, Harry. He’s going to kill you. That’s why he wants you there. He loves her, but he hates you. He’s not going to negotiate. He might have a tenuous grip on reality, but he knows as well as you or me that nobody gets a reduced sentence by bargaining over a hostage.’

‘Maybe,’ Harry said. ‘But even you can’t be sure just how deranged he is, Ståle. He might believe that he can.’

‘That seems unlikely, and you’re planning to risk your life on it?’

Harry shrugged. ‘The clock is ticking, gentlemen. And yes, I think an old, washed-up murder detective instead of a young medical research talent is a plus. It’s simple mathematics.’

‘Exactly!’ Aune said. ‘It’s simple mathematics.’

‘Good, we agree. Truls, you ready to go?’

‘We have a problem,’ Øystein said from the window. He was tapping on his phone. ‘I can see the traffic is at a complete standstill on the road down there. Unusual this late in the evening. And checking the NRK travel website here they’re saying Ring 3 is closed due to smoke from a burning house. That means all the smaller roads are chock-a-block, and speaking as a taxi driver, I can guarantee we won’t make it to Rikshospitalet in twenty minutes. Not thirty either.’

The people in the room, Jibran included, looked at one another.

‘Right,’ Harry said. Glanced at his watch. ‘Truls, would you like to abuse your non-existent authority as a policeman?’

‘I’d love to,’ Truls said.

‘Good. Then let’s go down to A&E and commandeer an ambulance with lights and sirens, what do you say?’

‘Sounds fun.’

‘Stop!’ Aune shouted, slamming his fist on the bedside table, upending a plastic cup and sending water spilling onto the floor. ‘Aren’t you listening to what I’m saying?’