Nemesis

4

The Echo

'SNOW?'

Harry shouted into his mobile phone as he hurried along the pavement.

'Yes, really,' Rakel said over a bad line from Moscow. This was followed by a hissy echo: '…eally.'

'Hello?'

'It's freezing here…ere. Inside and outside…ide.'

'And in the court?'

'Well below freezing there, too. When we lived here, his mother even said I should take Oleg away. Now she's sitting with the others and sending me such hateful scowls…owls.'

'How's the case going?'

'How should I know?'

'Well. First of all, you studied law. Secondly, you speak Russian.'

'Harry. In common with 150 million Russians I don't understand a thing about the legal system here, OK?…kay?'

'OK. How's Oleg taking it?'

Harry repeated his question without getting an answer and held up the display to see if he had lost the connection, but the seconds on the conversation timer were ticking away. He put the phone to his ear again.

'Hello?'

'Hello, Harry, I can hear you…oooh. I miss you so…ohh. What's with the ha ha?…aah.'

'There's an echo on the line. Lots of oohs, ohs and aahs.'

Harry had reached the main door, pulled out a key and unlocked the hall entrance.

'Do you think I'm too pushy, Harry?'

'Of course not.'

Harry nodded to Ali, who was trying to manoeuvre a kicksled through the cellar door. 'I love you. Are you there? I love you! Hello?'

Harry looked up from the dead phone in bewilderment and noticed his Pakistani neighbour's beaming smile.

'Yes, yes, you, too, Ali,' he mumbled as he laboriously tapped in Rakel's number again.

'Call register,' Ali said.

'Hey?'

'Nothing. Tell me if you want to let your cellar room. You don't use it much, do you?'

'Have I got a storeroom in the cellar?'

Ali rolled his eyes. 'How long have you lived here, Harry?'

'I said…I love you.'

Ali gave Harry a searching look. Harry waved goodbye to Ali and gestured that he had got through. He jogged upstairs with the key in front of him like a divining rod.

'That's it, we can talk now,' Harry said as he went through the doorway into his sparsely furnished yet tidy two-room flat, bought for a song some time in the nineties when the housing market was rock bottom. Every so often he thought the flat had used up his share of luck for the rest of his life.

'I wish you were here with us, Harry. Oleg misses you, too.'

'Did he say that?'

'He doesn't need to say it. In that respect, you're very similar.'

'You, I've just told you I love you. Three times. With the neighbour listening. Do you know what that sort of thing does to a man?'

Rakel laughed. Harry loved her laugh, had done so from the very first moment he heard it. Instinctively, he knew he would do anything to hear it more often. Every day for preference.

He kicked off his shoes and smiled when he saw the answerphone in the corridor blinking to tell him there was a message. He didn't need to be psychic to know it was from Rakel earlier in the day. No one else phoned Harry Hole at home.

'How do you know you love me then?' Rakel cooed. The echo was gone.

'I can feel myself getting hot in the…what's it called?'

'Heart?'

'No, it's back a bit and under the heart. Kidneys? Liver? Spleen? Yes, that's the one. I can feel my spleen heating up.'

Harry wasn't sure if it was sobbing or laughing he could hear at the other end. He pressed PLAY on the answerphone.

'I hope to be home in two weeks,' Rakel said on the mobile before being drowned out by the answerphone:

'Hi, it's me again…'

Harry felt his heart skip a beat and he reacted before thinking. He pressed STOP. But it was as if the echo of the words spoken in the charming, slightly husky woman's voice continued to wash back and forth between the walls.

'What was that?' Rakel asked.

Harry took a deep breath. One thought struggled to reach him before he answered, but it arrived too late: 'Just the radio.' He cleared his throat. 'When you're sure, let me know which flight you'll be on and I'll pick you up.'

'Of course I will,' she said with surprise in her voice.

There was a strained pause.

'I have to hang up now,' Rakel said. 'Shall we talk at eight tonight?'

'Yes. I mean, no. I'll be busy then.'

'Oh? I hope it's something nice for a change.'

'Well,' Harry said with a sharp intake of breath. 'I'm going out with a woman anyway.'

'Who's the lucky person?'

'Beate Lшnn. New officer in the Robberies Unit.'

'And what is the occasion?'

'A chat with Stine Grette's husband. She was shot during the Bogstadveien hold-up I told you about. And with the branch manager.'

'Enjoy yourself. We'll talk tomorrow. Oleg wants to say goodnight first.'

Harry heard small feet running and then excited breathing on the line.

After they had finished speaking, Harry stood in the hall staring at the mirror above the telephone table. If his theory held true, he was now looking at a competent policeman. Two bloodshot eyes, one on each side of a large nose with a network of fine blue veins in a pale, bony face with deep pores. His wrinkles looked like random knife slashes across a wooden beam. How had it happened? In the mirror he saw behind him the wall with the photograph of the suntanned, smiling face of the boy with his sister. But it wasn't lost good looks or lost youth Harry's mind was occupied with, because the thought had finally made its way through now. He was searching his own features for the deceit, the evasion, the cowardice which had just made him break one of the few promises he had made to himself: that he would never, ever, come what may, lie to Rakel. Of all the skerries in the sea for their relationship to founder on, and there were many, lies would not be one. So why had he told a lie? It was true he and Beate were going to meet Stine Grette's husband, but why had he not told her he was going to meet Anna afterwards? An old flame, but so what? It had been a brief stormy affair which had left scars, though no lasting injuries. They were only going to chat over a cup of coffee and tell each other the what-they-did-afterwards stories. And then each go their separate ways.

Harry pressed PLAY on the answerphone to hear the rest of the message. Anna's voice filled the hall: '…look forward to seeing you at M this evening. Just two things. Could you pop into the locksmith's in Vibes gate on the way and pick up the keys I ordered? They're open till seven and I've told them to keep them in your name. And would you mind wearing the jeans you know I like so much?'

Deep, husky laugh. The room seemed to vibrate to the same rhythm. No doubt about it, she had not changed.