Nemesis

7

White King

Harry nodded to one of the regulars and sat down at a table under the narrow, wavy window panes looking out onto Waldemar Thranes gate. On the wall behind him hung a large painting of a sunny day in Youngstorget with women holding parasols and being cheerily greeted by men promenading in top hats. The contrast with the forever autumnally gloomy light and the almost devout afternoon quiet in Restaurant Schrшder could not have been greater.

'Nice that you could come,' Harry said to the corpulent man already sitting at the table. It was easy to see he was not one of the regulars. Not by the elegant tweed jacket, nor by the bow tie with red dots, but because he was stirring a white mug of tea on a cloth smelling of beer and perforated with blackened cigarette burns. The unlikely customer was Stеle Aune, a psychologist, one of the country's finest in his field and an expert to whom the police had had frequent recourse. Sometimes with pleasure and sometimes regret, as Aune was a thoroughly upright man who preserved his integrity and in a court of law never pronounced on matters which he could not support to the hilt with scientific evidence. However, since there is little evidence for anything in psychology, it often happened that the prosecution witness became the defence's best friend, the doubts he sowed generally working in favour of the accused. Harry, in his capacity as a police officer, had used Aune's expertise in murder cases for so long that he regarded him as a colleague. In his capacity as an alcoholic, Harry had put himself so totally in the hands of this warm-hearted, clever and becomingly arrogant man that-if cornered-he would have called him a friend.

'So this is your refuge?' Aune said.

'Yes,' Harry said, raising an eyebrow to Maja at the counter, who responded at once by scuttling through the swing doors into the kitchen.

'And what have you got there?'

'Japone. Chilli.'

A bead of sweat rolled down Harry's nose, clung for a second to the tip, then fell onto the tablecloth. Aune studied the wet stain with amazement.

'Sluggish thermostat,' Harry said. 'I've been in the gym.'

Aune screwed up his nose. 'As a man of science, I ought to applaud you, I suppose, but as a philosopher I would question putting your body through that kind of unpleasantness.'

A steel coffee jug and a mug landed in front of Harry. 'Thanks, Maja.'

'Pangs of guilt,' Aune said. 'Some people can only deal with it by punishing themselves. Like when you go to pieces, Harry. In your case alcohol isn't a refuge but the ultimate way to punish yourself.'

'Thank you. I've heard you put forward that diagnosis before.'

'Is that why you train so hard? Bad conscience?'

Harry shrugged.

Aune lowered his voice: 'Is Ellen playing on your mind?'

Harry's eyes shot up to meet Aune's. He put the mug of coffee to his lips slowly and took a long drink before putting it down again with a grimace. 'No, it's not the Ellen Gjelten case. We're getting nowhere, but it's not because we've done a bad job. That I do know. Something will turn up. We just have to bide our time.'

'Good,' Aune said. 'It's not your fault Ellen was killed. Keep that uppermost in your mind. And don't forget: all your colleagues consider that the right man was arrested.'

'Maybe, maybe not. He's dead and can't answer.'

'Don't let it become an idйe fixe, Harry.' Aune poked two fingers into the pocket of his tweed waistcoat, pulled out a silver pocket watch and cast a rapid glance at it. 'But I scarcely imagine you wanted to speak about guilt?'

'No, I didn't.' Harry took a wad of photographs from his inside pocket. 'I'd like to know what you think about these.'

Aune held out his hand and began to leaf through the pile. 'Looks like a bank raid. My understanding is this is not a Crime Squad matter.'

'You'll understand when you see the next picture.'

'Indeed? He's holding up one finger to the camera.'

'Sorry, the next one.'

'Ooh. Does she…?'

'Yes, you can hardly see the flame as it's an AG3, but he has just fired. Look there, the bullet has just entered the woman's forehead. In the next picture it exits the back of her head and bores into the woodwork beside the glass partition.'

Aune put down the photos. 'Why do you always have to show me grisly pictures, Harry?'

'So that you know what we're talking about. Look at the next one.'

Aune sighed.

'The robber's got his money there,' Harry said, pointing. 'All he has to do now is escape. He's a pro, calm, precise, and there's no reason to intimidate anyone or force anyone to do anything. Yet he opts to delay his escape for a few seconds to shoot the bank cashier. Simply because the branch manager was six seconds too slow emptying the ATM.'

Aune formed slow figures of eight in his tea with the spoon. 'And now you're wondering what his motive is?'

'Well, there's always a motive, but it's difficult to know which side of rationality to look. First reactions?'

'Serious personality disorder.'

'But everything else he does seems so rational.'

'A personality disorder doesn't mean he is stupid. Sufferers are just as good, frequently better, at achieving their aims. What distinguishes them from us is that they want different things.'

'What about drugs? Is there a drug which can make an otherwise normal person so aggressive that he wants to kill?'

Aune shook his head. 'Drugs will only emphasise or weaken latent tendencies. A drunk who kills his wife also has a propensity to beat her when sober. Wilful murders like this one are almost always committed by people with a particular predisposition.'

'So what you're saying is that this guy is barking?'

'Or pre-programmed.'

'Pre-programmed?'

Aune nodded in assent. 'Do you remember the robber who was never caught, Raskol Baxhet?'

Harry shook his head.

'Gypsy,' Aune said. 'There were rumours going round about this mysterious figure for a number of years. He was supposed to be the real brains behind all the major robberies of security vans and financial institutions in Oslo in the eighties. It took a number of years for the police to accept that he actually existed and even then they never managed to produce any evidence against him.'

'Now I have a vague recollection,' Harry said. 'But I thought he'd been arrested.'

'False. The closest they got was two robbers who pledged they would give evidence against Raskol, but they disappeared under curious circumstances.'

'Not unusual,' Harry said, taking out a packet of Camel cigarettes.

'It's unusual when they're in prison.'

Harry gave a low whistle. 'I still think that's where he ended up.'

'That is true,' Aune said. 'But he wasn't arrested. Raskol gave himself up. One day he appears at the Police HQ reception desk, saying he wants to confess to a string of old bank robberies. Naturally, this creates a tremendous commotion. No one understands a thing, and Raskol refuses to explain why he is giving himself up. Before the case comes to court, they ring me up to check he is of sound mind and that his confessions will stand up. Raskol agrees to talk to me on two conditions. One, that we play a game of chess-don't ask me how he knew I was an active player. And, two, that I take a French translation of The Art of War with me, an ancient Chinese book about military strategy.'

Aune opened a box of Nobel Petit cigarillos.

'I had the book sent from Paris and took a chess set along. I was let into his cell and greeted a man with all the outward appearance of a monk. He asked if he could borrow my pen, flicked through the book and with a jerk of his head indicated that I could set out the board. I put the pieces in position and led with Rйti's opening-you don't attack your opponent until you control the centre, frequently effective against medium-calibre players. Now it's impossible to see from a single move that this is what I'm thinking, but this gypsy peers over the book at the board, strokes his goatee, looks at me with a knowing smile, makes a note in the book…'

A silver lighter bursts into flame at the end of the cigarillo.

'…and continues to read. So I say: Aren't you going to make a move? I watch his hand scribbling away with my pen as he answers: I don't need to. I'm writing down how this game will finish, move for move. You will knock over your king. I explain that it is impossible for him to know how the game will develop after just one move. Shall we have a bet? he says. I try to laugh it off, but he is insistent. So I agree to bet a hundred to put him into a benevolent frame of mind for my interview. He demands to see the note and I have to place it beside the board where he can see it. He raises his hand as if to make his move, then things happen very fast.'

'Lightning chess?'

Aune smiled and, deep in thought, exhaled a ring of smoke towards the ceiling. 'The next moment I was held in a vice-like grip with my head forced backwards so that I was looking up at the ceiling, and a voice whispered into my ear: Can you feel the blade, Gadjo? Of course I could feel it, the sharp, razor-thin steel pressed against my larynx, straining to cut through the skin. Have you ever experienced that feeling, Harry?'

Harry's brain raced through the register of related experiences, but failed to find anything altogether identical. He shook his head.

'It felt, to quote a number of my patients, rank. I was so frightened I was on the point of urinating in my trousers. Then he whispered in my ear: Knock over the king, Aune. He slackened his grip a little so that I could raise my arm and I sent my pieces flying. Then, equally abruptly, he let me go. He returned to his side of the table and waited for me to get on my feet and regain control of my breathing. What the hell was that? I groaned. That was a bank robbery, he answered. First the plan and then the execution. Then he showed me what he had written in the book. All I could see was my solitary move and White king capitulates. Then he asked: Does that answer your questions, Aune?'

'What did you say?'

'Nothing. I yelled for the guard to come. However, before he came, I asked Raskol one last question because I knew I would drive myself crazy thinking about it if I didn't get an answer there and then. I said: Would you have done it? Would you have cut my throat if I hadn't capitulated? Just to win an idiotic bet?'

'And what did he answer?'

'He smiled and asked if I knew what pre-programming was.'

'Yes?'

'That was all. The door opened and I left.'

'But what did he mean by pre-programming?'

Aune pushed his mug away. 'You can pre-programme your brain to follow a particular pattern of behaviour. The brain will overrule other impulses and follow the predetermined rules, come what may. Useful in situations when the brain's natural impulse is to panic. Such as when the parachute doesn't open. Then, I hope, parachutists have pre-programmed emergency procedures.'

'Or soldiers fighting.'

'Precisely. There are, however, methods which can programme humans to such a degree that they go into a kind of trance, unaffected by even extreme external influences, and they become living robots. The fact is that this is every general's wet dream, frighteningly easy, provided you know the necessary techniques.'

'Are you talking about hypnosis?'

'I like to call it pre-programming. There is less mystification. It is a matter of opening and closing routes for impulses. If you're clever, you can easily pre-programme yourself, so-called self-hypnosis. If Raskol had pre-programmed himself to kill me if I hadn't capitulated, he would have prevented himself from changing his mind.'

'But he didn't kill you, did he.'

'All programs have an escape button, a password which brings you out of the trance. In this case, it may have been knocking down the white king.'

'Mm. Fascinating.'

'And now I've come to my point…'

'I think I know it,' Harry said. 'The bank robber in the photo may have pre-programmed himself to shoot if the branch manager didn't keep to the time limit.'

'The rules of pre-programming have to be simple,' Aune said, dropping the cigarillo in the mug and putting the saucer on top. 'In order for you to fall into a trance they have to form a small yet logical closed system which rejects other thoughts.'

Harry put a fifty-kroner note beside the coffee mug and stood up. Aune watched in silence as Harry gathered up all the photographs before saying: 'You don't believe a word I've said, do you.'

'No.'

Aune stood up and buttoned up his jacket over his stomach. 'So, what do you believe?'

'I believe what experience has taught me,' Harry said. 'That villains by and large are as stupid as I am, go for easy options and have uncomplicated motives. In a nutshell, that things are very much what they seem to be. I would bet this robber was either out of his skull or panic-stricken. What he did was senseless and from that I conclude he is stupid. Take the gypsy whom you clearly consider to be very smart. How much time did he get in the slammer for attacking you with a knife?'

'Nothing,' Aune said with a sardonic smile.

'Eh?'

'They never found a knife.'

'I thought you said you were locked in his cell.'

'Have you ever been lying on your stomach on the beach and your chums tell you to lie still because they are holding red hot coals over your back? And then you hear someone say whoops and the next second you can feel the coals burning your back?'

Harry's brain sorted through his holiday memories. It didn't take long. 'No.'

'And it turned out it was a trick; it was just ice cubes?'

'And?'

Aune sighed. 'Now and then I wonder how you've spent the thirty-five years you maintain you've been alive, Harry.'

Harry ran a hand across his face. He was tired. 'OK, Aune, what's your point?'

'My point is that a good manipulator can make you believe that the edge of a hundred-kroner note is the edge of a knife.'

The blonde looked Harry straight in the eye and promised him sun although it would cloud over in the course of the day. Harry pressed the OFF button and the picture shrank into a small luminous dot in the centre of the 14-inch screen. When he closed his eyes, however, it was the image of Stine Grette which remained on his retina, and he heard the echo of the reporter's '…the police have no suspects in the case so far'.

He opened his eyes again and studied the reflection in the dead screen. Himself, the old green wing chair from Elevator and the bare coffee table, embellished with glass and bottle rings. Everything was the same. The portable TV had stood on the shelf between the Lonely Planet guide to Thailand and a Norwegian road atlas for as long as he had lived here, and it hadn't travelled one metre for several years. He had read about the Seven Year Itch and how people typically began to long for somewhere new to live. Or a new job. Or a new partner. He hadn't noticed anything, and he had had the same job for almost ten years. Harry looked at his watch. Eight o'clock, Anna had said.

As far as partners were concerned, his relationships had never lasted long enough for him to test the theory. Apart from the two which might have lasted that long, Harry's romances had terminated because of what he called the Six Week Itch. Whether his reluctance to get involved was due to his being rewarded with tragedies on the two occasions he had loved a woman, he didn't know. Or should his two unswerving loves-murder investigations and alcohol-bear the blame? At any rate, before he met Rakel two years ago, he had begun to lean towards the view that he wasn't cut out for long-term relationships. He thought of her large, cool bedroom in Holmenkollen. The coded grunts they made at the breakfast table. Oleg's drawing on the refrigerator door, three people holding hands, one of whom was a towering figure, as high as the yellow sun in the clear blue sky, with HARY written underneath.

Harry got up from the chair, found the slip of paper with her telephone number on beside the answerphone and tapped the number into his mobile. It rang four times before there was an answer at the other end.

'Hi, Harry.'

'Hi. How did you know it was me?'

A low, deep laugh. 'Where have you been these last years, Harry?'

'Here. And there. Why's that? Have I said something stupid again?'

She laughed even louder.

'Aha, you can see my number on the display. How stupid I am.'

Harry could hear how lame he sounded, but it didn't matter. The most important thing was to say what he had to and ring off. End of story. 'Listen, Anna, about that date of ours this evening…'

'Don't be childish, Harry!'

'Childish?'

'I'm in the process of making the curry of the millennium. And if you're frightened I'm going to seduce you, I have to disappoint you. I just think we owe each other a couple of hours over a dinner to chat. Remember old times. Clear up a few misunderstandings. Or perhaps not. Maybe have a laugh. Can you remember japone chilli?'

'Well, yes.'

'Great. Eight sharp then, OK?'

'Well…'

'Good.'

Harry stood staring at the phone.