The Redbreast

59

Moller's Office. 25 April 2000.

The first spring offensive came late. It wasn't until the end of March that the gutters began to gurgle and flow. By April all the snow had disappeared as far as Sognsvann. But then the spring had to retreat again. The snow came swirling down and lay in huge drifts, even in the centre of town, and weeks passed before the sun melted it again. Dogs' turds and refuse from the previous year lay stinking in the streets; the wind picked up speed across the open stretches in Gronlandsleiret and by Galleri Oslo, swept up the sand and made people go round rubbing their eyes and spitting. The talk of the town was the single mother who would perhaps become Queen one day, the European football championship and the unseasonal weather. At Police HQ, the talk was about what people did over Easter and the miserable increase in pay, and they went on as if everything was as before.

Everything was not as before.

Harry sat in his office with his feet on the table, looking out at the cloudless day, the retired ladies in their ugly hats out for the morning and taking up the whole of the pavement, delivery vans going through the lights on amber, all the small details which lent the town the false veneer of normality. He had been wondering about that for some time now-if he was the only one who was not allowing himself to be duped. It was six weeks since they had buried Ellen, but when he looked out, he saw no change.

There was a knock at the door. Harry didn't answer, but it opened anyway. It was the head of Crime Squad, Bjarne Moller.

'I heard you were back.'

Harry watched one of the red buses glide into a bus stop. The advertisement on the side of the vehicle was for Storebrand Life Insurance.

'Can you tell me, boss,' he asked, 'why they call it life insurance when they obviously mean death insurance?'

Moller sighed and perched on the edge of the desk.

'Why haven't you got an extra chair in here, Harry?'

'If people don't sit down, they get to the point quicker.' He was still staring out of the window.

'We missed you at the funeral, Harry.'

I had changed my clothes,' Harry said, more to himself than Moller. 'I'm sure I was on my way, too. When I looked up and caught sight of the miserable gathering around me, I even thought for a moment that I had arrived. Until I saw Maja standing there in her pinny and waiting for my order.'

'I guessed it was something like that.'

A dog wandered across the brown lawn with its nose along the ground and its tail in the air. At least someone appreciated spring in Oslo.

'What happened then?' Moller asked. 'We haven't seen much of you for a while.'

Harry gave a shrug.

'I was busy. I've got a new lodger-a one-winged great tit. And I sat listening to old messages on my answerphone. It turned out all the messages I've been left over the last two years fit on to one thirty-minute tape. And they were all from Ellen. Sad, isn't it? Well, perhaps not so sad. The only sad thing is that I wasn't at home when she made her last call. Did you know that Ellen had found him?'

For the first time since Moller had come in Harry turned round to face him.

'You do remember Ellen, don't you?' Moller sighed.

'We all remember Ellen, Harry. And I remember the message she left on your answerphone, and you telling Kripos you thought this was a reference to the middleman in the arms deal. Because we haven't managed to catch the killer doesn't mean we've forgotten her, Harry. Kripos and the Crime Squad have been on the go for weeks, we've hardly slept. If you had come to work, perhaps you would have seen how hard we were working.'

Moller immediately regretted what he had said. 'I didn't mean. ..'

'Yes, you did. And, of course, you're right.'

Harry ran his hand across his face.

'Last night I listened to one of her messages. I have no idea why she rang. The message was full of advice about the things she thought I should eat and concluded by reminding me to feed small birds, to do stretching exercises after training and to remember Ekman and Friesen. Do you know who Ekman and Friesen are?'

Moller repeated his shake of the head.

'They are two psychologists who have discovered that when you smile the facial muscles set off some chemical reactions in your brain, which gives you a more positive attitude towards the world around you, makes you more satisfied with your existence. What they did was to prove the old adage that if you smile at the world, the whole world smiles at you. For a while she got me to believe that.'

He looked up at Moller.

'Sad or what?'

'So sad.'

They broke into smiles and sat without speaking.

'I can see from your face that you've come to tell me something, boss. What is it?'

Moller jumped down from the desk and started pacing the room.

'The list of thirty-four baldie suspects was reduced to twelve after we checked their alibis. OK?'

'OK.'

'We can determine the blood type of the owner of the cap from the DNA tests on the skin particles we found. Four of the twelve have the same blood type. We took blood samples from these four and sent them for DNA testing. The results came today.'

'And?'

'Nada!

The office went quiet. All that could be heard was Moller's rubber soles, which made a little squeak every time he did an about-turn.

'And Kripos have rejected the theory that Ellen's boyfriend did it?' Harry asked.

'We checked his DNA too.'

'So we're back to square one?'

'More or less, yes.'

Harry faced the window again. A flock of thrushes took off from a large elm tree and flew west, towards the Plaza Hotel.

'Perhaps the cap is meant to mislead us?' Harry said. 'It doesn't make sense to me that a man who leaves no other traces and who covers over his boot prints is so clumsy that he could lose his cap just a few metres from the victim.'

'Maybe. But the blood on the cap is Ellen's. We have established that much.'

Harry's attention was caught by the dog returning, sniffing at the same trail. It stopped roughly in the middle of the lawn, stood for a moment with its nose on the ground, undecided, before taking a decision, going off to the left and disappearing from view.

'We have to follow the cap,' Harry said. 'As well as the convictions, check anyone who has been brought in for or charged with GBH. Over the last ten years. Include Akershus too. And make sure that -'

'Harry

'What is it?'

'You don't work for Crime Squad now. And anyway, the investigation is being led by Kripos. You're asking me to tread on their toes.'

Harry didn't say a word. Just nodded slowly. His gaze was fixed on somewhere in Ekeberg.

'Harry?'

'Have you ever thought you should be somewhere else, boss? I mean, just look at this shit spring.'

Moller stopped pacing and smiled.

'Since you ask, I've always thought that Bergen could be a wonderful town to live in. For the kids and so on, you know.’

‘But you'd still be a policeman, wouldn't you?’

‘Of course.'

'Because people like us are no good at anything else, are we?'

Moller rolled back his shoulders. 'Maybe not.'

'But Ellen was good at other things. I often thought what a waste of human resources it was having her work for the police. Catching naughty boys and girls. That's enough for the likes of us, but not for her. Do you know what I mean?'

Moller went over to the window and stood beside Harry.

'It'll be better when we get into May,' he said.

'Mm,' Harry said.

The clock on Gronland church struck two.

'I'll see if I can have Halvorsen put on to the case,' Moller said.