The Redbreast

79

Police HQ. 11 May 2000.

Halvorsen was on the telephone when Harry went into the office. He put a finger against his lips to show someone was talking. Harry guessed he was still trying to trace the woman at the Continental, and that could only mean he hadn't had any luck at the Foreign Office. Apart from a pile of case notes on Halvorsen's desk, the office was free of paper. Everything but the Marklin case had been cleared away.

'No,' Halvorsen said. 'Let me know if you hear anything, OK?' He put down the receiver.

'Did you get hold of Aune?' Harry asked, dropping down on to his chair.

Halvorsen nodded and raised two fingers. Two o'clock. Harry consulted his watch. Aune would be there in twenty minutes.

'Get me a picture of Edvard Mosken,' Harry said, picking up the receiver. He tapped in Sindre Fauke's number and they agreed to meet at three. Then he told Halvorsen about Signe Juul's disappearance.

'Do you think it has anything to do with the Brandhaug case?' Halvorsen asked.

'I don't know, but it makes it all the more important that we talk to Aune.'

'Why's that?'

'Because this is beginning to look more and more like the work of someone unhinged. So we need an expert.'

Aune was a big man in many ways. Overweight, almost two metres tall, and he was considered to be the best psychologist in his field. This field was not abnormal psychology, but Aune was a clever man and he had helped Harry on other cases.

He had a friendly, open face and it had often struck Harry that Aune was actually too human, too vulnerable, too alright to be able to operate on the battlefield of the human psyche without being damaged by it. When Harry asked him about this, Aune had replied that of course he was affected, but then who wasn't?

Now he was listening attentively to Harry as he spoke. About the slitting of Hallgrim Dale's throat, the murder of Ellen Gjelten and the assassination of Bernt Brandhaug. Harry told him about Even Juul, who thought they should be looking for a soldier who had fought on the Russian Front, a theory which may have been strengthened by Brandhaug being killed after the report in Dagbladet. Finally, he told him about Signe Juul's disappearance.

Afterwards Aune sat deep in thought. He grunted as he alternated between nodding and shaking his head.

'I regret to say that I am not sure I can help you much,' he said. 'The only thing I have to work on is the message on the mirror. It's reminiscent of a calling card and it is quite normal for serial killers, especially after several killings when they begin to feel secure enough to want to up the ante by provoking the police.'

'Is he a sick man, Aune?'

'Sick is a relative concept. We're all sick. The question is, what degree of functionality do we have with respect to the rules society sets for desirable behaviour? No actions are in themselves symptoms of sickness. You have to look at the context within which these actions are performed. Most people, for instance, are equipped with an impulse control in the midbrain which attempts to prevent us from killing our fellow creatures. This is just one of the evolutionary qualities with which we are equipped to protect our own species. But if you train long enough to overcome these inhibitions, the inhibition is weakened. As with soldiers, for example. If you or I suddenly began to kill, there is a good chance we would become sick. But that is not necessarily the case if you are a contract killer or a… policeman for that matter.'

'So, if we're talking about a soldier-someone who has been fighting for either side during a war-the threshold for killing is much lower than with someone else, assuming both are of sound mind?'

'Yes and no. A soldier is trained to kill in a war situation, and in order for the inhibitions not to kick in, he has to feel that the action of killing is taking place in the same context.'

'So he must feel he is still fighting a war?'

'Put simply, yes. But supposing that is the situation, he can continue killing without being sick in a medical sense. No sicker than any normal soldier, at any rate. Then it is just a matter of a divergent sense of reality, and now we're all skating on thin ice.'

'Why's that?' Halvorsen asked.

'Who is to say what is true or real, moral or immoral? Psychologists? Courts of law? Politicians?'

'Right,' said Harry. 'But there are those who do.'

'Exactly,' Aune said. 'But if you feel that those who have been invested with authority judge you high-handedly or unjustly, in your eyes they lose their moral authority. For instance, if anyone is imprisoned for being a member of a wholly legal party, you look for another judge. You appeal against the sentence to a higher authority, so to speak.'

'"God is my judge",' Harry said.

Aune nodded.

'What do you think that means, Aune?'

'It might mean that he wants to explain his actions. Despite everything, he feels a need to be understood. Most people do, you know.'

Harry dropped in at Schroder's on his way to meet Fauke. It wasn't a busy morning and Maja was sitting at the table under the TV with a cigarette and the newspaper. Harry showed her the picture of Edvard Mosken which Halvorsen had managed to produce in an impressively short time, probably via the authority which had issued an international driver's licence to Mosken two years before.

'I think I've seen that prune face before, yes,' she said. 'But how can I remember where or when? He must have been here a few times since I recognise him. He's not a regular though.'

'Could anyone else have spoken to him?'

'Now you're asking me tricky stuff, Harry'

'Somebody rang from the pay phone here at 12.30 last Monday. I'm not expecting you to remember, but could it have been this person?' Maja shrugged.

'Of course it could. But it could have been Father Christmas too. You know what it's like, Harry'

On his way to Vibes gate Harry rang Halvorsen and asked him to get hold of Edvard Mosken.

'Should I arrest him?'

'No, no. Check his alibis for the Brandhaug murder and Signe Juul's disappearance today'

Sindre Fauke's face was grey when he opened the door to Harry.

'A friend turned up with a bottle of whisky yesterday,' he explained and pulled a face. My body can't take that sort of thing any more. No, if only I were sixty again…'

He laughed and went to take the whistling coffee pot off the stove.

'I read about the murder of this man from the Foreign Office,' he shouted from the kitchen. 'It said in the paper that the police are not ruling out the possibility of a link with what he said about Norwegians at the front. Verdens Gang reckons neo-Nazis were behind it. Do you really believe that?'

'VG might believe that. We don't believe anything and we don't rule out anything either. How's it going with the book?'

'It's going a bit slowly at this minute. But if I finish it, it will open a few people's eyes. That's what I tell myself, anyway, to get myself motivated on days like today.'

Fauke put the coffee on the table between them and sank back into the armchair. He had tied a cold cloth round the pot-an old trick he had learned at the front, he explained with a knowing smile. He was obviously hoping Harry would ask him how the trick worked, but Harry didn't have the time.

'Even Juul's wife has disappeared,' he said.

'Jesus. Run off?'

'Don't think so. Do you know her?'

'I've never met her, but I know a lot about the controversy when Juul was about to get married. She was a nurse at the front and so on. What happened?'

Harry told him about the telephone call and her disappearance.

'We don't know any more than that. I was hoping that you knew her and could give me a lead.'

'Sorry, but…' Fauke stopped to take a sip from his cup of coffee. He seemed to be thinking about something. 'What did you say was written on the mirror?'

'"God is my judge",' Harry said.

'Hm.'

'What are you thinking about?'

'To be frank, I'm not sure myself,' Fauke said, rubbing his unshaven chin.

'Come on, say it.'

'You said that he might want to explain himself, to be understood.’

‘Yes?'

Fauke walked over to the bookcase, pulled out a thick book and began to leaf through.

'Exactly,' he said. 'Just what I thought.'

He passed the book to Harry. It was a Bible dictionary.

'Look under Daniel.'

Harry's eyes ran down the page until he found the name. '"Daniel. Hebrew. God (El) is my judge".'

He looked up at Fauke, who had lifted the pot to pour coffee. 'You're looking for a ghost, Inspector Hole.'