THE WOMAN HAD CLASPED HER HANDS IN FRONT OF HER mouth, and mumbled through her fingers. ‘But what have you done, dear Elias? A vein?’
‘I’m not sure he did anything,’ Harry said, leading her from the bathroom to the front door of the flat. ‘Could I ask you to ring the police station in Stavanger and tell them to send forensics officers? Tell them we have a crime scene here.’
‘Crime scene?’ Her eyes were large and black with shock.
‘Yes, say that. Use the emergency number, 112, if you like. OK?’
‘Y-yes.’
They heard the woman stomping down the stairs to her flat.
‘We’ve got about a quarter of an hour before they get here,’ Harry said. They removed their shoes, put them in the hall and walked into the bathroom in stockinged feet. Harry looked around. The sink was full of long blond hair, and on the bench a tube was squeezed flat.
‘That looks like toothpaste,’ Harry said, bending over the tube, trying not to touch it.
Kaja went closer. ‘Superglue,’ she stated. ‘Strongest there is.’
‘That’s the stuff you shouldn’t get on your fingers, isn’t it?’
‘Works in no time. If your fingers are pressed together for too long, they’ll be stuck. Then you’ll either have to cut them apart or tug until the skin comes off.’
Harry stared first at Kaja. Then at the body in the bath.
‘Bloody hell,’ he said slowly. ‘This can’t be true …’
POB Gunnar Hagen had had his doubts. Perhaps it was the most stupid thing he had done since he came to Police HQ. Forming a group to run an investigation against the ministry’s orders could get him into trouble. Making Harry Hole the leader was asking for trouble. And trouble had just knocked on the door and walked in. Now it was standing in front of him in the shape of Mikael Bellman. And as Hagen listened, he noticed the strange marks on the Kripos POB’s face shining whiter than usual, as if they were illuminated by something red hot inside, cooled fission in a nuclear reactor, a potential explosion that was under control for the moment.
‘I know for certain that Harry Hole and two of his colleagues have been to Lake Lyseren to investigate the murder of Marit Olsen. Beate Lønn from Krimteknisk asked us to carry out a cabin-to-cabin search in the area around an old ropery. One of her officers was said to have found out that the rope used to hang Marit Olsen originates from there. So far so good …’
Mikael Bellman rocked back on his heels. He hadn’t even taken off his floor-length trench coat. Gunnar Hagen steeled himself for what was to follow. Which came in painfully protracted form, with somewhat perplexed intonation.
‘But when we spoke to the officer in Ytre Enebakk, he told me that the herostratic Harry Hole was one of three officers involved in the investigation. Hence, one of your men, Hagen.’
Hagen didn’t answer.
‘I assume you are aware of the consequences of placing yourself above Ministry of Justice orders, Hagen.’
Hagen still didn’t answer, but he met Bellman’s glare.
‘Listen,’ Bellman said, loosening a button on his coat and sitting down after all. ‘I like you, Hagen. I think you’re a good policeman, and I will need good men.’
‘When Kripos has total power, you mean?’
‘Exactly. I could benefit from having someone like you in a prominent position. You have a military academy background, you know the importance of thinking tactically, of avoiding battles you can’t win, of realising when retreat is the best way to win …’
Hagen nodded slowly.
‘Good,’ Bellman said, rising to his feet. ‘Let’s say Harry Hole inadvertently found himself by Lake Lyseren; it was a coincidence, had nothing to do with Marit Olsen. And such coincidences are hardly likely to reoccur. Can we agree on that … Gunnar?’
Hagen flinched involuntarily when he heard his first name in the other man’s mouth, like an echo of a first name he himself had once spoken, his predecessor’s, in an attempt to create a joviality for which there was no basis. But he let it go. For he knew that this was the kind of battle Bellman had been talking about. And that, furthermore, he was about to lose the war. And that the conditions of surrender which Bellman had offered him could have been worse. A lot worse.
‘I’ll have a word with Harry,’ he said and took Bellman’s outstretched hand. It was like squeezing marble: hard, cold and lifeless.
Harry took a swig and unhooked the final joint of his forefinger from the handle of the landlady’s translucent coffee cup.
‘So you’re Inspector Harry Hole from Oslo Police District,’ said the man sitting on the opposite side of the landlady’s coffee table. He had introduced himself as Inspector Colbjørnsen, with a ‘c’, and now he repeated Harry’s title, name and affiliation with the stress on Oslo. ‘And what brings Oslo Police to Stavanger, herr Hole?’
‘The usual,’ Harry said. ‘Fresh air, beautiful mountains.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘The fjord. Base jumping from Pulpit Rock, if we have time.’
‘So Oslo have sent us a comedian, have they? You’re participating in an extreme sport, I can tell you that much. Any good reason why we were not informed of this visit?’
Inspector Colbjørnsen’s smile was as thin as his moustache. He was sporting one of those funny little hats only very old men and super-self-aware hipsters have. Harry was reminded of Popeye Doyle in The French Connection. And guessed that Colbjørnsen would not shy away from sucking a lollipop or stopping on his way out of the door with an ‘Oh, just one more thing’.
‘I reckon there must be a fax at the bottom of the in tray,’ Harry said, looking up at the man in the white outfit as he came in. The material of the forensics officer’s overalls rustled as he took off the white hood and plumped down into a chair. He looked straight at Colbjørnsen and muttered a local profanity.
‘Well?’ asked Colbjørnsen.
‘He’s right,’ the crime scene officer said and nodded in Harry’s direction, without glancing at him. ‘The lad up there has been stuck to the bottom of the bath with superglue.’
‘Has been?’ said Colbjørnsen, looking at his subordinate with a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Passive form. Aren’t you a bit premature in ruling out the possibility that Elias Skog did it himself?’
‘And managed to turn on the tap so he would drown in the slowest, most painful manner conceivable?’ Harry suggested. ‘After taping up his mouth so that he couldn’t scream?’
Colbjørnsen sent Harry another razor-thin smile. ‘I’ll tell you when you can interrupt, Oslo.’
‘Stuck fast from top to toe,’ the officer continued. ‘The back of his head was shaved and smeared with glue. The same with his shoulders and back. Buttocks. Arms. Both legs. In other words—’
‘In other words,’ Harry said, ‘when the killer was finished with the glueing job, Elias had been lying there for a while and the adhesive had been hardening. He turned the tap a little way and left Elias Skog to a slow death by drowning. And Elias began his fight against time and death. The water rose slowly but his strength was ebbing away. Until mortal fear had him in its grip and gave him the energy for a last desperate attempt to pull himself free. And he did. He freed the strongest of his limbs from the bottom of the bathtub. His right leg. He simply tore it off and you can see the skin left on the bath surface. Blood spurted into the water as Elias banged his foot to rouse the landlady downstairs. And she heard the banging.’
Harry nodded towards the kitchen where Kaja was trying to calm and console the elderly lady. They could hear her bitter sobs.
‘But she misunderstood. She thought her lodger was bonking a girl who had accompanied him home.’
He looked at Colbjørnsen, who had turned pale and no longer exhibited any signs of wanting to interrupt.
‘And all the time Elias was losing blood. A lot of blood. All the skin from his leg was gone. He became weaker, more tired. In the end, his determination began to fade. He gave up. Perhaps he was already unconscious from loss of blood as the water rose into his nostrils.’ Harry fixed his eyes on Colbjørnsen. ‘Or perhaps not.’
Colbjørnsen’s Adam’s apple was running a shuttle service.
Harry looked down at the dregs in the coffee cup. ‘And now I think Detective Solness and I should thank you for your hospitality and return to Oslo. Should you have any more questions, you can reach me here.’ Harry jotted down a number in the margin of a newspaper, tore off a section and passed it over the table. Then he got to his feet.
‘But …’ said Colbjørnsen, getting to his feet as well. Harry towered twenty centimetres over him. ‘What was it you wanted with Elias Skog?’
‘To save him,’ Harry said, buttoning up his coat.
‘Save? Was he mixed up in something? Wait, Hole, we have to get to the bottom of this.’ But there was no longer the same authority in Colbjørnsen’s use of the imperative form.
‘I’m sure you officers in the Stavanger force are perfectly capable of working this out for yourselves,’ Harry said, walking to the kitchen door and motioning to Kaja that they were leaving. ‘If not, I can recommend Kripos. Say hello to Mikael Bellman from me, if you have to.’
‘Save him from what?’
‘From what we were unable to save him from,’ Harry said.
In the taxi on the way to Sola, Harry stared out of the window at the rain hammering down on the unnaturally green fields. Kaja didn’t say a word. For which he was grateful.