Cockroaches(10)
“I know. That’s why I don’t need to take the shots.”
One of the boys from the hostel further up the street was leaning against the wall and shivering in a tight denim jacket while puffing away at a fag as Harry eased his suitcase into the boot of the taxi.
“Going away?”
“Yep.”
“South?”
“Bangkok.”
“Alone?”
“Yep.”
“Say no more.”
He gave Harry a thumbs-up and winked.
Harry took the ticket from the woman behind the check-in desk and turned.
“Harry Hole?” The man with the steel-rimmed glasses eyed him with a sad smile.
“And you are?”
“Dagfinn Torhus from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We’d like to wish you luck. And assure ourselves that you’ve understood the … delicacy of this assignment. After all, everything has moved with such haste.”
“Thank you for the thought. I’ve understood that it is my job to find a murderer without making too much of a splash. Møller has given me instructions.”
“Good. Discretion is vital. Don’t trust anyone. Not even officials who claim to be working for the Ministry. They might turn out to be from, well, for example, Dagbladet.”
Torhus opened his mouth as if to laugh, but Harry could see he was serious.
“Dagbladet journalists don’t wear the Ministry badge on their lapel, herr Torhus. Or a jacket in January. By the way, I’ve seen from the papers that you’re my contact in the Ministry.”
Torhus nodded, mostly to himself. Then he jutted out his chin and lowered his voice by half a tone.
“Your plane goes soon, so I won’t hold you up much longer. Just listen to what I have to say.”
He removed his hands from his jacket pockets and folded them in front of him.
“How old are you, Hole? Thirty-three? Thirty-four? You still have a career in front of you. I’ve been doing a bit of digging, you see. You’re talented and it’s obvious people high up like you. And protect you. That can carry on for as long as things go well. But it won’t take much for you to land flat on your arse and you could easily drag your pals down with you. And then you’ll find that your so-called friends are suddenly over the hills and far away. So try to stay on your feet, Hole. For everyone’s sake. This is well-meant advice from an old ice-skater.” He smiled with his mouth, but his eyes were studying Harry closely. “You know what, Hole. I always have such a depressing sense of something finishing when I come to Fornebu Airport. Something finishing and something new starting.”
“Really?” Harry said, wondering if he had time for a beer at the bar before the gate closed. “Well, now and then that can be good. A renewal, I mean.”
“Let’s hope so,” Torhus said. “Let us hope so.”
5
Friday, January 10
Harry Hole straightened his sunglasses and looked down the row of taxis outside Don Mueang International Airport. He felt like he had entered a bathroom and someone had just turned on a scalding hot shower. He knew the secret to tackling high humidity was to ignore it. Let the sweat pour down you and think about something else. The light was worse. It pierced the cheap, dark plastic glasses through to his shiny alcoholic eyes, and cranked up the headache that until then had only been rumbling in his temples.
“Meter taxi or 250 baht, sir?”
Harry tried to concentrate on what the taxi driver was saying. The trip had been hell. The bookshop at the airport in Zurich sold only German books, and they had shown Free Willy 2 on the plane.
“Meter’s fine,” Harry said.
A garrulous Dane next to him had chosen to turn a blind eye to the fact that he was plastered and had showered him with advice about how to avoid being cheated in Thailand, clearly an inexhaustible subject of conversation. He must have been of the opinion that Norwegians were charmingly naive people whom it was every Dane’s duty to save from con tricks.
“You have to haggle over everything,” he’d said. “That’s the idea, you know.”
“And what if I don’t?”
“You’ll ruin it for us.”
“Pardon?”
“You’ll be helping to raise prices, to make Thailand more expensive for everyone else.”
Harry had studied the man, who was wearing a beige Marlboro shirt and new leather sandals, and decided to drink some more.
“Surasak Road 111,” Harry said and the driver smiled, put the suitcase in the boot and held the door open for Harry, who crawled in and noticed the wheel was on the right-hand side.
“In Norway we complain about the English insisting on driving on the left,” he said as they drove onto the motorway. “But recently I heard more people in the world drive on the left than on the right. Do you know why?”