Cockroaches(27)

“So what are you going on about?”

“I’m saying that’s the way the clues are pointing right now. But the Chief of Police here totally freaked out when I mentioned opium. It turns out this area is in utter chaos. The Chief had no intention of opening a can of worms, as it were. So I thought, to start with, I would rule out some possible theories. Such as the ambassador being involved in criminality. In child pornography, for example.”

The line went quiet at the other end.

“There is no reason to believe …” Torhus started, but the rest was drowned in interference.

“Repeat that please.”

“There’s no reason to believe that Molnes was a pedophile, if that’s what you’re referring to.”

“Eh? There’s no reason to believe? You’re not talking to the press now, Torhus. I have to know these things in order to make any progress.”

There was another pause, and for a moment Harry thought the connection had gone. Then Torhus’s voice was back, and even on a bad line from the other side of the globe Harry could feel the cold.

“I’ll tell you all you need to know, Hole. All you need to know, Hole, is you have to tie things up. I don’t give a shit what the ambassador has been involved in—as far as I’m concerned he could be a heroin smuggler and a pederast, so long as neither the press nor anyone else gets a sniff of it. If there is any further scandal, regardless of what it is, you will be held personally responsible. Have I made myself clear, Hole, or do you need to know more?”

Torhus hadn’t even paused to draw breath.

Harry kicked the desk, making the phone and his colleagues beside him jump.

“I hear you loud and clear,” Harry said between clenched teeth. “But you listen to me now.” Harry paused to take a deep breath. A beer, just one beer. He put a cigarette between his lips and tried to dispel the thought. “If Molnes is mixed up in anything he is hardly likely to be the only Norwegian who is. I very much doubt he’d have had key contacts in the Thai underworld in the short time he’d been here. Did you read about the Norwegian they caught with boys in a hotel room in Pattaya? The police down here like that sort of thing. They get good coverage and pedophiles are easier to catch than the heroin gangs. Suppose the Thai police can already smell an easy catch, but they wait until this case is formally closed and I’ve gone home. Norwegian newspapers will send a pack of reporters and before you know it the ambassador’s name has cropped up. If we can catch these men now while we have an agreement with the Thai police that this is all hush-hush, perhaps we can avoid a scandal of that nature.”

Harry could hear the Director was getting the picture.

“What do you want?”

“I’ve been here for just over twenty-four hours and I can tell this case is going nowhere, and that’s because there’s a cover-up. I want to know what you’re not telling me. What you’ve got on Molnes and what he was involved in.”

“You know what you need to know. There’s no more. Is that so hard to grasp?” Torhus groaned. “What are you actually trying to achieve, Hole? I thought you would be just as keen as we are to get this wrapped up quickly.”

“I’m a police officer, and I’m trying to do my job, Torhus.”

Torhus laughed. “Very moving, Hole. But remember I know a couple of things about you, so I don’t buy your I’m-only-an-honest-cop spiel.”

Harry coughed down the receiver and heard the echoes return like muffled gunshots. He mumbled something.

“What?”

“I said this is a bad line. Give it some thought, Torhus, and ring me when you have something to tell me.”


Harry woke up with a start, jumped out of bed and just reached the bathroom before vomiting. He sat on the toilet; it was coming out of both ends now. The sweat was pouring off him, even though he felt cold in the room.

Coming off the booze was worse last time, he told himself. It’ll get better. A lot better, he hoped.

He had injected himself in the buttock with vitamin B before going to bed, and it had stung like hell. He was reminded of Vera, a prostitute in Oslo, who had been on heroin for fifteen years. Once she had told him she still fainted when she inserted the needle.

He saw something move in the gloom, on the sink, a couple of antennae swinging to and fro. A cockroach. It was the size of a thumb and had an orange stripe on its back. He had never seen one like this before, but that was perhaps not so peculiar—he had read there were more than three thousand different types of cockroach. He had also read that they hide when they hear the vibrations of someone approaching and that for every cockroach you can see there are at least ten hiding. That meant they were everywhere. How much does a cockroach weigh? Ten grams? If there were more than a hundred of them in cracks and behind tables that would mean there was at least a kilo of cockroaches in the room. He shivered. It was cold comfort knowing they were more frightened than he was. Sometimes he had the feeling alcohol had done him more good than harm. He closed his eyes and tried not to think.