Cockroaches(32)

“I’m here from the Norwegian police to make some routine inquiries.”

“I see. Is that normal?”

“You spoke to the ambassador on the day he died, didn’t you?”

Brekke gazed at Harry in surprise. “That’s right. How did you know?”

“We found his mobile phone. Your number was one of the last five he rang. He called at quarter past one.”

Harry studied Brekke carefully, but his face registered no uncertainty or confusion.

“Can we have a chat?”

“Drop by,” Brekke said, conjuring up a business card between index and middle fingers.

“At home or at work?”

“I sleep at home.”

It was impossible to see the little smile playing around the corners of his mouth, but Harry knew it was there nevertheless. As though talking to a detective was just something exciting, something a little out of the ordinary.

“If you’ll excuse me?”

Brekke whispered a few words in Runa’s ear, nodded to Hilde and jogged down to his Porsche. The place was thinning out; Sanphet accompanied Hilde Molnes to the embassy car and Harry was left standing next to Runa.

“There’s a gathering at the embassy,” he said.

“I know. Mum doesn’t feel like going.”

“Right. You’ve probably got family staying.”

“No,” she said.

Harry watched Sanphet close the door after Hilde Molnes and walk around the car.

“Well, you can take a taxi with me, if you’d like.”

Harry could feel his earlobes flush when he heard how that sounded. He had meant to say “if you’d like to go.”

She glanced up at him. Her eyes were black and he didn’t know what they were saying.

“I wouldn’t.” She started to walk toward the embassy car.


Spirits were low and no one said much. Tonje Wiig had invited Harry to the gathering, and they stood in a corner twirling their glasses. Tonje was well down her second Martini. Harry had asked for water, but instead he had been given a sticky, sweet orange drink.

“So you have family at home, Harry?”

“Some,” Harry said, unsure what the sudden change of topic meant.

“Me too,” she said. “Parents, brother and sister. A couple of aunts and uncles, no grandparents. That’s it. And you?”

“Something similar.”

Miss Ao wound her way past them with a tray of drinks. She was wearing a simple, traditional Thai dress with a long slit down the side. He followed her with his eyes. It wasn’t difficult to imagine how the ambassador might have fallen for the temptation.

At the other end of the room, in front of a large map of the world, stood a man rocking on his heels, his legs wide. He was straight-backed, broad-shouldered and his silver-gray hair was cropped like Harry’s. His eyes were hooded, his jaw was set and his hands were folded behind his back. There was a smell of military from a long way off.

“Who’s that?”

“Ivar Løken. The ambassador called him simply LM.”

“Løken? Funny. He wasn’t on the list of employees I was given by Oslo. What does he do?”

“Good question.” She giggled and sipped her drink. “Sorry, Harry—is it all right if I call you Harry?—I must be a bit tipsy. I’ve had so much work and so little sleep over the last few days. He came here last year, just after Molnes. To put it bluntly, he belongs to the part of the Ministry that’s going nowhere.”

“What does that mean?”

“His career has ended in a cul-de-sac. He came from some job in Defense, but at some point there were a couple too many ‘buts’ by his name.”

“Buts?”

“Haven’t you heard the way Ministry people talk about one another? ‘He’s a good diplomat, but he drinks, but he likes women too much’ and so on. What comes after the ‘buts’ is a lot more important than what comes before; it determines how far you can get in the department. That’s why there are so many sanctimonious mediocrities at the top.”

“So what’s his ‘but’ and why is he here?”

“To be honest, I don’t know. He has meetings and writes the odd report for Oslo, but we don’t see much of him. I think he likes to be left alone. Now and then he goes off on trips to Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia with a tent, malaria pills and a rucksack full of photographic equipment. You know the type, don’t you?”

“Maybe. What kind of reports does he write?”

“Don’t know. The ambassador deals with all that.”

“Don’t know? There aren’t that many of you at the embassy. Is it Intelligence?”

“To what end?”