“After a couple of years behind bars you’ll soon have it back.”
“Show Mr. Hole out, Woo.”
The massive body moved with astonishing speed. Harry caught the acrid smell of curry, and before he could lift an arm he was swept off the ground and clasped like a teddy bear someone had just won at the fair. Harry tried to wriggle loose, but the iron grip tightened every time he released air from his lungs, just like a boa constrictor constricts its victim’s supply of air. Everything went black and the sound of traffic became louder. Then finally he was free and hovering in the air. When he opened his eyes he knew he had been unconscious, as though he had been dreaming for a second. He saw a sign covered in Chinese symbols, a bundle of wires between two telegraph poles, a grayish-white sky and a face looking down on him. Then sound returned, and he could hear a stream of words cascading from the face’s mouth. He pointed to the balcony and then to the roof of the tuk-tuk which had been left with a nasty sag.
“How are you, Harry?” Nho waved away the tuk-tuk driver.
Harry peered down at himself. His back hurt and there was something immeasurably sad about bedraggled sports socks on dirty, gray tarmac.
“Well, I wouldn’t have been allowed into Schrøder’s like this. Have you got my shoes?”
Harry could have sworn Nho was biting his tongue to restrain a grin.
* * *
“Sorensen told me to bring an arrest warrant next time,” Nho said once they were back in the car. “Now we’ve got them for violence against a civil servant anyway.”
Harry ran his finger down a long cut on his calf. “We haven’t got them, we’ve got the goon. But perhaps he can tell us something. What is it about you Thais and heights? According to Tonje Wiig I’m the third Norwegian to be thrown out of a house this week.”
“An old mafia modus operandi. They’d rather do that than plug someone with lead. If the police find a guy beneath a window they cannot rule out the possibility that he might have fallen accidentally. Some money changes hands, the case is shelved without anyone being directly criticized and everyone’s happy. Bullet holes complicate matters.”
They stopped at the lights. A wrinkled old Chinese woman sat on a carpet grinning. Her face blurred in the quivering blue air.
15
Sunday, January 12
“What’s a pedophile?”
Ståle Aune sighed deeply on the other end of the line.
“Pedophile? That’s one hell of an opener. The short answer is it’s a person who is sexually attracted to minors.”
“And the slightly more in-depth answer?”
“There’s a lot we don’t know about the phenomenon, but if you spoke to a sexologist he would probably make a distinction between preference-conditioned and situation-conditioned pedophiles. The classic figure with a bag of sweeties in the park is the preference-conditioned. His pedophile interests usually begin in his teens, not necessarily with any external conflict. He identifies with the child, adapts his behavior to the child’s age and can on occasion assume a pseudo-parental role. The sexual activity is usually carefully planned and for him sex is an attempt to solve his life problems. Am I being paid for this?”
“And the situation-conditioned?”
“A more diffuse group. They’re primarily more sexually interested in other adults, and the child tends to be a substitute for someone the pedophile is in conflict with.”
“Tell me more about the guy with the bag of sweeties. How’s he wired?”
“Well, as a rule, pedophiles have low self-esteem and a so-called fragile sexuality. That is, they are uncertain of themselves, they can’t take on adult sexuality and they feel like failures. They think they can only control the situation if they live out their desires with children.”
“And it’s all down to nature and nurture, the usual spiel?”
“It’s not unusual for abusers to have been sexually abused themselves as children.”
“How do you recognize them?”
“Sorry, Harry, but it doesn’t work like that. They don’t really stand out at all. They’re usually men who live alone and have a poor social network. They might have a damaged sexual identity, but they can function perfectly well in other areas of life.”
“I see. So you can’t tell.”
“Shame creates clever camouflage artists. Most pedophiles have lifelong training in concealing their predilections from others, so the only thing I can say is that there are a lot more out there than the police arrest for abuse.”
“Ten for every one caught.”
“What did you say?”