“What did he threaten you with?”
“Threaten? What do you mean?”
“He didn’t just say, please, would you mind not meeting a woman I assume you love.”
“Yes, in fact he did. I think that was even the word he used.”
“Which word?”
“Please.” Brekke folded his hands on the table in front of him. “He was a strange man. ‘Please.’ ” He smiled weakly.
“Yes, I suppose you don’t hear that so often in your business.”
“Nor in yours, I suppose?”
Harry stared at him, but there was no challenge in Brekke’s eyes.
“What did you agree to do?”
“Nothing. I said I would give the matter some thought. What could I say? The man was on the verge of tears.”
“Did you consider stopping the relationship?”
Brekke furrowed his brow as if this idea was new to him.
“No. I … well, it would have been very difficult for me to stop seeing her.”
“You told me that after the meeting you accompanied the ambassador down to the underground car park where he had his Mercedes. Are you changing that statement now?”
“No …” Brekke said in surprise.
“We’ve checked the CCTV recordings of the date in question between 3:50 and 5:15. The ambassador’s Mercedes wasn’t parked in the visitors’ bay. Would you like to change your statement?”
“Change …?” Brekke looked at him in disbelief. “My God, man, no. I came out of the lift and saw his car. We must have both been on the recording. I even remember we exchanged a few words before he got into the car. I promised the ambassador I wouldn’t mention the conversation we’d had to Hilde.”
“We can prove this was not the case. For the last time: Would you like to change your statement?”
“No!”
Harry could hear a firmness in his voice which had not been there before the interview started.
“What did you do after you’d accompanied the ambassador down to the car park, as you maintain?”
Brekke explained that he had gone back up to his office to finish a company analysis report and that he sat there until about midnight, when he took a taxi home. Harry asked if anyone had dropped by or rung him while he was working, but Brekke said that no one could get to his office without the code and that he had blocked his calls so he could work in peace, as he usually did when he was working on reports.
“Is there no one who can give you an alibi? No one who saw you going home, for example?”
“Ben, the caretaker where I live. He may remember. At any rate he usually notices when I come home late wearing a suit.”
“A caretaker who saw you coming home at midnight, is that all?”
Brekke pondered. “I’m afraid so.”
“OK,” Harry said. “Someone else will take over now. Would you like something to drink? Coffee, water?”
“No, thank you.”
Harry got up to go.
“Harry?”
He turned. “It’s best if you call me Hole. Or Officer.”
“I see. Am I in trouble?” He said it in Norwegian.
Harry pinched his eyes together. Brekke was a sad sight, slumped like a cloth sack.
“I think I’d ring your lawyer now if I were you.”
“I understand. Thank you.”
Harry stopped in the doorway. “Incidentally, what about the promise you made the ambassador, did you keep it?”
Brekke gave him a sort of apologetic smile. “Idiotic. I had intended to tell Hilde, of course, I mean, I had to. But when I found out he was dead then … well, he was a strange man, and I got it into my head that I should keep the promise even though it had no practical meaning anymore.”
* * *
“Just a mo. I’ll put you on loudspeaker.”
“Hello?”
“We can hear you, Harry. Away you go.”
Bjarne Møller of Crime Squad, Dagfinn Torhus from the Foreign Office and the Police Commissioner for Oslo listened to Harry’s telephone report without interrupting him at any point.
Afterward Torhus spoke up.
“So we have one Norwegian in custody, suspected of murder. The question is: How long can we keep a lid on this?”
The Police Commissioner cleared her throat. “As the murder is not yet public knowledge, I think we still have a few days, especially since you don’t have a great deal on Brekke, other than a false statement and a motive. If you have to let him go it’s probably best if no one knows about the arrest.”
“Harry, can you hear me?” It was Møller speaking. There was some atmospheric noise, which Møller took to be confirmation. “Is the guy guilty, Harry? Did he do it?”