Cockroaches(62)

“Who will volunteer to go and check Brekke’s ass?” Liz asked to general laughter.

Sunthorn coughed discreetly. “If Brekke murdered Molnes because of the photos why did he leave them?”

Long silence.

“Is it only me who feels we’re wasting our time?” Liz asked at length.

The air-conditioning gurgled and it struck Harry that the day was going to be as long as it was hot.


Harry stood in the doorway to the ambassador’s garden.

“Harry?” Runa blinked water from her eyes and stepped out of the pool.

“Hi,” he said. “Your mother’s asleep.”

She shrugged.

“We’ve arrested Jens Brekke.”

He waited for her to say something, ask why, but she said nothing. He sighed. “I don’t mean to pester you with these things, Runa. But I’m sitting in the middle of it, and so are you, so I was wondering if we could help each other.”

“Right,” she said. Harry tried to interpret her tone. He decided to get straight to the point.

“I have to try and find out a bit more about him, what type of person he is, whether he’s what he purports to be and so on. I thought I could start with his relationship with your mother. I mean, there’s quite a big age gap …”

“You suspect he’s exploiting her?”

“That sort of thing, yes.”

“My mother might be exploiting him, but the other way around …?”

Harry sat down in one of the chairs beneath the willow tree, but Runa remained standing.

“Mum doesn’t like me being around when they’re together, so I’ve never really got to know him.”

“You know him better than I do.”

“Do I? Hm. He seems smooth, but perhaps that’s just the outside. At least he tries to be nice to me. It was his idea, for example, to take me to the boxing. I think he has it in his head that I’m interested in sport because of my diving. Does he exploit her? I don’t know. Sorry, this isn’t a lot of help, but I don’t know how men of that age think. You don’t exactly show your feelings …”

Harry straightened his sunglasses. “Thank you, that’s great, Runa. Can you ask your mother to ring me when she wakes up?”

She stood beside the pool with her back to the water, launched herself and performed another somersault for him with an arched spine and her head down. He saw the bubbles bursting on the surface as he turned to leave.


After lunch, Harry and Nho took the lift down to the first floor, where Jens Brekke was still being held.

Brekke was wearing the suit he had been arrested in, but he had unbuttoned the shirt and rolled up the sleeves and no longer looked like a broker. A sweaty fringe was stuck to his forehead, and he was staring, as if in surprise, at the hands lying inactive on the table in front of him.

“This is Nho, a colleague of mine,” Harry said.

Brekke looked up, put on a brave face and nodded.

“I have only one question actually,” Nho said. “Did you accompany the ambassador down to the underground car park where he was parked on Tuesday the seventh of January at five o’clock?”

Brekke looked at Harry, then at Nho.

“I did,” he said.

Nho looked at Harry and nodded.

“Thank you,” Harry said. “That was all.”





28


Friday, January 17


The traffic was crawling along, Harry had a headache and the air-conditioning was whistling ominously. Nho stopped at the car-park barrier to Barclays Thailand, rolled down the car window and was told by a man in a neatly pressed uniform that Jim Love was not at work.

Nho showed his police ID and explained that they would like to see one of the video cassettes, but the attendant shook his head disapprovingly and said they would have to ring the security company. Nho turned to Harry and shrugged.

“Explain to him that this is a murder investigation,” Harry said.

“I have done.”

“Then we’ll have to do some more explaining.”

Harry got out of the car. The heat and the humidity hit him in the face; it was like taking the lid off a saucepan of boiling water. He stretched, ambled around the car, already a bit dizzy. The attendant frowned as almost two meters of red-eyed farang approached, and he put his hand on his gun.

Harry stood in front of him, grimaced and grabbed the man’s belt with his left hand. The attendant yelled, but he didn’t have a chance to react before Harry had undone the belt and stuffed his right hand down the man’s trousers. The attendant was raised off the ground as Harry tugged. His underpants gave way with a loud ripping sound. Nho shouted something, but it was too late. Harry was already holding white boxers aloft in triumph. The next moment they were sailing over the attendant’s hut and into the bushes. Then he walked slowly around the car and got back in.