Jens rested his forehead on his fingertips. Harry lit a cigarette.
“Hell, Harry! You’ve made my mind go blank with all that video stuff. I can’t think straight.” He groaned and slapped his hand on the table. “Do you know what happened last night? I dreamed that I killed the ambassador. That we walked out of the main entrance and drove to a motel where I stabbed him in the back with a big butcher’s knife. I tried to stop, but I wasn’t in control of my body, it was like I was trapped inside a robot and it kept stabbing, and I …”
He paused.
Harry said nothing and let him have all the time he needed.
“The thing is I hate being locked up,” Jens said. “I’ve never been able to stand it. My father used to …”
He swallowed and clenched his right hand. Harry saw his knuckles whiten. Jens was almost whispering as he went on.
“If someone had come in with a confession saying I could leave if I signed it I’m hard put to know what I would have done.”
Harry got up. “Keep trying to remember something. Now that we’ve sorted out the video evidence perhaps you can think a bit more clearly.”
He went toward the door.
“Harry?”
Harry wondered what it was that made people so talkative when you turned your back on them.
“Yeah?”
“Why do you think I’m innocent when all the others appear to think the opposite?”
Harry answered without turning. “First of all, because we don’t have anything like evidence against you, only a threadbare motive and the absence of an alibi.”
“And second?”
Harry smiled and twisted his head. “Because I thought you were a sack of shit the first time I clapped eyes on you.”
“And?”
“I’m crap at judging people. Have a nice day.”
Bjarne Møller opened one eye, squinted at the clock on the bedside table and wondered who on earth would consider six o’clock in the morning a convenient time to ring.
“I know what the time is,” Harry said before his boss had a chance. “Listen, there’s a guy you have to check out for me. No specifics right now, just gut instinct.”
“Gut instinct?”
“Yes, a hunch. I think we’re after a Norwegian, and so the selection is somewhat reduced.”
Møller cleared his throat and brought up a mouthful of mucus. “Why a Norwegian?”
“Well, on Molnes’s jacket and the knife that killed him we found some reindeer fat. And the angle of the stab wound suggests it was a relatively tall person. So not your typical Thai by the looks of things.”
“OK, but couldn’t you have waited with this, Hole?”
“Of course,” Harry said. There was a pause.
“So why didn’t you?”
“Because there are five detectives and a Police Chief here waiting for you to get your arse in gear, boss.”
Møller rang back two hours later.
“What was it exactly that made you ask us to check out this guy, Hole?”
“Well, I reckoned that someone who used reindeer fat to protect the knife must have been in northern Norway. Then I remembered a couple of pals who came back from military service in Finnmark with these big Sami knives they’d bought themselves. Ivar Løken was in Defense for several years and he was stationed in Vardø. Furthermore, I have an idea he knows how to use a knife.”
“That could be true,” Møller said. “What else do you know about him?”
“Not a lot. Tonje Wiig thinks he’s been shunted into a siding until he retires.”
“Well, there’s nothing on him in the criminal database, but …” Møller paused.
“But?”
“We had a file on him anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“His name appeared on the screen, but I couldn’t get into his file. An hour later I had a phone call from the Defense High Command in Huseby wondering why I was trying to access his file.”
“Wow.”
“They told me to send a letter if I wanted any information about Ivar Løken.”
“Forget it.”
“I’ve already forgotten, Harry. We won’t get anywhere.”
“Did you talk to Hammervoll in Vice?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“Needless to say, there were no files on Norwegian pedophiles in Thailand.”
“Thought so. Bloody data protection.”
“It’s got nothing to do with that.”
“Oh?”
“We started a database a few years ago, but we didn’t have the resources to keep it up-to-date. Just too many of them.”
When Harry had rung Tonje Wiig to arrange a meeting as swiftly as possible, she had insisted that they meet in the Authors’ Lounge at the Oriental Hotel for tea.