Cockroaches(81)

Møller didn’t like what he heard. Even less because he could see it clearly now, the Police Commissioner’s gaze across the table when the question was posed, the imperceptible raised eyebrow. It had been an order.

“But why would Torhus and the Commissioner risk their jobs just to catch a pedophile?”

“Good question.”

Silence. Neither of them dared put into words what they were thinking.

“So what happens now, Harry?”

“Now it’s Operation Save Our Arses.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that no one wants to be left holding the can. Neither Løken nor I. The deal is he and I keep our gobs shut about this for now and haul in Klipra together. I suppose you’d rather take over the case from there, PAS? Go directly to Storting maybe? You’ve got an arse to save as well, you know.”

Møller mulled that one over. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be saved. The worst that could happen was that they would make him do police work again.

“This is heavy stuff, Harry. I need to think, so I’ll ring you back, OK?”

“OK.”

They were receiving faint signals from another conversation in space, which went quiet all of a sudden. They listened to the sound of stars.

“Harry?”

“Yes?”

“To hell with the thinking. I’m with you.”

“Thought you would be, boss.”

“Ring me when you’ve arrested him.”

“Oh yes, I forgot to say. No one’s seen Klipra since the ambassador was murdered.”





38


Monday, January 20


Løken passed the night binoculars to Harry.

“All clear,” he said. “I know the routines. The guard will go and sit in the hut at the bottom of the drive by the gate. He won’t do another round for twenty minutes.”

They were sitting in the loft of a house about a hundred meters from Klipra’s property. The window was boarded up, but between two of the planks there was just enough room for binoculars. Or a camera. Between the loft and Klipra’s dragonhead-bedecked teak house was a line of low sheds, a road and a high white wall topped with barbed wire.

“The only problem in this town is that there are people everywhere. All the time. So we’ll have to walk around and climb over the wall behind that shed over there.”

He pointed and Harry grabbed the binoculars.

Løken had told him to wear discreet, tight-fitting, dark clothes. He chose black jeans and his old black Joy Division T-shirt. He had thought about Kristin when he put on the T-shirt; it was the only one he had managed to make her like, Joy Division. He thought that probably made up for her not liking Camel.

“Let’s get going,” Løken said.

The air outside was still, and the dust hovered freely over the gravel path. A group of boys were playing takraw, standing in a circle and keeping a little rubber ball in the air with their feet, and they didn’t notice the two black-clad farangs. Harry and Ivar crossed the street, slipped between the sheds and arrived at the wall undetected. The misty night sky reflected a dirty yellow light coming from millions of bigger and smaller lights, never allowing Bangkok to be completely dark on nights like this. Løken threw his small rucksack over the wall and rolled a thin, narrow rubber mat over the barbed wire.

“You first,” he said, interlacing his fingers to give Harry a foothold.

“What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me, come on.”

He hoisted Harry up, so that he could grab a post on top of the wall. Harry placed one foot on the mat and heard the wire tear the rubber underneath as he swung the other foot over. He tried not to think about the story of the boy who had slid down the flagpole at Romsdal Fair without remembering the cleat at the bottom with the rope tied around. His grandad had said the boy’s castration cries could be heard right across the fjord.

Next second Løken was standing beside him.

“Jeez, that was quick,” Harry whispered.

“Pensioner’s exercise for the day.”

With the pensioner in front they ran with their heads down across the lawn, alongside the house wall and stopped at the corner. Løken took out the binoculars and waited until he was sure the guard was looking in the other direction.

“Now!”

Harry set off, trying to imagine he was invisible. It wasn’t far to the garage, but it was lit and there was no cover between them and the guard’s hut. Løken followed hard on his heels.

Harry had thought there couldn’t be so many ways to break into a house, but Løken had insisted on planning everything down to the last detail. When he had stressed that they had to run close together over the last critical phase Harry had asked if it wouldn’t be wiser for one to run while the other kept a lookout.