Cockroaches(83)
“Pedophiles seldom do,” Løken said. Harry glanced at him, but he was blinded by the torch. “What’s that?”
Harry turned. Løken shone his torch on a gray metal box in the corner. Harry recognized it at once.
“I can tell you what that is,” he said, happy at last to be able to make a contribution. “It’s a tape recorder worth half a million kroner. I saw an identical one in Brekke’s office. It records phone conversations, and the recording and the time code can’t be manipulated, so it can be used in legal disputes. Great if you make deals over the phone to the tune of millions.”
Harry flicked through the documents on the desk. He saw letterheads of Japanese and American companies, agreements, contracts, drafts of agreements and amendments to drafts. The transport project, BERTS, was mentioned in many of them. He noticed a stapled booklet with Barclays Thailand on the front. It was a report on a company called Phuridell. Then he shone the torch upward. And stopped as the light caught an object on the wall.
“Bingo! Look here, Løken. This must be the other knife you were talking about.”
Løken didn’t answer; he had his back to Harry.
“Did you hear what I—?”
“We have to get out, Harry. Now.”
Harry turned and saw Løken’s torch pointing at a little box on the wall with a red flashing light. At that moment it felt as if he’d had a knitting needle poked in his ear. The whine was so loud he was immediately semi-deaf.
“Delayed alarm!” Løken shouted, already in mid-stride. “Turn off the torch!”
Harry staggered down the stairs after him in the darkness. They made for the side door to the garage.
“Wait.” Harry had knelt down, and with his hands he swept up the lumps of plaster on the floor.
Outside, they could hear voices and the rattling of keys. A shaft of moonlight, colored blue by the glass mosaic in the window over the door, fell onto the parquet floor in front of them.
“What are you doing?”
Harry didn’t have time to answer because they heard the bolt turn. They made it to the side door, and the next moment they were running, heads down, across the grass as the hysterical whine of the alarm grew fainter and fainter behind them.
“That was a close call,” Løken said when they were on the other side of the wall. Harry looked at him. The moonlight caught his gold tooth. Løken wasn’t even out of breath.
39
Monday, January 20
A cable had burned somewhere in the wall when Harry had shoved the scissors in the socket, so they sat in the flickering light of a candle again. Løken had just opened a bottle of Jim Beam.
“Why are you wrinkling your nose, Hole? Don’t you like the smell?”
“There’s nothing wrong with the smell.”
“The taste then?”
“The taste’s great. Jim and I are old friends.”
“Ah.” Løken poured himself a generous glass. “Not such good friends anymore perhaps?”
“They say he has a bad influence on me.”
“So who keeps you company now?”
Harry raised the Coke bottle. “American cultural imperialism.”
“Completely dry now?”
“There was a fair bit of beer in the autumn.”
Løken gave a chuckle.
“So there we have it. I’ve been pondering why on earth Torhus would choose you.”
Harry knew this was an indirect compliment. Løken thought that Torhus could have chosen bigger idiots. That there had to be another reason, not that he was an incompetent policeman.
Harry nodded toward the bottle. “Does that dull the nausea?”
Løken raised his eyebrows.
“Does it allow you to forget the job for a while? I mean the boys. The photos, all the shit?”
Løken knocked back the drink and poured himself another. He took a sip, set down the glass and leaned back in his chair.
“I have special qualifications for this job, Harry.”
Harry had a vague idea what he meant.
“I know what they think, what drives them, what gives them a kick, what temptations they can resist and what they can’t.” He produced his pipe. “I’ve known them for as long as I can remember.”
Harry didn’t know what to say. So he held his tongue.
“Did you say dry? Are you good at it, Harry? At renouncing things? Like in the story about the cigarettes. You just take a decision and stick to it whatever happens?”
“Well, yes, I assume so,” Harry said. “The problem is that the decisions aren’t always good.”
Løken chuckled again. Harry was reminded of an old friend who used to chuckle in the same way. He had buried him in Sydney, but he paid Harry regular visits at night.