“How quickly did Klipra die from the shot?”
The doctor moistened his lips and Harry had the sense he could actually feel time passing.
“Quickly.”
“And her?”
The police doctor stuffed his handkerchief into his pocket.
“Instantly.”
“I mean, could either of them have moved after the shot, had convulsions or something like that?”
The doctor put on his glasses, ensured they were straight and removed them again.
“No.”
“I’ve read that during the French Revolution, before the guillotine, when executions were still performed by hand, the condemned were told that sometimes the executioner missed and that if they could stand up and leave the scaffold afterward they could go free. Apparently some tried to stand up without a head and walk several steps, but then they fell, to tremendous cheers from the crowd, of course. If I remember correctly, a scientist explained that the brain may be to a certain degree preprogrammed and muscles may work overtime as great amounts of adrenalin are pumped into the heart before the head is cut off. That’s what happens when chickens are decapitated.”
The doctor smirked. “Very amusing, Officer. But I’m afraid they’re cock-and-bull stories.”
“So how do you explain this?”
He passed the doctor a photo showing Klipra and Runa lying on the floor. The doctor looked at the photo, then put on his glasses and examined it in detail.
“Explain what?”
Harry pointed to the picture. “See there. His hand is covered by her hair.”
The doctor blinked, as if a speck of dust in his eye was preventing him from seeing what Harry meant.
Harry waved away a fly. “Listen, you know how your subconscious can instinctively draw conclusions, don’t you?”
The doctor shrugged.
“Well, without being aware of it, mine concluded that Klipra must have been lying there when he shot himself, because that’s the only way he could already have had his hand under her hair. But the angle of the shot shows that he was standing. How could he have shot her and then himself and yet have her hair on top of and not under his hand?”
The doctor took off his glasses and resumed his cleaning.
“Perhaps she shot them both,” he said, but by then Harry had gone.
Harry took off his sunglasses and squinted with smarting eyes into the shadowy restaurant. A hand waved in the air and he headed for a table under a palm tree. A stripe of sun caused the steel frames of his glasses to flash as the man stood up.
“You got the message, I can see,” Dagfinn Torhus said. His shirt had large, dark rings under the armpits and a jacket hung over the back of his chair.
“Inspector Crumley said you’d rung. What brings you here?” Harry asked, holding out a hand.
“Administrative duties at the embassy. I arrived this morning to clear up some paperwork. And we have to appoint a new ambassador.”
“Tonje Wiig?”
Torhus smiled weakly. “We’ll have to see. There are lots of things to take into consideration. What can you eat here?”
A waiter was already at their table, and Harry looked up inquiringly.
“Eel,” the waiter said. “Vietnamese speciality. With Vietnamese rosé wine and—”
“No, thank you,” Harry said, peering at the menu and pointing to the coconut-milk soup. “With mineral water please.”
Torhus shrugged and nodded the same.
“Congratulations.” Torhus poked a toothpick between his teeth. “When are you off?”
“Thank you, but I’m afraid the congratulations are a little premature, Torhus. There are still a couple of loose threads to tidy up.”
The toothpick stopped. “Loose threads? It’s not your job to deal with those. You pack your things and get on home.”
“That’s not so easy.”
The hard, blue bureaucrat eyes glinted. “It’s over, do you understand? The case has been cracked. It was all over the front pages in Oslo yesterday that Klipra killed the ambassador and his daughter. But we’ll survive, Hole. I suppose you’re referring to the Police Chief in Bangkok, who says that they can’t see any motive for it and that Klipra may have been insane. So simple and so totally incomprehensible. But the important thing is that people buy it. And they are buying it.”
“So the scandal is a matter of record?”
“Both yes and no. We’ve managed to keep a lid on the motel stuff. The nub is that the Prime Minister hasn’t been embroiled in the scandal. Now we have other matters on our minds. The press has been ringing us here to ask why news of the ambassador’s murder wasn’t made public earlier.”