Nemesis(11)

'Well,' Harry said with a sharp intake of breath. 'I'm going out with a woman anyway.'





'Who's the lucky person?'





'Beate Lřnn. New officer in the Robberies Unit.'





'And what is the occasion?'





'A chat with Stine Grette's husband. She was shot during the Bogstadveien hold-up I told you about. And with the branch manager.'





'Enjoy yourself. We'll talk tomorrow. Oleg wants to say goodnight first.'





Harry heard small feet running and then excited breathing on the line.





* * *





After they had finished speaking, Harry stood in the hall staring at the mirror above the telephone table. If his theory held true, he was now looking at a competent policeman. Two bloodshot eyes, one on each side of a large nose with a network of fine blue veins in a pale, bony face with deep pores. His wrinkles looked like random knife slashes across a wooden beam. How had it happened? In the mirror he saw behind him the wall with the photograph of the suntanned, smiling face of the boy with his sister. But it wasn't lost good looks or lost youth Harry's mind was occupied with, because the thought had finally made its way through now. He was searching his own features for the deceit, the evasion, the cowardice which had just made him break one of the few promises he had made to himself: that he would never, ever, come what may, lie to Rakel. Of all the skerries in the sea for their relationship to founder on, and there were many, lies would not be one. So why had he told a lie? It was true he and Beate were going to meet Stine Grette's husband, but why had he not told her he was going to meet Anna afterwards? An old flame, but so what? It had been a brief stormy affair which had left scars, though no lasting injuries. They were only going to chat over a cup of coffee and tell each other the what-they-did-afterwards stories. And then each go their separate ways.





Harry pressed PLAY on the answerphone to hear the rest of the message. Anna's voice filled the hall: '…look forward to seeing you at M this evening. Just two things. Could you pop into the locksmith's in Vibes gate on the way and pick up the keys I ordered? They're open till seven and I've told them to keep them in your name. And would you mind wearing the jeans you know I like so much?'





Deep, husky laugh. The room seemed to vibrate to the same rhythm. No doubt about it, she had not changed.





5

Nemesis





THE RAIN WAS MAKING SPEED LINES AGAINST THE PREMATURELY darkened October sky in the light from the outside lamp. From the ceramic sign beneath, Harry read that Espen, Stine and Trond Grette lived here, 'here' being a yellow terraced house in Disengrenda. He pressed the bell and surveyed the locality. Disengrenda was four long rows of terraced houses at the centre of a large flat field encircled by blocks of flats, which reminded Harry of pioneers on the prairie taking up a defensive position against Indian attacks. Perhaps that was how it was. The terraced houses were built in the sixties for the burgeoning middle classes and perhaps the dwindling local population of workers in the blocks in Disenveien and Traverveien already knew that these were the new conquerors; that they would have hegemony over the new country.





'Doesn't seem to be at home,' Harry said, pressing the button once more. 'Are you sure he understood we were coming this afternoon?'





'No.'





'No?' Harry turned and looked down at Beate Lřnn shivering under the umbrella. She was wearing a skirt and high-heeled shoes, and when she picked him up outside Schrřder's it had crossed his mind that she seemed to be dressed for a coffee morning.





'Grette confirmed the meeting twice when I rang,' she said. 'But he seemed completely…out of it.'





Harry leaned across the step and flattened his nose against the kitchen window. It was dark inside and all he could see was a white Nordea Bank calendar on the wall.





'Let's go back,' he said.





At that moment the neighbour's kitchen window opened with a bang. 'Are you looking for Trond?'





The words were articulated in bokmĺl, standard Norwegian, but in a Bergen accent with such strong trilled 'r's that it sounded like a medium-sized train being derailed. Harry turned round and gazed into a woman's brown, wrinkled face caught in an attempt to smile and appear grave at the same time.





'We are,' Harry confirmed.





'Family?'





'Police.'





'Right,' the woman said and dropped the funereal expression. 'I thought you had come to express your sympathy. He's on the tennis court, poor thing.'





'Tennis court?'





She pointed. 'On the other side of the field. He's been there since four o'clock.'





'But it's dark,' Beate said. 'And it's raining.'





The woman rolled her shoulders. 'Must be the grief, I suppose.' She trilled her 'r's so much that Harry began to think about when he was growing up in Oppsal and about the bits of cardboard they used to insert in cycle wheels so they flapped against the spokes.