Nemesis(120)

His question was answered when he stepped outside.





The children stared with astonishment as Harry supported himself on the tow bar and vomited over the brown grass. He coughed and spat a couple of times and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. When he turned, Simon was standing with a big smile on his face, as if emptying your stomach were the most natural start to the day. 'Food, my friend?'





Harry swallowed and nodded.





* * *





Simon lent Harry a creased suit, a clean shirt with a wide collar and a pair of large sunglasses. They got into the Mercedes and drove up Finnmarkgata. At the lights in Carl Berners plass Simon rolled down the window and shouted at a man standing outside a kiosk smoking a cigar. Harry had a vague feeling he had seen the man before. From experience he knew this feeling often meant the man had a record. The man laughed and shouted something back, which Harry didn't catch.





'An acquaintance?' he asked.





'A contact,' Simon said.





'A contact,' Harry repeated, watching the police car waiting on green at the other side of the crossing.





Simon turned west towards Ullevĺl hospital.





'Tell me,' Harry said. 'What sort of contacts has Raskol got in Moscow who can find one person in a city of twenty million people like that?' Harry clicked his fingers. 'Is it the Russian mafia?'





Simon laughed. 'Maybe. If you can't come up with anyone better at finding people.'





'The KGB?'





'If I remember correctly, my friend, they no longer exist.' Simon laughed even louder.





'The Russia expert in POT told me ex-KGB men are still running the show.'





Simon shrugged. 'Favours, my friend. And return favours. That's what it's all about, you know.'





Harry scanned the street. A van sped by. He had got Tess–the brown-eyed girl who had woken him up–to run down to Třyen and buy him copies of Dagbladet and Verdens Gang, but there was nothing about a wanted police officer in either of them. That didn't mean he could show his face everywhere because, unless he was very much mistaken, there would be a photograph of him in every police car.





Harry walked quickly to the door, put Raskol's key in the lock and turned it. He tried not to make any noise in the hallway. There was a newspaper outside Astrid Monsen's door. Once inside Anna's flat, he closed the door softly behind him and breathed in.





Don't think about what you're looking for.





The flat smelt stuffy. He went into the furthest room. Nothing had been touched since he was last here. The dust danced in the sunlight flooding in through the window and brightening up the three portraits. He stood looking at them. There was something strangely familiar about the distorted heads. He went to the pictures and ran the tips of his fingers over the lumps of oil paint. If they were talking to him, he didn't understand what they were saying.





He went into the kitchen.





It smelt of refuse and rancid fat. He opened the window and went through the plates and cutlery in the kitchen sink. They had been rinsed but not washed. He prodded the hardened food remains with a fork. Loosened a small red particle from the sauce. Put it in his mouth. Japone chilli.





Two large wineglasses behind a big saucepan. One had a fine red sediment in while the other seemed unused. Harry put his nose in, but could only smell a warm glass. Beside the wineglasses were two normal drinking glasses. He found a dishcloth so he could hold the glasses up to the light without leaving fingerprints. One was clean, the other had a sticky coating. He scratched at the coating with his nail and sucked his finger. Sugar. With a coffee taste. Coca-Cola? Harry closed his eyes. Wine and Coke? No. Water and wine for one person. Coke and an unused glass for the other. He wrapped the glass in the cloth and put it in his jacket pocket. On impulse, he went to the bathroom, unscrewed the lid on the cistern and felt inside. Nothing.





Back out in the street, he saw clouds had moved in from the west and there was a nip in the air. Harry chewed his lower lip. He made a decision and started walking towards Vibes gate.





* * *





Harry immediately recognised the young man behind the counter at the locksmith's.





'Good morning, I'm from the police,' Harry said, hoping the boy wouldn't ask to see his ID, which was in his jacket in Vigdis Albu's house in Slemdal.





The boy put down his newspaper. 'I know.'





Panic caught hold of Harry for a second.





'I remember you came here to collect a key.' The boy gave a broad smile. 'I remember all my customers.'





Harry cleared his throat. 'Well, I'm not really a customer.'





'Oh?'





'No, the key wasn't for me. But that's not why—'





'It must have been,' the boy interrupted. 'It was a system key, wasn't it?'