Nemesis(126)

He leaned forward and placed a hand on her arm. 'I apologise if it was painful, but now you know, Beate. Your father didn't bungle anything. And Harry's working with the man who murdered him. So what do you say? Shall we look for Harry together?'





Beate screwed up her eyes, squeezed out the last tear. Then she opened her eyes again. Waaler held out a handkerchief, which she took.





'Tom,' she said. 'I have to explain something to you.'





'You don't need to.' Waaler stroked her hand. 'I understand. There's a conflict of loyalties. Imagine what your father would have done. It's called being professional, isn't it.'





Beate observed him. Then she slowly nodded her head. She breathed in. At that moment the telephone rang.





'Are you going to take it?' Waaler said, after three rings.





'It's my mother,' Beate said. 'I'll ring her back in thirty seconds.'





'Thirty seconds?'





'That's the time it'll take me to tell you that if I knew where Harry was, you'd be the last person I'd tell.' She passed him his handkerchief. 'And for you to put your shoes on and get out.'





Up his back and neck, Tom Waaler could feel the fury rising like a geyser. He took a moment to enjoy the feeling before grabbing her with one arm and forcing her under him. She gasped and resisted him, but he knew she could feel his erection and that the lips she was so tightly clenching would soon open.





* * *





After six rings Harry hung up and left the telephone box, so the girl behind him could slip in. He turned his back on Kjřlberggata and the wind, lit a cigarette and blew the smoke towards the car park and the caravans. It was funny really. Here he was, a couple of hefty stones' throws away from Forensics in one direction, Police HQ in another and the caravan in the third. Wearing a gypsy's suit. A wanted man. You could kill yourself laughing.





Harry's teeth chattered. He half-turned when a police car swept down the traffic-laden but unpopulated thoroughfare. Harry hadn't been able to sleep. Couldn't bear to be inactive while time was ticking away. He crushed the cigarette end beneath his heel and was about to go when he saw the telephone box was free again. Checked his watch. Almost midnight, strange she wasn't at home. Perhaps she had been asleep and hadn't made it to the phone? He dialled the number again. She answered immediately: 'Beate.'





'It's Harry. Did I wake you?'





'I…yes.'





'Sorry. Shall I call back tomorrow?'





'No, it's convenient now.'





'Are you alone?'





Silence. 'Why do you ask?'





'You sound so…no, forget it. Have you found out anything?'





He heard her gulp as if she was trying to catch her breath.





'Weber checked the fingerprints on the glass. Most of them are yours. The analysis of the sediment in the glass should be finished in a couple of days.'





'Great.'





'As for the laptop in your storeroom, it turns out there was a specialised program running which allows you to set the date and time for when you want an e-mail to be sent. The last change to the e-mails was made the day Anna Bethsen died.'





Harry no longer felt the icy-cold wind.





'So the e-mails you received were ready and waiting when it was planted,' Beate said. 'That explains how your Pakistani neighbour had seen it in your storage space quite a time ago.'





'Do you mean it had been working away all on its own the whole time?'





'Connected to the mains, the laptop and mobile phone would manage just fine.'





'Hell!' Harry slapped his forehead. 'But that must mean the guy who programmed the laptop anticipated the whole course of events. The whole bloody thing was a puppet show, and we were the puppets.'





'Looks like that. Harry?'





'I'm here. Just trying to let it sink in. Well, better forget it for a while, it's too much in one go. How about the name of the company I gave you?'





'The company, yes. What makes you think I've done anything about that?'





'Nothing. Until you just said what you did.'





'I didn't say anything.'





'No, but the way you said it was full of promise.'





'Oh, yes?'





'You found something, didn't you.'





'I found something.'





'Come on!'





'I rang the accountants that the locksmith uses and got a lady to send me the national insurance numbers of the employees working there. Four full-time staff and two part-time. I ran the numbers through the Criminal and Social Security Register. Five of them have an unblemished record. But one…'





'Yes?'





'I had to use the scroll to get everything. Mostly drugs. Has been charged with peddling heroin and morphine, but has only been convicted of possession of a small amount of hash. Has done time for breaking and entering and two aggravated robberies.'