Rakel laughed. Harry closed his eyes. He loved her laughter. If he was careful not to put a foot wrong, he thought, perhaps he might be allowed to listen to that laugh for a long time to come.
* * *
Harry awoke with a start. Scrambled up into a sitting position and gasped for breath. He had been dreaming, but he couldn't recall what. His heart was beating like a bass drum gone wild. Had he been under water in the swimming pool in Bangkok again? Or facing the killer in the suite at the SAS hotel? His head ached.
'What's the matter?' Rakel mumbled in the dark.
'Nothing,' Harry whispered. 'Go back to sleep.'
He got up, went to the bathroom and drank a glass of water. The drawn, ashen face in the mirror peered back at him. There was a gale blowing outside. The branches of the great oak in the garden scraped against the wall. Poked him in the shoulder. Tickled his neck and made the hairs stand on end. Harry filled his glass again and drank slowly. He remembered now. What he had been dreaming. A boy sitting on the school roof, dangling his legs. Who wouldn't go in to the lesson. Whose little brother wrote his essays. Who showed his brother's new love all the places they had played when they were young. Harry had dreamed a recipe for tragedy.
When he crept back under the duvet, Rakel was asleep. He stared at the ceiling and began to wait for first light.
The clock on the bedside table showed 05.03 when he could stand it no longer, got up, rang directory enquiries and wrote down Jean Hue's private telephone number.
48
Heinrich Schirmer
BEATE AWOKE WHEN THE DOORBELL RANG FOR THE THIRD time.
She rolled over and looked at the clock. A quarter past five. She lay wondering what the wisest move would be–tell him to go to hell or pretend she wasn't at home. Another ring, of a kind which made it clear he wasn't going to give up.
She sighed, got up and wrapped her dressing gown around her. She took the intercom phone.
'Yes?'
'Sorry to be stopping by so late, Beate. Or so early.'
'Go to hell, Tom.'
There was a long silence.
'This isn't Tom,' the voice said. 'It's me, Harry.'
Beate swore softly and pressed the OPEN button.
'I couldn't lie awake any longer,' Harry said as he came in. 'It's about the Expeditor.'
He slumped on the sofa as Beate slipped into the bedroom.
'As I said, what you do with Waaler's none of my business…' he shouted towards the open bedroom door.
'As you said, it's none of your business,' she shouted back. 'And, besides, he's been suspended.'
'I know. I was called to appear at the SEFO tribunal to talk about my meeting with Alf Gunnerud.'
She reappeared wearing a white T-shirt and jeans and stood opposite him. Harry looked up at her.
'I meant suspended by me,' she said.
'Oh?'
'He's a bastard. That doesn't mean you can say what you like to whom you like, though.'
Harry tilted his head and screwed up one eye.
'Should I repeat?' she asked.
'No,' he said. 'I think I've got the message now. What about if it isn't just anyone, but a friend?'
'Coffee?' But Beate didn't quite make it to the kitchen before a blush suffused her face. Harry got to his feet and followed her. There was just one chair by the small table. On the wall was a rose-painted wooden plaque with an old Hávamál poem:
At every door-way,
ere one enters,
one should spy round,
one should pry round
for uncertain is the witting
that there be no foeman sitting,
within, before one on the floor.
'There were two things Rakel said last night which made me think,' Harry said, leaning against the sink. 'The first was that two brothers loving the same woman was a recipe for tragedy. The second was that Anna must have had a hard time imitating Ali's signature as she was left-handed.'
'Oh, yes?' She put a scoopful of coffee in the filter machine.
'Lev's schoolbooks. You got them from Trond Grette, to compare with the handwriting in the suicide letter. Do you remember which subject it was?'
'I didn't look that carefully. I just remember checking it was his.' She poured water into the machine.
'It was Norwegian,' Harry said.
'Could have been,' she said, facing him.
'It was,' Harry said. 'I've just come from Jean Hue, from Kripos.'
'The handwriting expert? Now, in the middle of the night?'
'He has an office at home and was very understanding. He checked the notebook and the suicide letter against this.' Harry unfolded a sheet of paper and placed it on the draining board. 'Will the coffee be long?'
'What's so urgent?' Beate asked, leaning over the sheet.