Nemesis(20)

'Harry!'





'Yes?'





'What's the real reason?'





Harry shifted weight. 'I can't work with the smiling croc.'





'Ivarsson?'





'I'll go and do something extremely stupid.'





Bjarne Mřller's eyebrows met across the bridge of his nose in a black V: 'Is that supposed to be a threat?'





Harry placed a hand on Mřller's shoulder. 'Just this one favour, boss. I'll never ask for anything else again. Ever.'





Mřller growled. Over the years, how many times had he put his head on the block for Harry, instead of heeding the well-meant career advice from older colleagues? Keep him at arm's length, they said. A loose cannon, he is. The only thing that was certain about Harry Hole was that one day something was going to go disastrously wrong. However, because, in some mysterious way, he and Harry had so far always landed on their feet, no one had been able to implement any drastic measures. So far. The most interesting question of all, though, was: Why did he put up with it? He looked across at Harry. The alcoholic. The troublemaker. The ever-unbearable, arrogant bullhead. And the best investigator he had, apart from Waaler.





'You keep your nose clean, Harry. Otherwise I'll shove you behind a desk and lock the door. Have you got that?'





'Received loud and clear, boss.'





Mřller sighed. 'I have a meeting with the Chief Superintendent and Ivarsson tomorrow. We'll have to wait and see. I'm not promising anything, do you hear?'





'Aye, aye, boss. Regards to your wife.' Harry craned his head round on the way out. 'Coriander's on the far left, bottom shelf.'





Bjarne Mřller stood staring into his shopping basket. He remembered the reason now. He liked the alcoholic, obstreperous, stubborn bastard.





7

White King





HARRY NODDED TO ONE OF THE REGULARS AND SAT DOWN AT a table under the narrow, wavy window panes looking out onto Waldemar Thranes gate. On the wall behind him hung a large painting of a sunny day in Youngstorget with women holding parasols and being cheerily greeted by men promenading in top hats. The contrast with the forever autumnally gloomy light and the almost devout afternoon quiet in Restaurant Schrřder could not have been greater.





'Nice that you could come,' Harry said to the corpulent man already sitting at the table. It was easy to see he was not one of the regulars. Not by the elegant tweed jacket, nor by the bow tie with red dots, but because he was stirring a white mug of tea on a cloth smelling of beer and perforated with blackened cigarette burns. The unlikely customer was Stĺle Aune, a psychologist, one of the country's finest in his field and an expert to whom the police had had frequent recourse. Sometimes with pleasure and sometimes regret, as Aune was a thoroughly upright man who preserved his integrity and in a court of law never pronounced on matters which he could not support to the hilt with scientific evidence. However, since there is little evidence for anything in psychology, it often happened that the prosecution witness became the defence's best friend, the doubts he sowed generally working in favour of the accused. Harry, in his capacity as a police officer, had used Aune's expertise in murder cases for so long that he regarded him as a colleague. In his capacity as an alcoholic, Harry had put himself so totally in the hands of this warm-hearted, clever and becomingly arrogant man that–if cornered–he would have called him a friend.





'So this is your refuge?' Aune said.





'Yes,' Harry said, raising an eyebrow to Maja at the counter, who responded at once by scuttling through the swing doors into the kitchen.





'And what have you got there?'





'Japone. Chilli.'





A bead of sweat rolled down Harry's nose, clung for a second to the tip, then fell onto the tablecloth. Aune studied the wet stain with amazement.





'Sluggish thermostat,' Harry said. 'I've been in the gym.'





Aune screwed up his nose. 'As a man of science, I ought to applaud you, I suppose, but as a philosopher I would question putting your body through that kind of unpleasantness.'





A steel coffee jug and a mug landed in front of Harry. 'Thanks, Maja.'





'Pangs of guilt,' Aune said. 'Some people can only deal with it by punishing themselves. Like when you go to pieces, Harry. In your case alcohol isn't a refuge but the ultimate way to punish yourself.'





'Thank you. I've heard you put forward that diagnosis before.'





'Is that why you train so hard? Bad conscience?'





Harry shrugged.





Aune lowered his voice: 'Is Ellen playing on your mind?'





Harry's eyes shot up to meet Aune's. He put the mug of coffee to his lips slowly and took a long drink before putting it down again with a grimace. 'No, it's not the Ellen Gjelten case. We're getting nowhere, but it's not because we've done a bad job. That I do know. Something will turn up. We just have to bide our time.'