'She starts whispering here,' Beate said.
Bjelke immediately shut up and concentrated intently on the minimalist lip movements on the screen. Beate stopped the recording before the shot was fired.
'Right,' Bjelke said. 'Once more.'
And afterwards: 'Again.'
Then: 'One more time please.'
After seven times, he nodded that he had seen enough.
'I don't understand what she means,' Bjelke said. Harry and Beate exchanged glances. 'But I think I know what she says.'
* * *
Beate half-ran down the corridor to keep up with Harry.
'He's reckoned to be the country's foremost expert in the field,' she said.
'That doesn't help,' Harry said. 'He said himself he wasn't sure.'
'But what if she did say what Bjelke thought?'
'It doesn't make sense. He must have missed a negative.'
'I don't agree.'
Harry came to a halt and Beate almost ran into him. With an alarmed expression, she looked up at one wide-open eye.
'Good,' he said.
Beate was perplexed. 'What do you mean?'
'Disagreeing is good. Disagreeing means that you've seen or understood something even though you're not exactly sure what. And there's something I haven't understood.' He set off again. 'Let's assume you're right. Then we can consider where this takes us.' He stopped in front of the lift and pressed the button.
'Where are you going now?' Beate asked.
'To check some details. I'll be back in less than an hour.'
The lift doors opened and PAS Ivarsson stepped out.
'Aha!' He beamed. 'The master sleuths on the trail. Anything new to report?'
'The point about parallel groups is that we don't have to report in so often. Isn't it?' Harry said, sidestepping him and walking into the lift. 'If I understood you and the FBI correctly, that is.'
Ivarsson's broad smile and gaze held. 'We obviously have to share key information.'
Harry pressed the button for the first floor, but Ivarsson placed himself between the doors: 'Well?'
Harry shrugged. 'Stine Grette whispers something to the robber before she is shot.'
'Uhuh?'
'We believe she whispers: It's my fault.'
'It's my fault?'
'Yes.'
Ivarsson's brow furrowed. 'That can't be right, can it? It would make more sense if she had said It's not my fault. I mean, it isn't her fault the branch manager took six seconds too long putting the money in the holdall.'
'I don't agree,' Harry said, looking conspicuously at his watch. 'We've received assistance from one of the country's leading experts in the field. Beate can fill you in on the details.'
Ivarsson was leaning against one lift door, which was impatiently pushing at his back. 'So she forgets a negative in her confusion then. Is that all you have? Beate?'
Beate flushed. 'I've just started studying the video of the bank robbery in Kirkeveien.'
'Any conclusions?'
Her eyes wandered from Ivarsson to Harry and back again. 'Not for the time being.'
'Nothing then,' Ivarsson said. 'Perhaps you would be pleased to know that we have identified nine suspects we've brought in for questioning. And we have a strategy for finally getting something out of Raskol.'
'Raskol?' Harry asked.
'Raskol Baxhet, the king of the sewer rats himself,' Ivarsson said, hooking his fingers into his belt loops. He breathed in and hitched his trousers up with a cheery grin: 'But Beate can probably fill you in on the details later.'
13
Marble
HARRY WAS AWARE THAT, ON CERTAIN MATTERS, HE WAS small-minded. Take Bogstadveien, for example. He didn't like Bogstadveien. He didn't know why; perhaps it was because in this street, paved with gold and oil, the Mount Happy of Happyland, no one smiled. Harry didn't smile himself, but he lived in Bislett, wasn't paid to smile and right now had a few good reasons for not smiling. However, that didn't mean that Harry, in common with most Norwegians, didn't appreciate being smiled at.
Inwardly, Harry tried to excuse the boy behind the counter in the 7-Eleven. He probably hated his job, he probably lived in Bislett, too, and it had started to piss down with rain again.
The pale face with the fiery red pimples cast a bored eye over his police ID card: 'How should I know how long the skip's been outside?'
'Because it's green and it covers half of your view of Bogstadveien,' Harry said.
The boy groaned and put his hands on hips which barely held up his trousers. 'A week. Sort of. Hey, queue of people waiting behind you, you know.'
'Mm. I had a look inside. It's almost empty apart from a few bottles and newspapers. Do you know who ordered it?'
'No.'
'I see you have a surveillance camera over the counter. Looks as if it might just catch the skip?'