Nemesis(4)

A muffled wail. Harry pricks up his ears. It is not police sirens, though, just the telephone ringing in the next room.





The masked man turns and peers up at the surveillance camera hanging from the ceiling behind the counters. He holds up one hand and shows five black gloved fingers, then closes his hand and extends his forefinger. Six fingers. Six seconds too long. He turns towards Stine again, grasps the gun with both hands, holds it at hip height and raises the muzzle towards her head, standing with his legs slightly apart to withstand the recoil. The telephone keeps ringing. One minute and twelve seconds. The diamond ring flashes as Stine half-raises her hand, as though waving goodbye to someone.





It is exactly 15.22.22 when he pulls the trigger. The report is sharp and hollow. Stine's chair is forced backwards as her head dances on her neck like a mangled rag doll. Then the chair topples backwards. There is a thud as her head hits the edge of a desk and Harry can no longer see her. Nor can he see the poster advertising Nordea's new pension scheme glued to the outside of the glass partition above the counter, which now has a red background. All he can hear is the angry, insistent ringing of the telephone. The masked robber picks up the holdall. Harry has to make up his mind. The robber vaults the counter. Harry makes up his mind. In one quick movement he is out of the chair. Six strides. He is there. And picks up the phone:





'Speak!'





In the pause which follows he can hear the sound of the police siren on the TV in the sitting room, a Pakistani pop song from the neighbours and heavy steps up the stairwell sounding like fru Madsen's. Then there is a gentle laugh at the other end of the line. It is laughter from a long-distant encounter. Not in time, but just as distant. Like seventy per cent of Harry's past, which returns to him now and again in the form of vague rumours or total fabrications. But this was a story he could confirm.





'Do you really still use that macho line, Harry?'





'Anna?'





'Gosh, well done, Harry.'





Harry could feel the sweet warmth surging through his stomach, almost like whisky. Almost. In the mirror he saw a picture he had pinned up on the opposite wall. Of himself and Sis one summer holiday a long time ago in Hvitsten when they were small. They were smiling in the way that children do when they still believe nothing nasty can happen to them.





'And what do you do of a Sunday evening then, Harry?'





'Well.' Harry could hear his voice automatically mimicking hers. Slightly too deep, slightly too lingering. He didn't mean to do that. Not now. He coughed and found a more neutral pitch: 'What people usually do.'





'And that is?'





'Watch videos.'





3

The House of Pain





'SEEN THE VIDEO?'





The battered office chair screamed in protest as Police Officer Halvorsen leaned back and looked at his nine-years-senior colleague, Inspector Harry Hole, with an expression of disbelief on his innocent young face.





'Absolutely,' Harry said, running thumb and first finger down the bridge of his nose to show the bags under his bloodshot eyes.





'The whole weekend?'





'From Saturday morning to Sunday evening.'





'Well, at least you had a good time on Friday night,' Halvorsen said.





'Yes.' Harry took a blue folder out of his coat pocket and placed it on the desk facing Halvorsen's. 'I read the transcripts of the interviews.'





From the other pocket Harry took a grey packet of French Colonial coffee. He and Halvorsen shared an office at almost the furthest end of the corridor in the red zone on the sixth floor of Police Headquarters in Grřnland. Two months ago they had gone to buy a Rancilio Silvia espresso coffee machine, which had taken pride of place on the filing cabinet beneath a framed photograph of a girl sitting with her legs up on a desk. Her freckled face seemed to be grimacing, but in fact she was helpless with laughter. The background was the same office wall on which the picture was hanging.





'Did you know that three out of four policemen can't spell "uninteresting" properly?' Harry said, hanging his coat on the stand. 'They either leave out the "e" between the "t" and the "r", or—'





'Interesting.'





'What did you do at the weekend?'





'On Friday, thanks to some anonymous nutter's phone call warning us about a car bomb, I sat in a car outside the American ambassador's residence. False alarm, of course, but things are so sensitive right now that we had to sit there all evening. On Saturday, I made another attempt to find the woman of my life. On Sunday, I concluded that she doesn't exist. What did you get on the robber from the interviews?' Halvorsen measured the coffee into a double-cup filter.