As Harry noted down the telephone number and address of Arne Albu's office, he happened to look down at the sofa where he had been sitting.
'Erm…' he said when he saw Vigdis Albu following his gaze. 'I slipped in a refuse skip. Of course, I'll—'
'It doesn't matter,' she interrupted. 'The cover's going to the dry cleaner's next week anyway.'
On the steps outside, she asked Harry if on second thoughts he could wait until five o'clock before he rang her husband.
'He'll be home then and won't be so busy.'
Harry didn't answer and watched the corners of her mouth going up and down.
'Then he and I can…see if we can sort out this business for you.'
'Thank you, that's nice of you, but I have my car here and it's on the way, so I'll drive to his work and see if I can find him there.'
'OK,' she said with a brave smile.
The barking followed Harry down the long drive. At the gate, he turned round. Vigdis Albu was still standing on the steps in front of the pink plantation building. Her head was bowed and the sun shone on her hair and glossy sports gear. From a distance she looked like a tiny bronze hart.
* * *
Harry could find neither a legal place to park nor Arne Albu at the address in Vika Atrium. Just a receptionist who informed him that Albu rented an office with three other investors, and that he was having lunch with 'a firm of brokers'.
On leaving the building, Harry found a parking ticket under the windscreen wiper. He took it and his bad mood with him to SS Louise, which was in fact not a steamship but a restaurant in Aker Brygge. Unlike at Schrřder's, they served edible food to solvent customers with office addresses in what somewhat charitably might be called Oslo's Wall Street. Harry had never felt completely at home in Aker Brygge, but perhaps that was because he was Oslo-bred and not a tourist. He exchanged a few words with a waiter, who pointed to a window table.
'Gentlemen, I'm sorry to disturb,' Harry said.
'Ah, finally,' one of the three at the table exclaimed, flicking his fringe back. 'Would you call this wine room temperature, waiter?'
'I'd call it Norwegian red wine decanted into a Clos des Papes bottle,' Harry said.
Taken aback, the Fringe ran his eye down Harry in his dark suit.
'A joke.' Harry smiled. 'I'm a policeman.'
The surprise segued into alarm.
'Not environmental crime.'
Relief segued into question marks. Harry heard boyish laughter and breathed in. He had decided how he was going to do it, but had no idea how it would turn out. 'Arne Albu?'
'That's me,' answered the one who was laughing. He was slim with short, curly, dark hair and laughter lines around his eyes, which told Harry that he laughed a lot and was older than the thirty-five years he would have guessed initially. 'Apologies for the misunderstanding,' he continued, still with laughter in his voice. 'Can I help you, Constable?'
Harry observed him, quickly trying to form a picture of him before going on. The voice was the sonorous variety. Fixed gaze. Shiny white collar behind a tie that was not too loose and not too tight. The fact that he hadn't left it at 'That's me,' but had added an apology and 'Can I help you, Constable?'–with a slightly ironic stress on 'Constable'–suggested that Arne Albu was either very self-confident or had a lot of practice giving that impression.
Harry concentrated. Not on what he was going to say, but on how Albu would react.
'Yes, you can, Albu. Do you know Anna Bethsen?'
Albu looked at Harry with the same blue eyes as his wife's and after a moment's reflection gave a loud, clear answer: 'No.'
Albu's face revealed no more to Harry than the mouth said. Not that Harry had thought it would. He had long given up believing the myth that people whose professions brought them face to face with lies on a daily basis learn to recognise them. A policeman had once claimed during a court case that from his long experience he knew when the accused was lying. Stĺle Aune, once again a tool of the defence, had answered that research showed that no one single professional group was any better than another at spotting lies; a cleaner was just as good as a psychologist or a policeman, that is to say, just as bad. The only group in the comparative study to have acquitted itself with an above-average score was that of the Secret Service agents. Harry was no Secret Service agent, though. He was an Oppsal boy pressed for time, in a bad mood and right now showing poor judgement. To confront a man with potentially compromising circumstances in the presence of others, without any grounds for suspicion, was hardly very effective and not what anyone would call fair play. So Harry knew he shouldn't be doing what he was doing: 'Any idea who could have given her this photo?'