'And the same summer I learned what death meant.'
Harry nodded to an old sailor on the neighbouring table, who didn't return the greeting. He cleared his throat: 'What about grudges? Do you suffer from them, too?'
She looked up at him. 'What do you mean?'
Harry shrugged. 'Look around you. Humanity can't survive without it. Revenge and retribution. That's the driving force for the midget who was bullied at school and later became a multi-millionaire, and the bank robber who thinks he has been short-changed by society. And look at us. Society's burning revenge disguised as cold, rational retribution–that's our profession, isn't it.'
'That's the way it has to be,' she said, avoiding his gaze. 'Society wouldn't work without punishment.'
'Yes, of course, but there's more to it than that, isn't there. Catharsis. Revenge cleanses. Aristotle wrote that the human soul is purged by the fear and compassion that tragedy evokes. It's a frightening thought that we fulfil the soul's innermost desire through the tragedy of revenge, isn't it.'
'I haven't read a lot of philosophy.' She raised her glass and took a long swig.
Harry bent his head. 'I haven't, either. I'm just trying to impress you. Down to brass tacks?'
'First some bad news,' she said. 'The reconstruction of the face behind the mask failed. Just a nose and the outline of a head.'
'And the good news?'
'The woman who was used as a hostage in the Grřnlandsleiret hold-up reckons she would recognise the robber's voice. She said it was unusually high, she'd almost thought it was a woman's.'
'Mm. Anything else?'
'Yes, I've been talking to the staff at Focus and doing some checking. Trond Grette arrived at half past two and left at around four.'
'How can you be so sure of that?'
'Because he paid for the squash court with a card when he arrived. The payment was registered at 14.34. And do you remember the stolen squash racquet? Naturally he told the staff. The person who was working the Friday shift noted down the time Grette was there. He left the centre at 16.02.
'And that was the good news?'
'No, I'm coming to it now. Do you remember the overalls Grette saw going past the fitness room?'
'With POLITI on the back?'
'I've been watching the video. It looks like there is Velcro on the front and back of the Expeditor's boiler suit.'
'Meaning?'
'If the Expeditor is the person Grette saw, he could have put the sign on the boiler suit with Velcro when he was out of range of the cameras.'
'Mm.' Harry slurped out loud.
'It might explain why no one reported seeing someone in a plain black boiler suit in the area. There were black police uniforms everywhere right after the hold-up.'
'What did they say at Focus?'
'That's the interesting part. The woman on duty in fact remembers a man in a boiler suit she took for a policeman. He raced past so she assumed he had booked a squash court or something like that.'
'So they didn't have a name?'
'No.'
'That's not exactly sexy…'
'No, but the best is to come. The reason she remembered the guy was that she thought he had to be in a special unit, or something similar, because the rest of his outfit was so Dirty Harry. He…' She paused and gave him a horrified look. 'I didn't mean to…'
'That's fine,' Harry said. 'Go on.'
Beate moved her glass, and Harry thought he detected a tiny, triumphant smile around her little mouth.
'He was wearing a half-rolled-up balaclava. And a pair of large sunglasses hiding the rest of his face. She said he was carrying a black holdall which seemed very heavy.'
Harry's coffee went down the wrong way.
* * *
A pair of old shoes hung by their laces from the wire stretched between the houses in Dovregata. The lights on the wire did what they could to illuminate the cobbled pavement, but it was as if the dark autumn evening had already sucked all the light out of the town. That didn't bother Harry; he could find the way between Sofies gate and Schrřder's in the pitch dark. He had done it many times.
Beate had a list of the names of people who had booked squash or aerobics at Focus at the time the man in the boiler suit had been there, and she was going to start ringing round tomorrow. If she didn't find the man, there was still a good chance that someone had been in the room when he was changing and could give a description.
Harry walked beneath the shoes on the wire. He had seen them hanging there for years and had long reconciled himself to never finding an answer to the question of how they got there.
Ali was washing the steps as Harry came to the house entrance.
'You must hate Norwegian autumns,' Harry said, wiping his feet. 'Just grime and muddy water.'