Phantom(127)

It was past eleven o’clock, and the airport express was almost empty as it raced towards Oslo. Harry absent-mindedly read the news on the screen hanging from the ceiling. He’d had a plan, a plan for a new life. Now he had twenty minutes to come up with a new one. It was lunacy. He could have been on a plane to Bangkok. But that was the point; he could have been on a plane to Bangkok now. He simply didn’t have the ability, it was a deficiency, an operating fault; his club foot was that he had never been able to tell himself he didn’t care, to forget, to clear off. He could drink, but he sobered up. He could go to Hong Kong, but he came back. He was undoubtedly a very damaged person. And the effect of the tablets Martine had given him was wearing off; he needed more, the pain was making him dizzy.

Harry had his eyes focused on headlines about quarterly figures and sport results when it struck him: what if that was what he was doing now? Clearing off. Chickening out.

No. It was different this time. He had had the date of the flight changed to tomorrow night, the same flight as Rakel. He had even reserved a seat for her beside him in business class and paid for an upgrade. He had wondered whether to tell her about what he was doing, but he knew what she would think. He hadn’t changed. There was still the same madness driving him. Nothing would change, ever. But sitting there, beside each other, with the acceleration pressing them backwards into the seat and then feeling the lift, the lightness, the inexorable, she would finally know they had left the old days behind them, beneath them, that their journey had begun.

Harry got off the airport express, crossed the bridge to the Opera House, walked over the Italian marble towards the main entrance. Through the glass he could see the elegantly dressed people making conversation, with finger food and drinks behind the ropes in the expensive foyer.

Outside the entrance stood a man wearing a suit and an earpiece, his hands in front of his crotch as if facing a free kick. Broad-shouldered, but no beef. Trained eyes that had spotted Harry long ago, and were now studying things around him that might have some significance. Which could only mean that he was a policeman in PST, the Norwegian security service, and that the Chief of Police or someone from the government was present. The man took two steps towards Harry as he approached.

‘Sorry, private party …’ he began, but stopped when he saw Harry’s ID card.

‘It’s nothing to do with your Chief, pal,’ Harry said. ‘Just need to have a few words with someone. Official business.’

The man nodded, spoke into the microphone on his lapel and let Harry pass.

The foyer was a huge igloo which Harry could see was populated by many faces he recognised despite his long exile: the press poseurs, TV’s talking heads, entertainers from sport and politics, plus culture’s éminences more or less grises. And Harry saw what Isabelle Skøyen had meant when she’d said it was hard to find a tall enough date when she wore heels. She was easy to spot towering above the assembled guests.

Harry strode over the rope and ploughed a path through with a repeated ‘sorry’ as white wine slopped around him.

Isabelle was speaking to a man who was half a head smaller than her, but her ingratiating, enthusiastic facial expression suggested to Harry that he was several heads higher than her in power and status. Harry was three metres away when a man appeared in front of him.

‘I’m the officer who’s just been talking to your colleague outside,’ Harry said. ‘I’m going to have a word with her.’

‘Be my guest,’ said the guard, and Harry thought he could hear a certain subtext.

Harry took the last steps.

‘Hi, Isabelle,’ he said and saw the surprise on her face. ‘Hope I’m not interrupting … your career?’

‘Inspector Hole,’ she answered with a screech of laughter as if sharing an in-joke.

The man beside her was quick on the draw with his hand and said – rather superfluously – his name. A long career on the top floor of City Hall had presumably taught him that popularity with the common man was rewarded on election day. ‘Did you enjoy the performance, Inspector?’

‘Yes and no,’ Harry said. ‘I was mostly glad it was over, and I was on my way home when I realised that there were a couple of things I hadn’t got clear.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, as Don Giovanni’s a thief and a philanderer surely it’s only right and proper that he should be punished in the final act. I think I understood who he is, the statue that comes to Don Giovanni and takes him down to hell. What I’m wondering, however, is who told him he could find Don Giovanni at that particular spot? Can you answer me that …?’ Harry turned. ‘Isabelle?’