Phantom(23)

Harry watched Beate, who with a resigned air nodded confirmation of what Harry didn’t need to say: someone could have been in Oleg’s flat and escaped unseen. Straws.

They walked down to the path along the Akerselva. Harry established that the river was narrow enough for a boy with a decent throwing arm to lob the gun over to the opposite bank.

‘If you haven’t found the gun yet—’ Harry said.

‘The prosecuting counsel doesn’t need the gun, Harry.’

He nodded. Gunshot residue on his hands. Witnesses who had seen him showing off with the gun. His DNA on the dead boy.

Ahead of them, leaning against a green iron bench, two white boys in grey hoodies saw them, put their heads together and shuffled off down the path.

‘Looks like pushers can still smell the cop in you, Harry.’

‘Mm. Thought it was just Moroccans who sold hash here.’

‘Competition has moved in. Kosovar Albanians, Somalis, Eastern Europeans. Asylum seekers selling the whole spectrum. Speed, methamphetamine, Ecstasy, morphine.’

‘Heroin.’

‘Doubtful. There’s almost no standard heroin to be found in Oslo. Violin is what counts, and you can get that only round Plata. Unless you want to travel to Gothenburg or Copenhagen, where apparently violin has made a recent appearance.’

‘I keep hearing about this violin stuff. What is it?’

‘New synthetic dope. It doesn’t hinder breathing as much as standard heroin, so even if it ruins lives there are fewer overdoses. Extremely addictive. Everyone who tries it wants more. But it’s so expensive not many can afford it.’

‘So they buy other dope instead?’

‘There’s a morphine bonanza.’

‘One step forward, two steps back.’

Beate shook her head. ‘It’s the war on heroin that’s important. And he’s won that one.’

‘Bellman?’

‘So you’ve heard?’

‘Hagen said he’s busted most of the heroin gangs.’

‘The Pakistani gangs. The Vietnamese. Dagbladet called him General Rommel after he smashed a major network of North Africans. The MC gang in Alnabru. They’re all banged up.’

‘The bikers? In my time biker boys sold speed and shot heroin like crazy.’

‘Los Lobos. Hell’s Angels wannabes. We reckon they were one of only two networks dealing in violin. But they were caught in a mass arrest with a subsequent raid in Alnabru. You should have seen the smirk on Bellman’s chops in the papers. He was there when they carried out the operation.’

‘Let’s do some good?’

Beate laughed. Another feature he liked about her: she was enough of a film buff to be on the ball when he quoted semi-good lines from semi-bad films. Harry offered her a cigarette, which she declined. He lit up.

‘Mm. How the hell did Bellman achieve what the Narc Unit wasn’t even close to achieving in all the years I was at HQ?

‘I know you don’t like him, but in fact he’s a good leader. They loved him at Kripos, and they’re pissed off with the Chief of Police for taking him to Police HQ.’

‘Mm.’ Harry inhaled. Felt it pacify his blood’s hunger. Nicotine. A polysyllabic word, like heroin, like violin. ‘So who’s left?’

‘That’s the snag with exterminating pests. You upset a food chain and you don’t know if all you’ve done is make way for something else. Something worse than what you removed …’

‘Any evidence of that?’

Beate shrugged.

‘All of a sudden we’re not getting any info off the streets. Our informers don’t know anything. Or they’re keeping shtum. There are just whispers about the man from Dubai. No one has seen him, no one knows his name, he’s a kind of invisible puppeteer. We can see violin is being sold, but we can’t trace it back to its source. The pushers we nab say they’ve bought off other sellers at the same level. It’s not normal for tracks to be covered so well. And that tells us this is a simple, very professional outfit controlling import and distribution.’

‘The man from Dubai. The mysterious mastermind. Haven’t we heard that story before? And then he turns out to be a run-of-the-mill crook.’

‘This is different, Harry. There were a number of drugs-related murders over the new year. A type of brutality we haven’t seen before. And no one says a word. Two Vietnamese dealers are found hanging upside down from a beam in the flat where they worked. Drowned. Each one had a plastic bag filled with water on his head.’

‘That’s not an Arab method, it’s Russian.’

‘Sorry?’

‘They hang them upside down, put a plastic bag over their heads and tie it loosely, around the neck. Then they begin to pour water down their heels. It follows the body down to the bag and fills it up. The method’s called the Man on the Moon.’