One of the ducks glided towards him, hoping for a few crumbs of bread perhaps. Not because it was confident, but you never knew. It had calculated consumption of energy versus probability of reward. Hope. Black ice.
Harry sat up with a start. Took the keys from his jacket pocket. He had just remembered why he had bought the padlock that time. It hadn’t been for himself. It had been for the speed skater. For Oleg.
7
OFFICER TRULS BERNTSEN HAD had a brief discussion with the duty inspector at the airport. Berntsen had said yes, he knew the airport was in the Romerike Police District, and he had nothing to do with the arrest, but as a Special Operations detective he had been keeping an eye on the arrested man for a while and had recently been warned by one of his sources that Tord Schultz had been caught with narcotics in his possession. He had held up his ID card showing he was a grade 3 police officer, employed in Oslo Police District by Special Operations and Orgkrim. The inspector had shrugged and without further ado taken him to one of the three remand cells.
After the cell door had slammed behind Truls he looked around to ensure the corridor and the other two cells were empty. Then he sat down on the toilet lid and looked at the slat bed and the man with his head buried in his hands.
‘Tord Schultz?’
The man raised his head. He had removed his jacket, and had it not been for the flashes on his shirt Berntsen would not have recognised him as the chief pilot of an aircraft. Captains should not look like this. Not petrified, pale, with pupils that were large and black with shock. On the other hand, it was how most people looked after they had been apprehended for the first time. It had taken Berntsen a little while to locate Tord Schultz in the airport. But the rest was easy. According to STRASAK, the official criminal register, Schultz did not have a record, had never had any dealings with the police and was – according to their unofficial register – not someone with known links to the drugs community.
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m here on behalf of the people you work for, Schultz, and I don’t mean the airline. Screw the rest. Alright?’
Schultz pointed to the ID card hanging from a string around Berntsen’s neck. ‘You’re a policeman. You’re trying to trick me.’
‘It would be good news if I was, Schultz. It would be a breach of procedures and a chance for your solicitor to have you acquitted. But we’ll manage this without solicitors. Alright?’
The airline captain continued to stare with dilated pupils absorbing all the light they could, the slightest glimpse of optimism. Truls Berntsen sighed. He could only hope that what he was going to say would sink in.
‘Do you know what a burner is?’ Berntsen asked, pausing only briefly for an answer. ‘It’s someone who destroys police cases. He makes sure that evidence becomes contaminated or goes missing, that mistakes are made in legal procedures, thus preventing a case from being brought to court, or that everyday blunders are made in the investigation, thus allowing the suspect to walk away free. Do you understand?’
Schultz blinked twice. And nodded slowly.
‘Great,’ Berntsen said. ‘The situation is that we are two men in free fall with the one parachute between us. I’ve jumped out of the plane to rescue you, for the moment you can spare me the gratitude, but you must trust me one hundred per cent, otherwise we’ll both hit the ground. Capisce?’
More blinking. Obviously not.
‘There was once a German policeman, a burner. He worked for a gang of Kosovar Albanians importing heroin via the Balkan route. The drugs were driven in lorries from the opium fields in Afghanistan to Turkey, transported onwards through ex-Yugoslavia to Amsterdam where the Albanians channelled it on to Scandinavia. Loads of borders to cross, loads of people to be paid. Among them, this burner. And one day a young Kosovar Albanian is caught with a petrol tank full of raw opium, the clumps weren’t wrapped up, just put straight into the petrol. He was held in custody, and the same day the Kosovar Albanians contacted their German burner. He went to the young man, explained that he was his burner and he could relax now, they would fix this. The burner said he would be back the next day and tell him what statement to make to the police. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut. But this guy who had been nabbed red-handed had never served time before. He had probably heard too many stories about bending over in the prison showers for the soap; at any rate he cracked like an egg in the microwave at the first interview and blew the whistle on the burner in the hope that he would receive favourable treatment from the judge. So. In order to get evidence against the burner the police put a hidden microphone in the cell. But the burner, the corrupt policeman, did not turn up as arranged. They found him six months later. Spread over a tulip field in bits. I’m a city boy myself, but I’ve heard bodies make good manure.’