Phantom(26)
Berntsen stopped and looked at the pilot while waiting for the usual question.
The pilot had sat up straight on the bed, recovered some colour in his face and at length cleared his throat. ‘Why … erm, the burner? He wasn’t the one who grassed.’
‘Because there is no justice, Schultz. There are only necessary solutions to practical problems. The burner who was going to destroy the evidence had become evidence himself. He had been rumbled, and if the police caught him he could lead the detectives to the Kosovar Albanians. Since he wasn’t one of their brothers, only a corrupt cop, it was logical to expedite him into the beyond. And they knew this was the murder of a policeman the police would not prioritise. Why should they? The burner had already received his punishment, and the police don’t set up an investigation where the only goal they will achieve is to inform the public about police corruption. Agreed?’
Schultz didn’t answer.
Berntsen leaned forward. The voice went down in volume and up in intensity. ‘I do not want to be found in a tulip field, Schultz. Our only way out of this is to trust each other. One parachute. Got that?’
The pilot cleared his throat. ‘What about the Kosovar Albanian? Did he have his sentence commuted?’
‘Hard to say. He was found hanging from the cell wall before the case came to court. Someone had smashed his head against a clothes hook.’
The captain’s face lost its colour again.
‘Breathe, Schultz,’ Truls Berntsen said. That was what he liked best about this job. The feeling that he was in charge for once.
Schultz leaned back and rested his head against the wall. Closed his eyes. ‘And if I decline your help outright and we pretend you’ve never been here?’
‘Won’t do. Your employer and mine don’t want you in the witness box.’
‘So, what you’re saying is I have no choice?’
Berntsen smiled. And uttered his favourite sentence: ‘Schultz, it’s a long time since you had any choice.’
Valle Hovin Stadium. A little oasis of concrete in the middle of a desert of green lawns, birch trees, gardens and flowerboxes on verandas. In the winter the track was used as a skating rink, in the summer as a concert venue, by and large for dinosaurs like the Rolling Stones, Prince and Bruce Springsteen. Rakel had even persuaded Harry to go along with her to see U2, although he had always been a club man and hated stadium concerts. Afterwards she had teased Harry that in his heart of hearts he was a closet music fundamentalist.
Most of the time, however, Valle Hovin was as now, deserted, run-down, like a disused factory which had manufactured a product that was no longer used. Harry’s best memories from here were seeing Oleg training on the ice. Sitting and watching him try his hardest. Fighting. Failing. Failing. Then succeeding. Not great achievements: a new PB, second place in a club championship for his age group. But more than enough to make Harry’s foolish heart swell to such an absurd size that he had to adopt an indifferent air so as not to embarrass both of them. ‘Not bad that, Oleg.’
Harry looked around. Not a soul in sight. Then he inserted the Ving key in the lock of the dressing-room door beneath the stands. Inside, everything was unchanged, except more worn. There was refuse on the floor; it was clearly a long time since anyone had been here. It was a place you could be alone. Harry walked between the lockers. Most were not locked. But then he found what he was looking for, the Abus padlock.
He pushed the tip of the key into the jagged aperture. It wouldn’t go in. Shit.
Harry turned. Let his eyes glide along the bulky iron cabinets. Stopped, went back one locker. That was another Abus padlock. And there was a circle etched into the green paint. An ‘O’.
The first objects Harry saw when he opened up were Oleg’s racing skates. The long, slim blades had a kind of red rash along the edge.
On the inside of the cabinet door, stuck to the ventilation grille, were two photographs. Two family photographs. One showed five faces. Two of the children and what he assumed were the parents were unfamiliar. But he recognised the third child. Because he had seen him in other photographs. Crime-scene photographs.
It was the good looks. Gusto Hanssen.
Harry wondered whether it was the good looks that did it, the immediate sensation that Gusto Hanssen did not belong in the photograph. Or, to be precise, that he didn’t belong to the family.
The same, strangely enough, could be said about the tall, blond man sitting behind the dark-haired woman and her son in the second photograph. It had been taken one autumn day several years ago. They had gone for a walk in Holmenkollen, waded through the orange-coloured foliage, and Rakel had placed her camera on a rock and pressed the self-timer button.