‘Punching is so bloody painful. Couldn’t you just give in?’ he asked.
The knifeman nodded and slumped down beside Rod, who still had his head between his legs.
When Harry turned, he saw Borroughs standing in the middle of the floor with a gun pointing at Andrew’s first opponent, and Andrew himself lying between overturned tables, lifeless. Some of the customers had left, some stood rubbernecking, but most were still in the bar watching TV. There was a Test match on.
As the ambulances arrived to deal with the injured, Harry ensured they dealt with Andrew first. They carried him out with Harry at his side. Andrew was bleeding from one ear and there was a wheeze to his breathing, but at least he had come round.
‘I didn’t know you played cricket, Andrew. Great throwing arm, but was it necessary to go at it so hard?’
‘You’re right. I totally misjudged the situation. You had everything under control.’
‘Well,’ Harry said, ‘I have to be quite honest and admit I didn’t.’
‘OK,’ Andrew said, ‘I’ll be quite honest and say I’ve got a terrible headache and I regret I turned up at all. It would’ve been fairer if you’d been lying here. And I do mean that.’
The ambulances came and went, and only Harry and Borroughs were left in the bar.
‘I hope we didn’t destroy too much of the furniture and fittings,’ Harry said.
‘No, it’s not so bad. Anyway, my customers appreciate a bit of live entertainment once in a while. But you’d better look over your shoulder from now on. The boss of those boys won’t be pleased when he gets to hear about this,’ Borroughs said.
‘Really?’ Harry said. He had an inkling that Borroughs was trying to tell him something. ‘And who’s the boss?’
‘I didn’t say a word, but the bloke in the photo is not a million miles off.’
Harry nodded slowly. ‘Then I’d better be on my guard. And armed. Mind if I take an extra skewer with me?’
21
A Drunk
HARRY FOUND A dentist in King’s Cross, who took one look at him and decided quite a bit of preparatory work would have to be done to build up a front tooth that had broken off in the middle. He carried out a temporary repair and accepted a fee Harry hoped Oslo’s Chief of Police would be charitable enough to reimburse.
At the police station he was informed the cricket bat had broken three of Andrew’s ribs and given him concussion. He was unlikely to be leaving his sickbed this week.
After lunch Harry asked Lebie if he would join him on a couple of hospital visits. They drove to St Etienne Hospital, where they had to register their names in the visitors’ book – a thick, weighty tome that lay open in front of an even weightier nun presiding behind the glass window with crossed arms, but she just directed them in, shaking her head.
‘She doesn’t speak English,’ Lebie explained.
They entered a reception area where a smiling young man immediately logged their names on the computer and allocated them room numbers and explained where they were to go.
‘From the Middle Ages to the Computer Age in ten seconds,’ Harry whispered.
They exchanged a few words with a yellow-and-blue Andrew, but he was in a bad mood and told them to clear off after five minutes. On the floor above they found the knifeman in a single room. He was lying in bed with his arm in a sling and a swollen face, and regarded Harry with the wounded look from the night before.
‘What do you want, you bastard cop?’ he said.
Harry sat down on a chair beside the bed. ‘I want to know whether Evans White ordered someone to murder Inger Holter, who was given the order and why.’
The knifeman tried to laugh, but instead began to cough. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, cop, and I don’t think you do, either.’
‘How’s the shoulder?’ Harry asked.
The knifeman’s eyeballs seemed to grow in his skull. ‘You just try . . .’
Harry pulled the skewer from his pocket. A thick, blue blood vessel appeared on the man’s forehead.
‘You’re kidding.’
Harry said nothing.
‘You’re out of your bloody minds! Surely you can’t imagine you can get away with this! If they so much as find a mark on my body after you’ve left, your fuckin’ crap job will be down the pan, you bastard!’
The knifeman had worked himself up into a falsetto.
Harry placed a finger on his lips. ‘Do yourself a favour. Shh. Do you see that burly, bald-headed guy by the door? It’s not so easy to see the likeness, but in fact he’s the cousin of the man whose skull you boys smashed with the bat yesterday. He asked for special permission to join me today. His job is to tape up your gob and hold you down while I loosen the bandage and stick this beauty the one place where there’ll be no mark. Because there’s already a hole, isn’t there.’