pizza. ‘When I’ve finished my pizza.’
‘I’ll have a chat with our young friends in the
meantime,’ Harry said, getting up.
In a work context, Harry had always taken pains
not to use his size to gain a psychological
advantage. Yet even though Hitlermoustache
stretched his neck to peer up at Harry, Harry knew
that the cold stare concealed the same fear that he
had witnessed with Krohn. Only this guy had had
more training in disguising it. Harry snatched the
chair Hitlermoustache was resting his boots on and
his legs clattered on to the floor before he had a
chance to react.
‘Sorry,’ Harry said. ‘I thought this chair was
free.’
‘It’s the fucking filth,’ Hitlermoustache said. The
shaven skull sticking out of the combat jacket
swivelled round.
‘Right,’ Harry said. ‘Or the fuzz. Or the pigs.
Uncle Nabs. No, that’s a bit too cosy perhaps.
What about les flics? Is that international enough?’
‘Are we bothering you or what?’ the coat asked.
‘Yes, you’re bothering me,’ Harry said. ‘You’ve
been bothering me for a long time. Say hello to the
Prince and tell him Harry Hole is going to bother
him back. From Hole to the Prince. Did you get
that?’
The combat jacket blinked and stared open-
mouthed. Then the coat opened a mouth with teeth
splayed out in all directions and laughed until the
saliva ran.
‘Are you talking about HRH Haakon Magnus?’ he
asked, and when the combat jacket finally got the
joke he laughed along with him.
‘Well,’ Harry said. ‘If you’re just the
footsloggers, of course, you won’t know who the
Prince is. So you’ll have to pass the message on to
your next-in-line. Enjoy the pizzas, boys.’
He walked back to Halvorsen and could feel their
eyes on his back.
‘Eat up,’ Harry said to Halvorsen, who was busy
with an enormous piece of pizza stretching halfway
round his face. ‘We have to get out before I get
more shit on my record.’
82
Holmenkollen. 11 May 2000.
IT WAS THE WARMEST SPRING EVENING SO FAR.
HARRY WAS driving with the car window open and
the gentle breeze caressed his face and hair. From
the top of Holmenkollen he could see Oslo fjord
and the islands strewn around like greenish brown
shells, and the first white sails of the new season
were making their way towards land for the
evening. A couple of red-capped school-leavers
stood urinating at the edge of the road, beside a red
bus with loudspeakers mounted on the roof. The
music was booming out: Won’t – you – be my
lover . . .
An elderly lady wearing hiking breeches, and
with an anorak tied around her waist and a tired
but beatific expression on her face, was ambling
down the road.
Harry parked down from the house. He didn’t
want to go all the way up the drive, he didn’t quite
know why – perhaps because he thought it would
seem less invasive to park at the bottom.
Ridiculous, of course, since his visit had been
unannounced and uninvited.
He was halfway up the drive when his mobile
phone bleeped. It was Halvorsen ringing from the
Traitors’ Archive.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘If Daniel Gudeson really is
alive, he certainly wasn’t convicted after the war.’
‘And Signe Juul?’
‘She was sentenced to one year.’
‘But never went to prison. Anything else of
interest?’
‘Zilch. And now they’re getting ready to chuck me
out and close up.’
‘Go home and sleep – perhaps we’ll come up
with something tomorrow.’
Harry had arrived at the foot of the steps and was
going to take them in one jump when the door
opened. He stood still. Rakel was wearing a
woollen jumper and blue jeans; her hair was untidy
and her face paler than usual. He searched her eyes
for any indication that she was happy to see him
again, but found none. But nor was there the neutral
courtesy he had dreaded most. Her eyes expressed
nothing, whatever that meant.
‘I heard someone talking outside,’ she said.
‘Come in.’
Oleg was in the sitting room, watching TV in his
pyjamas.
‘Hi loser,’ Harry said. ‘Shouldn’t you be
practising Tetris?’
Oleg snorted without taking his eyes off the TV.
‘I always forget that children don’t understand
irony,’ Harry said to Rakel.
‘Where have you been?’ Oleg asked.
‘Been?’ Harry was a little baffled by Oleg’s
accusatory expression. ‘What do you mean?’
Oleg rolled his shoulders.
‘Coffee?’ Rakel asked. Harry nodded. Oleg and