feeling in his stomach. ‘You would like to be with
me if I get someone to do my shift?’
Rakel laughed.
‘Now you sound nice. I should point out that you
weren’t my first choice, but since father has
decided that he wants to be on his own this year,
the answer is yes, we would like to be with you.’
‘What does Oleg say to that?’
‘It was his suggestion.’
‘Yes? He’s a clever lad, that Oleg.’
Harry was happy. So happy that it was difficult to
speak with his normal voice. And he didn’t give a
damn that Halvorsen was sitting across the desk
from him with a grin spread from ear to ear.
‘Have we got a deal?’ Rakel’s voice tickled his
ear.
‘If I can make it, yes. I’ll ring you later.’
‘OK, or you could come over for something to eat
this evening. If you had the time, that is. Or the
inclination.’
The words came across as so exaggeratedly
offhand that Harry knew she had been practising
them before she rang. His laughter was bubbling
inside him, his head as light as if he had taken a
narcotic substance, and he was about to say yes
when he remembered something she had said in the
restaurant: I know it won’t stop with the one time.
It wasn’t something to eat she was offering him.
If you had the time, that is. Or the inclination.
If he was going to panic, now was the time.
His thoughts were interrupted by the telephone
flashing.
‘I’ve got a call on the other line which I have to
take. Rakel, can you hang on for a second.’
‘Of course.’
Harry pressed the square key. It was Møller.
‘The arrest warrant is ready. The search
warrant’s on its way. Tom Waaler is all set with
two cars and four armed men. I hope to Christ that
the morse-code guy in your guts has a steady hand,
Harry.’
‘He fucks up the odd letter, but never a whole
message,’ Harry said, signalling to Halvorsen that
he should put on his jacket. ‘See you.’ Harry
slammed down the phone.
They were standing in the lift on their way down
when it occurred to Harry that Rakel was still on
the other line, waiting for an answer. He didn’t
have the mental energy to work out what that
meant.
91
Irisveien, Oslo. 16 May 2000.
THE FIRST SUMMER’S DAY OF THE YEAR HAD BEGUN
TO COOL as the police car rolled into the quiet
residential area of detached houses. Harry was ill
at ease. Not only because he was sweating under
the bullet-proof vest, but because it was too quiet.
He stared at the curtains behind the meticulously
trimmed hedges, but nothing stirred. It felt like a
Western and he was riding into an ambush.
At first, Harry had refused to put on a bulletproof
vest, but Tom Waaler, who was in charge of the
operation, had given him a simple ultimatum:
either put on the vest or stay at home. The argument
that a bullet from a Märklin rifle would cut through
the vest like the proverbial knife through butter had
occasioned only a bored shrug with Waaler.
They went in two police cars. The second, in
which Waaler sat, had gone up Sognsveien, into
Ullevål Hageby, to enter Irisveien from the
opposite direction, from the west. He could hear
Waaler’s voice crackle over the walkie-talkie.
Calm and confident. Asked for position, went
through the procedure again and the emergency
procedure, asked every single officer to repeat
their assignment.
‘If he’s a pro, he might have connected an alarm
to the gate, so we’ll go over not through.’
He was efficient, even Harry had to concede that,
and it was clear that the others in the car respected
Waaler.
Harry pointed to the red timber house.
‘There it is.’
‘Alpha,’ the policewoman in the front seat said
into the walkie-talkie. ‘We can’t see you.’
Waaler: ‘We’re right round the corner. Keep out
of sight from the house until you can see us. Over.’
‘Too late. We’re there now. Over.’
‘OK, but stay in the car until we come to you.
Over and out.’
The next moment they saw the nose of the second
police car coming round the bend. They drove the
last fifty metres to the house and parked the car to
block the exit from the garage. The second car
stopped in front of the garden gate.
As they got out of the cars, Harry heard the dull
echo of a tennis ball being struck by a not too tautly
strung tennis racquet. The sun was moving towards
Ullernåsen and he caught the smell of frying pork
chops coming from one window.
Then the show was on. Two police officers
jumped over the fence with MP-5 machine guns at
the ready and sprinted round the outside of the