round the trigger. He could feel the fear of death
squeezing his heart.
‘No,’ Harry said. ‘It’s not too late.’
But he knew it wasn’t true. It was too late. The
old man was beyond reasoning, beyond this world
and this life.
‘Passwort.’
Soon it would be over for them both. There was
only some slow time left, the time on Christmas
Eve before . . .
‘Oleg,’ Harry said.
The gun was pointing directly at his head. A car
horn sounded in the distance. A spasm flitted
across the old man’s face.
‘The password is Oleg,’ Harry said.
The finger on the trigger paused.
The old man opened his mouth to say something.
Harry held his breath.
‘Oleg,’ the old man said. It sounded like a wisp
of wind from his lips.
Harry was never quite able to explain it
afterwards, but he saw it: the old man was dying at
that very moment. And then it was a child’s face
looking at Harry from behind the wrinkles. The gun
was no longer pointed at him and he lowered his
revolver. Then he stretched out a hand and put it on
the old man’s shoulder.
‘Do you promise me?’ The old man’s voice was
barely audible. ‘That they won’t . . .’
‘I promise,’ Harry said. ‘I shall personally see to
it that no names will appear publicly. Oleg and
Rakel will not suffer in any way . . .’
The old man rested his eyes on Harry for a long
time. The rifle hit the floor with a thud and then he
collapsed.
Harry took the magazine out of the rifle and put it
on the sofa before dialling reception and asking
Betty to call an ambulance. Then he rang
Halvorsen’s mobile and said the danger was over.
Afterwards he pulled the old man on to the sofa
and sat down in a chair to wait.
‘I got him in the end,’ the old man whispered. ‘He
was about to slip away, you know. In the mud.’
‘Who did you get? Harry asked, pulling hard on
his cigarette. ‘Daniel, of course. I got him in the
end. Helena was right. I was always stronger.’
Harry stubbed out his cigarette and stood by the
window. ‘I’m dying,’ the old man whispered. ‘I
know.’
‘It’s on my chest. Can you see it?’
‘See what?’
‘The polecat.’
But Harry couldn’t see a polecat. He saw a white
cloud scud across the sky like a passing doubt. In
the sunshine, he saw the Norwegian flags wafting
on all the flagpoles of the city and he saw a grey
bird flap past the window. But no polecats.
Part Ten
THE RESURRECTION
105
Ullevål Hospital. 19 May 2000.
BJARNE MØLLER FOUND HARRY IN THE WAITING
ROOM OF the oncological department. The head of
Crime Squad took a seat beside Harry and winked
at a small young girl, who frowned and turned
away.
‘I heard it’s all over,’ he said.
Harry nodded. ‘Four o’clock this morning. Rakel
has been here the whole time. Oleg’s in there now.
What are you doing here?’
‘Just wanted a little chat with you.’
‘I could do with a smoke,’ Harry said. ‘Let’s go
outside.’
They found a bench under a tree. Wispy clouds
hurried past in the sky above them. All the signs
were that it would be another warm day.
‘So Rakel doesn’t know anything?’ Møller asked.
‘Nothing.’
‘The people in the know are me, Meirik, the
Chief Constable, the Minister of Justice and the
Prime Minister. And you, of course.’
‘You know better than I do who knows what,
boss.’
‘Yes. Naturally. I’m merely thinking aloud.’
‘So what was it you wanted to say to me?’
‘Do you know what, Harry? Some days I wish I
worked somewhere else. Some place where there
is less politics and more police work. In Bergen,
for example. But then you get up on days like
today, stand by your bedroom window looking at
the fjord, the islands in it, and listen to the birds
singing and . . . do you understand? . . . Then you
don’t want to go anywhere.’
Møller watched a ladybird crawling up his thigh.
‘What I wanted to say is that we would like to
keep things as they are, Harry.’
‘And what things are we talking about?’
‘Did you know that no American president in the
last twenty years has lasted the full term without at
least ten attempts on his life being uncovered? And
that all the perpetrators without exception were
arrested without anything coming to the ears of the
media? No one profits from plans to assassinate a
head of state becoming public knowledge, Harry.
Especially not ones which could have succeeded,