‘That was all,’ Groth said.
‘Does the defence counsel have any more
questions?’
Krohn shook his head.
‘Then I would like the first witness for the
prosecution to be brought in.’
The prosecutor nodded to the usher, who opened
the door at the back of the room. There was a
scraping of chairs outside, the door opened wide
and a large man strolled in. Krohn noted that the
man was wearing a suit jacket which was slightly
too small, black jeans and large Dr Martens boots.
The close-shaven head and the slim athletic body
suggested an age somewhere around the early
thirties – although the bloodshot eyes with bags
underneath and the pale complexion with thin
capillaries bursting sporadically into small red
deltas pointed more in the region of fifty.
‘Police Officer Harry Hole?’ the judge asked
when the man had taken a seat in the witness box.
‘Yes.’
‘No home address given, I see?’
‘Private.’ Hole pointed with his thumb over his
shoulder. ‘They tried to break into my place.’
More boos.
‘Have you ever made an affirmation, Police
Officer Hole? Taken the oath, in other words?’
‘Yes.’
Krohn’s head wobbled like the nodding dogs
some motorists like to keep on their parcel shelf.
He began feverishly to flick through the documents.
‘You investigate murders for Crime Squad, don’t
you?’ Groth said. ‘Why were you given this case?’
‘Because we wrongly assessed the case.’
‘Oh?’
‘We didn’t think that Ho Dai would survive. You
usually don’t with a smashed skull and parts of the
insides on the outside.’
Krohn saw the faces of the associate judges
wince involuntarily. But it didn’t matter now. He
had found the document with their names. And
there it was: the mistake.
3
Karl Johans Gate. 5 October 1999.
YOU’RE GOING TO DIE, OLD CHAP.
The words were still ringing in the old man’s
ears when he walked down the steps to leave and
stood still, blinded by the fierce autumn sun. As his
pupils slowly shrank, he held on tight to the
handrail and breathed in, slow and deep. He
listened to the cacophony of cars, trams, the
beeping sounds telling pedestrians they could
cross. And voices – the excited, happy voices
which hastened by to the accompaniment of the
clatter of shoes. And music. Had he ever heard so
much music? Nothing managed to drown the sound
of the words though: You’re going to die, old
chap.
How many times had he stood here on the steps
outside Dr Buer’s surgery? Twice a year for forty
years, that would make eighty times. Eighty normal
days just like today, but never, not before today,
had he noticed how much life there was in the
streets, how much exhilaration, what voracious lust
for life. It was October, but it felt like a day in
May. The day peace broke out. Was he
exaggerating? He could hear her voice, see her
silhouette come running out of the sun, the outline
of a face disappearing in a halo of white light.
You’re going to die, old chap.
The whiteness took on colour and became Karl
Johans gate. He arrived at the bottom step,
stopped, looked to the right and then to the left as if
he couldn’t make up his mind which direction to
take, and fell into a reverie. He gave a start as if
someone had woken him and began to walk
towards the Palace. His gait was hesitant, his eyes
downcast and his gaunt figure stooped in the
slightly oversized woollen coat.
‘The cancer has spread,’ Dr Buer had said.
‘Right,’ he had answered, looking at the doctor
and wondering if that was something they learned
at medical school, to take off their glasses when
serious issues had to be talked about, or if it was
something shortsighted doctors did to avoid
looking patients in the eye. Dr Konrad Buer had
begun to resemble his father as his hairline
receded, and the bags under his eyes gave him a
little of his father’s aura of concern.
‘In a nutshell?’ the old man had asked in the voice
of someone he had not heard in more than fifty
years. They had been the hollow, rough, guttural
sounds of a man with mortal dread quivering in his
vocal cords.
‘Yes, there is in fact a question about —’
‘Please, doctor. I’ve looked death in the eye
before.’
He had raised his voice, chosen words which
forced it to stay firm, the way he wanted Dr Buer
to hear them. The way he himself wanted to hear
them.
The doctor’s gaze had flitted across the table top,
across the worn parquet floor and out of the dirty
window. It had taken refuge out there for a while