The Redbreast(93)

what? Kim was jealous when I said I was going to

the cinema with a colleague from work.’

‘Congratulations.’

‘Before I forget,’ she said. ‘I found the name of

Edvard Mosken Jr’s defence counsel you were

asking about. And his grandfather who was

working on the postwar trials.’

‘Yes?’

Ellen smiled.

‘Johan Krohn and Kristian Krohn.’

‘Bingo.’

‘I talked to the Public Prosecutor in the trial

against Mosken Jr. Mosken Snr went ballistic

when the court found his son guilty and physically

attacked Krohn. He screamed that Krohn and his

grandfather were conspiring against the Mosken

family.’

‘Interesting.’

‘I deserve a big bag of popcorn, don’t you think?’

Todo sobre mi madre was a great deal better than

Harry had feared. But in the middle of the scene

where Rosa is buried he still had to pester a tear-

streaked Ellen to ask where Grenland was. She

answered that it was the area around Porsgrunn

and Skien, and was then allowed to see the rest of

the film in peace.

50

Oslo. 11 March 2000.

HARRY COULD SEE THE SUIT WAS TOO SMALL. HE

COULD see it, but he couldn’t understand it. He

hadn’t put on any weight since he was eighteen and

the suit had fitted perfectly when he had bought it

at Dressmann for the post-exams celebrations in

1990. Nevertheless, standing in front of the mirror

in the lift, he saw that his socks were visible

between the suit trousers and the black Dr Martens

shoes. It was just one of those unsolvable

mysteries.

The lift doors slid to the side and Harry could

already hear the music, loud male chatter and

female twittering emanating from the open doors in

the canteen. He looked at his watch. It was 8.15.

Eleven should do it and then he could go home.

He inhaled, stepped into the canteen and scanned

the room. The canteen was the traditional

Norwegian kind – a square room with a glass

counter, at one end of which you ordered food,

light-coloured furniture from some fjord in

Sunnmøre and a smoking ban. The party committee

had done their best to camouflage the daily

backdrop with balloons and red tablecloths. Even

though men were in the majority, the male-female

mix was much more evenly distributed than when

Crime Squad threw a party. Most people seemed

to have already imbibed quite a bit of alcohol.

Linda had talked about various pre-party

looseners, and Harry was glad that no one had

invited him.

‘You look so good in a suit, Harry.’

That was Linda. He hardly recognised the woman

in the tight dress, which emphasised not only the

extra kilos but also her womanly exuberance. She

was carrying a tray of orange-coloured drinks

which she held up in front of him.

‘Er . . . no thanks, Linda.’

‘Don’t be so boring, Harry. This is a party!’

Prince was howling on the car stereo again.

Ellen bent forward in the driver’s seat and turned

down the volume.

Tom Waaler gave her a sideways glance.

‘A little too loud,’ she said, thinking that it was

only three weeks until the policeman from

Steinkjer arrived, and she wouldn’t have to work

with Waaler any more.

It wasn’t the music. He didn’t bother her. And he

definitely wasn’t a bad policeman.

It was the telephone calls. Not that Ellen Gjelten

didn’t have some sympathy for a certain nurturing

of your sex life, but half the times his mobile phone

rang she gathered from the conversations that a

woman had already been spurned, was being

spurned or was about to be spurned. The latter

conversations were the most unpleasant. They

were the women he had not yet rejected, and he

had a special voice for them which made Ellen

want to scream out loud: Don’t do it! He won’t

bring you any good! Run for it! Ellen Gjelten was

a generous person who found it easy to forgive

human weakness. She had not detected many human

weaknesses in Tom Waaler, but not much humanity

either. To put it bluntly, she didn’t like him.

They drove past Tøyen Park. Waaler had

received a tip-off that someone had seen Ayub, the

Pakistani gang leader they had been after since the

assault in the Palace Gardens in December, in

Aladdin, the Persian restaurant in Hausmanns gate.

Ellen knew they were already too late; they would

only be asking people if they knew where Ayub

was. They wouldn’t get an answer, but at least they

would have put in an appearance, shown they

weren’t going to leave him in peace.

‘Wait in the car, I’ll go in and check,’ Waaler

said.

‘OK.’

Waaler pulled down the zip of his leather jacket.

To show off the muscles he had acquired pumping