was one of those semi-macabre macho jokes and
laughed it off.
‘Stop next to the red car there.’
‘But number 4 is in the next block,’ he said.
Had she told him she lived at number 4?
Possibly. She might have forgotten. She felt
transparent, like a jellyfish, as if he could see her
heart thumping away much too fast.
The engine purred in neutral. He had stopped. She
hunted feverishly for the door handle. Bloody
Japanese nerds! Why couldn’t they just design a
plain, easy-to-recognise handle for the door?
‘See you Monday,’ she heard Waaler’s voice say
behind her as she found the handle, stumbled out
and inhaled the toxic March Oslo air as if coming
to the surface after a long time under water. When
she slammed her heavy front door she could still
hear the smooth, well-lubricated sound of
Waaler’s car idling outside.
She charged up the stairs, her boots stamping
down hard on every step, holding the keys in front
of her like a divining rod. Then she was in her flat.
As she dialled Harry’s number she memorised
Sverre Olsen’s message word for word.
This is Sverre Olsen. I’m still waiting for the ten
big ones as commission for the shooter for the
old guy. Ring me at home.
Then he rang off.
It had taken her a nanosecond to realise the
connection. The fifth clue to the puzzle about who
the middleman was in the Märklin deal. A
policeman. Tom Waaler. Of course. Ten thousand
in commission to a nobody like Olsen – that had to
be a big job. The old man. Arms freaks.
Sympathies with the extreme right. The Prince who
would soon be a chief inspector. It was crystal
clear, so self-evident that for a moment she had
been shocked that she, with her ability to register
sub-tones inaudible to others, had not realised it
before. She knew paranoia had had her in its grip
for some time, but still she hadn’t managed to
refrain from thinking the thought through to the end
as she waited for him to come out of the restaurant:
Tom Waaler had every possibility of climbing
higher, of pulling strings from ever-more important
positions, sheltering beneath the wings of power.
Who knows what alliances he had already struck
and with whom at Police HQ. If she put her mind
to it, there were of course several people she
could never imagine becoming involved. But the
only person she could count on 100 – one hundred
– per cent was Harry.
Got through. It wasn’t engaged. It was never
engaged at his place. Come on, Harry!
She also knew it was only a question of time
before Waaler would talk to Olsen and find out
what had happened, and she didn’t doubt for a
second that her life would be in jeopardy from that
moment on. She would have to act fast, but she
couldn’t afford to make a single mistake. A voice
interrupted her reasoning.
‘This is Hole. Speak to me.’
Bleep.
‘Sod you, Harry! This is Ellen. We’ve got him
now. I’ll ring you on your mobile.’
She held the receiver between shoulder and chin
as she flicked through the index of numbers for H,
dropped the book on to the floor with a bang,
swore and finally found Harry’s mobile number.
Fortunately he always had his mobile on him.
Ellen Gjelten lived on the second floor of a
recently renovated block of flats together with a
tame great tit called Helge. The walls of the flat
were half a metre thick and the windows were
double-glazed. Nevertheless, she could have
sworn that she heard the purring sound of a car in
neutral.
Rakel Fauke laughed.
‘If you’ve promised Linda a dance, you won’t get
away with a quick sweep of the floor.’
‘Mm. The alternative is to make a run for it.’
A pause ensued and Harry realised that what he
had said was open to misinterpretation. He
hurriedly filled the silence with a question.
‘How did you start at POT?’
‘Via Russian,’ she said. ‘I joined the Ministry of
Defence Russian course and worked for two years
as an interpreter in Moscow. Kurt Meirik recruited
me then and there. After finishing my law degree I
went straight into pay grade thirty-five. I thought
I’d caught the goose that laid the golden egg.’
‘Hadn’t you?’
‘Are you kidding? Today the students I studied
with earn three times more than I’ll ever get.’
‘You could stop, and do what they do.’
She arched her shoulders forward. ‘I like what I
do. Not all of them can say the same.’
‘Good point.’
Silence.
Good point. Was that really the best he could
muster? ‘What about you, Harry? Do you like what
you do?’
They stood facing the dance floor, but Harry