'I know a couple of things about getting high,' Harry said. 'Do you know if he owed money to anyone?'
'No.' Her answer was curt. So much so that Harry already knew the answer to his next question.
'But you could maybe—'
'No,' she interrupted, 'I cannot make enquiries. Listen, these are people no one cares about, and I am here to help them, not to persecute them.'
Harry gave her a searching look. 'You're right. I apologise for asking and it won't happen again.'
'Thank you.'
'Just one last question?'
'Come on.'
'Would you . . .' Harry hesitated, wondering if he was about to commit a blunder. 'Would you believe me if I said I did care?'
She angled her head and studied Harry. 'Should I?'
'Well, I'm investigating a case everyone thinks is the cut-and-dried suicide of a person no one cared about.'
She didn't answer.
'It's good coffee.' Harry got up.
'You're welcome,' she said. 'And may God bless you.'
'Thank you,' Harry said, feeling, to his surprise, the lobes of his ears flush.
On his way out he stopped in front of the guard and turned, but she had gone. The man in the hoody offered Harry the green plastic bag with the packed lunch, but he turned it down, pulled his coat tighter around him and went out into the streets where he could already see the sun making its blushing retreat into Oslo fjord. He walked towards the Akerselva. In the area known as Eika a man was standing erect in a snowdrift with the sleeve of a quilted jacket rolled up and a needle hanging from his forearm. He smiled as he looked straight through Harry and the frosty mist over Grønland.
6
Monday, 15 December. Halvorsen.
PERNILLE HOLMEN SEEMED EVEN SMALLER SITTING IN HER armchair in Fredensborgveien with large, red-rimmed eyes staring at Harry. In her lap she held a glass-framed photograph of her son Per.
'He was nine here,' she said.
Harry had to swallow. Partly because no smiling nine-year-old in a life jacket looks as if they imagined they would end up in a container with a bullet through their head. And partly because the photo reminded him of Oleg, who could forget himself and call Harry 'Pappa'. Harry wondered how long it would take him to call Mathias Lund-Helgesen 'Pappa'.
'Birger, my husband, used to go out in search of Per if he had been missing for a few days,' she said. 'Even though I asked him to stop. I couldn't stand having Per here any longer.'
Harry repressed his thought, Why not?
Birger Holmen was at the undertaker's, she had explained, when Harry called by unannounced.
She sniffled. 'Have you ever shared a house with someone who has an addiction?'
Harry didn't answer.
'He stole everything that came to hand. We accepted it. That is, Birger, accepted it. He's the loving one of us two.' She pulled her face into a grimace, which Harry interpreted as a smile.
'He defended Per in everything. Right up to this autumn. Until Per threatened me.'
'Threatened you?'
'Yes, threatened to kill me.' She looked down at the photo and rubbed the glass as though it had become unclear. 'Per rang the bell one morning and I refused to let him in. I was on my own. He wept and begged, but we had played that game before, so I was hard. I went back into the kitchen and sat down. I don't know how he got in, but all of a sudden there he was – standing in front of me with a gun.'
'The same gun he . . .'
'Yes. Yes, I think so.'
'Go on.'
'He forced me to unlock the cupboard where I kept my jewellery. That is, the little I had left. He had already taken most of it. Then he was off.'
'And you?'
'Me? I had a breakdown. Birger came and took me to hospital.' She sniffled. 'Where they wouldn't even give me any more pills. They said I'd had enough.'
'What kind of pills were they?'
'What do you think? Tranquillisers. Enough! When you have a son who keeps you awake at night because you're frightened he'll return . . .' She paused and pressed a clenched fist against her mouth. Tears were in her eyes. Then she whispered in such a low voice that Harry struggled to catch the words: 'Sometimes you don't want to live any longer . . .'
Harry cast his eyes down to his notepad. It was blank.
'Thank you,' he said.
'One night, sir. Is that correct?' asked the female receptionist in Scandia Hotel by Oslo Central Station, without looking up from the reservation on the computer screen.
'Yes,' the man before her answered.
She had made a mental note that he was wearing a light brown coat. Camel hair. Or imitation.
Her long, red nails scurried across the keyboard like frightened cockroaches. Imitation camels in wintry Norway. Why not? She had seen pictures of camels in Afghanistan, and her boyfriend had written that it could be just as cold there as here.
'Will you be paying by cash or credit card, sir?'
'Cash.'
She pushed the registration form and a pen over the counter to him and asked to see his passport.