The Redeemer(82)

It might have been the interrupted intense daydream that accounted for Bjørgen's two distinctly different reactions coming in the order they did: first of all the sweet sting of desire. The man's reason for coming back was obvious after the flirtation and the fleeting but intimate physical contact they had had. Then the shock as the image of the man with the soapy gun appeared on his retina. Plus the fact that the policeman who had been here had connected it with the murder of the poor Salvation Army soldier.

'I need somewhere to live,' said the man.

Bjørgen blinked hard twice. He could not believe his ears. Here he was, standing opposite a man who might be a murderer, a man under suspicion of killing someone in cold blood. So why hadn't he already dropped everything and run out screaming for the police? The policeman had even said there was a reward for information leading to the man's arrest. Bjørgen glanced towards the end of the room where the head waiter was standing leafing through the reservations book. Why was it that instead he felt this strange tingle of pleasure in his solar plexus which spread through his body and made him shudder and shiver as he searched for something sensible to say?

'It's just for one night,' the man said.

'I'm working today.'

'I can wait.'

Bjørgen eyed the man. It's insane, he thought, while his brain slowly and inexorably connected his love of risk with a potential solution to a problem. He swallowed and shifted weight from one foot to the other.


Harry jogged from the airport express in Oslo Central Station across Grønland to Police HQ, took the lift up to the Robberies Unit and loped down the corridors to the House of Pain, the video room.

It was dark, warm and stuffy in the cramped windowless room. He heard quick fingers scurrying across the computer keyboard.

'What can you see?' he asked the silhouette outlined against the flickering pictures on the wall screen.

'Something very interesting,' Beate Lønn said without turning, but Harry knew her eyes were red-rimmed. He had seen Beate working before. Seen her staring at the screen for hours while she wound forward, stopped, focused, magnified, saved. Without knowing what she was looking for. Or what she could see. This was her territory.

'And maybe an explanation,' she added.

'I'm all ears.' Harry groped his way forward in the dark, hit his leg and sat down cursing.

'Ready?'

'Shoot.'

'OK. Meet Christo Stankic.'

On the screen a man stepped forward to an ATM.

'Are you sure?' Harry asked.

'Don't you recognise him?'

'I recognise the blue jacket, but . . .' Harry said, hearing the confusion in his own voice.

'Wait,' Beate said.

The man put a card in the machine and stood waiting. Then he turned his face to the camera and grimaced. A pretend smile, the kind that meant the opposite.

'He's found out he can't withdraw any money,' Beate said.

The man on camera kept pressing buttons and in the end he smacked the keypad with his hand.

'And now he's found out he won't get his card back,' Harry said.

The man stood staring at the display on the machine for a long time.

Then he pulled back his sleeve, checked his wristwatch, turned and was gone.

'What make was the watch?' Harry asked.

'The glass was reflecting,' Beate said. 'But I magnified the negative. It says Seiko SQ50 on the dial.'

'Clever girl. But I didn't see an explanation.'

'This is the explanation.'

Beate typed and two pictures of the man they had just seen appeared on the screen. One while he was taking out his card; the other while he was looking at his watch.

'I've chosen these two pictures because his face is in roughly the same position and this way it's easy to see. They've been taken with an interval of a little over a hundred seconds. Can you see that?'

'No,' Harry said truthfully. 'I can tell I'm no good at this. I can't even see if it's the same person in the two pictures. Or if he's the man I saw in Tøyen Park.'

'Good. Then you've seen it.'

'Seen what?'

'Here's the picture of him off the credit card,' Beate said and clicked. A picture of a man with short hair and a tie appeared.

'And here are the ones Dagbladet took of him in Egertorget.'

Two further pictures.

'Can you tell if this is the same person?' Beate asked.

'Well, no.'

'Nor can I.'

'You can't? If you can't it means it's not the same person.'

'No,' Beate said. 'It means here we have a case of what is known as hyperelasticity. Called visage du pantomime by professionals.'

'What on earth are you talking about?'

'A person who can change their appearance without any need for make-up, disguise or plastic surgery.'


Harry was waiting for all the investigative team to sit down in the red zone's meeting room before he spoke. 'We know now that we're after one man and only one man. For the time being let's call him Christo Stankic. Beate?'