Harry Hole Mysteries 3-Book Bundle (43 page)

Thomas Helle decided to do the business standing in the hallway. They barely had enough staff to man the phones today; it was a Sunday and those that were on duty were out searching for Katrine Bratt. One of their own. It was all hush-hush, but the rumours going round suggested she might be involved in the Snowman case.

‘How did you discover she was missing?’ Helle asked, getting ready to take notes.

‘Trygve and I have just returned from a camping trip in Nordmarka today. We’ve been away for two days. No mobile phone, just fishing rods. She wasn’t here, no messages, and, as I said on the phone, the door was unlocked. It’s always locked, even when she’s at home. My wife is a very anxious woman. And none of her coats has been touched. Nor her shoes. Only her slippers. In this weather …’

‘Have you rung everyone she knows? Including the neighbours?’

‘Of course. No one has heard from her.’

Thomas Helle took notes. A feeling had already made its presence known; a feeling of recognition. Missing wife and mother.

‘You said your wife was an anxious woman,’ he said. ‘So who might she have opened the door to? And who might she have let in?’

He saw father and son exchange glances.

‘Not too many people,’ the father said with conviction. ‘It must have been someone she knew.’

‘Or someone she didn’t feel threatened by, maybe,’ Helle said. ‘Like a child or a woman?’

Andreas Kvale nodded.

‘Or someone with a plausible reason for coming in. Someone from the electricity board to read the meter, for example.’

The husband hesitated. ‘Perhaps.’

‘Have you seen anything unusual around the house?’

‘Unusual? What do you mean?’

Helle bit his lower lip. Braced himself. ‘Something that may resemble a … snowman?’

Andreas Kvale looked at his son, who energetically shook his head, petrified.

‘Just so that we can eliminate that from our inquiries,’ Helle said conversationally.

The son said something. In a low mumble.

‘What?’ Helle asked.

‘He said there isn’t any more snow.’

‘No, of course not.’ Helle stuffed his notepad in his jacket pocket. ‘I’ll radio the patrol cars. If she hasn’t turned up by this evening we’ll intensify the search. In ninety-nine per cent of cases she’ll have found her way home by then. So this is my card …’

Helle felt Andreas Kvale’s hand on his upper arm.

‘There’s something I want to show you, officer.’

Thomas Helle followed Kvale through a door at the end of the hall, down a staircase into the cellar. He opened a door to a room which smelt of soap and clothes hanging out to dry. In the corner stood an old-fashioned clothes mangle beside an Electrolux washing machine of older vintage. The brick floor sloped down to a drain in the middle. The floor was wet and there was water on the wall, as though the floor had recently been sluiced with the green hosepipe lying there. But that was not primarily what attracted Thomas Helle’s attention. It was the garment hanging on the washing line, attached with a clothes peg at each shoulder. Or to be precise: what was left of it. It had been cut off under the chest. The edge was crooked and black with burnt, shrivelled threads of cotton.

T
HE RAIN LEAKED THROUGH THE HEAVENS DOWN ONTO
Bergen, which lay bathed in the blue afternoon dusk. The boat Harry had reserved was ready at the quayside by the foot of Puddefjord Bridge when Harry’s taxi stopped outside the boat-hire firm.

The boat was a well-used twenty-seven-foot Finnish cabin cruiser.

‘I’m going fishing,’ Harry said, pointing to the nautical chart. ‘Any submerged rocks or anything I ought to know about if I go here?’

‘Finnøy island?’ said the boat-hire man. ‘Take a rod with a sinker and a spinner, but fishing’s poor out there.’

‘Soon find out, won’t I. How do you start this thing?’

As Harry chugged past Nordnes headland in the gathering gloom he could make out the totem pole among the bare trees in the park. The sea lay flat under the rain, which whipped up the surface and made it foam. Harry thrust the lever next to the wheel forward, the bow lifted – he had to take a step back for balance – and the boat powered away.

A quarter of an hour later Harry pulled the lever back and swung in towards a quay, on the far side of Finnøy, hidden from Rafto’s cabin. He moored the boat, took out the fishing rod and listened to the rain. Fishing was not his thing. The spinner was heavy, the hook got snagged at the bottom and Harry pulled up seaweed that swirled round the rod
as he tugged. He freed the hook and cleaned it. Then he tried to drop the spinner in the water again, but something in the reel had locked and the spinner hung twenty centimetres under the tip of the rod and would neither go up nor down. Harry looked at his watch. If someone had been alerted by the throb of the boat engine they would have relaxed by now and he had to get this done before dark. He placed the rod on the seat, opened his bag, removed the revolver, opened the box of bullets and eased them into the chamber. Stuffed the Thermos-like CS canisters in his pockets and went ashore.

It took him five minutes to reach the top of the deserted island and descend to the cabins boarded up for the winter on the other side. Rafto’s cabin stood before him, dark and uninviting. He found a place on a rock twenty metres away from which he had a full view of all the doors and windows. The rain had seeped through the shoulders of his green military jacket a long time ago. He took out one of the CS canisters and removed the safety pin. In five seconds the spring-loaded valve would discharge and the gas would begin to hiss out. He ran towards the cabin with the canister held in his outstretched arm and hurled it at the window. The glass smashed, making a thin tinkling sound. Harry retreated to the rock and raised his revolver. Above the rain he could hear the canister hissing and he could see the inside of the window turning grey.

If she was there she wouldn’t be able to stand more than a few seconds.

He took aim. Waited with the cabin in his sights.

After two minutes still nothing had happened.

Harry waited for two more.

Then he prepared the second canister, walked towards the door with gun raised and tried the door. Locked. Flimsy though. He stepped back four paces and ran.

The door split off along the hinges, and he plunged into the smoke-filled room, right shoulder first. The gas immediately assailed his eyes. Harry held his breath as he groped his way to the cellar trapdoor, flipped it up, pulled out the safety pin of the second canister and let it fall.
Then he ran out again. Found a pool of water and sank to his knees with streaming nose and eyes, put his head in with both eyes open, as deep as he could, until his nose scraped the stones. Twice he repeated the shallow dip. His nose and palate still smarted like hell, but his eyes had cleared. He pointed the revolver towards the hut again. Waited. And waited.

‘Come on! Come on, you bloody bitch!’

But no one came out.

After a quarter of an hour the smoke had stopped issuing from the hole in the pane. Harry went back down to the cabin and kicked open the door. Coughed and cast a final glance inside. Wasteland wreathed in mist. Flying on instruments. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

As he walked back to the boat it had become so dark that he knew he was going to have visibility problems. He untied the moorings, went on board and grasped the starter lever. A thought went through his mind: he hadn’t slept for nearly thirty-six hours, hadn’t eaten since early morning, was drenched to the skin and had flown to fucking Bergen for absolutely nothing. If this engine didn’t start first go he would pepper the hull with 38-mil lead and swim ashore. The engine started with a roar. Harry almost thought it was a shame. He was just about to push the lever forward when he saw her.

She was standing right in front of him on the steps leading down below deck. Nonchalantly leaning against the door frame, in a grey sweater over a black dress.

‘Hands up,’ she ordered.

It sounded so childish it seemed almost a joke. The black revolver pointing at him was not. Nor was the threat that followed. ‘If you don’t do as I say I’ll shoot you in the stomach, Harry. Which will smash the nerves in your back and paralyse you. Then one in the head. But let’s start with the stomach …’

The gun barrel was lowered.

Harry let go of the wheel and the lever and put up his hands.

‘Back off, if you would be so kind,’ she said.

She came up the stairs and it was only now that Harry could see the gleam in her eyes, the very same he had seen when they arrested Becker,
the very same he had seen in Fenris Bar. But sparks were flying from the quivering irises. Harry retreated until he felt the seat at the stern against his legs.

‘Sit down,’ Katrine said, switching off the motor.

Harry slumped back, sat on the fishing rod and felt the water on the plastic seat soak through his trousers.

‘How did you find me?’ she asked.

Harry shrugged.

‘Come on,’ she said, raising the gun. ‘Satisfy my curiosity, Harry.’

‘Well,’ Harry replied, trying to read her pale, drawn face. But this was unknown territory; the face of this woman did not belong to the Katrine Bratt he knew. Thought he knew.

‘Everyone has a pattern of behaviour,’ he heard himself say. ‘A game plan.’

‘I see. And what’s mine?’

‘Pointing one way and running the other.’

‘Oh?’

Harry sensed the weight of the revolver in his right jacket pocket. He raised his backside and moved the fishing rod leaving his right hand on the seat.

‘You write a letter which you sign the Snowman, send it to me, and several weeks later stroll into Police HQ. The first thing you do is to tell me Hagen has said I should take care of you. Hagen never said that.’

‘All correct so far. Anything else?’

‘You threw your coat into the canal in front of Støp’s apartment and fled in the opposite direction, over the roof. The pattern, therefore, is that when you plant your mobile phone on an eastbound train, you flee west.’

‘Bravo. And how did I flee?’

‘Not by plane, of course. You knew that Gardemoen would be under surveillance. My guess is that you planted the phone in Oslo Central Station well before the train was due to depart, crossed over to the bus terminal and caught an early bus west. I would guess you split the journey into various legs. Kept changing buses.’

‘The Notodden express,’ Katrine said. ‘The Bergen bus from there.
Got off in Voss and bought clothes. Bus to Ytre Arna. Local bus from there to Bergen. Paid a fisherman at Zacharias wharf to bring me here. Not bad guesswork, Harry.’

‘It wasn’t so difficult. We’re pretty similar, you and me.’

Katrine tilted her head. ‘If you were so sure why did you come alone?’

‘I’m not alone. Müller-Nilsen and his people are on their way by boat now.’

Katrine laughed. Harry shifted his hand closer to his jacket pocket.

‘I agree we’re similar, Harry. But when it comes to lying, I’m better than you.’

Harry swallowed. His hand was cold. Fingers had to obey. ‘Yes, I’m sure that comes easier to you,’ Harry said. ‘Like murder.’

‘Oh? You look as if you could murder me now. Your hand is getting alarmingly close to your jacket pocket. Stand up and remove your jacket. Slowly. And throw it here.’

Harry swore inwardly, but did as she said. His coat landed on the deck in front of Katrine with a thud. Without taking her eyes off Harry, she grabbed it and slung it overboard.

‘It was time you got yourself a new one anyway,’ she said.

‘Mm,’ Harry said. ‘You mean one to match the carrot in the middle of my face?’

Katrine blinked twice and Harry saw what appeared to be confusion in her eyes.

‘Listen, Katrine. I’ve come here to help you. You need help. You’re sick, Katrine. It was the illness that made you kill them.’

Katrine had started to shake her head slowly. She pointed to land.

‘I’ve been sitting in the boathouse for two hours waiting for you, Harry. Because I knew you would come. I’ve studied you, Harry. You always find what you’re looking for. That was why I chose you.’

‘Chose me?’

‘Chose you. To find the Snowman for me. That was why I sent you the letter.’

‘Why couldn’t you find the Snowman yourself? You didn’t exactly have to go far.’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve tried, Harry. I’ve tried for many years. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it on my own. It had to be you. You’re the only person who’s succeeded in catching a serial killer. I needed Harry Hole.’ She gave a sad smile. ‘A last question, Harry. How did you twig that I had deceived you?’

Harry was wondering how this would end. A bullet to the forehead? The electric cutting loop? A trip out to sea and then death by drowning? He swallowed. He ought to have been afraid. So frightened that he would be unable to think, so frightened that he would fall sobbing to the deck and implore her to let him live. Why wasn’t he? It couldn’t be pride; he had swallowed that with whiskey and spat it out again several times. It could of course be his rational brain working, knowing that being frightened wouldn’t help; on the contrary, it would only shorten his life further. He concluded, however, it was the tiredness that did it. A profound, all-encompassing exhaustion that made him feel as if he just wanted was to get it over and done with.

‘Deep down I’ve always known that this all started a long time ago,’ Harry said, noting that he no longer felt the cold. ‘It was planned and the person behind it had managed to get into my head. There are not so many people to choose from, Katrine. And when I saw the newspaper cuttings in your flat, I knew it was you.’

Harry saw her blinking, disorientated. And he felt a wedge of doubt being driven into his line of thought, into the logic he had seen so clearly. Or had he? Hadn’t the doubt always been there? The steady drizzle gave way to a deluge; the water hammered down on the deck. He saw her mouth open and her finger curl around the trigger. He grabbed the fishing rod beside him and stared down the gun barrel. This was how it would end, in a boat on the western coast, without witnesses, without evidence. An image sprang into his mind. Of Oleg. Alone.