Harry Hole Mysteries 3-Book Bundle (46 page)

‘Right,’ said Holm. ‘But why on earth would she kill a chicken?’

‘To paint the whole wall red.’

‘Eh?’

‘I’ve got an idea,’ Harry said.

‘Shit,’ mumbled Bjørn Holm. ‘I suppose this idea means I have to get out of bed.’

‘Well …’ Harry began.

The snowy weather must have just been taking a breather, for at three it started again and thick, furry flakes began to sweep down over Østland. A grey glazed coat of slush lay on the E16 winding upward from Bærum.

At the highest point on the road, Sollihøgda, Harry and Holm turned off and skidded their way along the forest road.

Five minutes later Rolf Ottersen was standing in front of them in the doorway. Behind him, in the sitting room, Harry could see Ane Pedersen sitting on the sofa.

‘We just wanted to have another look at the barn floor,’ Harry said.

Rolf Ottersen pushed his glasses back up his nose. Bjørn Holm let out a rasping chesty cough.

‘Help yourselves,’ Ottersen said.

As Holm and Harry walked towards the barn Harry could feel that the thin man was still standing by the door watching them.

The chopping block was in the same place, but there was no sign of any chickens, living or dead. Leaning against the wall there was a spade with a pointed blade. To dig the ground, not to shovel snow. Harry headed for the tool board. The outline of the hatchet that should have been hanging there reminded Harry of the chalk outlines after bodies have been removed from crime scenes.

‘It’s my belief the Snowman came here and slaughtered the third
chicken to spray blood over the floorboards. The Snowman couldn’t turn the boards and the alternative was to paint them red.’

‘You told me that in the car as well, but I’m still lost.’

‘If you want to hide red stains you can either remove them or paint everything red. I think the Snowman was trying to hide something. A clue.’

‘What kind of clue?’

‘Something red that’s impossible to remove because untreated wood soaks it up.’

‘Blood? She was trying to hide blood with more blood? Is that your idea?’

Harry snatched a broom and swept away the sawdust around the chopping block. He crouched down and felt Katrine’s revolver pressing into him under his belt. Studied the floor. There was still a pink glow.

‘Have you got the photos we took here with you?’ Harry asked. ‘Start checking the places where there was most blood. It was some way from the chopping block, around here.’

Holm took the photos from his bag.

‘We know that it was chicken blood on top,’ Harry said. ‘But imagine that the first blood that was spilt here had time to saturate the wood and be absorbed into it and therefore didn’t mix with the new blood that was poured on top a good while later. What I’m wondering is whether you can still get samples of the first blood, in other words, the blood that soaked into the wood?’

Bjørn Holm blinked in dismay. ‘What the fuck am I supposed to answer to that?’

‘Well,’ Harry said, ‘the only answer I will accept is yes.’

Holm responded with a prolonged fit of coughing.

Harry strolled over to the farmhouse. He knocked, and Rolf Ottersen came out.

‘My colleague will be here for a while,’ Harry said. ‘Would you mind if he popped in now and again to get warm?’

‘Fine,’ Ottersen said with reluctance. ‘What are you digging for now?’

‘I was going to ask you the same thing,’ Harry said. ‘I saw there was soil on the spade over there.’

‘Oh, that. Fence posts.’

Harry scoured the snow-covered ground stretching into the dense, dark forest. Wondering what it was Ottersen wanted to fence in. Or out. For he had seen it: the fear in Rolf Ottersen’s eyes.

Harry motioned towards the sitting room. ‘You’ve got a visitor …’ He was interrupted by a call on his mobile.

It was Skarre.

‘We’ve found another one,’ he said.

Harry stared into the forest and felt the large snowflakes melting on his cheeks and forehead.

‘Another what?’ he mumbled in response, even though he had already heard the answer in Skarre’s tone.

‘Another snowman.’

The psychologist Kjersti Rødsmoen contacted POB Knut Müller-Nilsen as he and Espen Lepsvik from Kripos were leaving the police station.

‘Katrine Bratt has talked,’ she said. ‘And I think you should come to the hospital to hear what she has to say.’

S
KARRE
T
ROD IN THE TRACKS IN THE SNOW LEADING TO
the trees, ahead of Harry. Early-afternoon darkness presaged that winter was on its way. Above them flashed Tryvann communications tower, and below them twinkled Oslo. Harry had driven straight from Sollihøgda and parked in the large empty car park where school-leavers collected like lemmings every spring for the obligatory enaction of adult rituals of the species: cavorting round the fire, stupefying themselves with alcohol, and indulging in sex with wild abandon. Harry’s school-leaving celebrations had not included the prommers’ truck. He had had just two companions, Bruce Springsteen and ‘Independence Day’ which shrieked from his ghetto blaster on top of the German bunker on Nordstrand beach.

‘A walker found it,’ Skarre said.

‘And considered it necessary to report a snowman in the forest to the police?’

‘He had a dog with him. It … well … you’ll see for yourself.’

They emerged into open terrain. A young man straightened up on catching sight of Skarre and Harry and went towards them.

‘Thomas Helle, Missing Persons Unit,’ he said. ‘We’re glad you’re here, Hole.’

Harry sent the young officer a look of surprise, but saw that he really meant it.

On a hill in front of him Harry watched the Crime Scene Unit at work. Skarre crawled under the red police cordon and Harry stepped over. A path marked out where they were to walk so as not to destroy any forensic evidence that had not already been destroyed. The Crime Scene officers became aware of Harry and Skarre’s presence and silently moved aside to observe the newcomers. As if they had been waiting for this: a chance to display. To collate reactions.

‘Oh, shit,’ Skarre said, recoiling a step.

Harry felt his head go cold, as if all the blood had drained from his brain, leaving a numb, dead sensation of nothing.

It was not the details, because at first glance the naked woman did not seem to have been brutally mutilated. Not like Sylvia Ottersen or Gert Rafto. What scared the living daylights out of him was the construction, the studied, cold-blooded nature of the arrangement. The body sat on top of two large balls of snow that had been rolled up against a tree trunk, one on top of the other like an incomplete snowman. The body leaned against the tree but any sideways movement would have been prevented by a steel wire attached to the thick branch over her head. The wire ended in a rigid noose around her neck, bent in such a way that it touched neither her shoulders nor her neck, like a lasso frozen in motion as it falls perfectly over the victim. Her arms were tied behind her back. The woman’s eyes and mouth were closed, affording the face a peaceful expression; she could have been asleep.

It was almost possible to believe the body had been arranged with loving attention. Until the stitches on the naked, pale skin became evident. The edges of the skin under the nigh-on invisible thread were separated only by a fine, even join of black blood. One welt of stitches ran across her torso, just under her breasts. The other around her neck. Immaculate workmanship, Harry mused. Not a stitch hole visible, not a line askew.

‘Looks like that abstract art shite,’ Skarre said. ‘What’s it called?’

‘Installation art,’ said a voice behind him.

Harry cocked his head. They were right. But there was something that conflicted with the impression of perfect surgery.

‘He chopped her up into chunks,’ he said in a voice that sounded as if someone had him in a stranglehold. ‘And reassembled her.’

‘He?’ queried Skarre.

‘Maybe to ease transportation,’ Helle said. ‘I think I know who she is. She was reported missing by her husband yesterday. He’s on his way here now.’

‘Why do you reckon it’s her?’

‘Her husband found a dress with scorch marks on.’ Helle pointed to the body. ‘Roughly where the stitches are.’

Harry concentrated on his breathing. He could see the imperfection now. This was the unfinished snowman. And the knots and angles of the twisted wire were jagged. They seemed rough, arbitrary, tentative. As though this was a mock-up, a rehearsal. The first draft of an unfinished work. And why had he tied her hands behind her back? She must have been dead long before she came here. Was that part of the mock-up? He cleared his throat.

‘Why wasn’t I told about this before?’

‘I reported it to my boss who reported it to the Chief Superintendent,’ said Helle. ‘All we were told was that we should keep it under our hats until further notice. I assume that had something to do with …’ he shot a quick glance at the Crime Scene officers, ‘this anonymous fugitive.’

‘Katrine Bratt?’ Skarre suggested.

‘I didn’t hear that name,’ a voice behind them said.

They turned. The Chief Superintendent was standing with his hands in trench-coat pockets, legs apart. His cold, blue eyes were examining the body. ‘That should have been in the autumn art exhibition.’

The younger officers stared wide-eyed at the Chief Superintendent who, unmoved, turned to Harry.

‘A couple of words in your ear, Inspector.’

They walked over to the police cordon.

‘One hell of a mess,’ the Chief Superintendent said. He was facing
Harry but his eyes wandered down to the carpet of lights below. ‘We’ve had a meeting. That’s why I had to talk to you in private.’

‘Who’s had a meeting?’

‘That doesn’t matter, Harry. The crux is that we’ve taken a decision.’

‘Uh-huh?’

The Chief Superintendent stamped his feet in the snow, and Harry wondered for a moment if he should point out that he was contaminating a crime scene.

‘I’d been thinking of discussing this with you tonight, Harry. In quieter, calmer surroundings. But the matter has become urgent with the discovery of this new body. The press will be onto it within a couple of hours. And as we don’t have the time we hoped for, we’ll have to go live with naming the Snowman. And explain how Katrine Bratt managed to get her post and operate without our knowing. Top management has to take responsibility of course. That’s what management is for, goes without saying.’

‘What’s this really about, boss?’

‘The credibility of Oslo Police. Shit is subject to gravity, Harry. The higher up it starts, the greater the soiling of the force as a whole. Individuals at a lower level can commit blunders and be forgiven. But if we lose people’s confidence that the police are being governed with a modicum of competence, that we have some control, then we’re lost. I assume you realise what’s at stake, Harry.’

‘Time’s pressing, boss.’

The Chief Superintendent’s gaze returned from its urban perambulations and locked onto the inspector. ‘Do you know what kamikaze means?’

Harry shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘Being Japanese, brainwashed and crashing your plane into an American aircraft carrier?’

‘That’s what I thought, too. But Gunnar Hagen says the Japanese never used the word themselves; the American code breakers misinterpreted. Kamikaze is the name of a typhoon that rescued the Japanese in a battle against the Mongolians sometime in the thirteenth century. Literally translated it means “divine wind”. Quite picturesque, isn’t it?’

Harry didn’t answer.

‘We need a wind like that now,’ said the Chief Superintendent.

Harry nodded slowly. He understood. ‘You want someone to carry the blame for Katrine Bratt’s appointment? For not sussing her out? For the whole shitty mess, in short?’

‘Asking someone to sacrifice themselves in this way doesn’t feel good. Especially when said sacrifice means your own skin is saved. Then you have to remember that this is all about something greater than the individual.’ The Chief Superintendent’s gaze veered out over the town again. ‘The anthill, Harry. The hard work, the loyalty, the at times senseless self-denial. It’s the anthill that makes it all worthwhile.’

Harry ran a hand over his face. Treachery. Stabbed in the back. Cowardliness. He tried to swallow his fury. Told himself the Chief Superintendent was right. Someone had to be sacrificed and the blame had to be placed as low down in the hierarchy as possible. Fair enough. He should in fact have sussed Katrine out before.

Harry straightened up. In a strange way it felt like a relief. For a very long time he had sensed it would end like this for him, so long that basically he had come to accept it. The way his colleagues in the Dead Policemen’s Society had made their exit: without any fanfares and badges of honour, without anything except self-respect and the respect of those who knew them, the few who knew what it was all about. The anthill.

‘I understand,’ Harry said. ‘And I accept. You’ll have to instruct me on the manner in which you would like it to happen. However, I still believe we’ll have to postpone the press conference for a few hours until we know a little more.’

The Chief Superintendent shook his head. ‘You don’t understand, Harry.’

‘There may be new factors in the case.’

‘You’re not the one who will be taking the short straw.’

‘We’re checking to see –’ Harry paused. ‘What did you just say, boss?’

‘That was the original suggestion, but Gunnar Hagen refused to go along with it. So he will accept the blame. He’s in his office now writing
his letter of resignation. I just wanted to inform you so that you know when the press conference takes place.’

‘Hagen?’ said Harry.

‘A good soldier,’ said the Chief Superintendent, patting Harry on the shoulder. ‘I’m off now. The press conference is at eight in the Great Hall, OK?’

Harry watched the Chief Superintendent’s back fade into the distance and felt his mobile phone vibrate in his jacket pocket. He read the display before deciding to answer.

‘
Love me tender
,’ Bjørn Holm said in English. ‘I’m at the institute.’