Nemesis by Jo Nesbo

'Waaler will be here as soon as he has cleared up in Slemdal,'

  Moller said. 'What have you found?'

  'Quite sensational things, I'm afraid,' Ivarsson said. 'The most

  important thing now is to work out how we're going to tell the press

  that one of our own police officers--'

  'Whoa there,' Moller rumbled. 'Not so fast. How about a debriefing?' Ivarsson smiled thinly. 'Come with me.'

  The Head of the Robberies Unit led the other three through a low

  door and down a crooked staircase into the cellar. Moller contorted

  his long, thin body as well as he could to avoid touching the ceiling

  or walls. He didn't like cellars.

  Ivarsson's voice was a dull echo between the brick walls. 'As you

  know, Beate Lonn received a number of forwarded e-mails from

  Hole. He maintains he was sent them by a person who confessed to

  murdering Anna Bethsen. I've been to Police HQ and I read the

  e-mails an hour ago. To put it bluntly, they are for the most part

  confused, incomprehensible gibberish. But they do contain

  information which the writer could not have possessed without

  intimate knowledge of what went on the night Anna Bethsen died.

  Even though the information puts Hole in the flat that evening, it

  also apparently gives him an alibi.'

  'Apparently?' Moller ducked underneath another door frame.

  Inside, the ceiling was even lower, and he walked bent double while

  trying not to think that above him were four floors of building materials

  held together by centuries old wattle and daub. 'What do you mean,

  Ivarsson? Didn't you say the e-mails contained a confession?' 'First of all, we searched Hole's flat,' Ivarsson said. 'We switched

  on his computer and opened the mailbox and found all the e-mails

  he had received. Just as he had made out to Beate Lonn. In other

  words, an apparent alibi.'

  'I heard that,' Moller said with obvious irritation. 'Can we get to

  the point quickly?'

  'The point is, of course, the person who sent these e-mails to

  Harry's computer.'

  Moller heard voices.

  'It's round that corner,' the man who introduced himself as

  Harry's neighbour said.

  They came to a halt in front of a storeroom. Two men were

  crouching behind the wire mesh. One shone a torch on the back of a

  laptop while reading out a number, which the other noted down.

  Moller saw two electric cables running from the wall socket, one to

  the laptop and the other to a scratched Nokia mobile phone, which

  in turn was connected to the laptop.

  Moller straightened up as far as he was able. 'And what does that

  prove?'

  Ivarsson placed a hand on the shoulder of Harry's neighbour. 'Ali

  says he was in the cellar a few days after Anna Bethsen was killed, and

  that was the first time he had seen this laptop with attached mobile

  phone in Harry's storeroom. We've already checked the phone.' 'And?'

  'It's Hole's. Now we're trying to find out who bought the laptop.

  We've checked the sent items, anyway.'

  Moller closed his eyes. His back was aching already.

  'And there they are.' Ivarsson shook his head in vindication. 'All

  the e-mails Harry's trying to make us believe some mysterious

  murderer has sent him.'

  'Hm,' Moller said. 'That doesn't look good.'

  'Weber found the real proof in the flat.'

  Moller looked at Weber for guidance, who, with a grim expression

  on his face, held up a small transparent plastic bag.

  'A key?' Moller said. 'Bearing the initials AA?'

  'Found in the drawer of the telephone table,' Weber said. 'It

  matches the key to Anna Bethsen's flat.'

  Moller stared blankly at Weber. The harsh light from the naked

  bulb gave their faces the same deathly pale colour as the whitewashed

  walls and Moller had the feeling he was in a burial vault. 'I have to get

  out,' he murmured.

  Harry opened his eyes and looked up into a smiling girl's face and felt the first sledgehammer blow. 37

  Spiuni Gjerman

  He closed his eyes again, but neither the girl's laughter nor the headache disappeared.

  He tried to reconstruct the night.

  Raskol, the toilet in the metro station, a squat man in a worn Armani suit whistling, an outstretched hand with gold rings, black hairs and a long pointed nail on the little finger. 'Hi, Harry, I'm your friend Simon.' And in sharp contrast to the shabby suit: a shiny new Mercedes with a chauffeur who looked like Simon's brother with the same cheery, brown eyes and the same hairy, gold-bedecked handshake.

  The two men in the front of the car had chatted away in a blend of Norwegian and Swedish with the curious intonation of circus people, knife-sellers, preachers and dance-band vocalists. But they hadn't said much. 'How are you, my friend?' 'Terrible weather, eh?' 'Smart clothes, my friend. Shall we swap?' Hearty laughter and flicking of a cigarette lighter. Did Harry smoke? Russian cigarettes. Take one, please, a bit rough maybe, but 'good in their way, you know'. More laughter. No one had mentioned Raskol's name or where they were going.

  Which had turned out to be not too far away.

  They turned off after the Munch Museum and bumped over potholes to a car park in front of a deserted, muddy football pitch. At the end of the car park were three caravans. Two large new ones and a small old one without wheels, standing on Leca blocks.

  The door of one of the large caravans opened and Harry saw the silhouette of a woman. Children's heads poked out behind her. Harry counted five.

  He said he wasn't hungry and sat in the corner watching them eat. The food was served by the younger of the two women in the caravan and was eaten quickly and without ceremony. The children stared at Harry as they giggled and shoved each other. Harry winked at them and tried a smile as feeling slowly returned to his stiff, numb body. Which was good news since there was two metres of it and every centimetre hurt. Afterwards Simon had given him two woollen blankets and a friendly pat on the shoulder, and nodded towards the small caravan. 'It's not the Hilton, but you're safe here, my friend.'

  Any warmth Harry had left in his body disappeared immediately he entered the egg-shaped refrigerator of a caravan. He had kicked off Oystein's shoes which were at least one size too small, rubbed his feet and tried to make room for his long legs in the short bed. The last thing he remembered doing was trying to pull off his wet trousers.

  'Hee-hee-hee.'

  Harry opened his eyes again. The little brown face was gone and the laughter came from outside now, through the open door, where a stripe of sun was emboldened to shine in and onto the wall behind him and the photographs pinned there. Harry hauled himself up onto his elbows and looked at them. One of them showed two young boys with their arms around each other in front of the caravan he was lying in now. They looked pleased. No, more than that. They looked happy. That was perhaps why Harry hardly recognised a young Raskol.

  Harry swung his legs out of the bunk and decided to ignore the headache. To make sure his stomach was alright, he sat for a few seconds. He had been through much worse ordeals than yesterday's, much worse. During the meal the evening before he had been on the point of asking if they had anything stronger to drink, but had managed to hold back. Perhaps his body would tolerate spirits better now he had been abstemious for so long?

  His question was answered when he stepped outside.

  The children stared with astonishment as Harry supported himself on the tow bar and vomited over the brown grass. He coughed and spat a couple of times and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. When he turned, Simon was standing w
ith a big smile on his face, as if emptying your stomach were the most natural start to the day. 'Food, my friend?'

  Harry swallowed and nodded.

  Simon lent Harry a creased suit, a clean shirt with a wide collar and a pair of large sunglasses. They got into the Mercedes and drove up Finnmarkgata. At the lights in Carl Berners plass Simon rolled down the window and shouted at a man standing outside a kiosk smoking a cigar. Harry had a vague feeling he had seen the man before. From experience he knew this feeling often meant the man had a record. The man laughed and shouted something back, which Harry didn't catch.

  'An acquaintance?' he asked.

  'A contact,' Simon said.

  'A contact,' Harry repeated, watching the police car waiting on

  green at the other side of the crossing.

  Moscow who can find one person in a city of twenty million people like that?' Harry clicked his fingers. 'Is it the Russian mafia?'

  Simon turned west towards Ulleval hospital.

  'Tell me,' Harry said. 'What sort of contacts has Raskol got in

  Simon laughed. 'Maybe. If you can't come up with anyone better at finding people.'

  'The KGB?'

  'If I remember correctly, my friend, they no longer exist.' Simon

  laughed even louder.

  Harry immediately recognised the young man behind the counter at the locksmith's.

  'The Russia expert in POT told me ex-KGB men are still running

  the show.'

  Simon shrugged. 'Favours, my friend. And return favours. That's

  what it's all about, you know.'

  Harry scanned the street. A van sped by. He had got Tess - the

  brown-eyed girl who had woken him up - to run down to Toyen and

  buy him copies of Dagbladet and Verdens Gang, but there was

  nothing about a wanted police officer in either of them. That didn't

  mean he could show his face everywhere because, unless he was very

  much mistaken, there would be a photograph of him in every police

  car.

  Harry walked quickly to the door, put Raskol's key in the lock and

  turned it. He tried not to make any noise in the hallway. There was a

  newspaper outside Astrid Monsen's door. Once inside Anna's flat, he

  closed the door softly behind him and breathed in.

  Don't think about what you're looking for.

  The flat smelt stuffy. He went into the furthest room. Nothing had

  been touched since he was last here. The dust danced in the sunlight

  flooding in through the window and brightening up the three

  portraits. He stood looking at them. There was something strangely

  familiar about the distorted heads. He went to the pictures and ran

  the tips of his fingers over the lumps of oil paint. If they were talking

  to him, he didn't understand what they were saying.

  He went into the kitchen.

  It smelt of refuse and rancid fat. He opened the window and went

  through the plates and cutlery in the kitchen sink. They had been

  rinsed but not washed. He prodded the hardened food remains with

  a fork. Loosened a small red particle from the sauce. Put it in his

  mouth. Japone chilli.

  Two large wineglasses behind a big saucepan. One had a fine red

  sediment in while the other seemed unused. Harry put his nose in, but could only smell a warm glass. Beside the wineglasses were two normal drinking glasses. He found a dishcloth so he could hold the glasses up to the light without leaving fingerprints. One was clean, the other had a sticky coating. He scratched at the coating with his nail and sucked his finger. Sugar. With a coffee taste. Coca-Cola? Harry closed his eyes. Wine and Coke? No. Water and wine for one person. Coke and an unused glass for the other. He wrapped the glass in the cloth and put it in his jacket pocket. On impulse, he went to the bathroom, unscrewed the lid on the cistern and felt inside.

  Nothing.

  Back out in the street, he saw clouds had moved in from the west

  and there was a nip in the air. Harry chewed his lower lip. He made

  a decision and started walking towards Vibes gate.

  'Good morning, I'm from the police,' Harry said, hoping the boy wouldn't ask to see his ID, which was in his jacket in Vigdis Albu's house in Slemdal.

  The boy put down his newspaper. 'I know.'

  Panic caught hold of Harry for a second.

  'I remember you came here to collect a key.' The boy gave a broad

  smile. 'I remember all my customers.'

  wasn't it?'

  Harry cleared his throat. 'Well, I'm not really a customer.' 'Oh?'

  'No, the key wasn't for me. But that's not why--'

  'It must have been,' the boy interrupted. 'It was a system key,

  Harry nodded. At the edge of his vision he could see a patrol car driving slowly past. 'It was system keys I wanted to ask about. I'm wondering how an outsider can get hold of a copy of a system key like this. A Trioving key, for example.'

  'They can't,' the boy said with the total conviction of someone who reads illustrated science magazines. 'Only Trioving can make a functional copy. So the only way is to falsify written authorisation from the housing committee. But even that would be found out when you come for the key because we will ask to see ID and check it against a list of flat-owners in the block.'

  'But I collected one of these system keys. And it was a key for another person.'

  The boy frowned. 'No, I remember quite clearly that you showed ID and I checked the name. Whose key was it you think you collected?'

  In the reflection in the glass door behind the counter Harry saw the same police car passing in the opposite direction.

  'Forget it. Is there any other way of getting a copy?'

  'No. Trioving, who grind these keys, only receive orders from authorised dealers like ourselves. And, as I said, we check the documentation and keep an eye on keys ordered for all shared property and housing co-ops. The system should be pretty secure.'

  'It sounds it, yes.' Harry rubbed his face with his hand in irritation. 'I rang some time back and was told a woman living in Sorgenfrigata had received three keys for her flat. One we found in her flat, the second she gave to the electrician who was supposed to be fixing something and the third we found somewhere else. The thing is, I don't believe she ordered the third key. Can you check that for me?'

  The boy shrugged. 'Certainly I can, but why not ask her yourself?'

  'Someone shot her through the head.'

  'Ooops,' the boy said, without batting an eyelid.

  Harry stood stock-still. He could sense something. The slightest of shivers. A draught from the door maybe? Enough to raise the hairs on the back of your neck. The sound of a tentative clearing of the throat. He hadn't heard anyone come in. Without turning, he tried to see who it was, but from that angle it was impossible.

  'Police,' said a loud, high-pitched voice behind him. Harry swallowed hard.

  'Yes?' said the boy, looking over Harry's shoulder.

  'They're outside,' the voice said. 'They say the old lady down at number 14 has had a break-in. She needs a new lock right away, so they were wondering if we could send someone pronto.'

  'Well, you can go with them, Alf. I'm caught up, as you can see.'

  Harry listened intently until the footsteps had distanced themselves. 'Anna Bethsen.' He heard himself whispering. 'Can you check if she personally collected all the keys?'

  'I don't need to. She must have done.'

  Harry leaned over the counter. 'Can you check it anyway?'

  The boy gave a deep sigh and disappeared into the back room. He returned with a file and flicked through. 'See for yourself,' he said. 'There, there and there.'

  Harry recognised the delivery forms. They were identical to the ones he had signed himself when he came for Anna's key. But all the forms were signed by Anna. He was about
to ask where the form with his own signature was when his eyes fell on the dates.

  'It says here the last key was collected back in August,' he said. 'But that's a long time before I was here and . . .'

  'Yes?'

  Harry stared up into the air. 'Thank you,' he said. 'I've found what I needed.'

  Outside, the wind had picked up. Harry rang from one of the telephone boxes in Valkyrie plass.

  'Beate?'

  Two seagulls headed into the wind above the tower of the Seamen's School and hovered there. Beneath the gulls lay Oslo fjord, which had gone an ominous green-black hue, and Ekeberg, where the two people on the bench were tiny dots.

  Harry had finished talking about Anna Bethsen. About the time they met. About the last evening, some of which he recalled. About Raskol. Beate had finished telling him they had managed to trace the laptop. It had been bought three months ago from the Expert shop by the Colosseum cinema. The guarantee had been made out to Anna Bethsen. And the mobile phone connected to it was the one Harry maintained he had lost.

  'I hate the scream of gulls,' Harry said.

  'Is that all you've got to say?'

  'At this very moment - yes.'

  Beate stood up from the bench. 'I shouldn't be here, Harry. You

  shouldn't have rung me.'

  'But you are here.' Harry gave up trying to light his cigarette in the

  wind. 'It means you believe me. Doesn't it?'

  Beate's response was to fling out her arms angrily.

  'I don't know any more than you do,' Harry said. 'Not even for

  certain that I didn't shoot Anna.'

  The gulls peeled off and performed an elegant roll in the surge of

  wind.

  'Tell me what you know one more time,' Beate said.

  'I know this guy has somehow obtained keys to Anna's flat so he

  got in and out on the night of the murder. When he left, he took

  Anna's laptop with him and my mobile phone.'

  'What was your mobile phone doing in Anna's flat?'

  'It must have fallen out of my jacket pocket during the evening. I

  was a bit animated, as I told you.'

  'And then?'

  'His original plan was simple. Drive to Larkollen after the murder

  and plant the key he'd used in Arne Albu's chalet. Attached to a