That was seven years ago, and the relationship had only lasted six weeks. After that he had only met her twice. Once in a bar when she had gone over to him with tears in her eyes and asked him to go somewhere else, which he had done. And once at an exhibition where Harry had taken his younger sister. He had promised to call her, but he never did.

Harry rolled over to look at the clock again. 3.22. He had kissed her. At the end of the evening. Once he was safely outside the door of her flat with the wavy glass, he had leaned over to give her a goodnight hug and it had become a kiss. Easy and great. Easy, at any rate. 3.33. Christ, when had he become so sensitive that he felt pangs of guilt for giving an old flame a goodnight kiss? Harry tried to take deep, regular breaths to concentrate his mind on possible escape routes from Bogstadveien via Industrigata. In. Out. In again. He could still smell her fragrance. Feel the sweet pressure of her body. The rough insistence of her tongue.

6

Chilli

The day's first rays had just risen over the edge of Ekeberg Ridge, peeped under the half-drawn blind in the Crime Squad conference room and wedged themselves between the folds of skin around Harry's pinched eyes. Rune Ivarsson stood at the end of the long table, legs apart, rocking up and down on the soles of his feet, his hands behind his back. A flip chart with WELCOME in big red letters at his rear. Harry presumed this was something Ivarsson had picked up at a seminar on presentations and made a half-hearted attempt to stifle a yawn as the Head of the Robberies Unit began to speak.

'Good morning, everyone. The eight of us sitting around the table constitute the team assembled to investigate the bank robbery committed in Bogstadveien on Friday.'

'Murder,' Harry mumbled.

'I beg your pardon?'

Harry straightened up in his chair. The damned sun was blinding him whichever way he turned. 'I suppose it would be correct to base the investigation on the fact that it was a murder.'

Ivarsson gave a wry smile. Not to Harry, but to the others sitting around the table whom he took in with one fleeting glance. 'I thought I should start by introducing you to each other, but our friend from Crime Squad has already made a start. Inspector Harry Hole has been kindly loaned by his superior, Bjarne Mшller, as his speciality is murder.'

'Serious Crime,' Harry said.

'Serious Crime. On the left of Hole, we have Torleif Weber from Forensics who led the inquiry at the crime scene. As many of you know, Weber is our most experienced forensic investigator. Famous for his analytical powers and unerring intuition. The Chief Superintendent once said that he would have liked to have Weber with him as a tracker dog in his hunting parties.'

Laughter around the table. Harry didn't need to look at Weber to know that he wasn't smiling. Weber almost never smiled, at least not for people he didn't like, and he liked almost no one. Especially among the younger stratum of bosses which, in Weber's opinion, was comprised exclusively of incompetent careerists with no feeling for the profession or the force, but who had stronger instincts for the administrative power and influence which could be attained through brief appearances at Police HQ.

Ivarsson smiled and swayed up and down like the skipper of a sea-going vessel as he waited for the laughter to die down.

'Beate Lшnn is quite new in this context and our video recording specialist.'

Beate's face went as red as a beetroot.

'Beate is the daughter of Jшrgen Lшnn who served for over twenty years in what was then called the Robberies and Serious Crime Unit. So far she seems to be following in her legendary father's footsteps. She has already contributed vital evidence which has helped solve a number of cases. I don't know if I have mentioned it before, but over the last year in the Robberies Unit we have had a conviction rate bordering on fifty per cent, which in an international context is reckoned to be-'

'You have mentioned it before, Ivarsson.'

'Thank you.'

This time Ivarsson eyed Harry directly when he smiled. A stiff, reptilian smile baring his teeth far beyond the jawbone on both sides. And he continued to smile that smile for the rest of the introductions. Harry knew two of them. Magnus Rian, a young detective from Tomrefjord who had been in Crime Squad for six months and made a solid impression. The other was Didrik Gudmundson, the most experienced investigator around the table and the second-in-command of the Robberies Unit. A quiet, methodical policeman with whom Harry had never had any problems. The last two were also from the Robberies Unit, both with Li as a surname, but Harry immediately established that they were not identical twins. Toril Li was a tall blonde woman with a narrow mouth and a closed face, while Ola Li was a squat, red-haired man with a rounded face and laughing eyes. Harry had seen them enough times in the corridor for many to think it would be natural to say hello, but it had never occurred to him.

'As for myself, I should be familiar to you from other contexts,' Ivarsson concluded the round by saying. 'But just for formality's sake, I am the PAS of the Robberies Unit and have been appointed to lead this investigation. And to come back to what you said initially, Hole, this is not the first time we have had to investigate a robbery with a fatal outcome for the innocent parties.'

Harry tried not to rise to the bait. He really did, but the crocodile grin made it impossible.

'Also with a conviction rate of just under fifty per cent?'

Only one person at the table laughed, but his laughter was loud. Weber.

'My apologies, I obviously omitted to mention something about Hole,' Ivarsson said without smiling. 'He is said to have a talent for comedy. A real wit, I've heard say.'

There was a second's embarrassed silence. Then Ivarsson gave a brief honk of laughter and a low chuckle spread around the table.

'OK, let's start with a summary.' Ivarsson flipped over the front sheet. The next bore the title FORENSIC EVIDENCE. He took the top off a marker and prepared himself. 'It's all yours, Weber.'

Karl Torleif Weber stood up. He was a short man with a lion's mane of grey hair and a beard. His voice was an ominous, low-frequency rumble, but, for all that, clear. 'I'll be brief.'

'By all means,' Ivarsson said, putting the pen to paper. 'But take all the time you need, Karl.'

'I'll be brief because I don't need much time,' Weber growled. 'We haven't got a thing.'

'Right,' Ivarsson said, lowering the pen. 'You haven't got a thing. Exactly what do you mean by that?'

'We have a print of a brand new Nike shoe, size 45. Most things about this robbery have such a professional ring about them that the only information I can infer is that it is unlikely to be the size he normally takes. The bullet has been analysed by the ballistics boys. It is standard 7.62 millimetre ammo for the AG3, the most common ammunition to be found in the kingdom of Norway since it is in every military barracks, arms store and home of a reserve officer or volunteer around the country. In other words, impossible to trace. Apart from that, you would think he had never been in the bank. Or outside it. We've searched for evidence there, too.'

Weber sat down.

'Thank you, Weber, that was…erm, informative.' Ivarsson turned over the next sheet. WITNESSES.

'Hole?'

Harry slumped even further into his chair. 'Everyone who was in the bank was questioned immediately afterwards, and no one can tell us anything we can't see on the video. That is to say, they remember a few things which we know to be incorrect. One witness saw the robber heading up Industrigata. No one else has called in.'

'Which brings us to the next point-getaway cars,' Ivarsson said. 'Toril?'