'Isn't it great when all the cards just fall into place, Hole?'

Harry's brain sent a message to the head to nod, but he had no idea if it obeyed.

11

The Illusion

I'm watching the first video. when I take it frame by frame I can see the spurt of flame. Particles of powder which as yet have not been converted into pure energy, like a glowing swarm of asteroids following the large comet into the atmosphere to burn up while the comet continues serenely on its course. And there is nothing anyone can do because this is the course that was predestined millions of years ago, before mankind, before emotions, before hatred and mercy were born. The bullet enters the head, truncates mental activity and revokes dreams. In the core of the cranium the last thought, a neural impulse from the pain centre, is shattered. It is a last contradictory SOS to itself before everything is silenced. I click onto the second video title. I stare out of the window while the computer grinds away scouring the Internet night. There are stars in the sky and I think that each of them is proof of the ineluctability of fate. They make no sense; they are elevated above the human need for logic and context. And that is why, I think, they are so beautiful.

Then the second video is ready. I click on PLAY. Play a play. It is like a travelling theatre which stages the same performance, but in a different place. The same dialogues and actions, the same costumes, the same scenery. Only the extras have changed. And the final scene. There was no tragedy this evening.

I am pleased with myself. I have found the nucleus of the character I play-the cold professional adversary who knows exactly what he wants and kills if he has to. No one tries to drag out the time; no one dares after Bogstadveien. And that is why I am God for the two minutes, the one hundred and twenty seconds I have allowed myself. The illusion works. The thick clothes under the boiler suit, the double insoles, the coloured contact lenses and the rehearsed movements.

I log off and the room goes dark. All that reaches me from outside is the distant rumble of the town. I met the Prince today. An odd person. He gives me the ambivalent feeling of being a Pluvianus aegyptius, the little bird which lives by cleaning the crocodile's mouth. He told me everything was under control, that the Robberies Unit had not found any clues. He got his share and I got the Jew-gun he had promised me.

Perhaps I ought to be happy, but nothing can ever make me whole again.

Afterwards I rang Police HQ from a public telephone box, but they didn't want to divulge anything unless I said I was family. They told me it was suicide; that Anna had shot herself. The case was closed. I only just managed to put the receiver down before I started laughing.

Part II

12

Freitod

'Albert Camus said that freitod, suicide, was the one truly serious problem philosophy had,' said Aune, sticking his nose up towards the grey sky above Bogstadveien. 'Because the decision about whether life was worth living or not was the answer to philosophy's fundamental question. Everything else-whether or not the world had three dimensions or the mind nine or twelve categories-comes later.'

'Mm,' Harry said.

'Many of my colleagues have undertaken research into why people commit suicide. Do you know what they found the most common cause was?'

'That was the sort of thing I was hoping you could answer.' Harry had to slalom between people on the narrow pavement to keep up with the tubby psychologist.

'That they didn't want to live any longer,' Aune said.

'Sounds like someone deserves a Nobel Prize.' Harry had rung Aune the evening before and arranged to pick him up at his office in Sporveisgata at nine. They passed the branch of Nordea Bank and Harry noticed that the green skip was still outside the 7-Eleven on the other side of the street.

'We often forget that the decision to commit suicide tends to be taken by rationally thinking, sane people who no longer consider that life has anything to offer,' Aune said. 'Old people who have lost their life's companion or whose health is failing, for example.'

'This woman was young and energetic. What rational grounds could she have had?'

'First of all, you have to define the meaning of rational. When someone who is depressed opts to escape from pain by taking their own life, you have to assume the distressed party has weighed up both sides. On the other hand, it is difficult to see suicide as rational in the typical scenario where the sufferer is on their way out of the trough, and only then finds the energy to perform the active deed which suicide is.'

'Can suicide be a completely spontaneous act?'

'Of course it can. It is more usual, however, for there to be attempts first, especially among women. In the USA there are calculated to be ten pseudo-suicide attempts among women for every one suicide.'

'Pseudo?'

'Taking five sleeping tablets is a cry for help, serious enough it's true, but I don't include it as a suicide attempt when a half-full bottle of pills is still on the bedside table.'

'This one shot herself.'

'A masculine suicide then.'

'Masculine?'

'One of the reasons men are more successful is that they choose more aggressive, lethal methods than women. Guns and tall buildings, instead of cutting their wrists or taking an overdose. It is very unusual for a woman to shoot herself.'

'Suspiciously unusual?'

Aune regarded Harry closely. 'Have you any reason to believe this wasn't suicide?'

Harry shook his head. 'I just want to be quite sure. We have to turn right here. Her flat is a little way up the street.'

'Sorgenfrigata?' Aune chuckled and squinted up at the ominous clouds moving across the sky. 'Naturally.'

'Naturally?'

'Sorgenfri was the name of the palace belonging to Christophe, the Haitian king who committed suicide when he was taken prisoner by the French, or as they called it Sans Souci. So, carefree. Carefree Street. Sorgenfrigata. He pointed the cannons at the heavens to avenge himself on God, you know.'

'Well…'

'And I suppose you know what the writer, Ola Bauer, said about this street? I moved to Sorgenfrigata, but that didn't help much, either.' Aune was laughing so much his double chin was wobbling.

Halvorsen stood outside the door waiting. 'I met Bjarne Mшller as I was leaving the station,' he said. 'He was under the impression this case was done and dusted.'

'We just need to tie up a few loose ends,' Harry said, unlocking the door with the key the electrician had given him.

The police tape in front of the door had been removed and the body taken away; otherwise nothing had been touched since the evening before. They went into the bedroom. The white sheet on the large bed shone in the half-light.

'What are we looking for then?' Halvorsen asked as Harry drew the curtains.

'A spare key for the flat,' Harry answered.

'Why's that?'

'We presumed she had a spare key, the one she gave to the electrician. I've been doing a bit of checking. System keys can't be cut at any locksmith; they have to be ordered from the manufacturer via an authorised locksmith. Since the key fits the main door and the cellar door, the housing committee with responsibility for the block of flats wants control of them. Therefore flat residents have to apply for written permission from the committee when they order new keys, don't they. According to an agreement with the committee, it is the authorised locksmith's duty to keep a list of the keys issued to every single flat. I rang Lеsesmeden, the locksmith in Vibes gate, last night. Anna Bethsen was issued two spare keys, thus making three in all. We found one in the flat and the electrician had one. But where is the third? Until it has been found, we cannot rule out the possibility that someone was here when she died and locked the door on their way out.'