'This is the cop I was telling you about, folks. Who shot the guy in Australia. Hit him in the head, didn't you.'

'Good work,' said one of the other customers. Harry couldn't see his face because he was bent forward with his long hair hanging over his beer like a curtain. 'Exterminate the vermin.'

Harry pointed to a free table and Шystein nodded, stubbed out his cigarette, put the packet of Petterшes in the pocket of his denim shirt and concentrated on carrying the freshly drawn draught beer to the table without spilling it.

'Long time, no see,' Шystein said, rolling a new cigarette. 'Same as the rest of the boys, by the way. Never see 'em. They've all moved, got married and had kids.' Шystein laughed. A gravelly, bitter laugh. 'They've all settled down, anyroad. Who would've believed it?'

'Mm.'

'Ever been back to Oppsal? Your dad still lives in his house, doesn't he?'

'Yes, but I'm not there very often. We talk on the phone now and then.'

'And your sis? Is she any better?'

Harry smiled. 'You don't get better with Down's Syndrome, Шystein. She's doing fine, though. Has her own flat in Sogn. Got a partner.'

'Christ, more than I've got then.'

'How's the driving going?'

'Alright. Just changed taxi company. Last one thought I smelt. Tosser.'

'Still not interested in going back to computers?'

'Are you crazy!' Шystein shook off internal laughter as he ran the tip of his tongue along the paper. 'Annual salary of a million and a quiet office-of course, I could do with that, but I've missed the boat, Harry. The time for rock'n'roll guys like me in IT is over.'

'I was talking to someone in the data-protection department of Den norske Bank. He said you were still reckoned to be a code-breaking pioneer.'

'Pioneer means past it, Harry. No one has any time for a washed-up hacker ten years behind the latest developments. You can understand that, can't you? And then there was all that bother.'

'Mm. What actually happened?'

'What happened?' Шystein rolled his eyes. 'You know me. Once a hippy, always a hippy. Needed dough. Tried a code I shouldn't have.' He lit his roll-up and looked around in vain for an ashtray. 'What about you? Stopped hitting the bottle for good, have you?'

'Trying.' Harry reached over for an ashtray from the next table. 'I'm with someone.'

He told Шystein about Rakel, Oleg and the court case in Moscow. And about life in general. It didn't take long.

Шystein talked about the others in the gang of friends who had grown up in Oppsal. About Sigge, who had moved to Harestua with a woman Шystein thought was much too refined for him, and Kristian who was in a wheelchair after being hit by a car while he was on his motorbike north of Minnesund. 'Doctors have given him a chance.'

'A chance of what?' Harry asked.

'Of humping again,' Шystein said, draining his glass.

Tore was still a teacher, but he had split up with Silje.

'His chances aren't so good,' Шystein said. 'He's put on thirty kilos. That was why she cleared off. It's true! Torkild met her out on the town and she told him she couldn't stand all the blubber.' He put down his glass. 'But I take it that wasn't why you called?'

'No, I need some help. I'm on a case.'

'To catch baddies? And you come to me? Jesus!' Шystein's laughter morphed into a coughing fit.

'It's a case I'm personally involved in,' Harry said. 'It's a bit difficult to explain everything, but I'm trying to trace someone who is sending me e-mails. I think he's using a server with anonymous clients somewhere abroad.'

Шystein nodded pensively. 'So you're in trouble?'

'Maybe. What makes you think that?'

'I'm a pisshead taxi driver who knows nada about the latest in IT. And everyone who knows me can tell you, I'm unreliable as far as work goes. In short, the only reason you've come to me is that I'm an old pal. Loyalty. I'll keep my mouth shut, won't I.' He took a long swig of a new beer. 'I may enjoy the odd bevvy, but I'm not stupid, Harry.' He pulled hard on his cigarette. 'So-when do we begin?'

***

Night had settled over Slemdal. The door opened and a man and a woman appeared on the steps. They took leave of their hosts amid laughter, walked down the drive, the shingle crunching under shiny black shoes as they commented in low voices on the food, the host and hostess and the other guests. Thus, as they left the gateway into Bjшrnetrеkket, they didn't notice the taxi parked a bit further down the road. Harry stubbed out his cigarette, turned up the car radio and listened to Elvis Costello droning through 'Watching the Detectives'. On P4. He had noticed that when his favourite hot sounds were old enough, they ended up on tepid radio channels. Naturally, he was all too aware that could mean only one thing-he was getting old, too. Yesterday they had played Nick Cave after Cliff Richard.

An ingratiating night-time voice introduced 'Another Day in Paradise' and Harry switched off. He rolled down the window and listened to the muted bass throb coming from Albu's house, which was the only sound to stir the silence. An adult party. Business connections, neighbours and old college friends. Not quite 'The Birdy Song' and not quite a rave, but G and Ts, Abba and the Rolling Stones. People in their late thirties who had been through higher education. In other words, not too late back to the babysitter. Harry looked at his watch. He thought about the new e-mail on his computer when he and Шystein had switched it on:

I am bored. Are you frightened or just stupid?

He had left the computer in Шystein's hands and borrowed his taxi, a clapped-out Mercedes from the seventies, which had shaken like an old sprung mattress over the speed bumps when he came into the residential area, but was still a dream to drive. He had decided to wait when he saw the formally dressed guests leaving Albu's house. There was no reason to make a scene. And, anyway, he needed to spend some time thinking things through before he did anything stupid. Harry had tried to be cold and rational, but this I am bored had got in the way.

'Now you've thought things through,' Harry muttered to himself in the rear-view mirror. 'Now you can do something stupid.'

Vigdis opened the door. She had performed the magic trick only female illusionists master and one men will never get to the bottom of: she had become beautiful. The only specific change Harry could put his finger on was that she was wearing a turquoise evening dress matching her large blue eyes-suddenly wide open with surprise.

'I apologise for disturbing you at such a late hour, fru Albu. I would like to speak to your husband.'

'We're having a party. Can't it wait until tomorrow?' She sent him an imploring smile, and Harry could see how much she burned to slam the door.

'My apologies,' he said. 'Your husband was not telling the truth when he said he didn't know Anna Bethsen. And I don't think you were, either.' Harry didn't know whether it was the evening dress or the confrontation which made him choose a formal tone. Vigdis Albu's mouth was like a mute 'o'.

'I have a witness who saw them together,' Harry said. 'And I know where the photograph is from.'

She blinked twice.

'Why…?' she stammered. 'Why…?'

'Because they were lovers, fru Albu.'

'No, I mean-why are you telling me this? Who gave you the right?'

Harry opened his mouth, ready to answer, to say he thought she had a right to know, that it would come out anyway, and so on. Instead he stood looking at her. She knew why he was telling her, and he hadn't known himself, not until now. He swallowed.

'The right to do what, dearest?'

Harry caught sight of Arne Albu as he came down the stairs. His forehead was glistening with sweat and his bow tie was hanging loose over his shirt front. From the living room up the stairs he could hear David Bowie erroneously insisting 'This Is Not America'.