Monday. Vena Amoris.

Harry’s rusty red-and-white Ford Escort pulled up in front of the television shop. Two police cars and Waaler’s red sports supercar looked as if they had been strewn randomly across the pavements around the crossroads with the flattering name of Carl Berners plass.

Harry parked, took the green chisel out of his jacket pocket and put it on the passenger seat. As he hadn’t been able to find his car keys in his flat he had taken some wire and the chisel with him while he trawled the neighbourhood. He found his beloved car again in Stensberggata. And, sure enough, with the car keys in the ignition. The green chisel was perfect for bending the car door so that he could flip up the locking device with the wire.

Harry crossed the pedestrian crossing on red. He walked slowly; his body wouldn’t allow high speeds. His stomach and head ached, and his sweaty shirt was stuck to his back. It was 5.55 and he had managed without his medicine so far, but he wasn’t making any promises to himself.

The board in the hallway said the solicitors’ firm of Halle, Thune amp; Wetterlid was on the fifth floor. Harry groaned. He cast a glance at the lift. Sliding doors. No grille.

The lift was manufactured by KONE and when the shiny metal doors closed, he had the feeling he was inside a welded tin can. Harry tried not to listen to the lift machinery as they rose. He closed his eyes, but opened them again in a hurry when images of Sis appeared on the inside of his eyelids.

One of the uniformed regulars opened the door to the office area.

‘She’s in there,’ he said, pointing down the corridor to the left of the reception desk.

‘Any uniformed officers here?’

‘On their way.’

‘They’d certainly appreciate it if you closed off the lift and the door downstairs.’

‘Fine.’

‘Anyone here from Forensics?’

‘Li and Hansen. They’ve gathered together all the people who were still here when she was found. They’re questioning them now in one of the conference rooms.’

Harry walked down the corridor. The carpets were worn and the reproductions of national romantic treasures faded. It was a firm that had seen better days. Or perhaps it hadn’t.

The door to the ladies’ lavatory was ajar and the carpets muffled the sound of Harry’s steps as he approached. He could hear the sound of Tom Waaler’s voice. Harry stopped outside. It sounded as if Waaler was talking on his mobile.

‘If it’s one of his, he’s obviously not going through us any more. OK, leave it with me.’

Harry pushed open the door and saw Waaler in a squat position. He looked up.

‘Hi, Harry. Be with you in a minute.’

Harry stood on the threshold, absorbing the scene and the sound of a distant crackling voice on Waaler’s phone in the background.

The room was surprisingly big, roughly four metres by five, with two white lavatory cubicles and three white basins placed below a long mirror. The neon lights in the ceiling cast a harsh glare on the white walls and white floor tiles. The absence of colour was almost conspicuous. Perhaps it was this background that made the body look like a small work of art, a carefully arranged exhibition. The woman was young and slim. She was kneeling with her forehead on the ground, like a Muslim at prayer, except that her arms were beneath her body. Her suit skirt had ridden up over her underwear, revealing a cream-yellow G-string. A narrow, dark red stream of blood ran in the grouting between the woman’s head and the drain. It looked almost painted on to achieve maximum effect.

The body was in balance, supported at five points: the two feet, the knees and the forehead. The suit, the bizarre position and the bared posterior made Harry think of a secretary preparing herself to be penetrated by the boss. Stereotypes again. For all he knew, she could be the boss.

‘OK, but we can’t deal with that now,’ Waaler said. ‘Call me this evening.’

The detective inspector put the phone back in his inside pocket, but remained in a squat position. Harry noticed that his other hand was on the woman’s white skin, just below the edge of her underwear. To support himself, he supposed.

‘They’ll be good photos, won’t they,’ Waaler said as if he had been reading Harry’s thoughts.

‘Who is she?’

‘Barbara Svendsen, twenty-eight years old from Bestum. She was the receptionist here.’

Harry squatted down beside Waaler.

‘She was shot through the back of her head, as you can see,’ Waaler said. ‘Must have been with the gun under the basin over there. It still smells of cordite.’

Harry looked at the black gun on the floor in the corner of the room. There was a large, black lump of metal attached to the end of the barrel.

‘A Ceska Zbrojovka,’ Waaler said. ‘Czech, with a specially made silencer.’

Harry nodded. He was tempted to ask if the gun was one of the items that Waaler imported. Or if that was what he had been talking about on the phone.

‘Unusual position,’ Harry said.

‘Yes, it’s my guess that she was bending down or kneeling and fell forwards.’

‘Who found her?’

‘One of the solicitors, a woman. Control room got the call at eleven minutes past five.’

‘Witnesses?’

‘No-one we’ve talked to so far saw anything. Nothing untoward, no suspicious persons coming or going in the last hour. A visitor due to meet one of the solicitors says that Barbara left the reception desk to get a glass of water for him at five to five and never came back.’

‘And she came here?’

‘I suppose so. The kitchen’s quite a walk from reception.’

‘But no-one else saw her on her way over here from reception?’

‘The two people with offices between reception and the toilets had both gone home for the day. And those who were still here were either in their offices or in one of the conference rooms.’

‘What did this visitor do when she didn’t return?’

‘He had a meeting at five and when the receptionist didn’t return he became impatient and walked on through until he found the office of the solicitor he was due to meet.’

‘So he knew his way around?’

‘No, he said it was the first time he’d ever been here.’

‘Mm. And he’s the last person we know of to see her alive?’

‘Yup.’

Harry noticed that Waaler had not moved his hand.

‘So it must have happened somewhere between five to five and eleven minutes past.’

‘It seems so, yes.’

Harry looked down at his notepad.

‘Do you have to do that?’ he said in a low voice.

‘What?’

‘Touch her.’

‘Don’t you like it?’

Harry didn’t answer. Waaler leaned closer.

‘Are you implying that you’ve never touched them, Harry?’

Harry tried to write, but his pen didn’t work.

Waaler chuckled.

‘You don’t have to answer. I can see it in your face. There’s nothing wrong with being curious, Harry. That’s one of the reasons we joined the police force, isn’t it? Curiosity and excitement. Like finding out what skin feels like when they’ve just died, when they’re neither very warm nor very cold.’

‘I…’

Harry dropped his pen when Waaler grabbed his hand.

‘Feel.’

Waaler pressed Harry’s hand against the dead woman’s thigh. Harry was breathing hard through his nose. His first reaction had been to withdraw his hand, but he didn’t. Waaler’s hand on his was warm and dry, but his skin didn’t feel like human skin. It was like holding rubber. Lightly warm rubber.

‘Can you feel it? It’s the excitement, Harry. It’s got you too, hasn’t it. But how will you find it when this job’s over? Will you do the same as the other poor guys? Look for it in video shops or at the bottom of one of your bottles? Or do you want it in real life? Feel, Harry. This is what we’re offering you. A real life. Yes or no?’

Harry cleared his throat.

‘I’m just saying that forensics will want to examine the evidence before we touch anything.’