‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she whispered.

Harry stood there with his arms down by his sides, shifting weight from one foot to the other. He knew he could give her an answer. He could have said that what he was ‘doing’ was trying to save lives in the city, but even that would have been a lie. The truth was he was ‘doing’ his own thing and letting everyone around him pay the price. It had always been like that, and it always would be, and if it happened to save lives, then that was a bonus.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said instead. At any rate, that was the truth.

‘We went somewhere where the serial killer’s been,’ Oleg said overjoyed, but stopped in his tracks when he saw his mother’s look of disbelief.

‘Well -’ Harry began.

‘Don’t,’ Rakel interrupted. ‘Don’t even try.’

Harry shrugged, and smiled sadly at Oleg.

‘Let me drive you home anyway.’

He knew what the response would be before it came. He stood and watched them go. Rakel strode ahead briskly. Oleg turned and waved. Harry waved back.

The sun was pumping behind his eyelids.

The canteen was on the top floor of Police HQ. Harry stood inside the door and his eyes swept around the room. Apart from a person sitting with his back to one of the tables, the large area was totally empty. Harry had driven from Frogner Park straight to Police HQ. On his way through the corridors on the sixth floor he established that Tom Waaler’s office was unoccupied, but the light was on.

Harry went to the counter where the steel shutters were down. On the TV suspended in the corner the draw was being made for the lottery. Harry watched the ball roll down the funnel. The volume was down low, but Harry could hear a woman’s voice say ‘Five, the number is five’. Someone had been lucky. A chair scraped by the table.

‘Hi, Harry. The counter’s closed.’

It was Tom.

‘I know,’ Harry said.

Harry thought about what Rakel had asked, about what he was actually doing.

‘Thought I would just have a smoke.’

Harry nodded towards the door to the roof terrace, which in practice functioned as a year-round smoking room.

The view from the roof terrace was wonderful, but the air was just as hot and still as it was down on the street. The afternoon sun angled across the town and came to rest in Bjorvika, an area of Oslo containing a motorway, a deposit for shipping containers and a refuge for junkies, but it was soon to have an opera house, hotels and millionaires’ apartments. Wealth was beginning to take the whole city by storm. It made Harry think of the catfish in the rivers in Africa, the large, black fish that didn’t have the sense to swim into deeper waters when the drought came and in the end were trapped in one of the muddy pools that slowly dried up. All the building works had started; the cranes stood out like the silhouettes of giraffes against the afternoon sun.

‘It’s going to be really great.’

He hadn’t even heard Tom approach.

‘We’ll see.’

Harry pulled on his cigarette. He wasn’t sure what he had responded to.

‘You’ll like it,’ Waaler said. ‘It’s just a question of getting used to it.’

Harry could see the catfish lying in front of him in the mud after the last water had gone, their tails beating, their mouths wide open as they tried to get used to breathing air.

‘But I need an answer, Harry. I have to know if you’re in or out.’

Drowning in air. The death of the catfish was perhaps no worse than the death of anything else. Death by drowning was supposed to be relatively pleasant.

‘Beate rang,’ Harry said. ‘She’s checked the fingerprints from the TV shop.’

‘Oh?’

‘Just partial prints. And the owner doesn’t remember a thing.’

‘Shame. Aune says that they get good results from hypnosis with forgetful witnesses in Sweden. Perhaps we should try that.’

‘Sure.’

‘And there was an interesting bit of information from Forensics this afternoon. About Camilla Loen.’

‘Mm?’

‘Turns out she was pregnant. Second month. But no-one we’ve talked to in her circle had a clue about who the father could have been. I don’t suppose it has much to do with her death, but it would be interesting to know.’

‘Mm.’

They stood in silence. Waaler went over to the railing and leaned over the edge.

‘I know that you don’t like me, Harry. And I’m not asking you to begin liking me over night.’

He paused.

‘But if we’re going to work together we have to begin somewhere, be a little more open with each other perhaps.’

‘Open?’

‘Yes. Does that sound dodgy?’

‘A bit.’

Tom Waaler smiled. ‘Agreed, but you can start. Ask me anything you’d like to know about me.’

‘Know?’

‘Yes. Anything at all.’

‘Was it you who shot…?’ Harry stopped. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I want to know what it is that makes you tick.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What it is that makes you get up in the morning and do what you do. What you’re after and why.’

‘I understand.’

Tom thought it over. For quite a while. Then he pointed at the cranes.

‘Do you see those? My great-grandfather emigrated from Scotland with six Sutherland sheep and a letter from the bricklayers’ guild in Aberdeen. He helped to build the houses you can see along the Akerselva and to the east along the railway line. Later his sons followed in his footsteps, and their sons too, right down to my father. My grandfather took a Norwegian surname, but when we moved to the west of Oslo, my father changed it back. Waaler. Wall. There was a little pride involved, but he also thought that Andersen was too common a name for a future judge.’

Harry watched Waaler. He tried to locate the scar on his chin.

‘You were training to become a judge then?’

‘That was the plan when I started law. And I would probably have continued if it hadn’t been for what happened.’

‘What was that?’

Waaler shrugged his shoulders.

‘My father died in an accident at work. It’s strange, but when your father has gone you suddenly discover that the choices you have made were as much for him as for yourself. I was immediately aware that I had nothing in common with the other law students. I suppose I was a kind of naive idealist. I thought it was all about raising the banner for justice and driving the modern democratic state forward. However, I discovered that for most people it was about getting a title and a job and creaming enough to be able to impress the girl next door in Ullern. Well, you did law yourself…’

Harry nodded.

‘Perhaps it’s in the genes,’ Waaler said. ‘At any rate, I’ve always liked building things. Big things. Right from when I was small. I built huge palaces with Lego bricks, much bigger than the things all the other kids built. On the law course I realised I was wired differently from all these tiny-minded people with their tiny-minded thoughts. Two months after my father’s funeral I applied to go to Police College.’

‘Mm. And left as top cadet, according to the rumours.’

‘Second.’

‘And here at Police HQ you had to build your palace?’

‘I didn’t have to. There’s no had to, Harry. When I was small I took Lego bricks off the other children to make my buildings large enough. It’s a question of what you want. Do you want a small, poky house for people with small, poky lives or do you want to have opera houses and cathedrals, majestic buildings that point the way towards something greater than you yourself, something you can strive for.’

Waaler ran his hand along the steel railing.

‘Building cathedrals is a calling, Harry. In Italy they gave masons who died during the construction of a church the status of a martyr. Even though cathedral builders built for humanity there isn’t a single cathedral in human history that was not founded on human bones and human blood. My grandfather used to say that. And that’s the way it will always be. The blood of my family has been used as the mortar of many of the buildings you can see from here. I simply want more justice. For everyone. And I’ll use the building materials that are necessary.’