Everyone knows the monkey, Harry thought. The monkey doesn’t know anyone. He wiped his face with his hand.

‘Where is the Crime Scene Unit?’

‘In the bathroom,’ the police officer said, nodding towards the bedroom. ‘Lonn and Weber.’

‘Weber? Have they started calling in pensioners now as well?’

The officer shrugged his shoulders. ‘Holiday period.’

Harry had a look around.

‘OK, well, close off the entrance and the door. People wander in and out of this building quite freely.’

‘But -’

‘Listen. That’s all part of the scene of the crime. Alright?’

‘I understand,’ the officer said with an edge to his voice, and Harry knew that in two sentences he had managed to find himself another enemy on the force. The queue stretched for miles.

‘But I was given clear instructions to…’ the officer went on.

‘… to keep an eye on things here,’ said a voice from inside the bedroom.

Tom Waaler appeared in the doorway.

Despite the dark suit he was wearing, there was not so much as a bead of sweat under his dark, thick hairline. Tom Waaler was a good-looking man. Not a charmer perhaps, but he had uniform, symmetrical features. He was not as tall as Harry, but many would have perceived him to be. Perhaps because of Waaler’s upright bearing. Or the effortless self-confidence he exuded. Most people working around him were not only impressed, they also felt that his composure rubbed off on them, so they relaxed and found their natural place. The impression of good looks could also emanate from his physical presence – no suit could hide five workouts a week doing karate and weights.

‘And he should continue to keep an eye on things here,’ Waaler said. ‘I’ve just sent someone down in the lift to close off whatever is needed. Everything in order, Hole.’

The last was delivered with such flat intonation that it was unclear whether it was to be taken as a statement or a question. Harry cleared his throat.

‘Where is she?’

‘In here.’

Waaler’s face feigned a look of concern as he moved aside to let Harry pass.

‘Hit yourself, did you, Hole?’

The bedroom was simply furnished, but with taste and a touch of romance. A bed made for one – but with room for two – gave on to a supporting beam carved with something that looked like a heart with a triangle inside it. Perhaps a lover’s mark, Harry thought. On the wall over her bed hung three framed pictures of naked men, erotically PC, lying somewhere between soft porn and intimate art. No personal pictures or objects, as far as he could see.

The bathroom an en suite. It was no bigger than the room needed to accommodate a sink, a lavatory, a shower without a curtain and Camilla Loen. She lay on the tiled floor with her face twisted towards the door, but she was looking upwards, at the shower, as if waiting for more water.

She was naked under the sopping wet, white bathrobe which lay open and covered the drain. Beate was standing in the doorway taking photographs.

‘Anyone checked how long she’s been dead?’

‘Pathologist’s on his way,’ Beate said. ‘But rigor mortis hasn’t set in and she’s still not completely cold. I’d guess a couple of hours at most.’

‘Wasn’t the shower on when the neighbour and the caretaker found her?’

‘Yes.’

‘The hot water could have maintained her body temperature and delayed the onset of stiffening.’

Harry looked down at his watch: 6.15.

‘Let’s say she died at about five o’clock.’

It was Waaler’s voice.

‘Why?’ Harry asked, without turning round.

‘There’s nothing to suggest that the body has been moved, so we can assume that she was killed while she was in the shower. As you can see, her body and her bathrobe are blocking the drain. That’s what caused the flooding. The caretaker who turned off the shower said that it was on full, and I checked the water pressure. Pretty good for an attic flat. With it being such a small bathroom it can’t have taken many minutes before the water spilled over the threshold and out into the bedroom. And then not much longer before the water found a way down to the flat underneath. The woman downstairs says that it was exactly twenty minutes past five when she discovered the leak.’

‘That’s just an hour ago,’ Harry said. ‘And you’ve been here half an hour. Seems as if everyone here has reacted unusually quickly.’

‘Well, not everyone,’ Waaler said.

Harry didn’t answer.

‘I’m thinking of the pathologist.’ Waaler smiled. ‘He should have been here by now.’

Beate finished taking photos and exchanged glances with Harry.

Waaler touched her arm.

‘Call me if there is anything. I’m going to the second floor to talk to the caretaker.’

‘OK.’

Harry waited until Waaler had left the room.

‘Can I…?’ heasked.

Beate nodded and moved.

Harry’s shoes squelched on the wet floor. There was condensation on all the surfaces in the room from the steam and it ran down in stripes. The mirror looked as if it had been weeping. Harry went into a squat, but had to hold onto the wall not to lose balance. He breathed in through his nostrils, but could detect only the smell of soap, none of the other smells he knew had to be there. Dysosmia it was called, according to the book Harry had borrowed from Aune, the Crime Squad’s resident psychologist. A condition of the brain when it refused to recognise some smells, it said; often the result of emotional trauma. Harry wasn’t so sure about that. He just knew that he couldn’t smell a dead body.

Camilla Loen was young. Somewhere between 27 and 30, he guessed. Good-looking. Full figure. Her skin was smooth and tanned, but with the pallor that dead bodies quickly acquire underneath. She had dark hair, which would certainly grow lighter in colour as it dried, and a small hole in her forehead that would soon disappear once the undertaker had done his job. There was not much else for him to do, just put some make-up over what seemed like a swelling in her right eye.

Harry concentrated on the black, circular hole in her forehead. It was hardly bigger than the hole in a one-krone coin. He was always surprised how small holes could be and still take a human life. Occasionally they were deceptive because skin grew over the entry wound. Harry assumed that the bullet in this case had been larger than the hole it left behind.

‘Shame she’s been lying in water,’ Beate said. ‘Otherwise we might have found the killer’s fingerprints, some threads or DNA on her.’

‘Mm. At any rate her forehead was above water. And it didn’t get too much water on it from the shower, either.’

‘Oh?’

‘There is black, congealed blood round where the bullet entered. And there are burn marks on the skin from the shot. Perhaps this little hole can tell us one or two things right now. Magnifying glass?’

Without taking his eyes off Camilla Loen, Harry reached out, felt the solid weight of a German optical instrument in his hand and began to study the area around the bullet wound.

‘What can you see?’

Beate’s low voice was right down by his ear. She was always keen to learn more. Harry knew it would not be long before there was nothing left to teach her.

‘The grey colouring of the burn marks suggests that the shot was fired from close range, but not pointblank,’ he said. ‘I would guess the shot was fired from about half a metre.’

‘Right.’

‘The lack of symmetry of the burn marks indicates that the person who fired the gun was taller than her and shot downwards at an angle.’

Harry carefully turned the dead girl’s head. Her forehead was not yet completely cold.

‘No exit wound,’ he said. ‘That supports the theory that the shot was fired down at an angle. Perhaps she was kneeling in front of the person who fired it.’

‘Can you tell what kind of weapon was used?’

Harry shook his head. ‘The pathologist will know all that, as well as the ballistics guys. But there are graduated burn marks and that would suggest a short-barrelled weapon such as a handgun.’