Ten minutes past. The barman was sitting in the corner of the bar reading a holiday brochure.

‘Excuse me,’ Roger said.

The barman scarcely raised his eyes.

‘A guy hasn’t just been in here, has he? Tall, blond hair with…’

‘Sorry,’ the barman said, licking his thumb and flipping the page. ‘I just started my shift before you came in. Ask her over there.’

Roger hesitated. He drank down as far as the Ringnes logo on the glass and got up.

‘Excuse me…’

The woman looked up at him with a strained smile.

‘Yes?’

It was then that he saw. It wasn’t shadows he had seen across her face. It was bruises. On the forehead. On the cheekbones. And on her neck.

‘I was supposed to meet a guy here, but I’m afraid he must have gone again. About one ninety with short cropped blond hair.’

‘Oh? Young?’

‘Well. About thirty-five, I think. Looks a bit ravaged.’

‘Red nose and blue eyes that seem both old and young at the same time?’

She was still smiling, but in such an introverted way that he sensed the smile was not for him.

‘That could be him, yes,’ Roger dithered. ‘Has he…’

‘No, I’m sitting waiting for him myself.’

Roger looked her over. Was she with the others? A battered, fairly attractive woman in her mid-thirties? It seemed unlikely.

‘Do you think he’s going to come?’ Roger asked.

‘No.’ She raised her glass. ‘The ones you want to come, never do. It’s the others who come.’

Roger went back to the bar. His glass had been removed. He ordered another beer.

The barman put on some music. Gluecifer did their best to lighten the gloom.

‘I got a war, baby. I got a war with you. ’

He wasn’t coming. Harry Hole was not coming. What did it mean? It sure as shit wasn’t his fault.

At 5.30 the door opened.

Roger looked up hopefully.

A man in a leather jacket stood and eyeballed him.

Roger shook his head.

The man cast a quick glance around the bar. He ran a flat hand across his throat. Then he was gone again.

Roger’s first thought was to run after him. Ask him what he meant by his gesture. That they were suspending operations. Or that Thomas… His mobile phone rang. He took it out of his pocket.

‘No show?’ a voice said.

It was not the man wearing the leather jacket, and it was definitely not Harry. There was something familiar about the voice though.

‘What shall I do?’ Roger asked quietly.

‘Stay there until eight o’clock,’ the voice said. ‘And ring the number you were given if he turns up. We have to push on.’

‘Thomas…’

‘Nothing will happen to your little brother as long as you do what we tell you. And none of this will come out.’

‘Of course not. I…’

‘Have a good evening, Gjendem.’

Roger put the phone back in his pocket and plunged into his beer. He was gasping for air when he came up again. Eight o’clock. Two and a half hours.

‘What did I tell you?’

Roger turned his head. She was standing right behind him holding up her index finger to the barman, who reluctantly dragged himself to his feet.

‘What did you mean by “the others”?’ he asked.

‘Which others?’

‘You said that the others come instead of the ones you want to come.’

‘The ones you have to make do with, my dear.’

‘Yes?’

‘People like you and me.’

Roger turned right round. There was something about the way she had said that. No drama, no earnest tone, but with a slight resignation in her voice. There was something there he recognised, a sort of affinity. And now he could see more too. Her eyes. The red lips. She had certainly been good-looking at one time.

‘Did your partner beat you up?’ he asked.

She raised her head and thrust out her chin. She looked at the barman who was pouring her beer.

‘I really don’t think it’s any of your business, young man.’

Roger closed his eyes for a second. It had been a strange day. One of the strangest. No reason for it to stop here.

‘It could be,’ he said.

She turned and gave him a sharp look.

He nodded towards her table.

‘Judging from the size of the bag you’ve got with you, he’s an ex-partner now. If you need somewhere to crash tonight, I have a huge flat with a spare bedroom.’

‘Oh really?’

The intonation was dismissive, but he noticed her facial expression change. It became inquisitive, curious.

‘It suddenly became larger last winter,’ he said. ‘I would very happily pay for your beer if you would keep me company. I have to stay here for a while.’

‘Well,’ she said. ‘We can always wait a little together.’

‘For someone who won’t come?’

Her laughter sounded sad, but at least it was laughter.

Sven was sitting on the chair staring out of the window at the field outside.

‘Perhaps you should have gone after all,’ he said. ‘It might have been subconscious on the journalist’s part.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Harry said.

He was lying on the sofa contemplating the cigarette smoke as it spiralled up into the grey ceiling above them.

‘It’s my belief that, subconsciously, he was giving me a warning.’

‘Simply because you referred to Waaler as “a leading policeman” and the journalist referred to him as “an inspector” does not necessarily mean that he already knew it was Waaler. He might have been guessing.’

‘He slipped up. Unless his phone was being tapped and he was trying to warn me.’

‘You’re paranoid, Harry.’

‘Maybe, but that doesn’t mean-’

‘- that they aren’t after you. You’re right there. There must be other journalists you can call on, aren’t there?’

‘None I trust. And, besides, I don’t think we should make many more calls with this mobile. In fact, I think I’ll switch it off. The signals can be used to trace us.’

‘What? Waaler can’t know which phone you’re using.’

The green display light on the Ericsson went out and Harry dropped it into his jacket pocket.

‘You’re clearly not quite in the picture with respect to what Tom Waaler can or can’t do, Sivertsen. The agreement with my taxi-driving pal was that he was to ring between five and six if everything was OK. It’s now ten past six. Did you hear the phone ring?’

‘No.’

‘That may mean that they know all about this phone. He’s getting closer.’

Sven groaned.

‘Has anyone told you that you have a tendency to repeat yourself, Harry? And, by the way, it’s struck me that you’re not doing a helluva lot to get us out of this mess.’

Harry blew a fat zero towards the ceiling by way of answer.

‘I’m sort of getting the feeling that you want him to find us. And that all this other stuff is just playing to the gallery. It has to look as if we’re trying bloody hard to hide so that you can be sure that he will be tricked into coming after us.’

‘Interesting theory,’ Harry mumbled.

‘The expert at Norske Moller has confirmed what you suspected,’ Beate said on the phone, waving Bjorn Holm out of the office.

She could tell from the clicks that Harry was phoning from a public call box.

‘Thanks for your help,’ he answered. ‘That was exactly what I needed.’

‘Was it?’

‘I hope so.’

‘I’ve just rung Olaug Sivertsen, Harry. She’s beside herself with worry.’

‘Mm.’

‘It’s not just her son. She’s frightened for her lodger who was in the mountains over the weekend and hasn’t returned. I don’t know what to say to her.’

‘As little as possible. It’ll soon be over.’

‘Can you promise that?’

Harry’s laughter sounded like the dry cough of a machine gun: ‘Precisely that I can promise, yes.’

There was a crackle on the intercom.

‘Visitor for you,’ the nasal voice of a receptionist announced. In fact, since it was past 4.00, it would have been one of the female Securitas guards, but Beate had noticed that even the Securitas personnel acquired a nasal twang after a stint behind the reception desk.