‘The fjord. Base jumping from Pulpit Rock, if we have time.’

‘So Oslo have sent us a comedian, have they? You’re participating in an extreme sport, I can tell you that much. Any good reason why we were not informed of this visit?’

Inspector Colbjornsen’s smile was as thin as his moustache. He was sporting one of those funny little hats only very old men and super-self-aware hipsters have. Harry was reminded of Popeye Doyle in The French Connection. And guessed that Colbjornsen would not shy away from sucking a lollipop or stopping on his way out of the door with an ‘Oh, just one more thing’.

‘I reckon there must be a fax at the bottom of the in tray,’ Harry said, looking up at the man in the white outfit as he came in. The material of the forensics officer’s overalls rustled as he took off the white hood and plumped down into a chair. He looked straight at Colbjornsen and muttered a local profanity.

‘Well?’ asked Colbjornsen.

‘He’s right,’ the crime scene officer said and nodded in Harry’s direction, without glancing at him. ‘The lad up there has been stuck to the bottom of the bath with superglue.’

‘Has been?’ said Colbjornsen, looking at his subordinate with a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Passive form. Aren’t you a bit premature in ruling out the possibility that Elias Skog did it himself?’

‘And managed to turn on the tap so he would drown in the slowest, most painful manner conceivable?’ Harry suggested. ‘After taping up his mouth so that he couldn’t scream?’

Colbjornsen sent Harry another razor-thin smile. ‘I’ll tell you when you can interrupt, Oslo.’

‘Stuck fast from top to toe,’ the officer continued. ‘The back of his head was shaved and smeared with glue. The same with his shoulders and back. Buttocks. Arms. Both legs. In other words-’

‘In other words,’ Harry said, ‘when the killer was finished with the glueing job, Elias had been lying there for a while and the adhesive had been hardening. He turned the tap a little way and left Elias Skog to a slow death by drowning. And Elias began his fight against time and death. The water rose slowly but his strength was ebbing away. Until mortal fear had him in its grip and gave him the energy for a last desperate attempt to pull himself free. And he did. He freed the strongest of his limbs from the bottom of the bathtub. His right leg. He simply tore it off and you can see the skin left on the bath surface. Blood spurted into the water as Elias banged his foot to rouse the landlady downstairs. And she heard the banging.’

Harry nodded towards the kitchen where Kaja was trying to calm and console the elderly lady. They could hear her bitter sobs.

‘But she misunderstood. She thought her lodger was bonking a girl who had accompanied him home.’

He looked at Colbjornsen, who had turned pale and no longer exhibited any signs of wanting to interrupt.

‘And all the time Elias was losing blood. A lot of blood. All the skin from his leg was gone. He became weaker, more tired. In the end, his determination began to fade. He gave up. Perhaps he was already unconscious from loss of blood as the water rose into his nostrils.’ Harry fixed his eyes on Colbjornsen. ‘Or perhaps not.’

Colbjornsen’s Adam’s apple was running a shuttle service.

Harry looked down at the dregs in the coffee cup. ‘And now I think Detective Solness and I should thank you for your hospitality and return to Oslo. Should you have any more questions, you can reach me here.’ Harry jotted down a number in the margin of a newspaper, tore off a section and passed it over the table. Then he got to his feet.

‘But…’ said Colbjornsen, getting to his feet as well. Harry towered twenty centimetres over him. ‘What was it you wanted with Elias Skog?’

‘To save him,’ Harry said, buttoning up his coat.

‘Save? Was he mixed up in something? Wait, Hole, we have to get to the bottom of this.’ But there was no longer the same authority in Colbjornsen’s use of the imperative form.

‘I’m sure you officers in the Stavanger force are perfectly capable of working this out for yourselves,’ Harry said, walking to the kitchen door and motioning to Kaja that they were leaving. ‘If not, I can recommend Kripos. Say hello to Mikael Bellman from me, if you have to.’

‘Save him from what?’

‘From what we were unable to save him from,’ Harry said.

In the taxi on the way to Sola, Harry stared out of the window at the rain hammering down on the unnaturally green fields. Kaja didn’t say a word. For which he was grateful.

26

The Needle

Gunnar Hagen was in Harry’s chair waiting for them when Harry and Kaja stepped into the hot, damp office.

Bjorn Holm, who was sitting behind Hagen, shrugged and gestured that he didn’t know what the POB wanted.

‘Stavanger, I hear,’ Hagen said, getting up.

‘Yes,’ Harry said. ‘Don’t get up, boss.’

‘It’s your chair. I’ll be going soon.’

‘Uh-uh?’

Harry inferred that it was bad news. Bad news of a certain significance. Bosses don’t hasten down the culvert to Botsen Prison to tell you your travel invoice has been completed incorrectly.

Hagen remained standing, so Holm was the only person in the room to be seated.

‘I’m afraid I have to inform you that Kripos has already discovered that you are working on the murders. And I have no choice but to close the investigation.’

In the ensuing silence Harry could hear the boiler rumbling in the adjacent room. Hagen ran his eyes over them, meeting each gaze in turn and stopping at Harry. ‘I can’t say this is an honourable discharge, either. I gave you clear instructions that this was to be a discreet operation.’

‘Well,’ Harry said, ‘I asked Beate Lonn to leak information about a certain ropery to Kripos, but she promised she would do it in a way that made Krimteknisk appear to be the source.’

‘And I’m sure she did,’ Hagen said. ‘It was the County Officer in Ytre Enebakk who gave you away, Harry.’

Harry rolled his eyes and uttered a low curse.

Hagen clapped his hands together and a dry bang resounded between the brick walls. ‘So that’s why, sadly, I have to command you to drop all investigative work with immediate effect. And to clear this office within forty-eight hours. Gomen nasai.’

Harry, Kaja and Bjorn looked at one another as the iron door closed and Hagen’s hurried footsteps faded down the culvert.

‘Forty-eight hours,’ Bjorn said at length. ‘Anyone want fresh coffee?’

Harry kicked the bin beside the desk. It hit the wall with a crash, spilling its modest contents and rolling back towards him.

‘I’ll be at Rikshospital,’ he said and strode towards the door.

Harry had positioned the hard wooden chair by the window and listened to his father’s regular breathing as he flicked through the newspaper. A wedding and a funeral side by side. On the left, pictures of Marit Olsen’s funeral, showing the Norwegian Prime Minister’s serious, compassionate face, party colleagues’ black suits, and the husband, Rasmus Olsen, behind a pair of large, unbecoming sunglasses. On the right, an article announcing that the shipping magnate’s daughter, Lene, would get her Tony in the spring, with photos of the (A-list) wedding guests who would all be flown in to St Tropez. On the back page, it said that the sun would go down today at precisely 16.58 in Oslo. Harry looked at his watch and established that it was in fact doing that now, behind the low clouds that would not release either rain or snow. He watched the lights coming on in all the homes on the side of the ridge around what had once been a volcano. In a way, it was a liberating thought that the volcano would open beneath them one day, swallow them up and remove all traces of what had once been a contented, well-organised and slightly sad town.