“He’s already there.”
Aune sighed. “So, let me repeat, what do you really want?”
“I want you to call Rakel and tell her to take me back.”
Ståle Aune’s eyes widened.
“Thatwas a joke,” Harry said. “I’ve been having palpitations. Anxiety attacks. No, that’s not quite right. I’ve been dreaming…something. Something I can’t quite see, but it keeps coming back to me.”
“Finally, an easy question,” Aune said. “Intoxication. Psychology is a science without a lot of solid facts to lean on, but the correlation between the consumption of intoxicants and mental distress is one of the few firm facts. How long has this been going on?”
Harry looked at his watch. “Two and a half hours.”
Ståle Aune let out a hollow laugh. “And you wanted to talk to me so you can at least tell yourself that you sought external medical help before you go back to self-medication?”
“It’s not the usual stuff,” Harry said. “It isn’t the ghosts.”
“Because they come at night?”
“Yes. And they don’t hide. I see them and I recognise them. Victims, dead colleagues. Killers. This was something else.”
“Any idea what?”
Harry shook his head. “Someone who’s been locked up. He reminded me of…” Harry leaned forward and stubbed his cigarette out on the pool of blood.
“Of Svein Finne, ‘the Fiancé,’ ” Aune said.
Harry looked up with one eyebrow raised. “Why do you think that?”
“It’s obvious that you think he’s out to get you.”
“You’ve spoken to Katrine.”
“She’s worried about you. She wanted an evaluation.”
“And you agreed?”
“I said that as a psychologist I don’t have the necessary detachment from you. But that paranoia can also be one aspect of alcohol abuse.”
“I’m the one who finally got him locked away, Ståle. He was my first case. He got twenty years for sexual assault and murder.”
“You were just doing your job. There’s no reason why Finne would take it personally.”
“He confessed to the assaults but denied the murder charges, claimed we’d planted evidence. I went to see him in prison the year before last to see if he could help us with the vampirist case, if he knew anything about Valentin Gjertsen. The last thing he did before I left was tell me exactly when he was due to be released, and to ask if my family and I felt safe.”
“Did Rakel know about this?”
“Yes. At New Year I found boot prints in the patch of woodland outside the kitchen window, so I set up a camera.”
“That could have been anyone, Harry. Someone who just got lost.”
“On private property, past a gate and up a steep, icy, fifty-metre driveway?”
“Hang on—didn’t you move out at Christmas?”
“More or less.” Harry wafted the smoke away.
“But you went back after that, to the patch of trees? Did Rakel know?”
