“What is it?” Alexandra mimicked. “I thought I might let you know about the last DNA report we sent the investigating team.”
“Oh?”
“But now I’m not so sure.”
“Because I’m in Kaja’s bed?”
“Youadmitit!” Alexandra exclaimed.
“ ‘Admit’ is the wrong word, but yes. I’m sorry if you think that sucks, but I’m just a booty call to you, so you’ll get over it pretty quickly.”
“No more booty calls from me, pretty boy.”
“OK, I’ll have to try to live with that.”
“You could at least try to sound a bit sad.”
“Listen, Alexandra, I haven’t been anything but sad for several months, and I don’t feel up to playing this sort of game right now. Are you going to tell me about the report or not?”
A pause. Harry heard the sound of the shower in the bathroom.
Alexandra sighed. “We’ve analysed anything that might be thought to contain DNA from the scene, and obviously there are loads of matches with the police officers we’ve got in the database. You, Oleg, the investigating officers.”
“Did they really manage to contaminate the crime scene?”
“Not too much, but this was a very thorough search for evidence, Harry. From the whole house, including the basement. We brought in so much that the team at the scene gave us a list of what to prioritise. That’s why this has only just cropped up. The unwashed glasses and cutlery in the dishwasher were some way down the list.”
“What’s cropped up?”
“DNA from an unknown individual in dried saliva on the edge of the glass.”
“Male?”
“Yes. And they said there were fingerprints on the glass as well.”
“Fingerprints? Then they’ll have pictures.” Harry swung his legs out of bed. “Alexandra, you’re a good friend, thanks!”
“Friend,” she snorted. “Who wants to befriends?”
“Will you call me when you’ve got anything else?”
“I’ll call when I’ve got a well-hung man in my bed, that’s what I’m going to do.” She ended the call.
Harry got dressed, took his cup of coffee, coat and boots down to the living room, opened Kaja’s laptop and logged into the investigation section of the Oslo Police District website. He found images of the glass in the final report, among the pictures of the contents of the dishwasher. Two plates and four glasses. That meant that the glass had probably been used not long before the murder. Rakel never let things sit in the dishwasher for more than a couple of days, and if it was still less than half full she would sometimes take things out again and wash them by hand.
The glass containing the fingerprints was one of the ones Rakel had bought from a small glassworks in Nittedal, run by a Syrian family who had come to Norway as refugees. Rakel had liked the blue-tinted glasses and wanted to help the family, so she had suggested the Jealousy Bar should buy a load, saying they’d give the bar a distinctive quality. But before Harry had time to make a decision he had been thrown out of both the house in Holmenkollen and ownership of the bar. Rakel had kept the glasses in a cupboard in the living-room section of the large, open space. Not the first place a killer would look for a glass if he wanted a drink after the murder. The report also said that Rakel’s own fingerprints had been found on the glass. So she had given this person something to drink, had handed him the glass. Water, probably, because according to the report there were no traces of anything else. And Rakel hadn’t drunk anything herself; there was only one of the blue-tinted glasses in the dishwasher.
Harry rubbed his face.
So she had known whoever had arrived well enough to let him in, but not so well as to use one of the IKEA glasses from the kitchen cupboard above the tap when he asked for a glass of water. She had made more of an effort. A lover? A new date, if so, because the cupboard containing those glasses was a bit of a detour. And he hadn’t been there before. When Harry had checked the rest of the recordings from the wildlife camera, Rakel was the only person seen coming and going, she hadn’t had any visitors at all. It must be him. Harry thought about the person Rakel had seemed surprised to see but had still let in a few seconds later. The report said that no matching fingerprints had been found in the database. So, not an active police officer—at least, not one who had worked at the scene—and not a known felon. Someone who hadn’t been in the house much, seeing as this was the only print he had left.
Whoever had lifted the fingerprint from the glass had used the old method: coloured powder spread evenly over the surface with a brush or magnet. Harry could see prints from five fingers. In the middle of the glass, four prints in a pattern that indicated that the four fingers, with the little finger at the bottom, had been pointing to the left. At the bottom of the glass was the print from the thumb. Rakel’s, from when she handed him the glass with her right hand. Harry looked further down the report and found confirmation of what he already knew: the prints were from Rakel’s right hand and the unknown man’s left hand. Harry’s brain sounded the alarm when it detected the same creaking on the floor as the previous evening.
“Made you jump!” Kaja laughed as she padded barefoot into the living room wearing a worn blue dressing gown that was far too big for her. Her father’s. Or her older brother’s. “I’ve only got enough breakfast for one, but we can go out and—”
“Don’t worry,” Harry said, closing the laptop. “I need to get home and change clothes.” He stood up and kissed her forehead. “Nice tattoo, by the way.”
“Do you think? I seem to remember that you don’t like tattoos?”
