“But…”
“I can get the window mended tomorrow, it’s no big deal.”
—
Harry was looking right into Ringdal’s eyes behind the glass, and it was a complete mystery to him that the other man couldn’t see him. He thought about retreating towards the door to the cellar and crawling out through one of the basement windows. But he knew that the slightest movement would give him away. Ringdal’s face moved away from the window. Harry saw Ringdal put his hand inside his jacket, under a dark pullover. He pulled out something black. A pistol with what Bjørn called a “stuck-up nose,” an extremely short barrel, possibly a Sig Sauer P320. Easy to fire, easy to use, quick trigger, effective at short range.
Harry gulped.
He imagined he could hear Ringdal’s defense lawyer.The accused thought a burglar was coming towards him through the darkness in the hallway, so he fired in self-defense. The defense lawyer asking Katrine Bratt in the witness stand: “On whose orders was Hole inside the house?”
He saw the pistol being raised, then the hand swing back.
—
“I can see them!” Øystein shouted into his phone.
Silence at the other end.
“That was in the nick of time,” Ringdal’s voice finally said. “Where—”
“On the floor. Below the hook, where you said. They’re behind the broom.”
“Broom? There’s no broom…”
“I put it in there, I kept kicking it behind the bar,” Øystein said, leaning through the doorway to look at the bar, where a throng of unserved, thirsty customers was waiting. He grabbed the brush and put it behind the door, beneath the hook.
“OK, hang on to them, I’m on my way.”
The line went dead.
Øystein called Harry’s number. Still the same woman’s voice reciting her mantra about the phone being switched off. Øystein wiped the sweat from his brow. Relegation. The season had hardly begun, but it was already decided, it was the law of gravity, which could at best be counterbalanced rather than avoided.
“Øyvind! Where are you, Øyvind?”
“Øy-STEIN!” Øystein bellowed towards the crowd on the other side of the doorway. “I’m definitely anØy, but I’d much prefer to be a-stein, OK?”
—
Harry watched the shape move away from the window. He heard quick footsteps down the steps. The dog started barking again.
Keep them there, I’m on my way.
Øystein must have persuaded Ringdal that he had his keys.
He heard a car start, then disappear.
His own car was parked on a different planet. There was no way he could get to the Jealousy Bar ahead of Ringdal. And his phone was dead, so he couldn’t contact Øystein. Harry tried to think. It was as if his brain had lost its steering, and kept thinking about the photograph of the dead girl. And something Bjørn had said about developing pictures from crime scenes back when they still had a darkroom in Forensics. That new staff always tended to use too much contrast, meaning that there was less detail in both black and white. The contrast in the photograph in the basement wasn’t exaggerated because of the flash, but because it had been developed by an amateur. Harry was suddenly sure. Ringdal had taken the picture himself. Of a girl he had killed himself.
34
Øystein saw the door swing open from the corner of his eye. It was him, Ringdal. He walked in, but was so short that he immediately vanished in the crowd of customers. But Øystein could see them moving, could tell he was on his way over, like the jungle moving above the Tyrannosaurus rex inJurassic Park. Øystein went on pouring beer. He saw the brown liquid fill the glass, then the head form on top of it. The tap spluttered. An air bubble, or was it time to change the barrel again already? He didn’t know. He didn’t know if this was the end, or just a bump in the road. All he could do was wait and see. Wait and see if everything was going to go to hell. No question about that “if,” really. Everything always went to hell, it was all just a question of time. At least if your best friend was called Harry Hole.
“It’s the barrel,” he said to the girl. “I’ll go and change it, tell Ringdal I’ll be back in a moment.”
Øystein went into the back room, locked himself inside the staff toilet, which also functioned as a storage space for everything from glasses and napkins to coffee and filters. He took out his phone and made one last attempt to call Harry. With the same deflating result.
“Eikeland?”
