“Because I’d invited her. I wanted to persuade her to carry on chairing the committee at the Jealousy. You remember?”
“I remember you mentioning it, yes. But I also know she’d never have been interested, she only helped out with the bar because of me.”
“Yes, that’s what she said when she came.”
“So why did she come at all?”
“Because she had her own agenda. She wanted to persuade me to buy these glasses, which I understand are made by a Syrian family who have a small glass workshop just outside Oslo. Rakel had brought one glass with her in an attempt to convince me that they were the perfect drinking glasses. I thought it was a bit too heavy.”
Harry could see Peter Ringdal holding the glass, weighing it in his hand. Giving it back to Rakel. Who took it home again and put it in the dishwasher. Unused, but not quite clean.
“And the scarf?” he asked, already guessing the answer.
“She left it on the coat rack when she left.”
“Why did you put it in the drawer?”
“The scarf smelled of Rakel’s perfume, and my lady friend has a strong sense of smell and is extremely prone to jealousy. She was coming by that evening, and we both have a better time when she doesn’t suspect me of playing the field.”
Harry drummed the fingers of his left hand on the armrest. “Can you prove that Rakel was here?”
“Well.” Ringdal scratched his temple. “If you haven’t already wiped everything off, her fingerprints should still be on the armrests of the chair you’re sitting in, I suppose. Or on the kitchen table. No, hang on! The coffee cup she used. It’s in the dishwasher, I never run it before it’s full.”
“Good,” Harry said.
“I also went to see that glassworks in Nittedal. Nice glasses. They offered to make them a bit lighter. With the Jealousy’s logo on them. I ordered two hundred.”
“Last question,” Harry said, even though he knew the answer to this as well. “Why didn’t you tell the police that Rakel was here a day and a half before she was murdered?”
“I weighed up the consequences of becoming involved in a murder inquiry against the benefit the police might get from the information. Because the police suspected me once before, when my ex-wife suddenly took off back to Russia without telling anyone and was reported missing here in Oslo. She showed up, but it wasn’t a pleasant experience being in the police spotlight, I can assure you. So I concluded that if what Rakel was doing a day and a half before the murder was important to the police, they’d track her phone’s movements, see that she’d been in this neighbourhood and put two and two together. In short, I reasoned it was up to the police, not me. So I chose the selfish option. But I realise I should have told them.”
Harry nodded. In the silence that settled he heard a clock ticking somewhere inside the house, and wondered how he hadn’t noticed it last time he was there. It sounded like a countdown. And it struck him that that could well be what it was, a clock inside his head counting down his last hours, minutes, seconds.
It felt like he needed all his strength to get to his feet. He took out his wallet. Opened it and looked inside. He pulled out the only note, five-hundred kroner, and put it on the table.
“What’s that for?”
“The broken glass in your door,” Harry said.
“Thanks.”
Harry turned to leave. He stopped and turned back, and looked thoughtfully down at the picture of Sigrid Undset on the note. “Mm. Have you got any change?”
Ringdal laughed. “It’s going to cost at least five hundred to—”
“You’re right,” Harry said, and picked the money up again. “I’ll have to owe you. Good luck with the Jealousy Bar. Goodbye.”
The sound of the whining dog faded away, but the ticking sound grew louder as Harry walked down the road.
38
Harry was sitting in the car, listening.
He had realised that the ticking was his own heart beating. Rakel’s half.
Racing away.
And it had been doing that ever since the moment he saw the bloody knife on his shelf.
