Here Winter didn’t need to leave a dramatic pause, because he was stopped by the loud groans, gasps and exclamations that rose from the crowd of reporters.
—
Harry was woken by flickering lights and discovered that they were driving through the Lysaker tunnel and would soon be arriving. When they emerged at the other end, Harry noted that, sure enough, it was now dark. The bus climbed to the top of the hill, then headed down towards Sjølyst. He looked down at the armada of small boats in Bestumkilen. OK, not so small. And even if you could afford to buy one of those boats, how much would they cost in administration fees, maintenance and running costs per hour at sea during the mayfly Norwegian boating season? Why not hire a boat on those few decent days instead, then tie up at the end of the day and walk away without any worries? The largely empty bus was quiet, but from the seat in front of him he could hear the insect buzz of music in earphones, and in the gap between the two seats he could see the glow of a screen. They evidently had Wi-Fi on board, because he saw it was showing the news onVG’s website.
He looked out at the boats again. Maybe it wasn’t the number of hours you spent at sea that was the important thing, maybe it was the fact of ownership. The fact that at any hour of the day, you could think that there was a boat out there that wasyours. A carefully maintained, expensive boat that you knew people passing by would point at and say your name, say that it wasyours. Because of course we aren’t what we do, but what we own. And when we’ve lost everything, we no longer exist. Harry knew where his thoughts were heading, and pulled himself free of them.
He looked at the screen between the seats in front of him. He saw that it must be angled in such a way that it reflected his face, because from where he was sitting it looked like his own ravaged face was fillingVG’s website. He looked down at the headline under the reflection.
LIVE report from press conference: SUSPECTED KILLER HARRY HOLE MISSING.
Harry screwed his eyes shut, both to assure himself he was awake and that he wasn’t seeing things. He read the headline again. Looked at the picture, which wasn’t a reflection, but a photograph taken after the vampirist case.
Harry sat back in his seat and pulled the front of his hat down over his face.
Fuck, fuck.
That picture would be everywhere within the next couple of hours. He’d be recognised in the street, because in the city a limping man in camouflage clothes that were too small for him would be the very opposite of camouflaged. And if he was arrested now, the whole plan would be shot to hell. So the plan needed to change.
Harry tried to think. He couldn’t move about openly, so he would have to get hold of a phone as soon as possible, so he could call the people he needed to talk to. In five or six minutes they would be pulling into the bus station. There was a pedestrian walkway to Central Station. Around the station, in the bustling crowds, among junkies and beggars and the more eccentric elements of the city, he wouldn’t stand out so badly. And, more important, since Telenor had shut down all their public phones in 2016, they had—almost as a curiosity—installed a few old-fashioned coin-operated payphones, one of them at Central Station.
But even if he made it that far, he still had the same problem.
How to get from Oslo to Trondheim.
Without a single krone in his pocket.
—
“No comment,” Katrine Bratt said. “I can’t comment on that at present.” And: “That’s a question for Kripos.”
Sung-min felt sorry for her as she sat there letting the reporters pepper her with questions. She looked like she was at her own funeral. Was that a good choice of expression, though? What reasons did we really have to assume that death was a worse place? Harry Hole evidently hadn’t thought it was.
Sung-min slipped out from the otherwise-empty row of seats. He had heard enough. Enough to see that Winter had got what he wanted. Enough to see that he might not be able to challenge the alpha male for the foreseeable future. Because this case would strengthen Winter’s position still further, and now that Sung-min had fallen out of favour he would have to ask himself if it was time to seek a transfer to a different club. Katrine Bratt seemed to be the sort of coach he could imagine working for. Working with. He could step into the gap left by Harry Hole. If he was Messi, then Hole had been Maradona. A divinely blessed cheat. And no matter how brightly Messi shone, he would never be as great a legend as Maradona. Because Sung-min knew that even if he faced resistance at the moment, his own story was going to lack the fall from grace, the tragedy of Hole and Maradona. His story was going to be one of boring success.
—
Kasko was wearing his Oakley sunglasses.
He had pinched them from the windowsill of a coffee bar he had gone in to get one of the paper cups he used to beg for money for gear. The owner of the sunglasses had put them down to study a girl in the street outside the bar. The sun was glinting off the snow outside, so it seemed a bit odd to be taking the sunglassesoff. But presumably he wanted the girl to see that he was looking at her. Well, served the idiot right for being full of the joys of spring.
“Idiot!” Kasko groaned loudly to anyone and everyone.
His thighs and buttocks felt numb beneath him. It took its toll, sitting on your arse all day on a hard, stone floor looking like you were suffering. Well, hewassuffering. And it was high time he got his evening fix.
“Thanks!” he sang out when a coin fell into the paper cup. It was important to show you were in good spirits.
Kasko had put the sunglasses on because he thought they made him less recognisable. Not that he was frightened of the police, he had told them what he knew. But they hadn’t found and caught David yet, and if David had found out that Kasko had blabbed to the Chinese detective, there was a good chance he was looking for Kasko now. Which was why it made sense to sit here in the crowd in front of the ticket desk at Central Station, where at least no one could threaten to kill you.
And perhaps the mixture of decent spring weather and fewer delays on the trains had put people in a better mood. They had certainly dropped more money than usual into the paper cup in front of him. Even a couple of kids in the emo gang that usually hung around the steps down to Platform 19 had given him a bit of change. The evening fix was as good as sorted; he wouldn’t have to sell the sunglasses tonight.
Kasko noticed a figure in camouflage uniform. Not because he was limping, had a bandage under his hat and generally looked dishevelled, but because he was walking in a way that broke the pattern, he was walking across everyone else, like a predator fish in a shoal of plankton-eaters. To be more precise, he was heading straight for Kasko. Kasko didn’t like that. The people who gave him money were on their waypasthim, nottowardshim.Towardshim wasn’t good.
The man stopped in front of him.
“Can I borrow a couple of coins from you?” His voice was as rough as Kasko’s.
“Sorry, mate,” Kasko said. “You’ll have to get your own, I’ve only got enough for myself.”
