I’ll say no, Johan Krohn thought. And then he’ll shoot me. Fine.
Then he remembered that Finne used a knife and changed his mind.
A knife.
He cut his victims open.
And he didn’t kill them, he just wounded them. Like a landmine. Mutilated them for the rest of their life, a life they had to live even when death would be preferable. On the terrace Finne had claimed to have raped a young girl from Huseby. The bishop’s daughter. Had that been a subtle threat against his own children? Finne hadn’t been risking anything by admitting the rape. Not only because Krohn was his lawyer, but because the case must have passed the statute of limitations. Krohn couldn’t remember any rape case, but he did remember Bishop Bohr, who people said died of grief because his daughter had drowned herself in a river. Was he going to let himself be terrorised by someone who had made it his life’s work to ruin other people’s? Johan Krohn had always managed to find a socially defensible, professional and occasionally also an emotional justification to fight tooth and nail for his clients. But now he gave up. He detested the man standing on the other side of the door. He wished with all his heart, as well as all his brain, that the pestilential, ruinous Svein Finne might die a soon and not necessarily painless death. Even if it meant that he got dragged down with him.
“No,” Krohn muttered to himself. “I’m saying no, you fucking bastard.”
He was still wondering about whether or not to swear as he opened the door.
He stared speechless at the man in front of him, who was looking him up and down. He felt the biting morning chill against his naked, scrawny body and realised that he hadn’t put his dressing gown on, and was standing there wearing nothing but the boxer shorts Frida gave him every Christmas, and the slippers the children had given him. Krohn had to clear his throat before he could make a sound: “Harry Hole? But aren’t you…”
The policeman, if it was him, shook his head and gave him a wry smile. “Dead? Not quite. But I need a bloody good lawyer. And I’ve heard that you could do with some help too.”
Part 4
51
It was lunchtime at the Statholdergaarden restaurant. On the street outside, a young busker blew on his fingers before he started to play. A lonely job, Sung-min Larsen thought as he watched him. He couldn’t hear what he was playing, or if he was any good. Alone and invisible. Perhaps the older buskers who ruled Karl Johans gate had exiled the poor kid out here, to the presumably less lucrative Kirkegata.
He looked up when the waiter snapped the napkin open like a flag in the wind before letting the white damask settle on Alexandra Sturdza’s lap.
“I should have made an effort,” she laughed.
“You look like you did.” Sung-min smiled, and leaned back as the waiter repeated the same gesture with his napkin.
“This?” she said, pointing at her tight skirt with both hands. “These are my work clothes. I just don’t dress as informally as my colleagues. Andyou’vemade an effort. You look like you’re going to a wedding.”
“I’ve just come from a funeral,” Sung-min said, and saw Alexandra flinch as if he’d slapped her.
“Of course,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry. Bjørn Holm?”
“Yes. Did you know him?”
“Yes and no. He worked in forensics, so obviously we spoke to each other over the phone from time to time. They’re saying he killed himself?”
“Yes,” Sung-min said. He replied “yes” rather than “it looks like it” because there really wasn’t any doubt. His car had been found parked at the side of a grit track at the top of a ridge with a view over the farmland of Toten, not far from his childhood home. The doors were locked, the key was in the ignition. A few people had been confused that Bjørn Holm had been sitting in the back seat, and that he had shot himself in the temple with a pistol whose serial number couldn’t be traced back to anyone. But his widow, Katrine Bratt, had explained that Holm’s idol, Something-or-other Williams, had died in the back seat of his car. And it wasn’t particularly unlikely that a forensics officer had access to a weapon with no registered owner. The church had been full of family and colleagues, from both Police Headquarters and Kripos, because Bjørn Holm had worked for both. Katrine Bratt had seemed composed—more composed, in fact, than when they had met at Norafossen.
After she had efficiently worked her way through the queue of people offering condolences, she had come over to him and said there were rumours that he wasn’t happy where he was. That was the word she had used, pronounced in her distinct Bergen accent.Happy. And said they should have a chat. She had an empty position that needed to be filled. It had taken him a moment to realise that she was talking about Harry Hole’s job. And he wondered if it was doubly inappropriate for her to be talking shop after her own husband’s funeral, and to offer Sung-min the job of a man who was still only missing. But presumably she needed whatever distractions she could find to take her mind off the pair of them. Sung-min said he’d think about it.
“I hope Kripos’s budget can handle this,” Alexandra had said when the waiter brought the first course and told them it was raw scallop, black pepper mayonnaise, Ghoa cress and a soy-butter sauce. “Because Forensic Medicine can’t.”
“Oh, I think I’ll be able to justify the expense, if you can keep the promise you made over the phone.”
Alexandra Sturdza had called him the previous evening. Without beating around the bush, she had told him that she had information regarding the Rakel Fauke case. That she was calling him because the implications were sensitive, and that she had decided she trusted him after their first encounter. But that she would prefer not to discuss it over the phone.
Sung-min had suggested lunch. And booked a table somewhere she had rightly guessed wasn’t within the price range covered by Kripos. He would have to pay for it himself, but he had told himself it was a wise investment, a way of nurturing a professional contact in the Forensic Medicine Institute that could turn out to be useful if and when he needed a favour. A DNA analysis that needed to be prioritised. Something like that. Probably. Somewhere at the back of his mind he had an idea that there was more to it than that. What? He hadn’t had time to give the matter too much thought. Sung-min glanced at the busker, who was in full flow now. People were rushing past, paying him no attention. Hank. That was what his colleague had said. Hank Williams. He would have to google him when he got home.
“I’ve analysed Harry Hole’s blood from the trousers he was wearing on the night of the murder,” she said. “It contains Rohypnol.”
Sung-min looked back from the street and focused on her.
“Enough to knock a man out for four or five hours,” she said. “That got me thinking about the time of the murder. Our medical officer narrowed it down to between 22:00 and 02:00, of course. But that was based on body temperature. There were other indications, such as the discolouration around the wounds, which suggest that it could”—she held up a long forefinger, which looked even longer because of the vivid pink of her fingernail—“and I repeatcould, have happened earlier.”
Sung-min remembered that she hadn’t been wearing nail polish last time. Had she painted them specially?
