“What?”
“I don’t know why Krohn called me in particular, he says he’ll explain that later. Either way, this is primarily a case for Oslo Police District, which is why I’m calling you.”
“I’ll pass it on to the uniforms,” Katrine said. She saw a deer creep across the brown lawn in front of Police Headquarters, heading towards the old prison block, Botsfengselet. She waited. Noted that Larsen was also waiting. “What did you mean when you said it was a coincidence, Larsen?”
“It seems odd that Svein Finne has been shot just an hour after I received information that means Finne is back as a suspect in the Fauke case.”
Katrine let go of her bag and sank down on the chair behind the desk. “You’re saying…”
“Yes, I’m saying I’m in possession of information that indicates that Harry Hole is innocent.”
Katrine felt her heart start to beat. Blood was coursing through her body, pricking her skin. And something else, something that had been lying dormant, woke up.
“When you say ‘in possession of,’ Larsen…”
“Yes?”
“It sounds as if you haven’t shared this information with your colleagues yet. Is that correct?”
“Not entirely. I’ve shared it with you.”
“All you’ve shared with me is your own conclusion that Harry’s innocent.”
“You’ll end up reaching the same conclusion, Bratt.”
“Really?”
“I’ve got a suggestion.”
“I thought you might have.”
“That you and I meet at the crime scene, and we’ll take it from there.”
“OK. I’ll come over with the uniforms.”
Katrine called the duty officer, then let her parents-in-law know she was going to be late. While she was waiting for them to answer she looked down at Botsparken again. The deer was gone. Her late father, Gert, had told her that badgers hunt everything. Anytime, anywhere. They’ll eat anything, and fight anything. And that some detectives had the badger in them, and some didn’t. And what Katrine could feel right now was the badger waking from hibernation.
52
Sung-min Larsen was already there when Katrine arrived at Smestaddammen. Between his legs stood a quivering, trembling dog, as if it was trying to hide. There was a thin but insistent bleeping sound, like an alarm clock, coming from somewhere.
They walked over to the body, which was lying on the ground beside the bench. Katrine realised that the bleeping was coming from the dead body. And that the body was Svein Finne. That the deceased had been shot in the groin and through one eye, but that there were no exit wounds in his back or head. Special ammunition, perhaps. Even if Katrine knew it couldn’t be the case, it felt like the monotonous electronic bleeping from the dead man’s watch was gradually getting louder.
“Why hasn’t anyone…” she began.
“Fingerprints,” Sung-min said. “I have a preliminary witness statement, but it would be good to be able to know for certain that no one else has touched his watch.”
Katrine nodded. Then gestured that they should move away.
The officers were setting up cordon tape as Sung-min told Katrine what he had found out about the sequence of events from Alise Krogh Reinertsen and her boss, Johan Krohn, who were standing on the other side of the lake with a small crowd of curious onlookers. Sung-min told Katrine that he had ushered them all over there to get them out of the line of fire, seeing as it couldn’t be ruled out entirely that Svein Finne was merely a random victim, and that the perpetrator was looking for others.
“Hmm,” Katrine said, squinting up at the hillside. “You and I must be right in the line of fire right now, so we don’t really believe that, do we?”
“No,” Sung-min said.
“So what do you think?” Katrine said, crouching down to pat the dog.
“I don’t think anything, but Krohn has a theory.”
