Harry’s eyes had reached the sun.
Mustn’t wake up.
Rakel was lying curled up with her back to him, facing the kitchen. More tightly curled than when she was asleep. She had no obvious injuries or knife wounds to her back, and her long dark hair was covering her neck. The roaring voices in his head were trying to drown each other out. One was screaming that she was wearing the traditional cardigan he had bought her during a trip to Reykjavik. Another that it wasn’t her, that it couldn’t be her. A third was saying that if it was the way it looked at first glance, that she had been stabbed from the front at first, and that the perpetrator hadn’t been standing between her and the door, so she hadn’t made any attempt to escape. The fourth was saying that she was going to get up any moment, walk towards him with a smile and point at the hidden camera.
The hidden camera.
Harry heard someone clear their throat quietly and turned around.
The man standing in the doorway was large and rectangular, with a head that looked like it had been cut from granite and drawn with a ruler. A hairless cranium with a straight chin, straight mouth, straight nose and straight narrow eyes under a pair of straight eyebrows. Blue jeans, a smart jacket and a shirt with no tie. There was no expression in his grey eyes, but his voice and the way he dragged the words out—as if he were enjoying them, had been waiting for the chance to say them—expressed everything his eyes were hiding.
“I’m sorry for your loss, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave the scene, Hole.”
Harry met Ole Winter’s gaze, noting that Kripos’s senior inspector had used an expression directly translated from English, as if Norwegian didn’t have a perfectly adequate way of expressing sympathy. And that he hadn’t even allowed himself a full stop after his expression of sympathy before throwing Harry out, just a quick comma. Harry didn’t answer, merely turned and looked at Rakel again.
“That means now, Hole.”
“Mm. As far as I’m aware, the task of Kripos is to assist Oslo Police District, not to issue—”
“And now Kripos is helping to keep the partner of the victim away from the crime scene. You can act like a professional and do as I say, or I can get a couple of uniforms to help you out.”
Harry knew Ole Winter wouldn’t have any objection to that, letting two officers lead Harry out to a police car in full view of his colleagues, neighbours, and the media vultures who were standing down at the road photographing everything they could. Ole Winter was a couple of years older than Harry and they had worked on either side of the fence as homicide detectives for twenty-five years, Harry with the Oslo Police District and Winter in the specialist national unit, Kripos, which assisted local police departments in serious criminal cases such as murder. And which occasionally, because of its superior resources and competence, took over the investigations altogether. Harry assumed that his own Chief of Police, Gunnar Hagen, had taken the decision to bring Kripos in. A perfectly valid decision, given that the victim’s partner was employed in the Crime Squad Unit at Police Headquarters in Oslo. But also a somewhat sensitive decision given that there was always an unspoken rivalry between the two largest murder investigation units in the country. What wasn’t unspoken, however, was Ole Winter’s opinion that Harry Hole was seriously overrated, that his legendary status owed more to the sensational nature of the cases he had solved than the factual quality of his detective work. And that Ole Winter—even though he was the undisputed star of Kripos—was undervalued, at least outside the inner circle. And that his triumphs never got the same headlines as Hole’s, because serious police work rarely did, while an alcoholic loose cannon with one single lucid moment of inspiration always did.
Harry pulled out his packet of Camels, stuck a cigarette between his lips and took out his lighter.
“I’m going, Winter.”
He walked past the other man, went down the steps and out onto the drive before needing to steady himself. He stopped, and went to light the cigarette, but was so blinded by tears that he couldn’t see either lighter or cigarette.
“Here.”
Harry heard Bjørn’s voice, blinked quickly several times and sucked in the flame from the lighter Bjørn was holding up to the cigarette. Harry inhaled hard. Coughed, then inhaled again.
“Thanks. Have you been thrown out too?”
“No, my work’s as good for Kripos as it is for the Oslo Police District.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be on paternity leave?”
“Katrine called. The lad’s probably sitting on her lap behind her desk running Crime Squad right now.” Bjørn Holm’s crooked smile vanished as soon as it appeared. “Sorry, Harry, I’m babbling.”
“Mm.” The wind tugged at the smoke as Harry exhaled. “So, you’re finished with the garden?”
Stay in investigation mode, stay sedated.
“Yes,” Bjørn Holm said. “There was a frost on Saturday night, so the gravel was harder. If there was anyone here, or any vehicles, they haven’t left much evidence.”
“Saturdaynight? You’re saying that’s when it happened?”
“She’s cold, and when I bent her arm it felt as if the rigor mortis was already starting to ease.”
“At least twenty-four hours, then.”
“Yes. But the medical officer should be here anytime. Are you OK, Harry?”
Harry had started to retch, but nodded and swallowed the stinging bile. He would manage. He would manage. Stay asleep.
“The knife wounds, do you have any idea of what sort of knife was used?”
