“I’d say a small- to medium-sized blade. No bruising on the side of the wound, so either he didn’t stab very deep or the knife doesn’t have much of a shaft.”
“The blood. He went deep.”
“Yes.”
Harry sucked desperately at the cigarette, which was already close to the filter. A tall young man in a Burberry jacket and suit was walking up the drive towards them.
“Katrine said it was someone from Rakel’s work who called it in,” Harry said. “Do you know any more than that?”
“Just that it was her boss,” Bjørn said. “Rakel didn’t show up for an important meeting, and they couldn’t get hold of her. He thought something might be wrong.”
“Mm. Is it normal to call the police when one of your staff doesn’t show up for a meeting?”
“I don’t know, Harry. He said it wasn’t like Rakel not to turn up, or at least not to call beforehand. And obviously they knew that she lived alone.”
Harry nodded slowly. They knew more than that. They knew she had recently thrown her husband out. A man with a reputation for being unstable. He dropped the cigarette and heard it hiss on the grit as he ground his heel on it.
The young man had reached them. He was in his thirties, thin, upright, with Asian features. The suit looked tailor-made, the shirt chalk-white and freshly ironed, the tie neatly knotted. His thick black hair was cut short, in a style that could have been discreet if it hadn’t been so calculatedly classic. Kripos detective Sung-min Larsen smelled vaguely of something Harry assumed was expensive. At Kripos he was apparently known as the Nikkei Index, despite the fact that his first name—Sung-min, which Harry had come across several times when he was in Hong Kong—was Korean rather than Japanese. He had graduated from Police College the first year Harry had been lecturing there, but Harry could still remember him from his lectures on criminal investigation, mostly because of those white shirts and his quiet demeanour, the wry smiles when Harry—still an inexperienced lecturer—felt he was on shaky ground, and also his exam results, which had evidently been the highest grades ever achieved at Police College.
“I’m sorry, Hole,” Sung-min Larsen said. “My deepest condolences.” He was almost as tall as Harry.
“Thanks, Larsen.” Harry nodded to the notepad the Kripos detective was holding. “Been talking to the neighbours?”
“That’s right.”
“Anything of interest?” Harry looked round. There was plenty of space between the houses up here in fashionable Holmenkollen. Tall hedges and ranks of fir trees.
For a moment, Sung-min Larsen seemed to ponder whether this was information he could share with the Oslo Police District. Unless the problem was that Harry was the victim’s husband.
“Your neighbour, Wenche Angondora Syvertsen, says she didn’t hear or see anything unusual on Saturday night. I asked if she sleeps with the window open, and she said she did. But she also said she was able to do that because familiar sounds don’t wake her up. Like her husband’s car, the neighbours’ cars, the dustcart. And she pointed out that Rakel Fauke’s house has thick timber walls.”
He said this without having to look down at his notes, and Harry got the feeling that Larsen was presenting these minor details as a test, to see if they prompted any sort of reaction.
“Mm,” Harry said, a rumbling sound that merely indicated he’d heard what the other person had said.
“So it’s her house?” Larsen asked. “Not yours?”
“Separate property,” Harry said. “I insisted. Didn’t want anyone to think I was marrying her for her money.”
“Was she rich?”
“No, that was just a joke.” Harry nodded towards the house. “You’ll have to pass any information you’ve managed to get to your boss, Larsen.”
“Winter’s here?”
“It was certainly cold enough in there.”
Sung-min Larsen smiled politely. “In formal terms Winter is leading the tactical investigation, but it looks like I’m going to be in charge of the case. I’m not in the same class as you, Hole, but I promise to do my utmost to catch whoever murdered your wife.”
“Thanks,” Harry said. He had a feeling the young detective meant every word he said. Apart from the bit about not being in the same class. He watched as Larsen made his way past the police cars towards the house.
“Hidden camera,” Harry said.
“Huh?” Bjørn said.
“I set up a wildlife camera on that middle fir tree there.” Harry nodded towards the thicket of bushes and trees, a little cluster of raw Norwegian forest in front of the fence to the neighbouring property. “I suppose I’ll have to tell Winter about it.”
“No,” Bjørn said emphatically.
