“You live within walking distance of my flat, so I thought I’d try calling round instead of ringing.”
“What?” She tilted her head to one side.
“That’s what I said the first time I rang your doorbell.”
“How can you remember that?”
Because I spent a very long time thinking about what to say and practising it, Harry thought, and smiled. “Memory like an elephant. Can I come in?”
He saw a hint of hesitation in her eyes, and it struck him that it hadn’t even occurred to him that she might have someone. A partner. A lover. Or some other reason to keep him on the other side of the threshold.
“If I’m not disturbing you, I mean?”
“Er, no, it…it’s just a bit of a surprise.”
“I could come back another time.”
“No. No, goodness, I said you could come anytime.” She stepped aside.
—
Kaja put a cup of steaming tea on the coffee table in front of Harry and sat down on the sofa, tucking her long legs beneath her. Harry looked at the book that lay open, spine up. Charlotte Brontë’sJane Eyre. He remembered something about a young woman who fell in love with a gloomy loner who was separated but who turned out to have his wife locked up in the attic.
“They’re not letting me investigate the murder,” he said. “Even though I’ve been ruled out as a suspect.”
“That’s standard procedure in cases like this, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know if there’s a set procedure for murder detectives whose wives have been murdered. And I know who did it.”
“Youknow?”
“I’m pretty certain.”
“Evidence?”
“Gut feeling.”
“Like everyone else who has ever worked with you, I have the greatest respect for your gut feeling, Harry, but are you sure it’s reliable when it comes to your own wife?”
“It isn’t just my gut. I’ve ruled out the other possibilities.”
“All of them?” Kaja was holding her cup without drinking it, as if she had made the tea mostly to warm her hands up. “I seem to remember having a mentor called Harry who told me that there are always other possibilities, that conclusions based on deduction have an undeserved good reputation.”
“Rakel had no enemies apart from this one. Who wasn’t actually hers, he’s my enemy. His name is Svein Finne. Also known as the Fiancé.”
“Who’s he?”
“A rapist and murderer. He’s called the Fiancé because he impregnates his victims and kills them if they don’t give birth to his child. I was a young murder detective, and I worked day and night to catch him. He was my first. And I laughed with joy when I put the cuffs on him.” Harry looked down at his hands. “That was probably the last time I felt so happy when I arrested someone.”
“Oh? Why?”
Harry’s eyes wandered across the beautiful, old, floral-patterned wallpaper.
“There are probably several reasons, and my self-awareness is pretty limited. But one reason is that as soon as Finne had finished his sentence, he raped a nineteen-year-old girl and threatened to kill her if she had an abortion. She had one anyway. A week later she was found lying on her stomach on a forest track in Linnerud. Blood everywhere, they were sure she was dead. But when they turned her over they heard a sound, a babyish voice saying ‘mama.’ They got her to hospital, and she survived. It wasn’t the girl talking. Finne had cut her open, inserted a battery-operated talking doll, and sewn her up again.”
Kaja gasped for breath. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m a bit out of practice.”
Harry nodded. “So I caught him again. I set a trap and caught him with his trousers down. Literally. There’s a photograph. Bright flash, slightly overexposed. Apart from the humiliation, I have personally been responsible for the fact that Svein Finne, the Fiancé, has spent twenty of his seventy-plus years behind bars. Among other things, for a murder he says he didn’t commit. So there’s the motive. That’s the reason for my gut feeling. Can we go out onto the terrace for a cigarette?”
