“That’s not the way we usually do things,” Truls said. “But let’s say I run a ten-minute slideshow here and now, and if we find the guy, you can go back to the duty officer to file the report and explain. I’m on my own up here and I’ve got my hands full. Deal?”
“OK.”
“Let’s get going. Estimated age of the rapist?”
Just three minutes later, Dagny Jensen pointed at one of the pictures on the screen.
“Who’s that?” He noted that she was trying to suppress a tremble in her voice.
“The one and only Svein Finne,” Truls said. “Was it him you saw?”
“What’s he done?”
“Whathasn’the done? Let’s see.”
Truls typed, pressed Enter and a detailed criminal record appeared.
He saw Dagny Jensen’s eyes move down the page, and the growing horror on her face as the monster materialised in dry police language.
“He’s murdered women he got pregnant,” she whispered.
“Mutilation and murder,” Truls corrected. “He’s served his time, but if there’s one man we’d be happy to receive a new report about, it’s Finne.”
“Are you…are you completely certain you’d be able to catch him, then?”
“Oh, we’d get hold of him if we issued a warrant for his arrest,” Truls said. “Obviously, whether or not we’d get a conviction in a rape trial is an entirely different matter. It’s always one person’s word against another’s in cases like that, and we’d probably just have to let him go again. But obviously with a witness like you, it would be two against one. With a bit of luck.”
Dagny Jensen swallowed several times.
Truls yawned and looked at the time. “Now you’ve seen the picture, you can make your way back down to the duty officer and get the paperwork started, OK?”
“Yes,” the woman said, staring at the screen. “Yes, of course.”
15
Harry was sitting on the sofa staring at the wall. He hadn’t turned the lights on, and the falling darkness had slowly erased the contours and colours and settled like a cool cloth on his forehead. He wished it could erase him too. When you actually thought about it, life didn’t have to be that complicated. It could basically be reduced to The Clash’s binary question:should I stay or should I go?Drink? Not drink? He wanted to drown. Disappear. But he couldn’t, not quite yet.
Harry opened the present Bjørn had given him. As he had assumed, it was a vinyl album.Road to Ruin. Of the three albums Øystein resolutely claimed were the Ramones’ only really good work (here he would usually refer to Lou Reed describing the Ramones’ music as “shit”), Bjørn had managed to buy the only one Harrydidn’thave. On the shelves behind him—between The Rainmakers’ first album and Rank and File’s debut—he had bothRamonesand his favourite,Rocket to Russia.
Harry pulled the black vinyl disc out and putRoad to Ruinon the turntable.
He spotted one track he recognised and placed the needle at the start of “I Wanna Be Sedated.”
Guitar riffs filled the room. It sounded more heavily produced and mainstream than their debut album. He liked the minimalist guitar solo, but wasn’t so sure about the modulation afterwards; it sounded suspiciously like Status Quo–style boogie at its most imbecilic. But it was performed with swaggering confidence. Like his favourite track “Rockaway Beach,” where they stood just as confidently on the shoulders of The Beach Boys, like car thieves cruising down the main street with the windows down.
While Harry was trying to work out if he actually liked “I Wanna Be Sedated” or not, and whether or not he should go to the bar, the room was lit up by the phone on the coffee table.
He peered down at the screen. Sighed. Wondered whether to answer.
“Hi, Alexandra.”
“Hi, Harry. I’ve been trying to get hold of you. You need to change the message on your voicemail.”
“You think?”
“It doesn’t even say your name. ‘Leave a message if you must.’Just six words that sound more like a warning, followed by a bleep.”
“Sounds like it works the way it should.”
