“I’ve called you alotof times.”
“I saw, but I haven’t been…in the mood.”
“I heard.” She let out a deep sigh, and her voice suddenly sounded pained, sympathetic. “It’s just terrible.”
“Yes.”
A pause followed, like a silent intermezzo marking the transition between two acts. Because when Alexandra went on, it wasn’t in either her deep, playful voice or the pained, sympathetic one. It was her professional voice.
“I’ve found something for you.”
Harry ran his hand over his face. “OK, I’m all ears.”
It had been so long since he first contacted Alexandra Sturdza that he had given up any hope of getting anything from her. More than six months had passed since he’d gone up to the Forensic Medical Institute at Rikshospitalet, where he had been met by a young woman who had come straight from the lab, with a hard, pockmarked face, bright eyes and an almost imperceptible accent. She had taken him into her office and hung up her white lab coat as Harry asked if she could help him, kind of off the record, to compare Svein Finne’s DNA against old cases of murder and rape.
“So, Harry Hole, you want me to jump the queue for you?”
After Parliament abolished the statute of limitations for murder and rape in 2014, naturally there had been a rush of requests to apply new DNA-analysis technology to older cases, and waiting times had shot up.
Harry had considered rephrasing his request, but he could see from the look in her eyes that there was no point. “Yes.”
“Interesting. In exchange for what?”
“Exchange? Hm. What would you like?”
“A beer with Harry Hole would be a start.”
Under her coat Alexandra Sturdza was wearing black, figure-hugging clothes that emphasised a muscular body that made Harry think of cats and sports cars. But he had never really been that interested in cars, and was more of a dog person.
“If that’s what it’ll take, I’ll get you a beer. But I don’t drink. And I’m married.”
“We’ll see,” she said with a hoarse laugh. She looked like she laughed a lot, but it was strangely difficult to guess her age, she could have been anywhere from ten to twenty years younger than him. She tilted her head and looked at him. “Meet me at Revolver at eight o’clock tomorrow, and we’ll see what I’ve got for you, OK?”
She hadn’t had much. Not then, and not much since. Just enough to invite herself for a beer every now and then. But he had maintained a professional distance and made sure their meetings were short and to the point. Until Rakel threw him out and the dam had burst, carrying everything away with it, including any principles about professional distance.
Harry saw that the wall had turned another shade greyer.
“I haven’t got an exact match from a case,” Alexandra began.
Harry yawned; it was the same old story.
“But then I realised that I could compare Svein Finne’s DNA profile against all the others in the database. And I found a partial match to a murderer.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that if Svein Finne isn’t a convicted murderer, then he’s the father of one, at least.”
“Oh, shit.” Something dawned on Harry. A foreboding. “What’s the murderer’s name?”
“Valentin Gjertsen.”
A cold shiver ran down Harry’s spine. Valentin Gjertsen. Not that Harry had more faith in genes than environment, but there was a sort of logic to the fact that Svein Finne’s seed, his genes, had helped create a son who had become one of the worst killers in Norwegian criminal history.
“You sound less surprised than I thought you’d be,” Alexandra said.
“I’m less surprised thanIthought I’d be,” Harry replied, rubbing his neck.
“Is that helpful?”
