“Ha! I like you, Hole. I really do. I hate you as a person, but I like your personality.” Finne moistened his lips. “And I confess, obviously. She—”
“Wait until I start recording,” Harry said, fishing his phone out of his coat pocket.
“…was a willing participant.” Finne shrugged his shoulders. “I think she might even have enjoyed it more than me.”
Harry swallowed. Closed his eyes for a moment. “Enjoyedhaving a knife stuck in her stomach?”
“A knife?” Finne turned in his seat and looked at Harry. “I took her by the railings, right behind where you arrested me. Of course I know it’s against the law to fuck in a cemetery, but given the way she insisted on getting more, I think it’s only reasonable for her to pay most of the fine. Has she really filed a complaint? I suppose she regretted her ungodly behaviour. Yes, that wouldn’t surprise me. Unless perhaps she actually believes what she’s saying. Shame can make us distort anything. Do you know, there was a psychologist in prison who tried to tell me about Nathanson’s Compass of Shame. That I was so ashamed at having killed the girl, like you claimed I had, that I had to flee the shame altogether by denying it had ever happened. That’s what’s going on here. Dagny feels so ashamed of how much she enjoyed what happened in the cemetery that her memory has turned it into rape. Does that sound familiar, Hole?”
Harry was about to answer when a wave of nausea rose up inside him. Shame. Repression.
The handcuffs rattled as Finne leaned forward in his seat. “Either way, you know what it’s like with rape cases, where it’s one person’s word against another’s, with no witnesses or forensic evidence. I’ll get off, Hole. Is that what this is about? You know the only way you can get me locked up for rape is by forcing a confession out of me? Sorry, Hole. But, like I said, I confess to fucking in a public place, so at least you’ve got something you can pin on me. Are you still offering breakfast?”
—
“Did I say something wrong?” Finne laughed as he stumbled through the muddy snow. He fell to his knees, and Harry pulled him up and shoved him towards the bunkers.
—
Harry was crouched down in front of the wooden bench. On the floor in front of him was everything he had found when he searched Svein Finne. A dice made of blue-grey metal. A couple of hundred-kroner notes and some coins, but no bus or tram tickets. A knife in a sheath. The knife had a brown wooden shaft, a short blade. Sharp. Could that be the murder weapon? There were no traces of blood on it. Harry looked up. He had removed one of the planks covering the gun slits to let some light into the bunker. Joggers occasionally ran past along the path just outside, but there wouldn’t be any until the snow had gone completely. No one would hear Svein Finne’s screams.
“Nice knife,” Harry said.
“I collect knives,” Finne said. “I had twenty-six that you seized from me, do you remember? I never got them back.” The light of the low morning sun was striking Svein Finne’s face and muscular upper body. Not the pumped-up version jailbirds get from repetitive weightlifting in a cramped gym, but the wiry, fit sort. A ballet dancer’s body, Harry thought. Or Iggy Pop’s. Clean. Finne was sitting on the bench with his hands cuffed round the backrest. Harry had removed his shoes as well, but had let him keep his trousers.
“I remember the knives,” Harry said. “What’s the dice for?”
“To make the difficult decisions in life.”
“Luke Rhinehart,” Harry said. “So you’ve readThe Dice Man.”
“I don’t read, Hole. But you can keep the dice, a gift from me to you. Let fate decide when you don’t know what to do. You’ll find it very liberating, believe me.”
“So fate is more liberating than deciding for yourself?”
“Of course. Imagine that you feel like killing someone, but can’t make yourself do it. So you need help. From fate. And if the dice tells you to kill, fate bears the responsibility; itliberatesyou and your free will. Do you see? All it takes is a throw of the dice.”
Harry checked the recording was working before he put the phone down on the bench. He took a deep breath. “Did you throw the dice before you murdered Rakel Fauke?”
“Who’s Rakel Fauke?”
“My wife,” Harry said. “The murder took place in the kitchen of our home in Holmenkollen ten days ago.” He saw something begin to dance in Finne’s eyes.
“My condolences.”
“Shut up and talk.”
“Or else?” Finne sighed as if he were bored. “Are you going to get the car battery and use it on my testicles?”
“Using car batteries to torture someone is a myth,” Harry said. “They don’t have enough power.”
“How do you know that?”
“I read up about torture methods online last night,” Harry said, running the sharp edge of the knife against the skin of his thumb. “Apparently it isn’t the pain itself that makes people confess, but thefearof pain. But obviously the fear needs to be well founded—the torturer has to convince the victim that the pain he is willing to inflict is only limited by the torturer’s imagination. And if there’s one thing I’ve got right now, Finne, it’s imagination.”
Svein Finne moistened his thick lips. “I see. You want the details?”
“All of them.”
