Jo Nesbo - Police

‘. . and the strange thing was it made me high. And turned me on.’

Katrine involuntarily pulled a face. She had read that a shortage of oxygen in the brain could have that effect on some people, but with a sex offender?

‘And then you had sex?’ Beate asked, bending down and picking the cigarette up from the floor. Lit it and passed it to Irja. Who quickly poked it between her lips, leaned forward and sucked at the unreliable flame. Let out the smoke again, sank back on the chair and seemed to implode, as though her body were a bag the cigarette had just burnt a hole in.

‘He didn’t always want a shag,’ Irja said. ‘Then he would go out. While I sat waiting, hoping he would be back soon.’

Katrine had to pull herself together so as not to snort or show her contempt in some other way.

‘What did he do outside?’

‘I don’t know. He didn’t say anything, and I. .’ Again this shrug of the shoulders. A shrug of the shoulders as an attitude to life, Katrine thought. Resignation as an analgesic. ‘. . I probably didn’t want to know, I suppose.’

Beate cleared her throat. ‘You gave him an alibi for the two nights the girls were killed. Maridalen and-’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ Irja interrupted.

‘But he wasn’t at home with you as you stated in the interviews, was he?’

‘I can’t bloody remember. I had my orders, didn’t I?’

‘To do what?’

‘Valentin told me the night we got together, sort of. . well, you know, for the first time. The police would ask me these questions whenever anyone was raped, just because he’d been a suspect in a case they hadn’t managed to pin on him. And if he didn’t have an alibi in a new case they’d try and fit him up however innocent he was. He said the police usually do that with people they reckon have got away with other cases. So I had to swear he’d been at home, whatever time they asked about. Said he wanted to save us both loads of trouble and wasted time. Made sense to me.’

‘And you really thought he was innocent of all these rapes?’ Katrine asked. ‘Even though you knew he’d raped before.’

‘Did I hell!’ Irja shouted, and they heard low grunts coming from the sitting room. ‘I didn’t know anything!’

Katrine was about to push her when she felt Beate’s hand squeeze her knee under the table.

‘Irja,’ Beate said gently, ‘if you didn’t know anything, why did you want to talk to us now?’

Irja looked at Beate, picking imaginary threads of tobacco off the tip of her white tongue. Reflected. Made a decision.

‘He was convicted, wasn’t he? For attempted rape. And when I was cleaning the flat before renting it to someone else, I found these. . these. .’ All of a sudden, without any warning her voice seemed to meet a brick wall and could go no further. ‘. . these. .’ Tears were in her large, blood-dappled eyes.

‘These photos.’

‘What kind of photos?’

Irja sniffled. ‘Girls. Young girls, little girls. Their mouths tied with something. .’

‘Gags?’

‘Gagged, yes. They were sitting on chairs or beds. You can see blood on the sheet.’

‘And Valentin,’ Beate said. ‘Is he in the photos?’

Irja shook her head.

‘So it could have been faked,’ Katrine said. ‘There are so-called “rape photos” circulating online made by pros for those interested in that sort of thing.’

Irja shook her head again. ‘They were too frightened. You could see it in their eyes. I. . recognised the fear there when Valentin was going to. . wanted. .’

‘What Katrine is saying is that it doesn’t have to be Valentin who took the pictures.’

‘The shoes,’ Irja sniffled.

‘What?’

‘Valentin had these long, pointed cowboy boots with buckles on the side. In one photo you can see the boots on the floor beside the bed. And then I knew it had to be true. He really could have done those rapes, as they said. But that wasn’t the worst. .’

‘It wasn’t?’

‘You can see the wallpaper behind the bed. And it was that wallpaper, the same pattern. The picture had been taken in the basement flat. In the bed where he and I had. .’ She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing out two tiny drops of water.

‘So what did you do?’ Katrine asked.

‘What do you think?’ Irja hissed, wiping her forearm along her runny nose. ‘I went to you lot! To the people who are supposed to protect us.’

‘And we said?’ Katrine asked, unable to conceal her repugnance.

‘ You said you would investigate the matter. So you went to Valentin with the photos, but of course he managed to talk his way out of it. He said it had been a game, there hadn’t been any force, he didn’t remember the names of the girls, he’d never seen them again and asked if anyone had reported him. They hadn’t, so it stopped there. That is, it stopped for you . For me it had just begun. .’

She carefully ran a bony forefinger under each eye, obviously believing she had put on make-up that might have smudged.

‘Oh?’

‘In Ila they’re allowed one phone call a week. I received a message telling me he wanted to talk to me. So I went to visit him.’

Katrine didn’t need to hear the rest.

‘I was sitting in the visitors’ room waiting for him. And when he came in he just looked at me and it was as if he had his hand around my throat again. I couldn’t bloody breathe. He sat down and said that if I ever said one word about the alibis to anyone he would kill me. And if I ever talked to the police, for whatever reason, he would kill me. And that if I thought he was going to be inside for long I was mistaken. Then he got up and left. And I was left in no doubt. As long as I knew what I knew he would kill me whatever happened, at the first opportunity. I went straight home, locked all the doors and wept with terror for three days. On the fourth a so-called friend rang wanting to borrow money. She used to do that pretty regularly, she was hooked on some heroin that had just come out, which later they dubbed violin. I used to hang up on her, but this time I didn’t. The following night she was at my place helping me with the first shot of something I wished I’d had all my life. Oh God, how it helped. Violin. . it fixed everything. . it. .’

Katrine could see the glint of a former love in the destroyed woman’s eyes.

‘And then you were hooked as well,’ Beate said. ‘You sold the house. .’

‘Not just for money,’ Irja said. ‘I had to escape. Had to hide from him. Everything that could lead back to me had to go.’

‘You stopped using a credit card, you moved without telling the authorities,’ Katrine said. ‘You didn’t even collect your social security any more.’

‘Of course not.’

‘Not even after Valentin died.’

Irja didn’t answer. Didn’t blink. Sat unmoving as the smoke curled upwards from the already burned-down stump between her nicotine-yellow fingers. Katrine was reminded of an animal caught in the headlights.

‘You must have been relieved when you heard that?’ Beate probed gently.

Irja nodded her head, mechanically, like a doll.

‘He’s not dead.’

Katrine knew at once she meant it. What was the first thing she had said about Valentin? You don’t know Valentin. He’s different . Not was. Is.

‘Why do you think I’m telling you this?’ Irja stubbed out her cigarette on the table. ‘He’s getting closer. Day by day, I can feel it. Some mornings I wake up, and I can feel his hand round my throat.’

Katrine wanted to say that was called paranoia, the inseparable companion of heroin. But suddenly she wasn’t so sure. And when Irja’s voice sank to a low whisper as her eyes flitted between the dark corners of the room, Katrine could feel it too. The hand on her throat.