Jo Nesbo - Knife

“What?”

“I don’t know why Krohn called me in particular, he says he’ll explain that later. Either way, this is primarily a case for Oslo Police District, which is why I’m calling you.”

“I’ll pass it on to the uniforms,” Katrine said. She saw a deer creep across the brown lawn in front of Police Headquarters, heading towards the old prison block, Botsfengselet. She waited. Noted that Larsen was also waiting. “What did you mean when you said it was a coincidence, Larsen?”

“It seems odd that Svein Finne has been shot just an hour after I received information that means Finne is back as a suspect in the Fauke case.”

Katrine let go of her bag and sank down on the chair behind the desk. “You’re saying...”

“Yes, I’m saying I’m in possession of information that indicates that Harry Hole is innocent.”

Katrine felt her heart start to beat. Blood was coursing through her body, pricking her skin. And something else, something that had been lying dormant, woke up.

“When you say ‘in possession of,’ Larsen...”

“Yes?”

“It sounds as if you haven’t shared this information with your colleagues yet. Is that correct?”

“Not entirely. I’ve shared it with you.”

“All you’ve shared with me is your own conclusion that Harry’s innocent.”

“You’ll end up reaching the same conclusion, Bratt.”

“Really?”

“I’ve got a suggestion.”

“I thought you might have.”

“That you and I meet at the crime scene, and we’ll take it from there.”

“OK. I’ll come over with the uniforms.”

Katrine called the duty officer, then let her parents-in-law know she was going to be late. While she was waiting for them to answer she looked down at Botsparken again. The deer was gone. Her late father, Gert, had told her that badgers hunt everything. Anytime, anywhere. They’ll eat anything, and fight anything. And that some detectives had the badger in them, and some didn’t. And what Katrine could feel right now was the badger waking from hibernation.

Sung-min Larsen was already there when Katrine arrived at Smestaddammen. Between his legs stood a quivering, trembling dog, as if it was trying to hide. There was a thin but insistent bleeping sound, like an alarm clock, coming from somewhere.

They walked over to the body, which was lying on the ground beside the bench. Katrine realised that the bleeping was coming from the dead body. And that the body was Svein Finne. That the deceased had been shot in the groin and through one eye, but that there were no exit wounds in his back or head. Special ammunition, perhaps. Even if Katrine knew it couldn’t be the case, it felt like the monotonous electronic bleeping from the dead man’s watch was gradually getting louder.

“Why hasn’t anyone...” she began.

“Fingerprints,” Sung-min said. “I have a preliminary witness statement, but it would be good to be able to know for certain that no one else has touched his watch.”

Katrine nodded. Then gestured that they should move away.

The officers were setting up cordon tape as Sung-min told Katrine what he had found out about the sequence of events from Alise Krogh Reinertsen and her boss, Johan Krohn, who were standing on the other side of the lake with a small crowd of curious onlookers. Sung-min told Katrine that he had ushered them all over there to get them out of the line of fire, seeing as it couldn’t be ruled out entirely that Svein Finne was merely a random victim, and that the perpetrator was looking for others.

“Hmm,” Katrine said, squinting up at the hillside. “You and I must be right in the line of fire right now, so we don’t really believe that, do we?”

“No,” Sung-min said.

“So what do you think?” Katrine said, crouching down to pat the dog.

“I don’t think anything, but Krohn has a theory.”

Katrine nodded. “Is it the body that’s upset your dog?”

“No. He got attacked by a swan when we arrived.”

“Poor thing,” Katrine said, scratching the dog behind one ear. She got a lump in her throat, as if there was something familiar about the trusting look in the dog’s eyes as it gazed up at her.

“Has Krohn explained why he called you specifically?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“I think you should talk to him yourself.”

“OK.”

“Bratt?”

“Yes?”

“Like I said before, Kasparov used to be a police dog. Is it OK if he and I start to look into which direction Finne came from?”

Katrine looked at the trembling dog. “I can have the dog unit here within half an hour. I presume that’s one of the reasons why Kasparov was retired.”

“His hips are worn out,” Larsen said. “But I can carry him if it turns out to be a long way.”

“Really? But don’t dogs’ sense of smell get weaker as they get older?”

“A little,” Larsen said. “Same as human beings.”

Katrine looked at Sung-min Larsen. Was he referring to Ole Winter?

“Get going,” she said, patting Kasparov’s head. “Good hunting.”

And, as if the old dog recognised what she said, its tail, which had been drooping down, started to wag.

Katrine walked around the lake.

Krohn and his assistant both looked pale and cold. A slight but chill north wind had started to blow, the sort that puts a temporary stop to Oslo’s inhabitants’ thoughts of spring.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to go through everything again, from the start,” Katrine said, taking out her notebook.

Krohn nodded. “It started when Finne came to see me a few days ago. All of a sudden he was just standing there on my terrace. He wanted to tell me he’d killed Rakel Fauke, so I could help him if and when you started to close in on him.”

“And Harry Hole?”

“After the murder he drugged Harry Hole and left him at the scene. He fiddled with the thermostat to make it look like Rakel was killed after Hole arrived there. Finne’s motive was that Harry Hole had shot his son when he was trying to arrest him.”

“Really?” Katrine didn’t know why she didn’t instantly buy this story. “Did Finne tell you how he got inside Rakel Fauke’s house? Seeing as the door was locked from the inside, I mean.”

Krohn shook his head. “The chimney? I have no idea. I’ve seen that man arrive and leave in the most inexplicable ways. I agreed to meet him here because I wanted him to hand himself in to the police.”

Katrine stamped her feet on the ground. “Who do you think shot Finne? And why?”

Krohn shrugged. “A man like Svein Finne, who assaulted children, gets plenty of enemies in prison. He managed to stay alive in there, but I know that several of them who’d been released were just waiting for Finne to get out. Men like that often have access to firearms, sadly, and some of them know how to use them as well.”

“So we’ve got loads of potential suspects, all of whom have served time for serious offences, some of them for murder, is that what you’re saying?”

“That’s what I’m saying, Bratt.”

Krohn was a persuasive storyteller, there was no doubt about that. Maybe Katrine’s skepticism was based on the fact that she had heard too many of the stories he had told in court. She looked at Alise. “I’ve got a few questions, if that’s OK?”

“Not yet,” Alise said, folding her arms over her chest. “Not until six hours have passed. New research shows that dwelling on dramatic experiences before that increases the risk of long-term trauma.”

“And we’ve got a killer who’s getting a bit harder to catch with each minute that passes,” Katrine said.

“Not my responsibility, I’m a defense lawyer,” the woman said, with a defiant look in her eyes but in a shaky voice.