Jo Nesbo - Knife

“ Anyone , though?”

“A traumatised murderer doesn’t have defined personality traits like the other seven groups. And it’s there — and only there — that you find murderers who read Dickens and Balzac.” Aune took a deep breath and tugged at the sleeves of his tweed jacket. “What are you really wondering about, Harry?”

“Really?”

“You know more about murderers than anyone I know. None of what I’m saying about humiliation and categories is new to you.”

Harry shrugged. “Maybe I just need to hear someone say it out loud one more time to make me believe it.”

“What is it you don’t believe?”

Harry scratched his short, stubbornly unruly hair — there were now streaks of grey among the blond. Rakel had said he was starting to look like a hedgehog. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe it’s just your ego, Harry.”

“What do you mean?”

“Isn’t it obvious? You were given the case after someone else had already solved it. So you want to find something that throws doubt on it. Something that proves Harry Hole can see things no one else has spotted.”

“What if I am?” Harry said, studying the glowing tip of his cigarette. “What if I was born with a magnificent talent for detective work and have developed instincts that not even I’m capable of analysing?”

“I hope you’re joking.”

“Barely. I’ve read the interviews. The husband certainly seemed pretty traumatised from what he said. But then I listened to the recordings.” Harry was staring in front of him.

“And?”

“He sounded more frightened than resigned. A confession is a form of resignation. There shouldn’t be anything to be frightened of after that.”

“Punishment, of course.”

“He’s already had his punishment. Humiliation. Pain. Seeing his beloved wife dead. Prison is isolation. Calm. Routine. Peace. That can’t be anything but a relief. Maybe it’s the daughter, him worrying about what’s going to happen to her.”

“And then there’s the fact that he’s going to burn in hell.”

“He’s already there.”

Aune sighed. “So, let me repeat, what do you really want?”

“I want you to call Rakel and tell her to take me back.”

Ståle Aune’s eyes widened.

“ That was a joke,” Harry said. “I’ve been having palpitations. Anxiety attacks. No, that’s not quite right. I’ve been dreaming... something. Something I can’t quite see, but it keeps coming back to me.”

“Finally, an easy question,” Aune said. “Intoxication. Psychology is a science without a lot of solid facts to lean on, but the correlation between the consumption of intoxicants and mental distress is one of the few firm facts. How long has this been going on?”

Harry looked at his watch. “Two and a half hours.”

Ståle Aune let out a hollow laugh. “And you wanted to talk to me so you can at least tell yourself that you sought external medical help before you go back to self-medication?”

“It’s not the usual stuff,” Harry said. “It isn’t the ghosts.”

“Because they come at night?”

“Yes. And they don’t hide. I see them and I recognise them. Victims, dead colleagues. Killers. This was something else.”

“Any idea what?”

Harry shook his head. “Someone who’s been locked up. He reminded me of...” Harry leaned forward and stubbed his cigarette out on the pool of blood.

“Of Svein Finne, ‘the Fiancé,’ ” Aune said.

Harry looked up with one eyebrow raised. “Why do you think that?”

“It’s obvious that you think he’s out to get you.”

“You’ve spoken to Katrine.”

“She’s worried about you. She wanted an evaluation.”

“And you agreed?”

“I said that as a psychologist I don’t have the necessary detachment from you. But that paranoia can also be one aspect of alcohol abuse.”

“I’m the one who finally got him locked away, Ståle. He was my first case. He got twenty years for sexual assault and murder.”

“You were just doing your job. There’s no reason why Finne would take it personally.”

“He confessed to the assaults but denied the murder charges, claimed we’d planted evidence. I went to see him in prison the year before last to see if he could help us with the vampirist case, if he knew anything about Valentin Gjertsen. The last thing he did before I left was tell me exactly when he was due to be released, and to ask if my family and I felt safe.”

“Did Rakel know about this?”

“Yes. At New Year I found boot prints in the patch of woodland outside the kitchen window, so I set up a camera.”

“That could have been anyone, Harry. Someone who just got lost.”

“On private property, past a gate and up a steep, icy, fifty-metre driveway?”

“Hang on — didn’t you move out at Christmas?”

“More or less.” Harry wafted the smoke away.

“But you went back after that, to the patch of trees? Did Rakel know?”

“No, but come on, I haven’t turned into a stalker. Rakel was frightened enough as it is, and I just wanted to check that everything was OK. And, as it turns out, it wasn’t.”

“So she didn’t know about the camera either?”

Harry shrugged his shoulders.

“Harry?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re quite sure that you set that camera up because of Finne?”

“You mean, did I want to find out if my ex was seeing anyone else?”

“Did you?”

“No,” Harry said firmly. “If Rakel doesn’t want me, she’s welcome to try someone else.”

“Do you really believe that?”

Harry sighed.

“OK,” Aune said. “You said you caught a glimpse of someone who looked like Finne, locked up?”

“No, that’s what you said. It wasn’t Finne.”

“No?”

“No, it was... me.”

Ståle Aune ran his hand through his thinning hair. “And now you want a diagnosis?”

“Come on. Anxiety?”

“I think your brain is looking for reasons why Rakel would need you. For instance, to protect her from external threats. But you’re not locked up, Harry — you’ve been locked out. Accept it and move on.”

“Apart from the ‘accept it’ stuff, any medication you can prescribe?”

“Sleep. Exercise. And maybe you could try meeting someone who could take your mind off Rakel.”

Harry stuck a cigarette in the corner of his mouth and held up his clenched fist with his thumb sticking out. “Sleep. I drink myself senseless every night. Check.” His index finger shot up. “Exercise. I get into fights with people in bars I used to own. Check.” The grey, titanium finger. “Meet someone. I fuck women, nice ones, nasty ones, and afterwards I have meaningful conversations with some of them. Check.”

Aune looked at Harry. Then he let out a deep sigh, stood up and fastened his tweed jacket. “Well, you should be fine, then.”

Harry sat there staring out of the window after Aune had gone. Then he got up and walked through the rooms in the flat. The married couple’s bedroom was tidy, clean, the bed neatly made. He looked in the cupboards. The wife’s wardrobe was spread across four spacious cupboards, while the husband’s clothes were squeezed into one. A considerate husband. There were rectangles on the wallpaper in the daughter’s room where the colours were brighter. Harry guessed they had been made by teenage posters she had taken down now she was nineteen. There was still one small picture, a young guy with a Rickenbacker electric guitar slung round his neck.

Harry looked through the little collection of records on the shelf by the mirror. Propagandhi. Into It. Over It. My Heart to Joy. Panic! at the Disco. Emo stuff.