Jo Nesbo - Phantom

‘Young kids remember the older ones.’

‘That’s true enough. But to be frank I don’t remember you from school. You were on TV and someone told me you’d been to Oppsal and you were a pal of Tresko’s.’

‘Mm.’ Harry studied the tips of his shoes to signal he wasn’t interested in moving into private territory.

‘So you ended up as a detective? Which murder are you investigating now?’

‘I’m investigating a drugs-related death,’ Harry started, to keep as close as possible to the truth. ‘Did you get a look at the stuff I sent you?’

‘Yes.’ Nybakk lifted the receiver again, tapped in a number and scratched feverishly behind his ear while waiting. ‘Martin, can you come in here? Yes, it’s about the test.’

Nybakk rang off, and there followed three seconds of silence. Nybakk smiled; Harry knew his brain was scanning to find a topic to fill the pause. Harry said nothing. Nybakk coughed. ‘You used to live in the yellow house down by the gravel track. I grew up in the red house at the top of the hill. Nybakk family?’

‘Right,’ Harry lied, demonstrating again to himself how little he remembered of his childhood.

‘Have you still got the house?’

Harry crossed his legs. Knowing he couldn’t have the match called off before this Martin came. ‘My father died a few years ago. Sale dragged a bit, but-’

‘Ghosts.’

‘Pardon?’

‘It’s important to let the ghosts out before you sell, isn’t it? My mother died last year, but the house is still empty. Married? Kids?’

Harry shook his head. And played the ball into the other half of the field. ‘But you’re married, I can see.’

‘Oh?’

‘The ring.’ Harry nodded towards his hand. ‘I used to have an identical one.’

Nybakk held up the hand with the ring and smiled. ‘Used to? Are you separated?’

Harry cursed inside. Why the hell did people have to chit-chat? Separated? Course he was separated. Separated from the person he loved. Those he loved. Harry coughed.

‘There you are,’ Nybakk said.

Harry turned. A stooped figure wearing a blue lab coat squinted at him from the door. Long, black fringe that hung over a pale, almost snow-white, high forehead. Eyes set deep in his skull. Harry had not even heard him coming.

‘This is Martin Pran, one of our best scientists,’ Nybakk said.

That, Harry thought, is the Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

‘Eh, Martin?’ Nybakk said.

‘What you call violin is not heroin but a drug similar to levorphanol.’

Harry noted the name. ‘Which is?’

‘A high-explosive opioid,’ Nybakk intervened. ‘Immense painkiller. Six to eight times stronger than morphine. Three times more powerful than heroin.’

‘Really?’

‘Really,’ Nybakk said. ‘And it has double the effect of morphine. Eight to twelve hours. If you take just three milligrams of levorphanol we’re talking a full anaesthetic. Half of it through injection.’

‘Mm. Sounds dangerous.’

‘Not quite as dangerous as one might imagine. Moderate doses of pure opioids like heroin don’t destroy the body. No, it’s primarily the dependency that does it.’

‘Right. Heroin addicts die like flies.’

‘Yes, but for two main reasons. First of all, heroin is mixed with other substances that turn it into nothing less than poison. Mix heroin and cocaine, for example, and-’

‘Speedball,’ Harry said. ‘John Belushi-’

‘May he rest in peace. The second usual cause of death is that heroin inhibits respiration. If you take too large a dose you simply stop breathing. And as the level of tolerance increases you take larger and larger doses. But that’s the interesting thing about levorphanol — it doesn’t inhibit respiration nearly as much. Isn’t that right, Martin?’

The Hunchback nodded without raising his eyes.

‘Mm,’ Harry said, watching Pran. ‘Stronger than heroin, longer effect, and little chance of OD’ing. Sounds like a junkie’s dream substance.’

‘Dependency,’ the Hunchback mumbled. ‘And price.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘We see it with patients,’ Nybakk sighed. ‘They get addicted like that.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘But with cancer patients dependency is a non-issue. We increase the type of painkiller and dosage according to a chart. The aim is to prevent pain, not to chase its heels. And levorphanol is expensive to produce and import. That might be the reason we don’t see it on the streets.’

‘That’s not levorphanol.’

Harry and Nybakk turned to Martin Pran.

‘It’s modified.’ Pran lifted his head. And Harry thought he could see his eyes shining, as if a light had just been switched on.

‘How?’ Nybakk asked.

‘It will take time to discover how, but it does appear that one of the chlorine molecules has been exchanged for a fluorine molecule. It may not be that expensive to produce.’

‘Jesus,’ Nybakk said. ‘Are we talking Dreser?’

‘Possibly,’ Pran said with an almost imperceptible smile.

‘Good heavens!’ Nybakk exclaimed, scratching the back of his head with both hands in his enthusiasm. ‘Then we’re talking the work of a genius. Or an enormous flash in a pan.’

‘Afraid I’m not quite with you here, boys,’ Harry said.

‘Oh, sorry,’ Nybakk said. ‘Heinrich Dreser. He discovered aspirin in 1897. Afterwards he worked on modifying diacetymorphine. Not a lot needs to be done, molecule here, molecule there, and hey presto, it fastens on to other receptors in the human body. Eleven days later, Dreser had discovered a new drug. It was sold as cough medicine right up until 1913.’

‘And the drug was?’

‘The name was supposed to be a pun on a brave woman.’

‘Heroine,’ Harry said.

‘Correct.’

‘What about the glazing?’ Harry asked, turning to Pran.

‘It’s called a coating,’ the Hunchback retorted. ‘What about it?’ He faced Harry but his eyes were elsewhere, on the wall. Like an animal hunting for a way out, Harry thought. Or a herd animal that did not want to meet the hierarchical challenge of the creature looking you straight in the eye. Or simply a human with slightly above-average social inhibitions. But there was something else that caught Harry’s attention, something about the way he was standing, his crooked posture.

‘Well,’ Harry said, ‘Forensics says that the brown specks in violin originate from the finely chopped glazing of a pill. And it’s the same… coating you use on methadone pills that are made here at the Radium Hospital.’

‘So?’ Pran riposted.

‘Is it conceivable that violin is made here in Norway by someone with access to your methadone pills?’

Stig Nybakk and Martin Pran exchanged glances.

‘Nowadays we deliver methadone pills to other hospitals as well, so quite a few people have access,’ Nybakk said. ‘But violin is high-level chemistry.’ He expelled air between flapping lips. ‘What do you reckon, Pran? Have we got the competence in Norwegian scientific circles to discover such a substance?’

Pran shook his head.

‘What about by fluke?’ Harry asked.

Pran shrugged. ‘It is of course possible that Brahms wrote ein deutsches Requiem by fluke.’

The room fell silent. Not even Nybakk appeared to have anything to add.

‘Well,’ Harry said, getting up.

‘Hope that was of some help,’ Nybakk said, extending his hand to Harry across the desk. ‘Say hello to Tresko. I suppose he still does nights at Hafslund Energy, keeping his finger on the electricity switch for the town?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Doesn’t he like daylight?’

‘He doesn’t like hassle.’

Nybakk gave a tentative smile.

On his way out Harry stopped twice. Once to examine the empty laboratory in which the light had been turned off for the day. The second time was outside the door displaying Martin Pran’s nameplate. There was light under the door. Harry carefully pressed the handle. Locked.