Jo Nesbo - Nemesis

'She?'

'Yes, she.'

'Not a very clever policeman, then, eh?' Halvorsen said circumspectly.

'You concentrate on the coffee,' Harry growled. 'An old flame, that was all. Quite innocent.'

'How do you know if you can't remember anything?'

Harry rubbed the palm of his hand over his unshaven chin, reflecting on what Aune had said about drugs simply emphasising latent tendencies. He didn't know if he found that reassuring. Isolated details were beginning to emerge. A black dress. Anna had been wearing a black dress. And he was lying on the stairs. And a woman helped him up. With half a face. Like one of Anna's portraits.

'I always have blackouts,' Harry said. 'This is no worse than any of the others.'

'And your eye?'

'Probably bumped into a kitchen cupboard when I came home or some such thing.'

'I don't want to worry you, Harry, but it looks like something more serious than a kitchen cupboard.'

'Well,' Harry said, taking the cup of coffee with both hands. 'Do I look bothered? The times I ended up in a drunken free-for-all, it was with people I didn't like when I was sober, either.'

'Message from Mшller, incidentally. He asked me to tell you it was fine, but didn't say what.'

Harry rolled the espresso round in his mouth before swallowing it. 'You'll find out, Halvorsen, you'll find out.'

The bank robbery was discussed in detail at the briefing by the investigation team at Police HQ that afternoon. Didrik Gudmundson informed them that three minutes passed from the moment the alarm sounded until the police appeared, but by then the robber had already fled the crime scene. In addition to surrounding and blocking off the closest streets immediately with patrol cars, within the subsequent ten minutes they had set up an outer cordon covering the main traffic arteries: the E18 by Fornebu, Ring 3 by Ullevеl, Trondheimsveien by Aker hospital, Griniveien above Bжrum and the intersection by Carl Berners plass. 'I wish we could call this an iron cordon, but you know what it's like with staffing nowadays.'

Toril Li had interviewed a witness who reported having seen a man with a balaclava over his head jumping into the passenger side of a waiting white Opel Ascona in Majorstuveien. The car had promptly turned left up Jacob Aalls gate. Magnus Rian mentioned that another witness had seen a white car, possibly an Opel, driving into a garage in Vindern and that straight afterwards a blue Volvo had left. Ivarsson studied the map hanging on the whiteboard.

'Doesn't sound unreasonable. Put out an alert for blue Volvos too, Ola. Weber?'

'Textile fibres,' Weber said. 'Two behind the counter he leapt over and one by the door.'

'Yesss!' Ivarsson punched a fist in the air. He had taken to strutting around the table behind them, which Harry found extremely irritating. 'So all we have to do is find a few candidates. We'll put the video of the burglary out on the Net as soon as Beate is finished with the editing.'

'Is that wise?' Harry asked, rocking his chair back against the wall to cut off Ivarsson's passage.

The PAS looked at him in surprise. 'Wise? We wouldn't exactly object to anyone ringing in to give us the name of the person in the video.'

Ola interrupted. 'Do you remember the time a mother rang in to say she had seen her son on a burglary video on the Net? And it turned out he was already inside for another robbery?'

Loud laughter. Ivarsson smiled. 'We never turn away new witnesses, Hole.'

'Or new copycats?' Harry put his hands behind his head.

'An imitator? Now get a grip, Hole.'

'Hm. If I were going to rob a bank today, I would obviously copy the most sought-after bank robber in Norway at this moment and divert suspicion towards him. All the details of the Bogstadveien robbery were available on the Net.'

Ivarsson shook his head. 'I'm afraid your average bank robber these days is not so sophisticated, Hole. Would someone else like to explain to Crime Squad what the typical hallmark of an inveterate robber is? No? Well, he always-with painful precision-repeats what he did on the previously successful occasion. It is only when he fails-if he doesn't get the money or he is arrested-that he changes the pattern.'

'That substantiates your theory, but it doesn't exclude mine,' Harry said.

Ivarsson cast a desperate look around the table, as if begging for help. 'Fine, Hole. You will have the chance to test your theories. In fact, I've just decided to experiment with a new approach. The gist is that a small party will work independently of, but in parallel with, the investigation team. The idea originates with the FBI and the aim is to avoid getting into a rut, having only one view of the case, which does often happen with large groups of officers when, consciously or unconsciously, a consensus is formed about the principal features of an investigation. The small party can bring a new and fresh focus because they are working separately and are not influenced by the other group. This method has proved to be effective in tricky cases. Most of us here, I am sure, will agree that Harry Hole has the natural qualifications to be a member of such a party.'

Scattered chuckles. Ivarsson came to a halt behind Beate's chair. 'Beate, you will join Harry.'

Beate blushed. Ivarsson placed a paternal hand on her shoulder: 'If it doesn't work, all you have to do is say.'

'I will,' Harry said.

Harry was about to unlock the front door to his apartment building when he changed his mind and walked back ten metres to the little grocery shop, where Ali was carrying in boxes of fruit and vegetables from the pavement.

'Hi, Harry! Are you better now?' Ali had a broad grin on his face and Harry closed his eyes for a second. It was as he feared.

'Did you help me, Ali?'

'Just up the stairs. When we opened your door, you said you could manage.'

'How did I get home? On foot or…?'

'Taxi. You owe me a hundred and twenty.'

Harry groaned and followed Ali into the shop. 'I apologise, Ali. Really. Can you give me an abridged version, without too many embarrassing details?'

'You and the driver were arguing in the street. And our bedrooms face that way.' He added with a winning smile: 'Bloody awful to have the window there.'

'And when was that?'

'In the middle of the night.'

'You get up at five o'clock, Ali. I don't know what people like you mean by the middle of the night.'

'Half past eleven. At least.'

Harry promised it would never happen again. Ali kept nodding in the way that people do when listening to stories they know off by heart. Harry asked how he could thank Ali, who answered that Harry could rent him his unused cellar storage space. Harry said he would give the matter more thought and paid Ali the money for the taxi, a bottle of Coke, a bag of pasta and meatballs.

'We're quits then,' Harry said.

Ali shook his head. 'Quarterly rates,' said the chairman, treasurer and Mr Fix-it of the housing co-op committee.

'Oh shit, I'd forgotten.'

'Eriksen.' Ali smiled.

'Who's that?'

'Someone I got a letter from last summer. He asked me to send the account number so that he could pay his rates for May and June 1972. He reckoned that was why he hadn't been able to sleep for the last thirty years. I wrote back saying no one in the block remembered him, so he didn't need to pay.' Ali pointed a finger at Harry. 'But I'm not going to do that with you.'

Harry raised both arms in surrender: 'I'll transfer the money tomorrow.'

The first thing Harry did when he was in his flat was to call Anna's number again. The same ex-presenter as the previous time. But he had barely emptied the bag of pasta and meatballs into the frying pan when he heard the telephone ringing above the sizzling noises. He ran into the hall and snatched at the phone.