Jo Nesbo - Nemesis

'Feelings.'

'What kind of feelings?'

'Strong feelings.'

'What kind of strong feelings, Beate?'

She closed her eyes. 'Love or hatred. Hatred. No, love. I don't know.'

'Why does he shoot her?'

'Because he…no.'

'Come on. Why does he shoot her?' Harry had inched his chair towards hers.

'Because he has to. Because it is predetermined…'

'Good! Why is it predetermined?'

There was a knock at the door.

Harry would have preferred it if Fritz Bjelke from the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb had not cycled quite as mercurially through the city to assist them, but now he was standing in the doorway-a gentle, rotund man with round glasses and a pink cycle helmet. Bjelke was not deaf, and definitely not dumb. In order that he could learn as much as possible about Stine Grette's lip positions, they played the first part of the video tape where they could hear what she said. While the tape was running, Bjelke talked non-stop.

'I'm a specialist, but actually we're all lip-readers even though we can hear what people say. That's why it's such an uncomfortable feeling when the dubbing on films is just hundredths of a second out.'

'Really,' Harry said. 'Personally, I can't make anything out of her lip movements.'

'The problem is that only thirty to forty per cent of all words can be read directly from the lips. To understand the rest you have to study the face and body language, and use your own linguistic instincts and logic to insert the missing words. Thinking is as important as seeing.'

'She starts whispering here,' Beate said.

Bjelke immediately shut up and concentrated intently on the minimalist lip movements on the screen. Beate stopped the recording before the shot was fired.

'Right,' Bjelke said. 'Once more.'

And afterwards: 'Again.'

Then: 'One more time please.'

After seven times, he nodded that he had seen enough.

'I don't understand what she means,' Bjelke said. Harry and Beate exchanged glances. 'But I think I know what she says.'

Beate half-ran down the corridor to keep up with Harry.

'He's reckoned to be the country's foremost expert in the field,' she said.

'That doesn't help,' Harry said. 'He said himself he wasn't sure.'

'But what if she did say what Bjelke thought?'

'It doesn't make sense. He must have missed a negative.'

'I don't agree.'

Harry came to a halt and Beate almost ran into him. With an alarmed expression, she looked up at one wide-open eye.

'Good,' he said.

Beate was perplexed. 'What do you mean?'

'Disagreeing is good. Disagreeing means that you've seen or understood something even though you're not exactly sure what. And there's something I haven't understood.' He set off again. 'Let's assume you're right. Then we can consider where this takes us.' He stopped in front of the lift and pressed the button.

'Where are you going now?' Beate asked.

'To check some details. I'll be back in less than an hour.'

The lift doors opened and PAS Ivarsson stepped out.

'Aha!' He beamed. 'The master sleuths on the trail. Anything new to report?'

'The point about parallel groups is that we don't have to report in so often. Isn't it?' Harry said, sidestepping him and walking into the lift. 'If I understood you and the FBI correctly, that is.'

Ivarsson's broad smile and gaze held. 'We obviously have to share key information.'

Harry pressed the button for the first floor, but Ivarsson placed himself between the doors: 'Well?'

Harry shrugged. 'Stine Grette whispers something to the robber before she is shot.'

'Uhuh?'

'We believe she whispers: It's my fault.'

'It's my fault?'

'Yes.'

Ivarsson's brow furrowed. 'That can't be right, can it? It would make more sense if she had said It's not my fault. I mean, it isn't her fault the branch manager took six seconds too long putting the money in the holdall.'

'I don't agree,' Harry said, looking conspicuously at his watch. 'We've received assistance from one of the country's leading experts in the field. Beate can fill you in on the details.'

Ivarsson was leaning against one lift door, which was impatiently pushing at his back. 'So she forgets a negative in her confusion then. Is that all you have? Beate?'

Beate flushed. 'I've just started studying the video of the bank robbery in Kirkeveien.'

'Any conclusions?'

Her eyes wandered from Ivarsson to Harry and back again. 'Not for the time being.'

'Nothing then,' Ivarsson said. 'Perhaps you would be pleased to know that we have identified nine suspects we've brought in for questioning. And we have a strategy for finally getting something out of Raskol.'

'Raskol?' Harry asked.

'Raskol Baxhet, the king of the sewer rats himself,' Ivarsson said, hooking his fingers into his belt loops. He breathed in and hitched his trousers up with a cheery grin: 'But Beate can probably fill you in on the details later.'

Marble

Harry was aware that, on certain matters, he was small-minded. Take Bogstadveien, for example. He didn't like Bogstadveien. He didn't know why; perhaps it was because in this street, paved with gold and oil, the Mount Happy of Happyland, no one smiled. Harry didn't smile himself, but he lived in Bislett, wasn't paid to smile and right now had a few good reasons for not smiling. However, that didn't mean that Harry, in common with most Norwegians, didn't appreciate being smiled at.

Inwardly, Harry tried to excuse the boy behind the counter in the 7-Eleven. He probably hated his job, he probably lived in Bislett, too, and it had started to piss down with rain again.

The pale face with the fiery red pimples cast a bored eye over his police ID card: 'How should I know how long the skip's been outside?'

'Because it's green and it covers half of your view of Bogstadveien,' Harry said.

The boy groaned and put his hands on hips which barely held up his trousers. 'A week. Sort of. Hey, queue of people waiting behind you, you know.'

'Mm. I had a look inside. It's almost empty apart from a few bottles and newspapers. Do you know who ordered it?'

'No.'

'I see you have a surveillance camera over the counter. Looks as if it might just catch the skip?'

'If you say so.'

'If you still have the film from last Friday I would like to see it.'

'Ring tomorrow. Tobben's here.'

'Tobben?'

'Shop manager.'

'I suggest you ring Tobben now and get permission to give me the tape, then I won't detain you any longer.'

'You have a look for it,' he said and the spots went redder. 'I haven't got time to start searching for some video now.'

'Oh,' Harry said without making a move. 'What about after closing time?'

'We're open twenty-four hours,' the boy said, rolling his eyes.

'That was a joke,' Harry said.

'Right. Ha ha,' said the boy with the somnambulant voice. 'You going to buy sumfin or what?'

Harry shook his head and the boy looked past him: 'Till's free.'

Harry sighed and turned to the queue crowding towards the counter. 'The till is not free. I am from Oslo Police.' He held up his ID. 'And this person is arrested for being unable to pronounce th.'

Harry could be small-minded on certain matters. At this particular moment, though, he was extremely pleased with the response. He appreciated being smiled at.

But he didn't like the smile which appeared to be part of the professional training of preachers, politicians and undertakers. They smile with their eyes while speaking and it gave herr Sandemann of Sandemann Funeral Directors a sincerity which together with the temperature in the coffin storeroom under Majorstuen church made Harry shudder. He surveyed the locale. Two coffins, a chair, a wreath, a funeral director, a black suit and a comb-over.