Jo Nesbo - Nemesis

'What about if the values the democracy stands for themselves fall victim to an act of vengeance?' the other replied. 'What about if another nation's rights as laid down by international law are violated? What kind of values are you defending if you deprive innocent civilians of rights in your hunt for guilty parties? And what about the moral value of turning the other cheek?'

'The problem is that we only have two cheeks,' said the other man, with a smile. 'Isn't it?'

Harry switched off. Wondered whether he should ring Rakel, but decided it was too late. He tried to get his nose in a Jim Thompson book, but discovered that were missing. He got up and paced up and down his room. He opened the refrigerator and stared in frustration at a white cheese and a jar of strawberry jam. He felt like something, but didn't know what. He slammed the refrigerator door shut. Who was he trying to kid? What he wanted was a drink.

At two o'clock in the morning he woke up in his chair, fully clothed. He got up, went to the bathroom and drank a glass of water.

'Fuck,' he said to himself in the mirror. He went to the bedroom and turned on his PC. He found 104 articles in Norwegian on the Net about suicide, but none about revenge, just keywords and links to motives for revenge in literature and Greek mythology. He was just going to switch it off when he realised he hadn't checked his e-mails for a couple of weeks. There were two e-mails. One was from his ISP, who warned him two weeks ago the service was going to be closed down. The other address was anna. beth@chello. no. He double-clicked and read the message: Hi Harry. Don't forget the key. Anna. The time showed it had been sent two hours before he was due to meet her for the last time. He read the message again. So short. So…simple. He assumed that was how people e-mailed each other. Hi Harry. To outside observers it must have seemed as if they were old friends, but they had known each other for six weeks, a long time ago, and he hadn't even realised she had his e-mail address.

When he fell asleep, he dreamed that he was standing in the bank with the gun again. The people around him were made of marble.

Gadjo

'What fantastic weather it is today,' Bjarne Mшller said as he came sailing into Harry and Halvorsen's office the next morning.

'Well, you would know, wouldn't you. You've got a window,' Harry said without looking up from his cup of coffee. 'And a new chair,' he added as Mшller dropped into Halvorsen's defective chair, which gave a scream of pain.

'Hi, sunshine,' Mшller said. 'Having a bad day?'

Harry shrugged. 'I'm pushing forty and I've started to enjoy grumbling. Anything wrong with that?'

'Not at all. Good to see you in a suit, by the way.'

Harry lifted the lapels of his jacket as if he had only now discovered the dark suit.

'There was a meeting of Unit Heads yesterday,' Mшller said. 'Do you want the short or the long version?'

Harry stirred his coffee with a pencil. 'We have to stop investigating Ellen's case. Is that it?'

'The case was closed ages ago, Harry. And the Head of Forensics says you're pestering them to check all sorts of old evidence.'

'We found a new witness yesterday who-'

'There's always a new witness, Harry. They just don't want any more.'

'But-'

'We've drawn a line under it, Harry. Sorry.'

Mшller turned at the door. 'Go for a walk in the sun. It might be the last warm day for a while.'

'Rumours going round it's sunny,' Harry said as he entered the House of Pain and saw Beate. 'Just so you know.'

'Turn off the light,' she said. 'And I'll show you something.'

She had sounded excited on the telephone, but she didn't mention why. She picked up the remote control: 'I didn't find anything on the tape from the day the skip was ordered, but take a peek at this one from the day of the robbery.'

Harry saw the 7-Eleven on the screen. He saw the green skip outside the window, the cream buns inside the shop, the back of the head and bum-crack of the boy he had talked to the day before. He was serving a girl who was buying milk, Cosmopolitan and condoms.

'The recording is timed at 15.05, so about fifteen minutes before the robbery. Look now.'

The girl took her things and left, the queue moved forward and a man in a black boiler suit and a peaked cap with the earflaps pulled well down pointed at something on the counter. He held his head down so that his face couldn't be seen. Under his arm he was carrying a folded black holdall.

'What the hell,' Harry whispered.

'That's the Expeditor,' Beate said.

'Sure? Lots of people wear black boiler suits, and the robber didn't have a cap.'

'When he goes away from the counter, you'll see they're the same shoes as on the video. And notice the bulge on his left. That's the AG3.'

'He's taped it to his body. But what's he doing in a 7-Eleven?'

'He's waiting for the armoured van and he needs a lookout post where he won't be conspicuous. He's done a recce in the area and knows that the security van comes between 15.15 and 15.20. In the meantime, he can't exactly walk around wearing a balaclava and announce his intentions, so he uses a cap which covers most of his face. When he goes to the counter, if you look hard, you can see a small rectangle of light flickering on it. It's a reflection off glass. You're wearing sunglasses, aren't you, you Expeditor bastard.' Beate spoke in a low voice, but fast, with an anger Harry had not heard from her before. 'He's obviously aware of the camera in the 7-Eleven, too. He doesn't show any of his face. Look at him checking the angles! In fact, he does it really well. I've got to give him that.'

The boy behind the counter gave the man in the boiler suit a cream bun and picked up the ten-kroner coin he put down.

'Hello.'

'Right,' Beate said. 'He's not wearing gloves. But he doesn't seem to have touched anything in the shop. And there you can see the rectangle of light I was telling you about.'

Harry didn't say a word.

The man went out of the shop as the last person in the queue was being served.

'Mm. We'll have to start searching for witnesses again,' Harry said, getting up.

'I wouldn't be too optimistic,' Beate said, still staring at the screen. 'Remember only one witness reported having seen the Expeditor escape in the Friday rush hour. The robber's best hiding place is in a crowd.'

'OK, but have you got any other suggestions?'

'Sit down or you'll miss the climax.'

Mildly disconcerted, Harry shot her a look and faced the screen. The boy behind the counter had turned towards the camera with a finger jammed up his nose.

'One man's climax is another-' Harry grumbled.

'Look at the skip outside the window.'

The window pane reflected the light, but they could still see the man in the black boiler suit. He was standing on the pavement between the skip and a parked car. His back was to the camera and a hand was resting on the edge of the skip. He seemed to be keeping an eye on the bank while eating the cream bun. The holdall he was carrying was on the tarmac.

'That's his lookout post,' Beate said. 'He ordered the skip and had it placed on that precise spot. It is ingeniously simple. He can watch for the security van while hiding from the security cameras. And notice the way he stands. First of all, half of the passers-by won't even be able to see him because of the skip, and those who can will see a man in a boiler suit and cap beside a skip: a builder, a removal man or a waste-disposal worker. In short, nothing that will gain a foothold in the cerebral cortex. No wonder we didn't get any witnesses.'

'He's leaving some nice, fat fingerprints on the skip,' Harry said. 'Shame it's done nothing but rain for the last week.'