Jo Nesbo - Nemesis

'Any luck?'

'Yep.' Halvorsen beamed again. 'I faxed the photo and one of the guys running the grocery shop knew who she was. They've got one of the most fantastic chalets in the area. He drives deliveries up there now and then.'

'And the lady's name is?'

'Vigdis Albu?'

'Albu? Elbow?'

'Yep. There are just two of them in Norway. One was born in 1909. The other is forty-three years old and lives at Bjшrnetrеkket 12 in Slemdal with Arne Albu. And hey presto-here's the telephone number, boss.'

'Don't call me that,' Harry said, grabbing the telephone.

Halvorsen groaned. 'What's up? Are you in a bad mood or something?'

'Yes, but that's not why. Mшller is the boss. I'm not a boss, OK?'

Halvorsen was about to say something when Harry imperiously held up a hand: 'Fru Albu?'

Someone had needed a lot of time, money and space to build the Albus' house. And a lot of taste. Or as Harry saw it: a lot of bad taste. It looked as if the architect-if such there were-had tried to fuse Norwegian chalet tradition with Southern US plantation style and a dash of pink suburban bliss. Harry's feet sank in the shingle drive leading past a trim garden of ornamental shrubs and a little bronze hart drinking from a fountain. On the ridge of the garage roof there was an oval copper sign emblazoned with a blue flag containing a yellow triangle on a black triangle.

The sound of a dog barking furiously came from behind the house. Harry walked up the broad steps between the pillars, rang the bell and half-expected to be met by a black mama in a white apron.

'Hello,' she twittered at roughly the same time as the door was flung open. Vigdis Albu was the image of one of those women off the fitness adverts Harry occasionally saw on TV when he came home at night. She had the same white smile, bleached Barbie hair and a firm, well-toned, upper-class body packed into running tights and a skimpy top. And she'd had a boob job, but at least she'd had the sense not to exaggerate the size.

'Harry-'

'Come in!' She smiled with the merest suggestion of wrinkles around her large, blue, discreetly made-up eyes.

Harry stepped into a large hallway populated with fat, ugly, carved wooden trolls reaching up to his hips.

'I'm just washing,' Vigdis Albu explained. She flashed a white smile and carefully wiped away the sweat with a forefinger so as not to streak her mascara.

'I'd better take off my shoes then,' Harry said and at that moment remembered the hole in his sock over his right big toe.

'No, God forbid, not the house. We've got people to do that,' she laughed. 'But I like to wash clothes myself. There have to be limits to how far we let strangers into the house, don't you think?'

'Too true,' Harry mumbled. He had to move briskly to keep up with her up the steps. They passed a classy kitchen and came into the living room. A spacious terrace lay beyond two sliding glass doors. On the main wall there was a huge brick construction, a sort of halfway house between Oslo City Hall and a cenotaph.

'Designed by Per Hummel for Arne's fortieth birthday,' Vigdis said. 'Per's a friend of ours.'

'Yes, Per has really designed one…a fireplace there.'

'I'm sure you know Per Hummel, the architect, don't you? The new chapel in Holmenkollen, you know.'

'I'm afraid not,' Harry said and passed her the photograph. 'Would you mind having a look at this?'

He studied the surprise spreading across her face.

'But that's the photo Arne took last year in Larkollen. How did you get hold of this?'

Harry waited to see if she could maintain her genuinely puzzled expression before he responded. She could.

'We found it in the shoe of a woman called Anna Bethsen,' he said. Harry witnessed a chain reaction of thoughts, reasoning and emotions reflected in Vigdis Albu's face, like a soap opera in fast forward. First surprise, next wonder and afterwards confusion. Then an intuition, which was at first rejected with a sceptical laugh, but took hold and seemed to grow into a dawning realisation. And finally the closed face with the subtitle: There have to be limits to how far we let strangers into the house, don't you think?

Harry fidgeted with the packet of cigarettes he had taken out. A large glass ashtray had pride of place in the middle of the coffee table.

'Do you know Anna Bethsen, fru Albu?'

'Certainly not. Should I?'

'I don't know,' Harry said honestly. 'She's dead. I'm left wondering what such a personal photograph is doing in her shoe. Any ideas?'

Vigdis Albu tried to put on a forbearing smile, but her mouth wouldn't obey. She contented herself with an energetic shake of her head.

Harry waited, without moving, relaxed. As his shoes had sunk into the shingle, he felt his body sinking into the deep, white sofa. Experience had taught him that silence was the most effective of all methods to make people talk. When two strangers sit facing each other, silence functions like a vacuum, sucking words out. They sat like that for ten eternal seconds. Vigdis Albu swallowed: 'Perhaps the cleaner saw it lying somewhere and took it with her. And gave it to this…was it Anna she was called?'

'Mm. Do you mind if I smoke, fru Albu?'

'This is a smoke-free house. Neither my husband nor I…' She lifted a hand quickly to her plait. 'And Alexander, our youngest, has got asthma.'

'Sorry to hear that. How does your husband spend his time?'

She gaped at him and her big, blue eyes grew even bigger.

'What's his job, I mean?' Harry put his cigarettes back in his inside pocket.

'He's an investor. He sold the company about three years ago.'

'Which company?'

'Albu AS. Importing towels and shower mats for hotels and institutions.'

'Must have been quite a lot of towels. And shower mats.'

'We had the agency for the whole of Scandinavia.'

'Congratulations. The flag on the garage, isn't that a consulate flag?'

Vigdis Albu had regained her composure and took off her hair band. It struck Harry that she had had something done to her face. Something about the proportions didn't tally. That is to say, they tallied too well; her face was almost artificially symmetrical.

'St Lucia. My husband was the Norwegian consul there for eleven years. We had a factory where they sew shower mats. We have a little house there, too. Have you been to-?'

'No.'

'A fantastic, wonderful, sweet island. Some of the older inhabitants still speak French. Incomprehensible French I have to say, but they are so charming you wouldn't believe it.'

'Creole French.'

'What?'

'I've read about it. Do you think your husband might know how this photo ended up in the deceased's possession?'

'Can't imagine how. Why should he?'

'Hm.' Harry smiled. 'It's perhaps just as difficult to say why one would have a photo of a stranger in one's shoe.' He got to his feet. 'Where can I find him, fru Albu?'

As Harry noted down the telephone number and address of Arne Albu's office, he happened to look down at the sofa where he had been sitting.

'Erm…' he said when he saw Vigdis Albu following his gaze. 'I slipped in a refuse skip. Of course, I'll-'

'It doesn't matter,' she interrupted. 'The cover's going to the dry cleaner's next week anyway.'

On the steps outside, she asked Harry if on second thoughts he could wait until five o'clock before he rang her husband.

'He'll be home then and won't be so busy.'

Harry didn't answer and watched the corners of her mouth going up and down.

'Then he and I can…see if we can sort out this business for you.'

'Thank you, that's nice of you, but I have my car here and it's on the way, so I'll drive to his work and see if I can find him there.'

'OK,' she said with a brave smile.

The barking followed Harry down the long drive. At the gate, he turned round. Vigdis Albu was still standing on the steps in front of the pink plantation building. Her head was bowed and the sun shone on her hair and glossy sports gear. From a distance she looked like a tiny bronze hart.