Jo Nesbo - Nemesis

'What is it?' he asked. 'What is it you can see and I can't.'

'Try.'

'I've already tried.'

'Imprint the image on your retina, close your eyes and feel.'

'Honestly…'

'Come on, Harry.' She smiled. 'This is what investigating is, isn't it.'

He looked at her in mild surprise. Then he shrugged his shoulders and did as she said.

'What can you see, Harry?'

'The inside of my eyelids.'

'Concentrate. Tell me what jars.'

'There's something about him and her. Something…about the way they're standing.'

'Good. What about the way they're standing?'

'They're standing…I don't know. They're standing wrong somehow.'

'Wrong in what way?'

Harry had the same sinking feeling he'd had in Vigdis Albu's house. He saw Stine Grette sitting forward. As if to catch the robber's words. He was staring out of the holes of the balaclava and into the face of the person he was about to kill. What was he thinking? And what was she thinking? In this frozen moment in time, was she trying to discover who he was, this man under the balaclava?

'Wrong in what way?' Beate repeated.

'They…they…'

Gun in hand, finger on trigger. Everyone around turned to marble. She is opening her mouth. He can see her eyes over the sights. The barrel nudging her teeth.

'Wrong in what way?'

'They…they're too close.'

'Bravo, Harry!'

He opened his eyes. Amoeba-like specks sparkled and floated across his field of vision.

'Bravo?' he mumbled. 'What do you mean?'

'You've put words to what we've seen the whole time. You're absolutely correct, Harry. They're standing too close to each other.'

'Yes, I heard myself say that, but too close in relation to what?'

'In relation to how close two people who have never met should stand.'

'Eh?'

'Have you heard of Edward Hall?'

'Not exactly.'

'Anthropologist. He was the first to demonstrate the link between the distance people keep between each other and the relationship they have. It's fairly well documented.'

'Explain.'

'The social space between people who don't know each other is from one to three and a half metres. That's the distance you would keep if the situation allowed, but look at bus queues and toilets. In Tokyo people stand closer to each and feel comfortable, but variations from culture to culture are in fact relatively minor.'

'He can't whisper to her from more than a metre away, can he.'

'No, but he could easily have managed it within what is known as the personal space, which is from one metre to forty-five centimetres. That's the distance people keep with strangers and so-called acquaintances. But as you see, the Expeditor and Stine Grette break this boundary. I've measured the distance. It's twenty centimetres. That means they're well inside the intimate space. Then you're so close to the other person you can't keep the other person's face in focus or avoid their aroma and body heat. It's a space reserved for partners or close family.'

'Mm,' Harry said. 'I'm impressed by your knowledge, but these two people are involved in high drama.'

'Yes, but that's what's so fascinating!' Beate burst out, holding on to the arm of the chair so that she wouldn't take off. 'If they're not supposed to, people don't cross the boundaries that Edward Hall talks about. And the Expeditor and Stine Grette are not supposed to.'

Harry rubbed his chin. 'OK, let's follow that line of thought.'

'I think the Expeditor knew Stine Grette,' Beate said. 'Well.'

'Good, good.' Harry rested his face on his hands and spoke through his fingers. 'So Stine knew a professional bank robber who performs a perfect heist before shooting her. You know where this reasoning is taking us, don't you.'

Beate nodded. 'I'll see what we can find out about Stine Grette right away.'

'Great. And afterwards let's have a chat with someone who's frequently been inside her intimate space.'

A Wonderful Day

'This place gives me the creeps,' Beate said.

'They had a famous patient here called Arnold Juklerшd,' Harry said. 'He said this place was the brain of the sick beast known as psychiatry. So you didn't find anything about Stine Grette?'

'No. Unblemished record, and her bank accounts don't suggest financial irregularities. No shopping sprees in clothes shops or at restaurants. No payments to Bjerke trotting stadium or any other symptoms of gambling. The only extravagance I could turn up was a trip to Sгo Paulo this summer.'

'And her husband?'

'Exactly the same. Solid and sober.'

They passed under the gateway to Gaustad hospital and came into a square surrounded by large red-brick buildings.

'Reminiscent of a prison,' Beate said.

'Heinrich Schirmer,' Harry said. 'Nineteenth-century German architect. Also designed Botsen prison.'

A carer came to pick them up from reception. He had dyed black hair and looked as though he should be playing in a band or doing design work. Which, in fact, he did.

'Trond Grette has mostly been sitting and staring out of the window,' he said as they trotted down the corridor to section G2.

'Is he ready to speak?' Harry asked.

'Yes, he can talk alright…' The carer had paid six hundred kroner to have his black hair look unkempt, and now he was adjusting one of the tufts and blinking at Harry through a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses, which made him look like a nerd, in exactly the right way, that is, so that the cognoscenti could see he wasn't a nerd but hip.

'My colleague is wondering if Grette is well enough to talk about his wife,' Beate said.

'You'll find out,' said the carer and put the tuft of hair back in front of his glasses. 'If he gets psychotic again, he's not ready.'

Harry didn't ask how they could tell when a person was psychotic. They came to the end of the corridor and the carer unlocked a door with a circular window.

'Does he have to be locked in?' Beate asked, looking around the bright reception room.

'No,' the carer said, without giving any further explanation, and pointed to the back of a white dressing gown on a chair which had been pulled over to the window. 'I'm in the duty office on the left on your way out.'

They walked over to the man in the chair. He was staring out of the window and the only thing that stirred was his right hand, which was slowly moving a pen over a notepad, jerkily and mechanically like a robotic arm.

'Trond Grette?' Harry asked.

He didn't recognise the person who turned round. Grette had cut off all his hair, his face was leaner and the wild expression in his eyes from the evening on the tennis court was replaced by a calm, vacant thousand-metre stare which went right through them. Harry had seen it before. They looked like that after the first weeks behind bars when they started doing their penance. Harry knew instinctively this man was doing the same. He was doing penance.

'We're police,' Harry said.

Grette shifted his stare towards them.

'It's about the bank raid and your wife.'

Grette half-closed his eyes, as if he had to concentrate to understand what Harry was saying.

'We were wondering if we could ask you some questions,' Beate said in a loud voice.

Grette nodded slowly. Beate pulled a chair closer and sat down.

'Can you tell us about her?' she asked.

'Tell you?' His voice creaked like a badly oiled door.

'Yes,' Beate said with a gentle smile. 'We would like to know who Stine was. What she did. What she liked. What plans you had. That sort of thing.'

'That sort of thing?' Grette looked at Beate. Then he put down the pen. 'We were going to have children. That was the plan. Test-tube babies. She hoped for twins. Two plus two, she always said. Two plus two. We were just about to start. Right now.' Tears welled in his eyes.