Jo Nesbo - Nemesis

Harry was not sure, but he seemed to detect the minutest of twitches in the gypsy's gentle, though cold, martyr's mask. Raskol lowered his head and placed his palms against his temples.

'I received an e-mail from the murderer,' Harry said. 'Turns out he was manipulating me from day one.' He ran a hand up and down the criss-cross pattern of the duvet as he summarised what the e-mail said. And followed up with a prйcis of the day's events.

Raskol sat motionless, listening until Harry had finished. Afterwards he raised his head. 'That means there is innocent blood on your hands, too, Spiuni.'

Harry nodded.

'Now you're here to tell me I was the one who stained your hands. And therefore I owe you a debt.'

Harry didn't answer.

'I agree,' Raskol said. 'Tell me what I owe.'

Harry stopped stroking the duvet. 'Three things. First of all, I need a place to hide until I've got to the bottom of this business.'

Raskol nodded.

'Secondly, I need the key to Anna's flat to check a couple of things.'

'I've already given it back.'

'Not the key with AA on, that's in a drawer in my place, and I can't go there now. And thirdly…'

Harry paused and Raskol scrutinised his face with curiosity.

'If I hear Rakel say anyone has so much as looked askance at them, I will give myself up, put all my cards on the table and finger you as the man behind Arne Albu's murder.'

Raskol gave him an indulgent, friendly smile. As if, on Harry's behalf, he regretted one thing they were both absolutely clear on-the fact that no one would ever succeed in finding any link whatsoever between Raskol and the murder. 'You don't need to worry about Rakel and Oleg, Spiuni. My contact was instructed to call off his artisans the moment we had dealt with Albu. You should be more concerned about the outcome of the trial. My contact says the prospects don't look too rosy. I understand the father's family has certain connections?'

Harry hunched his shoulders.

Raskol pulled out the desk drawer, took the shiny Trioving system key and gave it to Harry. 'Go to the metro station in Grшnland. Go down the first set of stairs and you'll see a woman sitting behind a window by the toilets. You need five kroner to get in. Tell her Harry has arrived, go into the Gents and lock yourself in one of the cubicles. When you hear someone come in whistling "Waltzing Matilda" it means your transport is ready. Good luck, Spiuni.'

The rain was hammering down so hard there was a fine shower rebounding off the tarmac, and if anyone had taken the time, they would have seen small rainbows in the streetlamps at the bottom of the narrow one-way section of Sofies gate. However, Bjarne Mшller didn't have time. He got out of the car, raised his coat over his head and ran across the street to the front door where Ivarsson, Weber and a man, apparently of Pakistani origin, stood waiting for him.

Mшller shook hands and the dark-skinned man introduced himself as Ali Niazi, Harry's neighbour.

'Waaler will be here as soon as he has cleared up in Slemdal,' Mшller said. 'What have you found?'

'Quite sensational things, I'm afraid,' Ivarsson said. 'The most important thing now is to work out how we're going to tell the press that one of our own police officers-'

'Whoa there,' Mшller rumbled. 'Not so fast. How about a debriefing?'

Ivarsson smiled thinly. 'Come with me.'

The Head of the Robberies Unit led the other three through a low door and down a crooked staircase into the cellar. Mшller contorted his long, thin body as well as he could to avoid touching the ceiling or walls. He didn't like cellars.

Ivarsson's voice was a dull echo between the brick walls. 'As you know, Beate Lшnn received a number of forwarded e-mails from Hole. He maintains he was sent them by a person who confessed to murdering Anna Bethsen. I've been to Police HQ and I read the e-mails an hour ago. To put it bluntly, they are for the most part confused, incomprehensible gibberish. But they do contain information which the writer could not have possessed without intimate knowledge of what went on the night Anna Bethsen died. Even though the information puts Hole in the flat that evening, it also apparently gives him an alibi.'

'Apparently?' Mшller ducked underneath another door frame. Inside, the ceiling was even lower, and he walked bent double while trying not to think that above him were four floors of building materials held together by centuries old wattle and daub. 'What do you mean, Ivarsson? Didn't you say the e-mails contained a confession?'

'First of all, we searched Hole's flat,' Ivarsson said. 'We switched on his computer and opened the mailbox and found all the e-mails he had received. Just as he had made out to Beate Lшnn. In other words, an apparent alibi.'

'I heard that,' Mшller said with obvious irritation. 'Can we get to the point quickly?'

'The point is, of course, the person who sent these e-mails to Harry's computer.'

Mшller heard voices.

'It's round that corner,' the man who introduced himself as Harry's neighbour said.

They came to a halt in front of a storeroom. Two men were crouching behind the wire mesh. One shone a torch on the back of a laptop while reading out a number, which the other noted down. Mшller saw two electric cables running from the wall socket, one to the laptop and the other to a scratched Nokia mobile phone, which in turn was connected to the laptop.

Mшller straightened up as far as he was able. 'And what does that prove?'

Ivarsson placed a hand on the shoulder of Harry's neighbour. 'Ali says he was in the cellar a few days after Anna Bethsen was killed, and that was the first time he had seen this laptop with attached mobile phone in Harry's storeroom. We've already checked the phone.'

'And?'

'It's Hole's. Now we're trying to find out who bought the laptop. We've checked the sent items, anyway.'

Mшller closed his eyes. His back was aching already.

'And there they are.' Ivarsson shook his head in vindication. 'All the e-mails Harry's trying to make us believe some mysterious murderer has sent him.'

'Hm,' Mшller said. 'That doesn't look good.'

'Weber found the real proof in the flat.'

Mшller looked at Weber for guidance, who, with a grim expression on his face, held up a small transparent plastic bag.

'A key?' Mшller said. 'Bearing the initials AA?'

'Found in the drawer of the telephone table,' Weber said. 'It matches the key to Anna Bethsen's flat.'

Mшller stared blankly at Weber. The harsh light from the naked bulb gave their faces the same deathly pale colour as the whitewashed walls and Mшller had the feeling he was in a burial vault. 'I have to get out,' he murmured.

Spiuni Gjerman

Harry opened his eyes and looked up into a smiling girl's face and felt the first sledgehammer blow.

He closed his eyes again, but neither the girl's laughter nor the headache disappeared.

He tried to reconstruct the night.

Raskol, the toilet in the metro station, a squat man in a worn Armani suit whistling, an outstretched hand with gold rings, black hairs and a long pointed nail on the little finger. 'Hi, Harry, I'm your friend Simon.' And in sharp contrast to the shabby suit: a shiny new Mercedes with a chauffeur who looked like Simon's brother with the same cheery, brown eyes and the same hairy, gold-bedecked handshake.

The two men in the front of the car had chatted away in a blend of Norwegian and Swedish with the curious intonation of circus people, knife-sellers, preachers and dance-band vocalists. But they hadn't said much. 'How are you, my friend?' 'Terrible weather, eh?' 'Smart clothes, my friend. Shall we swap?' Hearty laughter and flicking of a cigarette lighter. Did Harry smoke? Russian cigarettes. Take one, please, a bit rough maybe, but 'good in their way, you know'. More laughter. No one had mentioned Raskol's name or where they were going.