Jo Nesbo - Nemesis

The boy frowned. 'No, I remember quite clearly that you showed ID and I checked the name. Whose key was it you think you collected?'

In the reflection in the glass door behind the counter Harry saw the same police car passing in the opposite direction.

'Forget it. Is there any other way of getting a copy?'

'No. Trioving, who grind these keys, only receive orders from authorised dealers like ourselves. And, as I said, we check the documentation and keep an eye on keys ordered for all shared property and housing co-ops. The system should be pretty secure.'

'It sounds it, yes.' Harry rubbed his face with his hand in irritation. 'I rang some time back and was told a woman living in Sorgenfrigata had received three keys for her flat. One we found in her flat, the second she gave to the electrician who was supposed to be fixing something and the third we found somewhere else. The thing is, I don't believe she ordered the third key. Can you check that for me?'

The boy shrugged. 'Certainly I can, but why not ask her yourself?'

'Someone shot her through the head.'

'Ooops,' the boy said, without batting an eyelid.

Harry stood stock-still. He could sense something. The slightest of shivers. A draught from the door maybe? Enough to raise the hairs on the back of your neck. The sound of a tentative clearing of the throat. He hadn't heard anyone come in. Without turning, he tried to see who it was, but from that angle it was impossible.

'Police,' said a loud, high-pitched voice behind him. Harry swallowed hard.

'Yes?' said the boy, looking over Harry's shoulder.

'They're outside,' the voice said. 'They say the old lady down at number 14 has had a break-in. She needs a new lock right away, so they were wondering if we could send someone pronto.'

'Well, you can go with them, Alf. I'm caught up, as you can see.'

Harry listened intently until the footsteps had distanced themselves. 'Anna Bethsen.' He heard himself whispering. 'Can you check if she personally collected all the keys?'

'I don't need to. She must have done.'

Harry leaned over the counter. 'Can you check it anyway?'

The boy gave a deep sigh and disappeared into the back room. He returned with a file and flicked through. 'See for yourself,' he said. 'There, there and there.'

Harry recognised the delivery forms. They were identical to the ones he had signed himself when he came for Anna's key. But all the forms were signed by Anna. He was about to ask where the form with his own signature was when his eyes fell on the dates.

'It says here the last key was collected back in August,' he said. 'But that's a long time before I was here and…'

'Yes?'

Harry stared up into the air. 'Thank you,' he said. 'I've found what I needed.'

Outside, the wind had picked up. Harry rang from one of the telephone boxes in Valkyrie plass.

'Beate?'

Two seagulls headed into the wind above the tower of the Seamen's School and hovered there. Beneath the gulls lay Oslo fjord, which had gone an ominous green-black hue, and Ekeberg, where the two people on the bench were tiny dots.

Harry had finished talking about Anna Bethsen. About the time they met. About the last evening, some of which he recalled. About Raskol. Beate had finished telling him they had managed to trace the laptop. It had been bought three months ago from the Expert shop by the Colosseum cinema. The guarantee had been made out to Anna Bethsen. And the mobile phone connected to it was the one Harry maintained he had lost.

'I hate the scream of gulls,' Harry said.

'Is that all you've got to say?'

'At this very moment-yes.'

Beate stood up from the bench. 'I shouldn't be here, Harry. You shouldn't have rung me.'

'But you are here.' Harry gave up trying to light his cigarette in the wind. 'It means you believe me. Doesn't it?'

Beate's response was to fling out her arms angrily.

'I don't know any more than you do,' Harry said. 'Not even for certain that I didn't shoot Anna.'

The gulls peeled off and performed an elegant roll in the surge of wind.

'Tell me what you know one more time,' Beate said.

'I know this guy has somehow obtained keys to Anna's flat so he got in and out on the night of the murder. When he left, he took Anna's laptop with him and my mobile phone.'

'What was your mobile phone doing in Anna's flat?'

'It must have fallen out of my jacket pocket during the evening. I was a bit animated, as I told you.'

'And then?'

'His original plan was simple. Drive to Larkollen after the murder and plant the key he'd used in Arne Albu's chalet. Attached to a keyring with the initials AA so that no one would be in any doubt. When he found my mobile phone, though, he suddenly realised he could tweak the plan a bit. Make it look like I had first of all murdered Anna and then rigged it so the blame fell on Albu. Then he used my mobile phone to connect to a server in Egypt and started sending me e-mails in such a way that it was impossible to trace the sender.'

'And if he were traced, it would lead to…'

'Me. However, I wouldn't have discovered anything was wrong until I received the next bill from Telenor. Probably not even then, since I don't read them that carefully.'

'Or stop your subscription when you lose your phone.'

'Mm.' Harry jumped up from the bench and began to pace to and fro. 'What's more difficult to understand is how he got into my cellar storeroom. You didn't find any signs of a break-in and no one in our block would have admitted an intruder. In other words, he must have had a key. In fact, all he would need is one key since we use one system key to fit the main door, loft, cellar and flat, but it's not easy to get hold of one. And the key to Anna's flat was also a system key…'

Harry stopped and looked south. A green freighter with two large cranes was on its way up the fjord.

'What are you wondering?' Beate asked.

'I'm wondering whether to ask you to run a check on some names for me.'

'I'd rather not, Harry. I shouldn't even be here, as I said.'

'And I'm wondering where you got the bruises from.'

Her hand went straight to her throat. 'Training. Judo. Anything else you were wondering?'

'Yes, I was wondering if you could give this to Weber.' Harry pulled out the glass wrapped in a cloth from his jacket pocket. 'Ask him to check it for fingerprints and compare them with mine.'

'Has he got yours?'

'Forensics has the fingerprints of all Crime Scene officers. And ask him to analyse what was in the glass.'

'Harry…' she began in an admonitory tone.

'Please?'

Beate sighed and took the bundle.

'Lеsesmeden AS,' Harry said.

'And what do you mean by that?'

'If you change your mind about checking names, you can run through the staff list at Lеsesmeden. It's a small company of locksmiths.'

She put on a resigned expression.

Harry shrugged. 'If you give Weber the glass, I'm more than happy.'

'Where do I contact you when Weber has the results?'

'Do you really want to know?' Harry smiled.

'I want to know as little as possible. You contact me, OK?'

Harry pulled his jacket tighter around him. 'Shall we go?'

Beate nodded, but didn't move. Harry raised his eyebrows.

'What he wrote,' she said. 'The bit about only the most vengeful surviving. Do you think it's true, Harry?'

Harry stretched out his legs in the short bed in the caravan. The noise of the cars in Finnmarkgata reminded Harry of his childhood in Oppsal, lying in bed and listening to the traffic. When they were with Grandpa in the silence of Еndalsnes in the summer it was the only thing he longed for: to return to the regular, soporific drone of cars, only broken by a motorbike, a noisy exhaust or a distant police siren.