Jo Nesbo - Nemesis

A chalet fire in Tryvann had also found space in a tiny paragraph because an empty petrol canister had been found close to the scene of the totally destroyed house, and therefore police could not rule out the possibility of arson. What didn't appear in print were attempts by journalists to contact Birger Gunnerud to ask him how it felt to lose his son and chalet in the same night.

It got dark early and by three o' clock streetlights were already on.

A freeze-frame of the Grensen robbery quivered on the screen in the House of Pain when Harry walked in.

'Got anywhere?' he asked with a nod to the picture showing the Expeditor in full swing.

Beate shook her head. 'We're waiting.'

'For him to strike again?'

'He's sitting somewhere and planning another hold-up right now. It'll be some time next week, I reckon.'

'You seem sure.'

She shrugged. 'Experience.'

'Yours?'

She smiled but didn't answer.

Harry sat down. 'Hope you weren't put out that I didn't do what I said on the phone.'

She frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'I said I wasn't going to search his flat until today.'

Harry studied her. She looked totally, and genuinely, perplexed. Well, Harry didn't work for the Secret Service. He was about to speak, but then changed his mind. Instead Beate said: 'There's something I have to ask you, Harry.'

'Shoot.'

'Did you know about Raskol and my father?'

'What about them?'

'That Raskol was…in the bank that time. He shot my father.'

Harry lowered his gaze. Examined his hands. 'No,' he said. 'I didn't.'

'But you had guessed?'

He raised his head and met Beate's eyes. 'The thought had occurred to me. That's all.'

'What made you think it?'

'Penance.'

'Penance?'

Harry took a deep breath. 'Sometimes a crime is so monstrous it clouds your vision. Externally or internally.'

'What do you mean?'

'Everyone has a need to do penance, Beate. You, too. God knows I do. And Raskol does. It's a basic need, like washing. It's about harmony, an absolutely essential inner balance. It's the balance we call morality.'

Harry saw Beate blanch. Then blush. She opened her mouth.

'No one knows why Raskol gave himself up,' Harry said. 'I'm convinced, though, that it was in order to do penance. For someone whose only freedom is the freedom to wander, prison is the ultimate self-punishment. Taking a life is different from taking money. Suppose he had committed a crime that caused him to lose his balance. So he chooses to do secret penance, for himself and God-if he has one.'

Beate finally stammered out the words: 'A…moral…murderer?'

Harry waited. But nothing was forthcoming.

'A moral person is someone who accepts the consequences of their own morality,' he said softly. 'Not those of others.'

'And what if I strapped this on?' Beate said bitterly, opening the drawer in front of her and taking out a shoulder holster. 'What if I locked myself in one of the visitors' rooms with Raskol and said afterwards he attacked me and I shot in self-defence? To avenge my father the same way you deal with vermin. Is that moral enough for you?' She slammed the shoulder holster on the table.

Harry leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes until he heard her accelerated breathing calm down. 'The question is what is moral enough for you, Beate. I don't know why you have your gun with you, and I have no intention of preventing you from doing whatever you want.'

He stood up. 'Make your father proud, Beate.'

As he grabbed the door handle he heard Beate sobbing. He turned.

'You don't understand!' she sobbed. 'I thought I could…I thought it was a kind of…a score to settle.'

Harry remained motionless. Then he pushed a chair close to her, sat down and placed a hand against her cheek. Her tears were hot and rolled over his rough hand as she spoke. 'You join the police because you have some idea that there has to be order, a balance to things, don't you. A reckoning, justice and all that. And then one day you have the chance you have always dreamed of, to even the scores. Only to find out that's not what you want after all.' She sniffled. 'My mother once said there's only one thing worse than not satisfying a desire. And that is not to feel any desire. Hatred-it's sort of all you have left when you've lost everything else. And then it's taken from you.'

She swept the shoulder holster off the table with her arm. It thudded against the wall.

It was pitch black as Harry stood in Sofies gate searching a more familiar jacket pocket for his keys. One of the first things he had done that morning at Police HQ had been to collect his clothes from Krimteknisk, where they had been taken from Vigdis Albu's house. But the very first thing had been to make an appearance in Bjarne Mшller's office. The Head of Crime Squad had said that as far as Harry was concerned almost everything looked fine, but they would have to wait to see if anyone reported a break-in at Harelabben 16. Over the course of the day consideration would be given to whether there would be any response to Harry's withholding of information regarding his presence in Anna Bethsen's flat on the night of the murder. Harry replied that, in the event of an investigation into the case, he would be obliged to mention the free rein the Chief Superintendent and Mшller had given him in the search for the Expeditor, plus their sanctioning of a trip to Brazil without informing the Brazilian police.

Bjarne Mшller had grinned wryly and said he assumed they would conclude that no investigation was necessary, or indeed any response.

The entrance hall was quiet. Harry tore down the police tape in front of the door of his flat. A piece of chipboard had been fitted over the broken pane.

He stood surveying the sitting room. Weber explained that they had taken photographs of the flat before they started the search so that everything could be put back properly. Nevertheless, he couldn't escape the knowledge that alien hands and eyes had been there. It wasn't that there was so much to hide-some passionate but dated love letters, an open pack of condoms well past their sell-by date and an envelope containing photographs of Ellen Gjelten's dead body. Having them at home might possibly be considered as perverted. Apart from that: one pornographic magazine, one Bonnie Tyler record and a book by Linn Ullmann.

Harry regarded the flashing red light on the answer machine for a long time before pressing. The familiar voice of a boy filled the estranged room. 'Hi, this is us. They decided today. Mummy is crying, so she told me to say…'

Harry steeled himself and breathed in.

'We're leaving tomorrow.'

Harry held his breath. Had he heard correctly? We're leaving?

'We won. You should have seen their faces. Mummy said everyone thought we would lose. Mummy, do you want…no, she's just crying. Now we're going to McDonald's to celebrate. Mummy says, will you pick us up? Bye.'

He heard Oleg breathing into the phone and someone blowing their nose and laughing in the background. Then Oleg's voice again, quieter: 'Great if you would, Harry.'

Harry slumped into the chair. A lump grew in his throat and the tears flowed.

There wasn't a cloud in the sky, but the wind was bitingly cold and the pale sun didn't give much warmth. Harry and Aune had turned up the collars of their jackets and walked next to each other down the avenue of birch trees, which had already divested themselves of their leaves for winter.

'I told my wife how happy you sounded when you told me Rakel and Oleg were coming back home,' Aune said. 'She asked if that meant you three would soon live together.'

Harry answered with a smile.

'At least she has enough room in that house of hers,' Aune prodded.