Jo Nesbo - The Redbreast

'It's good to see you immersed in cases, but don't wall yourself in here. Will I see you at the party, Harry?'

Enter.

'I'll see. I have another arrangement I made a long time ago,' Harry lied.

No hits again. While he was in the Central National Register he might as well put in the third name Fauke had given him. H-a-l-l-g-r-i-m D-a-l-e. An opportunist, in Fauke's view. Relied on Hitler winning the war and rewarding those who had chosen the right side. Had already regretted it by the time he got to Sennheim, but it was too late to turn back. Harry had thought there was something vaguely familiar about the name when Fauke had said it, and now the same feeling resurfaced.

'Let me put it a little stronger,' Meirik said. 'I am instructing you to come.'

Harry looked up. Meirik smiled.

'A joke,' he said. 'But it would be nice to see you there. Have a good evening.'

'Bye,' Harry mumbled, returning to the screen. One Hallgrim Dale. Born 1922. enter.

The screen filled with text. One more page. And then another.

They didn't all do well after the war then, Harry thought. Hallgrim Dale-place of residence: Schweigaards gate, Oslo-was what newspapers loved to describe as 'no stranger to the police'. Harry's eyes ran down the list. Vagrancy, drunkenness, harassment of neighbour, petty larceny, affray. A lot, but nothing of any real consequence. The most impressive thing was that he was still alive, Harry thought, as he noted down that he had been taken in to sober up as recently as last August. He found the Oslo telephone directory, looked up Dale's number and rang. While he was waiting for an answer he searched the register and found the other Edvard Mosken, born in 1942. He had an address in Drammen, too. He took down the ID number and went back to Criminal Records.

'This is a message from Telenor. You have reached a telephone number which is no longer in use. This is a me-'

Harry wasn't surprised. He put down the phone.

Edvard Mosken Junior had been given a prison sentence. A long sentence; he was still inside. What for? Drugs, Harry guessed, and pressed enter. A third of all prisoners had been on a drugs charge. There. Yes indeed. Smuggling hash. Four kilos. Four years, unconditional sentence.

Harry yawned and stretched. Was he getting anywhere or was he just sitting here wasting time because the only other place he felt like going was Schroder's, and he didn't feel like sitting there drinking coffee? What a shit day. He summed up: Gudbrand Johansen doesn't exist, at least not in Norway; Edvard Mosken lives in Drammen and has a son with a drugs conviction; and Hallgrim Dale is a drunk and hardly the type to have half a million kroner to blow. Harry rubbed his eyes.

Should he look up Fauke in the telephone directory to see if there was a number for Homenkollveien? He groaned.

She has a partner. And she has money. And class. In short: everything you don't have.

He put Hallgrim Dale's ID number into the Register, enter. The machine whirred and churned.

Long list. More of the same. Poor old alkie.

You both studied law. And she likes the Raga Rockers, too.

Wait a moment. On the last record, Dale was coded as 'victim'. Had he been beaten up? enter.

Forget her. That's it, now she was forgotten. Should he ring Ellen and ask if she fancied going to the cinema? Let her choose the film. No, he'd better go to Focus. Sweat it out.

It flashed at him from the screen. hallgrim dale. 151199. murder.

Harry took a deep breath. He was surprised, but why wasn't he more surprised? He double-clicked on details. The computer droned and vibrated. But for once the convolutions of his brain were quicker than the computer, and by the time the picture came up he had already managed to place the name.

Focus Gym. 3 March 2000.

'Ellen here.'

'Hi, it's me.'

'Who?'

'Harry. And don't pretend there are other men who ring you and say "it's me".'

'You sod. Where are you? What's that dreadful music?'

'I'm at Focus.'

'What?'

'I'm cycling. Soon have done eight kilometres.'

'Let me just get this absolutely straight, Harry: you're sitting on a bike at Focus at the same time as talking on your mobile?' She stressed the words 'Focus' and 'mobile'.

'Is there anything wrong with that?'

'Honestly, Harry'

'I've been trying to get hold of you all evening. Do you remember that murder case you and Tom Waaler had in November, name of Hallgrim Dale?'

'Naturally. Kripos took over almost immediately. Why's that?'

'Not sure yet. It may have something to do with this ex-front man I'm after. What can you tell me?'

'This is work, Harry. Ring me at the office on Monday.’

‘Just a little, Ellen. Come on.'

'One of the cooks in Herbert's Pizza found Dale in the back alley. He was lying between the large rubbish bins with his throat cut. The crime scene people found nada. The doctor who did the autopsy, by the way, thought that the cut around the throat was just fantastic. Surgical precision, he said.'

'Who do you think did it?'

'No idea. Might have been one of the neo-Nazis of course, but I don't think so.’

‘Why not?'

'If you kill someone right on your doorstep, you're either foolhardy or just plain foolish. But everything about this murder seems so tidy, so thought through. There were no signs of a struggle, no clues, no witnesses. Everything suggests that the murderer knew exactly what he was doing.'

'Motive?'

'Hard to say. Dale certainly had debts, but hardly amounts worth squeezing out of him. As far as we know, he didn't do drugs. We searched his flat-nothing there, apart from empty bottles. We talked to some of his drinking pals. For some reason or other he had taken up with these drinking ladies.'

'Drinking ladies?'

'Yes, the ones who stick to the soaks. You've seen them, you know what I mean.'

'Yes indeed, but… drinking ladies!

'You always get hung up on the craziest things, Harry, and it can be very irritating. Do you know that? Perhaps you should -'

'Sorry, Ellen. You're forever right and I'll do my best to improve. You were saying?'

'There's a lot of partner-swapping in alkie circles, so we can't rule out a jealousy killing. Incidentally, do you know who we had in for questioning? Your old friend Sverre Olsen. The cook had seen him at Herbert's Pizza around the time of the murder.'

'And?'

Alibi. He'd been sitting there all day, had only been out for ten minutes to buy something. The shop assistant confirmed.’

‘He could have -'

'Yes, you would have liked it to be him, but Harry…’

‘Dale might have had something other than money’

‘Harry…'

'He might have had information. About someone.’

‘You like conspiracy theories up there on the sixth floor, don't you? But can't we deal with this on Monday, Harry?'

'Since when have you been so particular about working hours?'

'I'm in bed.'

At half past ten?'

'I'm not on my own.'

Harry stopped pedalling. It hadn't occurred to him until now that people around him might be listening to the conversation. He swivelled round. Luckily there were only a handful of people training at this late hour.

'Is that the artist guy from Torst?' he whispered. 'Mm.'

And how long have you two been bed pals?' A while.'

"Why didn't you tell me?'

'You didn't ask.'

'Is he lying next to you now?'

'Mm.'

'Is he good?’

‘Mm.'

'Has he told you he loves you yet?'

'Mm.'

Pause.

'Do you think about Freddie Mercury when you-'

'Goodnight, Harry.'

Harry's Office. 6 March 2000.

The clock in reception showed 8.30 as Harry arrived at work. It wasn't much of a reception area, more an entrance which functioned as a funnel. The funnel boss was Linda, who looked up from her computer and greeted him with a cheery 'Good morning'. Linda had been in POT longer than anyone and, strictly speaking, she was the only person in security Harry needed to have any contact with in order to carry out his daily work. Apart from being the 'funnel boss', the tiny fast-talking woman of fifty functioned as a kind of communal secretary, receptionist and general factotum. It had occurred to Harry a couple of times that if he were a spy for a foreign power and had to tap someone in POT for information, he would choose Linda. Furthermore, she was the only person in POT, apart from Meirik, who knew what Harry was doing there. He had no idea what the others thought. During his extremely rare visits to the canteen to buy a yoghurt or cigarettes (which they didn't sell, it turned out) he had caught the looks from the tables. He hadn't tried to interpret them, however; he had merely scuttled back to his office.