Jo Nesbo - The Redbreast

'There was a bit more buzz at the Raga gig at the Law Festival, don't you think?'

He felt his heart race as he heard her dark voice beside him.

Tom had positioned himself beside Ellen's chair in her office.

'Sorry if I was a bit rough in the car in town.'

She hadn't heard him coming and gave a start. She was holding the receiver, but hadn't yet dialled the number.

'Don't worry,' she said. 'It's me who is a little, well… you know.'

'Premenstrual?'

She peered up at him and knew it was not a joke. He was actually trying to be understanding.

'Maybe,' she said. Why was he in her office now when he had never come in before?

'Shift's over, Gjelten.' He inclined his head towards the clock on the wall. It said 10.00. 'I've got the car here. Let me drive you home.’

‘Thank you very much, but I have to make a call first. You go on.’

‘Private call?’

‘No, it's just…'

'Then I'll wait here.'

Waaler settled into Harry's old office chair, which screamed in protest. Their eyes met. Damn! Why hadn't she said it was a private call? Now it was too late. Did he know that she had stumbled on to something? She tried to read his expression, but she seemed to have lost the ability since the panic had seized her. Panic? Now she knew why she had never felt comfortable with Tom Waaler. It wasn't because of his coldness, his views on women, blacks, flashers and homosexuals or his tendency to grab every legal opportunity to use violence. Off the top of her head, she could list the names of ten other policemen who would run Tom Waaler close on such matters, but still she had been able to find some positives about them which allowed her to get on with them. With Tom Waaler, though, there was something else and now she knew what it was: she was scared of him.

'Well,' she said. 'It can wait until Monday.'

'Fine.' He stood up again. 'Let's get going.'

Waaler had one of those Japanese sports cars which Ellen thought looked like cheap Ferrari imitations. It had bucket seats which scrunched your shoulders up and loudspeakers that seemed to fill half the car. The engine purred affectionately and the light from the street lamps swept through the compartment as they drove up Trondheims-veien. A falsetto voice she was becoming familiar with sidled out of the loudspeakers.

Prince. The Prince.

'I can get out here,' Ellen said, trying to make her voice sound natural. 'Out of the question,' Waaler said, looking in the mirror. 'Door-to-door service. Where are we going?'

She resisted the impulse to tear open the door and jump out. 'Turn left here,' Ellen said, pointing. Be at home, Harry.

'Jens Bjelkes gate,' Waaler read out the street sign on the wall and turned.

The lighting here was frugal and the pavements deserted. Out of the corner of her eye Ellen saw small squares of light flit across his face.

Did he know she knew? And could he see she was sitting with her hand in her bag? Did he realise she was clutching the black gas spray she had bought in Germany? She had shown it to him in the autumn when he had insisted she was putting herself and her colleagues at risk by refusing to carry a weapon. Hadn't he discreedy intimated that he could get hold of a neat little gun which could be hidden anywhere on the body? It wasn't registered and therefore couldn't be traced back to her, should there be an 'accident'. She hadn't taken his words so seriously at that time; she had thought it was one of those semi-macabre macho jokes and laughed it off.

'Stop next to the red car there.'

'But number 4 is in the next block,' he said.

Had she told him she lived at number 4? Possibly. She might have forgotten. She felt transparent, like a jellyfish, as if he could see her heart thumping away much too fast.

The engine purred in neutral. He had stopped. She hunted feverishly for the door handle. Bloody Japanese nerds! Why couldn't they just design a plain, easy-to-recognise handle for the door?

'See you Monday,' she heard Waaler's voice say behind her as she found the handle, stumbled out and inhaled the toxic March Oslo air as if coming to the surface after a long time under water. When she slammed her heavy front door she could still hear the smooth, well-lubricated sound of Waaler's car idling outside.

She charged up the stairs, her boots stamping down hard on every step, holding the keys in front of her like a divining rod. Then she was in her flat. As she dialled Harry's number she memorised Sverre Olsen's message word for word.

This is Sverre Olsen. I'm still waiting for the ten big ones as commission for the shooter for the old guy. Ring me at home.

Then he rang off.

It had taken her a nanosecond to realise the connection. The fifth clue to the puzzle about who the middleman was in the Marklin deal. A policeman. Tom Waaler. Of course. Ten thousand in commission to a nobody like Olsen-that had to be a big job. The old man. Arms freaks. Sympathies with the extreme right. The Prince who would soon be a chief inspector. It was crystal clear, so self-evident that for a moment she had been shocked that she, with her ability to register sub-tones inaudible to others, had not realised it before. She knew paranoia had had her in its grip for some time, but still she hadn't managed to refrain from thinking the thought through to the end as she waited for him to come out of the restaurant: Tom Waaler had every possibility of climbing higher, of pulling strings from ever-more important positions, sheltering beneath the wings of power. Who knows what alliances he had already struck and with whom at Police HQ. If she put her mind to it, there were of course several people she could never imagine becoming involved. But the only person she could count on too-one hundred-per cent was Harry.

Got through. It wasn't engaged. It was never engaged at his place. Come on, Harry!

She also knew it was only a question of time before Waaler would talk to Olsen and find out what had happened, and she didn't doubt for a second that her life would be in jeopardy from that moment on. She would have to act fast, but she couldn't afford to make a single mistake. A voice interrupted her reasoning.

'This is Hole. Speak to me.'

Bleep.

'Sod you, Harry! This is Ellen. We've got him now. I'll ring you on your mobile.'

She held the receiver between shoulder and chin as she flicked through the index of numbers for H, dropped the book on to the floor with a bang, swore and finally found Harry's mobile number. Fortunately he always had his mobile on him.

Ellen Gjelten lived on the second floor of a recently renovated block of flats together with a tame great tit called Helge. The walls of the flat were half a metre thick and the windows were double-glazed. Nevertheless, she could have sworn that she heard the purring sound of a car in neutral.

Rakel Fauke laughed.

'If you've promised Linda a dance, you won't get away with a quick sweep of the floor.'

'Mm. The alternative is to make a run for it.'

A pause ensued and Harry realised that what he had said was open to misinterpretation. He hurriedly filled the silence with a question.

'How did you start at POT?'

'Via Russian,' she said. 'I joined the Ministry of Defence Russian course and worked for two years as an interpreter in Moscow. Kurt Meirik recruited me then and there. After finishing my law degree I went straight into pay grade thirty-five. I thought I'd caught the goose that laid the golden egg.'

'Hadn't you?'

Are you kidding? Today the students I studied with earn three times more than I'll ever get.'

'You could stop, and do what they do.'

She arched her shoulders forward. 'I like what I do. Not all of them can say the same.’

‘Good point.' Silence.

Good point. Was that really the best he could muster?