Jo Nesbo - The Thirst

‘So that’s the genetic link your mother was talking about?’

‘Steffens says he still thinks it was a case of poisoning, and that this is a shot in the dark. But that most big discoveries are just that. Shots in the dark.’

‘He’s right about that. The disputation is at two o’clock. There’s a reception afterwards you can go to if you like, but I’ll probably skip that.’

‘I’m sure you will,’ Oleg smiled, and turned to Jesus. ‘Harry doesn’t like people, you see.’

‘I do like people,’ Harry said. ‘I just don’t like being with them. Particularly not when there’s a lot of them at the same time.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Speaking of which.’

‘Sorry I’m late, private tutorial,’ Harry said, slipping behind the bar.

Øystein groaned as he put two glasses of beer down on the counter, spilling them as he did so. ‘Harry, we’ve got to get more people in here.’

Harry peered at the crowd filling the bar. ‘I think there are too many already.’

‘I mean on this side of the counter, you idiot.’

‘The idiot was joking. Do you know anyone with good taste in music?’

‘Tresko.’

‘Who isn’t autistic.’

‘No.’ Øystein poured the next beer and gestured to Harry to take payment.

‘OK, let’s think about it. So Hallstein looked in?’ Harry pointed at the St. Pauli hat that had been pulled down over a glass next to the Galatasaray banner.

‘Yes, he said thanks for the loan. He had a few foreign journalists with him, to show them the place where it all began. He’s having one of those doctor’s things the day after tomorrow.’

‘Disputation.’ Harry handed the customer his card back and thanked him.

‘Yeah. There was another guy who came over to them – Smith introduced him to the others as a colleague from Crime Squad.’

‘Oh?’ Harry said, taking the next order from a man with a hipster beard and a Cage the Elephant T-shirt. ‘What did he look like?’

‘Teeth,’ Øystein said, pointing to his own row of brown pegs.

‘Not Truls Berntsen, surely?’

‘Don’t know his name, but I’ve seen him here several times. Usually sits in that booth over there. Usually comes on his own.’

‘Bound to be Truls Berntsen.’

‘The women are all over him.’

‘Can’t be Truls Berntsen.’

‘But he still goes home alone. Weird bloke.’

‘Because he doesn’t take a woman home?’

‘Would you trust someone who turns down free cunt?’

The bearded hipster raised an eyebrow. Harry shrugged, put the beers in front of him, went over to the mirror and pulled on the St. Pauli hat. He was about to turn round again when he froze. He stood and looked at himself in the mirror, at the skull on his forehead.

‘Harry?’

‘Mm.’

‘Can you give me a hand here? Two mojitos with Sprite Light.’

Harry nodded slowly. Then he took the hat off, went round the bar and hurried for the door.

‘Harry!’

‘Call Tresko.’

‘Yes?’

‘Sorry to call so late, I thought maybe the Forensic Medical Institute was closed for the night.’

‘We’re supposed to be closed, but this is just how it is when you work in a place with a systemic lack of capacity. And you’re calling on the internal number that only the police are supposed to use.’

‘Yes, this is Harry Hole, I’m an inspector at—’

‘I know it’s you, Harry. This is Paula, and you’re not an inspector anywhere.’

‘Oh, it’s you. OK, I’m working on the vampirist case, that’s why I’m calling. I want you to check those matches you got for the samples from the water pipe.’

‘I wasn’t the person who did them, but let me look. But I should tell you that, apart from Valentin Gjertsen, I don’t have the names of the DNA profiles in the vampirist case, just numbers.’

‘That’s OK, I’ve got lists of names and numbers from all the crime scenes in front of me, so go ahead.’

Harry ticked them off as Paula read off the DNA profiles that matched. The sheriff, the local officer, Hole, Smith, Holm and his colleague from Forensics. And finally the seventh person.

‘Still no match there, then?’ Harry said.

‘No.’

‘What about the rest of Hell’s house, was any other DNA found that matched Valentin’s profile?’

‘Let’s see … No, it doesn’t look like it.’

‘Nothing on the mattress, the body, nothing to connect—?’

‘Nope.’

‘OK, Paula. Thanks.’

‘Speaking of connections, did you ever find out what was going on with that strand of hair?’

‘Strand of hair?’

‘Yes, last autumn. Wyller brought me a strand of hair and said it was something you wanted to have analysed. He probably thought it would get rushed through if he dropped your name.’

‘And was it?’

‘Of course, Harry – you know all the girls here have a soft spot for you.’

‘Isn’t that the sort of thing you say to very old men?’

Paula laughed. ‘That’s what happens when you get married, Harry. Voluntary castration.’

‘Hm. I found that strand of hair on the floor of the room my wife was in at Ullevål Hospital, it was probably just paranoia.’

‘I see. I assumed it couldn’t have been important seeing as Wyller told me to forget it. Were you worried your wife had a lover?’

‘Not really. Not until you just planted the idea, anyway.’

‘You men are so naive.’

‘That’s how we survive.’

‘But you’re not, are you? We’re taking over the planet, if you hadn’t noticed.’

‘Well, you’re working in the middle of the night, and that’s bloody weird. Goodnight, Paula.’

‘Goodnight.’

‘Hang on, Paula. Forget what?’

‘What?’

‘What did Wyller tell you to forget?’

‘The connection.’

‘Between what?’

‘Between the strand of hair and one of the DNA profiles from the vampirist case.’

‘Really? Which one?’

‘I don’t know, like I said, we only have the numbers. We don’t even know if they’re suspects or police officers working at the scene.’

Harry said nothing for a few moments. ‘Have you got the number?’ he eventually asked.

‘Good evening,’ the older paramedic said as he came into the staffroom in A&E.

‘Good evening, Hansen,’ said the only other person in the room as he pumped black coffee from the flask into his cup.

‘Your police friend just called.’

Senior Consultant John Doyle Steffens turned round and raised an eyebrow. ‘Have I got friends in the police?’

‘He mentioned you, anyway. A Harry Hole.’

‘What did he want?’

‘He sent us a picture of a pool of blood and asked us to estimate how much it was. He said you’d done that based on a picture of a crime scene, and assumed that those of us who attend accidents are trained to do the same. I had to disappoint him.’

‘Interesting,’ Steffens said, and picked a hair off his shoulder. He didn’t regard his increasing hair loss as a sign that he was fading, but rather the reverse, that he was blossoming, mobilising, getting rid of things he had no use for. ‘Why didn’t he get in touch with me directly?’

‘Probably didn’t think a senior consultant would be working in the middle of the night. And it sounded urgent.’

‘I see. Did he say what it was about?’

‘Just something he was working on, he said.’

‘Have you got the picture?’

‘Here.’ The paramedic pulled out his phone and showed the doctor the message. Steffens glanced at the picture of a pool of blood on a wooden floor. There was a ruler beside the pool.

‘One and a half litres,’ Steffens said. ‘Fairly precisely. You can call and tell him.’ He took a sip of his coffee. ‘A lecturer working in the middle of the night, what is the world coming to?’