Jo Nesbo - The Thirst

‘That’s all,’ Tord Gren said.

‘Just one more question from a rookie,’ Wyller said. ‘How did you get into the phone? Fingerprints from the body?’

Tord glanced up at Wyller, then looked away and shook his head.

‘How, then? Older iPhones have four-digit codes. That means 10,000 different—’

‘Microscope,’ Tord interrupted, typing something on his tablet

Katrine was familiar with Tord’s method, but she waited. Tord Gren hadn’t trained to become a police officer. He hadn’t trained to become much at all, really. A few years in information technology in Denmark, but no qualifications. Even so, he had soon been pulled out of Police HQ’s IT department and given a job as an analyst, with a particular focus on anything relating to technological evidence. Purely because he was so much better than everyone else.

‘Even the toughest glass acquires microscopic indentations where it’s touched most often by someone’s fingertips,’ Tord said. ‘I just have to find out where on the screen the deepest indentations are, and that’s the code. Well, the four digits give twenty-four possible combinations.’

‘The phone locks after three failed attempts, though,’ Anders said. ‘So you’d have to be lucky …’

‘I got the right code on the second attempt,’ Tord said with a smile, but Katrine couldn’t tell if he was smiling because of what he’d just said or something on his tablet.

‘Bloody hell,’ Skarre said. ‘Talk about luck.’

‘On the contrary, I was unlucky not to get it on my first attempt. When the number contains the numerals 1 and 9, as in this instance, that usually means a year, and then there are only two possible combinations.’

‘Enough of that,’ Katrine said. ‘We’ve spoken to Elise’s sister, and she says she hadn’t had a regular boyfriend for years. And that she probably didn’t want one either.’

‘Tinder,’ Wyller said.

‘Sorry?’

‘Did she have the Tinder app on her phone?’

‘Yes,’ Tord said.

‘The guys who saw Elise in the archway said she looked a bit dressed up. So she wasn’t coming home from the gym, or work, and presumably not from seeing a female friend. And if she didn’t want a boyfriend.’

‘Good,’ Katrine said. ‘Tord?’

‘We did check the app, and there were plenty of matches, to put it mildly. But Tinder is linked to Facebook, so we can’t yet access any further information about people she may have had contact with on there.’

‘Tinder people meet in bars,’ a voice said.

Katrine looked up in surprise. It was Truls Berntsen.

‘If she had her phone with her, it’s just a matter of checking the base stations, then going round the bars in the areas she was in.’

‘Thanks, Truls,’ Katrine said. ‘We’ve already checked the base stations. Stine?’

One of the analysts sat up in her chair and cleared her throat. ‘According to the printout from Telenor’s operations centre, Elise Hermansen left work at Youngstorget sometime between 6.30 and 7 p.m. She went to an area in the vicinity of Bentsebrua. Then—’

‘Her sister told us Elise used the gym at Myrens Verksted,’ Katrine interrupted. ‘And they’ve confirmed that she checked in at 19.32, and left at 21.14, Sorry, Stine.’

Stine gave her a brief, slightly stiff smile. ‘Then Elise moved to the area around her home address, where she – or at least her phone – remained until she was found. That’s to say, its signal was picked up by a few overlapping base stations, which confirms that she went out, but no further than a few hundred metres from her home in Grünerløkka.’

‘Great, so we get to go on a bar crawl,’ Katrine said.

She was rewarded with a chuckle from Truls, a broad smile from Anders Wyller, but otherwise total silence.

Could be worse, she thought.

Her phone, which was on the table in front of her, began to move.

She saw from the screen that it was Bjørn.

It could be something about forensic evidence, in which case it would be good to hear it straight away. But, on the other hand, if that was the case he ought to have called his colleague from Forensics who was attending the meeting, not her. So it could be something personal.

She was about to click ‘Reject call’ when she realised that Bjørn would be well aware that she was in a meeting. He was good at keeping track of that sort of thing.

She raised the phone to her ear. ‘We’re in the middle of a meeting of the investigative team, Bjørn.’

She regretted saying that the moment she felt all eyes on her.

‘I’m at the Forensic Medical Institute,’ Bjørn said. ‘We’ve just had the results of the preliminary tests on the shiny substance she had on her stomach. There’s no human DNA in it.’

‘Damn,’ Katrine blurted out. It had been in the back of her mind the whole time: that if the substance was semen, the case could probably be solved within the magical limit of the first forty-eight hours. All experience indicated that it would be harder after that.

‘But it could suggest that he had intercourse with her after all,’ Bjørn said.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘It was lubricating gel. Probably from a condom.’

Katrine swore again. And she could tell from the way the others were looking at her that she hadn’t yet said anything to prove that this wasn’t just a private conversation. ‘So you’re saying the perpetrator used a condom?’ she said, loudly and clearly.

‘Him, or someone else she met yesterday evening.’

‘OK, thanks.’ She was keen to end the conversation, but heard Bjørn say her name before she had time to hang up.

‘Yes?’ she said.

‘That wasn’t actually why I called.’

She swallowed. ‘Bjørn, we’re in the middle—’

‘The murder weapon,’ he said. ‘I think I might have figured out what it was. Can you keep the group there for another twenty minutes?’

He was lying in bed in the flat, reading on his phone. He’d been through all the newspapers now. It was disappointing, they’d left out all the details, they’d neglected to report everything that was of artistic value. Either because the lead detective, Katrine Bratt, didn’t want to reveal them, or because she simply lacked the capacity to see the beauty in it. But he , the policeman with murder in his eyes, he would have seen it. Maybe like Bratt he would have kept it to himself, but at least he would have appreciated it.

He looked more closely at the picture of Katrine Bratt in the newspaper.

She was beautiful.

Wasn’t there some sort of regulation about them having to wear uniform for press conferences? If there was, she was breaking it. He liked her. Imagined her wearing her police uniform.

Very beautiful.

Sadly she wasn’t on the agenda.

He put the newspaper down. Ran his hand across the tattoo. Sometimes it felt like it was real, that it was bursting, that the skin over his chest was stretched tight and about to split.

To hell with regulations.

He tensed his stomach muscles and used them to get up from the bed. Looked at his reflection in the mirror on the sliding door of the wardrobe. He had got into shape in prison. Not in the gym. Lying on benches and mats soaked in other people’s sweat was out of the question. No, in his cell. Not to get muscles, but to acquire real strength. Stamina. Tautness. Balance. The capacity to bear pain.

His mother had been solidly built. A big backside. She’d let herself go towards the end. Weak. He must have got his body and metabolism from his father. And his strength.

He pushed the wardrobe door aside.

There was a uniform hanging there. He ran his hand over it. Soon it would come into use.