Jo Nesbo - The Thirst

‘I know. I don’t know how it happened, just that it did happen.’

Harry didn’t have to look at his young colleague to see how sceptical he was. There were hundreds of other explanations as to why Elise Hermansen’s safety chain had been on. Harry’s deduction didn’t rule out a single one of them. Tresko, Harry’s poker-playing friend, claimed that probability theory and how to play your cards according to the rulebook was the easiest thing in the world. But that what separated smart players from the not-so-smart was the ability to understand how their opponent was thinking, and that meant dealing with so much information that it felt like listening for a whispered answer in a howling storm. Maybe it was. Because through the storm of everything Harry knew about Valentin Gjertsen, all the reports, all his experience of other serial murders, all the ghosts of previous murder victims he hadn’t managed to save over the years, a voice was whispering. Valentin Gjertsen’s voice. That he had taken them from inside. That he had been inside their field of vision.

Harry pulled out his phone. Katrine answered on the second ring.

‘I’m sitting in make-up,’ she said.

‘I think Valentin has a 3D printer. And that could lead us to him.’

‘How?’

‘Shops selling electronic equipment register their customers’ names and addresses if the price is above a certain amount. There’ve only been a couple of thousand 3D printers sold in Norway. If everyone in the team drops what they’re doing, we might be able to get a good overview within a day, and have checked ninety-five per cent of the buyers within two. Which would mean we were left with a list of twenty buyers. Fake names or aliases, we’d find out if we couldn’t see them in the population register at the stated address, or called people to find that they denied buying a 3D printer. Most shops selling electronic equipment have security cameras, so we can check anyone suspicious using the time of the purchase. There’s no reason why he wouldn’t have gone to the shop closest to where he lives, so that would give us an area to search. And by releasing with the security camera images, we can get the public to point us in the right direction.’

‘How did you come up with the idea of the 3D printer, Harry?’

‘I was talking to Oleg about printers and guns and—’

‘Drop everything else, Harry? To focus on something that occurred to you when you were talking to Oleg?’

‘Yep.’

‘This is precisely the sort of alternative angle you’re supposed to be exploring with your guerrilla team, Harry.’

‘Which still only consists of me, and I need your resources.’

Harry heard Katrine burst into laughter. ‘If you weren’t Harry Hole, I’d already have hung up.’

‘Good job I am, then. Listen, we’ve been trying to find Valentin Gjertsen for four years without succeeding. This is the only new lead we’ve got.’

‘Let me think about it after the programme. It’s going out live and my head’s full of things I need to remember to say and not say. And my stomach’s full of butterflies, if I’m honest.’

‘Mm.’

‘Any tips for a television debutante?’

‘Lean back and be relaxed, genial and witty.’

He heard her chuckle. ‘The way you used to be?’

‘I was none of those. Oh yeah – be sober.’

Harry put his phone in his jacket pocket. They were getting close to the place. Where Slemdalsveien crossed Rasmus Winderens vei in Vinderen. And the lights turned red. They stopped. And Harry couldn’t help looking. He could never help it. He glanced at the platform on the other side of the metro track. The place where, half a lifetime ago, he’d lost control of his police car during a chase, sailed across the track and hit the concrete. The officer who had been sitting in the passenger seat died. How drunk had he been? Harry was never made to take a breath test, and the official report said he’d been in the passenger seat rather than driving. Anything, for the good of the force.

‘Did you do it to save lives?’

‘What?’ Harry asked.

‘Working at Crime Squad,’ Wyller said. ‘Or did you do it to catch murderers?’

‘Hm. Are you thinking about what the Fiancé said?’

‘I remember your lectures. I thought you were a murder detective simply because you loved the job.’

‘Really?’

Harry shrugged as the lights turned green. They carried on towards Majorstua and the evening darkness that seemed to be rolling towards them from the cauldron of Oslo.

‘Let me out at the bar,’ Harry said. ‘The one the first victim went to.’

Katrine was in the wings looking at the little desert island in the middle of the circle of light. The island was a black platform holding three chairs and a table. In one of these chairs sat the presenter of The Sunday Magazine , who was about to bring her on as the first guest. Katrine tried not to think about the sea of eyes. Not think about how hard her heart was beating. Nor think about the fact that Valentin was out there right now, and that there was nothing they could do about that, even though they knew full well that it was him. Instead she kept repeating to herself what Bellman had told her: to be credible and reassuring when she said the case had been solved, but that the perpetrator was still at large, and that there was a possibility he had fled the country.

Katrine looked at the director, who was standing between the cameras and the island wearing headphones and clutching a clipboard, shouting that there were ten seconds to go before they began the broadcast, then she started counting down. And suddenly a silly thing that had happened earlier in the day popped into her head. Possibly because she was exhausted and nervous, possibly because the brain takes refuge in silly things when it ought to be concentrating on things that are overwhelming and terrifying. She had called in to see Bjørn at Krimteknisk to ask him to fast-track analysis of the evidence they had found in the stairwell, so that she could use it on television to make herself more convincing. Naturally there hadn’t been many other people there on a Sunday: those who were there were all working on the vampirist murders. Perhaps this emptiness was the reason the situation had made such a strong impression on Katrine. When she walked straight into Bjørn’s office, as usual, a woman had been standing by his chair, almost leaning over him. And one of them must have said something funny, because both she and Bjørn were laughing. When they turned towards Katrine, she had realised that the woman was the recently appointed head of Krimteknisk something-or-other Lien. Katrine remembered Bjørn mentioning her appointment, and remembered thinking she was far too young and inexperienced, and that he should have got the job. Or rather: Bjørn should have taken the job, because he had actually been offered it. But his response had been classic Bjørn Holm: why lose a pretty decent criminal forensics expert to gain a pretty bad boss? Looked at that way, fru or frøken Lien had been a good choice, because Katrine had never heard of anyone called Lien who had excelled in any case. When Katrine had presented her request for quicker results, Bjørn had calmly replied that that was up to his boss, she was the one who decided what was a priority. And something-or-other Lien had given her an ambiguous smile and said she’d check with the other forensics officers and see when they might have the work finished. So Katrine had raised her voice and said that ‘checking’ wasn’t good enough, that the vampirist murders were the priority just now, that anyone with any experience could understand that. And that it would look bad on television if she was forced to say that she couldn’t answer because the new head of Krimteknisk didn’t think it was important enough.