Jo Nesbo - The Thirst

‘I’ve told you, my watch is over, Harry.’

‘He’s awake, and he’s out there right now, Ståle. While we’re lying asleep.’

‘And with a guilty conscience. But we’re sleeping. Because we’re tired. I’m tired, Harry. Too tired.’

‘I need someone who understands him, who can predict his next move, Ståle. See where he’s going to make mistakes. Identify his weakness.’

‘I can’t—’

‘Hallstein Smith,’ Harry said. ‘What do you make of him?’

There was a pause.

‘You didn’t actually call to persuade me,’ Ståle said, and Harry could hear that he felt a bit hurt.

‘This is plan B,’ Harry said. ‘Hallstein Smith was the first person to say that this was the work of a vampirist, and that he’d strike again. He was right about Valentin Gjertsen sticking to the method that had worked, Tinder dating. Right about him taking the risk of leaving evidence. Right about Valentin’s ambivalence towards being identified. And he said early on that the police should be looking for a sex offender. Smith has hit the target pretty well so far. The fact that he goes against the flow is good, because I’m thinking of recruiting him to my little against-the-flow team. But, most importantly of all, you told me he was a smart psychologist.’

‘He’s that all right. Yes, Hallstein Smith could be a good choice.’

‘There’s just one thing I’m wondering about. That nickname of his …’

‘The Monkey?’

‘You said it was connected to the fact that he’s still struggling for credibility among his colleagues.’

‘Bloody hell, Harry, it’s more than half a lifetime ago.’

‘Tell me.’

It sounded like Ståle was thinking. Then he mumbled quietly into the phone: ‘That nickname was partly my fault, I’m afraid. And his too, of course. While he was a student here in Oslo we discovered that there was money missing from the little safe in the psychology department bar. Hallstein was our prime suspect because he was suddenly able to afford to come on a study trip to Vienna that he hadn’t initially signed up to because he didn’t have the cash. The problem was that it was impossible to prove that Hallstein had got hold of the code to the safe, which was the only way he could have got the money. So I set a monkey trap.’

‘A what?’

‘Daddy!’ Harry heard a high-pitched girl’s voice at the other end of the phone. ‘Is everything OK?’

Harry heard Ståle’s hand scrape against the microphone. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you, Aurora. I’m talking to Harry.’

Then her mother, Ingrid’s voice: ‘Oh, sweetie, you look terrified. A nightmare? Come with me and I’ll tuck you in. Or perhaps we could make some tea?’ Footsteps moved off across the floor.

‘Where were we?’ Ståle Aune said.

‘The monkey trap.’

‘Ah, yes. Have you read Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance ?’

‘All I know is that it’s not really about motorcycle maintenance.’

‘True. First and foremost it’s a book about philosophy, but also philosophy and the struggle between feelings and the intellect. Like the monkey trap. You make a hole in a coconut, big enough for the monkey to stick its hand in. You fill the coconut with food and fix it to a pole. Then you hide and wait. The monkey picks up the smell of food, comes and sticks its hand in the hole, grabs the food, and that’s when you jump out. The monkey wants to get away, but realises that it can’t get its hand out without letting go of the food. The interesting thing is that even though the monkey ought to be intelligent enough to realise that if it gets caught it’s unlikely to be able to enjoy the food, it still refuses to let go. Instinct, starvation, desire are stronger than the intellect. And that’s the monkey’s downfall. Every time. So I and the manager of the bar arranged a psychology quiz and invited everyone in the department. It was a large gathering, with a lot at stake, a lot of tension. Once the bar manager and I had been through the results, I announced that it was a dead heat between the two second-best minds in the department, Smith and a guy called Olavsen, and that the winner would be decided by testing the students’ skill at detecting lies. So I introduced a young woman as being one of the bar staff, sat her down on a chair, and asked the two finalists to find out as much as they could about the code to the safe. Smith and Olavsen had to sit opposite her while she was asked about the first number in the four-digit code, from one to nine in a random order. Then the second one, and so on. The young woman had been told to reply “No, that’s not the right number” each time, while Smith and Olavsen studied her body language, the dilation of her pupils, signs of increased heart rate, changes in the modulation of her voice, perspiration, involuntary eye movement, everything an ambitious psychologist takes pride in being able to interpret correctly. The winner would be the one who guessed the most digits correctly. The two of them sat there making notes, concentrating hard while I asked the forty questions. Because remember what was at stake: the title of second-smartest psychologist in the department.’

‘Obviously, because everyone knew that the smartest—’

‘—couldn’t take part because he had organised the quiz. Quite. When I’d finished, they each handed me a note with their suggestion. It turned out that Smith had got all four digits right. Great rejoicing all around the room! Because of course this was very impressive. Suspiciously impressive, one might say. Now, Hallstein Smith is more intelligent than the average monkey, and I’m not ignoring the possibility that he may actually have realised what was going on. Even so, he couldn’t help trying to win. He just couldn’t! Possibly because at the time Hallstein Smith was an impoverished, spotty, largely overlooked young man who didn’t have much luck with the ladies, or anything else come to that, and was therefore more desperate for this sort of victory than most people. Or perhaps because he knew it might arouse the suspicion that it was he who had taken the money from the safe, but that it wouldn’t prove it, because of course it could be the case that he really was brilliant at reading people and interpreting the human body’s many signals. But …’

‘Hm.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘No, what is it?’

‘The young woman in the chair. She didn’t know the code.’

Ståle murmured in agreement. ‘She didn’t even work in the bar.’

‘How did you know Smith would walk into the monkey trap?’

‘Because I’m brilliant at reading people and so on. The question is, what do you think now that you know that your candidate has a background as a thief?’

‘How much are we talking about?’

‘If I remember rightly, two thousand kroner.’

‘Not much. And you said there was money missing from the safe, which means he didn’t empty it completely, doesn’t it?’

‘At the time we thought that was because he hoped it wouldn’t be noticed.’

‘But since then you’ve been thinking that he only took what he needed to be able to join the rest of you on that study trip?’

‘He was asked, very politely, to surrender his place on the course in return for the matter not being referred to the police. He got onto a psychology course in Lithuania.’

‘He went into exile, now with the nickname “the Monkey” as a result of your stunt.’

‘He came back and did a postgraduate degree in Norway. Qualified as a psychologist. He did OK.’

‘You’re aware that you sound like you’ve got a guilty conscience?’

‘And you sound like you’re thinking about employing a thief.’