Jo Nesbo - The Thirst

‘We researchers aren’t good at hunches. But he’s alone. I’m pretty certain of that. Very alone, even. A loner.’

There was a knock.

‘Pull hard and come in!’ Harry called.

The door opened.

‘Good day, bold vampire hunters,’ Ståle Aune said, stepping inside, paunch first, hand in hand with a round-shouldered girl with so much dark hair hanging in front of her face that Harry couldn’t see it. ‘I’ve agreed to give you a crash course in the role of psychologist in police work, Smith.’

Smith lit up. ‘I’d really appreciate that, dear colleague.’

Ståle Aune rocked on his heels. ‘You should. But I have no intention of working in these catacombs again, so I’ve arranged to borrow Katrine’s office.’ He put one hand on the girl’s shoulder. ‘Aurora came with me because she needs a new passport. Could you help her jump the queue while Smith and I talk, Harry?’

The girl pulled her hair aside. At first Harry couldn’t believe the pale face with greasy skin and red spots belonged to the pretty little girl he remembered from just a couple of years before. Looking at her dark clothes and heavy make-up, he guessed she was now a goth, or what Oleg called an emo. But there was no defiance or rebellion in her eyes. Nor the weariness of youth, or any sign of joy at seeing Harry again. Her favourite not-uncle, as she used to call him. There was nothing there. Actually, there was something there. Something he couldn’t put his finger on.

‘Queue-jumping it shall be. That’s how corrupt we are here,’ Harry said, and got a little smile from Aurora. ‘Let’s go up to the passport department.’

The four of them left the boiler room. Harry and Aurora walked silently along the culvert while Ståle Aune and Hallstein Smith chatted away two steps behind them.

‘So, I had this patient who talked so indirectly about his own problems that I didn’t put two and two together,’ Aune said. ‘When, quite by chance, I realised that he was the missing Valentin Gjertsen, he attacked me. If Harry hadn’t come to my rescue he would have killed me.’

Harry noticed Aurora tense at this.

‘He got away, but while he was threatening me I got a clearer picture of him. He held a knife to my throat as he tried to force me to make a diagnosis. He called himself “damaged goods”. And said that if I didn’t answer, he’d drain me of blood while his own cock swelled.’

‘Interesting. Could you see if he did actually get an erection?’

‘No, but I could feel it. As well as the jagged edge of the hunting knife. I remember hoping that my double chin might save me.’ Ståle chuckled.

Harry heard a stifled gasp from Aurora and half turned to give Aune a pointed look.

‘Oh, sorry, sweetheart!’ her father exclaimed.

‘What did you talk about?’ Smith wondered.

‘A lot,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘He was interested in the voices in the background of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon .’

‘Now I remember! I don’t think he said his name was Paul. But all my patient records have been stolen, sadly.’

‘Harry, Smith says—’

‘I heard.’

They went up the steps to the ground floor, where Aune and Smith stopped in front of the lift and Harry and Aurora carried on into the atrium. A notice on the glass in front of the counter announced that their camera was out of action, and that anyone applying for a passport should use the photograph booth towards the rear of the building.

Harry led Aurora to the booth, which looked like an outside toilet, pulled the curtain aside and gave Aurora some coins before she sat down.

‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘You’re not supposed to show your teeth.’ Then he closed the curtain.

Aurora looked at her reflection in the black glass that concealed the camera.

Felt tears welling up.

It had seemed like a good idea, telling her dad that she wanted to go with him when he went to Police HQ to see Harry. That she needed a new passport before a class trip to London. He never had a clue about that sort of thing, her mum did all that. The plan had been to get Harry on his own for a few minutes and tell him everything. But now that they were alone she found she couldn’t do it. It was what her dad had said in the tunnel, about the knife, it had frightened her so much that the trembling had started again, and her legs almost gave way beneath her. It was the same jagged knife the man had held to her throat. And he was back. Aurora closed her eyes to avoid seeing her own terrified reflection. He was back, and he was going to kill them all if she talked. And what good would talking do? She didn’t know anything that could help them find him. That wouldn’t save her dad, or anyone else out there. Aurora opened her eyes again. Looked around the cramped booth, just like the toilet at the sports hall that time. She found herself looking down automatically, at the bottom of the curtain. The pointed boots on the floor, right outside. They were waiting for her, wanted to get in, wanted …

Aurora yanked the curtain aside, pushed her way past Harry and headed for the exit. Heard him call her name behind her. Then she was out in daylight and open ground. She ran across the grass, through the park, off towards Grønlandsleiret. She heard her hiccoughed sobs mixed with gasping breath, as if there wasn’t enough air, even out here. But she didn’t stop. She ran. Knew she was going to keep running until she dropped.

‘Paul, or Valentin, didn’t mention any particular attraction to blood as such,’ Aune said. He had settled down behind Katrine’s desk. ‘But considering his history, we can probably conclude that he’s not a man with any inhibitions about acting out his sexual preferences. And someone like that is unlikely to discover new sexual sides to himself as an adult.’

‘Maybe the preference was always there,’ Smith said. ‘He just hadn’t found a way to act out the fantasy. If his real desire was to bite people until they bled, and then drink straight from the well, so to speak, maybe it was the discovery of these iron teeth that made it possible for him to put that into action?’

‘Drinking other people’s blood is an ancient tradition with connotations of assuming the powers and abilities of other people, usually enemies, isn’t it?’

‘Agreed.’

‘If you’re going to put together a profile of this serial killer, Smith, I’d suggest taking as your starting point a person who is driven by a need for control, like we see in more conventional rapists and sexually motivated murderers. Or, to be more accurate, regaining control, reclaiming a power that was taken from him at some point. Restitution.’

‘Thanks,’ Smith said. ‘Restitution. I agree, I’ll definitely include that aspect.’

‘What does “restitution” mean?’ Katrine asked, who was sitting on the windowsill after being granted leave to stay by the two psychologists.

‘We all want to repair injuries inflicted on us,’ Aune said. ‘Or take revenge, which is much the same thing. I, for instance, decided to become the genius psychologist I am because I was so bad at playing football that no one ever wanted me on their team. Harry was just a boy when his mother died, and he decided to become a murder detective to punish people who take lives.’

There was a knock on the door frame.

‘Speak of the devil …’ Aune said.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Harry said. ‘But Aurora’s run off. I don’t know what happened, but it was definitely something.’

A cloud swept across Ståle Aune’s face and he heaved himself up from the chair with a groan. ‘God knows with teenagers. I’ll go and find her. This was a bit brief, Smith – give me a call and we’ll carry on.’

‘Anything new?’ Harry asked when Aune had gone.