Jo Nesbo - The Thirst

‘The Mountain Meadows massacre.’

‘So, you know your history, Hole.’

‘I studied serial murders at the FBI, and we went through the most famous mass killings as well. I have to confess that I don’t remember what happened to your namesake.’

Steffens looked at his watch. ‘Hopefully his reward was waiting in heaven, because on earth everyone betrayed John Doyle Lee, including our spiritual leader, Brigham Young. John Doyle was sentenced to death. But my father still thought he had set an example worth following, abandoning the cheap love of your fellows in favour of following a calling you hate.’

‘Maybe he didn’t hate it as much as he claimed.’

‘How do you mean?’

Harry shrugged. ‘An alcoholic hates and curses drink because it ruins his life. But at the same time it is his life.’

‘Interesting analogy.’ Steffens stood up, went over to the window and pulled the curtains open. ‘What about you, Hole? Is your calling still ruining your life, even though it is your life?’

Harry shaded his eyes and tried to look at Steffens, but was blinded by the sudden light. ‘Are you still a Mormon?’

‘Are you still working on the case?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘We don’t have a choice, do we? I need to get back to work, Harry.’

When Steffens had gone Harry called Gunnar Hagen’s number.

‘Hello, boss, I need a police guard at Ullevål Hospital,’ he said. ‘Immediately.’

Wyller was standing where he had been told to, beside the bonnet of the car, which was parked untidily in front of the main entrance.

‘I saw a police officer arrive,’ he said. ‘Everything OK?’

‘We’re putting a guard outside her door,’ Harry said, getting in the passenger seat.

Wyller tucked his pistol back in his holster and got in behind the wheel. ‘And Valentin?’

‘God knows.’

Harry took the strand of hair from his pocket. ‘This is probably just paranoia, but get Forensics to do an urgent analysis of this, just to rule out the possibility that it matches anything from the crime scenes, OK?’

They glided through the streets. It was like spooling back a slow-motion replay of their frantic drive twenty minutes earlier.

‘Do Mormons actually use crucifixes?’ Harry asked.

‘No,’ Wyller said. ‘They believe the cross symbolises death and is heathen. They believe in the resurrection.’

‘Hm. So a Mormon with a crucifix on his wall would be like …’

‘A Muslim with a drawing of Muhammad.’

‘Exactly.’ Harry turned the radio up. The White Stripes. ‘Blue Orchid’. Guitars and drums. Sparseness. Clarity.

He turned it up even louder, without knowing what it was he was trying to drown out.

Hallstein Smith was twiddling his thumbs. He was alone in the boiler room, and without the others there wasn’t a great deal he could do. He had completed his concise profile of the vampirist, and had surfed the Net reading the most recent articles about the vampirist murders. Then he had gone back and read what the media had written during the five days that had passed since the first murder. Hallstein Smith was wondering if he should make the most of the time to work on his PhD thesis when his phone rang.

‘Hello?’

‘Smith?’ a woman’s voice said. ‘This is Mona Daa from VG .’

‘Oh?’

‘You sound surprised.’

‘Only because I didn’t think we had any coverage down here.’

‘Speaking of coverage, can you confirm that the vampirist is probably responsible for the disappearance of a female member of staff from Schrøder’s Restaurant last night?’

‘Confirm? Me?’

‘Yes, you work for the police now, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I suppose so, but I’m not in a position to say anything at all.’

‘Because you don’t know or because you can’t say?’

‘Both, perhaps. If I were to say something, it would have to be something general. As an expert on vampirism, in other words.’

‘Great! Because I’ve got a podcast—’

‘A what?’

‘Radio. VG has its own radio station.’

‘Oh, OK.’

‘Could we invite you in to talk about the vampirist? In general terms, of course.’

Hallstein Smith thought about it. ‘I’d have to get permission from the lead detective.’

‘Good, I’ll wait to hear from you. On a different subject, Smith. I wrote that piece about you. Which I assume you were happy with. Seeing as it did indirectly get you to the centre of the action.’

‘Yes. Sure.’

‘In return, could you tell me who at Police HQ lured me out to the container terminal yesterday?’

‘Lured you to do what?’

‘Never mind. Have a good day.’

Hallstein Smith was left staring at his phone. Container terminal? What was she talking about?

Truls Berntsen let his eyes roam across the rows of pictures of Megan Fox on his computer. It was almost frightening, the way she’d let herself go. Was it just the pictures or the fact that she’d turned thirty? Or knowing what childbirth must have done to the body that had defined perfection in the 2007 film Transformers ? Or was it the fact that he himself had lost eight kilos of fat in the past two years, replacing them with four kilos of muscle and nine women fucked? Had that made his distant dreams of Megan Fox that bit less distant? The way one light year is less than two. Or was it simply the fact that in ten hours’ time he would be sitting with Ulla Bellman, the only woman he had ever lusted after more than Megan Fox?

He heard someone clear their throat and looked up.

Katrine Bratt was standing there, leaning against the partition.

After Wyller had moved down to that laughable boys’ club in the boiler room, Truls had been able to immerse himself fully in The Shield . He had now seen all the available seasons, and hoped Katrine Bratt wasn’t about to do anything that spoiled his free time.

‘Bellman wants to see you,’ she said.

‘OK.’ Truls switched his computer off, stood up and walked past Katrine Bratt. So close that he would have smelt her perfume if she had been wearing any. He thought all women really ought to use a bit of perfume. Not as much as the ones who overdid it, the ones who suffered solvent damage, but a bit. Enough to set his imagination going about how they really smelt.

While he waited for the lift he had time to wonder what Mikael wanted. But his mind was blank.

It wasn’t until he was standing in the Police Chief’s office that he realised he’d been found out. When he saw Mikael’s back over at the window, and heard him say, with no introduction: ‘You’ve let me down, Truls. Did the bitch approach you, or was it the other way round?’

It was like having a bucket of cold water tipped over him. What the hell had happened? Had Ulla broken down and confessed in a fit of guilty conscience? Or had Mikael pressurised her? And what the hell was he supposed to say now?

He cleared his throat. ‘She came to me, Mikael. She was the one who wanted it.’

‘Of course the bitch wanted it, they take whatever they can get. But the fact that she got it from you, my closest confidant, after all we’ve been through.’

Truls almost couldn’t believe that he was talking that way about his wife, the mother of his children.

‘I didn’t think I could say no to meeting up and having a chat, it wasn’t supposed to go any further.’

‘But it did, didn’t it?’

‘Nothing’s happened at all.’

‘Nothing at all ? Do you not understand that you’ve told the murderer what we know and don’t know? How much did she pay?’

Truls blinked. ‘Pay?’ The penny dropped.

‘I’m assuming Mona Daa didn’t get the information for free? Tell me, and don’t forget that I know you, Truls.’