Jo Nesbo - The Thirst

‘We’ll leave it there,’ the head of communications said.

Katrine saw Bellman indicate that he wanted to talk to her.

‘When’s the next press conference?’ asked Mona Daa, VG ’s crime correspondent.

‘We’ll get—’

‘When we’ve got something new,’ Hagen interrupted the head of communications.

When , Katrine noted. Not if . It was tiny but important choices of words like that which signalled that the servants of the state were working tirelessly, that the wheels of justice were turning, and that it was only a matter of time before the perpetrator was caught.

‘Anything new?’ Bellman asked as they strode across the floor of the atrium of Police HQ. In the past his almost girlish prettiness, emphasised by his long eyelashes, neat, slightly too long hair and tanned skin with its characteristic white pigmentless marks, could give an impression almost of affectation, of weakness. But the eyepatch, which of course could have made him look theatrical, had the opposite effect. It implied strength, a man who wasn’t going to let even losing an eye stop him.

‘Forensics have found something in the bite marks,’ Katrine said as she followed Bellman through the airlock in front of reception.

‘Saliva?’

‘Rust.’

‘Rust?’

‘Yes.’

‘As in …?’ Bellman pressed the lift button in front of them.

‘We don’t know,’ Katrine said, stopping beside him.

‘And you still don’t know how the perpetrator got into the flat?’

‘No. The lock is impossible to pick, and neither the door nor any of the windows has been forced. It’s still a possibility that she let him in, but we don’t believe that.’

‘Perhaps he had a key.’

‘The housing association uses locks where the same key will open both the main entrance to the building and one of the flats. And according to the association’s key register, there was only one key to Elise Hermansen’s flat. The one that she had. Berntsen and Wyller have spoken to two guys who were by the entrance when she got home, and they’re both certain she used her key to get in – she didn’t use the entryphone to call someone who was already in the flat to open the front door from there.’

‘I see. But couldn’t he just have got a copy of the key?’

‘In that case he would have had to get hold of the original key, and find a key-cutter who had the technical ability to cut that type of key, and was unscrupulous enough to make a copy without the written permission of the housing association. That probably isn’t very likely.’

‘OK. Well, that wasn’t actually what I wanted to talk to you about …’ The lift door in front of them slid open and two officers who were on their way out stopped laughing automatically when they caught sight of the Police Chief.

‘It’s about Truls,’ Bellman said, after gallantly letting Katrine get into the empty lift before him. ‘Berntsen, I mean.’

‘OK?’ Katrine said, detecting a faint scent of aftershave. She’d always assumed men had given up wet shaving and the dowsing with spirits that followed it. Bjørn had used an electric razor and didn’t bother with any added flavourings, and the men she had met since … well, on a couple of occasions she would have preferred heavy perfume to their natural smell.

‘How is he getting on?’

‘Berntsen? Fine.’

They were standing side by side, facing the lift doors, but from the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of his crooked smile in the silence that followed.

‘Fine?’ he eventually repeated.

‘Berntsen carries out the orders he’s given.’

‘Which aren’t too demanding, I imagine?’

Katrine shrugged. ‘He has no background as a detective. And he’s been posted to the biggest crime squad in the country, outside of Kripos. That means you don’t get to sit in the driver’s seat, if I can put it like that.’

Bellman nodded and rubbed his chin. ‘I really just wanted to know that he’s behaving himself. That he isn’t … That he’s following the rules.’

‘As far as I’m aware.’ The lift slowed down. ‘What rules are we actually talking about here?’

‘I just want you to keep an eye on him, Bratt. Truls Berntsen hasn’t had it easy.’

‘You mean the injuries he received from the explosion?’

‘I mean his life, Bratt. He’s a bit … what’s the word I’m looking for?’

‘Fucked up?’

Bellman let out a brief laugh and nodded towards the open doors. ‘Your floor, Bratt.’

Bellman studied Katrine Bratt’s well-shaped rear as she walked off down the corridor towards the Crime Squad Unit, and let his imagination run loose in the seconds it took the lift doors to close again. Then he refocused his thoughts on the problem . Which wasn’t a problem, of course, but an opportunity. Though it was a dilemma. He had received a speculative and highly unofficial enquiry from the Prime Minister’s office. It was rumoured that there was going to be a government reshuffle, and, among others, the position of Justice Minister was up for grabs. The enquiry concerned what Bellman – purely hypothetically – would say if he were to be asked. He had been astonished at first. But on closer consideration he realised that the choice was logical. As Chief of Police he had not only been responsible for the unmasking of the now internationally renowned ‘cop killer’, but had also lost an eye in the heat of battle, thereby becoming in some ways both a national and an international hero. A forty-year-old, articulate Chief of Police with legal training who had already successfully defended the capital against murder, narcotics and criminality: surely it was about time they gave him a greater challenge? And did it do any harm that he was good-looking? That was hardly going to attract fewer women to the party. So he had replied that he – hypothetically – would accept.

Bellman got out at the seventh – the top – floor, and walked past the row of photographs of previous chiefs of police.

But until they made their minds up he would have to make sure he didn’t get any scratches on his paintwork. Such as Truls doing something stupid and it rebounding on him. Bellman shuddered at the thought of the newspaper headlines: POLICE CHIEF PROTECTED CORRUPT COP AND FRIEND. When Truls had come to his office, he had put his feet up on the desk and said straight out that if he got fired from the police, he would at least have the consolation of dragging an equally tainted chief of police with him. So it had been an easy decision to grant Truls’s request to work at Crime Squad. Particularly since – as Bratt had just confirmed – he wasn’t going to be given enough responsibility to enable him to fuck things up again any time soon.

‘Your lovely wife is sitting in there,’ Lena said when Mikael Bellman reached the outer office. Lena was well over sixty, and when Bellman was appointed four years ago, the first thing she had said was that she didn’t want to be known as his PA, in the way of modern job descriptions. She was and would remain his secretary.

Ulla was sitting on the sofa by the window. Lena was right, his wife was lovely. She was vivacious, sensitive, and giving birth to three children hadn’t changed that. But more importantly, she had backed him up, had realised that his career required nurturing, support, elbow room. And that the occasional misstep in his private life was only human when you had to live with the pressure that went with such a demanding position.

And there was something unspoiled, almost naive about her that meant you could read everything in her face. And right now he could read despair. The first thing Bellman thought was that it was something to do with the children. He was on the point of asking when he detected a hint of bitterness. And he realised that she had found something out. Again. Damn.