Jo Nesbo - The Thirst

Harry saw the edge of the door come into shot as Valentin opened it, then his shadow lifted one arm, then let it fall.

Harry speeded up the replay.

He saw Hallstein from the back as he shuffled past the stalls and went out.

And a minute later Valentin dragged himself out the same way. Harry slowed the video down. Valentin was leaning against the stalls, looked like he might collapse at any moment. But he kept going, metre by metre. He stood on the scales, swaying. The dial showed he was one and a half kilos lighter than when he had arrived. Harry glanced at the pool of blood on the floor behind the computer screen, before watching as Valentin struggled to get the door open. And that was where Harry could feel the will to survive. Unless it was just fear of getting caught? And it occurred to Harry that this film clip was inevitably going to be leaked at some point, and would end up being a hit on YouTube.

Bjørn Holm’s pale face appeared in the doorway. ‘So this is where it started.’ He walked in, and Harry was once again fascinated that this otherwise not particularly elegant forensics expert became a ballet dancer the moment he entered a crime scene. Bjørn crouched down beside the pool of blood. ‘They’re taking him away now.’

‘Mm.’

‘Four entry wounds, Harry. How many of them are from …?’

‘Three,’ Harry said. ‘Hallstein only shot once.’

Bjørn Holm grimaced. ‘He shot an armed man, Harry. Have you thought about what you’re going to say to Internal Investigations about your shots?’

Harry shrugged. ‘The truth, of course. That it was dark and Valentin was holding a branch in an attempt to fool me into thinking he was armed. He knew he was finished, and he wanted me to shoot him, Bjørn.’

‘All the same. Three shots in the chest of an unarmed man …’

Harry nodded.

Bjørn took a deep breath, looked over his shoulder and lowered his voice. ‘But of course it’s dark, raining hard, a full-blown storm down in those woods. And if I were to go down there now and have a look on my own, there’s always a chance I might find a pistol hidden where Valentin was lying.’

The two of them looked at each other as the wind made the walls creak.

Harry saw Bjørn Holm’s cheek flush red. And knew what that had cost him. Knew that he was standing there offering Harry more than he actually owned. He was offering him everything he held dear. Their shared values, their moral code. His, their, soul.

‘Thank you,’ Harry said. ‘Thank you, my friend, but I have to say no.’

Bjørn Holm blinked twice. Swallowed. Breathed out in a long, shivering wheeze, and gave a brief, out-of-place chuckle of relief.

‘I’d better get back,’ he said, standing up.

‘Go on,’ Harry said.

Bjørn Holm stood in front of him, hesitating. As if he wanted to say something, or take a step forward and give him a hug. Harry leaned over towards the computer screen again. ‘We’ll talk soon, Bjørn.’

On the screen he watched the forensics expert’s hunched shoulders as he made his way outside.

Harry slammed his fist down on the keyboard. A drink. Fuck, fuck! Just one drink.

His eyes settled on the bat-man.

What was it Hallstein had said? He knew. He knew where I was .

WEDNESDAY NIGHT

MIKAEL BELLMAN STOOD with his arms folded, wondering if Oslo Police District had ever held a press conference at two o’clock in the morning before. He was leaning against the wall to the left of the podium, looking out across the room, which contained a mixture of night editors and other newsroom staff, journalists who were probably supposed to be covering the ravages of Emilia and sleepy reporters who had been dragged out of bed. Mona Daa had arrived wearing gym clothes under her raincoat, and looked wide awake.

Up on the podium, beside head of Crime Squad Gunnar Hagen, Katrine Bratt was talking through the details of the raid on Valentin Gjertsen’s flat in Sinsen and the subsequent drama out at Hallstein Smith’s farm. Flashlights kept going off, and Bellman knew that even if he wasn’t sitting up there, the occasional camera was still being aimed at him, so he tried to settle his face into the expression Isabelle had recommended when he called her on the way here. Serious, but with the inner satisfaction of the victor. ‘Remember that people are dead,’ Isabelle had said. ‘So no grinning or obvious celebration. Think of yourself as General Eisenhower after D-Day, you bear the leader’s responsibility for both the victory and the tragedy.’

Bellman stifled a yawn. Ulla had woken him when she got home from her girls’ night out in the city. He couldn’t recall having seen her drunk since they were young. Speaking of drunk: Harry Hole was standing next to him, and if Bellman hadn’t known better he would have sworn that the former detective was inebriated. He looked more exhausted than any of the reporters, and that was booze he could smell on his wet clothes, wasn’t it?

A Rogaland dialect cut through the room. ‘I appreciate that you don’t want to go public with the name of the officer who shot and killed Valentin Gjertsen, but surely you can tell us if Valentin was armed, or shot back?’

‘Like I said, we want to wait until we’re in full command of the facts before making the details public,’ Katrine said, then pointed at Mona Daa who was waving her hand.

‘But you’re willing and able to tell us the details surrounding Hallstein Smith’s involvement?’

‘Yes,’ Katrine said. ‘We have all the details on that point because we have a recording of the incident, and were talking to Smith on the phone as it happened.’

‘So you said, but who was he talking to?’

‘Me.’ She paused. ‘And Harry Hole.’

Mona Daa tilted her head. ‘So you and Harry Hole were here in Police HQ when it happened?’

Mikael Bellman saw Katrine glance at Gunnar Hagen as if to ask for help, but the head of Crime Squad appeared not to notice what she wanted. Nor did Bellman.

‘We don’t want to go into the working methods of the police in too much detail at present,’ Hagen said. ‘Out of consideration for both loss of evidence and our tactics in future cases.’

Mona Daa and the rest of the room seemed content with this, but Bellman could see that Hagen didn’t know what he was hiding.

‘It’s late, and all of us have work to do,’ Hagen said, looking at the time. ‘The next press conference will be at twelve noon, hopefully we’ll have more for you then. In the meantime, have a good night. We can all sleep a bit more soundly now.’

The blitz of flashlights intensified as Hagen and Bratt stood up. Some of the photographers turned their lenses on Bellman, and when some of the people standing up came between Bellman and the cameras, he took a step forward so the photographers could get an unimpeded view.

‘Hold on, Harry,’ Bellman said, without looking round or changing his Eisenhower expression. Once the cascade of flashes had stopped, he turned towards Harry Hole, who was standing there with his arms folded.

‘I’m not going to throw you to the wolves,’ Bellman said. ‘You did your job, you shot a dangerous serial killer.’ He put one hand on Harry’s shoulder. ‘And we look after our own. OK?’

The taller policeman looked pointedly at the hand on his shoulder and Bellman removed it. Harry’s voice was hoarser than usual. ‘Enjoy your victory, Bellman. I’m being questioned first thing in the morning, so goodnight.’

Bellman watched Harry Hole as he made his way towards the exit, with his legs wide apart and his knees bent, like a sailor on deck in a rough sea.

Bellman had already conferred with Isabelle, and they had agreed that if this success wasn’t to leave a nasty aftertaste, it would be best if Internal Investigations concluded that there was little or nothing to criticise Hole for. Exactly how they were going to help Internal Investigations to reach this conclusion was as yet unclear, seeing as they couldn’t be bribed directly. But obviously any thinking person was receptive to a bit of common sense. And as far as the press and general public were concerned, Isabelle believed that it had become almost a matter of routine in recent years that mass murders ended with the perpetrator being killed by the police, and that the press and general public had more or less tacitly accepted that this was how society dealt with this sort of case – quickly and efficiently, in a way that appealed to ordinary people’s sense of justice and without the spiralling costs associated with court proceedings in big murder cases.