Jo Nesbo - The Thirst

‘Come on, two more,’ the voice whispered in her ear. She recognised it. The police officer’s. And now she looked up and saw his face above hers. He was smiling. Blue eyes below a white fringe. White teeth. Anders Wyller.

‘What are you doing here?’ she said, forgetting to push with her arms, but feeling herself fly anyway.

‘What are you doing here?’ Øystein Eikeland asked, putting a half-litre of beer on the counter in front of the customer.

‘Huh?’

‘Not you, him there,’ Øystein said, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb towards the tall man with the crew cut who had just walked behind the bar and was filling the cezve with coffee and water.

‘Can’t deal with any more instant coffee,’ Harry said.

‘Can’t deal with any more time off,’ Øystein said. ‘Can’t deal with being away from your beloved bar. Hear what this is?’

Harry stopped to listen to the rapid, rhythmic music. ‘Not until she starts singing, no.’

‘She doesn’t, that what’s so great,’ Øystein said. ‘It’s Taylor Swift, “1989”.’

Harry nodded. He remembered that Swift or her record company hadn’t wanted to put the album on Spotify, so instead they’d released a version with no singing.

‘Didn’t we agree that today’s singers were only going to be women over fifty?’ Harry said.

‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’ Øystein said. ‘She’s not singing .’

Harry gave up any idea of arguing against the logic of that. ‘People are here early today.’

‘Alligator sausage,’ Øystein said, pointing at the long, smoked sausages hanging above the bar. ‘The first week was because it was weird, but now the same people are back wanting more. Maybe we should change the name to Alligator Joe’s, Everglades, or—’

‘Jealousy is fine.’

‘OK, OK, just trying to be proactive here. Someone’s going to nick that idea, though.’

‘We’ll have had another one by then.’

Harry put the cezve on the hotplate and turned round just as a familiar figure came in through the door.

Harry folded his arms as the man stamped his boots and glared across the room.

‘Something wrong?’ Øystein wondered.

‘Don’t think so,’ Harry said. ‘Make sure the coffee doesn’t boil.’

‘You and that Turkish not-boiling thing.’

Harry walked round the bar and went over to the man, who had unbuttoned his coat. Heat was steaming off him.

‘Hole,’ he said.

‘Berntsen,’ Harry said.

‘I’ve got something for you.’

‘Why?’

Truls Berntsen grunt-laughed. ‘Don’t you want to know what it is?’

‘Only if I’m happy with the answer to the first question.’

Harry saw Truls Berntsen attempt an indifferent smirk, but fail and swallow instead. And the blush on his scarred face could of course be the result of the transition from the cold outside.

‘You’re a bastard, Hole, but you did save my life that time.’

‘Don’t make me regret it. Out with it.’

Berntsen pulled the document file from the inside pocket of his coat. ‘Lemmy – I mean Lenny Hell. You’ll see that he was in touch with both Elise Hermansen and Ewa Dolmen.’

‘Really?’ Harry looked at the yellow folder, held together by a rubber band, Truls Berntsen was holding towards him. ‘Why haven’t you gone to Bratt with this?’

‘Because she – unlike you – has to think about her career and would have had to take this to Mikael.’

‘And?’

‘Mikael’s taking over as Justice Minister next week. He doesn’t want any blots on his copybook.’

Harry looked at Truls Berntsen. He had long since figured out that Berntsen wasn’t as stupid as he might appear. ‘You mean he doesn’t want this case dragged out again?’

Berntsen shrugged. ‘The vampirist case came close to sticking a serious spoke in Mikael’s wheel. Then it turned into one of his greatest successes instead. So no, he doesn’t want to spoil that image.’

‘Hm. You’re giving these documents to me because you’re worried that otherwise they’ll end up in a drawer in the Police Chief’s office?’

‘I’m worried they’ll end up in the paper shredder, Hole.’

‘OK. But you still haven’t answered my question. Why?’

‘Didn’t you hear? The paper shredder.’

‘Why do you , Truls Berntsen, care about that? And no bullshit, I know who and what you are.’

Truls grunted something.

Harry waited.

Truls glanced at him, looked away, stamped his feet as if there was more snow on them. ‘I don’t know,’ he said eventually. ‘It’s true, I don’t know. I thought maybe it would be good if Magnus Skarre got a bloody nose for not noticing the link between the phones and Facebook, but it’s not that either. I don’t think. I think I just want … no, fuck it, I don’t know.’ He coughed. ‘But if you don’t want it, I’ll put it back in the filing cabinet and it can rot in there, same difference to me.’

Harry wiped the condensation from the window and watched Truls Berntsen as he walked out of the door and crossed the street, head bowed, in the sharp winter light. Was he mistaken, or had Truls Berntsen just shown symptoms of the partially benign illness known as police?

‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ Øystein asked when Harry walked back behind the bar.

‘Police porn,’ Harry said, putting the yellow folder on the counter. ‘Printouts and transcripts.’

‘The vampirist case? Hasn’t that been solved?’

‘Yes, there are just a few loose ends, formalities. Can’t you hear that the coffee’s boiling?’

‘Can’t you hear that Taylor Swift isn’t singing?’

Harry opened his mouth to say something, but instead heard himself laughing. He loved this guy. Loved this bar. He poured the spoiled coffee into two cups and tapped along on the folder to the beat of ‘Welcome to Some Pork’. As he glanced at the pages he thought that Rakel was bound to say yes, if he just sat quiet as a mouse and gave her some time.

His eyes stopped.

It was as if the ice creaked beneath him.

His heart began to beat faster. We all get fooled in the end, Harry .

‘What is it?’ Øystein asked.

‘What’s what?’

‘You look like you’ve … well …’

‘Seen a ghost?’ Harry asked, and reread it to make sure.

‘No,’ Øystein said.

‘No?’

‘No, you look more like you’ve … woken up.’

Harry looked up from the files and looked at Øystein. And felt it. His anxiety. It was gone.

‘It’s sixty,’ Harry warned. ‘And icy.’

Oleg eased off the accelerator slightly. ‘Why don’t you drive, seeing as you’ve got a car and a driving licence?’

‘Because you and Rakel are better drivers,’ Harry said, squinting against the sharp sunlight reflecting off the low snow-and tree-covered hillsides. A sign announced that they were four kilometres from Åneby.

‘Mum could have driven, then?’

‘I thought it might be useful for you to see a sheriff’s office. You could end up being sent somewhere like this one day, you know.’

Oleg braked behind a tractor that was throwing up snow as its chains sang against the tarmac. ‘I’m heading for Crime Squad, not the countryside.’

‘Oslo is almost the countryside, it’s only half an hour away.’

‘I’ve applied to the FBI course in Chicago.’

Harry smiled. ‘If you’re that ambitious, a couple of years in a sheriff’s office shouldn’t scare you. Take a left here.’

‘Jimmy,’ said the burly, cheery-looking man standing in front of the door of Nittedal sheriff’s office, which was located next door to social services and the jobcentre, in the sort of plain modern building that provided public services all over Norway. His fresh suntan made Harry assume he’d spent his winter break in the Canary Islands, even if his thoughts of ‘Lanzagrotty’ were based on a prejudiced assumption about where people from Nittedal with first names ending in ‘y’ went on holiday.