The Thirst Read online

  ‘Tord has also checked out this Vidar’s Facebook profile,’ Katrine said. ‘Not surprisingly, it’s fake, set up recently on a device that we haven’t managed to trace. Tord believes this suggests that he must have a reasonable level of IT skills.’

  ‘Or else he had help,’ Harry said. ‘But we do at least have one person who saw and spoke to Valentin Gjertsen, just before he disappeared off the radar three years ago. Ståle has retired from his job as a consultant to Crime Squad, but he’s agreed to come here today.’

  Ståle Aune stood up, fastening a button on his tweed jacket.

  ‘For a short time I had the questionable pleasure of seeing a patient who called himself Paul Stavnes. He was unusual as a schizophrenic psychopath insofar as he was aware of his own illness, at least to a certain extent. He also succeeded in manipulating me so that I didn’t realise who he was or what he was doing. Until the day when he let his cover slip quite by chance, then tried to kill me before disappearing for good.’

  ‘Ståle’s description formed the basis for this photofit picture.’ Harry tapped the computer. ‘So this is also fairly old now, but at least it’s better than the surveillance picture from the football match.’

  Katrine tilted her head. The drawing showed that his hair, nose and the shape of his eyes were different, and the shape of his face was more angular than in the photograph. But the look of contentment was still there. Presumed contentment. Like the way you think a crocodile is grinning.

  ‘How did he become a vampirist?’ a voice by the window asked.

  ‘To start with, I’m not convinced that there’s any such thing as vampirists,’ Aune said. ‘But of course there could be plenty of reasons why Valentin Gjertsen drinks blood, without me being able to give an answer here and now.’

  A long silence followed.

  Harry cleared his throat. ‘We haven’t seen any sign of biting or drinking blood in any previous case that can be linked to Gjertsen. And yes, perpetrators do usually stick to a specific pattern, revisiting the same fantasies again and again.’

  ‘How certain are we that this really is Valentin Gjertsen?’ Skarre asked. ‘And not just someone trying to make us think that it’s him?’

  ‘Eighty-nine per cent.’ This from Bjørn Holm.

  Skarre laughed. ‘Exactly eighty-nine?’

  ‘Yes. We found strands of body hair on the handcuffs he used on Penelope Rasch, possibly from the back of his hand. With DNA analysis it doesn’t take too long to confirm a match with eighty-nine per cent probability. It’s the last ten per cent that takes time. We’ll get the final answer in two days. The handcuffs are a type that are available online, by the way, a replica of handcuffs from the Middle Ages. Hence the iron, rather than steel. Apparently popular with people who like to do up their love nests to make them look like medieval dungeons.’

  A single grunt of laughter.

  ‘What about the iron teeth?’ one of the female detectives asked. ‘Where could he have got those from?’

  ‘That’s more difficult,’ Bjørn Holm said. ‘We haven’t found anyone who manufactures teeth like this, at least not out of iron. He must have commissioned them specially from a blacksmith. Or made them himself. It’s certainly something new – we haven’t seen anyone use a weapon like this before.’

  ‘New behaviour,’ Aune said, undoing his jacket to free his stomach. ‘Fundamental changes of behaviour hardly ever happen. Human beings are notorious, they insist on making the same mistakes over and over again, even after they’ve received new information. That’s my opinion, anyway, and it’s become so contentious among psychologists that it’s even been given its own name, Aune’s Thesis. When we see individuals change their behaviour, it usually relates to a change in their surroundings, something the individual is adapting to. While the individual’s underlying motivation for that behaviour remains the same. It’s by no means unique for a sex offender to discover new fantasies and pleasures, but that’s because his taste gradually develops, not because the individual undergoes a fundamental change. When I was a teenager my father said that when I was older I would start to appreciate Beethoven. At the time I hated Beethoven and was convinced he was wrong. Even at a young age, Valentin Gjertsen had a wide-ranging appetite when it came to sexuality. He raped both young and old women, possibly boys, no adult men that we know of, but that could be for practical reasons, seeing as they’re more likely to be able to defend themselves. Paedophilia, necrophilia, sadism, all this was on Valentin Gjertsen’s menu. The Oslo Police have been able to link him to more sexually motivated crimes than anyone apart from Svein Finne, “the Fiancé”. The fact that he’s now acquiring a taste for blood merely means that he scores highly on what we call “openness”, and is willing to try new experiences. I say “acquiring” because certain observations, such as the fact that he added lemon, suggest that Valentin Gjertsen is experimenting with blood rather than being obsessed with it.’

  ‘Not obsessed?’ Skarre called. ‘He’s up to a victim a day now! While we’re sitting here he’s probably out on the hunt again. Wouldn’t you say, Professor?’ He pronounced the title without trying to conceal his sarcasm.

  Aune threw his short arms out. ‘Once again, I don’t know. We don’t know. No one knows.’

  ‘Valentin Gjertsen,’ Mikael Bellman said. ‘Are we completely sure about that, Bratt? If so, give me ten minutes to think it over. Yes, I can see that it’s urgent.’

  Bellman ended the call and put his mobile down on the glass table. Isabelle had just told him it was made of mouth-blown glass from ClassiCon, more than fifty thousand kroner. That she would rather have a few quality pieces than fill her new apartment with rubbish. From where he was sitting he could see an artificial beach and the ferries gliding back and forth across the Oslo Fjord. Strong winds lashed the almost violet water further out.

  ‘Well?’ Isabelle asked from the bed behind him.

  ‘The lead detective wants to know if she should agree to take part in The Sunday Magazine this evening. The subject is the vampirist murders, obviously. We know who the perpetrator is, but not where he is.’

  ‘Simple,’ Isabelle Skøyen said. ‘If you already had the guy, you should do it yourself. But seeing as it’s only a partial success, you should send a representative. Remind her to say “we” rather than “I”. And it wouldn’t do any harm if she were to suggest that the perpetrator may have managed to get across the border.’

  ‘The border? Why?’

  Isabelle Skøyen sighed. ‘Don’t pretend to be more stupid than you are, darling, that’s just irritating.’

  Bellman went over to the door to the veranda. He stood there, looking down at the Sunday tourists streaming towards Tjuvholmen. Some to visit the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Contemporary Art, some to look at the hyper-modern architecture and drink overpriced cappuccino. And some to dream about one of the laughably expensive apartments that hadn’t yet been sold. He had heard that the museum had exhibited a Mercedes with a big, brown human turd in place of the Mercedes star on the bonnet. OK, so for some people solid excrement was a status symbol. Others needed the most expensive apartment, the latest car or the biggest yacht to feel good. And then you had people – like Isabelle and he himself – who wanted absolutely everything: power, but without any suffocating obligations. Admiration and respect, but enough anonymity to be able to move freely. Family, to provide a stable framework and help their genes survive, but also free access to sex outside the four walls of the home. The apartment and the car. And solid shit.

  ‘So,’ Mikael Bellman said. ‘You’re thinking that if Valentin Gjertsen goes missing for a while, the public will automatically think that he’s left the country, instead of the Oslo Police being unable to catch him. But if we do catch him, we’ve been smart. And if he commits another murder, anything we’ve said will be forgotten anyway.’

  He turned towards her. He had no idea why she had chosen to put her big double bed in the living room when she had a perfectly adequate bedroom.
Particularly as it was possible for the neighbours to see in. Although he had a suspicion that that was why. Isabelle Skøyen was a big woman. Her long, powerful limbs were spread out under the gold-coloured silk sheet that lay draped over her sensuous body. The sight alone made him feel ready to go again.

  ‘Just one word, and you’ve sown the idea of him leaving the country,’ she said. ‘In psychology it’s called anchoring. It’s simple, and it always works. Because people are simple.’ Her eyes roamed down his body and she smiled. ‘Especially men.’

  She shoved the silk sheet onto the floor.

  He looked at her. Sometimes he thought he preferred just looking at her body to touching it, while the opposite was true of his wife. Which was odd, because Ulla’s body, purely objectively, was more beautiful than Isabelle’s. But Isabelle’s violent, raging desires turned him on far more than Ulla’s tenderness and quiet, sob-racked orgasms.

  ‘Wank,’ she commanded, spreading her legs so that her knees resembled the half-furled wings of a bird of prey, and touched two of her long fingers to her genitals.

  He did as she said. Closed his eyes. And heard the glass table buzz. Damn, he’d forgotten Katrine Bratt. He grabbed the vibrating phone and pressed answer.

  ‘Yes?’

  The female voice at the other end said something, but Mikael couldn’t hear anything because one of the ferries blew its horn at the same time.

  ‘The answer’s yes,’ he shouted impatiently. ‘You’re to go on The Sunday Magazine. I’m busy at the moment, but I’ll call you with instructions later.’

  ‘It’s me.’

  Mikael Bellman stiffened. ‘Darling, is that you? I thought it was Katrine Bratt.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Where? At work, of course.’

  And in the far too long pause that followed, he realised that she had obviously also heard the sound of the ferry, and that that was why she had asked. He breathed hard through his mouth as he looked down at his drooping erection.

  ‘Dinner won’t be ready before half past five,’ she said.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘What—?’

  ‘Steak,’ she said, and hung up.

  Harry and Anders Wyller got out of the car in front of Jøssingveien 33. Harry lit a cigarette and looked up at the red-brick building surrounded by a tall fence. They had driven from Police HQ in sunshine and shimmering autumn colours, but on the way up here the clouds had gathered and were now skimming the hills like a cement-coloured ceiling, draining the colour from the landscape.

  ‘So this is Ila Prison,’ Wyller said.

  Harry nodded and sucked hard on the cigarette.

  ‘Why is he called the Fiancé?’

  ‘Because he got his rape victims pregnant and made them promise to give birth to the baby.’

  ‘Or else …?’

  ‘Or else he’d come back and perform a Caesarean section himself.’ Harry took one last drag, rubbed the cigarette out against the packet and tucked the butt inside. ‘Let’s get this done.’

  ‘The regulations don’t allow us to keep him tied up, but we’ll be watching you on the surveillance camera,’ said the guard who had buzzed them in and led them to the end of the long corridor, lined with grey-painted steel doors on both sides. ‘One of our rules is never to get within one metre of him.’

  ‘Christ,’ Wyller said. ‘Does he attack you?’

  ‘No,’ the guard said, inserting a key into the lock of the last door. ‘Svein Finne hasn’t had a single black mark against his name in the twenty years he’s been here.’

  ‘But?’

  The prison guard shrugged and turned the key. ‘I think you’ll see what I mean.’

  He opened the door, stepped aside and Wyller and Harry walked into the cell.

  The man on the bed was sitting in shadow.

  ‘Finne,’ Harry said.

  ‘Hole.’ The voice from the shadow sounded like crushed rock.

  Harry gestured towards the only chair in the room. ‘OK if I sit down?’

  ‘If you think you’ve got time for that. I heard you’ve got your hands full.’

  Harry sat down. Wyller stood behind him, just inside the door.

  ‘Hm. Is it him?’

  ‘Is it who?’

  ‘You know who I mean.’

  ‘I’ll answer that if you give me an honest answer – have you missed it?’

  ‘Missed what, Svein?’

  ‘Having a playmate who’s up to your level? Like you had with me?’

  The man in the shadows leaned forward, into the light from the window near the top of the wall, and Harry heard Wyller’s breathing speed up behind him. The bars laid strips of shadow across a pockmarked face with leathery, red-brown skin. It was covered with wrinkles, so deep and close together that they looked as if they’d been carved by a knife, right down to the bone. He had a red handkerchief tied round his forehead, like a Native American, and his thick, wet lips were framed by a moustache. His tiny pupils sat within brown irises, and the whites of his eyes looked yellow, but he had the muscular, sinewy body of a twenty-year-old. Harry did the maths. Svein Finne, ‘the Fiancé’, had to be seventy-five now.

  ‘You never forget your first. Isn’t that right, Hole? My name will always be at the top of your list of achievements. I took your virginity, didn’t I?’ His laugh sounded like he was gargling with gravel.

  ‘Well …’ Harry said, folding his arms. ‘If my honesty is the price for yours, then the answer is that I don’t miss it. And that I’ll never forget you, Svein Finne. Or any of the people you maimed and killed. You all visit me fairly regularly at night.’

  ‘Me too. They’re very faithful, my fiancées.’ Finne’s thick lips slipped apart as he smiled, and he put his right hand over his right eye. Harry heard Wyller step back and hit the door. Finne’s eye stared at Wyller through the hole in his hand that was big enough to hit a golf ball through. ‘Don’t be scared, son,’ Finne said. ‘It’s your boss you should be frightened of. He was just as young as you are now, and I was already lying on the ground, unable to defend myself. Even so, he held his pistol to my hand and fired. Your boss has a black heart, lad. Remember that. And now he’s thirsty again. Just like him out there. And your thirst is like a fire, that’s why you have to quench it. And until it’s quenched, it’ll keep growing, devouring everything it comes into contact with. Isn’t that right, Hole?’

  Harry cleared his throat. ‘Your turn, Finne. Where’s Valentin hiding?’

  ‘You lot have been here to ask about that before, and I can only repeat myself. I barely spoke to Valentin when he was here. And it’s been almost four years since he escaped.’

  ‘His methods resemble yours. Some people claim that you taught him.’

  ‘Nonsense. Valentin was born ready-taught. Believe me.’

  ‘Where would you have hidden, if you were him?’

  ‘Close enough to be in your sights, Hole. I’d have been prepared for you this time.’

  ‘Does he live in the city? Move about the city? New identity? Is he alone or is he working with anyone else?’

  ‘He’s doing it differently now, isn’t he? Biting and drinking blood. Maybe it isn’t Valentin?’

  ‘It’s Valentin. So how do I catch him?’

  ‘You don’t catch him.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘He’d rather die than end up here again. His imagination was never enough for him, he had to do it.’

  ‘Sounds like you do know him after all.’

  ‘I know what he’s made of.’

  ‘The same as you? Hormones from hell.’

  The old man shrugged. ‘Everyone knows that moral choice is an illusion, it’s only the chemistry of the brain that directs your and my behaviour, Hole. Some people’s behaviour gets diagnosed as ADHD or anxiety and is treated with drugs and sympathy. Others are diagnosed as criminal and evil and are locked up. But it’s the same thing. An unholy mixture of substances in the brain. And I agree that we should be locked up. We rape your
daughters, for God’s sake.’ Finne let out a rasping laugh. ‘So clear us off the streets, threaten us with punishment so we don’t head off in the direction the chemicals in our brain would otherwise tell us to go in. But what makes that pathetic is that you’re so weak that you need a moral excuse to lock us up. You create a history of lies about free will and some sort of divine punishment that fits into a system of divine justice based on some unchanging, universal morality. But morality can hardly be unchanging or universal, it’s entirely dependent upon the spirit of the age, Hole. Men fucking men was completely OK a few thousand years ago, then they were put in prison, and now politicians go on parades with them. Everything gets decided according to what society needs or doesn’t need at any given time. Morality is flexible and utilitarian. My problem is that I was born in an age and in a country where men who scatter their seed so wantonly are undesirable. But after a pandemic, when the species needs to get back on its feet again, Svein “the Fiancé” Finne would have been a pillar of the community and a saviour of humanity. Don’t you think, Hole?’

  ‘You raped women and made them give birth to your children,’ Harry said. ‘Valentin kills them. So why don’t you want to help me catch him?’

  ‘Am I not being helpful?’

  ‘You’re giving me general answers and half-baked moral philosophy. If you help us, I’ll put in a good word to the parole board.’

  Harry heard Wyller shuffle his feet.

  ‘Really?’ Finne stroked his moustache. ‘Even though you know I’d start raping again as soon as I got out? I appreciate that it must be very important for you to catch Valentin, seeing as you’re prepared to sacrifice so many innocent women’s honour. But I don’t suppose you have a choice.’ He tapped his temple with one finger. ‘Chemistry …’

  Harry didn’t respond.

  ‘Well, then,’ Finne said. ‘To start with, I’ll have served my sentence on the first Saturday of March next year, so it’s too late to get a reduction that makes much difference. And I was taken outside a couple of weeks ago, and you know what? I wanted to get back here. So, thanks but no thanks. Tell me how you’re doing instead, Hole. I heard that you got married. And have a bastard son, yes? Do you live in a safe place?’