The Thirst Read online

  Harry looked at Valentin over the sights of his pistol. He was right. It was too dark and too great a distance for him to be sure of hitting Valentin with a headshot.

  ‘I interpret your silence to mean that you agree with me, Harry. And because I believe I can hear police sirens in the distance, I presume we don’t have much time.’

  Harry had considered telling them not to use sirens, but then they would have taken longer.

  ‘Put your pistol down, Harry, and I’ll walk out of here.’

  Harry shook his head. ‘You’re here because he’s seen your face, so you’ll shoot him and me because now I’ve seen your face too.’

  ‘So come up with a suggestion within the next five seconds, otherwise I’ll shoot him and gamble on you missing before I hit you.’

  ‘We maintain the balance of terror,’ Harry said. ‘But with matching disarmament.’

  ‘You’re trying to drag things out, but the countdown has started. Four, three …’

  ‘We both turn our guns at the same time and hold them by the barrel in our right hand, with the trigger and hilt visible.’

  ‘Two …’

  ‘You head for the door along that wall there, while I head towards the bar past the booths on the other side of the room.’

  ‘One …’

  ‘The distance between us will stay the same as it is now, and neither of us would be able to shoot the other before he had time to react.’

  The bar was silent. The sirens were closer. And if Oleg had done as he had been told – correction, ordered – he was still sitting in the car two blocks away and hadn’t moved.

  The light suddenly vanished, and Harry realised Valentin had turned the dimmer switch behind the bar. And when he turned towards Harry for the first time, it was too dark for Harry to see his face beneath the cap.

  ‘We turn our guns on the count of three,’ Valentin said and raised his hand. ‘One, two … three.’

  Harry grasped the handle with his left hand, then the barrel with his right. He held his pistol in the air. Saw Valentin do the same. It looked like he was holding a flag in the children’s procession on Constitution Day, with the characteristic red grip of a Ruger Redhawk sticking away from the long barrel of the revolver.

  ‘There, you see,’ Valentin said. ‘Who but two men who truly understand each other could have done that? I like you, Harry. I really like you. So, now we start to move …’

  Valentin walked towards the wall, while Harry moved towards the booths. It was so quiet that Harry could hear the creak of Valentin’s boots as they each crept round the other in a semicircle, watching one another like two gladiators who knew that the first skirmish would mean death for at least one of them. Harry realised he’d reached the bar when he heard the low rumble of the fridge, the steady drip in the sink and the insect-like buzz from the stereo’s amplifier. He felt around in the darkness without taking his eyes off the silhouette that stood out against the light from the window. Then he was behind the bar, heard the sounds from the street as the door opened, then footsteps running until they disappeared.

  He pulled his phone from his pocket, put it to his ear.

  ‘Did you hear?’

  ‘I heard everything,’ Oleg replied. ‘I’ll inform the patrol cars. Description?’

  ‘Short black jacket, dark trousers, peaked cap with no logo, but he’s bound to have got rid of that already. I didn’t see his face. He ran left, towards Thorvald Meyers gate, so—’

  ‘—he’s heading for somewhere with a lot of people and traffic. I’ll tell them.’

  Harry dropped his phone in his pocket and put his hand on Mehmet’s shoulder. No reaction.

  ‘Mehmet …’

  He could no longer hear the fridge and amplifier. Only the steady dripping. He turned the dimmer switch up. He took hold of Mehmet’s hair and gently lifted his head out of the sink. His face was pale. Too pale.

  There was something sticking out of his neck.

  It looked like a drinking straw made of metal.

  Red drops were still dripping from the end, down into the sink, which was clogged with all the blood.

  25

  TUESDAY NIGHT

  KATRINE BRATT JUMPED out of the car and walked towards the cordon outside the Jealousy Bar. She spotted a man leaning against one of the police cars, smoking. The rotating blue light alternately lit up his ugly-handsome face and cast it into darkness. She shivered and walked over to him.

  ‘It’s cold,’ she said.

  ‘Winter’s coming,’ Harry said, blowing his cigarette smoke up so it was caught by the blue light.

  ‘Emilia’s coming.’

  ‘Mm, I’d forgotten that.’

  ‘They say the storm’s going to hit Oslo tomorrow.’

  ‘Mm.’

  Katrine looked at him. She thought she had seen all the possible versions of Harry. But not this one. Not one so empty, crushed, resigned. She felt like stroking his cheek and giving him a hug. But she couldn’t. There were so many reasons why she couldn’t.

  ‘What happened in there?’

  ‘Valentin had a Ruger Redhawk, and made me believe I was negotiating for someone’s life. But Mehmet was already dead by the time I got there. A metal tube inserted into his carotid artery. He’d been drained of blood like some damn fish. Just because he … because I …’ Harry started to blink rapidly and stopped talking, and pretended to pick a strand of tobacco from his tongue.

  Katrine didn’t know what to say. So she said nothing. Instead she looked at the familiar black Volvo Amazon with the racing stripe that was parked on the other side of the street. Bjørn got out of it and Katrine felt her heart skip a beat when something-or-other Lien got out of the passenger side. What was Bjørn’s boss doing here, out in the field? Had Bjørn offered her a romantic viewing of the many attractions of a murder scene? Damn. Bjørn had spotted them, and Katrine saw them adjust their course and head in their direction.

  ‘I’m going in, we’ll talk more later,’ she said, snuck under the cordon and hurried towards the door beneath the sign of a broken plastic heart.

  ‘There you are,’ Bjørn said. ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you.’

  ‘I’ve been …’ Harry took a deep drag on his cigarette. ‘… a bit busy.’

  ‘This is Berna Lien, the new head of Krimteknisk. Berna, Harry Hole.’

  ‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ the woman smiled.

  ‘And I’ve heard nothing about you,’ Harry said. ‘Are you any good?’

  She looked at Bjørn, uncertain. ‘Any good?’

  ‘Valentin Gjertsen’s good,’ Harry said. ‘I’m not good enough, so I’m just hoping there are other people here who are better, or else this bloodbath is just going to continue.’

  ‘I might have something,’ Bjørn said.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘That’s why I was trying to get hold of you. Valentin’s jacket. When I cut it open I did actually find a couple of things in the lining. A ten-øre coin and two scraps of paper. Because the jacket’s been washed all the ink was gone from the outside, but when I unfolded one of them there was some left inside. It’s not much, but enough to see that it’s a receipt from a cashpoint in Oslo City. Which fits the theory that he consistently avoids debit cards and pays cash. Sadly we can’t see the card number, registration number or when the withdrawal was made, but parts of the date are visible.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Enough to see that it’s this year, August, and we’ve got enough of the last digit of the date to see that it could only be a 1.’

  ‘So, 1, 11, 21 and 31.’

  ‘Four possible days … I’ve been in touch with a woman at Nokas, which looks after DNB’s cashpoint machines. She says they’re allowed to store images from their security cameras for up to three months, so they’ll have this withdrawal on film. It was made at one of the machines at Oslo Central Station, which is one of the busiest in Norway. The official explanation is that it’s because of all the shopping cen
tres in the vicinity.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘Everyone accepts cards these days. Except?’

  ‘Mm. The drug dealers around the station and along the river.’

  ‘There are over two hundred transactions a day from the busiest machines,’ Bjørn said.

  ‘Four days, so just under a thousand,’ Berna Lien said eagerly. Harry trod on the smouldering cigarette.

  ‘We’ll have the recordings first thing tomorrow, and with the efficient use of fast-forward and pause, we can check at least two faces per minute. In other words, seven or eight hours, probably less. Once we’ve identified Valentin, we just have to match the time of the recording to the time of the withdrawal in the cash machine’s register.’

  ‘And hey presto, we’ve got Valentin Gjertsen’s secret identity,’ Berna Lien said, evidently proud and excited on behalf of her department. ‘What do you think, Hole?’

  ‘I think, fru Lien, that it’s a shame the man who could have identified Valentin is lying in there with his head in the sink and no pulse.’ Harry buttoned his jacket. ‘But thanks for coming.’

  Berna Lien looked angrily from Harry to Bjørn, who cleared his throat unhappily. ‘As I understand it, you were face-to-face with Valentin,’ he said.

  Harry shook his head. ‘I never saw his new face.’

  Bjørn nodded slowly without taking his eyes off Harry. ‘I see. That’s a shame. A great shame.’

  ‘Mm.’ Harry looked down at the crushed cigarette butt in front of his shoe.

  ‘OK. Well, we’ll go inside and take a look.’

  ‘Have fun.’

  He watched them go. The press photographers had already gathered outside the cordon, and now the journalists were beginning to arrive as well. Perhaps they knew something, perhaps they didn’t, perhaps they just didn’t dare, but they left Harry alone.

  Eight hours.

  Eight hours as of tomorrow morning.

  Within the space of another day, Valentin might have killed someone else.

  Fuck.

  ‘Bjørn!’ Harry called, just as his colleague took hold of the door handle.

  ‘Harry,’ Ståle Aune said, standing in the doorway. ‘Bjørn.’

  ‘Sorry to call so late,’ Harry said. ‘Can we come in?’

  ‘Of course.’ Aune held the door open and Harry and Bjørn stepped into the Aune family home. A small woman, thinner than her husband but with exactly the same grey-coloured hair, darted out with quick, nimble steps. ‘Harry!’ she sang. ‘I thought it was you, it’s been far too long. How’s Rakel, do they know any more?’

  Harry shook his head and let Ingrid peck his cheek. ‘Coffee, or is it too late? Green tea?’

  Bjørn and Harry replied yes please and no thanks simultaneously, and Ingrid disappeared into the kitchen.

  They went into the living room and sat down on low armchairs. The walls were lined with bookcases, full of everything from travel guides and old atlases to poetry, graphic novels and heavy academic volumes. But mostly novels.

  ‘You see I’m reading that book you gave me?’ Ståle picked up the thin book that lay open, spine up, on the table beside his armchair, and showed it to Bjørn. ‘Édouard Levé. Suicide. Harry gave it to me for my sixtieth birthday. I suppose he thought it was time.’

  Bjørn and Harry laughed. Evidently not entirely convincingly, because Ståle frowned. ‘Is something wrong?’

  Harry cleared his throat. ‘Valentin killed another person this evening.’

  ‘It pains me to hear that,’ Ståle said, and shook his head.

  ‘And we have no reason to believe that he’s going to stop.’

  ‘No. No, you haven’t,’ the psychologist agreed.

  ‘That’s why we’re here, and this is very hard for me, Ståle.’

  Ståle Aune sighed. ‘Hallstein Smith isn’t working, and you want me to take over, is that it?’

  ‘No. We need …’ Harry fell silent when Ingrid came in and put the tea tray down on the coffee table between the silent men. ‘The sound of the oath of confidentiality,’ she said. ‘See you later, Harry. Give Oleg our love and tell him we’re all thinking of Rakel.’

  ‘We need someone who can identify Valentin Gjertsen,’ Harry said when she’d gone. ‘And the last person alive who we know has seen him …’

  Harry didn’t intend it as a dramatic pause to increase the tension, but so that Ståle would get the fraction of a second his brain required to make the rapid, almost unconscious, yet horribly accurate deductions it was capable of. Not that it would make much difference. He was like a boxer in the process of being punched, but who gets a tenth of a second to shift his weight ever so slightly away from the punch instead of meeting it head-on.

  ‘… is Aurora.’

  In the silence that followed Harry could hear the rasping of the side of the book Ståle was still holding as it slid across his fingertips.

  ‘What are you saying, Harry?’

  ‘The day Rakel and I got married, while you and Ingrid were there, Valentin paid Aurora a visit at the handball tournament she was taking part in.’

  The book hit the carpet with a muffled thud. Ståle blinked uncomprehendingly. ‘She … he …’

  Harry waited as he watched it sink in.

  ‘Did he touch her? Did he hurt her?’

  Harry held Ståle’s gaze, but didn’t answer. Saw him piece the information together. Saw him look at the previous three years in a new light. A light that provided answers.

  ‘Yes,’ Ståle whispered, grimacing in pain. He took his glasses off. ‘Yes, of course he did. How blind I’ve been.’ He stared into space. ‘And how did you find this out?’

  ‘Aurora came to see me yesterday and told me,’ Harry said.

  Ståle Aune’s eyes swung back to Harry as if in slow motion. ‘You … you’ve known since yesterday, and didn’t say anything to me?’

  ‘She made me promise.’

  Ståle Aune’s voice didn’t rise, it sank. ‘A fifteen-year-old girl who’s been assaulted, whom you know perfectly well needs all the help she can get, and you chose to keep it secret?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But for God’s sake, Harry, why?’

  ‘Because Valentin threatened to kill you if she told anyone what had happened.’

  ‘Me?’ Ståle let slip a sob. ‘Me? What does that matter? I’m way past sixty with a dodgy heart, Harry. She’s a young girl with her whole life ahead of her!’

  ‘You’re the person she loves most in the whole world, and I made her a promise.’

  Ståle Aune put his glasses on, then raised a trembling finger towards Harry. ‘Yes, you made her a promise! And you kept that promise as long as it didn’t mean anything to you! But now, now you see that you can use her to solve yet another Harry Hole case, that promise doesn’t mean so much any more.’

  Harry didn’t protest.

  ‘Get out, Harry! You’re no friend of this house, and you’re no longer welcome here.’

  ‘We’re running out of time, Ståle.’

  ‘Out, now!’ Ståle Aune had got up.

  ‘We need her.’

  ‘I’ll call the police. The real police.’

  Harry looked up at him. Saw that there was no point. That they’d have to wait, that this would have to run its course, that they could only hope Ståle Aune would see the bigger picture before morning.

  He nodded. Levered himself out of the chair.

  ‘We’ll see ourselves out,’ he said.

  Harry saw Ingrid’s pale, silent face in the doorway as they passed the kitchen.

  He put his shoes on in the hall and was about to leave when he heard a thin voice.

  ‘Harry?’

  He turned round and couldn’t see where the voice had come from at first. Then, out of the darkness at the top of the stairs, she stepped into the light. She was wearing striped pyjamas that were far too big for her, possibly her father’s, Harry thought.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Harry said. ‘I had to.’

>   ‘I know,’ Aurora said. ‘It says on the Net that the man who died was called Mehmet. And I heard you.’

  At that moment Ståle came running out of the living room, waving his arms and with tears streaming from his eyes. ‘Aurora! You’re not to—’ His voice broke.

  ‘Dad,’ Aurora said, sitting down calmly on the steps above them, ‘I want to help.’

  26

  TUESDAY NIGHT

  MONA DAA WAS standing by the Monolith, watching Truls Berntsen hurry through the darkness. When they’d arranged to meet in Frognerparken she had suggested a few more discreet, less popular sculptures, seeing as the Monolith was visited by sightseers even at night. But when Truls Berntsen had said ‘What?’ three times she had realised that the Monolith was the only one he was familiar with.

  She pulled him round to the west side of the sculpture, away from the two couples who were looking at the view of the church spires to the east. She gave him the envelope containing the money, which he slipped inside his long Armani coat, which for some reason didn’t look like an Armani coat on him.

  ‘Anything new?’ she asked.

  ‘There won’t be any more tip-offs,’ Truls said, glancing around.

  ‘No?’

  He looked at her, as if to check if she was joking. ‘The man was murdered, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘So you’d better offer something a bit less … fatal next time.’

  Truls Berntsen snorted. ‘Christ, you’re even worse than me, the whole lot of you.’

  ‘Really? You gave us Mehmet’s name, but we still chose not to reveal it or print his picture.’

  Truls shook his head. ‘Can you hear yourself, Daa? We just led Valentin straight to a guy who has only done two things wrong. Running a bar that Valentin’s victim happened to visit, and agreeing to help the police.’