The Thirst Read online

  ‘Smart of him not to take the car,’ Wyller said.

  ‘Yep,’ Katrine said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Smith asked.

  ‘The toll stations, car parks and traffic cameras,’ Wyller said. ‘You can run number-plate recognition software on video recordings, it only takes seconds.’

  ‘Brave new world,’ Katrine said.

  ‘O brave new world, that has such people in it,’ Smith said.

  Katrine turned to the psychologist. ‘Can you imagine where someone like Valentin might go if he ran?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No, as in “no idea”?’

  Smith pushed his glasses further up his nose. ‘No, as in “I can’t imagine him running”.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he’s angry.’

  Katrine shivered. ‘You didn’t exactly make him less angry if he heard your podcast with Daa.’

  ‘No,’ Smith sighed. ‘Maybe I went too far. Again. Fortunately we’ve got decent locks and security cameras after the break-in in the barn. But maybe …’

  ‘Maybe what?’

  ‘Maybe we’d feel safer if I had a weapon, a pistol or something.’

  ‘Regulations don’t permit us to give you a police weapon without a licence and weapons training.’

  ‘Emergency armament,’ Wyller said.

  Katrine looked at him. Perhaps the criteria for emergency armament had been met, perhaps not. But she could see the headlines after Smith had been shot and it emerged that he had requested emergency armament and had been turned down. ‘Can you help Hallstein get issued with a pistol?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK. I’ve told Skarre to check trains, boats, flights, hotels and boarding houses. We’ll have to hope that Valentin doesn’t have the paperwork to support other identities apart from Alexander Dreyer.’ Katrine looked up at the sky. She had once had a boyfriend who was keen on paragliding, and he had told her that even if there was no wind on the ground, the air just a couple of hundred metres up could break the speed limit on a motorway. Dreyer. Dutch wife. Things to do? Pistol. Angry.

  ‘And Harry wasn’t at home?’ she said.

  Wyller shook his head. ‘I rang the doorbell, walked round the house, looked in all the windows.’

  ‘Time to talk to Oleg,’ she said. ‘He must have keys.’

  ‘I’ll get on to it.’

  She sighed. ‘If you don’t find Harry there, it might be an idea to get Telenor to try and locate his phone.’

  One of the white-clad forensics guys came over to her.

  ‘There’s blood in the boot,’ he said.

  ‘Much?’

  ‘Yes. And this.’ He held up a large transparent plastic evidence bag. Inside was a white blouse. Torn. Bloody. With lace on it, the way customers had described the blouse Marte Ruud had been wearing the night she went missing.

  29

  WEDNESDAY EVENING

  HARRY OPENED HIS eyes and stared into the darkness.

  Where was he? What had happened? How long had he been unconscious? His head felt like someone had hit it with an iron bar. His pulse was throbbing against his eardrums in a monotonous rhythm. All he could remember was that he was locked in. And as far as he could work out, he was lying on a floor covered in cold tiles. Cold like the inside of a fridge. He was lying in something wet, sticky. He raised his hand and stared at it. Was that blood?

  Then, slowly, it dawned on Harry that it wasn’t his pulse throbbing against his eardrums.

  It was a bass guitar.

  Kaiser Chiefs? Probably. It was definitely one of those hip English bands that he’d actually forgotten. Not that Kaiser Chiefs were bad, but they weren’t exceptional and had therefore ended up in the grey soup of things he had heard more than a year ago but less than twenty: they just hadn’t stuck. While he could remember every note and lyric from the very worst songs from the 1980s, the period between then and now was a blank. Just like the period between yesterday and now. Nothing. Just that insistent bass. Or his heartbeat. Or someone banging on the door.

  Harry opened his eyes again. He smelt his hand, hoping it wasn’t blood, piss or vomit.

  The bass started to play out of time with the song.

  It was the door.

  ‘Closed!’ Harry shouted. And regretted it when it felt like his head was going to explode.

  The track ended and the Smiths took over. And Harry realised he must have plugged his own phone into the stereo when he got sick of Bad Company. ‘There is a Light That Never Goes Out’. If only it would. But the hammering on the door merely continued. Harry put his hands over his ears. But when the track reached the last part with nothing but strings, he heard a voice shouting his name. And because it could hardly be someone who had found out that the new owner of the Jealousy Bar was called Harry, and because he recognised the voice, he grabbed hold of the edge of the counter and heaved himself up. First to his knees. Then a forward-leaning posture, which in spite of everything had to qualify as standing, seeing as the soles of his shoes were planted on the sticky floor. He saw the two empty Jim Beam bottles lying on their sides with their mouths over the edge of the counter, and realised that he had lain there marinating in his own bourbon whiskey.

  He saw her face outside the window. It looked like she was alone.

  He ran one stiff index finger across his throat to indicate that the bar was closed, but she gave him a long stiff finger in return and started banging on the window instead.

  And because the noise sounded like a hammer on the already battered parts of his brain, Harry decided that he may as well open the door. He let go of the counter, took a step. And fell over. Both his feet had fallen asleep – how was that possible? He got up again, and with the help of the tables and chairs he staggered to the door.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Katrine groaned when he opened the door. ‘You’re drunk!’

  ‘Possibly,’ Harry said. ‘But I wish I was drunker.’

  ‘We’ve been looking for you, you bloody idiot! Have you been here all this time?’

  ‘I don’t know what “all this time” is, but there are two empty bottles on the bar. Let’s hope I took my time and enjoyed it.’

  ‘We’ve been calling and calling.’

  ‘Mm. Must have put my phone on flight mode. Do you like the playlist? Listen. This angry lady is Martha Wainwright. “Bloody Mother Fucking Arsehole”. Remind you of anyone?’

  ‘Fucking hell, Harry, what are you thinking?’

  ‘I don’t know about thinking. I am – as you can see – in flight mode.’

  She grabbed hold of the collar of his jacket. ‘People are being murdered out there, Harry. And you’re standing here trying to be funny?’

  ‘I try to be funny every fucking day, Katrine. And you know what? It doesn’t make people any better, or any worse. And it doesn’t seem to have any effect on the number of murders either.’

  ‘Harry, Harry …’

  He swayed, and it dawned on him that she had grabbed his collar primarily to stop him falling over.

  ‘We missed him, Harry. We need you.’

  ‘OK. Just let me have a drink first.’

  ‘Harry!’

  ‘Your voice is very … loud …’

  ‘We’re going now. I’ve got a car waiting outside.’

  ‘My bar is having a happy hour, and I’m not ready for work, Katrine.’

  ‘You’re not going to work, you’re going home to sober up. Oleg’s waiting for you.’

  ‘Oleg?’

  ‘We got him to unlock the house up in Holmenkollen. He was so scared of what he was going to find that he made Bjørn go in first.’

  Harry closed his eyes. Shit, shit. ‘I can’t, Katrine.’

  ‘You can’t what?’

  ‘Call Oleg and say I’m OK, tell him to go back to his mother instead.’

  ‘He seemed pretty determined to wait there until you arrived, Harry.’

  ‘I can’t let him see me like this. And I’m no use to y
ou. Sorry, this isn’t up for discussion.’ He took hold of the door. ‘Now go.’

  ‘Go? And leave you here?’

  ‘I’ll be OK. Only soft drinks from now on. Maybe a bit of Coldplay.’

  Katrine shook her head. ‘You’re coming home.’

  ‘I’m not going home.’

  ‘Not your home.’

  30

  WEDNESDAY NIGHT

  THERE WAS ONE hour left until midnight, Olsen’s was packed with fully grown adults, and from the speakers Gerry Rafferty and his saxophone were blowing the ponytails of the people standing closest to them.

  ‘The sounds of the eighties,’ Liz cried.

  ‘I think this is from the seventies,’ Ulla said.

  ‘Yeah, but it didn’t reach Manglerud until the eighties.’

  They laughed. Ulla saw Liz shake her head towards a man who looked questioningly at her as he passed their table.

  ‘This is actually the second time I’ve been here in a week,’ Ulla said.

  ‘Oh? Was it this much fun last time?’

  Ulla shook her head. ‘Nothing’s as much fun as going out with you. Time passes, but you haven’t changed.’

  ‘No,’ Liz said, tilting her head and studying her friend. ‘But you have.’

  ‘Really? Have I lost myself?’

  ‘No, and that’s actually quite annoying. But you don’t smile any more.’

  ‘Don’t I?’

  ‘You smile, but you don’t smile. Not like Ulla from Manglerud.’

  Ulla tilted her head. ‘We moved.’

  ‘Yes, you got a husband and children and villa. But that’s a poor exchange for the smile, Ulla. What happened?’

  ‘Yes, what happened?’ She smiled at Liz and drank. Then looked around. The average age was roughly the same as them, but she couldn’t see any familiar faces. Manglerud had grown, people had moved in, moved on. Some had died, some had just disappeared. And some were sitting at home. Dead and disappeared.

  ‘Would it be mean of me to guess?’ Liz wondered.

  ‘Guess away.’

  Rafferty had finished his verse and Liz had to shout to drown out the saxophone blasting out again. ‘Mikael Bellman from Manglerud. He took your smile.’

  ‘That is actually pretty mean, Liz.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s true, isn’t it?’

  Ulla raised her glass of wine again. ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’

  ‘Is he being unfaithful?’

  ‘Liz!’

  ‘It’s hardly a secret …’

  ‘What isn’t a secret?’

  ‘That Mikael likes the ladies. Come on, Ulla, you’re not that naive.’

  Ulla sighed. ‘Maybe not. But what am I supposed to do?’

  ‘The same as me,’ Liz said, taking the bottle of white wine from the ice bucket and topping up both their glasses. ‘Give them a taste of their own medicine. Cheers!’

  Ulla could feel that she ought to switch to water. ‘I tried, but I just couldn’t do it.’

  ‘Try again!’

  ‘What good would it do?’

  ‘You only work that out after you’ve done it. Nothing fixes a shaky sex life at home like a really bad one-night stand.’

  Ulla laughed. ‘It’s not the sex, Liz.’

  ‘What is it, then?’

  ‘It’s … I’m … jealous.’

  ‘Ulla Swart jealous? It’s not possible to be that beautiful and jealous.’

  ‘Well, I am,’ Ulla protested. ‘And it hurts. A lot. I want payback.’

  ‘Of course you want payback, sister! Shaft him where it hurts … I mean …’ Wine sprayed as they burst out laughing.

  ‘Liz, you’re drunk!’

  ‘I’m drunk and happy, Mrs Police Chief’s Wife. Whereas you’re drunk and unhappy. Call him!’

  ‘Call Mikael? Now?’

  ‘Not Mikael, you idiot! Ring the lucky guy who’s going to get some pussy tonight.’

  ‘What? No, Liz!’

  ‘Yes, do it! Call him now!’ Liz pointed at the phone booth by the wall. ‘Call him from in there, then he’ll be able to hear! Actually, calling from in there would be very appropriate.’

  ‘Appropriate?’ Ulla laughed, and looked at her watch. She was going to have to go home soon. ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? Bloody hell, Ulla! Because that was where Mikael fucked Stine Michaelsen that time, wasn’t it?!’

  ‘What is it?’ Harry asked. The room was spinning around him.

  ‘Camomile tea,’ Katrine said.

  ‘The music,’ Harry said, feeling the woollen sweater he had been lent scratch his skin. His own clothes were hanging up to dry in the bathroom, and despite the door being closed he could still smell the cloying stench of strong spirits. So his senses were working, even if the room was spinning.

  ‘Beach House. Haven’t you heard them before?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Harry said. ‘That’s the problem. Things are starting to slip away from me.’ He could feel the coarse weave of the bedspread beneath him, which covered the whole of the low, almost two-metre-wide bed that was the only item of furniture in the room apart from a desk and chair, and a good old-fashioned stereo cabinet with a single candle on top of it. Harry presumed both the sweater and stereo belonged to Bjørn Holm. The music sounded like it was floating round the room. Harry had felt this way a few times before: when he had been on the brink of alcohol poisoning and was on his way back to the surface again, passing through all the same stages on the way up that he had been through on the way down.

  ‘I suppose that’s just the way it is,’ Katrine said. ‘We start off having everything, and then lose it, piece by piece. Strength. Youth. Future. People we like …’

  Harry tried to remember what it was Bjørn had wanted him to say to Katrine, but it slipped away. Rakel. Oleg. And just as he felt tears welling up, they were suppressed by rage. Of course we lose them, everyone we try to hold on to, the fates disdain us, make us small, pathetic. When we cry for people we’ve lost, it’s not out of sympathy, because of course we know that they’re free from pain at last. But still we cry. We cry because we’re alone again. We cry out of self-pity.

  ‘Where are you, Harry?’

  He felt her hand on his forehead. A sudden gust of wind made the window rattle. Outside in the street came the sound of something hitting the ground. The storm. It was on its way now.

  ‘I’m here,’ he said.

  The room was spinning. He could sense the warmth not only from her hand, but from the whole of her as they lay there just half a metre apart.

  ‘I want to die first,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t want to lose them. They can lose me instead. Let them see how it feels for once.’

  Her laughter was so gentle. ‘Now you’re stealing my lines, Harry.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘When I was in hospital …’

  ‘Yes?’ Harry closed his eyes when her hand slipped to the back of his neck, squeezed gently and sent little jolts up into his brain.

  ‘They kept changing the diagnosis. Manic depressive, borderline, bipolar. But there was one word that was in all the reports. Suicidal.’

  ‘Hm.’

  ‘But it passes.’

  ‘Yes,’ Harry said. ‘And then it comes back. Doesn’t it?’

  She laughed again. ‘Nothing’s forever, life is by definition temporary and always changing. It’s horrible, but that’s also what makes it bearable.’

  ‘This too shall pass.’

  ‘Let’s hope so. You know what, Harry? We’re the same, you and I. We’re made for loneliness. We’re drawn to loneliness.’

  ‘By getting rid of the people we love, you mean?’

  ‘Is that what we do?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just know that when I’m walking on the wafer-thin ice of happiness, I’m terrified, so terrified that I wish it was over, that I was already in the water.’

  ‘And that’s why we run from those we love,’ Katrine said. ‘Alcohol. Wor
k. Casual sex.’

  Something we can be useful for, Harry thought. While they bleed to death.

  ‘We can’t save them,’ she said, in answer to his thoughts. ‘And they can’t save us. Only we can save ourselves.’

  Harry felt the mattress move and knew she had turned towards him, he could feel her warm breath on his face.

  ‘You had it in your life, Harry, you had the only person you loved. At least the two of you had that. And I don’t know which of you I’ve been most jealous of.’

  What was it that was making him so sensitive? Had he taken E or acid? And, if so, where had he got hold of it? He had no idea, the last twenty-four hours were a big blank.

  ‘They say you shouldn’t meet trouble halfway,’ she said. ‘But when you know that trouble is all that lies ahead of you, meeting it halfway is the only airbag you’ve got. And the best way to fend it off is to live each day like it was your last. Don’t you think?’

  Beach House. He remembered this track. ‘Wishes’. It really was something special. And he remembered Rakel’s pale face on the white pillow, in the light yet simultaneously in the dark, out of focus, close, yet distant, a face in the dark water, pressed against the underside of the ice. And he remembered Valentin’s words. You’re like me, Harry, you can’t bear it.

  ‘What would you do, Harry? If you knew you were about to die?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Would you—?’

  ‘I said I don’t know.’

  ‘What don’t you know?’ she whispered.

  ‘If I would have fucked you.’

  In the silence that followed he heard the scraping sound of metal being blown across the tarmac by the wind.

  ‘Just feel,’ she whispered. ‘We’re dying.’

  Harry stopped breathing. Yes, he thought. I’m dying. And then felt that she had stopped breathing too.

  Hallstein Smith heard the wind whistling in the gutters outside and felt the draught right through the wall. Even though they had insulated the walls as well as they could, it was and would remain a barn. Emilia. He had heard of a novel that was published during the war about a storm called Maria, and that that was the reason why hurricanes were given girls’ names. But that changed after the idea of gender equality became widespread in the seventies and people insisted that these catastrophic disasters should have boys’ names as well. He looked at the smiling face above the Skype icon on the big computer screen. The voice was running slightly ahead of the lips: ‘I think I have what I need, thank you so much for being with us, Mr Smith. At what for you must be very late, no? Here in LA it’s nearly 3 p.m. What time is it in Sweden?’