Harry Hole Oslo Sequence 10 - Police

that.
    ‘What do I think about her smiling? Or the beam of light?’
    ‘Both.’
    ‘Sometimes I think she’s smiling because she likes me. Then I think she’s smiling because she wants me to do something. But when she stops smiling the beam of light in her eyes dies and it’s too late to find out, she won’t talk to me any more. So I think perhaps it’s the amp. Or something.’
    ‘Erm . . . the amp?’
    ‘Yes.’ Pause. ‘The one I told you about. The one Dad used to switch off when he came into my room, when he said I’d been playing that record so long it was bordering on insanity. And then I said you could see the little red light beside the off switch fade and disappear. Like an eye. Or a sunset. And then I thought I was losing her. That’s why she says nothing at the end of the dream. She’s the amp that goes quiet when Dad switches it off. And then I can’t talk to her.’
    ‘Did you play records and think about her?’
    ‘Yes. All the time. Until I was sixteen. And not records. The record.’
    ‘ Dark Side of the Moon ?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘But she didn’t want you?’
    ‘I don’t know. Probably not. Not then.’
    ‘Hm. Our time’s up. I’ll give you something to read for next time. And then I want us to make a new ending for the story in the dream. She has to speak. She has to say something to you. Something you wished she would say. That she likes you perhaps. Can you give that a bit of thought for next time?’
    ‘Fine.’
    The patient stood up, took his coat from the stand and walked towards the door. Aune sat at his desk and looked at the calendar shining at him from the computer screen. It already looked depressingly full. And he realised it had happened again: he had completely forgotten the name of the patient. He found it on the calendar. Paul Stavnes.
    ‘Same time next week OK, Paul?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Ståle entered it. When he looked up, Stavnes had already gone.
    He got up, grabbed the newspaper and went to the window. Where the hell was the global warming they had been promised? He looked at the newspaper, but suddenly couldn’t be bothered, threw it down, weeks and months of grinding his way through the papers were enough. Beaten to death. Terrible force. Fatal blows to the head. Erlend Vennesla leaves behind a wife, children and grandchildren. Friends and colleagues in shock. ‘A warm, kind person.’ ‘Impossible to dislike.’ ‘Good-natured, honest and tolerant, absolutely no enemies.’ Ståle Aune took a deep breath.
    He gazed at the phone. They had his number. But the phone was mute. Just like the girl in the dream.

4
    THE HEAD OF crime squad, Gunnar Hagen, ran his hand across his forehead and then further up, through the entrance to the lagoon. The sweat collecting on his palm was caught by the thick atoll of hair at the back of his head. In front of him sat the investigative team. For a standard murder there would typically be twelve officers. But the murder of a colleague was not typical and K2 was full, down to the last chair, just shy of fifty people. Including those on the sick list, the group consisted of fifty-three members. And soon more of them would be on the sick list, as they felt the full force of the media. The best that could be said about this case was that it had brought the two big murder investigation units in Norway – Crime Squad and Kripos – closer together. All the rivalry had been cast aside, and for once they were collaborating with no other agenda than to find the person who had killed their colleague. In the first weeks with an intensity and passion that convinced Hagen the case would soon be solved, despite the lack of forensic evidence, witnesses, possible motives, possible suspects and possible or impossible leads. Simply because the collective will was so formidable, the net spread was so tight, the resources they had at their disposal boundless. And yet.
    The tired, grey faces stared at him with an apathy that had become more and more visible over the last few weeks. And yesterday’s press conference – which had been like an ugly capitulation, his plea for help, wherever it might come from – had not raised fighting spirits. Today there were two further absentees, and they weren’t exactly throwing in the towel over a sniffly nose. In addition to the Vennesla case there was the Gusto Hanssen murder which had gone from solved to unsolved after Oleg Fauke had been released and Chris ‘Adidas’ Reddy had withdrawn his