Harry Hole Oslo Sequence 10 - Police

before she was offered a place on the course.’
    They walked across Egertorget. Images flickered through Harry’s brain. A smile from a laughing girlfriend one May when he was young. The body of a Salvation Army soldier in front of the Christmas kettle. A town full of memories.
    ‘So who were the two policemen?’
    ‘One pretty high up.’
    ‘Is that why you won’t tell me? And you were part of it? Guilty conscience?’
    Arnold Folkestad shrugged. ‘Anyone who doesn’t dare to stand up for justice should have a guilty conscience.’
    ‘Mm. A policeman with a history of violence and a predilection for burning evidence. There aren’t many of them. We wouldn’t by any chance be talking about an officer by the name of Truls Berntsen, would we?’
    Arnold Folkestad said nothing, but the wince that recoiled through his short, round body was more than enough to tell Harry what he wanted to know.
    ‘Mikael Bellman’s shadow. That’s what you mean by pretty high up, isn’t it?’ Harry spat on the tarmac.
    ‘Shall we talk about something else, Harry?’
    ‘Yes, let’s do that. Lunch at Schrøder’s?’
    ‘Schrøder’s? Do they really have . . . er, lunch?’
    ‘They have burgers on bread. And room.’
    ‘That looks familiar, Rita,’ Harry said to the waitress who had just placed two burnt burgers covered with pale fried onions in front of them.
    ‘Nothing changes here, you know.’ She smiled and left them.
    ‘Truls Berntsen, yes,’ Harry said, looking over his shoulder. He and Arnold were almost alone in the single, square room which despite years of anti-smoking legislation still felt smoky. ‘I think he’s been operating as a burner inside the police for many years.’
    ‘Oh?’ Folkestad studied the animal cadaver in front of them with scepticism. ‘And what about Bellman?’
    ‘He was responsible for narcotics during that time. I know he had some deal with one Rudolf Asayev, who was selling a heroin-like substance called violin,’ Harry said. ‘Bellman granted Asayev the monopoly in Oslo in return for an assurance that visible signs of drug trafficking, junkies in the streets and of course ODs went down. That made Bellman look good.’
    ‘So good that he got his hands on the Police Chief job?’
    Harry chewed tentatively on the first bite of burger and shrugged his shoulders to suggest a ‘maybe’.
    ‘And why haven’t you passed on what you know?’ Arnold Folkestad cut carefully into what he hoped was meat. Gave up and looked at Harry, who returned a blank stare as he chewed and chewed. ‘A blow for justice?’
    Harry swallowed. Wiped his mouth with a paper serviette. ‘I had no proof. Besides, I was no longer a policeman. It wasn’t my business. It isn’t my business now either, Arnold.’
    ‘No, I suppose not.’ Folkestad speared a chunk on his fork and raised it for inspection. ‘But if this isn’t your business, and you’re no longer a policeman, why has the pathologist sent you a post-mortem report on this Rudolf Asayev?’
    ‘Mm. So you saw it?’
    ‘Only because I usually collect your post as well when I’m by the pigeonholes. And because I’m a nosy parker, of course.’
    ‘What’s it like?’
    ‘I haven’t tried it yet.’
    ‘Go for it. It won’t bite.’
    ‘Same to you, Harry.’
    Harry smiled. ‘They searched behind the eyeball. And found what we’d been searching for. A little pinprick in the large blood vessel. Someone could have pushed Asayev’s eyeball to the side while he was in the coma and injected air bubbles into the corner of the eye. The result would have been instant blindness followed by a blood clot in the brain which couldn’t be traced.’
    ‘Now I really feel like eating this,’ Folkestad grimaced and put down his fork. ‘Are you saying you’ve proved that Asayev was murdered?’
    ‘Nope. The cause of death is still impossible to determine. But the mark proves what might have happened. The conundrum is of course how anyone got into the hospital room. The duty officer insisted he didn’t see anyone pass during the period when the injection must have been made. Neither a doctor nor anyone else.’
    ‘The mystery of the locked room.’
    ‘Or something simpler. Like the officer leaving his post or falling asleep and, quite understandably, not admitting it. Or he was in on the murder, directly or indirectly.’
    ‘If he went AWOL or fell asleep the murder would have depended on serendipity, and surely we don’t believe in