Harry Hole Oslo Sequence 10 - Police

Harry. In bed, over a cigarette.’
    ‘Well, if you want me on my knees, I’ll have to put my trousers on first.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Yes, I should put my trousers on? Or yes, I—?’
    ‘Yes, you idiot! Yes! I want to marry you.’
    Harry’s reaction was automatic, rehearsed over a long life as a policeman. He turned to the side and checked his watch. Noted the time. 23.11. The nitty-gritty for when he had to write the report. When they arrived at the crime scene, when the arrest was made, when the shot was fired.
    ‘Oh good lord,’ he heard Rakel mumble. ‘What am I saying?’
    ‘Cooling-off period expires in five seconds,’ Harry said, turning back to her.
    Her face was so close to his that all he saw was a hazy sparkle in her wide eyes.
    ‘Time’s up,’ he said. ‘And what kind of a grin is that supposed to be?’
    And now Harry could feel it himself, the smile that just kept spreading across his face like a freshly cracked egg in the pan.
    Beate was lying with her legs on the arm of the sofa watching Gabriel Byrne wriggle uncomfortably in the chair. She had worked out it had to be the eyelashes and the Irish accent. The eyelashes of a Mikael Bellman, the lilt of a poet. The man she was seeing had none of these things, but that wasn’t the problem. There was something odd about him. For starters, there was the intensity; he hadn’t understood why he couldn’t visit her if she was by herself this evening. And then there was his background. He had told her things she had gradually discovered didn’t tally.
    Perhaps that wasn’t so unusual: you want to make a good impression and so you lay it on a bit thick.
    On the other hand, perhaps there was something wrong with her . After all, she had tried to google him. Without finding anything. So she had googled Gabriel Byrne instead. Reading with interest that he’d worked as a teddy bear eye-installer before she found what she was really looking for. Spouse: Ellen Barkin (1988–1999). For a moment she’d thought Gabriel was widowed, left behind, like her, until she realised it was probably the marriage that was deceased. And if so Gabriel must have been single for longer than her. Or maybe Wikipedia wasn’t up to date?
    On the screen the female patient flirted at will. But Gabriel wasn’t fooled. He sent her a brief, troubled smile, fixed his gentle eyes on her and said something trivial, which he made sound like a Yeats poem.
    A light flashed on the table and her heart stopped.
    Her mobile. It was ringing. It could be him. Valentin.
    She lifted the phone, looked at the caller. Sighed.
    ‘Yes, Katrine?’
    ‘He’s here.’
    Beate could hear from her colleague’s excitement that it was true, they had a bite.
    ‘Tell . . .’
    ‘He’s standing on the doorstep.’
    Doorstep! That was more than a bite. That was fish for supper. Christ, they had the whole house surrounded.
    ‘He’s just standing there, hesitating.’
    She heard the activity on the walkie-talkie in the background. Get him now, get him now. Katrine answered her prayers. ‘The orders have been given to move in.’
    Beate heard another voice in the background say something. It was familiar, but she couldn’t place it.
    ‘They’re storming the house now,’ Katrine said.
    ‘Details, please.’
    ‘Delta. All wearing black. Automatics. God, the way they’re running . . .’
    ‘Less colour, more content.’
    ‘Four men running up the path. Blinding him with light. The others are hidden, waiting to see if he has any backup. He’s dropped what he’s holding . . .’
    ‘Has he got a weap—?’
    A shrill, high-pitched ring. Beate groaned. Doorbell.
    ‘He hasn’t got time. They’re on him already. They’ve wrestled him to the ground.’
    Yes!
    ‘Searching him, so it seems. They’re holding something up.’
    ‘Weapon?’
    The doorbell again. Hard, insistent.
    ‘Looks like a remote control.’
    ‘Ooh! A bomb?’
    ‘Don’t know. But they’ve got him now anyway. They’re signalling the situation is under control. Wait . . .’
    ‘I’ve got to open the door. I’ll ring you back.’
    Beate jumped up off the sofa. Jogged to the door. Wondering how to explain to him that this wasn’t acceptable, that if she said she wanted to be alone she meant it.
    And as she opened the door she thought about how far she had come. From the quiet, shy, self-sacrificing girl, who had graduated from the same police college her father had attended, to the woman who not only knew what she