Harry Hole Oslo Sequence 10 - Police

concrete lead to work on, Valentin Gjertsen. Its weakness was that the theory that this ghost might be behind the murders was based on a single witness’s claim that she had seen him alive. And she was now in the coffin by the altar.
    In the reports from the forensics team, the police investigation and the pathologist, there hadn’t been enough detail to give a full picture of what had happened, but everything they did know matched the old reports of the murder in Bergslia.
    So if you assumed the rest was identical, Beate Lønn had died in the worst way imaginable.
    There wasn’t a trace of anaesthetic in any of the body parts they had examined. The pathologist’s report contained the phrases ‘massive internal bleeding in muscles and subcutaneous tissue’, ‘an inflammatory reaction to infection in the tissue’, which, translated, meant that Beate Lønn had been alive not only at the time the relevant parts of her body had been cut off, but unfortunately also some time afterwards.
    The severed surfaces suggested a bayonet saw rather than a jigsaw had been used for the carving up of the body. The forensics officers guessed a so-called bimetal blade had been used, that is, a fourteen-centimetre, fine-toothed blade that could cut through bone. Bjørn Holm said this was the one hunters where he came from called the elk blade.
    Beate Lønn might have been cut up on the coffee table as it was made of glass and could be cleaned effectively afterwards. The killer had probably taken ammonia with him and black bin bags as none of these had been found at the crime scene.
    In the dustcart they had also found the remains of a rug drenched in blood.
    What they didn’t find were fingerprints, footprints, fabric, hairs or other DNA material that didn’t belong to the house.
    Or any signs of a break-in.
    Katrine Bratt had explained that Beate Lønn had finished the call because the doorbell had rung.
    It seemed very unlikely that Beate Lønn would have voluntarily let in a stranger, and definitely not in the middle of an operation. So the theory they were working on was that the killer had forced his way in, threatening her with a weapon.
    And then, of course, there was the second theory. That it wasn’t a stranger. Because Beate Lønn had a chain on the solid door. And there were plenty of scratch marks, suggesting that it was used regularly.
    Bellman looked down the rows. Gunnar Hagen. Bjørn Holm and Katrine Bratt. An elderly lady with a small boy he assumed was Lønn’s son, at any rate the similarity was striking.
    Another ghost, Harry Hole. Rakel Fauke. Brunette, with these dark, glinting eyes, almost as beautiful as Ulla, incomprehensible that a guy like Hole could have got his paws on her.
    And a bit further back, Isabelle Skøyen. Oslo City Council had to be represented, of course, the press would make a point of it if not. Before they entered the church she had taken him aside, ignoring the fact that Ulla was there, and asked how long he was intending to avoid her phone calls. And he had repeated it was over. And she had regarded him in the way you regard an insect before you tread on it and said she was a leaver, not a leavee. Which he would soon find out. He had felt her eyes on his back as he had walked over to Ulla and offered her his arm.
    Otherwise the rows were filled with what he assumed was a mixture of relatives, friends and colleagues, most of them in uniform. He had overheard them consoling one another as best they could: there were no signs of torture and loss of blood had hopefully meant she would have been unconscious in no time.
    For a fraction of a second his eyes met someone else’s. And moved on as if he hadn’t seen him. Truls Berntsen. What the hell was he doing here? He hadn’t exactly been on Beate Lønn’s Christmas card list. Ulla pressed his hand lightly, looked at him enquiringly, and he flashed her a quick smile. Fair enough; in death we are all colleagues, he supposed.
    Katrine had been wrong. She wasn’t all cried out.
    A few times since Beate had been found she had thought there were no tears left. But there were. And she had squeezed them out of a body that was already sore from long bouts of weeping.
    She had cried until her body refused and she had thrown up. Cried until she fell asleep from pure exhaustion. And cried from the moment she awoke. And she was crying again now.
    And in the hours she slept she was plagued by nightmares, haunted by her own devilish pact. The one