Harry Hole Oslo Sequence 10 - Police

articulated the thought, the devil jumps out and . . . and . . .’ He lowered his arms again.
    ‘Why have you stopped?’
    ‘Because I’m sitting here and making up a devil and I know what you’ll say. I’m absolving myself of all responsibility.’
    ‘Aren’t you?’
    ‘Of course I am. It’s the same guy in new clothes. I thought he was called Jim Beam. I thought he was called the mother who died young or the pressure of the job. Or testosterone or booze genes. And perhaps all of that’s true too, but when you undress him he’s still called Harry Hole.’
    ‘And you’re saying Harry Hole almost raped this girl last night.’
    ‘I’ve been dreaming about it for a long time.’
    ‘Rape? In general?’
    ‘No. This girl. She asked me to do it.’
    ‘Rape her? Strictly speaking, that’s not rape, is it?’
    ‘The first time she just asked me to fuck her. She provoked me, but I couldn’t. She was a student at PHS. And afterwards I began to fantasise about raping her. I . . .’ Harry ran a hand across his face. ‘I didn’t think I had it in me. Not a rapist. What’s happening to me, Ståle?’
    ‘So you had the inclination and the opportunity to rape her, but you chose to desist?’
    ‘Someone interrupted us. Was it rape? I don’t know, but she invited me to take part in a role play. And I was willing to take the role, Ståle. Very willing.’
    ‘Yes, but I still can’t see that as rape.’
    ‘Perhaps not in a legal sense, but . . .’
    ‘But what?’
    ‘But if we’d got going and she’d asked me to stop, I don’t know whether I would have done.’
    ‘You don’t know?’
    Harry shrugged. ‘Have you got a diagnosis, Doctor?’
    Ståle looked at his watch. ‘I need you to tell me a bit more, but my first patient’s waiting for me now.’
    ‘I haven’t got any time for therapy, Ståle. We’ve got a murderer to catch.’
    ‘In that case,’ Aune said, rocking his podgy stomach to and fro in his chair, ‘you’ll have to make do with me shooting from the hip. You’ve come to me because you feel something you can’t identify, and the reason you can’t identify it is that the feeling is trying to disguise itself as something which it is not. Because what the feeling really is, is something you don’t want to feel. It’s classic denial, just like men who refuse to accept they’re homosexual.’
    ‘But I’m not denying that I’m a potential rapist! I’m asking you straight out.’
    ‘You’re not a rapist, Harry, you don’t become one overnight. I think this may be about one of two things. Or perhaps both. One is, you may feel some form of aggression towards this girl. And what it’s really about is you exercising control. Or to use layman’s language, a punishment fuck. Am I close?’
    ‘Mm. Maybe. What was the other one?’
    ‘Rakel.’
    ‘Sorry?’
    ‘What you’re being drawn towards is neither rape nor this girl, but being unfaithful. Unfaithful to Rakel.’
    ‘Ståle, you—’
    ‘Easy now. You’ve come to me because you need someone to tell you what you’ve already realised. To say it loud and clear. Because you’re unable to tell yourself. You don’t want to have to feel like that.’
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘That you’re petrified of committing yourself to her. The thought of marriage has driven you to the edge of panic.’
    ‘Oh? Why’s that?’
    ‘Since I may venture to claim that I know you a bit after all these years, I believe that in your case this is more about the fear of taking responsibility for other people. You’ve had bad experiences . . .’
    Harry gulped. Felt something growing in his chest, like a cancerous tumour on fast forward.
    ‘. . . you start drinking when the world around you is dependent on you and because you can’t take the responsibility, you want things to go down the pan. It’s like when a house of cards is almost finished and the pressure’s so great you can’t cope, so instead of persisting you knock it down. To get the defeat over with. And I think that’s what you’re doing now. You want to fail Rakel as quickly as possible because you’re convinced it’s going to happen anyway. You can’t bear the long-drawn-out torment, so you’re proactive; you knock down the damned house of cards, which is how you see your relationship with Rakel.’
    Harry wanted to say something. But the lump had reached his throat and blocked the way for words, so he made do with one: ‘Destructive.’
    ‘Your basic attitude is con