Harry Hole Oslo Sequence 10 - Police

you. While we’re waiting for your dad.’
    ‘You can spell it for me. I’ll remember.’
    ‘Best to show you. Then I can have a glass of water at the same time.’
    Aurora looked at him. Now that he was sitting below her she had the sun in her face again, but it didn’t warm her any more. Strange. She leaned back on the swing. The man smiled. She saw something glint between his teeth. As if the tip of his tongue was there and gone again.
    ‘Come on,’ he said, standing up. He held one of the ropes, at head height.
    Aurora slipped off the swing and darted under his arm. Started walking towards the house. She heard his footsteps behind her. The voice.
    ‘You’ll like it, Aurora. I promise.’
    Gentle, like a priest administering confirmation. That was Dad’s expression. Perhaps he was Jesus after all? But Jesus or not, she didn’t want him in the house. Still, she kept walking. What would she say to Dad? That she had stopped someone he knew coming in for a glass of water? No, she couldn’t do that. She walked more slowly to give herself time to think, to find an excuse for not letting him in. But she couldn’t find one. And because she slowed down he came closer, and she could hear his breathing. Heavy, as though the few steps he had walked from the swing had made him breathless. And there was a weird smell coming from his mouth that reminded her of nail varnish remover.
    Five paces to the doorsteps. An excuse. Two paces. The doorsteps. Come on. No. They were at the door.
    Aurora swallowed. ‘I think it’s locked,’ she said. ‘We’ll have to wait outside.’
    ‘Oh?’ the man said, gazing round from the top step, as though searching for Dad somewhere behind the hedges. Or neighbours. She felt the heat from his arm as it stretched across her shoulder, grabbed the door handle and pushed it down. It opened.
    ‘Well, hello,’ he said, and he was breathing faster now. And there was a light quiver to his voice. ‘We were lucky there.’
    Aurora faced the doorway. Stared into the darkened hall. Just a glass of water. And this music with the talking that didn’t have any interest for her. In the distance there was the sound of a lawnmower. Angry, aggressive, insistent. She stepped inside.
    ‘I have to . . .’ she began, came to an abrupt halt, and at that moment felt his hand on her shoulder, as though he had crossed a line. Felt the heat of his hand where her shirt stopped and her skin started. Felt her little heart pounding. Heard another lawnmower. Which wasn’t a lawnmower but an excitedly purring little engine.
    ‘Mummy!’ Aurora shouted and squirmed out of the man’s grip, dived past him, jumped down all four steps, landed in the gravel and raced off. Shouting over her shoulder:
    ‘I have to help with the shopping.’
    She ran to the gate, listened for footsteps coming after her, but the crunch of her trainers on the gravel was almost deafening. Then she was at the gate, tearing it open and watching her mother get out of the little blue car in front of the garage.
    ‘Hi, sweetheart,’ Mum said, looking at her with a quizzical smile. ‘That was quite a turn of speed.’
    ‘There’s someone here asking for Dad,’ Aurora said, realising the gravel path was longer than she thought, she was out of breath anyway. ‘He’s on the steps.’
    ‘Oh?’ Mum said, passing her one of the bags from the rear seat, slamming the door and walking with her daughter through the gate.
    No one was on the steps, but the front door was still open.
    ‘Has he gone inside?’ Mum asked.
    ‘Don’t know,’ Aurora said.
    They went into the house, but Aurora stayed in the hallway, close to the open door while her mother continued past the living room towards the kitchen.
    ‘Hello?’ she heard her mother call. ‘Hello?’
    Then she was back in the hall, without the shopping bags.
    ‘There’s no one here, Aurora.’
    ‘But he was here. I promise you!’
    Mum looked at her in surprise and laughed. ‘Of course he was, sweetheart. Why wouldn’t I believe you?’
    Aurora didn’t answer. Didn’t know what to say. How could she explain that it might have been Jesus? Or the Holy Spirit. At any rate, someone not everyone could see.
    ‘He’ll turn up again if it was important,’ Mum said, going back to the kitchen.
    Aurora stood in the hallway. That sweet, stale smell, it was still there.

35
    ‘ TELL ME, HAVE you got a life?’
    Arnold Folkestad looked up from his papers. Catching sight of the tall guy