Harry Hole Oslo Sequence 10 - Police

this bullet removed again. Did you know, by the way, that Truls Berntsen reported his service pistol missing a year after Kalsnes was shot? I found his name on a list I was given by Katrine Bratt a couple of hours ago.’ Harry inhaled. Closed his eyes so that the glow would not affect his night vision. ‘What do you say to that, Chief of Police?’
    ‘I say: thank you, Harry. Thank you for concluding my deliberations on closing down the alternative group. It will be done first thing in the morning.’
    ‘Does that mean you’re claiming you never met René Kalsnes?’
    ‘Don’t try those questioning techniques on me, Harry. I brought them to Norway from Interpol. Anyone can stumble across gay pictures online, they’re everywhere. And we have no need for groups of detectives who use that sort of thing as valid evidence in a serious investigation.’
    ‘You didn’t stumble across it, Bellman. You paid for films with your credit card and downloaded them.’
    ‘You’re not listening! Aren’t you curious about taboos? When you download pictures of a murder that doesn’t mean you’re a murderer. If a woman is fascinated by the thought of rape, it doesn’t mean she wants to be raped!’ Bellman had his other leg over. He was standing on the other side now. Off the hook. He adjusted his jacket.
    ‘Just a final word of advice, Harry. Don’t come after me. If you know what’s good for you. For you and your woman.’
    Harry watched Bellman’s back recede into the darkness, and heard only the heavy footsteps sending a dull echo around the stands. He dropped the cigarette end and stamped on it. Hard. Trying to force it through the concrete.

39
    HARRY FOUND ØYSTEIN Eikeland’s battered Mercedes in the taxi rank to the north of Oslo Central Station. The taxis were parked in a circle and looked like a wagon train forming a defensive ring against Apaches, tax authorities, competitors and anyone else who came to take what they considered legally theirs.
    Harry took a seat in the front. ‘Busy night?’
    ‘Haven’t taken my foot off the gas for a second,’ Øystein said, carefully pinching his lips around a microscopic roll-up and blowing smoke at the mirror, where he could see the queue behind him growing.
    ‘How often in the course of a night do you actually have a paying passenger in the car?’ Harry asked, taking out his packet of cigarettes.
    ‘So few that I’m thinking about switching on the taxi meter now. Hey, can’t you read?’ Øystein pointed to the No Smoking sign on the glove compartment.
    ‘I need some advice, Øystein.’
    ‘I say no. Don’t get married. Nice woman, Rakel, but marriage is more trouble than fun. Listen to someone who’s been around the block a few times.’
    ‘You’ve never been married, Øystein.’
    ‘That’s exactly the point.’ His childhood pal bared yellow teeth in his lean face and tossed his head, lashing the headrest with his ultra-thin ponytail.
    Harry lit a cigarette. ‘And to think that I asked you to be my best man . . .’
    ‘The best man has to have his wits about him, Harry, and a wedding without getting smashed is as meaningless as tonic without gin.’
    ‘OK, but I’m not asking you for marriage guidance.’
    ‘Spit it out then. Eikeland’s listening.’
    The smoke stung Harry’s throat. The mucous membranes were no longer used to two packs of cigarettes a day. He knew all too well that Øystein couldn’t give him any advice on the case, either. Not good advice anyway. His homespun logic and principles had formed a lifestyle so dysfunctional that it could only tempt those with very specific interests. The pillars of the Eikelandian house were alcohol, bachelorhood, women from the lowest rung, an interesting intellectuality – which was unfortunately in decline – a certain pride and a survival instinct which despite everything resulted in more taxi driving than drinking and an ability to laugh in the face of life and the devil, which even Harry had to admire.
    Harry breathed in. ‘I suspect an officer is behind all these police murders.’
    ‘Then bang him up,’ Øystein said, taking a flake of tobacco off the tip of his tongue. Then stopped suddenly. ‘Did you say police murders? As in police murders ?’
    ‘Yup. The problem is that if I arrest this man he’ll drag me down with him.’
    ‘How come?’
    ‘He can prove it was me who killed the Russian in Come As You Are.’
    Øystein stared wide-eyed into the mirror. ‘Did you