Harry Hole Oslo Sequence 10 - Police

is, if he was correct, minus one.
    Harry looked at his watch. He didn’t know why, didn’t know what they were trying to do, only knew they didn’t have a lot of time. He didn’t have a lot of time.
    Ståle Aune parked his car in front of the school gates and switched on the hazard lights. He heard the echo of his running feet resound between the buildings around the playground. The lonely sound of childhood. The sound of arriving late for lessons. Or the sound of summer holidays when everyone had left town, of being abandoned. He tore open the heavy door, sprinted down the corridor, no echo now, just his own panting. That was the door to her classroom. Wasn’t it? Group or class? He knew so little about her everyday life. He hadn’t seen much of her over the last six months. There was so much he wanted to know. He would spend so much time with her from now on. So long as, so long as . . .
    Harry looked around the bar.
    ‘The lock on the back door was picked,’ the officer behind him said.
    Harry nodded. He had seen the scratch marks around the lock.
    Lock picking. Police handiwork. That was why the alarm hadn’t gone off.
    Harry hadn’t seen any signs of resistance. No objects had been knocked over, nothing on the floor, no chairs or tables kicked out of a position it would be natural to leave them in overnight. The owner was being questioned. Harry had said he didn’t need to meet him. He hadn’t said he didn’t want to meet him. He hadn’t given any reason. Such as not wanting to risk being recognised.
    Harry sat on a bar stool, reconstructing how he had sat there that night with an untouched glass of Jim Beam in front of him. The Russian had attacked from behind; he had tried to press the blade of the Siberian knife into his carotid artery. Harry’s titanium prosthesis had been in the way. The owner had stood behind the bar, paralysed with fear, as Harry had scrabbled for the corkscrew. The blood that had discoloured the floor beneath them, as if a full bottle of red wine had been knocked over.
    ‘Nothing in the way of clues so far,’ Bjørn said.
    Harry nodded again. Of course not. Berntsen had had the place to himself, he was able to take his time. Clear up after him before he wet her, doused her . . . The word came to him without his wanting it to. Marinated her.
    Then he had flicked the lighter.
    Gram Parsons’ ‘She’ sounded and Bjørn lifted his phone to his ear.
    ‘Yes? . . . A match? Hang on . . .’
    He took out a pencil and his ever-present Moleskine notebook. Harry suspected Bjørn liked the patina of the cover so much he erased the notes when the book was full and used it again.
    ‘No record, no, but he’s worked on murder investigations . . . Yes, I’m afraid we had a suspicion . . . And his name is?’
    Bjørn had put his notebook down on the bar counter, ready to write. But the pencil tip stopped. ‘What did you say the father’s name was?’
    Harry could hear from his colleague’s voice that something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
    As Ståle Aune tore open the classroom door the following thoughts whirled through his head: he had been a bad father; he wasn’t sure if Aurora’s class had their own room; and if they did, if it was still this room.
    It was two years since he had been here, during a school open day when all the classes had exhibited drawings, matchstick models, clay figures and other nonsense that had left him unimpressed. A better father would have been impressed of course.
    The voices went quiet, and the class turned in his direction.
    And in the silence he scoured the young, soft-skinned faces. The unscarred, undefiled faces that had not lived as long as they would, faces that were yet to be formed, yet to assume character and over the years stiffen into the mask which would become who they were inside. Which he had become. His girl.
    His sweeping gaze found faces he had seen in class photos, at birthday parties, all too few handball games, last days of term. Some he could identify by name, most he couldn’t. Continued searching for the one face, as her name was formed, grew like a sob in his throat: Aurora. Aurora. Aurora.
    Bjørn slipped the phone into his pocket. Stood by the counter with his back to Harry, motionless. Slowly shaking his head. Then he turned. His face looked as if it had been bled. Pale, bloodless.
    ‘It’s someone you know well,’ Harry said.
    Bjørn nodded slowly, like a sleepwalker. Swallowed. ‘It just can’t be possible . .