Harry Hole Oslo Sequence 10 - Police

baton into town for that?’ Katrine weighed the baton in her hand. (It reminded her of the top of an IKEA hat stand.) ‘It would have been easier to avoid the parks.’
    ‘Not her. She went straight to the parks.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘She went to Vaterlandsparken. She wanted to practise hand-to-hand combat.’
    ‘She wanted perverts to try it on and then . . .’
    ‘And then beat them black and blue, yes.’ Leif Rødbekk put on his wolfish grin again, sending Katrine such a direct look that she wasn’t sure who he meant when he said: ‘Quite a girl.’
    ‘Yes,’ Katrine said, getting up. ‘And now I have to find her.’
    ‘Busy?’
    If Katrine felt any unease at this question, it didn’t reach her consciousness until she was past him and out of the door. But on the stairs, going down, she thought, no, she wasn’t that desperate. Even if the slowcoach she was waiting for never pulled his finger out.
    Harry drove through Svartdalstunnel. The lights shone across the bonnet and windscreen. He didn’t go any faster than was necessary, no need to arrive any sooner than he had to. The gun was on the seat next to him. It was loaded and had twelve Makarov 9x18mm bullets in the magazine. More than enough to do what he was going to do. It was just a question of having the stomach for it.
    He had the heart for it.
    He had never shot anyone in cold blood before. But this was a job that had to be done. Simple as that.
    He shifted his grip on the steering wheel. Changed down as he came out of the tunnel, into the fading light, into the hills towards the Ryen intersection. Felt his mobile ring and pulled it out with one hand. Glanced at the display. It was Rakel. It was an unusual time for her to ring. They had an unspoken agreement that their phone time was after ten in the evening. He couldn’t talk to her now. He was too nervous. She would notice and ask. And he didn’t want to lie. Didn’t want to lie any more.
    He let the phone finish ringing, then he switched it off and put it beside the gun. For there was nothing to think about any more, the thinking was over, letting his doubts surface would mean starting again, only to take the same long route and end up exactly where he was already. The decision was taken, that he wanted to back out was understandable, but it was out of the question. Shit! He smacked his hand against the wheel. Thought about Oleg. About Rakel. It helped.
    He went round the roundabout and took the turning to Manglerud. To the block of flats where Truls Berntsen lived. Felt the calm descending. At last. It always did when he knew he had crossed the threshold, where it was too late, where he was in the wonderful free fall, where conscious thought stopped and everything was automatic, targeted action and well-oiled routine. But it had been so long ago, and he felt that now. He had been unsure whether he still had it in him. Well. He had it in him.
    He drove slowly down the streets. Leaned forward and looked up at the blue-grey clouds streaming in, like an unannounced armada with unknown objectives. Sat back in the seat. Saw the high-rise buildings above the lower rooftops.
    Didn’t need to look down at the gun to know it was there.
    Didn’t need to think through the order of events to be sure he would remember.
    Didn’t need to count his heartbeats to know his pulse was at rest.
    And for a moment he closed his eyes and visualised what would happen. And then it came, the feeling he’d had a couple of times earlier in his life as a policeman. The fear. The same fear he could sometimes sense in those he was chasing. The murderer’s fear of his own reflection.

42
    TRULS BERNTSEN RAISED his hips and forced his head back against the pillow. He closed his eyes, emitted low grunts, and came. Felt the spasms shake his body. Afterwards he lay still, drifting in and out of dreamland. In the distance – he assumed it must have been from the big car park – an alarm had started to wail. Otherwise a resounding silence reigned outside. Odd, really, that in a peaceful place where so many mammals lived above one another it was quieter than in even the most dangerous forests where the slightest sound could mean you had become the prey. He raised his head and met Megan Fox’s eyes.
    ‘Was it good for you too?’ he whispered.
    She didn’t answer. But her eyes didn’t flinch, her smile didn’t wither, the invitation of her body language was the same. Megan Fox, the only person in his life who was