Harry Hole Oslo Sequence 10 - Police

could think of – Valentin Gjertsen, Otta Hotel, rape and so on – with no luck, and had almost given up when a man’s high-pitched voice filled the room.
    ‘She was asking for it, wasn’t she?’
    Katrine felt an electric shock go through her body, like when she and her father had been sitting in the boat and he calmly announced he had a bite. She didn’t know why, she only knew this was the voice. This was him.
    ‘Interesting,’ said another voice. Low, almost ingratiating. The voice of a policeman pushing for a result. ‘What makes you say that?’
    ‘They do ask for it, don’t they? In some way or another. And afterwards they’re ashamed and report you to the police. But you know all that.’
    ‘So this girl at the Otta Hotel, she was asking for it, is that what you’re saying?’
    ‘She would have been.’
    ‘If you hadn’t raped her before she had a chance?’
    ‘If I’d been there.’
    ‘You admitted just now that you’d been there that night, Valentin.’
    ‘To get you to describe the rape in a bit more detail. It’s pretty boring sitting in a cell, you know. You have to . . . spice up the day as best you can.’
    Silence.
    Then Valentin’s high-pitched laughter. Katrine shuddered and pulled her cardigan tighter around her.
    ‘You look like someone’s pissed . . . what is that expression, Officer?’
    Katrine closed her eyes and recalled his face.
    ‘Let’s put the Otta case to one side for a moment. What about the girl in Maridalen, Valentin?’
    ‘What about her?’
    ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’
    Loud laughter this time. ‘You’ll have to practise that one a bit harder, Officer. The confrontation stage of the interview has to have a punch like a piledriver, not a pat on the head.’
    Katrine could hear that Valentin’s vocabulary extended beyond that of most inmates.
    ‘So you deny it?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘No?’
    ‘No.’
    Katrine could hear the quivering excitement as the policeman took a deep breath and said with hard-won composure: ‘Does that mean . . . that you admit committing the rape and murder in Maridalen in September?’ At least he was experienced enough to specify what he hoped Valentin would answer yes to, so that the defence counsel couldn’t claim afterwards that the accused had misunderstood which case they were actually talking about. But she also heard the merriment in the interviewee’s voice as he answered:
    ‘It means I don’t need to deny it.’
    ‘What the h—’
    ‘It starts with an “a” and finishes in an “i”.’
    Short pause.
    ‘How can you tell me off the top of your head that you’ve definitely got an alibi for that night, Valentin? It’s quite a long time ago.’
    ‘Because I was thinking about it when he told me. What I was doing at that very moment.’
    ‘Who told you what?’
    ‘The guy who raped the girl.’
    Long pause.
    ‘Are you messing us about, Valentin?’
    ‘What do you think, Officer Zachrisson?’
    ‘What makes you think that’s my name?’
    ‘Snarliveien 41. Am I right?’
    Another pause. More laughter and Valentin’s voice. ‘In your porridge, that’s what it is. You look like someone’s pissed in your porridge.’
    ‘Where did you find out about the rape?’
    ‘This is a prison for pervs, Officer. What do you think we talk about? Thank you for sharing that with me, as we say. He didn’t think he was giving that much away, but I read the papers, and I remember the case well.’
    ‘So who was it, Valentin?’
    ‘So when will it be, Zachrisson?’
    ‘When?’
    ‘When can I count on being let out if I grass?’
    Katrine felt an urge to fast-forward, past the repeated pauses.
    ‘I’ll be back in a while.’
    A chair scraped. A door was closed gently.
    Katrine waited. She heard the man inhaling and exhaling. And felt something strange. She was having difficulty breathing. It was as if his breathing in the speakers was sucking the life out of her sitting room.
    The policeman could hardly have been away for more than a couple of minutes, but it felt like half an hour.
    ‘OK,’ he said with a scrape of the chair again.
    ‘That was quick. And my sentence will be commuted as well?’
    ‘You know we’re not responsible for sentencing, Valentin. But we’ll talk to a judge, all right? So who’s your alibi and who raped the girl?’
    ‘I was at home all night. I was with my landlady and unless she’s suffering from Alzheimer’s she’ll confirm that.’
    ‘How come you can remember just like