Harry Hole Oslo Sequence 10 - Police

thing I was wondering about, Politioverbetjent.’
    ‘Yes?’ Hagen said, smiling wryly at the long words she used.
    ‘This legend who worked for you, Harry Hole. They say he didn’t make a single blunder. He solved all the cases he investigated. Is that true?’
    Anton intervened with a cautionary cough and looked at Silje, but she ignored him.
    Hagen’s wry smile widened. ‘First of all, can you have unsolved cases on your conscience without it meaning you’ve made a blunder ?’
    Silje Gravseng didn’t answer.
    ‘As far as Harry and unsolved cases are concerned . . .’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Well, they’re probably right. But it depends how you look at it.’
    ‘How you look at it?’
    ‘He returned from Hong Kong to investigate the murder for which his girlfriend’s son had been arrested. And even though he managed to get Oleg released, and someone else confessed, the murder of Gusto Hanssen was never really solved. Not officially at any rate.’
    ‘Thank you,’ Silje said with a quick smile.
    ‘Good luck with your career,’ Gunnar Hagen said.
    He watched her as she made her way down the corridor. Not so much because men always like watching attractive, young women, Anton thought, but to defer what was to come for a few seconds. He had noticed the head of Crime Squad’s nerves. Then Hagen turned to the closed door. Buttoned up his jacket. Rocked on the balls of his feet like a tennis player waiting for an opponent’s serve.
    ‘I’ll go in then.’
    ‘Do that,’ Anton said. ‘I’ll keep watch here.’
    ‘Right,’ Hagen said. ‘Right.’
    Halfway through lunch Beate asked Katrine if she and Harry had had sex that time.
    To start with, Beate had explained how one of the undercover guys had recognised the picture of the woman who had given the false alibis, Irja Jacobsen. He had said that by and large she stayed indoors and lived in a house by Alexander Kiellands plass they had been keeping under surveillance because amphetamines were being sold there. But the police weren’t interested in Irja, she didn’t do any dealing, at worst she was a customer.
    Then their conversation had meandered via work and their private lives, to the good old days. Katrine had mildly protested when Beate claimed that Katrine had given half the Crime Squad a crick in the neck as she swept through the corridors. At the same time Katrine reflected that this was the way women put each other in their place, by emphasising how beautiful they had once been. Especially if they weren’t objects of beauty themselves. But even though Beate had never given anyone a crick in the neck she had never been the type to shoot poisoned darts either. She had been quiet, flushed, hard-working, loyal, someone who never resorted to dirty tactics. But something had obviously changed. Perhaps it was the glass of white wine they had allowed themselves. At any rate it was not like Beate to ask such direct, personal questions.
    Katrine was glad her mouth was so full of pitta bread that all she could do was shake her head.
    ‘But OK,’ she said after she had swallowed, ‘I admit it did cross my mind. Did Harry ever say anything?’
    ‘Harry told me most things,’ Beate said, raising her glass with the last drops. ‘I was wondering if he was lying when he denied that you and he . . .’
    Katrine waved for the bill. ‘Why did you think we might have been together?’
    ‘I saw the way you looked at each other. Heard the way you spoke to each other.’
    ‘Harry and I fought , Beate!’
    ‘That’s what I mean.’
    Katrine laughed. ‘What about you and Harry?’
    ‘Impossible. Much too good a friend. Then I got together with Halvorsen of course . . .’
    Katrine nodded. Harry’s partner, a young detective from Steinkjer. Halvorsen was the father of Beate’s child and was later killed in the line of duty.
    Pause.
    ‘What is it?’
    Katrine shrugged. Took out her phone and played the last part of the recording.
    ‘Lots of crazy people at Ila,’ Beate said.
    ‘I’ve done a bit of psychiatric myself so I know what’s crazy,’ Katrine said. ‘But what I’m wondering is how he knew I was there because of Valentin.’
    Anton Mittet was sitting on a chair watching Mona come towards him. Enjoying the sight. Thinking it might be one of the last times.
    She was smiling from a long way off. Heading straight for him. He watched her put one foot in front of the other, as if walking in an imaginary straight line. Perhaps that was how