Harry Hole Oslo Sequence 10 - Police

bodies could come through the plastic curtain on the baggage carousel in the arrivals hall at Arlanda, still glowing, burning the rubber, silent screams issuing from their open mouths, smoke coiling upwards. None of the doctors had been able to tell him what this wing would be used for eventually; all that was certain was that people would die behind these doors. It was already in the air; invisible bodies with restless souls had already been admitted.
    Anton rounded a corner, and another corridor extended before him, sparsely lit, equally bare and so symmetrical that it created a curious trompe d’oeil : the uniformed woman sitting on the chair at the far end of the corridor looked like a little picture on a flat wall in front of him.
    ‘I’ve got a cup of coffee for you,’ he said, standing by her. Twenty? Bit more. Maybe twenty-two.
    ‘Thanks, but I brought some with me,’ she said, lifting a Thermos from the little rucksack she had placed beside her chair. There was a barely perceptible lilt to her intonation, the residue of a northern dialect perhaps.
    ‘This is better,’ he said, with his hand still outstretched.
    She hesitated. Then took it.
    ‘And it’s free,’ Anton said, discreetly putting his hand behind his back and rubbing the burnt fingertips on the cold material of his jacket. ‘We’ve got a whole machine all to ourselves in fact. It’s in the corridor down by—’
    ‘I saw it when I came,’ she said. ‘But the regulations are that we mustn’t at any time move away from the patient’s door, so I brought some coffee from home.’
    Anton Mittet took a sip from his cup. ‘Good thinking, but there’s only one corridor leading to this room. We’re on the third floor and all the other doors are locked between here and the coffee machine. It’s impossible to get past us even if we’re helping ourselves to coffee.’
    ‘That sounds reassuring, but I think I’ll stick to the rules.’ She sent him a fleeting smile. And then, perhaps as a counterbalance to the implicit reproof, she took a sip from the cup.
    Anton felt a stab of irritation and was about to say something about the independent thinking that would come with experience, but he hadn’t managed to formulate it before his attention was caught by something further down the corridor. A white figure appeared to be floating towards them. He heard Silje get up. The figure took on firmer features. And became a plump blonde nurse in a loose hospital uniform. He knew she was on the night shift. And that tomorrow night she was free.
    ‘Evening,’ the nurse said with a mischievous smile, holding up two syringes in one hand, walking towards the door and placing the other on the handle.
    ‘Just a moment,’ Silje said, stepping up. ‘I’m afraid I have to examine your ID. Also, have you got today’s password?’
    The nurse sent Anton a surprised look.
    ‘Unless my colleague here can vouch for you,’ Silje said.
    Anton nodded. ‘Just go in, Mona.’
    The nurse opened the door and Anton watched her enter. In the darkened room he could make out the machinery around the bed and toes sticking out from under the duvet. The patient was so tall they’d had to requisition a longer bed. The door closed.
    ‘Good,’ Anton said with a smile to Silje, and could see she didn’t like it. Could see she regarded him as a male chauvinist who had just assessed and graded a younger female colleague. But she was a student for Christ’s sake, she was supposed to learn from experienced officers during her training year. He stood rocking back on his heels, unsure how to tackle the situation. She spoke up first.
    ‘As I said, I’ve read the rules and regulations. And I suppose you have a family waiting for you.’
    He lifted his coffee to his mouth. What did she know about his civil status? Was she insinuating something, about him and Mona, for example? That he had driven her home a couple of times after her shift and it hadn’t stopped there?
    ‘The teddy bear sticker on your bag,’ she smiled.
    He took a long swig from his cup. And cleared his throat. ‘I’ve got time. As it’s your first shift perhaps you ought to use the opportunity to ask any questions you may have. Not everything’s in the rules and regulations, you know.’ He shifted feet. Hoping she could hear and understand the subtext.
    ‘As you wish,’ she said with the irritating self-confidence you have to be under twenty-five to be so presumptuous as to possess. ‘The