Harry Hole Oslo Sequence 10 - Police

the ground and applying handcuffs. At the end of the corridor she slipped into auditorium 2. The lecture was in full flow, so she crept along to a free seat in the back row. She sat down so quietly she wasn’t noticed by the two girls excitedly whispering in front of her.
    ‘She’s weird, I’m telling you. She’s got a picture of him on her bedsit wall.’
    ‘ Has she?’
    ‘I’ve seen it myself.’
    ‘My God, he’s so old. And ugly.’
    ‘Do you think?’
    ‘Are you blind?’ She nodded to the board where the lecturer was writing with his back to the class.
    ‘Motive!’ The lecturer had turned to them and repeated the word he had written on the board. ‘The psychological cost of killing is so high for rationally thinking people with normal feelings that there has to be an extremely good motive. Extremely good motives are as a rule easier and quicker to find than murder weapons, witnesses or forensic evidence. And they point you straight to a potential perp. That is why every detective should start with the question “why”.’
    He paused to scan the audience, a bit like a sheepdog circling and keeping the flock together, Katrine thought.
    He raised his forefinger. ‘A rough simplification: find the motive and you’ve got the murderer.’
    Katrine Bratt didn’t think he was ugly. Not attractive though, of course, not in the conventional meaning of the word. More what the British call an acquired taste. And the voice was the same deep, warm voice with the slightly worn, hoarse edge that appealed not only to young student fans.
    ‘Yes?’ The lecturer had hesitated for a moment before giving the floor to a female student waving her arm.
    ‘Why do we send out large, costly forensics units if a brilliant detective like you can crack the case with a few questions and a bit of deduction?’
    There was no audible irony in the girl’s intonation, only an almost childlike sincerity plus a lilt that revealed she must have lived in the north.
    Katrine saw the emotions flicker across the lecturer’s face – embarrassment, resignation, annoyance – before he collected himself and gave an answer: ‘Because it’s never enough to know who the lawbreaker is, Silje. During the bank robbery wave in Oslo ten years ago the Robberies Unit had a female officer who could recognise masked robbers by the shape of their faces.’
    ‘Beate Lønn,’ said the girl he had called Silje. ‘The boss of Krimteknisk.’
    ‘Exactly. And so in eight out of ten cases the Robberies Unit knew who the masked men on the CCTV videos were. But they didn’t have any proof. Fingerprints are proof. A used gun is proof. A convinced detective is not proof, however brilliant he or she may be. I’ve used a number of simplifications today, but here is the last: the answer to the question “why” is worthless unless we find out how and vice versa. But now that we’ve got a bit further in the process Folkestad is going to talk about forensic investigation.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We’ll talk more in depth about motives next time, but here’s something to get your brains working. Why do people kill one another?’
    He scanned the audience again with an encouraging expression. Katrine saw that in addition to the scar that ran like a channel from the corner of his mouth to his ear he had two new scars. One looked like a slash with a knife to the neck; the other could have been made by a bullet at the side of his head, level with his eyebrows. But otherwise he looked better than she had ever seen him. The 1.92-metre figure looked tall and supple; the blond, cropped brush of hair still didn’t have any flecks of grey. And she could see he was toned beneath his T-shirt. There was meat back on his bones. And, most important of all, life in his eyes. The alert, energetic, bordering on manic, look was back. Laughter lines and expansive body language she had never seen before. You could almost suspect him of leading a good life. Which, if this was the case, would be a first.
    ‘Because they have something to gain by it,’ a boy’s voice answered.
    The lecturer nodded good-naturedly. ‘You would think so, wouldn’t you? But murder as a crime for profit is not that usual, Vetle.’
    A barking Sunnmøre voice: ‘Because they hate someone?’
    ‘Elling is suggesting crimes of passion,’ he said. ‘Jealousy. Rejection. Revenge. Yes, definitely. Anything else?’
    ‘Because they are deranged.’ The suggestion came from a tall,