Harry Hole Oslo Sequence 10 - Police

half of his face with a scarf, and it was too dark for him to see the eyes properly. He suddenly bent down to Rico.
    ‘Did you know that when they did the autopsy on Vanessa they found sexual diseases medical science didn’t know existed? Stick to your own species, that’s my advice.’
    Rico watched the figure hurry to the exit. Watched him take off the scarf. Glimpsed the face in the green light of the exit sign as it disappeared behind the black felt curtain. The oxygen seemed to pour back into the room, and Rico sucked it in greedily as he blinked at the running stick man on the exit sign.
    He was confused.
    Confused that he was still alive and confused about what he had just seen. Not confused that pervs were busy checking out escape routes. They had always done that. But that it wasn’t him. The voice had been the same, the laugh too. But the man he had seen in the green light for a fraction of a second was not him. It wasn’t Valentin.

17
    ‘ SO YOU’VE MOVED in here, have you?’ Beate said, looking around the spacious kitchen. Outside the window, darkness had descended over Holmenkollen Ridge and the neighbouring houses. None of the houses was the same, but they were all twice the size of the house Beate had inherited from her mother in East Oslo and they had hedges that were double the height, double garages and double-barrelled names on the letter boxes. Beate knew she was prejudiced about West Oslo, but it was still strange to see Harry Hole in these surroundings.
    ‘Yes,’ Harry said, pouring coffee for both of them.
    ‘Isn’t it . . . lonely?’
    ‘Mm. Don’t you and the littl’un live on your own as well?’
    ‘Yes, but . . .’ She didn’t continue. What she wanted to say was that she lived in a cosy yellow house erected in the Einar Gerhardsen socialist spirit of the reconstruction period after the Second World War, sober and practical, with none of the national-romantic fashion that caused the affluent to build log-cabin-like fortresses such as this. With black-stained timbers, which even on sunny days gave an atmosphere of eternal darkness and melancholy to the house Rakel had inherited from her father.
    ‘Rakel comes home at the weekends,’ he said, lifting his cup to his mouth.
    ‘So things are good?’
    ‘Things are very good.’
    Beate nodded and studied him. The changes. He had laughter lines around his eyes, but still looked younger. The titanium prosthesis replacing his middle finger on the right hand clinked against the cup.
    ‘What about you?’ Harry asked.
    ‘Good. Busy. The little one’s off school staying with his grandmother in Steinkjer.’
    ‘Really? Scary how quickly . . .’ He half closed his eyes and chuckled.
    ‘Yes,’ Beate said, sipping her coffee. ‘Harry, I wanted to meet you because I’d like to know what happened.’
    ‘I know,’ Harry said. ‘I meant to contact you. But I had to sort things out with Oleg. And myself.’
    ‘Come on then.’
    ‘OK,’ Harry said, putting down his cup. ‘You were the only person I informed while it was going on. You helped me, and I owe you a great debt of thanks, Beate. And you’re the only person who’ll ever know. But are you sure you want to know? It could put you in a bit of a dilemma.’
    ‘I was an accessory the moment I started helping you, Harry. And we got rid of violin. It’s not on the streets any more.’
    ‘Fantastic,’ Harry said drily. ‘The market’s back on heroin, crack and speedballs.’
    ‘And the man behind violin’s gone. Rudolf Asayev’s dead.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘Oh? You knew he was dead? Did you know he was in a coma under a false name at the Rikshospital for more than a year before he died?’
    Harry raised an eyebrow. ‘Asayev? I thought he died in a room at Hotel Leon.’
    ‘He was found there. With blood from wall to wall. But they managed to keep him alive. Until now. How do you know about Hotel Leon? All of that was kept under wraps.’
    Harry didn’t answer, just twirled the cup in his hand.
    ‘Oh no . . .’ Beate groaned.
    Harry shrugged his shoulders. ‘I said you might not want to know.’
    ‘It was you who stabbed him?’
    ‘Would it help if I said it was in self-defence?’
    ‘We found a bullet in the wooden bed frame. But the wound from the knife was big and deep, Harry. The pathologist said the blade must have been twisted round several times.’
    Harry looked down into his cup. ‘Well, I obviously didn’t do a thorough enough