Harry Hole Oslo Sequence 10 - Police

job.’
    ‘Honestly, Harry . . . you . . . you . . .’ Beate wasn’t used to raising her voice, and it sounded like a quivering saw blade.
    ‘He turned Oleg into a junkie, Beate.’ Harry’s voice was low, and he spoke without looking up from the cup.
    They sat in silence listening to the expensive Holmenkollen silence.
    ‘Was it Asayev who shot you in the head?’ Beate asked at length.
    Harry ran his finger over the new scar at the side of his forehead. ‘What makes you think it’s a bullet wound?’
    ‘Well, what do I know about gunshot wounds? I’m just a forensics officer.’
    ‘OK. It was a guy who had worked for Asayev,’ Harry said. ‘Three shots at close range. Two in the chest. The third in the head.’
    Beate looked at Harry. Knowing he was telling the truth. But it wasn’t the whole truth.
    ‘And how did you survive that?’
    ‘I’d been walking round with a bulletproof vest on for two days. So it was about time it did something useful. But the shot to the head knocked me out. And would have killed me if . . .’
    ‘If . . .?’
    ‘If the guy who shot me hadn’t run to the A&E in Storgata. He badgered a doctor to come along, and he saved me.’
    ‘What? Why haven’t I heard any of this?’
    ‘The doctor bandaged me up on the spot and wanted to send me to hospital, but I woke up in time and made sure I was sent home instead.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I didn’t want any fuss. How’s Bjørn these days? Got himself a girl?’
    ‘This guy . . . first of all he tried to shoot you and then he saved your life? Who—?’
    ‘He didn’t try to shoot me, it was an accident.’
    ‘Accident? Three shots is no accident, Harry.’
    ‘If you’re going cold turkey and holding an Odessa, it can happen.’
    ‘Odessa?’ Beate knew the weapon. The cheap copy of the Russian Stechkin. In pictures the Odessa looked like it had been welded together by a schoolboy of average skill in a metalwork class, the clumsy, illegitimate progeny of a pistol and a machine gun. But it was popular with Russian Urkas and professional criminals because it could fire both single shots and salvos. The slightest pressure on an Odessa and you had suddenly let off two rounds. Or three. It struck her that the Odessa had the rare Makarov 9x18mm calibre bullets, the same ammunition that had killed Gusto Hanssen.
    ‘I’d like to see that weapon,’ she said slowly, watching Harry’s eyes automatically wander around the living room. She turned. She couldn’t see anything there, just an ancient black corner cupboard.
    ‘You didn’t say who the guy was,’ Beate said.
    ‘It’s not important,’ Harry said. ‘He’s long been outside your jurisdiction.’
    Beate nodded. ‘You’re protecting someone who almost took your life.’
    ‘All the more credit to him that he saved it.’
    ‘Is that why you’re protecting him?’
    ‘How we choose who we protect is often a riddle, don’t you think?’
    ‘Yes,’ Beate said. ‘Take me for example. I protect police officers. As I’m handy at facial recognition I questioned the bartender at Come As You Are, the place where this drug dealer of Asayev’s was killed by a tall blond guy with a scar running from his mouth to his ear. I showed the bartender some photos and talked and talked. And as you know, the visual memory is child’s play to manipulate. Witnesses no longer remember what they thought they remembered. In the end, the bartender was sure the man in the bar wasn’t the Harry Hole I showed him in the photos.’
    Harry looked at her. Then he nodded slowly. ‘Thanks.’
    ‘I was going to say no thanks were necessary,’ Beate said, lifting the cup to her mouth. ‘But they are. And I have a suggestion as to how you could thank me.’
    ‘Beate . . .’
    ‘I protect police officers. You know it’s a personal matter for me when officers die on active duty. Jack. And my father.’ She noticed she automatically touched her earring. The button off her father’s uniform jacket, which she’d had recast. ‘We don’t know whose turn it is next, but I intend to do whatever I can to stop this bastard, Harry. Whatever I can. Do you understand?’
    Harry didn’t answer.
    ‘Sorry, of course you understand,’ Beate said under her breath. ‘You have your own dead to grieve for.’
    Harry rubbed the back of his right hand against the coffee cup as if he was cold. Then he got up and walked to the window. Stood there for a while before he spoke.
    ‘As you know, a murderer