Harry Hole Oslo Sequence 10 - Police

have to report this.’
    ‘Harry!’
    ‘Not because I feel I’ve been harassed particularly, but because I question whether you have the psychological stability to work in the police force, Silje. I’ll leave it to the authorities to evaluate. So you’ll have to convince them that this was just a bit of a slip-up. Does that sound fair to you?’
    He opened the front door with his free hand, and as he shoved her out she swung round and eyeballed him. It was a glare of such naked fury and ferocity it confirmed what Harry had been thinking for a while about Silje Gravseng. She was not someone who should be given police powers and unleashed on the general public.
    Harry watched her as she tottered through the gate, across the square to Chateau Neuf, where a student was having a smoke and a break from the dull pounding of the music inside. He stood leaning against a street lamp, wearing an army jacket, Cuba 1960 style. Watched Silje with studied indifference until she’d passed, whereupon he turned and stared after her.
    Harry stood in the corridor. Cursing loudly. Felt his pulse slowing. Took out his phone, rang one of the contacts from a list which was so short some people were entered with only one letter.
    ‘Arnold here.’
    ‘This is Harry. Silje Gravseng just turned up at my office. This time it went too far.’
    ‘Oh yes? Spill the beans.’
    Harry gave his colleague the edited highlights.
    ‘This is not good, Harry. Worse, maybe, than you imagine.’
    ‘She might have been on something. Looked as if she’d come from a party. Or she just has problems controlling her impulses. But I need some advice here about what to do. I know I ought to report it but—’
    ‘You don’t understand. Are you still down by the front door?’
    ‘Yes. So?’ Harry said, surprised.
    ‘The guard must have gone home. Can you see anyone else?’
    ‘Anyone else?’
    ‘Anyone?’
    ‘Well, there’s a guy in the square outside Chateau Neuf.’
    ‘Would he have seen her leave?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Perfect! Go over to him now. Talk to him. Get his name and address. Keep him occupied until I come and pick you up.’
    ‘You what?’
    ‘I’ll explain later.’
    ‘Am I supposed to sit on the back of your bike?’
    ‘I have to confess I have a kind of car here somewhere. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’
    ‘Good . . . er, morning?’ Bjørn Holm mumbled. He peered at his watch, but wasn’t sure if he was still in dreamland.
    ‘Were you asleep?’
    ‘No, no,’ Bjørn Holm said, leaning back against the headboard and pressing the phone to his ear. As though it would bring her even closer.
    ‘I just wanted to tell you I’ve got a bit of the chewing gum stuck under Anton Mittet’s car seat,’ Katrine Bratt said. ‘I reckon it’s the murderer’s. But of course it’s a long shot.’
    ‘Yes,’ Bjørn said.
    ‘You mean it’s a waste of time?’
    Bjørn thought she sounded disappointed. ‘You’re the detective,’ he answered and immediately regretted not saying anything more encouraging.
    In the ensuing silence he wondered where she was. At home? Was she also in bed?
    ‘Oh well,’ she sighed. ‘By the way, something odd happened while I was in the Evidence Room.’
    ‘Oh yes?’ Bjørn said and could hear he was overdoing the enthusiasm.
    ‘I thought I heard someone else in there. I may have been mistaken, but on the way out it looked as if someone had moved one of the evidence boxes on the shelf. I checked the label . . .’
    Bjørn Holm thought she was lying down; her voice had that lazy softness.
    ‘It was the René Kalsnes case.’
    Harry closed the heavy door and locked out the gentle morning light behind him.
    He walked through the cool darkness of the timber house to the kitchen. Slumped down onto a chair. Unbuttoned his shirt. It had taken time.
    The guy in the army jacket had seemed fairly alarmed when Harry went over to him and asked him to wait until a police colleague arrived.
    ‘This is normal tobacco, you know!’ he had said, passing Harry the cigarette.
    When Arnold came they took the student’s signed testimony and then got into a dust-covered Fiat of indeterminate vintage and went straight to Krimteknisk where people were still working because of the latest police murder. There, Harry undressed, and while someone took his clothing for examination, two of the male officers went over his genitals and hands with a light and contact paper. Then he was given an empty plastic