Harry Hole Oslo Sequence 10 - Police

It’ll be one person’s word against another’s and we’ll end up with two losers. The victim is suspected of loose morals and making false accusations, and everyone assumes the man who has been acquitted got off lightly. Given this potential lose–lose situation, Silje Gravseng has presented me with a wish, a suggestion, which I have no hesitation in supporting. Let me for a moment step out of my role as your adversary’s lawyer, Hole. I advise you to support it too. For the alternative is she reports you. She’s absolutely clear about that.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘Yes. As someone who wants to maintain law and order as her profession, she sees it as her civic duty to ensure that rapists are punished. But, fortunately for you, not necessarily by a judge.’
    ‘So, principled in a way?’
    ‘If I were you, I would be less sarcastic and a little more grateful, Hole. I could have recommended she report you to the police.’
    ‘What do you two want, Krohn?’
    ‘In brief, for you to resign from your post at PHS and never again work for, or be in any way connected with, the police. Leaving Silje to continue her studies here in peace without any interference from you. The same applies when she takes up a job. One negative word from you and the agreement is declared null and void, and the rape will be reported.’
    Harry placed his elbows on the table, put his head in his hands. Massaging his forehead.
    ‘I’ll set up a written agreement in the form of a settlement,’ Krohn said. ‘Your resignation in exchange for her silence. Secrecy is a prerequisite on both sides. You will, however, hardly be able to damage her if you did break secrecy. Her decision will be met with sympathetic understanding.’
    ‘While I’ll be seen as guilty because I went along with this settlement.’
    ‘View it as damage limitation, Hole. A man with your background will easily be able to find work. As an insurance investigator, for example. They pay better than PHS, believe me.’
    ‘I believe you.’
    ‘Good.’ Krohn flipped up the lid of his phone. ‘How’s your calendar for the next few days?’
    ‘I can do it tomorrow as a matter of fact.’
    ‘Good. My office at two o’clock. Can you remember the address from the last time?’
    Harry nodded.
    ‘Excellent. Have a marvellous day, Hole!’
    Krohn jumped from his chair. Knee-lifts, pull-ups and bench press, Harry guessed.
    After he had gone, Harry looked at his watch. It was Thursday and Rakel was coming a day earlier this weekend. Due to land at 17.30 and he had offered to collect her from the airport, which – after two of the standard ‘oh no, you don’t need to’s – she had accepted gratefully. He knew she loved the three-quarters of an hour in the car home. The chat. The calm. The prelude to a wonderful evening. Her excited voice explaining what it actually meant that only states could be parties to the Statute of the Court at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. About the UN’s legal powers or lack of them, as the countryside rolled past them. Or they talked about Oleg, about how he was doing, how he looked better by the day, how the old Oleg was returning. About the plans he had made. Studying law. PHS. And how lucky they had been. And how fragile happiness was.
    They talked about everything that came into their heads, no beating around the bush. Almost everything. Harry never said how frightened he was. Frightened of making promises he couldn’t keep. Frightened of not being the person he wanted to be, had to be, for them. Frightened that he didn’t know if they could be the same for him. That he didn’t know how someone could make him happy.
    The fact that he was now together with her and Oleg was almost an exceptional circumstance, something he only half believed in, a suspiciously wonderful dream he was constantly expecting to wake up from.
    Harry rubbed his face. Perhaps it was close now. The awakening. The pitiless, stinging daylight. Reality. Where everything would be as before. Cold, hard and lonely. Harry shivered.
    Katrine Bratt looked at her watch. Ten past nine. Outside, it might have been a sudden mild spring evening. Down in the basement it was a chilly, damp winter evening. She watched Bjørn Holm scratching his red sideburns. Ståle Aune scribbling on a pad. Beate Lønn stifling a yawn. They were sitting around a computer looking at the photo Beate had taken of the tram window. They had talked a bit about the drawing, and concluded