It was a crap autumn.

I had gone broke long ago, I no longer had a job and was forced to keep a low profile. I had found a buyer for the band’s equipment in Bispegata, he had been to see it, I’d convinced him it was mine, after all I did live there! It was just a question of agreeing a time to collect it. Then — like a rescuing angel — Irene appeared. Nice, freckled Irene. It was an October morning, and I was busy with some guys in Sofienberg Park when there she was, almost in tears with happiness. I asked if she had any money, and she waved a Visa card. Her father’s, Rolf’s. We went to the nearest cashpoint and emptied his account. At first, Irene didn’t want to, but when I explained my life depended on it, she knew it had to be done. We went to Olympen and ate and drank, bought a few grams of speed and returned home to Bispegata. She said she’d had a row with her mum. She stayed the night. The next day I took her with me to the station. Tutu was sitting on his motorbike wearing a leather jacket with a wolf’s head on the back. Tutu with a goatee, pirate’s scarf round his head and tattoos protruding from his collar, but still looking like a fricking lackey. He was about to jump off and run after me when he realised I was heading towards him. I gave him the twenty thousand I owed plus five in interest. Thank you for lending me the holiday money. Hope we can turn over a new leaf. Tutu rang Odin while looking at Irene. I could see what he wanted. And looked at Irene again. Poor, beautiful, pale Irene.

‘Odin says he wants f-f-five more,’ Tutu said. ‘If not I’ve got orders to give you a b-b-b-bea-bea-bea…’ He took a deep breath.

‘Beating,’ I said.

‘Right now,’ Tutu said.

‘Fine, I’ll sell two batches for you today.’

‘You’ll have to p-p-pay for them.’

‘Come on, I can sell them in two hours.’

Tutu eyed me. Nodded to Irene, who was standing at the bottom of Jernbanetorget steps, waiting. ‘What about h-h-her?’

‘She’ll help me.’

‘Girls are good at s-s-selling. Is she on drugs?’

‘Not yet,’ I said.

‘Th-thief,’ Tutu said, grinning his toothless grin.

I counted my money. My last. It was always my last. My blood’s flowing out of me.

A week later, by Elm Street Rock Cafe, a boy stopped in front of Irene and me.

‘Say hello to Oleg,’ I said and jumped down from the wall. ‘Say hello to my sister, Oleg.’

Then I hugged him. I could feel he hadn’t lowered his head; he was looking over my shoulder. At Irene. And through his denim jacket I could feel his heart accelerating.

Officer Berntsen sat with his feet on the desk and the telephone receiver to his ear. He had rung the police station in Lillestrom, Romerike Police District, and introduced himself as Thomas Lunder, a laboratory assistant for Kripos. The officer he was speaking to had just confirmed they had received the bag of what they assumed was heroin from Gardermoen. The standard procedure was that all confiscated drugs in the country were sent for testing to the Kripos laboratory in Bryn, Oslo. Once a week a Kripos vehicle went round collecting from all the police districts in Ostland. Other districts sent the material via their own couriers.

‘Good,’ Berntsen said, fidgeting with the false ID card displaying a photo and the signature of Thomas Lunder, Kripos, underneath. ‘I’ll be in Lillestrom anyway, so I’ll pick up the bag for Bryn. We’d like such a large seizure to be tested at once. OK, see you early tomorrow.’

He rang off and looked out of the window. Looked at the new area around Bjorvika rising towards the sky. Thought of all the small details: the sizes of screws, the thread on nuts, the quality of mortar, the flexibility of glass, everything that had to be right for the whole to function. And felt a profound satisfaction. Because it did. This town did function.

9

The long, slim feminine legs of the pine trees rose into the skirt of green that cast hazy afternoon shadows across the gravel in front of the house. Harry stood at the top of the drive, drying his sweat after mounting the steep hills from Holmendammen and observing the dark house. The black-stained, heavy timber expressed solidity, security, a bulwark against trolls and nature. It hadn’t been enough. The neighbouring houses were large, inelegant detached houses undergoing continuous improvement and extension. Oystein, called O in his phone contacts list, had said that cog-jointed timbers were a statement of the bourgeoisie’s longing for nature, simplicity and health. What Harry saw was sick, perverted, a family under siege from a serial killer. Nonetheless, she had chosen to keep the house.

Harry walked to the door and pressed the bell.

Heavy footsteps sounded from inside. And Harry realised that he should have phoned first.

The door opened.

The man standing before him had a blond fringe, the type of fringe that had been full in its prime and had undoubtedly brought him advantages, and which therefore one took into later life hoping that the somewhat more straggly version would still work. The man was wearing an ironed light blue shirt of the kind Harry guessed he had also worn in his youth.

‘Yes?’ the man said. Open, friendly features. Eyes looking as if they had not met anything other than friendliness. A small polo player sewn into the breast pocket.

Harry felt his throat go dry. He cast a glance at the nameplate under the doorbell.

Rakel Fauke.

Yet the man with the attractive, weak face was standing there and holding the door open as though it were his. Harry knew he had several options for a great opening gambit, but the one he chose was: ‘Who are you?’

The man in front of him produced the facial expression Harry had never been able to achieve. He frowned and smiled at the same time. The superior person’s condescending amusement at the inferior person’s impudence.

‘Since you are on the outside and I am on the inside it would seem more natural that you should say who you are. And what you want.’

‘As you wish,’ Harry said with a loud yawn. Of course, he could blame that on jet lag. ‘I’m here to speak to the lady whose name is by the doorbell.’

‘And you are from?’

‘The Jehovah’s Witnesses,’ Harry said, checking his watch.

The man automatically shifted his eyes from Harry to look for the obligatory second man in the team.

‘My name’s Harry and I come from Hong Kong. Where is she?’

The man arched an eyebrow. ‘ The Harry?’

‘Since it has been one of Norway’s least trendy names for the last fifty years, we can probably assume it is.’

The man studied Harry now, with a nod and a half-smile on his lips as though his brain was playing back the information it had received about the character in front of him. But with no suggestion that he was going to move from the doorway or answer any of Harry’s questions.

‘Well?’ Harry said, shifting weight from one leg.

‘I’ll tell her you were here.’

Harry’s foot was swift. Out of instinct he flipped the sole upward so that the door hit it instead of the shoe upper. That was the kind of trick his new occupation had taught him. The man looked down at Harry’s foot and then at him. The condescending amusement was gone. He was about to say something. A withering remark that would re-establish order. But Harry knew he would change his mind. When he saw the look on Harry’s face that made people change their minds.

‘You’d better-’ the man said. Stopped. Blinked once. Harry waited. For the confusion. The hesitation. The retreat. Blink number two. The man coughed. ‘She’s out.’

Harry stood stock-still. Let the silence ring out. Two seconds. Three seconds.

‘I… er, don’t know when she’ll be back.’

Not a muscle stirred in Harry’s countenance while the man’s face leapt from one expression to another as if searching for one to hide behind. And ended up where it had started: with the friendly one.