‘We have a killer with a motive unknown to us or that we can’t understand,’ Harry said. ‘Hopefully the interviews will tell us something more. Otherwise, it seems clear to me that the whole thing started at the party at Røed’s place. As you’ll recall, I thought we should track down the cocaine pusher, but I have to admit my focus was on the wrong pusher. After all, it’s easy to believe that the guy wearing a face mask, sunglasses and a baseball cap is the bad guy. Let’s go through what we know about him before we look at the murderer. What we know is that this guy was an amateur with samples of green cocaine originating from a recent seizure. Let’s call him the Greenhorn. My guess is the Greenhorn is someone who happens to be at one of the stops along the way before the drugs are sent for analysis, so one of the customs officers or someone working at police storage. He realises the quality of this stuff is off the scale and spots his chance to hit the jackpot. What he needs to do after stealing so much from the seizure is sell the whole lot in one go to one individual who appreciates quality product and can pay for a batch that size.’
‘Markus Røed,’ Øystein said.
‘Exactly. And that’s the reason the Greenhorn is so insistent on Røed having a taste. He was the target.’
‘And I was the one who got the blame,’ Truls said.
‘But let’s forget the Greenhorn for now,’ Harry said. ‘After Markus sneezes on the table and ruins everything for the poor guy, it’s Al who provides Markus with cocaine. And probably the girls too, even though they got some of the green type first. The girls like Al. He likes them. And he lures them into taking a walk in the forest. And that’s where we get to what for me is a mystery. How did he manage that? How does he get Susanne to willingly travel all the way across the city and meet him at a secluded spot? By dangling some mediocre cocaine under her nose? Hardly. How does he get Bertine to readily agree to meet him in the forest after another girl, who she knows about, has just disappeared? And after these two murders, how on earth does he persuade Helene Røed to willingly leave with him in the interval at
‘Do we know that?’ Aune asked.
‘Yeah,’ Truls said. ‘The police checked with the ticket office and found out which seat numbers they’d sent to Røed and who’d been sitting next to her as well. And they said the woman sitting beside them hadn’t returned after the interval. The cloakroom attendant also remembered a lady picking up her coat, and a man standing waiting a little way off with his back turned. She remembered because they were the only people she had seen leave that particular play during the break.’
‘I spoke to Helene Røed,’ Harry said. ‘She was a smart woman and capable of taking care of herself. It just doesn’t make sense to me that she would willingly leave a play with a drug dealer she doesn’t know. Not after everything that’s happened.’
‘You keep bringing up
‘Yes,’ Harry said. ‘They ought to be... scared.’
‘Go on.’
‘Yes. Terrified.’ Harry was no longer sitting in his usual slumped position, but on the edge of the chair, leaning forward. ‘It reminds me of this mouse I saw one morning when I woke up in Los Angeles. It just walked right over to the house cat. Who of course killed it. And a few days ago I saw the same thing happen in a backyard here in Oslo. I don’t know what’s wrong with these mice, maybe they were drugged or had lost their natural instinct of fear.’
‘Fear is good,’ Øystein said. ‘A little bit at least. Fear of strangers, for instance. Xenophobia is a pretty negatively charged word, and yeah, it’s to blame for a lot of seriously evil shit. But the world we live in is eat or be eaten, and if you’re not suitably scared of what’s unfamiliar to you, then sooner or later you’re fucked. Don’t you think, Ståle?’
‘Certainly,’ Aune said. ‘When our senses perceive something they recognise as a danger, the amygdala excretes neurotransmitters like glutamate, so we become fearful. It’s a smoke alarm from evolution, and without it...’
‘We burn up,’ Harry said. ‘So what’s wrong with these murder victims? And the mice?’
The four of them looked at one another in silence.
‘Toxoplasmosis.’
They turned to the fifth person.
‘The mice have toxoplasmosis,’ Jibran Sethi said.
‘What’s that?’ Harry asked.
‘It’s a parasite that’s infected the mouse, blocking the fear response, and replacing it with sexual attraction instead. The mouse approaches the cat because it’s sexually attracted.’
‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ Øystein said.
Jibran smiled. ‘No, the parasite is called
‘Wait,’ Harry said. ‘Is it only found in mice?’
‘No, it can live in almost any warm-blooded animal. But its life cycle goes through animals which are prey for cats because the parasite needs to get back into the intestines of the main host to reproduce, and that has to be a feline.’
