‘Think about it,’ Harry said. ‘You work at Krimteknisk and are sent a batch of almost pure cocaine because Seizures suspect someone may have cut it with something and stolen the difference in weight. You see that no, it’s completely pure, no one has tampered with the batch. But seeing as Seizures already suspect someone else, you spot your chance. You take a little of the pure cocaine, add some levamisole and send the batch back with a conclusion confirming that, yes, someone diluted the dope before it arrived at Krimteknisk.’
‘Beautiful!’ Øystein sang in a fast vibrato. ‘If you’re right, then the guy has, like, serious bloody guile.’
‘Or she,’ Aune said.
‘He,’ Harry said.
‘How do you know?’ Øystein said. ‘Aren’t there women working at Krimteknisk?’
‘Yes, but remember that guy who came over to us at the Jealousy Bar and told us he’d applied to Police College, but skipped it because he wanted to study something else?’
‘Bratt’s boyfriend?’
‘Yeah. I didn’t give it much thought at the time, but he said his chosen field meant he could maybe do investigative work after all. And earlier this evening Katrine let it slip that they were going to eat at a restaurant at Frognerseteren so late because there was so much to do at Krimtek-nisk. She’s not the one who has a lot to do, he is. Have you heard of someone called Arne at Forensics, Truls?’
‘There’re a lot of new people there now, and it’s not like I go around...’ He wobbled his head as if searching for the word.
‘...making new friends?’ Øystein suggested.
Truls shot him a warning glare but nodded.
‘I can see how it could be someone at Forensics,’ Aune said. ‘But what makes you so sure, and why this boyfriend of Katrine’s? Is it Kemper you’re thinking of?’
‘That too.’
‘Hello,’ Øystein interjected. ‘What are the two of you on about now?’
‘Edmund Kemper,’ Aune said. ‘A serial killer in the 1970s who liked to fraternise with police officers. Typical of several serial killers. They seek out cops they anticipate will investigate them, before and after the murders. Kemper had also applied to Police College.’
‘Those are the parallels,’ Harry said. ‘But most of all it’s that pungent odour. Musk. Like wet or warm leather. Helene Røed said she had smelled it at the party. I smelled it in the morgue when Helene Røed was lying there. I smelled it when we cut open Susanne Andersen’s eye. And I smelled it at the Jealousy Bar the night we met this Arne guy.’
‘I didn’t smell anything,’ Øystein said.
‘It was there,’ Harry said.
Aune raised an eyebrow. ‘You noticed this smell among a hundred other sweating men?’
‘It’s a specific fucking odour,’ Harry said.
‘Maybe you’ve got toxoplasmosis,’ Øystein said with feigned concern. ‘Were you horny?’
Truls grunted a laugh.
Harry experienced a sudden painful déjà vu. Bjørn Holm tidying so meticulously after the murder of Rakel. ‘That would also explain why we found no evidence at the crime scenes or on the bodies,’ he said. ‘It was a pro who’d cleaned up after himself.’
‘Of course!’ Truls said. ‘If we’d found any of his DNA...’
‘Everyone who works murder scenes and with corpses has their DNA profile on the database,’ Harry added. ‘So we can see if a hair that’s been found only comes from a forensics officer who hasn’t been careful enough.’
‘If it is this Arne,’ Aune said, ‘then he’s out with Katrine tonight. At Frognerseteren.’
‘Which is practically in the forest,’ Øystein said.
‘I know, and I’ve tried calling her,’ Harry said. ‘She’s not picking up. How worried should we be, Ståle?’
Aune shrugged. ‘As I understand it, he and Katrine have been dating for a while. If he intended to kill her, then he probably would have already done so. He must have changed his mind for some reason.’
‘Such as?’
‘The real danger would be if she did something that left him feeling humiliated. Rejecting him, for instance.’
The forest
In a block of flats in Hovseter, Thanh was standing by a window on the third floor staring down below. She was holding her phone in her hand. It was one minute to nine. She was looking down at the car parked right outside the front door. It had been there for almost five minutes. It was Jonathan’s car. She gave a start as the phone began to ring. The digits on the screen showed that the time was nine o’clock. Exactly.
She thought about all the excuses she had come up with over the last hour only to dismiss them. She pressed Accept.
‘Yes?’
‘I’m outside.’
‘OK, coming,’ she said and dropped the phone into her handbag.
‘I’m off!’ she called out from the hall.
Thanh closed the door behind her and took the lift down. Not because she couldn’t face the stairs, she usually took them, but because there was a theoretical possibility the lift might break down, get stuck, necessitating a call to the fire brigade and the cancellation of all other plans.
