Killing Moon полностью

‘My choice? You’ve been impossible to get hold of.’

‘Mm. I had my phone turned off.’

‘For six months?’

‘Something like that. Anyway. I called to tell you that Markus Røed wants to hire me as a private investigator on the case of these two girls.’

Katrine stared at him in disbelief.

‘You’re kidding.’

Harry didn’t respond.

She cleared her throat. ‘You’re telling me that you, Harry Hole, have sold yourself like some whore to... whoremonger Markus Røed?’

Harry looked up at the ceiling as though considering the question. ‘That’s putting it pretty much exactly how it is, yeah.’

‘For Christ’s sake, Harry.’

‘Except that I haven’t agreed to it yet.’

‘Why not? Isn’t the whoremonger paying enough?’

‘Because I had to speak to you first. You have a veto.’

‘Veto?’ She snorted. ‘Why? You’re both free to do as you please. Especially Røed — after all, he has enough money to buy whatever he wants. Although, that said, I didn’t think he had enough money to buy your ass.’

‘Take a few seconds and think about the pros and cons,’ Harry said, lifting the coffee cup to his mouth.

He saw the fire in her eyes die down, saw her bite her lower lip like she usually did when her brain was at work. Expected it to draw some of the same conclusions as he had.

‘Are you going to work alone?’

He shook his head.

‘Are you planning on stealing someone working for us or Kripos?’

‘Nope.’

Katrine nodded thoughtfully. ‘You know I don’t give a shit about prestige and ego, Harry. I leave the pissing competitions to all you little boys. What I’m interested in, for example, is that girls can walk around in this city without fear of being raped or killed. And at the moment they can’t. Meaning it’s better that you’re on the case than not.’ She shook her head as though not liking the advantages she could see. ‘And as a private investigator you can also do certain things we can’t permit ourselves.’

‘Yep. How does the case stand, as you see it?’

Katrine looked down at her palms. ‘You know full well I can’t share any details from the investigation with you, but I presume you read the papers, so I’m not revealing too much when I tell you that we and Kripos have been working round the clock for three weeks on this case, and that prior to finding the body we had nada. And I mean nada. We had footage of Susanne at Skullerud metro station at nine on Tuesday night, not far from where she was found. We had Bertine’s car parked up by the hiking trails in Grefsenkollen. But no one knows what these women were doing in those places. Neither of them was a walker, and as far as we know they didn’t have any acquaintances in either Grefsen or Skullerud. We had search teams with dogs in both areas, but they didn’t find anything. And then a jogger and his dog stumbled over the body. Which makes us look like idiots. It’s the usual story. The chance occurrences that crop up outstrip what little we manage to cover by systematic searching. But people don’t understand that. Or journalists. Or—’ she groaned resignedly — ‘bosses.’

‘Mm. What about this party at Røed’s. Anything there?’

‘Nothing other than it seems to be the only time Susanne and Bertine met one another. We’ve tried to get an overview of who attended the party, as someone could have talked to both girls there. But it’s like contact tracing last year. We have most of the names, eighty-odd, but since it was a residents’ party with a fairly free flow of guests in and out, nobody knew everyone. In any case, none of the names we have stand out as suspects, neither based on criminal records nor opportunity-wise. So we went back to what you always repeated over and over, until you bored holes in our ears.’

‘Mm. Why.’

‘Yeah, why. Susanne and Bertine were I suppose what you’d call two normal girls. Similar in some ways, different in others. Both came from comfortable enough backgrounds, neither had any higher education — well, Susanne studied marketing but dropped out after six months. Both had had numerous jobs in shops, Bertine worked as an unqualified hairdresser. Both of them were interested in clothes, make-up, themselves and babes they competed with on the town or on Instagram, and yeah, I know I sound prejudiced — correction: am prejudiced. They spent a lot, were out a lot, friends characterise them as party girls. One difference was that Bertine pretty much paid her own way, while Susanne lived with and lived off her parents. Another difference is that while Bertine had a relatively high turnover of partners, Susanne was apparently more moderate in that regard.’

‘Because she lived with her parents?’

‘Not just that. Apart from some brief relationships she had a reputation for being a bit of a prude. With the possible exception of Markus Røed.’

‘Sugar daddy?’

‘We have lists of the girls’ phone calls and texts. They show extensive contact with Røed over the last three years.’

‘Messages of a sexual character?’