Truls stared in bewilderment at Harry. Swallowed. Blinked a couple of times.
‘Three hundred thousand,’ he said eventually. ‘Give or take.’
‘Mm. That’s a lot. When’s payment due?’
‘Due ages ago. Interest is accruing, you might say.’
‘They’re eager to collect?’
Truls snorted. ‘It’s not just pliers, they threaten you with all kinds of shit. I’m walking around looking over my shoulder the whole time, if you only knew.’
‘Yeah, if I only knew,’ Harry said, closing his eyes. Last night he had dreamt about scorpions. They seeped into the room from under the door and the skirting boards, through cracks in the windows and wall sockets. He opened his eyes and gazed at his beer. He had been both looking forward to and dreading the next couple of hours. He had been wasted yesterday, and he was going to get wasted today. This was now officially a relapse. ‘OK, Truls, I’ll get you the money. Tomorrow, all right? Pay me back when you can.’
Truls Berntsen continued to blink. His eyes were moist now.
‘Why...?’ he began.
‘Don’t get confused,’ Harry said. ‘It’s not because I like you. It’s because I have use for you.’
Truls fixed his eyes on Harry as though trying to work out whether he was joking or not.
Harry lifted the beer. ‘You don’t have to sit any longer now, Berntsen.’
It was eight in the evening.
Harry’s head was drooping. He registered that he was sitting on a chair and had vomit on his suit trousers. Someone had said something. And now the voice was saying something else.
‘Harry?’
He raised his head. The room was spinning and the faces around him were blurred. But he still recognised them. Had known them for years. Safe faces. The Aune group.
‘Being sober at these meetings isn’t a requirement,’ the voice said, ‘but speaking clearly is advantageous. Are you able to do that, Harry?’
Harry swallowed. The last few hours came back to him. He had wanted to drink and drink until there was nothing left, no liquor, no pain, no Harry Hole. No voices in his head calling for help that he was unable to give. This clock ticking louder and louder. Could he not drown them in alcohol and let everything go, let time run out? Letting people down, failing. That was all he knew how to do. So why had he taken out his phone, called this number and come here?
No, it wasn’t the Aune group sitting in the chairs in the circle he was a part of.
‘Hi,’ he said, in a voice so gravelly it sounded like a train derailing. ‘My name’s Harry, and I’m an alcoholic.’
The yellow log
‘Rough night?’ the woman asked, holding the door open for Harry.
Helene Røed was smaller than he had expected. She was wearing a pair of tight jeans and a black polo neck. Her blonde hair was held in place by a simple hairband. He concluded she was as pretty as the photographs.
‘Is it that obvious?’ he said, stepping inside.
‘Sunglasses at ten in the morning?’ she said, showing him into what he already could make out to be a huge apartment. ‘And that suit is too nice to look like that,’ she said over her shoulder.
‘Thanks,’ Harry said.
She laughed, led him into a large room with a living area and an open kitchen with an island.
Daylight flooded in from every side. Concrete, wood, glass, he assumed everything was of the highest quality.
‘Coffee?’
‘Please.’
‘I was going to ask what kind, but you look like the sort who’ll drink anything.’
‘Anything,’ Harry said with a crooked smile.
She pressed a button on the shiny metal espresso machine which began to grind the beans as she rinsed a filter holder under the tap. Harry let his gaze drift over the items attached by magnets to the double-doored fridge. A calendar. Two pictures of horses. A ticket bearing the logo of the National Theatre.
‘You’re going to see
‘Yes. It’s a fantastic production! I was at the first night with Markus. Not that he’s interested in the theatre, but he’s a sponsor so we get a lot of tickets. I handed out loads of the tickets for that production at the party, I think people simply
‘Yeah, sort of. A film version.’
‘Then you have to see this.’
‘I...’
‘You do! Just a sec.’
Helene Røed disappeared, and Harry let his eyes wander over the rest of the fridge door.
Pictures of two children with their parents, taken on holiday it looked like. Harry guessed Helene was the children’s auntie. No pictures of Helene herself or Markus, together or on their own. He walked over to the windows which went from floor to ceiling. A view over the whole of Bjørvika and the Oslo Fjord, the Munch Museum being the only obstruction. He heard Helene approaching with brisk steps.
‘Apologies for the museum,’ she said, handing Harry two tickets. ‘We call it Chernobyl. Not every architect is able to ruin an entire city district with a single building, but Estudio Herreros was, I’ll give them that.’
‘Mm.’
‘Just go ahead with what you came for, Hole, I’m good at multitasking.’
