Harry Hole 02 - Cockroaches by Jo Nesbø Page A

Nho said. ‘Much less. Believe me.’
    ‘It’s not the loan sharks I’m thinking about, it’s Atle Molnes. The guy comes from a very wealthy family. He should be able to pay, at least if it was a matter of life and death. There’s something not right here. What do you think about Mr Sanphet?’
    ‘He was lying when he talked about Miss Ao.’
    ‘Oh? What makes you say that?’
    Nho didn’t answer, just smiled secretively and tapped his temple.
    ‘What are you trying to tell me, Nho? That you know when people are lying?’
    ‘I learned it from my mother. During the Vietnam War she lived as a poker player on Soi Cowboy.’
    ‘Rubbish. I know police officers who have questioned people all their lives, and they all say the same: you can’t learn to see through a good liar.’
    ‘It’s a matter of having eyes in your head. You can see it in small things. Such as when you didn’t open your mouth properly when you said everyone who loves Grieg should have a copy of the cassette.’
    Harry could feel the heat rising in his cheeks. ‘The cassette happened to be in my Walkman. An Australian policeman told me about Grieg’s symphony in C minor. I bought the cassette in memory of him.’
    ‘It worked anyway.’
    Nho swerved from the path of a lorry bearing down on them.
    ‘Bloody hell!’ Harry didn’t even have time to be afraid. ‘He was in the wrong lane!’
    Nho shrugged. ‘He was bigger than me.’
    Harry looked at his watch. ‘We have to pop into the station, and I’ve got a funeral to go to.’ He thought with dread of the hot jacket hanging in the cupboard outside the ‘office’.
    ‘I hope there’s air conditioning in the church. By the way, how come we had to sit in the street in the baking sun? Why didn’t the old boy invite us into the shade?’
    ‘Pride,’ Nho said.
    ‘Pride?’
    ‘He lives in a small room which has precious little to do with the car he drives and the place he works. He didn’t want to invite us in because it would have been unpleasant, not just for him but also for us.’
    ‘Strange man.’
    ‘This is Thailand,’ Nho said. ‘I wouldn’t invite you into my place, either. I would serve you tea on the steps.’
    He made a sudden right turn and a couple of the three-wheeled tuk-tuks swerved in horror. Harry instinctively put out his hands in front of him.
    ‘I’m—’
    ‘—bigger than they are. Thanks, Nho, I think I’ve got the principle.’

13
    Sunday 12 January
    ‘HE’S GONE UP in smoke now,’ Harry’s neighbour said, crossing himself. He was a powerful-looking man with a deep tan and light blue eyes, reminding Harry of stained wood and faded denim. His silk shirt was open at the neck, around which hung a thick gold chain that gleamed in the sun, matt and thick. His nose was covered with a fine network of blood vessels, and his brown skull shone like a billiard ball beneath the thinning hair. Roald Bork had lively eyes which at close range made him seem younger than his seventy years.
    He talked. Loudly and apparently uninhibited by the fact that they were at a funeral. His Nordland dialect sang beneath the vaulted ceiling, but no one turned with a reproving stare.
    When they were outside the crematorium, Harry introduced himself.
    ‘Well now, so I had a policeman standing next to me all the time without me knowing. Good job I didn’t say anything. It could have cost me.’
    He laughed a reverberating laugh and held out a dry, leathery old-man’s hand. ‘Bork, on the lowest pension.’ The irony didn’t reach his eyes.
    ‘Tonje Wiig said you were a kind of spiritual leader for the Norwegian community here.’
    ‘Then I might have to disappoint you. As you see, I’m a decrepit old man, no shepherd. Besides, I’ve moved to the periphery, in both a literal and metaphorical sense.’
    ‘Oh yes?’
    ‘To the den of iniquity, Thailand’s Sodom.’
    ‘Pattaya?’
    ‘Correct. There are a few other Norwegians living there who I try to keep in