The Blind Goddess by Anne Holt Page A

know which would have been worse.
    He made his report as factually as he could, but not in every detail. After a few seconds’ thought he decided it would be wrong not to tell his most senior boss about the unofficial
connection they’d made between the two murders. But he kept it brief. To his annoyance she grasped everything immediately, put a few pertinent questions, nodded at his conclusions, and
finally gave her approval to the work he’d done so far. She asked to be kept fully informed, preferably in writing. Then she added:
    “Don’t speculate too much, Håkon. Get one murder out of the way at a time. The Sandersen case is in the bag. The technical evidence will support a conviction. Don’t look
for phantoms where there aren’t any. You can regard that as an order.”
    “Strictly speaking it’s really the public prosecutor who’s my boss on investigatory matters,” he parried.
    In response, he was simply dismissed. As he was about to get up, he asked:
    “Why does she have a blindfold over her eyes?”
    He inclined his head towards the Goddess of Justice standing on her empty desk, attended only by two telephones.
    “She mustn’t let herself be influenced by either side. She has to exercise blind justice, impartially,” the commissioner explained.
    “But it’s difficult to see when you’re blindfolded,” said Håkon, without eliciting a reply. The king, however, hanging with his wife in a gold frame behind the
commissioner’s shoulder, seemed to agree with him. Håkon chose to interpret His Majesty’s inscrutable smile as support for his own observations, and got up and left the
sixth-floor office. He felt even more bad-tempered than when he’d arrived.
    Hanne was glad to see him. Even with the bandage above her eye and her hair shorn on one side, he couldn’t help noticing how beautiful she was. Her pallor accentuated
her large eyes, and for the first time since he’d learnt about the attack he recognised how worried he’d been. He didn’t dare give her a hug. Perhaps it was the bandages that
frightened him off, but on thinking about it he realised that it wouldn’t have seemed natural anyway. Hanne had never invited intimacy beyond the professional loyalty she’d always shown
him. But she was clearly pleased that he’d come. He wasn’t sure what he should do with the bouquet of flowers, and after a moment’s hesitation laid them on the floor. Her bedside
table was over-full already. He drew up a tubular steel chair to the edge of the bed.
    “I’m okay,” said Hanne before he’d had time to ask. “I’ll be back at work as soon as I can. If nothing else, this is proof positive that it’s something
big we’ve stumbled on!”
    The gallows humour didn’t suit her, and he could see that it hurt when she tried to smile.
    “You’re not to come back till you’re completely well. That’s an order.”
    He started to grin, but checked himself. It would tempt her to do the same, despite the pain. Her entire jaw was turning a blueish yellow.
    “The original file has gone from your office. There wasn’t anything in it we didn’t have a copy of, was there?”
    The question was meant as a hopeful statement, but she disappointed him.
    “Yes,” she said quietly. “I’d written a memo, just for myself really. I know what it said, so we haven’t actually lost anything in itself. But it’s a bit of a
bugger that someone else will read it.”
    Håkon felt himself growing hot, and knew from experience that his cheeks would be turning a rather unbecoming pink.
    “I’m horribly afraid that I’ll have made Karen Borg an object of interest to the attacker. We’ve already discussed my view that she knows more than she’s letting
on. I made a few written comments to that effect. I also jotted down one or two words about the links we’ve made.”
    She looked at him with a grimace, and put her hand gently to her head.
    “Not very good, is it?”
    Håkon agreed. It certainly