wasn’t very good.
Fredrick Myhreng was rather demanding. On the other hand, he was right when he insisted that he had kept to his side of the bargain. He sat now like an eager swot noting down
everything Håkon could tell him. The thought of being the first to run the story that the police were confronted not with two random murders in the increasing series of apparently motiveless
killings, but with a double homicide linked to the drugs trade and possibly to organised crime—this thought made him sweat so much that his pantomime glasses kept sliding down his nose,
despite the practical frames hooked behind his ears. As before, ink was going everywhere as he wrote. Håkon thought to himself that the journalist ought to be wearing oilskins, the way he
handled his writing implements. He offered him a pencil as a replacement for the ball-point pen he’d just wrecked.
“How do you rate your chances of solving it?” Myhreng asked after listening to Håkon’s carefully censored but nevertheless quite fascinating account. The bridge of his
nose had turned blue from his continual adjustments to his spectacles. Håkon wondered if he ought to draw the man’s attention to his odd appearance, but concluded that it would do him
good to make a fool of himself, so restricted himself to the matter in hand.
“We certainly believe we’ll solve it. But it may take some time. We’ve got a lot to follow up. You can quote me on that.”
Which was all Fredrick Myhreng got out of Håkon Sand that day. But he was more than happy.
TUESDAY 13 OCTOBER
T he headline was dramatic. The editorial desk had produced one of the pictures of Ludvig Sandersen’s corpse they had used before, and
mounted it beside an old archive photograph of Hans Olsen. It must have been taken more than ten years earlier, rather fuzzy and presumably an enlargement from what had originally been a group
photograph. The lawyer had a surprised expression on his face, and was on the point of blinking, which gave his eyes a tired and vacant look. The caption was in bright red ink and covered part of
the photomontage.
“Mafia Behind Two Murders” it announced in trenchant terms. Håkon Sand found the story barely recognisable. He read the front page and the two full inside pages that the
newspaper had devoted to the subject. Across the top of each page was a black strip with a white text: “The Mafia Affair.” He ground his teeth in annoyance at the exaggerations, but on
closer reading he could see that Myhreng hadn’t promulgated any actual untruths. The facts were stretched, the speculations far-fetched and so well camouflaged that they could easily be taken
for truth. But Håkon himself had been quoted accurately and so couldn’t really complain.
“Well, it could have been worse,” he said, passing the paper to Karen Borg, who was now sufficiently at home in his office to collect what passed for coffee from the anteroom
herself.
“It’s time you told me something about this client of yours,” he demanded. “The man’s still sitting around in his underpants refusing to talk. Now we know as much
as we do, you ought in all decency to help us along a bit.”
They stared at one another intently. Karen reverted to the type of silent contest they used to have when they were students. She held his gaze, held it so focused that everything except her
grey-green eyes diffused in a mist. He could see the tiny brown specks in the iris, more in the right eye than the left; he couldn’t blink, didn’t dare to for fear that his own gaze
would drop when his eyes reopened. Hell, he’d never managed to win this game. She always managed to outstare him until he lowered his eyes in embarrassment, the loser, the lesser of the
two.
But this time she was the one who had to give in. He could see her eyes filling with water, she had to blink, and her gaze slid to the side as if nudged by the faint flush that had begun to
spread over her left cheek. He
Fredrick Myhreng was rather demanding. On the other hand, he was right when he insisted that he had kept to his side of the bargain. He sat now like an eager swot noting down
everything Håkon could tell him. The thought of being the first to run the story that the police were confronted not with two random murders in the increasing series of apparently motiveless
killings, but with a double homicide linked to the drugs trade and possibly to organised crime—this thought made him sweat so much that his pantomime glasses kept sliding down his nose,
despite the practical frames hooked behind his ears. As before, ink was going everywhere as he wrote. Håkon thought to himself that the journalist ought to be wearing oilskins, the way he
handled his writing implements. He offered him a pencil as a replacement for the ball-point pen he’d just wrecked.
“How do you rate your chances of solving it?” Myhreng asked after listening to Håkon’s carefully censored but nevertheless quite fascinating account. The bridge of his
nose had turned blue from his continual adjustments to his spectacles. Håkon wondered if he ought to draw the man’s attention to his odd appearance, but concluded that it would do him
good to make a fool of himself, so restricted himself to the matter in hand.
“We certainly believe we’ll solve it. But it may take some time. We’ve got a lot to follow up. You can quote me on that.”
Which was all Fredrick Myhreng got out of Håkon Sand that day. But he was more than happy.
TUESDAY 13 OCTOBER
T he headline was dramatic. The editorial desk had produced one of the pictures of Ludvig Sandersen’s corpse they had used before, and
mounted it beside an old archive photograph of Hans Olsen. It must have been taken more than ten years earlier, rather fuzzy and presumably an enlargement from what had originally been a group
photograph. The lawyer had a surprised expression on his face, and was on the point of blinking, which gave his eyes a tired and vacant look. The caption was in bright red ink and covered part of
the photomontage.
“Mafia Behind Two Murders” it announced in trenchant terms. Håkon Sand found the story barely recognisable. He read the front page and the two full inside pages that the
newspaper had devoted to the subject. Across the top of each page was a black strip with a white text: “The Mafia Affair.” He ground his teeth in annoyance at the exaggerations, but on
closer reading he could see that Myhreng hadn’t promulgated any actual untruths. The facts were stretched, the speculations far-fetched and so well camouflaged that they could easily be taken
for truth. But Håkon himself had been quoted accurately and so couldn’t really complain.
“Well, it could have been worse,” he said, passing the paper to Karen Borg, who was now sufficiently at home in his office to collect what passed for coffee from the anteroom
herself.
“It’s time you told me something about this client of yours,” he demanded. “The man’s still sitting around in his underpants refusing to talk. Now we know as much
as we do, you ought in all decency to help us along a bit.”
They stared at one another intently. Karen reverted to the type of silent contest they used to have when they were students. She held his gaze, held it so focused that everything except her
grey-green eyes diffused in a mist. He could see the tiny brown specks in the iris, more in the right eye than the left; he couldn’t blink, didn’t dare to for fear that his own gaze
would drop when his eyes reopened. Hell, he’d never managed to win this game. She always managed to outstare him until he lowered his eyes in embarrassment, the loser, the lesser of the
two.
But this time she was the one who had to give in. He could see her eyes filling with water, she had to blink, and her gaze slid to the side as if nudged by the faint flush that had begun to
spread over her left cheek. He
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