The Snowman (20 page)

‘Facelift, Hole? Penis enlargement? Liposuction?’

‘Thank you for the offer,’ Harry said. ‘This is Police Officer Bratt. We’ve come once again to request your help with information about Ottersen and Becker.’

Idar Vetlesen sighed and began to clean his glasses with a handkerchief.

‘How can I explain this to you in a way that you can understand, Hole? Even for someone like me, who has a genuine, burning desire to help the police and basically couldn’t care less about principles, there are some things which are sacrosanct.’ He raised an index finger. ‘In all the years I’ve worked as a doctor I have never, ever –’ the finger wagged in time with his words – ‘broken my Hippocratic oath. And I do not intend to start now.’

A long silence ensued in which Vetlesen just looked at them, clearly satisfied with the effect he had created.

Harry cleared his throat.

‘Perhaps we can still fulfil your burning desire to help, Vetlesen. We’re investigating possible child prostitution at a so-called hotel in Oslo, known as Leon. Last night two of our officers were outside in a car taking photographs of people going in and out.’

Harry opened the brown A4 envelope he had been given by Katrine, leaned forward and placed the photographs before the doctor.

‘That’s you there, isn’t it?’

Vetlesen looked as though something had become lodged in his gullet; his eyes bulged and the veins in his neck stuck out.

‘I . . .’ he stuttered. ‘I . . . haven’t done anything wrong or illegal.’

‘No, not at all,’ Harry said. ‘We’re just considering summoning you as a witness. A witness who can say what’s going on there. It’s common knowledge that Hotel Leon is a centre for prostitutes and their clients; what’s new is that children have been seen there. And unlike other prostitution, child prostitution is, as you will know, illegal. Thought we should inform you before we go to the press with the whole business.’

Vetlesen stared at the photograph. Rubbing his face hard.

‘By the way, we just saw the TV2 news lady coming out,’ Harry said. ‘What’s her name again?’

Vetlesen didn’t answer. It was as if all his smooth youthfulness had been sucked out of him before their very eyes, as if his face had aged in the space of a second.

‘Ring us if you can find a loophole in the Hippocratic oath,’ Harry said.

Harry and Katrine were halfway to the door before Vetlesen stopped them.

‘They were here for an examination,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’

‘What kind of examination?’ Harry asked.

‘A disease.’

‘The same disease? Which one?’

‘It’s of no importance.’

‘OK,’ Harry said, walking to the door. ‘When you’re summoned as a witness you can take that view. It’s of no importance, either. After all, we haven’t found anything illegal.’

‘Wait!’

Harry turned. Vetlesen was supporting himself on his elbows with his face in his hands.

‘Fahr’s syndrome.’

‘Father syndrome?’

‘Fahr’s. F-a-h-r. A rare hereditary disease, a bit like Alzheimer’s. Motor skills deteriorate, especially in cognitive areas, and there is some spasticity of movement. Most develop the syndrome after the age of thirty, but it is possible to have it in childhood.’

‘Mm. And so Birte and Sylvia knew their children had this disease?’

‘They suspected it when they came here. Fahr’s syndrome is hard to diagnose, and Birte Becker and Sylvia Ottersen had been to several doctors although nothing conclusive was found in their children. I seem to remember that both of them had searched the Internet, typed in the symptoms and discovered Fahr, which matched alarmingly well.’

‘And so they contacted you? A plastic surgeon?’

‘I happen to be a Fahr specialist.’

‘Happen to be?’

‘There are around eighteen thousand doctors in Norway. Do you know how many known diseases there are in the world?’ Vetlesen motioned with his head to the wall of diplomas. ‘Fahr’s syndrome happened to be part of a course I went on in Switzerland about nerve channels. The little I learned was enough to make me a specialist in Norway.’

‘What can you tell us about Birte Becker and Sylvia Ottersen?’

Vetlesen hunched his shoulders. ‘They came here with their children once a year. I examined them, was unable to determine any deterioration of their conditions, and, apart from that, I know nothing of their lives. Or for that matter –’ he tossed back his fringe – ‘their deaths.’

‘Do you believe him?’ Harry asked as they drove past the deserted fields.

‘Not entirely,’ Katrine said.

‘Nor me,’ Harry said. ‘I think we should concentrate on this and drop Bergen for the time being.’

‘No,’ said Katrine.

‘No?’

‘There’s a link here somewhere.’

‘Which is?’

‘I don’t know. It sounds wild, but perhaps there’s a link between Rafto and Vetlesen. Perhaps that’s how Rafto’s managed to hide all these years.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘That he quite simply got himself a mask. An authentic mask. A facelift.’

‘From Vetlesen?’

‘It could explain the coincidence of having two victims with the same doctor. Rafto could have seen Birte and Sylvia at the clinic and decided they would be his victims.’

‘You’re jumping the gun,’ Harry said.

‘Jumping the gun?’

‘This kind of murder investigation is like doing a jigsaw puzzle. In the opening phase you collect the pieces, play with them, you’re patient. What you’re doing is trying to force the pieces into position. It’s too early.’

‘I’m just saying things out loud to someone. To see if they sound idiotic.’

‘They sound idiotic.’

‘This isn’t the way to Police HQ,’ she said.

Harry could hear a curious quiver in her voice and glanced across at her, but her face gave nothing away.

‘I’d like to check out some of the things Vetlesen told us with someone I know,’ he said. ‘And who knows Vetlesen.’

Mathias was wearing a white coat and regulation yellow washing-up gloves when he received Harry and Katrine in the garage beneath Preclinical, the usual name for the brown building in the part of Gaustad Hospital that faces the Ring 3 motorway.

He directed their car into what turned out to be his own unused parking space.

‘I try to cycle as often as I can,’ Mathias explained, using his swipe card to open the door leading from the garage into a basement corridor in the Anatomy Department. ‘This kind of access is practical for transporting bodies in and out. Would have liked to offer you coffee, but I’ve just finished with one group of students and the next will be here shortly.’

‘Sorry for the hassle. You must be tired today.’

Mathias sent him a quizzical look.

‘Rakel and I were talking on the phone. She said you had to work late last night,’ Harry added, cursing himself inside and hoping his face gave nothing away.

‘Rakel, yes.’ Mathias shook his head. ‘She was out late herself. Out with the girls and has had to take the day off work. But when I rang her she was in the midst of a big clean-up at home. Women, eh! What can you say?’

Harry put on a stiff smile and wondered if there was a standard response to that question.

A man in green hospital gear trundled a metal table towards the garage door.

‘Another delivery for Tromsø University?’ Mathias asked.

‘Say bye-bye to Kjeldsen,’ smiled the man in green. He had a cluster of small rings in one ear, a bit like a Masai woman’s neck rings, except that these rings gave his face an irritating asymmetry.

‘Kjeldsen?’ Mathias exclaimed, and stopped. ‘Is that true?’

‘Thirty years of service. Now it’s Tromsø’s turn to dissect him.’

Mathias lifted the blanket. Harry caught sight of the body. The skin over the cranium was taut, it smoothed out the old man’s wrinkles into a genderless face, as white as a plaster mask. Harry knew that this was because the body had been preserved, that is, the arteries had been pumped full of a mixture of formalin, glycerine and alcohol to ensure the body did not decompose from inside. A metal tag with an engraved three-digit number had been attached to one ear. Mathias stood watching the assistant trundle Kjeldsen towards the garage door. Then he seemed to wake up again.

‘Sorry. It’s just that Kjeldsen has been with us for so long. He was a professor at the Anatomy Department when it was down in the centre of town. A brilliant anatomist. With well-defined muscles. We’re going to miss him.’

‘We won’t hold you up for long,’ Harry said. ‘We were wondering if you could tell us something about Idar’s relationships with women patients. And their children.’

Mathias raised his head and looked with surprise at Harry, then Katrine, and back again.

‘Are you asking me what I think you’re asking me?’

Harry nodded.

Mathias led them through another locked door. They entered a room with eight metal tables and a blackboard at one end. The tables were equipped with lamps and sinks. On each of the tables lay something oblong wrapped in white hand towels. Judging by the shape and the size, Harry guessed that today’s theme was situated somewhere between hip and foot. There was a faint smell of bleaching powder, but not nearly as pronounced as Harry was used to from the autopsy room at the Institute of Forensic Medicine. Mathias sank down onto one of the chairs and Harry sat on the edge of the lecturer’s desk. Katrine walked over to a table and scrutinised three brains; it was impossible to say whether they were models or real.

Mathias had a long think before answering. ‘Personally, I’ve never noticed, or heard anyone suggest there was, anything between Idar and any of his patients.’

Something about the stress placed on
patients
brought Harry up short. ‘What about non-patients?’

‘I don’t know Idar well enough to comment. But I know him well enough to prefer not to comment.’ He flashed a tentative smile. ‘If that’s OK?’

‘Of course. There was something else I was wondering about. Fahr’s syndrome – do you know what it is?’

‘Superficially. A terrible disease. And unfortunately very much a hereditary –’

‘Do you know of any Norwegian specialists in the disease?’

Mathias reflected. ‘None that I can think of, off the top of my head.’

Harry scratched his neck. ‘OK, thanks for your help, Mathias.’

‘Not at all, a pleasure. If you want to know more about Fahr’s syndrome you can ring me tonight when I have a few books around me.’

Harry stood up. Walked over to Katrine, who had lifted the lid off one of the four large metal boxes by the wall, and peered over her shoulder. His tongue prickled and his whole body reacted. Not at the body parts immersed in the clear alcohol, looking like lumps of meat at the butcher’s. But at the smell of alcohol. Forty per cent.

‘They start off more or less whole,’ Mathias said. ‘Then we cut them up as and when we need individual body parts.’

Harry observed Katrine’s face. She seemed totally unaffected. The door opened behind them. The first students came in and began to put on blue coats and white latex gloves.

Mathias followed them back to the garage. At the door, Mathias caught Harry’s arm and held him back.

‘Just a tiny thing I should mention, Harry. Or shouldn’t mention. I’m not sure.’

‘Out with it,’ Harry said, thinking that this was it, Mathias knew about him and Rakel.

‘I have a slight moral dilemma here. It’s about Idar.’

‘Oh yes?’ Harry said, feeling disappointment rather than relief, to his surprise.

‘I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything, but it occurred to me that maybe it’s not up to me to decide. And that you can’t let loyalty take priority in such a terrible case. No matter what. Last year, when I was still working in A&E, a colleague, who also knows Idar, and I popped by Postkafeen to have breakfast after a night shift. It’s a café that opens at the crack of dawn and serves beer, so a lot of thirsty early birds gather there. And other poor souls.’

‘I know the place,’ Harry said.

‘To our surprise we found Idar there. He was sitting at a table with a filthy young boy slurping soup. On seeing us, Idar jumped up from the table in shock and fobbed us off with some excuse or other. I didn’t think any more about it. That is, I believed I hadn’t thought any more about it. Until what you just said. And I remembered what I’d been thinking at the time. That maybe . . . well, you understand.’

‘I understand,’ Harry said. And, seeing his interlocutor’s tormented expression, added: ‘You did the right thing.’

‘Thank you.’ Mathias forced a smile. ‘But I feel like a Judas.’

Harry tried to find something sensible to say, but all he could do was proffer his hand and mumble a ‘thanks’. And shivered as he pressed Mathias’s cold washing-up glove.

Judas. The Judas kiss. As they drove down Slemdalsveien Harry thought about Rakel’s hungry tongue in his mouth, her gentle sigh and loud groan, the pains in his pelvis as it banged against Rakel’s, her cries of frustration when he stopped because he wanted it to last longer. For she wasn’t there to make it last longer. She was there to exorcise demons, to purify her body so that she could go home and purify her soul. And wash every floor in the house. The sooner the better.

‘Call the clinic,’ Harry said.

He heard Katrine’s quick fingers and tiny beeps. Then she passed him the mobile phone.

Borghild answered with a studied mixture of gentleness and efficiency.

‘This is Harry Hole speaking. Tell me, who should I see if I have Fahr’s syndrome?’

Silence.

‘It depends,’ answered Borghild hesitantly.

‘On what?’

‘On the syndrome your father has, I suppose.’

‘Right. Is Idar Vetlesen in?’

‘He’s gone for today.’

‘Already?’

‘They’ve got a curling match. Try again tomorrow.’