Harry Hole Mysteries 3-Book Bundle Read Free Page B

on intelligence, it is on the extreme right wing of the Republicans, surprisingly enough, that you find the sharpest minds. Norway’s security is in the best possible hands.’
    ‘A girlfriend of a girlfriend has had sex with you.’
    ‘Really?’ said Harry.
    ‘Not you,’ Rakel said. ‘I’m talking to the other guy. Støp.’
    ‘Sorry,’ Harry said, turning down the radio.
    ‘After a lecture in Trondheim. He invited her up to his room. She was interested, but drew his attention to the fact that she’d had a mastectomy. He said he would give that some thought and went to the bar. And came back and took her with him.’
    ‘Mm. I hope expectations were fulfilled.’
    ‘Nothing fulfils expectations.’
    ‘No,’ Harry said, wondering what they were talking about.
    ‘What’s happening this evening?’ Rakel asked.
    ‘Palace Grill at eight is fine. But what’s all this rubbish about not being able to reserve tables in advance?’
    ‘It gives the whole place cachet, I suppose.’
    They arranged to meet in the bar next door first. After they had rung off, Harry sat thinking. She had sounded pleased. Or bright. Bright and cheery. He tried to sense if he had succeeded in being pleased on her behalf, pleased that the woman he had loved so much was happy with another man. Rakel and he had had their time, and he had been givenchances. Which he wasted. So why not be pleased that she was well, why not let the thought that things could have been different go, and move on with his life? He promised to try a bit harder.
    The morning meeting was soon over. As head of Crime Squad,
Politioverbetjent
– POB for short – Gunnar Hagen ran through the cases they were working on. Which were not many, as for the time being there weren’t any fresh murder cases under investigation, and murder was the only thing that got the unit’s pulse racing. Thomas Helle, an officer from the Missing Persons Unit of the uniformed police, was present and gave a report on a woman who had been missing from her home for a year. Not a trace of violence, not a trace of the perpetrator and not a trace of her. She was a housewife and had last been seen at the nursery where she had left her son and daughter in the morning. Her husband and everyone in her closer circle of acquaintances had an alibi and had been cleared. They agreed that Crime Squad should investigate further.
    Magnus Skarre passed on regards from Ståle Aune – Crime Squad’s resident psychologist – whom he had visited at Ullevål Hospital. Harry felt a pang of conscience. Ståle Aune was not just his adviser on criminal cases, he was his personal supporter in his fight against alcohol and the closest thing he had to a confidant. It was over a week since Aune had been admitted with some vague diagnosis, but Harry had still not overcome his reluctance to enter hospitals. Tomorrow, Harry thought. Or Thursday.
    ‘We have a new officer,’ Gunnar Hagen announced. ‘Katrine Bratt.’
    A young woman in the first row stood up unbidden, but without offering a smile. She was very attractive. Attractive without trying, thought Harry. Thin, almost wispy hair hung lifelessly down both sides of her face, which was finely chiselled, pale and wore the same serious, weary features Harry had seen on other stunning women who had become so used to being observed that they had stopped liking ordisliking it. Katrine Bratt was dressed in a blue suit that underlined her femininity, but the thick black tights under the edge of her skirt and her practical winter boots invalidated any possible suspicions that she was playing on it. She stood letting her eyes run over the gathering, as if she had risen to see them and not vice versa. Harry guessed that she had planned both the suit and this little first day appearance at Police HQ.
    ‘Katrine worked for four years at Bergen Police HQ dealing mainly with public decency offences, but she also did a stint at Crime Squad,’ Hagen continued, looking down at a