Read Cockroaches: The Second Inspector Harry Hole Novel for Free Online Page A

sarcastic gaze.
    “I spoke to Supawadee at Forensics. Not surprisingly, they found a whole load of fingerprints in the hotel room, but none that belonged to the dead man.”
    The other prints had not been identified.
    “And this won’t be easy,” Rangsan added. “Even if the motel doesn’t have much of a clientele there must be prints from at least a hundred people in there.”
    “Did they find any prints on the door handle?” Harry asked.
    “Too many, I’m afraid. And no complete ones.”
    Crumley put her Nike-clad feet on the table.
    “Molnes probably went straight to bed; there was no reason for him to waltz around leaving prints everywhere. There are at least two people who touched the door handle after the murderer: Dim, the prostitute, and Wang, the motel owner.”
    She nodded to Rangsan, who picked up the newspaper again.
    “The autopsy reveals what we assumed, that the ambassador was killed by the knife. It punctured the left lung before piercing the heart and filling the pericardium with blood.”
    “Cardiac tamponade,” Harry said.
    “I beg your pardon.”
    “That’s what it’s called. It’s like putting cotton wool in a bell. The heart can’t beat and it suffocates in its own blood.”
    Crumley grimaced.
    “OK, let’s leave the forensic report for the time being and go see the real thing. Harry, we’ll let you settle in and then we’ll pick you up on the way to the motel.”
    In the crowded lift down he heard a voice he recognized.
    “I’ve got it now, I’ve got it now! Solskjær! Solskjær!”
    Harry craned his head and smiled in affirmation.
    So he was the world’s most famous Norwegian. A footballplayer who was a second-choice striker in an English industrial town beat all the explorers, painters and writers. On reflection, Harry concluded that the man was probably right.
    The flat he had been given by the embassy was in a fashionable complex opposite the Shangri-La Hotel. It was tiny and spartan, but it had a bathroom, a fan by the bed and a view of the Chao Phraya River, which flowed past, broad and brown. Harry stood by the window. Long, narrow wooden boats crisscrossed the river and whipped up filthy water behind the propellers mounted on long poles. On the far bank, new hotels and department stores towered over an indefinable mass of white-brick houses. It was hard to get any impression of the size of the city because it disappeared in a golden-brown haze when you tried to delve beyond a few blocks, but Harry presumed it was big. Very big. He pushed up a window and a roar rose to meet him. He had lost the airline earplugs in the lift, and only now did he hear how deafening the noise of this city was. He could see Crumley’s patrol car like a little matchbox toy next to the pavement far below. He opened a can of hot beer he had taken with him off the plane and confirmed to his pleasure that Singha was not as bad as Norwegian beer. Now the rest of the day seemed more bearable.

6
Friday, January 10
    The inspector leaned on the horn. Literally. She pressed her bosom against the wheel of the big Toyota Jeep and the horn sounded.
    “That’s not the Thai way of doing it,” she laughed. “Anyway, it doesn’t work. If you honk your horn they don’t let you pass. It has something to do with Buddhism. But I can’t resist. What the hell, I’m from the States.”
    She leaned against the wheel again as motorists around them made a show of looking away.
    “So he’s still in the hotel room?” Harry asked, stifling a yawn.
    “Orders from highest level. As a rule we do an autopsy as fast as possible and cremate them the day after. But they wanted you to see first. Don’t ask me why.”
    “I’m one hell of an investigator, or have you forgotten all that?”
    She squinted at him from the corner of her eye, then swerved out into a gap and put her foot down.
    “Don’t get too cute. It’s not how you might think, that everyone here will reckon you’re a hell of a guy because