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characterises junkies. He stopped outside the entrance leading to Waaler’s block, looked right then left and attacked the lock with a crowbar. Harry sat and watched, fully aware that he risked being exposed if he intervened. The man was presumably too stoned to attach the crowbar properly and as he yanked it down, a large chunk of wood detached itself from the door with a splintering sound. As he did it, he fell backwards and landed in a pile of snow at the front of the block. And that was where he stayed. Lights came on in a couple of windows. The curtains in Waaler’s flat moved. Harry waited. Nothing happened. Twenty degrees below zero. The light was still on in Waaler’s window. The junkie didn’t stir. Afterwards, Harry often wondered what the hell he should have done. The battery on his mobile had gone flat because of the cold, so he couldn’t have rung casualty. He waited. The minutes ticked by. Bloody junkie. Twenty-one below. Sodding junkie. Of course he could have driven away, gone to casualty and told them about him. Something moved by the entrance. It was Waaler. He looked comical in dressing gown, boots, cap and mittens. He was carrying two woollen blankets. Harry could not believe his eyes as Waaler checked the junkie’s pulse and pupils before wrapping him in the blankets. Waaler just stood there flapping his arms around to keep himself warm and peering in the direction of Harry’s car. A few minutes later the ambulance rolled up in front of the block of flats.
    That night Harry went home, sat down in his wing chair, lit a cigarette and listened to the Raga Rockers and Duke Ellington. Then he went to work, although he had not been out of his clothes for 48 hours.
    Rakel and Harry had their first row one evening in April. He had cancelled a weekend trip at the last moment, and she pointed out that this was the third time he had broken a promise within a very short space of time. A promise to Oleg, she said. He accused her of using Oleg as an excuse and that what she really wanted was for him to prioritise her needs over finding the person who had taken Ellen’s life. She said Ellen was a ghost, that he had shut himself up with a corpse, that it wasn’t normal, that he was feeding on the tragedy, that it was necrophilia, that it wasn’t Ellen who was driving him but his own lust for vengeance.
    ‘You’ve been hurt,’ she said. ‘And you’ve let everything else go so that you can get your revenge.’
    As Harry fumed out of the house he caught a glimpse of Oleg’s pyjamas and red eyes behind the stair rails.
    After that he stopped doing anything that did not have a direct connection with his pursuit of those guilty of Ellen’s murder. He read e-mails under the low light of table lamps, stared at the dark windows of detached houses and blocks of flats waiting for people who never came out, and snatched a few hours’ sleep in his flat in Sofies gate.
    The days grew longer and lighter, but he had made absolutely no progress. One night, out of the blue, a nightmare from his childhood returned: Sis, her long hair trapped, the expression of horror on her face. He was rigid with fear. It returned the following night. And the night after.
    Øystein Eikeland, a childhood friend who drank at Malik’s when he wasn’t driving his taxi, told Harry that he looked shattered and offered him some cheap speed. Harry refused. Exhausted and angry, he continued with the relentless search.
    It was just a question of time before it all unravelled. Something as prosaic as an unpaid bill was all it took to trigger it. It was the end of May and he hadn’t spoken to Rakel for several days. He was woken in his office chair by the phone ringing. Rakel said that the travel company had reminded her that they hadn’t paid for the farm in Normandy. They had a week’s grace, after that the travel company would rent the farm out to someone else.
    ‘Friday is the deadline,’ were Rakel’s last words before ringing