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exterior. She was a girl from a middle-class home, in her own words, an only child and spoiled rotten, who had even gone to a girl’s boarding school in Switzerland. Who knows? Perhaps that was a tough enough upbringing.
    Harry laid back his head and exhaled. Then he undid one of his shirt buttons.
    ‘More, more,’ Ellen whispered as she clapped encouragement.
    ‘In neo-Nazi circles they call him Batman.’
    ‘Got it. Baseball bat.’
    ‘Not the Nazi – the lawyer.’
    ‘Right. Interesting. Does that mean he’s good-looking, rich, barking mad and has a six-pack and a cool car?’
    Harry laughed. ‘You should have your own TV show, Ellen. It’s because Batman always wins. Besides, he’s married.’
    ‘Is that the only minus?’
    ‘That . . . and him making monkeys of us every time,’ Harry said, pouring himself a cup of the home-blended coffee Ellen had brought with her when she moved into the office two years ago. The snag was that Harry’s palate could no longer tolerate the usual slop.
    ‘Supreme Court judge?’ she asked.
    ‘Before he’s forty.’
    ‘Thousand kroner he isn’t.’
    ‘Done.’
    They laughed and toasted with their cardboard cups.
    ‘Can I have that MOJO magazine then?’ she asked.
    ‘There are pictures of Freddie Mercury’s ten worst centrefold poses. Bare chest, arms akimbo and buck teeth sticking out. The full whammy. There you are.’
    ‘I like Freddie Mercury, I do. Liked.’
    ‘I didn’t say I didn’t like him.’
    The blue, punctured office chair, which had long been set at the lowest notch, screamed in protest as Harry leaned back, lost in thought. He picked up a yellow Post-it with Ellen’s writing on from the telephone in front of him.
    ‘What’s this?’
    ‘You can read, can’t you? Møller wants you.’
    Harry trotted down the corridor, imagining as he went the pursed mouth and the two deep furrows the boss would get when he heard that Sverre Olsen had walked yet again.
    By the photocopier a young, rosy-cheeked girl instantly raised her eyes and smiled as Harry passed. He didn’t manage a return smile. Presumably one of the office girls. Her perfume was sweet and heavy, and simply irritated him. He looked at the second hand on his watch.
    So perfume had started irritating him now. What had got into him? Ellen had said he lacked natural buoyancy, or whatever it was that meant most people could struggle to the surface again. After his return from Bangkok he had been down for so long that he had considered giving up ever returning to the surface. Everything had been cold and dark, and all his impressions were somehow dulled. As if he were deeply immersed in water. It had been so wonderfully quiet. When people talked to him the words had been like bubbles of air coming out of their mouths, hurrying upwards and away. So that was what it was like to drown, he had thought, and waited. But nothing happened. It was only a vacuum. That was fine, though. He had survived.
    Thanks to Ellen.
    She had stepped in for him in those first weeks after his return when he’d had to throw in the towel and go home. And she had made sure that he didn’t go to bars, ordered him to breathe out when he was late for work, after which she declared him fit or unfit accordingly. Had sent him home a couple of times and then kept quiet about it. It had taken time, but Harry had nothing particular to do. And Ellen had nodded with satisfaction on the first Friday they could confirm that he had turned up sober for work on five consecutive days.
    In the end he had asked her straight out. Why, with police college and a law degree behind her and her whole life in front of her, had she voluntarily put this millstone around her neck? Didn’t she realise that it wouldn’t do her career any good? Did she have a problem finding normal, successful friends?
    She had looked at him with a serious expression and answered that she only did it to soak up his experience. He was the best detective they had in