The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

‘Who the hell’s Phil Spector?’
‘It’d be better if you all told me what you think,’ Harry said. ‘Straight from the hip, spontaneous.
Has Støp got anything to hide? Holm?’
Bjørn Holm rubbed his cutlet-shaped sideburns. ‘It’s suspicious that he doesn’t wanna answer a
question as specific as where he was when Vetlesen died.’
‘Bratt?’
‘I think Støp just finds being under suspicion amusing. And as far as his magazine is concerned, it
doesn’t mean a thing. The opposite, in fact. It reinforces its outsider image. The great martyr
standing firm against the current of opinion, as it were.’
‘Agreed,’ Holm said. ‘I’m changing sides. He wouldn’t have taken this risk if he’d been guilty.
He’d have gone for a scoop.’
‘Skarre?’ Harry asked.
‘He’s bluffing. This is just bullshit. Did anyone actually understand the stuff about the press and
principles?’
None of the others answered.
‘OK,’ Harry said. ‘Assuming the majority is right and he’s telling the truth, then we should
eliminate him as quickly as possible and move on. Is there anyone we can think of who might have
been with him at the time of Vetlesen’s death?’
‘Hardly,’ Katrine said. ‘I called a girl I know at Liberal. She said that outside working hours Støp
isn’t particularly sociable. By and large he keeps himself to himself in his apartment in Aker
Brygge. Ladies excepted, that is.’
Harry looked at Katrine. She reminded him of the overzealous student who is always a term ahead
of the lecturer.
‘Ladies in the plural?’ Skarre asked.
‘To quote my friend, Støp is notorious for buzzing round the honeypot. Straight after she had
rejected one of his advances, he told in her no uncertain terms that she wasn’t living up to his
expectations as a journalist and ought to think about grazing in pastures new.’
‘The two-faced bastard,’ Skarre snorted.
‘A conclusion you and she share,’ Katrine said. ‘But the fact is she’s a crap journalist.’
Holm and Harry burst into laughter.
‘Ask your friend if she can name any of the lovers,’ Harry said, getting up. ‘And afterwards call the
rest of the staff at the magazine and ask them the same. I want him to feel us breathing down his
neck. So let’s get going.’