The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

‘You’re as crazy as I am,’ she said.
Harry subjected her to a searching gaze. ‘Let’s get going. The Forensic Institute is waiting for your
cotton buds.’
‘On a Saturday?’ Katrine ran her hand over the sawdust, smoothing over her doodles and stood up.
‘Haven’t they got a life?’
After delivering the plastic bags to the institute and receiving a promise that they would get back to
him that evening or early the following morning, Harry drove Katrine home to Seilduksgata.
‘No lights on in the windows,’ Harry said. ‘On your ownsome?’
‘Good-looking girl like me?’ she smiled, grasping the door handle. ‘Never on my own.’
‘Mm. Why didn’t you want me to tell your colleagues at the Bergen Police Station that you were
there?’
‘What?’
‘Thought they would be amused to hear you were working on a big murder case in the capital.’
She shrugged and opened the door. ‘Bergensians don’t think of Oslo as a capital. Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight.’
Harry drove to Sannergata.
He wasn’t certain, but he thought he had seen Katrine stiffen. But what could you be certain of? Not
even a click, which you took to be a gun being cocked but turned out to be a girl cracking a dry twig
out of sheer fright. He couldn’t pretend any longer though, couldn’t pretend he didn’t know. Katrine
had pointed her service revolver at Filip Becker’s back that evening. And when Harry had stepped
into her firing line he had heard the sound, the sound he had thought he heard when Salma cracked
a twig in the yard. It was the lubricated click of a revolver hammer being released. Which meant
that it had been raised, that Katrine had squeezed the trigger more than two-thirds of the way and
that the gun could have gone off at any time. She had meant to shoot Becker.
No, he couldn’t pretend. Because the light had fallen on her face in the doorway to the barn. And he
had recognised her. And, as he had said to her, this was all about family relationships.
POB Knut Müller-Nilsen loved Julie Christie. So much that he had never dared to tell his wife the
whole truth. However, as he suspected her of having an extra-marital affair with Omar Sharif, he
didn’t feel too guilty as he sat beside her devouring Julie Christie with his eyes. The only fly in the
ointment was that his Julie at this moment was in a passionate embrace with said Sharif. And when
the telephone on the living-room table rang and he answered, his wife pressed the pause button
causing the picture of this wonderful yet unbearable moment of their favourite DVD, Doctor
Zhivago, to freeze in front of them.
‘Well, good evening, Hole,’ said Müller-Nilsen after the inspector had introduced himself. ‘Yes, I
imagine you’ve got enough to keep you busy for the time being.’
‘Have you got a minute?’ asked the hoarse but soft voice at the other end.