The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

‘I don’t quite know. I just have the feeling someone is watching me the whole time, that someone is
watching me now. I’m part of someone’s plan. Do you understand?’
‘No.’ She snuggled up closer to him.
‘It’s this case I’m working on. It’s as though my person is involved in –’
‘Shh.’ She bit his ear. ‘You’re always involved, Harry. That’s your problem. Relax.’
Her hand placed itself on his flaccid member and he closed his eyes, listened to her whispers and
felt his erection come.
At three o’clock she got out of bed. He saw her back in the light from the street lamps through the
window. The arched back and the shadow of her spine. And he fell to thinking about something
Katrine had said, that Sylvia Ottersen had had the Ethiopian flag tattooed on her back; he would
have to remember to mention that in the briefing. And Rakel was right: he never stopped thinking
about cases, he was always involved.
He accompanied her to the door. She kissed him quickly on the mouth and dashed down the stairs.
There was nothing to say. He was going to close the door when he saw wet boot prints outside the
door. He followed them to where they disappeared down into the darkness of the stairwell. They
must have been left by Rakel when she came up earlier. And he thought about the Berhaus seals,
about the female which finished mating with the male in the breeding period and never went back to
him in the next breeding period. Because it wasn’t biologically rational. The Berhaus seals must be
clever creatures.
13
DAY 8.
Paper.
IT WAS HALF PAST NINE AND THE SUN WAS SHINING ON A solitary car negotiating the
roundabout on the Sjølyst overpass above the motorway. It turned up Bygdøyveien which led to the
idyllic rural peninsula located a mere five minutes’ drive from the City Hall square. It was quiet,
there was almost no traffic, no cows or horses in the Kongsgården estate; and the narrow pavements
where people made pilgrimages to the beaches in summer were deserted.
Harry steered the car round the bends in the rolling terrain and listened to Katrine.
‘Snow,’ Katrine said.
‘Snow?’
‘I did as you said. I concentrated on the married women with children who had gone missing. And
then I began to look at the dates. Most were in November and December. I isolated them and
considered the geographical spread. Most were in Oslo; there were some in other parts of the
country. Then it struck me, because of the letter you received. The bit about the snowman
reappearing with the first snow. And the day we were in Hoffsveien was the first snow in Oslo.’