The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

‘Iron Rafto?’ Peter Flesch laughed.
‘You’ve heard of him?’
‘The whole town knew who Rafto was. No, he wasn’t a customer here.’
POB Møller always used to say that in order to isolate what was possible, you had to eliminate
everything that was impossible. And that was why a detective should not despair, but be glad
whenever he could discount a clue that did not lead to the solution. Besides, it had just been an idea.
‘Well, thank you anyway,’ Harry said. ‘Have a good day.’
‘He wasn’t a customer,’ Flesch said. ‘ I was.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. He brought me bits and bobs. Silver lighters, gold pens. That sort of thing. Sometimes I
bought them off him. Yes, that was before I realised where they came from ’
‘And where did they come from?’
‘Don’t you know? He stole them from crime scenes he worked on.’
‘But he never bought anything?’
‘Rafto didn’t have any need for the sort of thing that we had.’
‘But paper? Everyone needs paper, don’t they?’
‘Hm. Just a moment and I’ll have a word with the wife.’
A hand was placed over the receiver, but Harry could hear shouting, then a slightly lower
conversation. Afterwards the hand was removed and Flesch trumpeted in elated Bergensian: ‘She
thinks Rafto took the rest of the paper when we stopped selling it. For a broken silver penholder,
she thinks. Helluva memory on the wife, you know.’
Harry put down the telephone knowing he was on his way to Bergen. Back to Bergen.
At nine o’clock that evening night lights were still burning on the first floor of Brynsalléen 6 in
Oslo. From the outside, the six-storey building looked like any commercial complex, with its
modern red brick and grey steel facade. And for that matter inside too, as most of the more than
four hundred employees had jobs as engineers, IT specialists, social scientists, lab technicians,
photographers and so on. But this was nevertheless ‘the national unit for the combating of organised
and other serious crime’, generally referred to by its old name of Kriminalpolitisentralen, or in its
abbreviated form, Kripos.
Espen Lepsvik had just dismissed his men after reviewing progress on the murder investigation.
Only two people were left in the bare, harshly illuminated meeting room.
‘That was a bit thin,’ Harry Hole said.
‘Nice way of saying zilch,’ Espen Lepsvik said, massaging his eyelids with thumb and first finger.