The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

‘Which flat?’ he asked, leaning forward.
‘Second floor, on the right.’
He peered up. All the windows were dark. He didn’t see any curtains. ‘Doesn’t look like your
husband’s at home. Or perhaps he’s gone to bed.’
‘Perhaps,’ she said, not making a move. ‘Harry?’
He looked at her quizzically.
‘When I said the question was who the Snowman was after now, did you know who I meant?’
‘Maybe,’ he said.
‘What we found on Finnøy was not the random murder of someone who knew too much. It had
been planned long before then.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that if Rafto had in fact been on his trail, then that was planned too.’
‘Katrine ’
‘Wait. Rafto was the best detective in Bergen. You’re the best in Oslo. He could predict that it
would be you who would investigate these murders, Harry. That was why you received the letter.
I’m merely saying you should be careful.’
‘Are you trying to put the frighteners on me?’
She shrugged. ‘If you’re frightened, do you know what that means?’
‘No?’
Katrine opened the car door. ‘That you should find yourself another job.’
Harry unlocked his flat, took off his boots and stopped at the threshold to the sitting room. The
room was completely dismantled now, like a building kit in reverse. The moonlight fell on
something white on the bare red wall. He went in. It was a number eight, drawn in chalk. He
stretched out his hand and touched it. It must have been done by the mould man, but what did it
mean? Perhaps a code to tell him which liquid to apply there.
For the rest of the night wild nightmares racked Harry’s body, turning him this way and that. He
dreamt that something was forced into his mouth and he had to breathe through some kind of
opening so as not to die from suffocation. It tasted of oil, metal and gunpowder, and in the end there
was no more air left inside, just a vacuum. Then he spat the thing out and discovered it was not the
barrel of a gun, but a figure eight he had been breathing through. An eight with a large circle below,
a smaller one above. The big circle at the bottom, the little one at the top. Gradually the figure eight
acquired a third, a smaller circle on top. A head. Sylvia Ottersen’s head. She tried to scream, tried to
tell him what had happened, but she couldn’t. Her lips were sewn together.
When he awoke, his eyes were gummed up, he had a headache and there was a coating on his lips