The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

‘No, the good news is that we’re getting warmer. If not, the Snowman wouldn’t have gone to such
lengths to make it seem as if Vetlesen was the man we were hunting. He wants us to call off the
investigation, believing we have solved the case. In short, he’s under pressure. And that’s when
killers like the Snowman begin to make mistakes. In addition, it suggests that he dare not resume
the bloodbath.’
The Chief Superintendent sucked at his teeth and ruminated. ‘So that’s what you think, is it, Hole?
Or is it just what you hope?’
‘Well,’ said Harry Hole, scratching his knee through the tear in his jeans, ‘you were the one who
asked for good news, boss.’
Hagen groaned. He looked out of the window. It had clouded over. Snow was forecast.
Filip Becker gazed down at Jonas sitting on the living-room floor with his eyes riveted to the TV
screen. Since Birte had been reported missing the boy had sat for hours like this every single
afternoon. As though it were a window into a better world. A world in which he could find her if
only he looked hard enough.
‘Jonas.’
The boy glanced up at him obediently, but without interest. His face stiffened with horror when he
spotted the knife.
‘Are you going to cut me?’ the boy asked.
The expression on his face and the reedy voice were so amusing that Filip Becker almost burst into
laughter. The light from the lamp over the coffee table glinted on the steel. He had bought the knife
from an ironmongery in Storo Mall. Right after he had phoned Idar Vetlesen.
Just a tiny bit, Jonas. Just a tiny bit.’
Then he made an incision.
18
DAY 15.
View.
AT TWO O’CLOCK C AMILLA L OSSIUS WAS DRIVING HOME from the gym. She had, as
usual, driven across town, to Oslo West, and Colosseum Park Fitness Centre. Not because they had
different equipment from the centre near their house in Tveita, but because the people in Colosseum
were more like her. They were West End types. Moving to Tveita had been part of the marriage
deal with Erik. And she had needed to consider it as a whole package. She turned into the street
where they lived. Saw the lights in the windows of the neighbours she had greeted, but with whom
she had never really spoken. They were Erik’s people. She braked. They weren’t the only ones to
have a double garage in this street in Tveita, but it was the only one with electric doors. Erik was
obsessed by these things; for her part, she couldn’t give a damn. She pressed the remote, the door
tipped and rose and she depressed the clutch and slid in. As expected, Erik’s car was not there, he