The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

‘But, as I said on the phone, I can’t guarantee anything.’
Harry found Beate Lønn in the House of Pain, the room where she had spent most of her time when
she had been working in the Robberies Unit. The House of Pain was a windowless office packed
with equipment for watching and editing CCTV footage, blowing up images, and identifying people
in grainy shots or voices on fuzzy telephone recordings. But now she was head of Krimteknisk, in
Brynsalléen, and furthermore on maternity leave.
The machines were buzzing, and the dry heat had put roses in her almost transparent, pale cheeks.
‘Hi,’ Harry said, letting the iron door close behind him.
The small, agile woman got up and they hugged, both feeling a bit awkward.
‘You’re thin,’ she said.
Harry shrugged. ‘How’s everything going?’
‘Greger sleeps when he has to, eats what he has to and hardly ever cries.’ She smiled. ‘And for me
that’s everything now.’
He thought he should say something about Halvorsen. Something to show that he hadn’t forgotten.
But the right words wouldn’t come. And instead, seeming to understand, she asked how he was.
‘Fine,’ he said, dropping onto a chair. ‘Not bad. Absolutely dreadful. Depends on when you ask.’
‘And today?’ She turned to the TV monitor, pressed a button and people on the screen started
running backwards into Storo Mall.
‘I’m paranoid,’ Harry said. ‘I have the feeling I’m hunting someone who is manipulating me, that
everything is chaotic and he is making me do exactly what he wants. Do you know the feeling?’
‘Yes,’ Beate said. ‘I call him Greger.’ She stopped rewinding. ‘Do you want to see what I’ve
found?’
Harry pushed his chair closer. It was no myth that Beate Lønn had special gifts, that her fusiform
gyrus, the part of the brain that stores and identifies human faces, was so highly developed and
sensitive that she was a walking index file of criminals.
‘I went through the shots you have of those involved in the case,’ she said. ‘Husbands, children,
witnesses and so on. I know what our old friends look like, of course.’
She moved the images frame by frame. ‘There,’ she said, stopping.
The image was frozen and jumped on the screen, showing a selection of people in grainy black and
white, out of focus.
‘Where?’ Harry said, feeling as witless as he usually did when he was studying pictures with Beate
Lønn.
‘There. It’s the same person in this picture.’ She took out one of the photos from her file.