The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

‘Aha, you’re the good cop. And the one who questioned me yesterday is the bad cop, right?’
‘That’s right, Becker, I’m the good cop. And I’d like to ask you a few questions off the record.
Whatever you tell me will not and can not be used against you. Are you with me on this?’
Becker shrugged.
‘Espen Lepsvik, who interviewed you yesterday, thinks you’re lying,’ Harry said, blowing blue
cigarette smoke at the smoke alarm on the ceiling.
‘About what?’
‘When you said you only spoke to Camilla Lossius in the garage and then you left.’
‘It’s the truth. What does he think?’
‘What he told you last night. That you kidnapped, killed and hid her.’
‘That’s just crazy!’ Becker erupted. ‘We were talking, that was all, and that’s the truth!’
‘Why are you refusing to tell us what you talked about?’
‘It’s a private matter. I’ve told you.’
‘And you admit that you called Idar Vetlesen the day he was found dead, but you regard that
conversation as a private matter too, I take it?’
Becker cast around as if thinking there ought to be an ashtray somewhere. ‘Listen, I haven’t done
anything illegal, but I didn’t want to answer any more questions without my solicitor being present.
And he’s not coming until later today.’
‘Last night we offered you a solicitor who would have been able to come at once.’
‘I want to have a decent solicitor, not one of those local government employees. Isn’t it time you
lot told me why you think I’ve done something to this wife of Lossius’s?’
Harry was taken aback by the phraseology. Or, to be precise, the reference to Camilla. This wife of
Lossius’s.
‘If she’s gone missing, you should arrest Erik Lossius,’ Becker went on. ‘Isn’t it always the
husband who does it?’
‘Yes, it is,’ Harry said. ‘But he has an alibi; he was working at the time she disappeared. The reason
you’re sitting here is that we think you’re the Snowman.’
Becker’s jaw half dropped and he blinked as he had done in the living room in Hoffsveien the night
before. Harry pointed to the spiralling cigarette smoke from between his fingers. ‘You’ll have to
inhale a bit so we don’t set off the alarm.’
‘The Snowman?’ Becker blurted. ‘That was Vetlesen, wasn’t it?’