The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

herself up when they went out or invited ‘couples they were friendly with’ – that is, friends from his
childhood – to supper. She wondered from time to time whether he really loved her, and she slowly
began to develop a deep affection for the ambitious, energetic Oslo East boy.
For his part, Erik was extremely happy. He had known from the start that Camilla was not the hotblooded
type; in fact, that was one of the things which, in his eyes, placed her in a higher sphere
than the girls he was used to. He had his physical needs covered by close customer contact anyway.
Erik had come to the conclusion that there had to be something in the nature of moving that made
people sentimental, distressed and open to new experiences. At any rate, he porked single women,
separated women, cohabiting and married women on dining tables, on staircase landings, on plasticwrapped
mattresses and freshly washed parquet floors amid taped-up cardboard boxes and echoing
bare walls while wondering what he would buy Camilla next.
The genius of the arrangement was that naturally he would never see these women again. They
would move out and disappear. And they did. Apart from one.
Birte Olsen was dark-haired, sweet and had a Penthouse body. She was younger than he was, and
her high-pitched voice and the language it produced made her seem even younger. She was two
months into a pregnancy, moving into town from his part of Tveita to Hoffsveien with the child’s
father-to-be, a West End man she was going to marry. This was a move Erik Lossius could identify
with. And – he realised after taking her on a plain spindle-back chair in the middle of the stripped
room – sex he could not do without.
In a nutshell, Erik Lossius had met his match.
Yes, indeed, because he thought of her as a man, one that did not pretend she wanted anything
different from him: to fuck the other person’s brains out. And in a way they did just that. At any rate
they began to meet in bare apartments, being moved out of or into, at least once a month and always
there was a distinct risk of being found out. They were quick, efficient and their rituals were fixed
and without variation. Nevertheless, Erik Lossius looked forward to these assignations like a child
to Christmas – that is, with unfeigned, uncomplicated joy which was only increased by the certainty
that everything would be the same, that their expectations would be fulfilled. They lived parallel
lives, had parallel realities and that seemed to suit him as much as it suited her. And so they
continued to meet, interrupted only by the birth – which fortunately was accomplished with a
Caesarean section – some fairly long holidays and an innocent STD whose source he was neither
able to nor attempted to trace. And now ten years had passed, and in front of Erik Lossius, sitting on
a cardboard box in a half-emptied flat in Torshov, a tall, shaven-headed man with a lawnmower
voice was asking if he had known Birte Becker.
Erik Lossius gulped.
The man had introduced himself as Harry Hole, an inspector in Crime Squad, but looked more like
one of his removal men than an inspector of anything. The police officers Erik had spoken to after
he had reported Camilla’s disappearance were from the Missing Persons Unit. However, when this
one had shown his ID, Erik’s first thought had been that he had news of Camilla. And – since the
officer in front of him hadn’t rung but tracked him down to here – he feared it was bad news.
Accordingly, he had sent his removal crew out and asked the inspector to take a seat while he found
a cigarette and tried to prepare himself for what was to come.
‘Well?’ said the inspector.
‘Birte Becker?’ Erik Lossius repeated, trying to light his cigarette and think fast. He didn’t manage