The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

‘What do you mean?’
‘When pro card players have good hands, sometimes, instead of trying to bump up the pot, they bid
high first time and give tiny signals that they’re bluffing. Just enough to hook inexperienced players
into believing they’ve spotted a bluff and to get them to join the bidding. That’s basically what this
looks like. A bluffed bluff.’
Harry nodded slowly. ‘You mean he wants me to believe that he has something to hide?’
Tresko looked at the empty beer bottle, looked at the fridge, made a half-hearted attempt to lever his
huge body off the sofa and sighed.
‘As I said, this is not an exact science,’ he said. ‘Would you mind ?’
Harry got up and went over to the fridge. Cursing inside. When he had rung Oda at Bosse he had
known they would accept his offer to appear. And he had also known that he would be able to ask
Støp direct questions unhindered, that was the format of the programme. And that the camera would
film the person answering, with close-ups or so-called medium shots, that is, the upper half of the
body. All of this had been perfect for Tresko’s analysis. And yet they had failed. This had been the
last ray of hope, the last place to look where there was some light. The rest was darkness. And
perhaps ten years of fumbling and praying for luck, serendipity, a slip-up.
Harry stared at the neatly stacked rows of Ringnes beer bottles in the fridge, a comical contrast to
the chaos reigning in the bedsit. He hesitated. Then he took two bottles. They were so cold that they
burned his palms. The fridge door was swinging shut.
‘The only place where I can say with certainty that Støp is lying’, Tresko said from the sofa, ‘is
when he answers that there isn’t any madness or hereditary illness in his family.’
Harry managed to catch the fridge door with his foot. The light from the crack was reflected in the
black, curtainless window.
‘Repeat,’ he said.
Tresko repeated.
Twenty-five seconds later Harry was halfway down the stairs and Tresko halfway down the beer
Harry had chucked him.
‘Yes, there was one more thing, Harry,’ Tresko mumbled to himself. ‘Bosse asked you if there was
someone special you were kicking your heels waiting for, and you answered no.’ He belched.
‘Don’t take up poker, Harry.’
Harry rang from his car.
There was an answer before he could introduce himself. ‘Hi, Harry.’
The thought that Mathias Lund-Helgesen either recognised his number or had his number listed
made Harry shudder. He could hear Rakel and Oleg’s voices in the background. Weekend. Family.
‘I have a question about Marienlyst Clinic. Are there still any patient records from there?’