The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

‘Who?’ she asked and moved towards him. The heels of her boots clicked on the wooden floor.
‘Who have you got in mind?’
She crouched down beside him. Her masculine perfume wafted past him, rising from her warm skin
into the cold air.
‘I haven’t a clue.’
‘This is not systematic processing; this is an idea you’ve had. You’ve got a theory,’ she stated
simply and ran her right index finger through the sawdust.
Harry held back. ‘It’s not even a theory.’
‘Come on, out with it.’
Harry took a deep breath. ‘Arve Støp.’
‘What about him?’
‘According to Arve Støp, he went to Idar Vetlesen for medical help with his tennis elbow. But,
according to Borghild, Vetlesen didn’t hold any records for Støp. I’ve been asking myself why that
might be.’
Katrine shrugged. ‘Perhaps it was more than an elbow. Perhaps Støp was afraid it might be
documented that he was having beauty treatment.’
‘If Idar Vetlesen had agreed not to keep records for all the patients who were afraid of that, he
wouldn’t have had a single name in his files. So I thought it had to be something else, something
that really couldn’t bear close scrutiny.’
‘Like what?’
‘Støp was lying on Bosse. He said there was no madness or hereditary illness in his family.’
‘And there is?’
‘Let’s assume there is, as a theory.’
‘The theory that’s not even a theory?’
Harry nodded. ‘Idar Vetlesen was Norway’s most secret expert on Fahr’s syndrome. Not even
Borghild, his own assistant, knew about it. So how on earth did Sylvia Ottersen and Birte Becker
find their way to him?’
‘How?’
‘Let’s assume Vetlesen’s specialty was not hereditary illness but discretion. After all, he said
himself that’s what his business was founded on. And that was why a patient and friend went to him
and said he had Fahr’s syndrome, a diagnosis which he had been given somewhere else, by a real
specialist. But this specialist did not have Vetlesen’s expertise in discretion, and this was something
which had to be kept secret. The patient insisted, perhaps paid extra for it. Because this person