The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

could really pay.’
‘Arve Støp?’
‘Yes.’
‘But he’s already been diagnosed by someone and that might leak out.’
‘This is not what Støp is primarily afraid of. He’s afraid that it could come to light that he goes
there with his offspring. Whom he wants checked to see if they have the inherited illness. And this
has to be treated with the utmost confidentiality because no one knows they’re his children. In fact
there are some people who believe them to be their own. As indeed Filip Becker thought he was
Jonas’s father. And ’ Harry nodded towards the farmhouse.
‘Rolf Ottersen?’ Katrine whispered, breathless. ‘The twins? Do you think ?’ She lifted the plastic
bags. ‘That they have Arve Støp’s genes?’
‘Possibly.’
Katrine looked at him. ‘The missing women the other children ’
‘If the DNA test shows that Støp is the father of Jonas and the twins, we’ll do tests on the children
of the other missing women on Monday.’
‘You mean that Arve Støp has been bonking his way round Norway? Impregnating a variety of
women and then killing them years after they’ve given birth?’
Harry rolled his shoulders.
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘If I’m right we’re talking about madness, of course, and this is pure speculation. There’s often a
pretty clear logic behind madness. Have you heard about Berhaus seals?’
Katrine shook her head.
‘The father of the species is cold and rational,’ Harry said. ‘After the female has given birth to their
young and it has survived the first critical phase, the father tries to kill the mother. Because he
knows she won’t want to breed with him again. And he doesn’t want other young seals to compete
with his own offspring.’
Katrine seemed to be having trouble absorbing this.
‘It’s madness, yes,’ she said. ‘But I don’t know what’s more insane: thinking like a seal or thinking
that someone’s thinking like a seal.’
‘As I said ’ Harry stood up with an audible creak of his knees, ‘it’s not even a theory.’
‘You’re lying,’ she said, peering up at him. ‘You’re already certain that Arve Støp’s the father.’
Harry responded with a crooked smile.