The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

‘Fine,’ Ottersen said with reluctance. ‘What are you digging for now?’
‘I was going to ask you the same thing,’ Harry said. ‘I saw there was soil on the spade over there.’
‘Oh, that. Fence posts.’
Harry scoured the snow-covered ground stretching into the dense, dark forest. Wondering what it
was Ottersen wanted to fence in. Or out. For he had seen it: the fear in Rolf Ottersen’s eyes.
Harry motioned towards the sitting room. ‘You’ve got a visitor ’ He was interrupted by a call on
his mobile.
It was Skarre.
‘We’ve found another one,’ he said.
Harry stared into the forest and felt the large snowflakes melting on his cheeks and forehead.
‘Another what?’ he mumbled in response, even though he had already heard the answer in Skarre’s
tone.
‘Another snowman.’
The psychologist Kjersti Rødsmoen contacted POB Knut Müller-Nilsen as he and Espen Lepsvik
from Kripos were leaving the police station.
‘Katrine Bratt has talked,’ she said. ‘And I think you should come to the hospital to hear what she
has to say.’
32
DAY 21.
The Tanks.
SKARRE TROD IN THE TRACKS IN THE SNOW LEADING TO the trees, ahead of Harry.
Early-afternoon darkness presaged that winter was on its way. Above them flashed Tryvann
communications tower, and below them twinkled Oslo. Harry had driven straight from Sollihøgda
and parked in the large empty car park where school-leavers collected like lemmings every spring
for the obligatory enaction of adult rituals of the species: cavorting round the fire, stupefying
themselves with alcohol, and indulging in sex with wild abandon. Harry’s school-leaving
celebrations had not included the prommers’ truck. He had had just two companions, Bruce
Springsteen and ‘Independence Day’ which shrieked from his ghetto blaster on top of the German
bunker on Nordstrand beach.
‘A walker found it,’ Skarre said.
‘And considered it necessary to report a snowman in the forest to the police?’
‘He had a dog with him. It well you’ll see for yourself.’