The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

Then it was Sylvia’s turn. He rang her, rattled off the usual spiel and they arranged to meet in the
forest behind Holmenkollen ski jump, a place he had used on previous occasions. But this time
there were people nearby and he wouldn’t take the risk. He explained to her that Idar Vetlesen,
unlike himself, was not exactly a specialist in Fahr’s syndrome, and they would have to meet again.
She suggested he rang her the following evening when she would be at home on her own.
The next evening he drove out, found her in the barn and set about her on the spot.
But it had almost gone wrong.
The crazy woman had swung her hatchet at him, hit him in the side, cut open his jacket and shirt
and severed an artery with the result that his blood had gushed out all over the barn floor. B
negative blood. Two people in a hundred’s blood. So after he had killed her in the forest and left her
head on top of the snowman he returned, slaughtered a chicken and sprayed its blood over the floor
to cover up his own blood.
It was a stressful twenty-four hours, but the strange thing was that he felt no pain that night. And
over the subsequent days he followed the case in the newspapers, quietly triumphant. The
Snowman. That was the name they had given him. A name that would be remembered. He would
never have guessed that a few printed words in a newspaper could afford such a feeling of power
and influence. He almost regretted having operated clandestinely for so many years. And it was so
easy! There he was going round thinking that what Gert Rafto said was true, that a good detective
would always find the murderer. But he had met Harry Hole and had seen the frustration in the
policeman’s frazzled face. It was the face of someone who comprehended nothing.
But then, while Mathias was preparing his final moves, it came like a bolt from the blue. Idar
Vetlesen. He rang to say that Hole had visited him asking questions about Arve Støp and pressing
him for the connection. And Idar himself wondered what was going on; after all, it was unlikely that
the selection of the victims was arbitrary. And, apart from himself and Støp, Mathias was the only
person who knew about the paternities since Mathias, as usual, had helped him with the diagnosis.
Idar was rattled, of course, but fortunately Mathias managed to calm him down. He told Idar not to
say a word to anyone and to meet him in a safe place where no one could see them.
Mathias was on the point of laughing as he said it; it was practically word for word what he told his
female victims. He supposed it must have been the tension.
Idar proposed the curling club. Mathias rang off and pondered his options.
It struck him that he could make it seem as if Idar was the Snowman and at the same time procure
himself some downtime.
The next hour he spent elaborating the details of Idar’s suicide. And even though he appreciated his
friend in many ways it was an oddly stimulating, indeed inspiring, process. As the planning of the
great project had been. The last snowman. She would have to sit – as he had done on the first day of
snow so many years ago – on the snowman’s shoulders, feel the cold through her thighs and watch
through the window, watch the treachery, the man who would be her death: Harry Hole. He closed
his eyes and visualised the noose over her head. It glinted and glowed. Like a fake halo.
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