The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

‘I thought so, but why did he go anyway?’
‘Because Harry said he should.’
‘Should do what?’
Rakel shook her head. ‘The things he’s frightened of. And doesn’t want to be frightened of. When
Harry was here, he used to send Oleg down to the cellar all the time.’
Mathias frowned.
Rakel put on a sad smile. ‘Harry’s not exactly a child psychiatrist. And Oleg wouldn’t listen to me
if Harry had given his opinion first. On the other hand, there are no monsters down there.’
Mathias turned a knob on the stove and said in a low voice, ‘How can you be so sure of that?’
‘Mathias?’ Rakel laughed. ‘Were you afraid of the dark?’
‘Who’s talking about was?’ Mathias grinned mischievously.
Yes, she liked him. This was better. A better life. She liked him, yes she did, she did like him.
Harry pulled up in front of the Beckers’ house. He sat in the car staring at the yellow light from the
windows spilling onto the garden. The snowman had shrunk to a dwarf. But its shadow still
extended to the trees and right over to the picket fence.
Harry got out of the car. The lament of the iron gate made him wince. He knew he ought to have
rung first; a garden was as much private property as a house was. But he had neither the patience
nor the inclination to discuss anything with Professor Becker.
The wet ground was springy. He crouched down. The light reflected off the snowman as if it were
matt glass. The thaw during the day had made the tiny snow crystals hook together into larger
crystals, but now the temperature had fallen again, the water vapour had condensed and frozen onto
other crystals. The result was that the snow which had been so fine, white and light this morning
was now coarse, greyish-white and packed.
Harry raised his right hand. Clenched his fist. And punched.
The snowman’s crushed head rolled off its shoulders and down onto the brown grass.
Harry punched again, this time from above and down through the neck. His fingers formed a claw
and bored their way through the snow and found what they were searching for.
He pulled out his hand and held it up triumphantly in front of the snowman, the way Bruce Lee did,
to show his adversary the heart he had just torn out of his chest.
It was a red-and-silver Nokia mobile phone. It was still switched on.
But the feeling of triumph had faded. For he already knew that this was not a breakthrough in the
investigation, just a minor scene in a puppet show with someone else pulling invisible strings. It had
been too simple. They had been meant to find it.