The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

you have. I would guess you’re fairly proud of your investigative talent.’
‘You mean the rat-catching gene? The innate ability to lock up people with mental illnesses,
addiction problems, well under average intellect and well above average childhood deprivation?’
‘So we’re just rat-catchers then?’
‘Yep. And that’s why we’re so happy when once in a blue moon a case like this lands on our table.
A chance to go big-game hunting, to shoot a lion, an elephant, a fucking dinosaur.’
Katrine didn’t laugh. On the contrary, she nodded her head gravely.
‘What did Sylvia’s twin sister have to say?’
‘I was in danger of becoming her best friend,’ Katrine sighed, folding her hands over a stockinged
knee.
‘Tell me.’
‘Well,’ she began, and Harry noticed his ‘well’ in her mouth, ‘Ane told me that both Sylvia and
Rolf thought that Rolf had been the lucky one when they got together. While everyone else thought
the opposite. Rolf had just finished qualifying as an engineer at the Technical University in Bergen
and had moved to Oslo and a job with Kværner Engineering. Sylvia was apparently the type who
wakes up every morning with a new idea about what she’s going to do with in her life. She had
taken half a dozen quite different foundation courses at university and had never been in the same
job for more than six months. She was stubborn, hot-headed, spoilt, a declared socialist and
attracted by ideologies that preached the obliteration of the ego. The few girlfriends she had
manipulated, and the men she was involved with left her after a short while because they couldn’t
take it. Her sister thought that Rolf was so deeply in love with her because she represented his
absolute opposite. You see, he had followed in his father’s footsteps and become an engineer. He
came from a family that believed in the unseen charitable hand of capitalism and middle-class
happiness. Sylvia thought that we in the Western world were materialistic and corrupt as human
beings, that we had lost touch with our real identity and the source of happiness. And that some
king in Ethiopia was the reincarnated Messiah.’
‘Haile Selassie,’ Harry said. ‘Rastafarian beliefs.’
‘No flies on you.’
‘Bob Marley records. Well, that may explain the link with Africa.’
‘Maybe.’ Katrine shifted position in her chair, her left leg crossed her right now, and Harry directed
his gaze elsewhere. ‘Anyway, Rolf and Sylvia took a year off and travelled around West Africa. It
turned out to be a road to Damascus for them both. Rolf discovered that his vocation was to help
Africa get back on its feet. Sylvia, who had a big Ethiopian flag tattooed on her back, discovered
that everyone looked out for themselves, even in Africa. So they started up Taste of Africa. Rolf to
help a poor continent, Sylvia because the combination of cheap imports and government support
seemed like easy money. She had the same motive when she was caught with a rucksack full of
marijuana at customs, returning from Lagos.’
‘There you go.’