The Snowman ( PDFDrive )

‘Sylvia was given a short conditional sentence because she was able to sow seeds of doubt. She said
she didn’t know what was in the rucksack, she had brought it with her as a family favour for a
Nigerian living in Norway.’
‘Mm. What else?’
‘Ane likes Rolf. He’s kind, thoughtful and has boundless love for the children. But apparently he’s
quite blind in all things Sylvia. Twice she fell in love with other men and left Rolf and the children.
But the men left her and both times Rolf happily took her back.’
‘What was her hold over him, do you think?’
Katrine Bratt mounted a smile tinged with sadness and gazed into the air as her hand stroked the
hem of her skirt. ‘The usual, I would guess. No one can leave someone they have good sex with.
They can try, but they always go back. We’re simple souls like that, aren’t we.’
Harry nodded slowly. ‘And what about the men who left her and didn’t come back?’
‘Men are different. Over the course of time some of them suffer from performance angst.’
Harry eyed her. And decided not to pursue that subject.
‘Did you see Rolf Ottersen?’
‘Yes, he arrived ten minutes after you left,’ Katrine said. ‘And he looked better than last time. He’d
never heard of the plastic surgery clinic in Bygdøy, but he signed the declaration of consent to
waive doctor–patient confidentiality.’ She left the folded sheet on his desk.
An ice-cold wind blew over the low stands at Valle Hovin where Harry sat watching the ice skaters
gliding round the circuit. Oleg’s technique had become more supple and effective in the last year.
Every time his friend accelerated to pass him, Oleg sank lower, dug in harder and calmly sailed off.
Harry rang Espen Lepsvik and they caught up on each other’s news. Harry found out that a dark
saloon car had been seen entering Hoffsveien late on the night Birte disappeared. And it had
returned the same way not long afterwards.
‘Dark saloon,’ Harry repeated with a grim shiver. ‘Sometime late that night.’
‘Yes, I know it’s not a lot to go on,’ Lepsvik sighed.
Harry was stuffing the phone in his jacket pocket when he sensed that something was obscuring one
of the floodlights.
‘Sorry I’m a bit late.’
He looked up into the jovial, smiling face of Mathias Lund-Helgesen.
Rakel’s envoy took a seat. ‘Are you a winter sportsman, Harry?’
Harry noticed that Mathias had this direct way of looking at you with an expression that was so
intense it gave you the feeling he was listening even when he was talking.