Nemesis Read Online Free Page A

anything?’ Harry asked, running a finger along the small handwritten labels on the videos.
    ‘Maybe not,’ Ivarsson said. ‘Unless you’re interested in those minute details which solve crime cases.’
    Harry successfully resisted the temptation to say he hadn’t gone to the lecture because he had been told by others, who had attended earlier talks, that the sole purpose of his grandstanding was to announce to all and sundry that after he had taken over as Head of the Robberies Unit the clear-up rate for bank robberies rose from thirty-five per cent to fifty per cent. Not a word about the fact that his appointment coincided with a doubling of manpower in his unit, a general extension of their investigative powers and the simultaneous departure of their worst investigator – Rune Ivarsson.
    ‘I regard myself as reasonably interested,’ Harry said. ‘So, tell me how you solved this one.’ He took out one of the cassettes and read aloud what was written on the label: ‘20.11.94, NOR Savings Bank, Manglerud.’
    Ivarsson laughed. ‘Gladly. We caught them the old-fashioned way. They switched getaway cars at a waste site in Alnabru and set fire to the one they dumped. But it didn’t burn out. We found the gloves of one of the robbers and traces of DNA. We matched them with those of known robbers our investigators had highlighted as potential suspects after having seen the video, and one of them fitted the bill. The idiot had fired a shot into a ceiling and got four years. Anything else you were wondering about, Hole?’
    ‘Mm.’ Harry fidgeted with the cassette. ‘What sort of DNA was it?’
    ‘I told you, DNA that matched.’ The corner of Ivarsson’s left eye began to twitch.
    ‘Right, but what was it? Dead skin? A nail? Blood?’
    ‘Is that important?’ Ivarsson’s voice had become sharp and impatient.
    Harry told himself he should keep his mouth shut. He should give up these Don Quixote-like offensives. People like Ivarsson would never learn, anyway.
    ‘Maybe not,’ Harry heard himself say. ‘Unless you’re interested in those minute details which solve crime cases.’
    Ivarsson looked daggers at Harry. In the specially insulated roomthe silence felt like physical pressure on everyone’s ears. Ivarsson opened his mouth to speak.
    ‘Knuckle hair.’
    Both men in the room turned to Beate Lønn. Harry had almost forgotten she was there. She looked from one to the other and repeated in a near-whisper: ‘Knuckle hair. The hair on your fingers . . . isn’t that what it’s called . . . ?’
    Ivarsson cleared his throat. ‘You’re right, it was a hair. But I think it was – although we don’t need to go into this any deeper – a hair from the back of the hand. Isn’t that right, Beate?’ Without waiting for an answer he tapped on the glass of his large wristwatch. ‘Have to be off. Enjoy the video.’
    As the door slammed behind Ivarsson, Beate took the video cassette out of Harry’s hand and the next moment the video player sucked it in with a hum.
    ‘Two hairs,’ she said. ‘In the left-hand glove. From the knuckle. And the rubbish tip was in Karihaugen, not Alnabru. But the bit about four years is right.’
    Harry gave her an astonished look. ‘Wasn’t that a little before your time?’
    She shrugged as she pressed PLAY on the remote control. ‘It’s only a matter of reading reports.’
    ‘Mm,’ Harry said and studied her profile. Then he made himself comfortable in the chair. ‘Let’s see if this one left behind a few knuckle hairs.’
    The video player groaned and Beate switched off the light. In the moments that followed, while the blue lead-in picture illuminated them, another film unravelled in Harry’s head. It was short, lasting barely a couple of seconds, a scene bathed in the blue strobe light from Waterfront, a long-defunct club in Aker Brygge. He didn’t know her name, the woman with the smiling brown eyes who was trying to shout something to him above the music. They