Thursday 20 November, 13:00
The funeral was in a white wooden church in Florø with the sea at its back, and it rained, sideways, straight off the North Sea, which Geir would have considered correct. His sister spoke, a big slow woman with his glasses. Kristin spoke, briefly and well. Jonas had written something and couldn’t read it, and stood instead with his hand flat on the coffin for a few seconds before he went back to his pew.
Teodor sat near the front in an old suit that was too broad in the shoulders. Viktor sat at the back, where he could see everyone, because that was where he always sat.
Afterwards there was coffee in the parish hall and far too many cakes, and nobody had made skillingsboller, and nobody said why. The bus back to Bergen was very quiet. On the Lavik ferry Jonas fell asleep against the window with his mouth open, and Kristin put her scarf under his head.
A week after that the sun came out over Sandviken, briefly, suspiciously, as if checking whether anyone was paying attention.
Viktor sat on the deck of the Dorthea in a thick wool jumper with his second coffee of the day. Up the hill, between two roofs, there was a small square window with nothing in it any more. He had stopped looking for it on the second day. On the third he had looked once more, to be sure.
Before he came out he had opened the galley drawer and counted the strip. Thirteen. He had closed the drawer again. That was all.
A cormorant came up near the end of the jetty, shook its head, looked at him with one black eye and went under.
His phone buzzed. Dahl.
“Riise has been charged,” she said. “Datainnbrudd, fare for driftshindring, grovt skadeverk and grovt bedrageri, which the prosecutor reads out like a wine list. The health directorate wants a report from you by Friday. And Kripos rang. They’d like to know whether you’d think about coming back.”
“Tell them I’ll think about it.”
“Will you?”
“No.”
She made a sound that might have been a laugh. “One more thing. Kristin Aase called me because she was too polite to call you. Fjordnett wants to hire you. Not for an emergency. For the rest of it. Reviews. The service accounts. Sitting in the room while they do what’s on that whiteboard.”
Viktor watched the place where the cormorant had gone down.
“The dull one,” he said.
“You’ll hate it.”
“Somebody has to do the Tuesdays.” He drank some coffee. “Geir did nineteen years of them.”
There was a pause on the line.
“That’s almost profound, Brekke.”
“I’ve had very little sleep.”
She hung up. He sat a long while, watching the light move on the water. Out past the breakwater the cormorant came up somewhere else entirely, swallowed something, and was gone.
In Ola’s room at Allehelgens gate the lights came on by motion sensor and went off again when nobody moved.
On the extraction bench, between a box of hard drives from Ladegårdsgaten and a laptop in a brown paper sack, lay a phone in a sealed plastic bag with a red label, on a charger, waiting its turn. Case number. Date. Hellesøy, M.
At seven o’clock, on a server in Frankfurt the Germans had not yet switched off, something kept its appointment, and the screen lit up through the plastic.
Session.
Good morning, Mona. Did you sleep well?
The light held for a few seconds in the dark room, patient, and went out.
The end.