11 May 2000.HARRY DIDN’T FEEL LIKE A LOSER WHEN, SHORTLY BEFORE midnight, he unlocked the door to his flat and saw the red eye on the answerphone blinking. He had carried Oleg to bed and drunk tea, and Rakel had said that one day she would tell him a long story. When she wasn’t so exhausted. Harry had answered that she needed a holiday, and she agreed.‘We could go together, all three of us,’ he had said, ‘when this business is over.’She had stroked his hair.‘This is not the sort of thing to be flippant about, Harry Hole.’‘Who’s being flippant?’‘I can’t talk about this now. Go on home, Harry Hole.’They had kissed a little more in the hallway, and Harry still had the taste of her on his lips.Without turning on the light, he crept into the sitting room in stockinged feet and pressed the play button of the answerphone. Sindre Fauke’s voice filled the darkness:‘Fauke here. I’ve been thinking. If Daniel Gudeson is more than a ghost, there’s only one person on this earth who can solve this riddle.
