Blessed Are Those Who Thirst: A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel Read Online Free PDF

damn well got the worst of it, were the detective inspector’s thoughts as she started on the interview.
    *   *   *
    “Lunch, Håkon?”
    “No thanks, I’ve eaten already.”
    Hanne Wilhelmsen glanced at the clock.
    “Already? It’s only eleven o’clock!”
    “Yes, but I’ll come with you for a coffee. Keep you company. The canteen or the office?”
    “The office.”
    It struck him as soon as he entered. She had new curtains.They weren’t exactly police regulation. Periwinkle blue with meadow flowers.
    “They’re really nice! How did you manage that?”
    She didn’t reply, instead fetching a bundle of neatly folded material from the cupboard.
    “Sewed some for you as well.”
    He was dumbfounded.
    “It cost only seven kroner a meter. At Ikea. Seven kroner a meter! At any rate, they’re much more appealing, and far cleaner, than those state-issued rags over there!”
    She pointed at a filthy gray curtain, dumped in the wastepaper basket, that seemed embarrassed at being mentioned.
    “Thanks very much!”
    Police Attorney Håkon Sand accepted the pile of material with enthusiasm, immediately spilling his entire cup of coffee over it. A large brown flower bloomed among all the little sprigs of red and pink. With an almost inaudible long-suffering sigh, the female detective inspector reclaimed the curtains.
    “I’ll launder them.”
    “No, not at all, I’ll do it myself!”
    There was a scent of unfamiliar perfume in the office. Unfamiliar, and slightly overpowering. The explanation lay in a slim green folder on the desk between them.
    “By the way, this is our case,” she said, when she had finished cleaning the worst of the coffee damage. She passed him the papers.
    “Rape. Dreadful.”
    “All rapes are dreadful,” the police attorney mumbled. Having read for a few moments, he concurred. It was horrendous.
    “How did she seem?”
    “An all right kind of girl. Rather sweet. Decent in every way. Medical student. Smart. Successful. And very raped.”
    She gave herself a shake.
    “They sit there, timid and helpless, looking at the floor and twiddlingtheir thumbs as though it were their fault. I get so discouraged. I feel even more helpless than they do, sometimes. So I think.”
    “How do you think I feel, then?” Håkon Sand said. “At least you’re a woman. It’s not your fault men commit rape.”
    He dropped the two interview reports regarding the medical student onto the desk.
    “Well, it’s not exactly your fault either, you know.” The detective inspector smiled.
    “No . . . But I feel quite ill at ease when I have to relate to them. Poor girls. But . . .”
    He stretched his arms above his head, yawned and drank the rest of his coffee.
    “But I avoid seeing them, most of the time. The public prosecutor attends to those cases. Fortunately. For me, the girls are merely names on a piece of paper. Have you taken your bike out yet, by the way?”
    Hanne Wilhelmsen smiled broadly as she got to her feet.
    “Come here.” She waved her arm, positioning herself beside the window. “There! The rose-colored one!”
    “Have you got a pink bike?”
    “It’s not pink,” she said, offended. “It’s rose. Or cerise. But certainly not pink.”
    Grinning, Håkon Sand poked her vigorously in the side.
    “A pink Harley-Davidson! The worst thing I’ve ever seen!”
    He looked her up and down.
    “On the other hand, you’re altogether too attractive to be riding a motorbike at all. At the very least, it would have to be a pink one.”
    For the very first time since they had met almost four years previously, he saw Detective Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen’s cheeks turn bright red. He pointed triumphantly at her face.
    “Pink!”
    The lemonade bottle hit him in the middle of the chest. Fortunately, it was made of plastic.
    *   *   *
    She couldn’t for the life of her give a particularly detailed description of the rapist. Inside her head, somewhere or other, the picture was