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

absolutely clear, but she couldn’t manage to extract it.
    The police artist was a patient man. Sketching and erasing, he outlined features afresh and suggested a different chin. The woman shook her head, squinting at the portrait, and requested he take a little more off the ears. Nothing helped. It did not resemble him in the least.
    They had been at this for three hours. The artist had to take a new sheet of paper four times, and was about to give up. The drawings were placed in front of her, none of them complete.
    “Which one looks most like him, then?”
    “None of them . . .”
    It was time to give it a rest.
    *   *   *
    Detective Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen and Police Attorney Håkon Sand weren’t the only ones who didn’t like rape cases. Chief Inspector Kaldbakken, Hanne Wilhelmsen’s immediate superior, was bloody sick of them too. His equine face reacted as though he had been presented with a bag of spoiled oats and wanted more than anything else to say no, thanks for offering.
    “The sixth in less than a fortnight,” he mumbled. “Though this one here has a slightly different method. The other five are self-inflicted. But not this one.”
    Self-inflicted rapes . . . the description infuriated her. There were more than enough of such cases: girls who had gone home with men who were more or less strangers to them after a liquor-soaked night on the town. Post-party rapes. Rarely did anything come of these cases. One person’s word against another’s. All the same, they were hardly a girl’s own fault. But she chose not to sayanything. Not because she was scared of her boss but because she simply couldn’t be bothered.
    “The victim hasn’t been able to help much with a drawing,” she said instead. “And she can’t spot the guy in our archives either. Frustrating.”
    It was true. Not first and foremost because they wouldn’t solve the case. As far as that was concerned, it was in good company. However, the actual modus operandi gave them grounds for disquiet.
    “Men like that don’t give up until they’re caught.”
    Kaldbakken scanned the room without fixing his eyes on anything. Neither of them spoke, but they both sensed a hint of foreboding in the glorious May sunshine that lay enticingly outside the unwashed windows. The skinny man rapped a crooked finger on the folder.
    “This chap could give us a hot time of it this spring,” he declared, extremely concerned. “I’m going to suggest dropping the other five cases. We prioritize this one. Give it top priority, Wilhelmsen. Yes indeed, men like that! Top priority.”
    *   *   *
    The room was so overheated that even her flimsy worn-out sweater with the Washington Redskins logo emblazoned on the front was too much. She yanked it over her head. The undershirt beneath was wet between her breasts, and she tugged it a little, to no avail. The window was open wide, but she had to keep the door closed. The cross breeze wouldn’t be a good idea for the modicum of tidiness she had managed to achieve on her desk.
    There wasn’t much she could do. Sure enough, they had found some evidence at the crime scene, a couple of hairs that might belong to the perpetrator, a few bloodstains that probably weren’t his, and some traces of semen that definitely were. With merely a poor sketch, there was little to be gained through themass media, though they would give it a try. Showing the photographs hadn’t led to anything either.
    It would take time to obtain an analysis of the sparse forensic material. In the meantime, there was little to do other than interview the neighbors to discover whether they had seen or heard anything. That was unlikely. They never had.
    She pressed four buttons on the intercom.
    “Erik?”
    “Yes?”
    “It’s Hanne here. Do you have time to come with me on a little jaunt?”
    Erik did indeed. He was Hanne Wilhelmsen’s puppy dog, the first-year constable with red hair and freckles that covered his face.