The Lion's Mouth Read Online Free PDF Page B

talk to the guy! Can’t you just say either yes or no,Konrad, and then you can continue with all those important tasks you’re doing?”
    Yet again, complete silence.
    “This conversation never took place,” he said, his tone stony and impassive. Then he disconnected the call.
    Little Lettvik had received the confirmation she needed.
    “Na-na-na-na-na-na-na …” she sang contentedly as she headed toward Frognerveien to flag down a taxi.
    The situation was getting urgent.
    00.57, OSLO POLICE STATION
    E ven Billy T., who rarely noticed such things, had to admit that Benjamin Grinde was an unusually handsome man. His physique was athletic but not bulky. He had broad shoulders and narrow hips, though not exaggeratedly so. His clothes were extremely tasteful, down to the socks that were visible when he crossed his legs, and the matching tie, ever so slightly loosened. The dark circlet of hair around his head was cut very short, making the almost bald pate into something deliberate, something chosen: it suggested potency and a large dose of testosterone. His eyes were dark brown and his mouth full, and he had surprisingly white, youthful teeth, given that he was fifty years old, very nearly.
    “Birthday tomorrow,” Billy T. commented as he leafed though the papers.
    A young trainee had already taken the personal details while Billy T. had been occupied with a private matter. An extremely private matter. He had sent a two-page handwritten fax to Hanne Wilhelmsen, before taking a shower. Both of these had been beneficial.
    “Yes,” Benjamin Grinde said, looking at his wristwatch. “Or actually today. Strictly speaking.”
    He smiled wanly.
    “Fifty years old and all that,” Billy T. said. “We’ll have this out of the way fast enough so that your celebrations aren’t spoiled.”
    Benjamin Grinde looked startled for the first time; until now his facial expression had been almost blank, exhausted and virtually apathetic.
    “Out of the way? I’ll have you know that I was actually presented with an arrest warrant a few hours ago. And now you’re saying that this will be out of the way quickly?”
    Billy T. turned away from the typewriter to gaze at the Supreme Court judge facing him. He placed the palms of his hands on the table and tilted his head to one side.
    “Listen to me.” He sighed. “I’m not stupid. And you are definitely not stupid. Both you and I know that the person who killed Birgitte Volter did not smile nicely to her secretary and go home in an orderly fashion to make …”
    He rooted though the papers.
    “… pâté. Was that what you were doing?”
    “Yes …”
    Now Benjamin Grinde was genuinely taken aback. Surely none of the police officers had been inside his kitchen?
    “You’re such an obvious suspect that it can’t possibly be you.”
    Billy T. chuckled, and rubbed his ear lobe, making the inverted cross dance.
    “I read crime novels, you know. It’s never the obvious person. Never. And they don’t go home to their own place afterward. To be honest, Grinde, this arrest warrant was a damn piece of nonsense. You were quite right to confiscate it. Throw it away. Burn it. Typical panic response from the bloody attorneys. Pardon my language.”
    Turning back to the typewriter, he let his fingers hammer out three or four sentences before he inserted a fresh sheet of paper.Then he faced Benjamin Grinde again, and seemed to hesitate before he raised his extremely long legs and size forty-seven boots onto the edge of the table.
    “Why were you there?”
    “At the office, at Birgitte’s?”
    “Birgitte? Did you know her? Personally, I mean?”
    Billy T.’s feet slammed onto the floor as he leaned across the desk.
    “Birgitte Volter and I have known each other since childhood,” Benjamin Grinde said, staring at the Chief Inspector. “She’s one year older than me, and during one’s teens that creates a certain distance. But in Nesodden, the community wasn’t very large. We knew each