Back in the hall, Stig scowled furiously at me, as though it was my fault. ‘She’s disappeared.’

I shrugged. ‘Looks like it.’

‘What happened to Jakob?’

‘He left, too.’

‘So?’ He eyeballed me. Without further ado he turned his back on me and left as well.

I went down to the ground floor, fought my way to the bar and exchanged a voucher for a second bottle of pseudo-fizz. I drank and shivered. It was barely worth cleaning your teeth with.

I searched the crowd for Bente Solheim and the gentleman Jakob called Captain Hook.126

I couldn’t see either of them. He who seeks will find, they say. But this wasn’t my day. There was no one to find and those who were already there had left.

After finishing the bottle I left the establishment with a final scour of the crowd. They would have been a sensation in Sodom and Gomorrah. Caligula would have felt at home. Personally, I preferred the night.

It was Sunday now. Time to go to church, to art exhibitions, or for a walk in the mountains. Time to gather strength. Time.

The dinner-jacketed doorman slammed the door behind me. The street was as deserted as one in northern Alaska and about as cold.

Somewhere I could hear the sound of running footsteps, which were then lost in the darkness.

I did a quick Ali shuffle on the crumbling pavement. Then I started walking.

A sound brought me to a halt. It was like a groan.

I looked around.

Down some cellar steps ten metres away something moved. I heard the same sound again. That was where it was coming from.

I ran over.

For a second or two I was motionless.

Johnny Solheim was lying on his back at the bottom of the cellar steps. He was gripping the edge of the wall with both hands in a vain attempt to pull himself up.

On seeing me he opened his mouth as if to say something. But all that came out was blood.

And then his eyes went blank.

127

16

I ran towards the Hot Spot. Then I changed my mind and set off in the opposite direction.

I was headed for the nearest telephone box when a taxi came round the corner. I flagged it down and told the driver to contact the police, then went back to Johnny.

He was lying exactly as I had left him. The only change was a growing bloodstain on his chest under his open, black leather jacket. Two stripes of blood had run from the corners of his mouth, like a victim in a Hammer Dracula film.

I stood transfixed. Someone had jabbed a stylus into the last track of his LP and pressed it so deep into the groove that no one would ever play it again.

In the distance I heard the first sirens. Then the street was flooded with blue light while the echo of slamming car doors resounded against house walls. Uniformed officers approached at great speed. A large, freckled face I didn’t remember seeing before said something. Then his eyes looked past me and he went quiet.