Free The Bat by Jo Nesbø Page B

course.”
    “Alone?”
    “Not completely.” Evans grinned and chucked the empty stubby. It flew through the air in an elegant parabola before landing noiselessly in the rubbish bin by the worktop. Harry nodded acknowledgment.
    “May I ask who was with you?”
    “You already have. But fine, I’ve nothing to hide. It was a woman called Angelina Hutchinson. She lives in the town here.”
    Harry noted that down.
    “Lover?” Andrew asked.
    “Sort of,” Evans answered.
    “What can you tell us about Inger Holter? Who was she?”
    “Agh, we hadn’t known each other for that bloody long. I met her on Fraser Island. She said she was headed down to Byron Bay. It’s not far from here, so I gave her my phone number in Nimbin. A few days later she rang me and asked if she could stop over one night. She was here for more than a week. After that we met in Sydney when I was there. That must have been two or three times. As you know, we didn’t exactly become an old married couple. And besides she was already beginning to be a drag.”
    “A drag?”
    “Yes, she had a soft spot for my son, Tom-Tom, and let her imagination run away about a family and a house in the country. That didn’t suit me, but I let her jabber on.”
    “Jabber on about what?”
    Evans squirmed. “She was the kind that’s hard-faced when you meet her, but she’s as soft as butter if you tickle her under the chin and tell her you love her. Then she can’t do enough for you.”
    “So she was a considerate young lady?”
    Evans clearly didn’t like the path this conversation was following. “Maybe she was. I didn’t know her that well, as I said. She hadn’t seen her family in Norway for a while, had she, so maybe she was starved for … affection, someone being there for her, know what I mean? Who bloody knows? As I said, she was a stupid, romantic chick, there was no evil in her …”
    Evans’s voice faltered. The kitchen fell silent. Either he’s a good actor or he does have human emotions after all, Harry thought.
    “If you didn’t see any future in the relationship, why didn’t you split up with her?”
    “I was already on my way. Standing in the doorway about to say bye, sort of. But she was gone before I could do anything. Just like that …” He snapped his fingers.
    Yes, his voice has thickened, no doubt about it, Harry thought.
    Evans gazed down at his hands. “Quite a way to depart, wasn’t it.”

12

Quite a Big Spider
    They drove up steep mountain roads. A signpost indicated the way to the Crystal Castle.
    “The question is: is Evans White telling the truth?” Harry said.
    Andrew avoided an oncoming tractor.
    “Let me share a crumb of my experience with you, Harry. For over twenty years I’ve been talking to people with a variety of reasons for lying or telling the truth. Guilty and innocent, murderers and pickpockets, bundles of nerves and cold fish, blue-eyed baby faces, scarred villain faces, sociopaths, psychopaths, philanthropists …” He searched for more examples.
    “Point taken, Andrew.”
    “… Aboriginals and whites. They’ve all told their stories with one objective: to be believed. And do you know what I’ve learned?”
    “That it’s impossible to say who’s lying and who isn’t?”
    “Exactly, Harry!” Andrew began to warm to the topic. “In traditional crime fiction every detective with any self-respect has an unfailing nose for when people are lying. It’s bullshit! Human nature is a vast impenetrable forest which no one can know in its entirety. Not even a mother knows her child’s deepest secrets.”
    They turned into a car park in front of a large green garden with a narrow gravel path winding between a fountain, flower beds and exotic species of tree. A huge house presided over the garden and was obviously the Crystal Castle that the Nimbin sheriff had pointed out to them on a map.
    A bell above the door announced their arrival. This was clearly a popular place, for the shop was