The Snowman (Harry Hole, #7)

by Jo Nesbø

“And what a big snowman you’ve made!”

“We didn’t make a snowman,” Jonas said.

Then he caught sight of the snowman. It stood there as before, immovable, facing the house, bathed in the cold moonlight. Yet there was something different about it, something almost human, something familiar. Jonas looked at the Bendiksens’ house. He decided to run. But he didn’t. Instead he stood feeling the tentative, ice-cold wind go right through him. He turned slowly back to the snowman. Now he realized what it was that had made the snowman so familiar. It was wearing a scarf. A pink scarf. The scarf Jonas had given his mother for Christmas.

Soon the first snow will come. And then he will appear again. The snowman. And when the snow has gone, he will have taken someone else. What you should ask yourself is this: “Who made the snowman? Who makes snowmen? Who gave birth to the Murri?” For the snowman doesn’t know.

“Do what boxers do, sway with the punches. Don’t resist. If any of what happens at work gets to you, just let it. You won’t be able to shut it out in the long term anyway. Take it bit by bit, release it like a dam, don’t

let it collect until the wall develops cracks.”

Harry had read that the word deadline originated from the battlefields of the American Civil War, when, for lack of anything material to lock prisoners behind, the captors gathered together the prisoners and a line was drawn around them in the dirt. Which became known as the “dead line,” and anyone who strayed beyond it was shot.

pupils dilated. “It’s my guess Vetlesen told you we were putting the squeeze on him,” Harry persisted. “Perhaps you were frightened he would crack. Or perhaps he was exploiting the situation to extort favors? Money, for example.”

“The more aged I become, the more I tend to the view that evil is evil, mental illness or no. We’re all more or less disposed to evil actions, but our disposition cannot exonerate us. For heaven’s sake, we’re all sick with personality disorders. And it’s our actions that define how sick we are.