Fear Not by Anne Holt

Author:Anne Holt [Holt, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Corvus
Published: 2010-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

She couldn’t complain about the efficiency. The police sketch artist had produced not only a full-face picture but also a profile, a full-length picture from the front, and a detailed drawing of some kind of emblem or pin which Martin Setre claimed the man had been wearing on his lapel. Silje Sørensen leafed quickly through the drawings before laying all four out on the desk in front of her.

She was sceptical about sketches like these, even though she was the one who had requested them.

Most people made terrible witnesses. Exactly the same situation or exactly the same person could be described afterwards in completely different ways. Witnesses would talk about things that didn’t exist, events that had never taken place. Animatedly and in detail. They weren’t lying. They just remembered incorrectly and filled the gaps in their memory with their own experiences and fantasies.

At the same time, facial composites could sometimes be absolutely key. The artist had to be skilful and the witness particularly observant. There were advanced computer programs that could do the work more easily and in certain cases more precisely, but she preferred drawings done by hand.

And that was what she’d got.

She studied the portrait.

The man was white, and probably somewhere between thirty-five and fifty. From the notes in the file she could see that Martin Setre wasn’t absolutely sure whether the man had shaved his head or had actually lost his hair. He was bald, at any rate. Round face. Dark eyes, no glasses. The nose was straight and the chin broad, almost angular. A narrow double chin framed the lower part of his face. He was heavily built, she could see that from the full-length drawing too, but not necessarily overweight. His height was estimated at around one metre seventy.

A short, stocky man who was smiling.

Silje presumed the picture had been drawn like that because the man had been smiling all the time. She glanced through the notes and her theory was confirmed.

Nice teeth.

His clothes were dark. A dark overcoat and a dark shirt. The tie was also dark, and the knot seemed loose. The drawing was in black and white, and all the monochrome tones made her feel pessimistic. When she held up the full-length picture and examined it more closely, it struck her that there must be thousands of men who looked more or less like this. Admittedly, Martin had said that the man spoke English or American, but using a different language from one’s own was an old and well-established trick.

He had just a suspicion of dimples.

Knut Bork came in without knocking, and she gave a start.

‘Sorry,’ he said in surprise. ‘I didn’t know you were here. Haven’t you got anything better to do on a Saturday afternoon?’

‘If I hadn’t been here, the door wouldn’t have been open, would it?’

‘I …’

Knut Bork was tall and fair-skinned, almost pale, with red-blonde hair and ice-blue eyes. When he blushed he did it properly: he looked like a traffic light.

‘It’s fine,’ said Silje, holding out her hand.

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