In several places in the text, Harry refers to cochineal, a natural red pigment made from insects, which is used in everything from food to cosmetics. This color appears mostly alongside the character Rakel, to whom Harry connects he pigment because it is the color of Campari, Rakel’s favorite drink, and “she liked to dress in bright red” (36). Rakel recognizes her predilection for dressing in red and “claimed that she used it as a warning, the way animals use strong colors to tell others to keep their distance” (36). Her use of red to hint at danger is indicative of Rakel’s personality and power.

Although cochineal often signals Rakel’s power throughout the novel, the color appears at the end when Rakel is most powerless. When Harry finds Rakel after she has been set in a deadly position by Mathias, “She was wearing a dress. Crimson. Like Campari. She was ‘cochineal.’ Her head strained toward the ceiling as though she were standing by a fence trying to see over, and from this position she stared down and out at him” (468). As this color saturates this scene in which Rakel almost dies, Nesbø also connects the motif to sexuality, given Mathias’s

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