by Jo Nesbo
I gulped. ‘Toralf smoked a fair bit. We knew each other well, childhood friends, shared a flat for a while, that sort of thing. So I let him have credit.’ I tried a smile. Then I realised how ridiculous it must have looked. ‘Always stupid to have different rules for friends in this game, isn’t it?’
The Fisherman smiled back, suspended one fillet by a piece of sinew and studied it as it slowly turned in the air. ‘You should never let friends, family or employees owe you money, Jon. Never. Okay, so you let the debt stand for a while, but when it came down to it you knew that rules have to be upheld. You’re like me, Jon. A man of principle. Those who cross you must be punished. Doesn’t matter if the transgression is big or small. Doesn’t matter if it’s a dropout you don’t know or your own brother. That’s the only way to protect your territory. Even a shitty little business like yours over in Slottsparken. How much do you earn? Five thousand a month? Six?’
I shrugged. ‘Something like that.’
‘I respect what you did.’
‘But—’
‘Toralf was extremely important to me. He was my collector. And, if necessary, my fixer. He was willing to fix bad debtors. Not everyone’s prepared to do that in today’s society. People have got so soft. It’s become possible to be soft yet still survive. It’s –’ he stuffed the whole fillet in his mouth – ‘perverse.’
While he chewed I considered my options. Getting up and running out through the shop and into the square looked like the best of them.
‘So, as you can appreciate, you’ve left me with something of a problem,’ he said.
Obviously they’d come after me and catch me, but maybe I could avoid ending up in the fish-ball mixture if they had to take me down out in the street.
‘I’m thinking, who do I know who’s got what it takes to do what has to be done? Who can kill? I only know two. One is efficient, but enjoys killing a bit too much, and that sort of pleasure strikes me as –’ he picked at his front teeth – ‘perverse.’ He studied his fingertip. ‘Besides, he doesn’t cut his fingernails properly. And I don’t need a girlie pervert, I need someone who can talk to people. Talk first, then, if that doesn’t work, fix them. So how much do you want, Jon?’
‘Sorry?’
‘I want to know what you’d be happy with. Eight thousand a month?’
I blinked.
‘No? Shall we say ten? Plus a bonus of thirty for anyone you fix.’
‘Are you asking me if—?’
‘Twelve. Damn, you’re a tough cookie, Jon. But that’s fine, I respect that as well.’
I breathed hard through my nose. He was asking me to take Toralf’s place as his collector and fixer.
I swallowed. And thought.
I didn’t want the job.
I didn’t want the money.
But I needed it.
She needed it.
‘Twelve . . .’ I said. ‘That sounds fine.’
It was a simple job.
All I had to do was turn up and say I was the Fisherman’s collector, and the money appeared. And I wasn’t exactly overworked; I mostly sat in the back room of the shop playing cards with Brynhildsen, who always cheated, and Styrker, who never stopped talking about his damn Rottweilers and how efficient they were. I was bored, I was worried, but the money kept coming, and I had calculated that if I worked for him for at least a few months, I could pay for a year’s treatment. Hopefully that would be enough. And you get used to most things, even the smell of fish.
One day the Fisherman came in and said he had a slightly bigger job that required both discretion and a firm hand.
‘He’s been buying speed from me for years,’ the Fisherman said. ‘Seeing as he’s not a friend, a relative or an employee, I’ve let him have credit. It’s never been a problem, but now he’s fallen behind with the payments.’
It was Kosmos, an older guy who sold speed from a table in the Goldfish, the grubby café down by the docks. The windows were grey from the heavy traffic that ran right past, and there were rarely more than three or four people inside.
The way Kosmos did business was as follows: the customer wanting speed came in and sat down at the next table, which was always empty because Kosmos had draped his coat over one chair and left a copy of Hjemmet on the table. He would be sitting at his own table doing a crossword in one of the papers. Aftenposten or VG’s mini crossword or Helge Seip’s big one in Dagbladet. And Hjemmet, of course. Apparently he’d twice been crowned national crossword champion in Hjemmet. You slipped an envelope containing money inside the magazine and went to the toilet, and when you came back the envelope contained speed instead of cash.
It was early in the morning and, as usual, there were only three or four other customers when I arrived. I sat down two tables away from the old man, ordered a coffee and turned to the crossword. I scratched my head with my pencil. Leaned over.
‘Excuse me?’
I had to repeat it twice before Kosmos looked up from his own crossword. He was wearing glasses with orange lenses.
‘Sorry, but I need a four-letter word for “outstanding”. First letter “d”.’
‘Debt,’ he said, and looked down again.
‘Of course. Thanks.’ I filled in the letters.
I waited a while, took a sip of the weak coffee. Cleared my throat: ‘Excuse me, I shan’t keep pestering you, but could you help me with “trawlerman”, nine letters? The first two letters are “f” and “i”.’
‘Fisherman,’ he said without looking up. But I saw him start as he heard himself say the word.
‘One last word,’ I said. ‘Six letters, “tool”, starts with an “h”. Two “m”s in the middle.’
He pushed the newspaper away and looked at me. His Adam’s apple was bobbing up and down on his unshaven neck.
I smiled apologetically. ‘I’m afraid the deadline for the crossword expires this afternoon. I’ve got to go off and sort something out, but I’ll be back in exactly two hours’ time. I’ll leave the paper here so you can fill in the answers, if you can sort it out.’
I went down to the harbour, smoked a bit and did some thinking. I didn’t know what was going on, why he hadn’t managed to pay off the debt. And I didn’t want to know either, I didn’t want his desperate face fixed on my retina. Not another one. The pale little face on the pillow bearing the washed-out logo of Ullevål Hospital was enough.
When I got back Kosmos looked absorbed in his crossword, but when I opened my newspaper there was an envelope there.
The Fisherman later told me he’d paid in full, and said I was good at my job. But what help was that? I’d talked to the doctors. The prognosis wasn’t good. She wouldn’t see out the year if she didn’t get treatment. So I went to the Fisherman and explained the situation. Said I needed a loan.
‘Sorry, Jon, no can do. You’re an employee, aren’t you?’
I nodded. What the hell was I going to do?
‘But maybe we’ve got a solution to your problem after all. I need someone fixing.’
Oh, shit.
It had to happen sooner or later, but I’d been hoping for later. After I’d saved up what I needed and handed in my notice.
‘I heard your favourite expression is that the first time is always the worst,’ he said. ‘So you’re lucky. That it isn’t the first time, I mean.’
I tried to smile. He couldn’t know, after all. That I hadn’t killed Toralf. That the pistol registered in my name was a small-calibre thing from a sports club that Toralf needed for a job, but hadn’t been able to buy for himself because he had a record as an East German dissenter. So I – who’d never been arrested, not for my little hash business or anything else – had bought it for him in return for a small fee. I hadn’t seen it since. And I’d given up on the money I’d tried to get back because she needed it for treatment. Toralf, the depressed, drugged-up bastard, had done exactly what it looked like he’d done: he’d shot himself.
I had no principles. No money. But neither did I have b
lood on my hands.
Not yet.
A bonus of thirty thousand.
That was a start. A good start.
I jerked awake. The midge bites were weeping and sticking to the wool blanket. But that wasn’t what had woken me. A plaintive howl had broken the silence out on the plateau.
A wolf? I thought they howled at the moon, in winter, not at the fucking sun that just hung there in the burned-out, colourless sky. It was probably a dog: the Sámi used them to herd reindeer, didn’t they?
I rolled over in the narrow bunk, forgetting my bad shoulder, swore, and rolled back. The howl sounded as though it was a long way away, but who knows? In the summer sound is supposed to move more slowly, doesn’t carry as far as it does in winter. Maybe the beast was just round the corner.
I closed my eyes, but knew I wasn’t going to get back to sleep.
So I got up, grabbed the binoculars and went over to one of the windows and scanned the horizon.
Nothing.
Just tick-tock, tick-tock.
CHAPTER 4
KNUT BROUGHT SOME shiny, sticky, stinking midge oil which could well have been napalm. Plus two unmarked bottles with cork stoppers containing a bright stinking liquid which was definitely napalm. The morning had brought no respite from the relentless sun, as well as a wind that whistled in the stovepipe. The shadows of tiny clouds slid across the desolate, monotonous, rolling landscape like flocks of reindeer, momentarily colouring the pale green stretches of vegetation a darker shade, swallowing the reflections from the small pools in the distance and the shimmer of the minute crystals where the rocks lay bare. Like a sudden deep bass note in an otherwise bright song. Either way, it was still in a minor key.
‘Mum says you’re very welcome to join our congregation in the prayer house,’ the boy said. He was sitting opposite me at the table.
‘Really?’ I said, running my hand over one of the bottles. I’d put the cork back in without tasting it. Foreplay. You had to drag it out, that made it even better. Or worse.
‘She thinks you can be saved.’
‘But you don’t?’
‘I don’t think you want to be saved.’
I stood up and went over to the window. The reindeer buck was back. When I saw it earlier that morning I realised that I felt relieved. Wolves. They’d been wiped out in Norway, hadn’t they?
‘My grandfather drew churches,’ I said. ‘He used to be an architect. But he didn’t believe in God. He said that when we died, we died. I’m more inclined to believe that.’
‘He didn’t believe in Jesus either?’
‘If he didn’t believe in God, he was hardly going to believe in his son, Knut.’
‘I get it.’
‘You get it. So?’
‘So he’ll burn in hell.’
‘Hmmmm. In that case he’s been burning for a while, because he died when I was nineteen. Don’t you think that’s a bit unfair? Basse was a good man, he gave a helping hand to people who needed it, which is more than you can say about a lot of Christians I’ve known. If I could be half as good a man as my grandfather . . .’
I blinked. My eyes were stinging and I could see little white dots floating in front of them. Was all this sunlight burning holes in my retinas, was I going snow-blind now, in the middle of the summer?
‘Grandpa says doing good deeds doesn’t help, Ulf. Your grandfather’s burning now, and soon it’ll be your turn.’
‘Hmm. But you’re saying that if I go to the meeting and say yes to Jesus and this Læstadius, I’ll get to paradise even if I do sod all to help anyone else?’
The boy scratched his red hair. ‘Yeees. Well, if you say yes to the Lyngen branch.’
‘There’s more than one branch?’
‘There are the Firstborns in Alta, and the Lundbergians in South Tromsø, and the Old Læstadians in America, and—’
‘And they’re all going to burn?’
‘Grandpa says they will.’
‘Sounds like there’s going to be plenty of room in paradise. Have you thought about what would happen if you and I had switched grandfathers? Then you’d have been an atheist and me a Læstadian. And then you’d be the one who’d burn in hell.’
‘Maybe. But fortunately you’re the one who’s going to burn, Ulf.’
I sighed. There was something so settled about the landscape here. As if nothing was going to happen, or could ever happen, as if lack of change was its natural state.
‘Ulf?’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you miss your father?’
‘No.’
Knut stopped. ‘Wasn’t he nice?’
‘I think he was. But we’re good at forgetting when we’re children.’
‘Is that allowed?’ he asked in a quiet voice. ‘Not missing your father?’
I looked at him. ‘I think so,’ I yawned. My shoulder ached. I needed a drink.
‘Are you really completely alone, Ulf? Haven’t you got anyone?’
I thought for a moment. I actually had to do that, think about it. Dear God.
I shook my head.
‘Guess who I’m thinking about, Ulf.’
‘Your father and grandpa?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking about Ristiinna.’
I didn’t bother asking how he thought I might be able to guess that. My tongue felt like a dried-out sponge, but that drink would have to wait until he’d finished talking and left. He’d even given me some of the money back. ‘So who’s Ristiinna?’
‘She’s in year five. She’s got long, golden hair. She’s at summer camp in Kautokeino. We were supposed to be there too.’
‘What sort of camp is it?’
‘Just a camp.’
‘And what do you do there?’
‘Us kids play. When there aren’t meetings and sermons, I mean. But now Roger will ask if Ristiinna wants to be his girlfriend. And they might kiss.’
‘Isn’t kissing a sin, then?’
He tilted his head. Screwed one eye up. ‘I don’t know. Before she left I told her I loved her.’
‘You said you loved her, straight out?’
‘Yes.’ He leaned forward and said in a breathy voice with a faraway look in his eyes: ‘I love you, Ristiinna.’ Then he looked up at me again. ‘Was that wrong?’
I smiled. ‘Not really. What did she say?’
‘Okay.’
‘She said “okay”?’
‘Yes. What do you think that means, Ulf?’
‘Well, who knows? Obviously it might mean that it was all a bit much for her. “Love” is a pretty big word. But it might mean that she wants to think about it.’
‘Do you think I’m in with a chance?’
‘Definitely.’
‘Even if I’ve got a scar?’
‘What scar?’
He lifted the plaster on his forehead. The pale skin underneath still showed signs of stitches.
‘What happened?’
‘I fell down the stairs.’
‘Tell her you had a fight with a buck, that you were fighting for territory. And that you won, obviously.’
‘Are you stupid? She won’t believe that!’
‘No, because it’s only a joke. Girls like boys who can tell jokes.’
He bit his top lip. ‘You’re not lying, are you, Ulf?’
‘Okay, listen. If it turns out that you’re not in with a chance with this particular Ristiinna this particular summer, there’ll be other Ristiinnas and other summers. You’re going to have loads of girls.’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’ I looked him up and down. Was he small for his age? He was certainly bright for someone his size. Red hair and freckles might not be a winning combination with women, but fashions like that came and went. ‘If you ask me, you’re Finnmark’s answer to Mick Jagger.’
‘Huh?’
‘James Bond.’
He looked blankly at me.
‘Paul McCartney?’ I tried. No reaction. ‘The Beatles. She loves
you, yeah, yeah, yeah.’
‘You’re not very good at singing, Ulf.’
‘True.’ I opened the stove door, poked a damp cloth inside, then rubbed the moist ash on the shiny, worn sights of the rifle. ‘Why aren’t you at summer camp?’
‘Dad’s fishing for pollock, we’ve got to wait for him.’
There was something, a twitch at the corner of his mouth, something that didn’t make sense. Something I decided not to ask about. I looked along the sights. With a bit of luck, now the sun wouldn’t reflect off it and give away my location as I took aim at them when they came.
‘Let’s go outside,’ I said.
The wind had blown the midges away, and we sat in the sunshine. The buck moved further off when we came out. Knut had his knife with him, and sat there sharpening a stick.
‘Ulf?’
‘You don’t have to say my name every time you want to ask something.’
‘Okay. But Ulf?’
‘Yes?’
‘Are you going to get drunk when I’ve gone?’
‘No,’ I lied.
‘Good.’
‘Are you worried about me?’
‘I just think it’s a bit stupid that you’re going to end up—’
‘Burning in hell?’
He laughed. Then held the stick up as he tried to whistle through his teeth.
‘Ulf?’
I sighed wearily. ‘Yes?’
‘Have you robbed a bank?’
‘What on earth makes you think that?’
‘All the money you’ve got on you.’
I pulled out my cigarettes. Fumbled slightly with the packet. ‘Travelling’s expensive,’ I said. ‘And I haven’t got a chequebook.’
‘And the pistol in your jacket pocket.’
I peered at him as I tried to light a cigarette, but the wind blew the flame out. So the boy had searched my jacket before he woke me in the church.