by Jo Nesbo
‘You have to be careful when you’ve got cash and no chequebook.’
‘Ulf?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re not very good at lying either.’
I laughed. ‘What’s that stick going to be?’
‘A thole pin,’ he said, and carried on whittling.
It was much more peaceful once the boy had gone. Obviously. But I wouldn’t have minded if he’d stayed a bit longer. Because I had to admit that he had a certain entertainment value.
I sat and dozed. I screwed up my eyes and saw that the buck had come closer again. It must have got used to me. It looked so lonely. You’d think reindeer ought to be fat at this time of year, but this one was skinny. Skinny, grey, and with pointlessly large antlers that had probably got it some females in the past, but now looked as if they were mostly just in the way.
The buck was so close that I could hear it chewing. It raised its head and looked at me. Well, towards me. Reindeer have bad eyesight. They rely on their sense of smell. It could smell me.
I shut my eyes.
How long ago was it now? Two years? One? The guy I was supposed to fix was called Gustavo, and I struck at dawn. He lived alone in a small, forsaken wooden house squeezed in between the tenement blocks of Homansbyen. Some fresh snow had fallen, but it was supposed to get milder during the day, and I remember thinking that my footprints would melt away.
I rang the doorbell, and when he opened up I held the pistol to his forehead. He backed away and I followed him. I shut the door behind us. The house smelled of smoke and cooking fat. The Fisherman had told me he’d recently found out that Gustavo, who was one of his permanent street-dealers, had been stealing money and dope. My job was to shoot him, plain and simple. And if I had done so there and then, things would have been very different. But I made two mistakes: I looked at his face. And I let him talk.
‘Are you going to shoot me?’
‘Yes,’ I said. Instead of firing. He had brown, puppy-dog eyes, and a wispy moustache that drooped sadly on either side of his mouth.
‘How much is the Fisherman paying you?’
‘Enough.’ I squeezed the trigger. One of his eyeballs quivered. He yawned. I’ve heard that dogs yawn when they’re nervous. But the trigger didn’t work. Wrong, my finger didn’t work. Fucking hell. In the hallway behind him I saw a shelf with a pair of mittens and a blue woollen hat on it.
‘Put the hat on,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘The woolly hat. Pull it down over your face. Now. Otherwise . . .’
He did as I said. Became a soft, blue doll’s head with no features. He still looked pathetic as he stood there with his little pot belly under his Esso T-shirt and his arms hanging limply by his sides. But I thought I could do this. As long as I didn’t have to see their faces. I took aim at the hat.
‘We can share.’ I saw his mouth move behind the wool.
I fired. I was sure I’d fired. But I couldn’t have done, because I could still hear his voice:
‘If you let me go, you can have half the money and amphetamines. That’s ninety thousand in cash alone. And the Fisherman will never find out, because I’ll disappear for good. Go abroad, get myself a new identity. I swear.’
The brain is a strange and wonderful thing. While one part of my brain knew that this was an idiotic, lethal idea, another part was thinking hard about it. Ninety thousand. Plus the bonus of thirty thousand. And I wouldn’t have to shoot the guy.
‘If you ever show up again, I’m finished,’ I said.
‘We’d both be finished,’ he said. ‘You can have the money belt into the bargain.’
Fuck.
‘The Fisherman’s expecting a body.’
‘Say you had to get rid of it.’
‘Why would I have to do that?’
Silence under the hat. For two seconds. ‘Because it held incriminating evidence against you. You were expecting to shoot me straight through the head, but the bullet didn’t come out again. That fits with the little pea-shooter you’ve got there. The bullet got stuck inside my head, and the bullet could link you to the murder because you used that pea-shooter in another shooting. So you had to stick my body in your car and dump it in Bunnefjorden.’
‘I haven’t got a car.’
‘You took my car, then. We can leave it at Bunnefjorden. You’ve got a licence?’
I nodded. Then realised he couldn’t see. And realised what a bad idea this was. I raised the pistol again. Too late, he’d pulled off the hat and was grinning at me. Animated eyes. A gold tooth glinted.
In hindsight it’s easy to ask why I didn’t just shoot Gustavo in the cellar after he’d given me the money and drugs that were buried in the coal bin. I could have just switched out the light and fired off a shot to the back of his head. Then the Fisherman would have had his body, I wouldn’t just have half but all of the money, and I wouldn’t have been left wondering when Gustavo was going to show up again. It should have been a simple calculation for a wonderful brain. And it was. The problem was that it was worth more to me not to have to put a bullet in his head. And I knew he was going to need half the money to get away and stay hidden. When it comes down to it, I’m just a pathetic, weak fool who deserves all the crap fate has thrown at me.
But Anna didn’t deserve it.
Anna deserved better.
She deserved a chance to live.
A clicking sound.
I opened my eyes. The buck was running off.
Someone was coming.
CHAPTER 5
I SAW HIM through the binoculars.
He had a rolling gait, and he was so short and bow-legged that the heather brushed his crotch.
I lowered the rifle.
When he reached the cabin he pulled off his joker’s hat and wiped away the sweat. Grinned.
‘An ice-cold viidna would be good right now.’
‘I’m afraid I haven’t—’
‘Sámi aquavit. Distilled by the best. You’ve got two bottles.’
I shrugged my shoulders and we went inside. I opened one of the bottles. Poured clear, room-temperature liquid into the two cups.
‘Cheers,’ Mattis said, raising one of them.
I said nothing, and merely gulped the poison down.
He quickly followed my example. Wiped his mouth. ‘Ah, that was good.’ He held his cup out.
I filled it. ‘Did you follow Knut?’
‘I knew the viidna wasn’t for his father, so I had to make sure the lad wasn’t thinking of drinking it himself. You have to show a bit of responsibility.’ He grinned, and a brown liquid dribbled down from behind his top lip and over his yellow front teeth. ‘So this is where you’re staying.’
I nodded.
‘How’s the hunting going?’
I shrugged. ‘Not many grouse about when it’s been such a bad year for mice and lemmings.’
‘You’ve got a rifle. And there are plenty of wild reindeer in Finnmark.’
I took a gulp from the cup. It really did taste terrible, even if the first drink had numbed my tastebuds.
‘I’ve been thinking, Ulf. About what a man like you is doing in a little cabin in Kåsund. You’re not hunting. You haven’t come for peace and quiet, or you would have said so. So what is it?’
‘What do you think the weather’s going to do?’ I refilled his cup. ‘More wind? Less sun?’
‘Forgive me asking, but you’re on the run from someone. The police? Or do you owe someone money?’
I yawned. ‘How did you know the drink wasn’t for Knut’s father?’
A frown appeared on his broad, low forehead. ‘Hugo?’
‘I could smell his workroom. He’s not teetotal.’
‘You’ve been in his room? Did Lea let you inside the house?’
Lea. Her name was Lea.
‘You, an unbeliever? Now that—’ He suddenly broke off, his face cracked into a smile, and he leaned forward with a laugh as he slapped me on my bad shoulder. ‘That’s i
t! Women! You’re one of those, a horny fucker. You’ve got a married man after you, haven’t you?’
I rubbed my shoulder. ‘How did you know?’
Mattis pointed at his narrow, slanted eyes. ‘We Sámi are children of the earth, you know. You Norwegians follow the path of reason, whereas we’re just foolish shamans who don’t understand, but we sense things, we see.’
‘Lea just lent me this rifle,’ I said. ‘Until her husband comes back from fishing.’
Mattis looked at me. His jaw was going up and down in a grinding semicircle. He took a tiny sip from the cup. ‘In that case you can keep hold of it for a good while.’
‘Oh?’
‘You were wondering how I knew the drink wasn’t for Hugo. That’s because he’s not coming home from fishing.’ Another little sip. ‘Word came through this morning that they’d found his life jacket.’ He looked up at me. ‘Lea didn’t mention it? No, I don’t suppose she would have. The parish has been praying for Hugo for the past fortnight. They – the Læstadians – think that means he’ll be saved, no matter how bad the weather has been out at sea. Anything else would be sacrilegious.’
I nodded. So that’s what Knut had meant when he told me his mother was lying when she said he didn’t have to worry about his father.
‘But now they’re let off,’ Mattis said. ‘Now they can say that God has sent them a sign.’
‘So the coastguards found his life jacket this morning?’
‘The coastguards?’ Mattis laughed. ‘No, they stopped looking more than a week ago. Another fisherman found the life jacket in the water west of Hvassøya.’ He looked and saw the questioning expression on my face. ‘The fishermen write their names on the inside of their life jackets. Life jackets float better than fishermen. That way the next of kin get to know for certain.’
‘Tragic,’ I said.
He stared out into space with a distracted look. ‘Oh, there are plenty worse tragedies than being Hugo Eliassen’s widow.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Who knows?’ He looked pointedly at his empty cup. I don’t know why he was so eager to drink, he must have had crates of the stuff at home. Maybe the raw materials were expensive. I filled his cup. He moistened his lips with the drink.
‘Pardon me,’ he said, and let out a fart. ‘Well, the Eliassen brothers were real hotheads even when they were young. They learned to fight early. They learned to drink early. And they learned how to get what they wanted early. And they learned all this from their father, of course, he had two boats and eight men working on them. And Lea was the prettiest young girl in Kåsund back then, with her long black hair and those eyes. Even with that scar. Her father, Jakob the pastor, watched her like a hawk. You know, if a Læstadian fucks outside of marriage, it’s straight to hell with the lot of them, boy, girl and offspring. Not that Lea didn’t know how to look after herself. She’s strong, and she knows what she wants. But obviously, against Hugo Eliassen . . .’ He sighed deeply. Turned the cup in his hands.
I waited until I realised he was expecting me to prompt him. ‘What happened?’
‘No one but the two of them really knows. But all the same, it was a bit odd. She was eighteen years old and had never given him a second glance, he was twenty-four and furious, because he thought she ought to worship the ground he walked on, seeing as he was heir to a couple of fishing boats. There was a drunken party at the Eliassens’, and a prayer meeting in the Læstadians’ hall. Lea walked home alone. It was during the dark season, so no one saw anything, but someone said they heard Lea and Hugo’s voices, then there was a scream, followed by silence. And a month later Hugo was standing at the altar dressed up to the nines, watching Jakob Sara, who was walking his daughter down the aisle with an icy expression. She had tears in her eyes and bruises on her neck and cheek. And I have to say, that was the last time anyone saw bruises on her.’ He drained his cup and got to his feet. ‘But what do I know, I’m just a wretched Sámi, maybe they were happy the whole way through. Someone must end up happy, because people are always getting married. And that’s why I need to be getting home, because I’ve got to deliver the drink for the wedding in Kåsund in three days’ time. Are you going?’
‘Me? I’m afraid I haven’t been invited.’
‘No one needs an invitation, everyone’s welcome here. Have you been to a Sámi wedding before?’
I shook my head.
‘Then you ought to come. A party lasting three days, if not longer. Good food, randy women and Mattis’s drink.’
‘Thanks, but I’ve got a lot I need to get done here.’
‘Here?’ He chuckled and put his hat on. ‘You’ll end up coming, Ulf. Three days alone on the plateau is lonelier than you think. The stillness does something to you, especially to someone who’s been living in Oslo for a few years.’
It struck me that he knew what he was talking about. Leaving aside the fact that I couldn’t remember ever telling him where I was from.
When we went outside the buck was standing just ten metres away from the cabin. It raised its head and looked at me. Then it was as if it realised how close I was, backed up a couple of steps, then turned and lumbered off.
‘Didn’t you say the reindeer up here were tame?’ I said.
‘No reindeer’s completely tame,’ Mattis said. ‘But even that one has an owner. The mark on its ear tells you who stole it.’
‘What’s that clicking sound it makes when it runs?’
‘That’s the tendons in its knees. Good alarm if the married man shows up, eh?’ He laughed out loud.
I have to admit that the same thought had occurred to me: the buck was a good watchdog.
‘See you at the wedding, Ulf. The ceremony’s at ten o’clock, and I can guarantee that it’ll be beautiful.’
‘Thanks, but I don’t think so.’
‘Okay, then. Goodbye, good day and farewell. And if you’re going anywhere, I wish you a safe trip.’ He spat. The lump was so heavy that the heather sank beneath it. He carried on chuckling to himself as he rolled away in the direction of the village. ‘And if you get ill –’ he called over his shoulder – ‘I wish you a speedy recovery.’
CHAPTER 6
TICK-TOCK, TICK-TOCK.
I stared at the horizon. Mostly in the direction of Kåsund. But they might take the long way round, through the woods, and attack me from the rear.
I only let myself have little shots, but even so I finished the first bottle during the course of the first day. I managed to wait partway into the next day before opening the second one.
My eyes were stinging worse now. When I eventually lay down on the bed and closed my eyes, I told myself that I would hear the reindeer’s knee tendons if anyone approached.
Instead I heard church bells.
At first I couldn’t work out what it was. It was carried on the wind, a thin remnant of a sound. But then – when the gentle breeze was blowing steadily from the village – I heard it more clearly. Bells ringing. I looked at the time. Eleven. Did that mean it was Sunday? I decided it was, and that I would keep track of what day it was from now on. Because they would come on a weekday. On a working day.
I kept drifting off to sleep. I couldn’t help it. It was like being alone on a boat on the open sea – you fall asleep and just hope you don’t hit anything or capsize. Maybe that’s why I dreamed I was rowing a boat full of fish. Fish that would save Anna. I was in a hurry, but the wind was blowing off the land, and I rowed and rowed, pulled at the oars until I wore the skin off my hands and the blood meant I couldn’t grip them properly, so I ripped my shirt up and wound strips of fabric round the oars. I fought against the wind and current, but I was getting no closer to land. So what good was it that the boat was full to the gunwales with lovely fat fish?
The third night. I woke up wondering if the howling I had heard was a dream or reality. Either way, the dog, or whatever it was, was closer. I went out for a pee and looked at the sun as it shuffled over the clump of trees
. More of the disc was behind the thin treetops than yesterday.
I had a drink and managed to fall asleep for another couple of hours.
I got up, made coffee, buttered a slice of bread and went and sat outside. I don’t know if it was the oil or the alcohol in my blood, but the midges had finally got fed up of me. I tried to entice the buck to come closer with a crust of bread. I looked at it through the binoculars. It raised its head and was looking back at me. Presumably it could smell me as well as I could see it. I waved. Its ears twitched, but apart from that its expression remained unchanged. Like the landscape. Its jaws kept churning like a cement mixer. A ruminant. Like Mattis.
I searched along the horizon with the binoculars. I smeared damp ash on the lens of the rifle. I looked at the time. Maybe they would wait until it was darker so that they could creep up on me unseen. I had to sleep. I had to get hold of some Valium.
He came to the door at half past six one morning.
The doorbell almost didn’t wake me up. Valium and earplugs. And pyjamas. All year round. The useless old single-glazed windows in the flat let everything in: autumn storms, winter cold, birdsong and the sound of that bastard bin lorry which backed up into the entrance to the courtyard three days a week – right under my bedroom window on the first floor, in other words.
God knows, I had enough in that damn money belt to get proper double glazing, or move one floor higher up, but all the money in the world couldn’t bring back what I’d lost. And since the funeral I hadn’t managed to do anything. Apart from changing the lock. I’d installed a fuck-off great German lock. There had never been a break-in here before, but God knows why not.
He looked like a boy dressed up in one of his dad’s suits. A scrawny neck stuck up above his shirt, topped by a big head with a wispy fringe.
‘Yes?’
‘The Fisherman’s sent me.’
‘Okay.’ I felt myself go cold, despite the pyjamas. ‘And who are you?’
‘I’m new, my name’s Johnny Moe.’
‘Okay, Johnny. You could have waited until nine o’clock, then you’d have found me in the back room at the shop. Dressed and everything.’