by Jo Nesbo
‘Mm.’
‘Last time, he brought me a piece of jewellery. Do you want to see it?’
Beate looked at the old lady. And suddenly she felt how tired she was, tired of the job, of the Courier Killer, of Tom Waaler and Harry Hole, of Olaug Sivertsen and, most of all, of herself, the noble, dutiful Beate Lønn who thought she could achieve something, make a difference, if she was a good girl, good and bright with it, bright and always doing what other people wanted her to do. It was time for a change, but she didn’t know whether she could carry it through. Most of all she just wanted to go home, hide under the duvet and sleep.
‘You’re right,’ Olaug said. ‘There’s not much to see, anyway. More tea?’
‘Please.’
Olaug was just going to pour out the tea when she saw that Beate was holding her hand over her cup.
‘Sorry,’ Beate said laughing. ‘What I meant was that I would like to see it.’
‘What . . .’
‘See the piece of jewellery your son gave you.’
Olaug brightened up and went out of the kitchen.
Good girl, Beate thought. She lifted the cup to finish her tea. She would have to ring Harry and hear how it had gone.
‘Here it is,’ Olaug said.
Beate Lønn’s teacup, that is, Olaug Sivertsen’s teacup, or to be absolutely precise, the Wehrmacht teacup, stopped in mid-air.
Beate stared at a brooch – at the precious stone that was attached to the brooch.
‘Sven imports them,’ Olaug said. ‘I suppose they’re only cut in this special way in Prague.’
It was a diamond. In the shape of a pentagram.
Beate ran her tongue round her mouth to get rid of the dryness.
‘I have to ring someone,’ she said.
The dryness would not go.
‘Can you find me a photo of Sven in the meantime? Preferably an up-to-date one. It’s quite important.’
Olaug looked confused, but nodded.
Otto was breathing through an open mouth as he stared at the screen and registered the voices around him.
‘Possible target going into sector Bravo Two. Possible target stopped in front of the door. Ready, Bravo Two?’
‘Bravo Two ready.’
‘Target stationary. He’s putting his hand in his pocket. Possible weapon. We can’t see his hand.’
Waaler’s voice: ‘Now.’
‘Into action, Bravo Two.’
‘Strange,’ mumbled the bouncer.
Marius Veland thought at first he was hearing things and turned down Violent Femmes to be sure. There it was again. Someone was knocking at the door. Who on earth could that be? As far as he knew, everyone in the corridor had gone home for the summer. Not Shirley, though. He had seen her on the stairs. He had stopped to ask her if she would go with him to a concert. Or a film. Or a play. Free. She could choose.
Marius got up and noticed that his hands were sweating. Why? There was no sensible reason for it to be her. He cast a sweeping glance around the room and realised that he had never actually looked at it until now. He didn’t have enough things for the room to be in a real mess. The walls were bare except for a ripped poster of Iggy Pop and a sad-looking bookshelf that would soon be full of free CDs and DVDs. It was an awful room, completely without character. There was another knock. He hastily prodded a flap from his duvet sticking out of the back of the sofa bed. He opened the door. It couldn’t be her. It couldn’t be . . . It wasn’t her.
‘Mr Veland?’
‘Yes?’
Taken aback, Marius stared at the man.
‘I’ve got a package for you.’
The man took off his rucksack, pulled out an A4 envelope and passed it over. Marius held the stamped white envelope in his hand. There was no name written on it.
‘Are you sure it’s for me?’ he asked.
‘Yes. I need a receipt . . .’
The man held out a clipboard with a sheet of paper on.
Marius looked at him enquiringly.
‘Sorry. You wouldn’t have a pen, would you?’ the man smiled.
Marius stared at him again. Something was not right, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
‘Just a moment,’ Marius said.
He took the envelope with him, put it on the shelf beside the bunch of keys with the skull on, found a pen in a drawer and turned round. Marius recoiled when he saw that the man was already standing in the dark passage behind him.
‘I didn’t hear you,’ Marius said and heard his own laughter nervously rebound off the walls.
It wasn’t that he was frightened. Where he came from people generally walked in so as not to let the heat out, or to let the cold in. There was something strange about this man, though. He had taken off his goggles and helmet and now Marius could see what it was that had made him start. He seemed too old. Bike couriers were usually in their twenties. This guy’s body was slim and in good shape. It could pass for a young man’s. But the face belonged to someone well into his thirties, maybe into his forties even.
Marius was about to say something when he spotted what the courier was holding in his hand. The room was bright, but the hallway was dark and Marius Veland had seen enough films to recognise the contours of a gun with a silencer on the end of it.
‘Is that for me?’ Marius floundered.
The man smiled and pointed the gun at him. At his face. Then Marius knew that he should be afraid.
‘Sit down,’ the man said. ‘You’ve got a pen. Open the envelope.’
Marius dropped into a chair.
‘You have some writing to do,’ the man said.
‘Well done, Bravo Two!’
Falkeid shouted, his face red and shiny.
Otto was breathing through his nose. On the screen the man was lying on his stomach on the floor in front of room 205, with his wrists handcuffed behind his back. And best of all, he was lying with his face twisted towards the camera so that you could see the surprise, see it contort in pain, see the defeat slowly sink in for the bastard. It was a scoop. No, it was more than that, it was a historic recording. The dramatic climax to the bloody summer in Oslo: the arrest of the Courier Killer on his way to committing his fourth murder. The whole world will be fighting to show it. My God, he, Otto Tangen, was a rich man. No more 7-Eleven shit, no more of that bastard Waaler, he could buy . . . he could . . . Aud-Rita and he could . . .
‘It’s not him,’ the doorman said.
The bus went quiet.
Waaler leaned forward in his chair.
‘What’s that, Harry?’
‘It’s not him, 205 is one of the rooms we didn’t have any luck with. According to the room list I have here, his name is Odd Einar Lillebostad. It’s difficult to see what the guy on the floor is holding in his hand, but it looks to me as though it could be a key. Sorry, guys, but my guess is that Odd Einar Lillebostad has just returned home.’
Otto stared at the picture. He had equipment worth over a million kroner in the bus, bought and borrowed equipment that could focus on the hand and magnify it easy as wink to see if that bastard doorman was right. But he didn’t need to. The branch in the apple tree was cracking. He could see the light in the windows from the garden. The tin can crackled.
‘Bravo Two to Alpha. According to his bank card, this guy’s name is Odd Einar Lillebostad.’
Otto slumped back in his chair.
‘Relax, folks,’ Waaler said. ‘He may still come. Isn’t that right, Harry?’
That bastard Harry didn’t answer. Instead his mobile phone bleeped.
Marius Veland stared at the two blank pieces of paper he had taken out of the envelope.
‘Who are your next of kin?’ the man asked.
Marius gulped and wanted to answer, but his voice would not obey.
‘I’m not going to kill you,’ the man said. ‘So long as you do what I say.’
‘Mum and Dad,’ Marius whispered. It sounded like a pathetic SOS.
The man told
him to write his parents’ names and address on the envelope. Marius put pen to paper. The names. The familiar names. And Bjøford. He stared at the writing afterwards. So crooked and shaky.
The man began to dictate a letter. Marius moved his hand compliantly across the page.
‘Hi! Sudden change of plans! I’m off to Morocco with Georg, a Moroccan boy I’ve met here. We’re going to stay with his mother and father in a little mountain village called Hassane. I’ll be away for four weeks. Probably difficult to get a signal, but I’ll try to write, though Georg says the post is a bit iffy. Anyway, I’ll get in touch as soon as I’m back, love . . .’
‘Marius,’ said Marius.
‘Marius.’
The man told Marius to put the letter in the envelope and then in the bag he held in front of him.
‘On the other piece of paper just write “Gone abroad. Back in four weeks”. Sign it with the day’s date and Marius. That’s it, thank you.’
Marius sat in the chair contemplating his lap. The man was standing directly behind him. A puff of wind made the curtain sway. The birds were twittering hysterically outside. The man leaned forwards and closed the window. Now there was only the low hum of the combined radio and CD player on the bookshelf.
‘What’s the song?’ the man asked.
‘“Blister In The Sun”,’ Marius said. He had pressed ‘repeat’. He liked it. He would have given it a good review. A warmly ironic, inclusive review.
‘I’ve heard it before,’ the man said, found the volume knob and turned it up. ‘I just can’t remember where.’
Marius lifted his head and gazed out of the window, at the summer that had gone mute, at the birch tree that seemed to be waving farewell, at the green lawn. In the reflection he saw the man behind him raise the gun and point it at the back of his head.
‘Go wild!’ came the squeal from the small loudspeakers.
The man lowered the gun again.
‘Sorry. Forgot to release the safety catch. That’s it.’
Marius squeezed his eyes shut. Shirley. He thought about her. Where was she now?
‘Now I remember,’ the man said. ‘It was in Prague. They’re called Violent Femmes, I think. My wife took me to a concert. They’re not very good, are they?’
Marius opened his mouth to answer, but at that moment the gun gave a dry cough and no-one ever found out what Marius thought about Violent Femmes.
Otto kept his eyes on the screens. Behind him, Falkeid was speaking the bandit lingo with Bravo Two. That bastard Harry answered the bleeping mobile phone. He didn’t say a lot. Probably some ugly dame who wants to get laid, Otto thought, and pricked up his ears.
Waaler didn’t say anything, just sat biting his knuckles with a blank face as he watched Odd Einar Lillebostad being led away. No handcuffs. No real cause for suspicion. No bloody nothing.
Otto kept his eyes on the screens. He had the feeling he was sitting beside a nuclear reactor. On the outside there was nothing to see, on the inside it was seething with stuff you wouldn’t want to touch with a barge pole for anything in the world. Eyes on the screens.
Falkeid said ‘over and out’ and put the jabber thingy down. That bastard Harry was still feeding her monosyllables.
‘He’s not coming,’ Waaler said, his eyes on the pictures showing empty corridors and stairs.
‘Still early days,’ Falkeid said.
Waaler slowly shook his head. ‘He knows we’re here. I can feel it in my bones. He’s sitting somewhere laughing at us.’
In a tree in the garden, Otto thought.
Waaler got up.
‘Let’s just pack everything up, boys. The theory about the pentagram won’t hold. We’ll start from scratch again tomorrow.’
‘The theory holds.’
The other three turned towards that Harry bastard who slipped his mobile phone into his pocket.
‘His name is Sven Sivertsen,’ he said. ‘Norwegian national living in Prague, born in Oslo in 1946, but looks a lot younger, according to our colleague Beate Lønn. He’s been done twice for smuggling. He gave his mother a diamond which is identical to the ones we’ve found on the bodies. His mother says he’s been in Oslo to visit her on all the days in question. In Villa Valle.’
Otto saw Waaler’s face stiffen and blanch.
‘His mother,’ Waaler almost whispered. ‘In the house the last point of the star was pointing to?’
‘Yes,’ that bastard Harry said. ‘And now she’s waiting for a visit from him. This evening. A car with reinforcements is already on its way to Schweigaards gate. I’ve got my car here in the street.’
He got up from his chair. Waaler was rubbing his chin.
‘We have to regroup,’ Falkeid said, grabbing the walkie-talkie.
‘Wait!’ Waaler shouted. ‘Nobody does anything until I say.’
The others looked at him expectantly. Waaler closed his eyes. Two seconds passed. Then he opened them again.
‘Stop the car before it gets there, Harry. I don’t want a police car within a kilometre’s radius of that house. If he gets wind of the slightest danger, we’ve had it. I know a few things about smugglers from Eastern Europe. They always – always – make sure they have a way out. And another thing is that when you’ve lost them, you never find them again. Falkeid, you and your boys stay here and continue with the job until you hear otherwise.’
‘But you yourself said that he wasn’t –’
‘Do as I say. This may be the only chance we get, and since it’s my head on the block, I’d like to deal with this personally. Harry, you take charge here. OK?’
Otto saw the Harry bastard staring at Waaler, but in a vacant sort of way.
‘OK?’ Waaler repeated.
‘Fine,’ the bastard said.
28
Saturday. The Dildo.
Olaug Sivertsen watched Beate with big red eyes as Beate checked that she had bullets in all the chambers of her revolver.
‘My Sven? Goodness me, they have to understand they’re making a mistake! Sven wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
Beate clicked the drum of her revolver into place and went over to the kitchen window with the view out onto the car park in Schweigaards gate.
‘Let’s hope so. But to find out, first we have to arrest him.’
Beate’s heart was beating fast, but not too fast. Her fatigue vanished and was replaced by a feeling of lightness and centredness, almost as if she had been taking some kind of drug. It was her father’s old service revolver. Once she had heard him say to a colleague that you should never rely on a single-shot handgun.
‘He didn’t say what time he was coming here?’
Olaug shook her head.
‘There were a few things he had to sort out, he said.’
‘Has he got a key to the front door?’
‘No.’
‘Good. Then –’
‘I don’t usually lock it if I know he’s coming.’
‘Isn’t the door locked?’
Beate could feel the blood rushing to her head and her voice became sharp and jagged. She didn’t know who she was angrier with, the old lady who had been given police protection, but left the door open so that her son could walk right in, or herself for not having checked such an elementary thing.
She breathed in to make her voice calmer.
‘I want you to sit here, Olaug. Then I’ll go out into the hall and –’
‘Hi!’
The voice came from behind Beate and her heart beat quickly, but not too quickly, as she swung round with her right arm outstretched and her thin white finger crooked round the taut, inert trigger. A figure filled the doorway to the hall. She hadn’t even heard him. There was good and good, and stupid and stupid.
‘Wow,’ the voice said with a chuckle.
Beate had his face in the sights. She hesitated for a fraction of a second before releasing the pressure on the trigger.
‘Who’s that?’ Olaug asked.
‘The cavalry, fru Siverts
en,’ the voice said. ‘Inspector Tom Waaler.’ He put out his hand and said, with a brief glance at Beate, ‘I took the liberty of locking your front door, fru Sivertsen.’
‘Where are the rest?’ Beate asked.
‘There is no rest. It’s just . . .’ Beate froze as Tom Waaler added with a smile, ‘. . . us two, sweetie.’
It was gone 8 p.m.
On the TV the newscaster warned that a cold front was on its way across England and that the heatwave would soon be over.
In a corridor in the Post House Roger Gjendem said to a colleague that the police had been conspicuously uncommunicative the last couple of days and his guess was that something was brewing. He had heard rumours that Special Forces had been mobilised and the head, Sivert Falkeid, had not returned one single call in the last two days. His colleague thought it was wishful thinking and the editorial desk agreed. The cold front became front-page news.
Bjarne Møller was sitting on the sofa watching Beat for Beat. He liked Ivar Dyrhaug. He liked his songs. And he didn’t care if some people at work thought it was dated and too homely. He liked the home atmosphere. And again it struck him that Norway must have so many talented singers who never made it into the spotlight. This evening, however, Møller couldn’t concentrate on the lyrics and the message; he merely stared blankly as his mind went over the update he had just received from Harry on the phone.
He checked his watch and glanced over to the telephone for the fifth time in half an hour. The agreement was that Harry would ring as soon as they had something new. And the Chief Superintendent had asked for a briefing as soon as the operation was concluded. Møller wondered whether the Chief had a TV in his log cabin and whether, right now, he was sitting, like him, watching a pop quiz with the answers in his mouth but his brain elsewhere.
Otto sucked on his cigarette, closed his eyes and saw the light in the windows, heard the wind rustling in the dry leaves and felt the sinking feeling when they drew the curtains. The other tin can had been thrown in the ditch. Nils had gone home.
Otto had run out of cigarettes, but he bummed one off that police bastard called Harry. Harry pulled out a packet of Camel Light from his pocket half an hour after Waaler had gone off. A good choice, except for the Light bit. Falkeid had glowered disapprovingly when they began to smoke, but he didn’t say anything. He glimpsed Sivert Falkeid’s face through the blue mist of smoke, which also cast a compensatory veil over the irritatingly static pictures of corridors and stairs.