Phantom hh-9

by Jo Nesbo

  They had tricked him into visiting Hole at Hotel Leon at midnight and then attacked.

  They had tried to get rid of him. Tried to burn the burner. But why? Because he knew too much? But he was a burner, wasn’t he. Burners do know too much, that goes without saying. He couldn’t understand. Hell! It didn’t matter why, he had to make sure he stayed alive.

  He was so cold and tired his bones ached, but he didn’t dare go home until it was light and he had checked the coast was clear. If he could get inside the door of his flat he had enough artillery to withstand a siege. He should have shot them both when he had the chance, but if they tried it on again they would see that it was not so bloody easy to nail Truls Berntsen.

  Truls got up. Brushed the fir needles off his clothes, shivered and slapped his arms against his chest. Looked up at the house again. Dawn was beginning to break. He thought of the other Ullas. Like the little dark number at the Watchtower. Martine. He had in fact thought he could get her. She worked with dangerous people, and he was someone who could protect her. But she had ignored him, and as usual he hadn’t had the guts to approach her and get the rejection over and done with. It was better to wait in hope, drag it out, torment yourself, see possible encouragement where less desperate men saw only universal friendliness. And then one day he had overheard someone say something to her, and he had realised she was pregnant. Bloody whore. They’re all whores. Like this girl Gusto Hanssen had used as a lookout. Whore, whore, whore. He hated these women. And the men who knew how to make these women love them.

  He jumped up and down slapping his arms around him, but knew he would never get the warmth back.

  Harry had gone back to Kvadraturen. Found a seat inside Postcafe. That was the one that opened earliest, four hours before Schroder’s, and he had to queue with beer-thirsty customers until he could buy himself something that would pass for breakfast.

  Rakel was his first call. He asked her to check Oleg’s inbox.

  ‘There’s something from Bellman,’ she said. ‘Looks like a list of addresses.’

  ‘OK,’ Harry said. ‘Forward it to Beate Lonn.’ He gave her the email address.

  Then he texted Beate, said the lists had been sent, and finished his breakfast. He moved to Gj?stgiveri in Stortorvet, and he had just been given a cup of well-percolated coffee when Beate rang.

  ‘I’ve compared the lists I copied directly from the patrol cars with the list you forwarded. What’s this list?’

  ‘It’s the list Bellman received and forwarded to me. I’d like to see if he’s been given a correct report or if it’s been doctored.’

  ‘I see. All the addresses I had from before are on the list you and Bellman received.’

  ‘Mm,’ Harry said. ‘Wasn’t there one patrol car you didn’t get a list from?’

  ‘What’s this about, Harry?’

  ‘It’s about me trying to get the burner to help us.’

  ‘Help us to do what?’

  ‘To point out the house where Dubai lives.’

  Pause.

  ‘I’ll see if I can get hold of the last list,’ Beate said.

  ‘Thanks. Talk to you later.’

  ‘Wait.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Aren’t you interested in the rest of the DNA profile of the blood under Gusto’s nail?’

  35

  It was summer, and I was the king of Oslo. I had half a kilo of violin in exchange for Irene and I had sold half on the street. It was supposed to be the starting capital for something big, a new network that would sweep the old boy off the court. First of all, though, the start had to be celebrated. I spent a tiny fraction of the sales money to buy myself a suit that matched the shoes I had been given by Isabelle Skoyen. I looked like a million dollars, and they didn’t raise an eyebrow when I went into the fricking Grand and asked for a suite. We stayed there. We were twenty-four-hour partygoers. Exactly who ‘we’ were varied somewhat, but it was summer, Oslo, women, boys, it was like the old days, though with slightly heavier medication. Even Oleg brightened up and was his old self for a while. It turned out I had more friends than I could remember, and the dope went faster than you would believe. We were kicked out of the Grand and went to the Christiania. Then to the Radisson, Holbergs plass.

  Of course it couldn’t last for ever, but what the fuck does?

  Once or twice I saw a black limousine on the opposite side of the street as I came out of the hotel, but there are lots of cars like that. However, this one didn’t go anywhere.

  And then came the inevitable day when the money ran out, and I had to sell more dope. I had made a stash in one of the broom closets on the floor below, inside the ceiling tiles, behind a bunch of electric cables. But either I must have shot my mouth off while I was high or else someone must have seen me going there. Because the stash had been cleaned out. And I had nothing in reserve.

  We were back to square one. Apart from the fact that there was no ‘we’ any more. It was time to check out. And inject the day’s first fix, which had to be bought on the street. But when I had to settle up for the room we’d had for more than two weeks I was fifteen thousand short.

  I took the only sensible course of action.

  I ran.

  Ran straight through the lobby onto the street, through the park towards the sea. No one followed me.

  Then I strolled down to Kvadraturen to do some shopping. There wasn’t an Arsenal player in sight, just hollow-eyed zonkers shuffling around on the lookout for a dealer. I talked to someone wanting to sell me meth. He said there hadn’t been any violin on the go for days, stocks had simply dried up. But there were rumours circulating that dopeheads were selling their last quarters of violin for five thousand kroner apiece in Plata, so that they could buy a week’s supply of horse.

  I didn’t have five sodding thousand of course, so I knew I was in trouble. Three alternatives: flog, con or nick.

  Flog first. But what did I actually have to flog, me who had even sold my foster-sister? I remembered. The Odessa. It was in the rehearsal room, and the Pakis in Kvadraturen would definitely fork out five thousand for a shooter that fired fricking salvos. So I jogged north, past the Opera House and Oslo Central. But it must have been burgled because there was a new padlock on the door and the amps had gone. Only the drums were left. I searched for the Odessa, but they must have taken that too. Bloody thieves.

  Con next. I hailed a taxi, directed it west, up to Blindern. The driver nagged me for money from the moment I got in, so he knew the score. I told him to pull in where the road ends by the railway lines, jumped out and dodged the driver by running over the footbridge. I ran up through Forskningsparken, ran even though no one was chasing me. Ran because I was in a hurry. Why, I didn’t know.

  I opened the gate, ran up the gravel path to the garage. Peered through the crack at the side of the iron curtain. The limousine was there. I knocked on the front door.

  Andrey opened. The old boy wasn’t at home, he said. I pointed to the neighbouring house behind the water tank, said he had to be there then, the limo was in the garage. He repeated that ataman was not at home. I said I needed money. He said he couldn’t help me and that I was never to come here again. I said I needed violin, just this once. He said there was no violin at the moment, Ibsen was short of some ingredient or other, I would have to wait a couple of weeks. I said I would be dead by then. I had to have either money or violin.

  Andrey was about to close the door, but I stuck out a foot.

  I said that if I didn’t get it I would tell people where he lived.

  Andrey looked at me.

  ‘Are you trying to get yourself killed?’ he said with that comical accent. ‘Remember Bisken?’

  I stuck out my hand. Said the cops would pay well to find out where Dubai and his flunkeys lived. Plus a bit more to find out what happened to Bisken. And they would fork out most if I told them about the dead undercover guy on the cellar floor.

  Andrey slowly shook his head.

  So I
told the Cossack bastard to passhol v’chorte, which I think is Russian for ‘go to hell’, and left.

  Felt his eyes on my back all the way to the gate.

  I had no idea why the old boy had let me get away with stealing the dope, as Oleg and I had done, but I knew I wouldn’t get away with this. I didn’t give a shit, though, I was at the end of my tether, all I heard were the hungry screams of my blood vessels.

  I walked up to the path behind Vestre Aker Church. Stood there watching some old ladies coming and going. Widows on the way to graves, their husbands’ and their own, carrying handbags groaning with cash. But I didn’t have it in me. Me, the Thief, stood quite still, sweating like a pig, scared to death by brittle-boned eighty-year-old women. It was enough to make you weep.

  It was Saturday, and I was going through the friends I had who might be willing to lend me money. Didn’t take long. None.

  Then it struck me who ought to lend me money at least. If he knew what was good for him.

  I sneaked onto the bus, travelled eastwards, back to the proper side of the river, and got off at Manglerud.

  This time Truls Berntsen was at home.

  He was standing in the doorway on the fifth floor of his block and heard me give him roughly the same ultimatum I had given in Blindernveien. If he didn’t dig deep for five big ones, I would let it be known that he had killed Tutu and buried his body afterwards.

  But Berntsen was cool. Asked me into his flat. He was sure we could come to some agreement, he said.

  But there was something all wrong about his eyes.

  So I didn’t budge and said there was nothing to discuss, either he coughed up or else I would grass on him for money. He said the police didn’t pay people to grass on officers. Five thousand was fine though, he said, we went way back, we were almost pals. Said he didn’t have much cash at home, so we would have to drive to an ATM, the car was down in the garage.

  I chewed on that one. Alarm bells were ringing, but the craving was a bloody nightmare, it shut out all sensible thoughts. So, even though I knew this was not good, I nodded.

  ‘So, you’ve got the final result, have you?’ Harry said, scanning the crowd in the cafe. No suspicious types. Or, to be more accurate, loads of suspicious types, but no one who could be presumed to be police.

  ‘Yes,’ Beate said.

  Harry shifted his grip on the phone. ‘I think I already know who clawed Gusto.’

  ‘Oh?’ There was surprise in Beate’s voice.

  ‘Yep. A man on a DNA register is usually a suspect or a convicted criminal or a policeman who might have contaminated a crime scene. In this case it’s the last. His name’s Truls Berntsen and he’s an officer with Orgkrim.’

  ‘How do you know it’s him?’

  ‘Well, the sum of things that have happened, you could say.’

  ‘Fine,’ Beate said. ‘I don’t doubt your reasoning is solid.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Harry said.

  ‘And yet you’re wrong,’ Beate said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The blood under Gusto’s nails doesn’t come from anyone called Berntsen.’

  But while I was standing in front of Truls Berntsen’s door — he had just gone to get the car keys — I looked down. At my shoes. Bloody fantastic shoes. Then I began to think about Isabelle Skoyen.

  She wasn’t dangerous like Berntsen was. And she was mad about me. Wasn’t she? Perhaps?

  Mad and a half.

  So before Berntsen returned I leapt down seven steps at a time and pressed the lift button on each floor.

  I jumped on the Metro for Oslo Central. At first I thought I should ring her, but changed my mind. She could always snub me on the phone, but never if I turned up in wonderful, drop-dead-gorgeous person. Saturday also meant her stable lad was off. Which in turn — since nags and pigs are pretty bad at getting food from the fridge — meant she was at home. So at Oslo Central I got into the season-ticket carriage on the Ostfold line as the journey to Rygge cost a hundred and four forty, which I still didn’t have. I walked from the station to the farm. It’s quite a distance. Especially if it starts raining. It started to rain.

  As I came into the yard I saw her car, one of those 4x4s people drive to barge their way through city-centre streets. I knocked at the farmhouse door. But no one opened it. I called, the echo resounding around the walls, but no one answered. She could of course have gone for a ride on a horse. Fine, I knew where she kept her cash, and out in the country people still didn’t always lock their doors. So I pressed the handle, and, yes, it was quite open.

  I was on my way up to the bedroom when suddenly there she was. Big, standing legs apart on the stairs, wearing a bathrobe.

  ‘What are you doing here, Gusto?’

  ‘I wanted to see you,’ I said, turning on the smile. Turned it right up.

  ‘You need a dentist,’ she said coldly.

  I knew what she meant, I had some brown stuff on my teeth. They looked a bit rotten, but it was nothing a wire brush couldn’t fix.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she repeated. ‘Money?’

  That was the thing with Isabelle and me, we were the same, we didn’t need to pretend.

  ‘Five big ones?’ I said.

  ‘That won’t work, Gusto, we’ve finished with that. Should I drive you back to the station?’

  ‘Eh? Come on, Isabelle. What about a shag?’

  ‘Shhh!’

  It took me a second to suss the situation. Bit slow on the uptake, I was. Have to blame the fricking craving. There she stood, middle of the day, in a bathrobe but fully made up.

  ‘You expecting someone?’ I asked.

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘New fuck buddy?’

  ‘That’s what happens when you go missing, Gusto.’

  ‘I’m hot on comebacks,’ I said and was so quick she lost balance as I grabbed her wrist and pulled her to me.

  ‘You’re wet,’ she said and struggled, but no more than she did when she wanted it hard.

  ‘It’s raining,’ I said, biting her earlobe. ‘What’s your excuse?’ I already had a hand up under her bathrobe.

  ‘And you stink. Let me go!’

  My hand stroked her shaven pussy, found the crack. She was wet. Dripping wet. I could get two fingers up at once. Too wet. I felt something sticky. Pulled my hand away. Held it up. My fingers were covered with something white and slimy. I looked up at her in surprise. Saw the triumphant grin as she leaned over to me and whispered: ‘As I said. If you go missing…’

  I lost it, raised my hand to slap, but she grabbed it and stopped me. Strong bitch, that Skoyen.

  ‘Go now, Gusto.’

  I felt something in my eyes. If I hadn’t known better I would have said it was tears.

  ‘Five thousand,’ I whispered in a thick voice.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Then you’ll come back. And we can’t have that.’

  ‘You cunt!’ I shouted. ‘You’re forgetting a few seriously important points. Cough up or I’ll go to the papers with your whole set-up. And by that I’m not referring to our shagging, but the fact that the whole clean-up-Oslo stuff is your and the old boy’s doing. Fricking pseudo socialists. Dope money and politics in the same bed. How much do you think Verdens Gang will pay?’

  I heard the bedroom door open.

  ‘If I were you I’d make a run for it now,’ Isabelle said.

  I heard the creak of the floorboards in the blackness behind her.

  I wanted to run, I really did. Yet I didn’t move.

  It came closer.

  I imagined I could see the stripes on his face light in the dark. Fuck buddy. Tiger boy.

  He coughed.

  Then he stepped into the light.

  He was so drop-dead gorgeous that, sick as I was, I could feel it again. The desire to place my hand on his chest. Feel the sun-warmed, sweaty skin under my fingertips. Feel the muscles that would automatically tense in shock at whatever bloody liberties I took.

  ‘Who d
id you say?’ Harry said.

  Beate coughed and repeated: ‘Mikael Bellman.’

  ‘Bellman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Gusto had Mikael Bellman’s blood under his nails when he died?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  Harry leaned back. This changed everything. Or did it? It didn’t need to have anything to do with the killing. But it had something to do with something. Something which Bellman had not wanted to talk about.

  ‘Get out,’ Bellman said with the kind of voice that isn’t loud because it doesn’t need to be.

  ‘So it’s you two, is it?’ I said. ‘I thought it was Truls Berntsen she had hired. Smart to go higher, Isabelle. What’s the set-up? Is Berntsen just along as your slave, Mikael?’

  I caressed rather than pronounced his first name. That was after all how we had introduced ourselves on his land that day, Gusto and Mikael. Like two boys, two potential play pals. I saw how it seemed to light something in his eyes, made them flare up. Bellman was quite naked; perhaps that was why I imagined he would not attack. He was too quick for me. He was on me and had my head in a vice.

  ‘Let go!’

  He pulled me to the top of the stairs. My nose was squeezed between his chest and armpit and I could smell both of them. And this was a thought that lodged itself in my brain: if he wanted me to get out why haul me up the stairs? I couldn’t punch my way free, so I dug my nails in his chest and dragged my hands like claws towards me, felt one nail catch on his nipple. He swore and slackened his grip. I slipped out of the vice and jumped. Landed halfway down the stairs, but managed to stay on my feet. Charged down the hall, grabbed her car keys and ran into the yard. Course, the car wasn’t locked either. The wheels churned up the gravel as I released the clutch. In the mirror I saw Mikael Bellman come running out of the door. Saw something glint in his hand. Then the wheels bit, I was thrust back against the seat and the car shot across the yard and onto the road.

  ‘It was Bellman who took Truls Berntsen along to Orgkrim,’ Harry said. ‘Is it conceivable that Berntsen is doing the burner jobs under Bellman’s instructions?’