by Jo Nesbo
We decided to move the ammunition to the laundry that was being used as Brad’s cell. I had put him there because that was where they had kept Amy’s body. I was probably hoping it would serve as a constant reminder to him of what he had done, and would torment his conscience.
When we were finished I stood in the doorway of Brad’s new cell where he lay on the mattress reading one of the books I had put in there with him. He was already thin and pale after the short time he had been held in custody, despite the fact that we fed him well and walked him in the garden every day.
‘What’s this?’ he asked, pointing to the hole in the wall beside his head.
‘It’s for the sewage,’ I said.
‘You mean like me?’ He put down the book, bunched his fist and put his arm in all the way up to his shoulder.
‘People aren’t sewage,’ I said.
‘If I slim down enough to wriggle out through it, where would I end up?’
‘The slope below the Polanskis’ house,’ I said. I don’t know why I told him that. Or did I actually know, even then? I picked up a plastic tie that had slipped down off one of the boxes of ammunition. Gathered it up and shoved it in my pocket.
Brad smirked. ‘So I won’t hang myself with it?’
I didn’t answer.
He leaned on his elbow. ‘Why can’t you just execute me and get it over with?’
It was strange. Even though he was lying down and I was standing, he was the one locked up and in my power, it was as though he looked down on me, not the other way round.
‘Because we aren’t like you,’ I said. And I met his gaze.
‘You soon will be. If you want to live, I mean.’
‘What I hope,’ I said, ‘is that you’ll become like us. Or better than us.’
‘How is that going to matter if I’m locked up for the rest of my life?’
‘There’s no guarantee that you will never again have to make a choice which has consequences for your fellow human beings, Brad.’
‘Well then, give me the chance. Let me go. I promise you, my dad will pay whatever you ask. Make that whatever I ask!’
I shook my head. ‘This is about something bigger than you, Brad.’
‘Come on! What could be bigger than my dad’s fucking money?’
‘Choosing what’s good instead of what’s evil. That’s bigger.’
Brad laughed and shoved the book so that it came skidding across the stone floor towards me. ‘Like it says in here. Liberal left-wing piss if you ask me.’
I looked down at the book. Tom Bingham, The Rule of Law. Liberal left-wing piss? That meant at least he must have read it to form an opinion on it. Maybe it was true, what I was hoping: that all of us, including me, had underestimated Brad’s intellectual capacity?
‘You’re telling me you don’t want revenge?’ he asked. ‘Then you’re lying!’
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But anyway, executing you wouldn’t be a good enough revenge. Because yes, I want you to feel remorse. I want you to feel the same pain as I do at losing someone you love above all others. And yes, I want you to experience the same feelings of guilt as I do at having failed to protect your family well enough. I’m not above that, not as a human being. But we humans have the unique ability to renounce a short-term satisfaction in favour of something that has a higher goal.’
‘Now you’re talking like that book.’
‘Read it,’ I said. ‘Then let’s talk some more.’
I went out, locking the door behind me.
* * *
—
I entered the bedroom where she and Sam were playing with two Transformer figures Sam had got for Christmas from ‘Uncle Colin’, as it said on the gift label. Heidi and I had seen from Sam’s reaction when he unwrapped them that it would break his little heart if we took them away from him and exchanged them for toys that didn’t glorify violence in the same way.
‘I gather you’re having fun,’ Heidi observed.
There was an edge to her voice and I realised she’d heard Larsen and me laughing.
‘Well, I’m trying to anyway,’ I said, hearing the same hard edge in my own voice.
‘Have you talked to him?’ she asked.
‘Him’ was Brad. She would no longer say his name.
‘I checked on him,’ I lied. As if laughing out loud wasn’t bad enough, was I also supposed to tell her I had just had a meaningful conversation with our daughter’s killer? Yes, I had said we had an obligation to get over Amy’s death and try to look forward, for our sake and for Sam’s sake. But in Heidi’s view, sensitive people allowed grief to run its course; grief was the recoil after love, and if I didn’t feel it then I had never loved Amy as deeply as I claimed. Her words had wounded me, of course they had. And she had seen it, and apologised. Everyone grieves in a different way, I had said, and maybe Heidi’s was the better way, maybe she was dealing with something I was postponing. Even though I could see she didn’t believe I meant what I was saying, I knew that she liked the way I was trying to compromise with her.
‘Dad, look!’ said Sam, running over and jumping into my lap. He held the Transformer figure up in front of my face and growled, ‘I am Devastator! I can change!’
He twisted parts of the figure and a fork-like weapon appeared, before suddenly appearing to lose interest in the toy and looking me right in the eye: ‘Can you change, Dad?’
I laughed and ruffled his hair. ‘Of course I can.’
‘Let’s see then.’
I pulled a face, one that usually made him laugh. Now he just looked at me. He seemed strangely disappointed. Then he put his arms around me and buried his face in my neck. I looked up and Heidi gave me a tired smile.
‘I think he thinks it’s OK if dads don’t change,’ she said.
* * *
—
We kept strictly within the bounds of the property and tried not to get on each other’s nerves too much. Even with four families there was more room than we had had in Downtown, but all the same it somehow felt more cramped. After the kidnapping Heidi felt she had to keep Sam close to her at all times. She wouldn’t even let him play with the other kids in the large garden unless she was there with them. I tried to persuade her that we were safer here than anywhere else in the world right at that moment, but it didn’t help.
‘We will be attacked,’ she’d said one day as we sat in the garden watching Sam playing with the two Larsen children. The mines and the booby traps had been deactivated and they were able to run around the garden in complete safety. It was a relief to hear their carefree laughter and know they really were enjoying the atmosphere of safety and security we were so desperately trying to encourage. Heidi had been raped but she still wouldn’t talk about it. When I asked why and said it might be good for her to get it out in the open she replied that she really couldn’t remember much about it. A girl had been there, and fortunately she had taken Sam out of the room, but after that she’d blanked everything out, all she thought about through the whole thing was Sam and Amy. So there wasn’t much to talk about. If the memories were somewhere down there in her unconscious then let them stay there – right now what mattered was that she function. My own understanding was that Heidi’s ability to suppress these memories had something to do with the way great pain can, for a time at least, hide the distress of lesser pains, the same way it can with physical suffering. And the great pain was the loss of Amy. I realised that was why Heidi – that strong, caring, selfless woman who under normal circumstances would automatically have stepped in as a reserve mother for Larsen’s motherless children – now almost avoided them. It was instead Chung’s young wife who took on that role.
‘They might try,’ I agreed. ‘But then they’ll move on in search of something easier.’
‘Not the gangs,’ she said. ‘Him. Colin. He’ll find us.’
�
�Not if we lie low,’ I said, with a worried look at the children. They were digging in the back garden where we had buried the young Black boy Herbert. Brad claimed not to know his surname; not that it really mattered, we weren’t going to use it anyway. There was no cross to mark the grave that might have exposed the lynching.
‘A father or a mother will always find a missing child,’ said Heidi.
I didn’t answer. Because I knew she was right.
* * *
—
I visited the police station the next day and heard some good news. Chief Inspector Gardell had traced a member of the gang, a guy named Kevin Wankel. It wasn’t all that difficult since he was already in jail. Wankel had recently been arrested for killing and robbing a policeman, she told me. In his statement he had volunteered the information that he was a member of Chaos. But since the money Chaos shared out wasn’t enough to pay for his methamphetamine habit he had gone out on his own to rob someone. He’d waited outside a strip club, approached the first man who came out, held a gun to his forehead and demanded his wallet. Witnesses described how the man had calmly said he was a policeman and that Kevin should be on his way, at which Kevin pulled the trigger, grabbed the wallet and ran off. He was arrested in the street an hour later as he tried to buy methamphetamine. His trial was already over and he’d been sentenced to life imprisonment.
She showed me Wankel’s mugshot, but I didn’t immediately recognise the face. He definitely wasn’t one of those who had identified Brad as the killer.
‘I’ve spoken to him,’ said Gardell. ‘He’s more than willing to testify that it was Brad who did it. On condition that we get him some meth.’
‘What?’
‘Of course I said no. Adele Matheson won’t bring a case that depends on evidence that’s been bought with narcotics. But we can try offering him a reduction in his sentence.’
I looked at the photo and shook my head. ‘He wasn’t even there.’
‘What?’
I pushed the mugshot across the table to her and pointed to the date.
‘This was taken two days before the raid on our villa. He was already locked up. All he wants is dope. He’d sell his own mother for a gram.’
‘Damn,’ said Gardell. She looked as disappointed as I felt.
It’s a strange thing when you’re offered hope and then have it taken away from you. I left the police station the same as I’d come – empty-handed – and yet the day now seemed worse.
* * *
—
After Dumbo and I escaped from the villa that night we moved in with Maria.
She wasn’t exactly over the moon about the fact that I’d brought somebody with me, but she accepted it as part of the deal. Because the deal wasn’t just that we shared a roof, a table and a bed, it was also that I protected us and could – when necessary – go out and get us food. Maria didn’t ask how and I never told her.
One trick was to find some quiet little road and get Dumbo to lie down in the middle of it. People didn’t stop to help someone lying in the road any more, but at least they slowed down to drive round them. And as they did so I came riding up on the bike from the opposite direction, creating a little traffic jam. If we timed it right the car would come to a halt next to Dumbo, who would then get up, grab the shotgun he’d been lying on and shout ‘Hands up!’ – a line he loved and enjoyed shouting out whenever and wherever the notion took him. Motorists had no way of knowing whether I was part of the business involving the little guy with the shotgun or not and didn’t automatically put their foot on the accelerator and mow me down, and those few seconds’ hesitation were all the time I needed to produce my own shotgun.
This particular day we’d just played this trick. The guy was sitting in the car with his hands in the air and Dumbo’s shotgun pointing at his forehead as I emptied the car of food and pushed one end of a plastic hose down into the fuel tank.
‘Hands up!’ shouted Dumbo for the third time.
‘They already are,’ said the motorist in a despairing voice.
‘Hands up!’
‘Dumbo!’ I shouted. ‘Calm down now.’
I closed my lips round the other end of the plastic pipe and started sucking to get the petrol moving up and into the jerrycan standing on the road.
I was concentrating so hard I never heard them coming, not until a voice that was way too familiar said loudly: ‘Never knew the rug muncher could suck.’
I swallowed and coughed up petrol, spinning round ready to use the Remington rifle though I knew it was already too late.
There were three of them. One of the O’Leary twins had a gun pointed at Dumbo’s forehead, the other a Kalashnikov pointed at me. The third – the one who had spoken – was wearing a red leather jacket on the back of which was, I knew, an embroidered sea monster.
‘Ragnar,’ I said. ‘Long time.’
‘But not long enough?’ he smiled.
I started to get up.
‘Stay on your knees, Yvonne, it suits you. And tell your dwarf to put down his shooter or we’ll kill everyone.’
I swallowed. ‘Do as he says, Dumbo. You’re going to take what we got here?’
Ragnar swung his chain. ‘Wouldn’t you do the same?’
I shrugged. ‘I guess that depends.’
‘If, for example, someone ran off when the gang where she was second-in-command were under attack?’
‘Wouldn’t you have done the same?’
‘You let us down. That’s the first rule of Chaos, we don’t let each other down. Am I right, boys?’
‘Right,’ the O’Leary twins answered in unison.
‘The battle was lost,’ I said. ‘There was nothing I could do for you.’
‘No? But you rescued this dwarf here.’ Ragnar nodded towards Dumbo. ‘You’ve trained him well, looks like he’s learned how to make himself useful. We could use someone like that.’
‘What happened up there?’ I asked.
Ragnar peered into the bag of food I had set down on the road.
‘They lynched Herbert and took Brad prisoner. Let the rest of us go, the idiots.’
‘So then I guess you’ve already mounted a counter-attack.’
Ragnar gave me a puzzled look.
‘Since they’ve got Brad, and one Chaos never deserts another Chaos in trouble,’ I said. ‘He’s tried to rescue Brad, hasn’t he, boys?’
This time the O’Leary twins said nothing.
Ragnar’s small eyes were getting even smaller. But I couldn’t stop myself: ‘No? Ah, maybe you were happy enough to have me and Brad out of the way, so you could take over as leader?’
Ragnar’s knuckles turned white as his grip on the chain tightened. ‘You always did have a big mouth, Yvonne. No one ever tell you that’s not such a good idea when you’ve got a Kalashnikov pointing at you?’
I swallowed. Thought of that girl, that Amy. Hadn’t anyone told her?
‘I’ve talked to Brad’s old man and told him what happened,’ Ragnar said, glancing over at the twins as though to make sure they’d heard him. ‘He’s going to handle it himself.’
‘You saying you found Brad’s father?’
He shrugged. ‘It was more a case of him finding us. Anyway –’ he took an apple out of the bag and bit into it – ‘it’s out of my hands now.’ He made a face and threw the apple away. It bounced down the road.
‘Did you know they still pay for dwarf sex down by the molo?’
I didn’t answer.
‘Remember, I let you live, Yvonne Big Mouth,’ he said. Then he turned and started walking towards the corner where they must have left their bikes in order to sneak up on us. ‘Remember the bags!’ he called over his shoulder.
‘OK!’ shouted the twin who had the gun pointed at me. ‘Shall we take the guns too?’
‘Jesus, what do yo
u think?’
Even though the O’Learys took our weapons they backed away after Ragnar, the Kalashnikovs still pointing at Dumbo and me.
I heard Ragnar’s bike start; it had a special hoarse kind of sound. Then they rounded the corner. It took me a couple of seconds to realise what was happening, and before I could get up and yell to Dumbo to get out of the way I saw Ragnar swinging his hook. It made a sort of mushy sound as it caught in the back of Dumbo’s shoulder, and I saw the point come out again on the other side, below his collarbone. The breath left Dumbo in a single, long-drawn-out gasp as he was dragged away from the window of the car he was trying to cling on to. He bounced twice, three times on the asphalt before he disappeared howling around the corner and was gone from my sight. I turned, ready to jump on my bike and follow them, and then the twins were roaring towards me and I heard the bullets strafing my machine.
And when they were gone too, and the fumes vanished, there I was, kneeling by the wheels of what had been my holy and damned machine.
‘You need a lift?’ asked the guy who was still there in his car.
I closed my eyes. I felt like crying. This isn’t the town and this isn’t the time for crying. It sure isn’t. But I cried anyway.
* * *
—
It was late in the evening, and I was on my way home after yet another fruitless day’s searching for members of Chaos. I needed an eyewitness, someone who could point the finger directly at Brad Lowe.
As I drove past the public prosecutor’s building I saw lights on in a couple of the offices and on impulse parked in the almost deserted car park and rang the bell. Asked the voice that answered to call Adele Matheson’s office. A few moments later she was on the speaker.
‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you,’ she said. ‘I’m on my way home, can you wait five minutes?’
Four minutes later she came out the door. The outfit she was wearing, even the blouse, was the same as when we met the last time. She immediately began walking towards the car park. Her shoes were worn down on the inside, and that made her even more knock-kneed.