by Jo Nesbo
He had left the old man’s room for his own, calmly packed his canvas suitcase, exited the hotel via the back stairs and taken a taxi to the only place he could be sure no one would find him: the house belonging to Nybakk’s parents in Oppsal. It didn’t look as if anyone had been there since he left, and the first thing he did was to ransack the drawers in the kitchen and bathroom until he had a packet of painkillers. He had taken four tablets, washed the old man’s blood off his hands and gone down to the cellar to see if Stig Nybakk had made a decision.
He had.
Harry had gone back up, undressed, hung his clothes to dry in the bathroom, found a blanket and fallen asleep on the sofa before his mind could start churning.
Harry rose and went to the kitchen. Took two painkillers and washed them down with a glass of water. Opened the fridge and looked inside. There was a lot of gourmet food; he had clearly been feeding Irene well. The nausea from the previous day returned, and he knew it would be impossible to eat. Went back to the living room. He had seen the drinks cabinet yesterday as well. Had given it a wide berth before finding somewhere to sleep.
Harry opened the cabinet door. Empty. He breathed out with relief. Fumbled in his pocket. The sham wedding ring. And at that moment heard a sound.
The same one he thought he had heard when he was waking up.
He went over to the open cellar door. Listened. Joe Zawinul? He descended and headed for the storeroom door. Peered through the wire. Stig Nybakk was twirling slowly, like an astronaut, weightless in space. Harry wondered if the mobile phone vibrating in Stig’s trouser pocket could be functioning as a propeller. The ringtone – the four, or actually three, notes from ‘Palladium’ by Weather Report – sounded like a call signal from the beyond. And that was exactly what Harry was thinking as he took out the phone, that it was Nybakk ringing, wanting to talk to him.
Harry looked at the number on the display. And pressed the answer button. He recognised the voice of the receptionist at the Radium Hospital. ‘Stig! Hello! Are you there? Can you hear me? We’ve been trying to reach you, Stig. Where are you? You should have been here for a meeting, several meetings. We’re worried. Martin was at your house, but you weren’t there either. Stig?’
Harry hung up and put the phone in his pocket. He would need it; Martine’s had been ruined in the swim.
From the kitchen he fetched a chair and sat on the veranda. Sat there with the morning sun on his face. Took out his pack of smokes, stuck one of the stupid black cigarettes into his mouth and lit up. It would have to do. He dialled the number he knew so well.
‘Rakel.’
‘Hi. It’s me.’
‘Harry? I didn’t recognise your number.’
‘I’ve got a new phone.’
‘Oh, I’m so glad to hear your voice. Did everything go OK?’
‘Yes,’ Harry said and had to smile at the happiness in her voice. ‘Everything went OK.’
‘Is it hot?’
‘Very hot. The sun’s shining, and I’m about to have breakfast.’
‘Breakfast? Isn’t it four o’clock or thereabouts?’
‘Jet lag,’ Harry said. ‘Couldn’t sleep on the plane. I’ve found us a great hotel. It’s in Sukhumvit.’
‘You’ve no idea how much I’m looking forward to seeing you again, Harry.’
‘I—’
‘No, wait, Harry. I mean it. I’ve been awake all night thinking about it. This is absolutely right. That is, we’ll find out if it is. But this is what’s right about it. Finding out. Oh, imagine if I’d said no, Harry.’
‘Rakel—’
‘I love you, Harry. Love you. Do you hear me? Can you hear how flat, strange and fantastic the word is? You really have to mean it to pull it off – like a bright-red dress. Love you. Is that a bit OTT?’
She laughed. Harry closed his eyes and felt the most wonderful sun in the world kiss his skin and the most wonderful laughter in the world kiss his eardrums.
‘Harry? Are you there?’
‘Indeed I am.’
‘It’s so strange. You sound so near.’
‘Mm. I’ll soon be very near, darling.’
‘Say that again.’
‘Say what?’
‘Darling.’
‘Darling.’
‘Mmmm.’
Harry could feel he was sitting on something. Something hard in his back pocket. He took it out. The sun made the veneer on the ring shine like gold.
‘Rakel,’ he said, stroking the black notch with the tip of his finger. ‘How would you feel about getting married?’
‘Harry, don’t mess about.’
‘I’m not messing about. I know you could never imagine marrying a debt collector from Hong Kong.’
‘No, not at all. Who should I imagine marrying then?’
‘I don’t know. What about a civilian, an ex-police officer, who lectures at Police College about murder investigations?’
‘Doesn’t sound like anyone I know.’
‘Perhaps someone you might get to know. Someone who could surprise you. Stranger things have happened.’
‘You’re the one who’s always said people don’t change.’
‘So if now I’m someone who says people can change, there’s the proof that it is possible to change.’
‘Glib bastard.’
‘Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, that I’m right. People can change. And it is possible to put things behind you.’
‘To outstare the ghosts that haunt you?’
‘Then what would you say?’
‘To what?’
‘To my hypothetical question of getting married.’
‘Is that supposed to be a proposal? Hypothetical? On the phone?’
‘Now you’re stretching it a bit. I’m just sitting in the sun and chatting with a charming woman.’
‘And I’m ringing off!’
She hung up, and Harry slumped down on the kitchen chair with closed eyes and a fat grin. Sun-warmed and pain-free. In fourteen hours he would see her. He imagined Rakel’s expression when she came to the gate in Gardermoen and saw him sitting there waiting for her. Her face as Oslo shrank beneath them. Her head gliding onto his shoulder as she fell asleep.
He lay like that until the temperature plummeted. He half opened one eye. The edge of a cloud had drifted in front of the sun, nothing more.
Closed the eye again.
Follow the hatred.
When the old man had said that Harry had at first thought he meant Harry should follow his own hatred and kill him. But what about if he had meant something else? He had said it straight after Harry asked who had killed Gusto. Had that been the answer? Did he mean that if Harry followed the hatred it would lead him to the murderer? In which case there were several candidates. But who had the greatest reason to hate Gusto? Irene, of course, but she had been locked up when Gusto was killed.
The sun was switched back on, and Harry decided he was reading too much into the old man’s words, the job was over, he should relax, he would soon need another tablet. And he should ring Hans Christian to say that Oleg was finally out of danger.
Another thought struck Harry. Truls Berntsen, a rogue officer at Orgkrim, could not possibly have access to the data in the witness protection programme. It had to be someone else. Someone higher up.
Hold on there, he thought. Hold on for Christ’s sake. They can all go to hell. Think about the flight. The night flight. The stars over Russia.
Then he went back to the cellar, considered whether to cut down Nybakk, rejected the idea and found the jemmy he had been looking for.
The main door to Hausmanns gate 92 was open, but the door to the flat had been resealed and locked. Perhaps because of the recent confession, Harry thought, before inserting the jemmy between the door and the frame.
Inside, everything seemed untouched. The stripes of morning sunlight lay across the sitting-room floor like piano keys.
He deposited the little canvas suitcase against the wall
and sat on one of the mattresses. Checked to see that he had the plane ticket in his inside pocket. Glanced at his watch. Thirteen hours to take-off.
Looked around. Closed his eyes. Tried to envisage the scene.
A man wearing a balaclava. Who didn’t say a word because he knew they would recognise his voice.
A man who had visited Gusto here. Who didn’t take anything from him, except his life. A man who hated.
The bullet had been a nine by eighteen millimetre Makarov, in all likelihood therefore the killer had used a Makarov gun. Or a Fort-12. At a pinch an Odessa if they were becoming standard equipment in Oslo. He had stood there. Fired. Left.
Harry listened, hoping the room would talk to him.
The seconds ticked by, became minutes.
A church bell rang.
There was nothing else to be gleaned here. Harry got up and made to go.
Had reached the door when he heard a sound between the chiming bells. He waited until the next peal was over. There it was again, a gentle scratching. He tiptoed two paces back and gazed around the room.
It was by the threshold, with its back to Harry. A rat. Brown with a shiny, glistening tail, ears that were pink inside, the odd white speck on its coat.
Harry didn’t know what was keeping him there. A rat here, that was no more than one might expect.
It was the white specks.
It was as if the rat had been wading through washing powder. Or …
Harry looked around the room again. The big ashtray between the mattresses. He knew he would only have one chance, so he removed his shoes, slipped across the room during the next chime of the bell, grabbed the ashtray and stood perfectly still, one and a half metres from the rat, which had still not detected his presence. Did the calculation, timed it. As the bell rang he leapt forward with his arm outstretched. The rat’s reactions were too slow to avoid capture in the ceramic dish. Harry heard the hiss, felt it hurling itself backwards and forwards inside. He pushed the ashtray across the floor to the window where there was a pile of magazines, and placed them on top of the bowl. Then he began to search.
After going through various drawers and cupboards in the flat he still couldn’t find any string or thread.
He snatched the rag rug from the floor and pulled out a warp; the long strand of fabric would do the job. He made a loop at the end. Then he moved the magazines and lifted the ashtray, high enough to push his hand in. Braced himself for what he knew would happen next. As he felt the rat’s teeth sinking in to the soft flesh between thumb and first finger he flipped off the ashtray and grabbed the animal with his other hand. It hissed as Harry picked at the white grains stuck between hairs. Placed them on his tongue and tasted. Bitter. Overripe papaya. Violin. Someone had a stash close by.
Harry attached the loop to the rat’s tail and tightened it at the base. Set the animal down on the floor and let go. The rat shot off and the fabric ran through Harry’s hand. Home.
Harry followed. Into the kitchen. The rat darted in behind a greasy stove. Harry tipped the ancient heavyweight appliance onto its rear wheels and pulled it out. There was a fist-sized cavity in the wall through which the fabric disappeared.
Until it came to a stop.
Harry stuck his hand, which had already been bitten once, through the cavity. Felt the inside of the wall. Insulation batts to left and right. He felt above the cavity. Nothing. The insulation had been dug away. Harry secured the end of the fabric under one foot of the stove, went to the bathroom, unhooked the mirror, which was stained with saliva and phlegm, smashed it against the side of the basin and chose a suitably large fragment. Went into a bedroom, yanked a reading lamp from the wall and returned to the kitchen. He laid the chunk of mirror inside the cavity. Then he plugged the lamp in the socket beside the stove and shone it on the mirror. Pointed the lamp at the wall until the angle was right, and he saw it.
The stash.
It was a cloth bag, hanging from a hook half a metre above the floor.
The opening was too narrow to insert your hand and twist your arm up to reach the bag. Harry racked his brains. What tool had the owner used to reach his stash? He had been through several drawers and cupboards in the flat, so rewound through his database.
The wire.
He went back into the sitting room. That was where he had seen it the first time he and Beate were here. Protruding from under the mattress and bent at an angle of ninety degrees. Only the owner of the stiff wire would have known its purpose. Harry poked it through the cavity and used the bent end to unhook the bag.
It was heavy. As heavy as he had hoped. He would have to squeeze it out.
The bag had been hung up high so that the rats could barely reach it, yet still they had managed to nibble a hole in the bottom. Harry shook the bag and a few grains fell out. That explained the powder on the rat’s coat. Then he opened the bag. Took out three small bags of violin, probably quarters. There wasn’t a full junkie kit inside, only a spoon with a curved handle and a used syringe.
It lay at the bottom of the bag.
Harry used a dishcloth so as not to leave fingerprints on it as he lifted it out.
It was unmistakable. Lumpen, odd, almost comical. Foo Fighters. It was an Odessa. Harry sniffed the weapon. The smell of gunpowder can hang around for months after a pistol has been fired if it isn’t cleaned and oiled in the meantime. This one had been fired not so long ago. He checked the magazine. Eighteen. Two missing. Harry was in no doubt.
This was the murder weapon.
When Harry entered the toy shop on Storgata there were still twelve hours to take-off.
The shop had two different sets of fingerprint equipment to choose from. Harry chose the more expensive one, with a magnifying glass, an LED light, a soft brush, dusting powder in three colours, sticky tape for lifting prints and an album for storing the family’s fingerprints.
‘For my son,’ he explained as he paid.
The girl behind the cash desk put on her routine smile.
He walked back to Hausmanns gate and got down to work using the ridiculously small LED light to search for prints and sprinkling powder from one of the miniature cans. The brush was so small that he felt like a giant from Gulliver’s Travels.
There were prints on the gun handle.
And there was one clear one, probably a thumbprint, on one side of the syringe plunger, where there were also black dots that could have been anything at all, but Harry guessed it was gunpowder residue.
As soon as he had all the fingerprints on the cling film he compared them. The same person had held the gun and the syringe. Harry had checked the walls and the floor by the mattress and had found quite a few prints, but none of them matched those on the pistol.
He opened the canvas suitcase and the pocket inside, took out the contents and placed them on the kitchen table. Switched on the LED light.
Looked at his watch. Eleven hours to go. Oceans of time.
It was two o’clock and Hans Christian Simonsen looked strangely out of place as he entered Schrøder’s.
Harry was sitting in the corner by the window, his favourite table.
Hans Christian sat down.
‘Good?’ he asked, nodding to the pot of coffee by Harry.
Harry shook his head.
‘Thanks for coming.’
‘Not at all. Saturday’s a free day. A free day and nothing to do. What’s up?’
‘Oleg can come home.’
The solicitor brightened up. ‘Does that mean …?’
‘Those who might be a danger to Oleg have gone.’
‘Gone?’
‘Yes. Is he far away?’
‘No, twenty minutes outside town. Nittedal. What do you mean they’ve gone?’
Harry raised his coffee cup. ‘Sure you want to know, Hans Christian?’
The solicitor eyed Harry. ‘Does that mean you’ve solved the case as well?’
Harry didn’t answer.
Hans Christian leaned forward. ‘You k
now who killed Gusto, don’t you.’
‘Mm.’
‘How?’
‘A few matching fingerprints.’
‘And who—?’
‘Not important. But I’m leaving today, so it would be nice to say goodbye to Oleg.’
Hans Christian smiled. Pained, but a smile nonetheless. ‘Before you and Rakel leave, you mean?’
Harry twirled his coffee cup. ‘So she’s told you?’
‘We had lunch. I agreed to look after Oleg for a few days. I gather that some men will come from Hong Kong and collect him, some of your people. But I must have misunderstood something. You see, I thought you were in Bangkok.’
‘I was delayed. There’s something I want to ask you—’
‘She said more. She said you had proposed.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, in your way, of course.’
‘Well—’
‘And she said she’d thought about it.’
Harry held up a hand. He didn’t want to hear the rest.
‘The conclusion of her thoughts was no, Harry.’
Harry breathed out. ‘Good.’
‘So she’d stopped thinking about it, she said. And started feeling instead.’
‘Hans Christian—’
‘Her answer’s yes, Harry.’
‘Listen to me, Hans Christian—’
‘Didn’t you hear? She wants to marry you, Harry. Lucky bastard.’ Hans Christian’s face beamed as if with happiness, but Harry knew it was the glow of despair. ‘She said she wanted to be with you until the end of your days.’ His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, and his voice alternated between falsetto and husky. ‘She said she would have a terrible and nothing short of catastrophic time with you. She would have a fair-to-middling time with you. And she would have a fantastic time with you.’
Harry knew he was quoting her verbatim. And he knew why he was doing it. Because every word was seared into his heart.
‘How much do you love her?’ Harry asked.
‘I …’
‘Do you love her enough to take care of her and Oleg for the rest of her life?’
‘What?’
‘Answer me.’
‘Yes, of course, but—’
‘Swear.’
‘Harry.’
‘Swear, I said.’