The Thirst

by Jo Nesbo

  ‘Installations.’

  ‘Roar – my ex – he was a visual artist too, perhaps you know him?’

  ‘I doubt it, I operate outside conventional artistic circles. And I’m self-taught, so to speak.’

  ‘But if you can make a living as an artist, it’s odd that I haven’t heard of you. Oslo’s so small.’

  ‘I do other things to survive.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Caretaker.’

  ‘But you exhibit?’

  ‘It’s mostly private installations for a professional clientele, where the press aren’t invited.’

  ‘Wow. It sounds great that you’re able to be exclusive. I told Roar that he ought to try that. What do you use in your installations?’

  He wiped his glass with a napkin. ‘Models.’

  ‘Models as in … living people?’

  He smiled. ‘Both. Tell me about yourself, Penelope. What do you like?’

  She put a finger under her chin. Yes, what did she like? Right now she had a sense that he had covered everything.

  ‘I like people,’ she said. ‘And honesty. And my family. Children.’

  ‘And being held, tight,’ he said, glancing over at the couple who were sitting two tables away from them.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You like being held tight, and playing rough games.’ He leaned across the table. ‘I can see it in you, Penelope. And that’s fine, I like that too. This place is starting to get a bit crowded, so shall we go back to yours?’

  It took Penelope a moment to realise that it wasn’t a joke. She looked down and saw that he had put his hand so close to hers that their fingertips were almost touching. She swallowed. What was it about her that meant she always ended up with nutters? It was her friends who had suggested that the best way to get over Roar was to meet other men. And she had tried, but they were either bumbling, socially inadequate IT nerds where she had to do all the talking, or men like this one, who were only after a quick shag.

  ‘I think I’ll go home alone,’ she said, and looked around for the waiter. ‘I’m happy to settle up.’ They had barely been there twenty minutes, but according to her friends, that was the third, and most important, rule of Tinder: Don’t play games, leave if you don’t click.

  ‘I can manage two bottles of mineral water,’ the man smiled, and tugged gently at his pale blue shirt collar. ‘Run, Cinderella.’

  ‘In that case, thank you.’

  Penelope picked up her bag and hurried out. The sharp autumn air felt good against her warm cheeks. She crossed Bogstadveien. Because it was Saturday night the streets were full of happy people and there was a queue at the taxi rank. Which was just as well – the price of taxis in Oslo was so high that she avoided them unless it was pouring with rain. She passed Sorgenfrigata, where she had once dreamt that she and Roar would some day live in one of the lovely buildings. They had agreed that the flat didn’t need to be more than seventy or eighty square metres in size, as long as it had been recently renovated, the bathroom at least. They knew that it would be incredibly expensive, but both her and Roar’s parents had promised to help out financially. And by ‘help out’ they obviously meant paying for the whole flat. She was, after all, a recently qualified designer on the hunt for a job, and the art market hadn’t yet discovered Roar’s immense talent. Except that bitch of a gallery owner who had set her trap for him. After Roar moved out, Penelope had been convinced that he would see through the woman, realise she was a wrinkled puma who just wanted a young trophy boyfriend to play with for a while. But that hadn’t happened. On the contrary, they had just announced their engagement in the form of a hideous art installation made of candyfloss.

  At the metro station in Majorstua Penelope took the first train heading west. She got off at Hovseter, known as the eastern edge of the west side of the city. A cluster of apartment blocks and relatively cheap flats where she and Roar had rented the cheapest they could find. The bathroom was disgusting.

  Roar had tried to console her by giving her a copy of Patti Smith’s Just Kids, an autobiographical account of two ambitious artists living on hope, air and love in New York in the early 1970s, and who obviously end up making a success of things. OK, they lost each other along the way, but …

  She walked from the station towards the building rising up in front of her, which looked like it had a halo. Penelope realised that there was a full moon tonight, that must be what was glowing behind the building. Four. She had slept with four men since Roar left her, eleven months and thirteen days ago. Two of them had been better than Roar, two worse. But she didn’t love Roar for the sex. But because … well, because he was Roar, the bastard.

  She found herself quickening her pace as she passed the little clump of trees on the left-hand side of the road. The streets of Hovseter grew empty early each evening, but Penelope was a tall, fit young woman, and until now it hadn’t even occurred to her that it might be dangerous to walk here after dark. Perhaps it was because of that murderer who was in all the papers. No, it wasn’t that. It was because someone had been inside her flat. It was three months ago now, and at first she had dared to hope that Roar had come back. She realised someone had been there when she found mud in the hallway that didn’t match her shoes. And when she found some more in the bedroom, in front of the chest of drawers, she had counted her knickers in the idiotic hope that Roar had taken a pair. But no, that didn’t seem to be the case. Then she realised what was missing. The engagement ring in its box, the one Roar had bought her in London. Could it just have been a run-of-the-mill burglary, after all? No, it was Roar. He had snuck in and taken it, and had given it to that bitch of a gallery owner! Naturally, Penelope had been furious, and had called Roar and confronted him with it. But he swore he hadn’t been back, and claimed to have lost the keys to the flat during the move, because otherwise he would have posted them to her. A lie, of course, like everything else, but she had still gone to the effort of getting the locks changed, both the front door and the door to her flat on the fourth floor.

  Penelope took her keys out of her handbag – they were next to the pepper spray she had bought – unlocked the front door, heard the low hiss of the hydraulics as it swung behind her, saw that the lift was on the sixth floor, and started to walk up the stairs. She passed the Amundsens’ door. Stopped. Felt that she was out of breath. Funny, she was in good shape, these stairs had never tired her out before. Something was wrong. What?

  She stared up at the door to her flat.

  It was an old building, built for the working classes of western Oslo, now long gone, and they had been sparing with the lighting. There was just one large, metal-framed light on each floor, jutting out from high up on the wall above the stairs. She held her breath and listened. She hadn’t heard a sound since she came into the building.

  Not since the hiss of the hydraulics.

  Not a sound.

  That was what was wrong.

  She hadn’t heard the door close.

  Penelope didn’t have time to turn round, didn’t have time to put her hand in her bag, didn’t have time to do anything before an arm swung round her, locking her arms and pressing her chest so hard that she couldn’t breathe. Her bag fell onto the stairs and was the only thing she managed to hit as she kicked out wildly around her. She screamed soundlessly into the hand that was clamped over her mouth. It smelt of soap.

  ‘There, there, Penelope,’ a voice whispered in her ear. ‘In space, no one c-can hear you scream, you know.’ He made the whooshing sound.

  She heard a noise from down near the front door, and for a moment hoped someone was coming, before realising that it was her bag, her keys – and the pepper spray – sailing through the railings and hitting the floor downstairs.

  ‘What is it?’ Rakel asked, without turning round or stopping chopping the onion for the salad. She had seen from the reflection in the window above the kitchen worktop that Harry had stopped laying the table and had gone over to the living-room window.


  ‘I thought I heard something,’ he said.

  ‘Probably Oleg and Helga.’

  ‘No, it was something else. It was … something else.’

  Rakel sighed. ‘Harry, you’ve only just got home, and already you’re climbing the walls. Look at what it’s doing to you.’

  ‘Just this one case, then it’s over.’ Harry walked over to the worktop and kissed the back of her neck. ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Fine,’ she lied. Her body ached, her head ached. Her heart ached.

  ‘You’re lying,’ he said.

  ‘Am I good liar?’

  He smiled and massaged her neck.

  ‘If I ever disappeared,’ she said, ‘would you look for someone new?’

  ‘Look for? That sounds tiring. It was bad enough trying to persuade you.’

  ‘Someone younger. Someone you could have kids with. I wouldn’t be jealous, you know.’

  ‘You’re not that good a liar, darling.’

  She smiled and let go of the knife, leaned her head forward and felt his warm, dry fingers massage the aches away, giving her a break from the pain.

  ‘I love you,’ she said.

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘I love you. Especially if you make me a cup of tea.’

  ‘Aye aye, boss.’

  Harry let go and Rakel stood there waiting. Hoping. But no, the pain came back again, punching her like a fist.

  Harry stood with both hands on the kitchen worktop, staring at the kettle. Waiting for the low rumble. Which would get louder and louder until the whole thing shook. Like a scream. He could hear screams. Silent screams that filled his head, filled the room, filled his body. He shifted his weight. Screams that wanted to get out, that had to get out. Was he going mad? He looked up at the glass of the window. All he could see in the darkness was his own reflection. There he was. He was out there. He was waiting for them. He was singing. Come out and play!

  Harry closed his eyes.

  No, he wasn’t waiting for them. He was waiting for him, for Harry. Come out and play!

  He could feel that she was different from the others. Penelope Rasch wanted to live. She was big and strong. And the keys to her flat lay three floors below them. He could feel her relinquishing the air from her lungs and tightened his grasp round her chest. Like a boa constrictor. A muscle tightening a little more each time the prey lets air out of its lungs. He wanted her alive. Alive and warm. With this wonderful desire to survive. Which he would break, little by little. But how? Even if he managed to drag her all the way downstairs to get the key, there was a risk that one of the neighbours would hear them. He felt his rage growing. He should have skipped Penelope Rasch. Should have taken that decision three days ago when he discovered that she’d changed the locks. But then he had been lucky, had made contact with her on Tinder, she had agreed to meet at that discreet place, and he had thought that it was going to work out after all. But a small, quiet place also means that the few people who are there pay more attention to you. One customer had stared at him a little too hard. And he had panicked, had decided to get out of there, and had rushed things. Penelope had turned him down and walked out.

  He had been prepared for that eventuality and had the car nearby. He had driven fast. Not so fast that he risked being stopped by the police, but fast enough to reach the cluster of trees before she emerged from the metro. She hadn’t turned round when he was following her, nor when she got her keys out of her bag and went in. He had managed to stick his foot in the gap before the door clicked shut.

  He felt a shudder run through her body and knew that she would soon lose consciousness. His erection rubbed against her buttocks. A broad, fleshy woman’s arse. His mother had had a similar backside.

  He could feel the boy coming, eager to take over, and he was screaming inside, wanting to be fed. Now. Here.

  ‘I love you,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘I really do, Penelope, and that’s why I’m going to make an honest woman of you before we go any further.’

  She went limp in his arms and he hurried, holding her up with one arm as he fumbled in his jacket pocket with the other.

  Penelope Rasch came to, and realised that she must have passed out. It had got darker. She was floating, and there was something tugging and pulling at her arms, something cutting into her wrists. She looked up. Handcuffs. And something on one of her ring fingers, shimmering dully.

  Then she felt the pain between her legs and looked down just as he pulled his hand out of her.

  His face was partially shaded, but she saw him put his fingers to his nose and sniff. She tried to scream, but couldn’t.

  ‘Good, my darling,’ he said. ‘You’re clean, so we can begin.’

  He unbuttoned his jacket and shirt, pushed his shirt aside, revealing his chest. A tattoo became visible, a face screaming as soundlessly as her. He was thrusting his chest out, as if the tattoo had something to say to her. Unless it was the other way round. Perhaps she was the one on display. On display to this snarling image of the devil.

  He felt for something in his jacket pocket, pulled it out and showed her. Black. Iron. Teeth.

  Penelope managed to get some air. And screamed.

  ‘That’s right, darling,’ he laughed. ‘Just like that. Music to work to.’

  Then he opened his mouth wide and inserted the teeth.

  And they echoed and sang between the walls: his laughter and her screaming.

  There was a buzz of voices and international news broadcasts on the big television screens that hung on the walls of VG’s offices, where the head of news and the duty manager were working on updates to the online edition.

  Mona Daa and the photographer were standing behind the head of news’s chair, studying the image on his console.

  ‘I tried everything, but I just couldn’t make him look creepy,’ the photographer sighed.

  And Mona realised that he was right, Hallstein Smith simply looked far too jovial, standing there with the full moon above him.

  ‘It’s still working,’ the head of news said. ‘Look at the traffic. Nine hundred per minute now.’

  Mona saw the counter to the right of the screen.

  ‘We’ve got a winner,’ her boss said. ‘We’ll move it to the top of the website. Maybe we should ask the night editor if she wants to change the front page.’

  The photographer raised his clenched fist towards Mona and she dutifully touched her knuckles to his. Her father claimed it was Tiger Woods and his caddie who had popularised the gesture. They had switched from the obligatory high five after the caddie had injured the golfer’s hand by high-fiving him a bit too enthusiastically when Woods pitched the sixteenth hole in the final round of the Masters. It was one of her father’s greatest regrets that Mona’s congenital hip defect meant she could never be the great golfer he had hoped. She, on the other hand, had hated golf from the first time he took her to a driving range, but because the standard was so comically low she had won everything there was to win with a swing that was so short and ugly that the coach of the national junior team refused to select her on the grounds that it was better to get beaten with a team that at least looked like it was playing golf. So she had dumped her golf clubs in the basement at her dad’s and headed for the weight room instead, where no one had any objections to the way she lifted 120 kilos off the floor. The number of kilos, the number of blows, the number of clicks. Success was measured in numbers, anyone who claimed otherwise was just scared of the truth and seriously believed that delusion was an essential fact of life for the average person. But right now she was more interested in the comments section. Because something had struck her when Smith said the vampirist didn’t care about the risks. That it was possible he might read VG. That he might post some sort of comment online.

  Her eyes scanned the comments as they appeared.

  But it was the usual stuff.

  The sympathetic, expressing pity for the victims.

  The self-appointed guardians of truth, explaining ho
w a particular political party bore responsibility for a society that had produced a particular type of undesirable person, in this instance a vampirist.

  The executioners, shrieking for the death penalty and castration the moment they got a chance.

  And then there were the wannabe stand-up comedians whose role models had popularised the idea that anything could be joked about. ‘New band, Wampire.’ ‘Sell Tinder shares now!’

  And if she did see a comment that looked suspicious, what was she going to do? Report it to Katrine Bratt & co.? Maybe. She owed Truls Berntsen that much. Or she could call the blond one, Wyller. Make him indebted to her. Even if you’re not on Tinder, you still swipe left and right.

  She yawned. Walked over to her desk and picked up her bag.

  ‘I’m going to the gym,’ she said.

  ‘Now? It’s practically the middle of the night!’

  ‘Call me if anything happens.’

  ‘Your shift ended an hour ago, Daa, other people can—’

  ‘This is my story, so you call me, OK?’

  She heard someone laugh as the door closed behind her. Maybe they were laughing at her walk, maybe at her provocative clever-girl-can-do-it-all-herself attitude. She didn’t care. She did have a funny walk. And she could do it all herself.

  Lift, airlock, swing doors, then she was outside the building, its glass facade lit up by the moonlight. Mona breathed in. Something big was going on, she just knew it. And she knew that she was going to be part of it.

  Truls Berntsen had parked the car beside the steep, winding road. The brick buildings below him lay silent in the darkness: Oslo’s abandoned industrial district, railway tracks with grass growing between the sleepers. And, further away, the architects’ new toy building blocks, Barcode, the playground of the new business world, in marked contrast to the sombre seriousness of the working life of the past, where minimalism was a matter of cost-saving practicality, not an aesthetic ideal.

  Truls looked up at the house bathed in moonlight, up on the crest of the hill.

  There were lights in the windows and he knew that Ulla was in there. Maybe she was sitting in her usual place, on the sofa with her legs tucked beneath her, reading a book. If he took his binoculars in among the trees further up the hill he’d find out. And if she was doing that, he’d see her brush her blonde hair behind one ear, as if she were listening out for something. In case the children woke up. In case Mikael wanted something. Or perhaps just listening out for predators, like a gazelle at a watering hole.