by Jo Nesbo
‘So your father made a mistake. Making mistakes is human.’
‘Even so, he sits there in his office and thinks he’s better than other people just because he can say he’s a senior consultant.’ Anders’s voice started to tremble. ‘A policeman with average qualifications and a week-long course in close combat could have overpowered that burglar before he stabbed her.’
‘But he didn’t make a mistake today,’ Oleg said. ‘Steffens is your father, isn’t he?’
Anders nodded. ‘When it comes to saving the life of a corrupt, lazy piece of shit like Berntsen, of course he doesn’t make mistakes.’
Oleg looked at his watch. Pulled out his phone. No message from his mum. He put it back. She’d told him there was nothing he could do to help Harry. But that he could help Truls Berntsen.
‘It’s none of my business,’ Oleg said. ‘But have you ever asked your father how much he’s given up? How many years of hard work he’s devoted to learning everything there is to learn about blood, and how many people that work has saved?’
Anders shook his bowed head.
‘No?’ Oleg said.
‘I don’t talk to him.’
‘Not at all?’
Anders shrugged. ‘I moved. Changed my name.’
‘Is Wyller your mother’s name?’
‘Yes.’
They saw a man dressed in silver rush into the hybrid room before the doors closed again.
Oleg cleared his throat. ‘Like I said, it’s none of my business. But don’t you think you’re being hard on him?’
Anders raised his head. Looked Oleg in the eye. ‘You’re right,’ he said, nodding slowly. ‘It’s none of your business.’ Then he got up and walked towards the exit.
‘Where are you going?’ Oleg asked.
‘Back to the university. Will you take me? If not, I’ll catch the bus.’
Oleg stood up and followed him. ‘There are enough cooks there. But there’s a police officer here who might be about to die.’ He caught up with Anders and put his hand on his shoulder. ‘And as a fellow police officer, right now you’re his next of kin. So you can’t leave. He needs you.’
When he turned Anders round he saw that the young detective’s eyes were wet.
‘They both need you,’ Oleg said.
Harry needed to do something. Fast.
Smith had turned off the main road and was driving carefully down a narrow forest road with banks of snow on both sides. Between them and the frozen water was a red-painted boathouse with a white wooden plank across its double doors. He could see two houses, one on either side of the road, but they were partially hidden by trees and rocks, and were so far away that there was no way he could alert anyone there by shouting for help. Harry took a deep breath and felt his top lip with his tongue; it tasted metallic. He could feel sweat running under his shirt, even though he was freezing. He tried to think. Think the way Smith was thinking. A small, open boat all the way to Denmark. It was obviously perfectly possible, yet still so daring that no one in the police would consider it as a likely escape route. And what about him – how was Smith thinking of solving that problem? Harry tried to shut out the voice that was desperately hoping he would be spared. And the comfortably apathetic voice telling him everything was lost, and that fighting against the inevitable would only mean more pain. Instead he listened to the cold, logical voice. Which said that Harry no longer had any value as a hostage and would only hold Smith back in the boat. Smith wasn’t scared of using the gun, he’d already shot Valentin and a police officer. And it was likely to happen in here, before they got out of the car, because that would muffle the noise best.
Harry tried to lean forward, but the fixed, three-pointed belt was pinning him to the seat. And the handcuffs were pressing against the small of his back and rubbing through the skin of his wrists.
There was a hundred metres to go to the boathouse.
Harry bellowed. A guttural, rattling sound that came from the depths of his stomach. Then he rocked from side to side and hit his head against the side window. It cracked and a white rosette appeared in the glass. He roared as he butted it again. The rosette grew larger. A third time. A piece of glass fell out.
‘Shut up or I’ll shoot you now!’ Smith shouted, and aimed the revolver at Harry’s head while he kept one eye on the road.
Harry bit.
Felt the pain of the pressure on his gums, felt the metallic taste that had been there ever since he had stood in front of the table in the auditorium with his back to Smith and quickly picked up the iron teeth and put them in his mouth before putting the handcuffs on. How strangely easily the sharp teeth sank into Hallstein Smith’s wrist. Smith’s scream filled the car and Harry felt the revolver hit his left knee before falling to the floor between his feet. Harry tensed his neck muscles and pulled Smith’s arm to the right. Smith let go of the wheel and punched Harry in the head, but his own seat belt prevented him from reaching properly. Harry opened his mouth, heard a gurgling sound, and bit again. His mouth filled with warm blood. Perhaps he had hit the artery, perhaps not. He swallowed. It was thick, like drinking brown sauce, and tasted sickeningly sweet.
Smith grabbed hold of the wheel again with his left hand. Harry had been expecting him to brake, but instead he accelerated.
The Amazon spun on the ice before racing off down the slope. The plank across the boathouse snapped like a matchstick when it was struck by more than a ton of vintage Swedish car, and the doors were torn off their hinges.
Harry was thrown forward in his seat belt as the car slammed into the back of a twelve-foot metal boat that was forced into the doors at the end of the boathouse facing the water.
He noticed that the car key had snapped in the ignition before the engine died. Then he felt an intense pain in his teeth and mouth as Smith tried to pull his arm free. But he knew he had to hold on. Not that he was doing much damage. Even though he had punctured the artery, it was – as every self-harmer knew – so thin at that point in the wrist that it could take hours for Smith to bleed to death. Smith jerked his arm again, but more weakly this time. Harry caught a glimpse of his face out of the corner of his eye. Smith was pale. If he couldn’t stand the sight of blood, maybe Harry could get him to faint? Harry clamped his jaws together as hard as he could.
‘I see that I’m bleeding, Harry.’ Smith’s voice was weak but calm. ‘Did you know that when Peter Kürten, the ‘Vampire of Düsseldorf” was about to be executed, he asked Dr Karl Berg a question? He asked if Berg thought Kürten would have time to hear his own blood squirt from his decapitated neck before he lost consciousness. And if so, that pleasure would triumph over all other pleasure. But I’m afraid this isn’t enough to count as an execution, and it’s only the start of my pleasure.’
With a quick movement Smith released his seat belt with his left hand, and leaned over Harry, putting his head in his lap as he reached down to the floor. His hand fumbled over the rubber mat, but couldn’t find the revolver. He leaned further, then turned his head towards Harry as he pushed his arm deeper under the seat. Harry saw a broad smile spread across Smith’s lips. He had found the revolver. Harry lifted his foot and stamped down hard with it. He felt the lump of metal and Smith’s hand through the thin sole of his shoe.
Smith groaned and looked up at him. ‘Move your foot, Harry. Otherwise I’ll fetch the slaughter knife and use that instead. Do you hear? Move y—’
Harry loosened his bite and tensed his stomach muscles. ‘Assh you woosh.’
He raised both legs with a jerk, using the taut seat belt to help him as he forced his knees, and Smith’s head, up towards his chest.
Smith felt the revolver come free beneath Harry’s shoe, but as he was lifted up by Harry’s knees he lost his grip on it. He had to reach his arm further down, and managed to touch the hilt with two fingers just as Harry let go of his right arm. All he had to do was pick up the revolver and turn it round to point at Harry. Then Smith realised what was happening, and he saw Harr
y’s mouth open again, saw the glint of metal, saw him lean down towards him, felt warm breath on his neck. It was as if icicles were drilling through his skin. His scream was cut short as Harry’s jaws locked around his larynx. Then Harry’s foot came down again and stamped on his hand and the revolver.
Smith tried to hit Harry with his right hand, but the angle was too tight for him to get any force in the blow. Harry hadn’t bitten through his carotid artery, because then the jet of blood would have hit the roof, but he was blocking his airway, and Smith could already feel the pressure in his head building. But he still didn’t want to let go of the revolver. He had always been like that, the boy who never let go. The monkey. The monkey. But he had to get some air, otherwise his head was going to burst.
Hallstein Smith let go of the revolver, he could grab it again later. He raised his right hand and hit Harry on the side of his head. Then with his left hand, across Harry’s ear. Then again with his right, Harry’s eye, and he felt his wedding ring tear the policeman’s eyebrow. He felt his rage rise at the sight of the other man’s blood, it was like petrol on a fire, felt himself gain new strength, and let loose. Fight. Keep fighting.
‘So what do I do?’ Mikael Bellman said as he stared out across the fjord.
‘To begin with, I can’t actually believe you’ve done what you have,’ Isabelle Skøyen said, walking up and down behind him.
‘It happened so fast,’ Mikael said, focusing on his own reflection. ‘I didn’t have time to think.’
‘Oh, you had time to think,’ Isabelle said. ‘You just didn’t have time to think long enough. You had time to think that he’d shoot you if you tried to intervene, but not that the entire media would shoot you if you didn’t intervene.’
‘I was unarmed, he had a revolver, and it wouldn’t even have occurred to anyone that intervention was an option if Truls Berntsen, the idiot, hadn’t got it into his head that this was a good time to play the hero.’ Bellman shook his head. ‘But then the poor bastard has always been head over heels in love with Ulla.’
Isabelle groaned. ‘Truls couldn’t have done any more damage to your career if he’d tried. The first thing people are going to think, whether or not it’s fair, is cowardice.’
‘Hold it there!’ Mikael snapped. ‘I wasn’t the only one who didn’t intervene, there were police officers there who—’
‘She’s your wife, Mikael. You were sitting next to her in the front row, and even if you’re at the end of your tenure, you are still Chief of Police. You’re supposed to be their leader. And now you’re supposed to become Minister of Justice—’
‘So you think I should have got myself shot? Because Smith did actually shoot. And Truls didn’t rescue Ulla! Doesn’t that prove that I, as Police Chief, made the correct judgement while Constable Berntsen, acting on his own initiative, got it badly wrong? In fact he actually put Ulla’s life in danger.’
‘Obviously that’s how we’re going to have to try to present this, but all I can say is that it’s going to be difficult.’
‘And what’s so damn difficult about it?’
‘Harry Hole. That he volunteered himself as hostage and you didn’t.’
Mikael threw his arms out. ‘Isabelle, it was Harry Hole who provoked the whole situation. By unmasking Smith as the puppet master he practically forced Smith to grab that revolver, which was just sitting there in front of him. By offering himself as a hostage, Harry Hole was merely taking responsibility for something that was his fault anyway.’
‘Yes, but we feel first and reason afterwards. We see a man who doesn’t intervene to rescue his wife, and we feel contempt. Then along comes what we think is cold, objective reflection, but is actually us trying to find new information to justify what we felt initially. It may be the contempt of stupid, unreflective people, Mikael, but I’m pretty sure that’s what people are going to feel.’
‘Why?’
She didn’t answer.
He looked her in the eye.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Because you’re feeling that contempt now?’
Mikael Bellman saw Isabelle Skøyen’s impressive nostrils flare as she took a deep breath. ‘You are so many things,’ she said. ‘You have so many qualities that have brought you to where you are.’
‘And?’
‘And one of them is your ability to know when to take cover and let others take the blow, when cowardice will pay off. It’s just that this time you forgot that you had an audience – and not just the usual audience, but the worst possible audience.’
Mikael Bellman nodded. Journalists from both home and abroad. He and Isabelle had a lot of work ahead of them. He picked up a pair of East German binoculars from her windowsill, presumably a gift from a male admirer. Pointed them at the fjord. He had seen something out there.
‘What do you think would be the best outcome for us?’ he asked.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Isabelle said. In spite of the fact that she had grown up in the country, or perhaps precisely because of that, she still spoke like the upper classes of western Oslo used to, without it sounding odd. Mikael had tried, and it hadn’t worked. Growing up in the east of the city had caused irreparable damage.
‘For Truls to die, or for him to survive?’ He adjusted the focus on the binoculars. It took him a moment to hear her laughter.
‘And that’s another of those qualities,’ she said. ‘You can switch off all emotion when the situation demands it. This is going to damage you, but you’ll survive.’
‘Dead would be best, wouldn’t it? Then it would be beyond question that he took the wrong decision, and that I was right. And then he won’t be able to give any interviews, and the whole thing will have a limited shelf life.’
He felt her hand on his belt buckle as her voice whispered right next to his ear: ‘So you’d like the next text to your phone to tell you that your best friend is dead?’
It was a dog. Far out on the fjord. Where on earth was it going?
The next thought came automatically.
And it was a new thought. A thought that had basically never before occurred to Police Chief and soon-to-be Justice Minister Mikael Bellman at any point in his forty-year life.
Where on earth are we going?
Harry had a high-pitched buzzing in his ear, and his own blood on one eye. And the blows were still coming. He no longer felt any pain, only that the car was getting colder and the darkness deeper.
But he wasn’t letting go. He had let go so many times before. Had given in to pain, fear, a death wish. But he had also given in to a primitive, egocentric survival instinct that had shouted down any longing for a painless nothingness, sleep, darkness. And that was why he was here. Still here. And this time he wasn’t letting go.
His jaw muscles ached so badly that his whole body was shaking. And the blows were still coming. But he didn’t let go. Seventy kilos of pressure. If he had managed to get a firmer grip of the neck, he could have stemmed the flow of blood to the brain, and Smith would have lost consciousness fairly quickly. By only stopping the supply of air that could take several minutes. Another blow to his temple. Harry felt his own consciousness waver. No! He jerked in the seat. Clenched his teeth tighter. Stick it out, stick it out. Lion. Water buffalo. Harry counted as he breathed through his nose. One hundred. The blows kept coming, but weren’t the gaps between them longer, weren’t they a bit less forceful? Smith’s fingers closed over his face and tried to push Harry away. Then gave up. Let go of him. Was Smith’s brain finally so starved of oxygen that he had stopped functioning? Harry felt relief, swallowed some more of Smith’s blood, and at that moment the thought struck him. Valentin’s prediction. You’ve been waiting for your turn to be a vampire. And one day you too will drink. Perhaps it was that thought, a gap in his concentration, but at that instant Harry felt the revolver move under the sole of his shoe, and realised that he had eased the pressure without noticing. That Smith had stopped punching him in order to reach for the gun. And that he had succeeded.
The room was empty apart from the two women who were sitting in the front row with their arms round each other.
She looked at them. An odd couple. Rakel and Ulla. The wives of sworn enemies. Was it the case that women found it easier to seek comfort in one another than men? Katrine didn’t know. So-called sisterhood had never interested her.
She went over to them. Ulla Bellman’s shoulders were shaking, but her sobbing was soundless.
Rakel looked up at Katrine with a questioning look.
‘We haven’t heard anything,’ Katrine said.
‘OK,’ Rakel said. ‘But he’ll be OK.’
It occurred to Katrine that that was her line, not Rakel’s. Rakel Fauke. Dark-haired, strong, with soft brown eyes. Katrine had always felt jealous. Not because she wanted the other woman’s life or to be Harry’s woman. Harry might be able to make a woman giddy and happy for a while, but in the long term he created sorrow, despair, destruction. For the long term you ought to have a Bjørn Holm. Yet even so she envied Rakel Fauke. She envied her for being the one Harry Hole wanted.
‘Sorry.’ Ståle Aune had come in. ‘I’ve got hold of a room where we can have a talk.’
Ulla Bellman nodded, still sniffing, then stood up and left the room with Aune.
‘Emergency psychiatry?’ Katrine asked.
‘Yes,’ Rakel said. ‘And the weird thing is that it works.’
‘Does it?’