The Son

by Jo Nesbo

  ‘Hi.’

  Johannes turned round.

  Sonny’s ‘hi’ had been almost a whisper and the hollow-cheeked, wild-eyed figure standing in front of him was so pale it was almost transparent. Like an angel, Johannes thought.

  ‘Hello, Sonny. I heard they put you in solitary. How are you doing now?’

  Sonny shrugged.

  ‘You’ve a good left hook, lad.’ Johannes grinned and pointed to the gap where his front tooth used to be.

  ‘I hope you can forgive me.’

  Johannes gulped. ‘I’m the one who needs forgiving, Sonny.’

  The two of them looked at each other. Johannes saw Sonny glance up and down the corridor. There was a pause.

  ‘Would you break out of prison for me, Johannes?’

  Johannes took his time and tried shuffling the words to see if that made them make more sense before he asked: ‘What do you mean? I don’t want to escape. Besides, I’ve nowhere to go. I’ll be found and brought back immediately.’

  Sonny didn’t reply, but his eyes radiated black desperation and Johannes understood.

  ‘You want . . . you want me to break out so I can score some Superboy for you.’

  Sonny still didn’t reply, but continued to fix the old man’s gaze with his own manic, intense stare. Poor lad, Johannes thought. Sodding heroin.

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Because you’re the only one with access to the control room so only you can do it.’

  ‘Wrong. I’m the only one with access to the control room and that’s why I know it can’t be done. The doors can only be opened with fingerprints stored in the database. And I’m not in it, my friend. Nor can I be added without submitting four copies of an application which would need to be approved on high. I’ve seen them—’

  ‘All the doors can be locked and unlocked from the control room.’

  Johannes shook his head and looked around to make sure they were still alone in the corridor. ‘Even if you make it outside, there are guards in the security booth in the car park. They check the ID of everyone coming or going.’

  ‘Everyone?’

  ‘Yes. Except during shift changes when they let out recognised cars and familiar faces.’

  ‘Would that include people in a prison officer’s uniform, by any chance?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘So you would need to get yourself a uniform and break out when the officers change shift?’

  Johannes placed his forefinger and thumb under his chin. His jaw still hurt.

  ‘How would I get hold of the uniform?’

  ‘From Sørensen’s locker in the changing room. You’ll have to force it open with a screwdriver.’

  Sørensen was a prison officer who had been on sick leave for almost two months now. Nervous breakdown. Johannes knew they called it something else these days, but it was the same thing, a bloody great big mess of feelings. He had been there.

  Johannes shook his head again. ‘The changing room is full of prison officers during a shift change. Someone will recognise me.’

  ‘Change your appearance.’

  Johannes laughed. ‘Right. And let’s say I get hold of a uniform, now how would I go about threatening a group of prison officers so that they’ll let me out?’

  Sonny lifted up his long white shirt and produced a packet of cigarettes from his trouser pocket. Stuck a cigarette in between his dry lips and lit it with a lighter shaped like a pistol. Johannes nodded slowly.

  ‘This isn’t about drugs. There’s something you want me to do on the outside, isn’t there?’

  Sonny sucked the flame from the lighter into the cigarette and exhaled the smoke. He narrowed his eyes.

  ‘Will you do it?’ His voice was warm and soft.

  ‘Will you give me absolution from my sins?’ Johannes asked.

  Arild Franck spotted them as he came round the corner. Sonny Lofthus had placed his hand on the forehead of Johannes who was standing with his head bowed and his eyes closed. They looked like a pair of queers to him. He had seen them on the monitor in the control room; they had been talking for a while. From time to time he regretted not fitting every camera with a microphone because he could tell from the men’s wary, sideways glances that they weren’t discussing the next football pools coupon. Then Sonny had taken something out of his pocket. The boy had been standing with his back to the camera so it was impossible to make out what is was until they saw cigarette smoke rise above his head.

  ‘Hey! You know you’re only allowed to smoke in the designated areas.’

  Johannes’s grey-haired head slumped and Sonny let his hand drop.

  Franck walked up to them. Gestured with his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Go mop floors somewhere else, Johannes.’ Franck waited until the old man had shuffled out of earshot. ‘What were you talking about?’

  Sonny shrugged.

  ‘No, don’t tell me, the sanctity of the confession is inviolable,’ Arild Franck guffawed. The sound bounced between the bare corridor walls. ‘So, Sonny, have you had time to think about it?’

  The boy stubbed out the cigarette on the packet, put it in his pocket and scratched his armpit.

  ‘Itchy?’

  The boy said nothing.

  ‘I imagine there are worse things than an itch. Worse even than cold turkey. Did you hear about the guy in 317? They think he hanged himself from the light fitting. But that he changed his mind after he had kicked the chair away from underneath him. That’s why he clawed his own neck to pieces. What was his name again? Gomez? Diaz? He used to work for Nestor. There was some concern that he might start talking. No evidence, just a worry. That was all it took. Funny, isn’t it, when you lie in your bed at night and you’re in a prison and what scares you most is that the door to your cell might not be locked? That someone in the control room could give a prison full of killers access to you at the touch of a button?’

  The boy had lowered his head, but Franck could see the beads of sweat on his forehead. The boy would come to his senses. He certainly ought to. Franck didn’t like prisoners dying in their cells in his prison; eyebrows were inevitably raised no matter how plausible it looked.

  ‘Yes.’

  It came out so softly that Franck automatically leaned forward. ‘Yes?’ he echoed.

  ‘Tomorrow. You’ll get the confession tomorrow.’

  Franck folded his arms across his chest and rocked back on his heels. ‘Good. Then I’ll bring Mr Harnes with me early tomorrow morning. And no funny business this time. When you lie in your bed tonight, I suggest you take another look at the light fitting in the ceiling. Understand?’

  The boy raised his head and looked the assistant prison governor in the eye. Franck had long since dismissed the notion that the eyes mirrored the soul; he had stared into too many inmates’ baby-blue eyes while they lied through their teeth. Besides, it was a strange expression. Mirror of the soul. Logically it meant that you saw your own soul in someone else’s eyes. Was that why it was so uncomfortable to look into the boy’s? Franck turned away. It was a question of staying focused. And not allowing yourself to get sidetracked by thoughts that led nowhere.

  ‘It’s haunted, innit?’

  Lars Gilberg raised a thin roll-up to his lips with fingers the colour of charcoal and squinted up at the two police officers who were standing over him.

  Simon and Kari had spent three hours looking for Gilberg and finally tracked him down under Grünerbrua. They had started their search at the Ila Centre where no one had seen him for over a week, continued via Bymisjonen’s cafe in Skippergata, Plata by Oslo Central Station which still served as a marketplace for drugs, and finally the Salvation Army’s hostel in Urtegata where information had taken them in the direction of the river to Elgen, a statue which marked the border between speed and heroin.

  Along the way Kari had explained to Simon that the Albanians and the North Africans were currently in charge of the sale of amphetamine and methamphetamine along the river south of Elgen and down t
o Vaterland Bridge. Four Somalis were hanging around a bench, kicking their heels, their hoods pulled low down over their faces in the evening sun. One of them nodded when he saw the photo that Kari held up, pointed them north towards heroin country and winked at them as he asked if they fancied a gram of crystals for the journey. Their laughter had followed Simon and Kari as they plodded up the path towards Grünerbrua.

  ‘You’re saying you don’t want to stay at the Ila Centre any more because you think it’s haunted?’ Simon asked him.

  ‘It’s not something I think, man. It’s something I know. No one can get to sleep in a room there, it’s already occupied, you feel a presence the moment you go in. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and there would be no one there, obviously, but it felt as if someone had been breathing on my face. And it wasn’t just my room, you ask anyone there.’ Gilberg looked at the finished cigarette with disapproval.

  ‘So you prefer to sleep rough?’ Simon asked, offering him his own tin of tobacco.

  ‘Ghosts or no ghosts, to tell you the truth I can’t handle small spaces, I feel trapped. And this place . . .’ Gilberg gestured towards his bed of newspapers and the scruffy sleeping bag next to him. ‘It’s a top holiday destination, innit?’ He pointed to the bridge. ‘A roof that won’t leak. A sea view. No expenses, easy access to public transport and local amenities. What more could you want?’ He took three pieces of snus from Simon’s tin and stuck one under his upper lip and the other two in his pocket.

  ‘A job as a chaplain?’ Kari suggested.

  Gilberg tilted his head to one side and peered up at Simon.

  ‘That dog collar you’re wearing,’ Simon said. ‘You may have read in those newspapers of yours that a chaplain was found dead in the river just up from here.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know anything about that.’ Gilberg took the two pieces of tobacco from his pocket, put them back in the tin and handed it to Simon.

  ‘It’ll take Forensics twenty minutes to prove that dog collar belonged to the chaplain, Lars. And it’ll take you twenty years to serve out your sentence for his murder.’

  ‘Murder? There was nothing about—’

  ‘So you do read the crime section? He was dead before he was thrown in the river. We can tell from the bruises on his skin. He hit some rocks and bruises show up differently if you’re already dead. Do you follow?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you want me to spell it out to you? Or would you rather I tell you just how claustrophobic being in a prison cell really is?’

  ‘But I haven’t—’

  ‘Even as a suspect you should expect to be remanded in custody for several weeks. And remand cells are much smaller.’

  Gilberg looked pensive and sucked hard on the snus a couple of times.

  ‘What d’you want?’

  Simon squatted down in front of Gilberg. The homeless man’s breath didn’t just smell, it had a taste. The sweet, rotten taste of fallen fruit and death.

  ‘We want you to tell us what happened.’

  ‘I dunno know anything, I just told you.’

  ‘You’ve told us nothing, Lars. But it sounds as if it’s important to you. Not telling us, I mean. Why?’

  ‘It was just this collar. It floated ashore and—’

  Simon got up and grabbed Gilberg by the arm. ‘Come on, off we go.’

  ‘Wait!’

  Simon released him.

  Gilberg bowed his head. He heaved a sigh. ‘They were Nestor’s men. But I can’t . . . you know what Nestor does to people who . . .’

  ‘Yes, I know. But you also know that he’ll hear about it if your name appears in the interview logs at Police HQ. So I suggest you tell us what you know right now and then I’ll decide if we can leave it at that.’

  Gilberg shook his head slowly.

  ‘Now, Lars!’

  ‘I was sitting on the bench under the trees where the path leads down to Sannerbrua. I was only ten metres away so I could see them up on the bridge, but I don’t think they saw me, I was hidden among the leaves, you know what I mean? There were two of them and one was holding the chaplain while the other put his arm around his forehead. I was so close that I could see the white of the chaplain’s eyes. They were completely white, by the way, it was like the eyeballs had rolled back into his head, you know what I mean? But he didn’t make a sound. As if he knew there was no point. Then the second guy snapped his head backwards like a bloody chiropractor. I heard it break, I’m not kidding, it sounded like someone stepping on a twig in the forest.’ Gilberg pressed his forefinger against his upper lip, blinked twice and stared into the distance. ‘They took a look around. Christ, they’ve just killed a guy in the middle of Sannerbrua and they’re completely cool. Then again Oslo can be strangely deserted in the middle of the summer, you know what I mean? So they threw him over the brick wall where the railing stops.’

  ‘That fits with where the rocks stick up,’ Kari said.

  ‘He lay on the rocks for a little while before the current got hold of him and carried him off. I didn’t move an inch. If those guys knew that I’d seen them . . .’

  ‘But you had,’ Simon said. ‘And you were so close that you would be able to recognise them again.’

  Gilberg shook his head. ‘No chance. I’ve already forgotten them. That’s the trouble when you get high on anything you can lay your hands on, you know what I mean? Messes with your head.’

  ‘I think you mean that’s the plus side,’ Simon said, rubbing his face.

  ‘But how did you know they worked for Nestor?’ Kari shifted her weight restlessly.

  ‘Their suits,’ Gilberg said. ‘The men looked identical, as if they had nicked a shipment of black two-piece suits destined for the Norwegian Undertakers’ Association.’ He manoeuvred the snus with his tongue. ‘You know what I mean?’

  ‘We’re prioritising the case,’ Simon said to Kari in the car on their way back to Police HQ. ‘I want you to review Vollan’s movements for the forty-eight hours before he was killed and get me a list of everyone, and I mean everyone, he came into contact with.’

  ‘Fine,’ Kari said.

  They passed Blå and stopped for a flow of young pedestrians. Hipsters on their way to a concert, Simon thought and looked over at Kuba. He saw a big screen that had been erected on the outdoor stage while Kari called her father and said she wouldn’t be coming for dinner. They were showing a black-and-white film. Images of Oslo. It looked like the fifties. A time Simon remembered from his own childhood. For the hipsters it was probably just a curiosity, something from the past, all innocent and possibly charming. He could hear laughter.

  ‘I’ve been wondering about something,’ Kari began. ‘You said that Nestor would know if we brought Gilberg in for an interview. Were you serious?’

  ‘What do you think?’ Simon said and accelerated towards Hausmannsgate.

  ‘I don’t know, but it sounded like you meant it.’

  ‘I don’t know what I meant. It’s a long story. For years there were rumours of a mole in the police force who leaked information to the person who ran most of the drugs and sex trafficking in Oslo. But it’s a long time ago and though there was a lot of talk at the time no one ever produced any evidence to prove that this mole or that person actually existed.’

  ‘What person?’

  Simon looked out of the window. ‘We called him the Twin.’

  ‘Ah, the Twin,’ Kari said. ‘They talked about him in the Drug Squad, a bit like Gilberg’s ghosts at the Ila Centre. Was he real?’

  ‘Oh, the Twin is real.’

  ‘And what about the mole?’

  ‘Well. A man called Ab Lofthus left behind a suicide note in which he claimed to be the mole.’

  ‘Wasn’t that sufficient evidence?’

  ‘Not in my book.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because Ab Lofthus was the least corrupt officer ever to work for Oslo Police.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Simon stopped for
a red light at Storgata. The darkness seemed to flow out of the buildings around them and with the darkness came the creatures of the night. They walked with shuffling footsteps, or slumped against walls in doorways where music pounded, or sat in cars with their elbows hanging out of the side window. Searching, hungry looks. Hunters.

  ‘Because he was my best friend.’

  Johannes checked the time. Ten minutes past ten. Ten minutes past lockdown. The others were locked in their cells by now; he would be manually locked in his once he had finished his final cleaning round at eleven o’clock. It was a strange thing. When you had been in prison for a long time the days started to fade away as quickly as minutes and the calendar girls on the wall in your cell couldn’t keep up with the passing months. But this last hour had felt as long as a year. A long, horrible year.

  He entered the control room.

  There were three people on duty, one fewer than during the day. The springs in the chair creaked as one of them turned away from the monitors.

  ‘Evening, Johannes.’

  It was Geir Goldsrud. He pushed the rubbish bin out from under the desk with his foot. It was an automatic response. The young shift supervisor helping the old cleaner with the stiff back. Johannes had always liked Geir Goldsrud. He pulled the pistol out of his pocket and aimed it at Goldsrud’s face.

  ‘Cool. Where did you get that?’ said one of the other officers, a blond man who played third-division football for Hasle-Løren.