The Son

by Jo Nesbo

  The Son picked up the book, sat down and started writing.

  After a while he tore a page out of the book, scrunched it up and threw it in the waste-paper basket by the door. Started on another page. Not for so long this time. He pulled out the page and read what he had written. And then he closed his eyes and pressed the paper to his lips.

  Martha put down the carrier bags of groceries on the kitchen worktop. Wiped the sweat from her brow. The shop had been further away than she had expected and she had practically run all the way back. She rinsed the box with strawberries under the tap, picked out the two biggest, juiciest berries and took the bouquet of buttercups she had picked along the roadside with her. Again she felt the sweet sting at the memory of his burning skin under the duvet. The heroin addict who got high from her touch. Because he was her drug now. Hooked after the first fix. She was lost and she loved it!

  She sensed it on the stairs as soon as she saw the open bedroom door. Something was wrong. It was far too quiet.

  The bed was empty. The lamp lay broken on the floor. His clothes were gone. Under the shards from the lamp she saw the black book she had found under the bed slats.

  She called out his name even though she knew there would be no reply. The gate had been open when she came back and she was quite sure she’d closed it when she left. They had come for him, like he’d said. He had clearly struggled, but to no avail. She had left him asleep, she had failed to take care of him, she hadn’t . . .

  She turned round and spotted the note on the pillow. The paper was yellow and looked like it had been torn from the notebook. It was written with an old pen lying next to the pillow. Her initial reaction was that it must have been his father’s pen. And before she had even read the words, she thought that history was repeating itself. Then she read the note, dropped the flowers and clasped her hand to her mouth, an automatic gesture to hide the ugly way the mouth contorted when the tears welled up.

  Dear Martha

  Forgive me, but I’m going to disappear now. I love you forever.

  Sonny

  39

  MARKUS WAS SITTING on the bed in the yellow house.

  After the woman had rushed off, only twenty minutes after the Son had left in a hurry, Markus had waited ten minutes before he realised that they weren’t coming back.

  Then he had crossed the road. The key to the house had been put back in its regular place.

  The bed had been made and the shards from the lamp placed in the waste-paper basket. He found the scrunched-up piece of paper under the shards.

  The words were written in a neat, almost feminine hand.

  Dear Martha

  My father once told me how he watched a man drown. He had been on patrol, it was the middle of the night and a boy had rung from the harbour at Kongen. The boy’s father had fallen into the sea while they were mooring their boat. He couldn’t swim and was clinging to the gunwale, but the son wasn’t able to pull his father back on board. By the time the patrol car arrived, the boy’s father had given up, let go and gone under. Several minutes had already passed and my father called for divers as the boy sobbed desperately. And while they waited, the man suddenly surfaced, his pale face gasping for air. The son let out a cry of joy. Then the father went under again. My father jumped into the water to rescue him, but it was too dark. When my father resurfaced, he looked straight into the still beaming face of the boy who thought that now everything was OK, his father was alive and the police were here. And my father told me how he had seen the heart torn out of the boy’s chest when he realised that God had merely been toying with him by letting him think he was going to give back the father he had taken from him. My father said that if there was a God, then he was a cruel God. Now I think I understand what he meant, because I have finally found my father’s diary. Perhaps he wanted us to know. Or maybe he was just cruel. Otherwise why keep a diary, but hide it in such an obvious place as under the mattress?

  You have your whole life ahead of you, Martha. I think you can do something good with it. I can’t do the same. Forgive me, but I’m going to disappear now.

  I love you forever.

  Sonny

  Markus looked at the table. There was the book which the Son had been reading.

  Black leather cover, yellowing pages. He flicked through it.

  He realised immediately that it was a diary even though there weren’t entries written for each day. In some places there were months between the entries. Sometimes there would just be a date and a couple of sentences. For example, it said that ‘the troika’ would eventually break up, that something had come between them. A week later that Helene was pregnant and that they had bought their own house. But how hard it was to survive on just a policeman’s salary, what a shame it was that both his and Helene’s parents came from such reduced circumstances that they couldn’t help them. Later on how happy he was that Sonny had started wrestling. Then a page about how the bank had raised interest rates, how they quite simply couldn’t pay the mortgage, how he had to do something before the house was repossessed. Think of something. That he had promised Helene it would be OK. Fortunately, the boy didn’t seem to have noticed that anything was troubling his parents.

  19 March

  Sonny says he wants to follow in my footsteps and become a police officer. Helene says that he is obsessed with me, that he worships me. I said it’s all right for a son to do that and that I was no different. Sonny is a good boy, perhaps too good, it’s a tough world, but a boy like him will always be a blessing to his father.

  Some pages followed which Markus didn’t quite understand. Words such as ‘imminent personal bankruptcy’ and ‘sell my soul to the devil’. And the name ‘the Twin’.

  Markus turned to the next page.

  4 August

  Today at the station they talked about the mole again, saying the Twin must have a plant in the force. How strange that people, even police officers, have so little imagination. It’s always one killer, one traitor. Don’t they realise the genius of being two? That one will always have an alibi when the other is active, that in this way we’ll both be completely above suspicion on so many occasions that we’ll automatically be eliminated as potential suspects? Yes, it’s a good set-up. It’s perfect. We’re corrupt, thoroughly rotten police officers who have betrayed everything we believe in for a few measly pieces of silver. We’ve turned a blind eye to drug dealing, human trafficking, even murder. Nothing matters any more. Is there a way back? Is there any chance of confession, penitence and forgiveness without me ruining everything and everyone around me? I don’t know. All I know is that I have to get out.

  Markus yawned. Reading always made him sleepy, especially when there were so many words he didn’t understand. He flicked ahead several pages.

  15 September

  I wonder how long we can carry on without the Twin finding out who we are. We communicate via Hotmail addresses from our separate, stolen computers which we’ve ‘borrowed’ from the evidence room, but it isn’t failsafe. On the other hand, if he had wanted to, he could have arranged surveillance of the places where we make our drops. When I picked up the envelope which was taped to the underside of the bench at Broker’s Restaurant in Bogstadveien the week before last, I was sure I had been spotted. A guy at the bar scowled at me, anyone could see he was a criminal. And I was right about him. He came over and told me that I had nicked him for handling stolen property ten years ago. Said it was the best thing that could have happened to him, that he had stopped keeping bad company and was now running a fish farm with his brother. Then he shook my hand and left. One story with a happy ending. The envelope also contained a letter in which the Twin wrote that he wants me – so clearly he doesn’t know that there are two of us – to advance in the police force, get a top job where I can be more useful; both to him and to me. Access to sensitive information, more money. He wrote that he could help me advance, pull strings. I laughed out loud. The guy must be completely mad, a guy like that doesn’t
stop until he has achieved world domination. He is someone who doesn’t stop, but has to be stopped. I showed the letter to Z. I don’t know why, but he didn’t laugh.

  Markus could hear his mother calling him. He imagined that she had a job for him to do. He hated it when she did that, flung open a window and yelled his name across the neighbourhood as if he were a dog or something. He turned another page.

  6 October

  Something has happened. Z says he thinks we ought to quit while we’re ahead, get out while the going is good. And the Twin hasn’t replied to my email for several days. That’s never happened before. Have the two of them been talking? I don’t know if they have, but I do know that this isn’t something we can just walk away from. I know that T2 no longer trusts me. For the same reason, I no longer trust him. We have shown each other our true faces.

  7 October

  Last night it was suddenly clear to me: the Twin only needs one of us and that’s exactly what he’ll get – one. The other will be the jilted lover, a bitter witness who must be eliminated. And Z has already realised this. So now it’s urgent, I have to get him before he gets me. I’ve asked Helene if she could go with Sonny to the wrestling competition tomorrow as I have things to do. I have asked Z if we can meet at the medieval ruins in Maridalen at midnight, that we have things to discuss. He sounded a little surprised that I wanted to meet in such a deserted place and so late, but said that it was fine.

  8 October

  It’s quiet. I have loaded the pistol. It feels strange to know that I’m about to take a man’s life. I keep asking myself what led me here. Did I do it for my family? Or for myself? Or was it the temptation to achieve something my parents couldn’t, a position in society, the life I’ve seen handed to undeserving idiots on a plate? Am I resourceful and brave – or weak and spineless? Am I a bad person? I’ve asked myself this question: if my son had been in my shoes, would I want him to do what I have done? And that, of course, made the answer very obvious.

  I’m going up to Maridalen soon, then we’ll have to see if I come back a changed man. A killer.

  I know it sounds strange, but sometimes I pray that someone will find this diary. That’s human nature, I guess.

  There was nothing more. Markus flicked through the blank pages and to the final ones which had been torn out. Then he put the diary back on the bedside table and walked quietly down the stairs while he heard his mother’s voice call out his name over and over.

  40

  BETTY ENTERED THE crowded pharmacy, tore off a numbered ticket where it said ‘Prescriptions’, and found a vacant chair along the wall among customers who were staring into space or, despite the sign prohibiting their use, pressing keys on their mobiles. She had convinced her doctor to write a prescription for stronger sleeping pills.

  ‘These are hard-core benzodiazepines and only for short-term use,’ he had said and repeated what she already knew; that their use created a vicious cycle which could lead to dependency and which didn’t get to the root of the problem. Betty had replied that the root of the problem was that she couldn’t sleep. Especially not after she had realised that she had been alone in a room with the country’s most wanted killer. A man who had shot a woman in her own home in Holmenkollåsen. And today the newspaper said that he was also suspected of the murder of a shipowner’s wife, that he had entered a house apparently chosen at random outside Drammen and nearly sawn off the top of her head. In the last few days Betty had wandered around like a zombie, half awake, half asleep, hallucinating. She saw his face everywhere, not just in the newspapers and on the TV, but on advertisements, on the tram, in reflections in shop windows. He was the postman, her neighbour, the waiter.

  And now she saw him in here, too.

  He was standing by the counter wearing a white turban or perhaps it was just a bandage around his head. He had put down a pile of disposable syringes and hypodermic needles on the counter and paid cash. The grainy pictures in the newspapers weren’t terribly helpful, but Betty noticed that the woman on the chair next to her whispered something to her companion while she pointed at the man, so perhaps she had also recognised him. But when the man with the turban turned round and walked towards the exit, his body twisting to one side, Betty realised that she was seeing things again.

  The ashen, withdrawn and stony face looked nothing like the face she had seen in Suite 4.

  Kari leaned forward to read the numbers while she drove slowly past the large houses. She had made up her mind after a sleepless night. Sam – whom she had also kept awake – had said that Kari shouldn’t take a job she didn’t intend to stay in so seriously. It was true, of course, but ultimately Kari liked order. And this could affect her future, it could close doors to her. So she had reached the decision to make a direct approach.

  She stopped the car. This was the right number.

  She wondered if she should drive through the open gate and up to the house, but decided to park in the street. She walked up the steep tarmac drive. A sprinkler was whistling in the garden; apart from that it was completely quiet.

  She climbed the steps and rang the bell. Heard fierce barking coming from the other side. She waited. No one came. She turned round and was about to walk down the steps, and there he was. The sun reflected in his rectangular spectacles. He must have come from behind the house and the garage; he must have moved quickly and quietly.

  ‘Yes?’

  He had his hands behind his back.

  ‘I’m Officer Kari Adel. I’d like to talk to you about something.’

  ‘And what might that be?’ He stuck his hands behind the belt at the back as if to hoist up the beige chinos or pull out his shirt, after all it was a very hot summer’s day. Or to stick a gun behind his belt and pull his shirt over it so it wouldn’t show.

  ‘Simon Kefas.’

  ‘I see. And why have you come directly to me?’

  Kari rolled her head from side to side. ‘Simon led me to believe that I risked leaks if I took the traditional route. He still believes there’s a mole in our ranks.’

  ‘Does he now?’

  ‘And that’s why I thought it was best to come straight to the top. To you, Commissioner.’

  ‘Well, well,’ Pontius Parr said, rubbing his narrow chin. ‘Then we’d better go inside, Officer Adel.’

  A happy Airedale terrier jumped up at Kari in the hall.

  ‘Willoch! We’ve talked about this . . .’

  The dog dropped down on all fours and limited itself to licking Kari’s hand while its tail went like a propeller. As they walked into the living room, Kari explained that she had been told that the Commissioner was working from home today.

  ‘I’m skiving,’ Parr smiled and extended his hand towards a large, inviting sofa covered with scatter cushions. ‘I was meant to start my summer holiday this week, but with this killer on the loose . . .’ He sighed and dropped down on one of the matching armchairs. ‘So what’s this about Simon?’

  Kari cleared her throat. She had planned what she had to say with all sorts of reservations and assurances that she hadn’t come to tell tales, only ensure the quality of their work. But now, as she sat here with Parr who seemed so relaxed and welcoming, who had even admitted that he was skiving, it felt more natural to get straight to the point.

  ‘Simon is on a mission of his own,’ she said.

  The Commissioner raised an eyebrow. ‘Go on.’

  ‘We’re investigating the case in parallel with Kripos, we’re not working with them, and now he’s stopped working with me as well. That’s fine, but the problem is that he appears to have some sort of agenda. And I don’t want to go down with him if he’s doing something illegal. He’s asked me to stay out of certain situations and stated quite plainly that he doesn’t intend to play by the rules.’

  ‘I see. And when was this?’

  Kari gave him a brief summary of the meeting with Iver Iversen.

  ‘Hmmmm,’ Parr said, hanging on the ‘m’ forever. ‘That’s not good. I
know Simon, and I wish I could say that this doesn’t sound anything like him. But it does, unfortunately. What do you think his agenda is?’

  ‘He wants to catch Sonny Lofthus single-handedly.’

  Parr rested his chin between his thumb and forefinger. ‘I see. Who else knows about this?’

  ‘No one. I came straight here.’

  ‘Good. Promise me that you won’t mention it to anyone else. This is a delicate matter, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate. Everyone’s eyes are on the police right now and we can’t afford to have individual officers behaving unprofessionally.’

  ‘Of course, I understand.’

  ‘Leave it with me. We’ll never mention your involvement. This meeting never happened. It may sound dramatic, but in this way, you won’t risk being labelled a snitch by your colleagues. Such names tend to stick.’

  Tend to stick. She hadn’t thought about that. Kari swallowed and nodded quickly. ‘Thank you so much.’

  ‘Not at all. Thank you, Adel. You’ve done the right thing. Now go back to work and carry on as if nothing’s happened, as they say.’ The Commissioner stood up. ‘I have to get back to doing nothing, I’m supposed to be working from home.’

  Kari got up, happy and relieved that this had proved to be far more pain-free than she’d hoped.

  Parr stopped in the doorway. ‘Where is Simon now?’