The Redeemer hh-6

by Jo Nesbo

The recording froze as it reached the last frame.

  'Hello! This is Earth calling Mars.'

  Harry recognised the voice of Magnus Skarre. Someone laughed, and Beate blushed.

  'Sorry,' Skarre said, looking round him with a self-satisfied chuckle. 'That's still the Stankic dago. Science fiction is entertaining but guys who tense a bit here and slacken a bit there and become unrecognisable, that's a trifle far-fetched, if you ask me.'

  Harry was on the point of breaking in, but changed his mind. Instead he observed Beate with interest. Two years ago a comment like that would have crushed her on the spot and he would have had to sweep up the pieces.

  'As far as I know, no one was asking you,' Beate said, her cheeks still bright red. But since you feel that way let me give you an example I am sure you will understand.'

  'Whoa,' exclaimed Skarre, holding his hands up in defence. 'That wasn't meant personally, Lonn.'

  'When people die something called rigor mortis sets in.' Beate continued undeterred, but Harry could see her nostrils were flared. 'The muscles in the body, and in the face too, stiffen. It's the same as tensing muscles. And what is the typical reaction when the next of kin has to identify the corpse?'

  In the ensuing silence all that could be heard was the hum of the projector fan. Harry was already smiling.

  'They don't recognise them,' said a loud, clear voice. Harry had not heard Gunnar Hagen enter the room. 'Not an unusual problem in war when soldiers have to be identified. Of course, they're in uniform, but sometimes even comrades in their own unit have to check the dog tags to be sure.'

  'Thank you,' Beate said. 'Did that help the grey matter, Skarre?'

  Skarre shrugged, and Harry heard someone laugh out loud. Beate switched off the projector.

  'The plasticity or mobility of the face is a very personal thing. To some extent it may be achieved through practice and to some extent, one has to assume, it's genetic. Some people cannot differentiate between the left and right sides of their face; others, with practice, can operate all the muscles independently of each other. Like a concert pianist. And that's called hyperelasticity or visage du pantomime. Known cases would suggest there is a strong genetic element. The ability was learned young or as a child and those who have an extreme degree of hyperelasticity often suffer from personality disorders – or have experienced terrible traumas while growing up.'

  'So what you're saying is that we're dealing with a crazy man here?' Gunnar Hagen said.

  'My area of expertise is faces, not psychology,' Beate said. 'But at any rate it cannot be excluded. Harry?'

  'Thank you, Beate.' Harry got to his feet. 'So now you know what we're up against, guys. Questions? Yes, Li?'

  'How do we catch a creature like this?'

  Harry and Beate exchanged glances. Hagen coughed.

  'I have no idea,' Harry said. 'All I know is that this will not be over until he has done his job. Or we have done ours.'

  There was a message from Rakel when Harry returned to his office. He rang her straight away to be spared the brooding.

  'How's it going?' she asked.

  'Right to the Supreme Court,' Harry said. It was an expression Rakel's father had used. An insider joke among Norwegian soldiers back from the Eastern Front after the war and facing trial. Rakel laughed. The gentle ripple for which he once would have been willing to sacrifice everything to hear every day. It still worked.

  'Are you alone?' she asked.

  'No. Halvorsen is sitting here listening as always.'

  Halvorsen raised his head from the Egertorget witnesses' statements and pulled a grimace.

  'Oleg needs someone to talk to,' Rakel said.

  'Oh yes?'

  'Pssh, that was clumsy. Not someone. He needs to talk to you.'

  'Needs?'

  'Another correction. He said he wants to talk to you.'

  'And asked you to ring?'

  'No. No, he would never have done that.'

  'No.' Harry smiled at the thought.

  'So… Would you have time one evening, do you think?'

  'Of course.'

  'Great. You could come and eat with us.'

  'Us?'

  'Oleg and me.'

  'Mm.'

  'I know you've met Mathias-'

  'Yes,' Harry said quickly. 'Seems a nice guy.'

  'Yes.'

  Harry didn't know how to interpret her intonation.

  'Are you still there?'

  'I'm here,' Harry said. 'Look, we've got a murder case on our hands and things are hotting up here. Could I have a think and ring you later with a day?'

  Pause.

  'Rakel?'

  'Yes, that would be fine. How are things otherwise?'

  The question was so out of place that for a moment Harry wondered whether it was meant as irony.

  'The days pass,' Harry said.

  'Nothing new happened in your life since we last spoke?' Harry breathed in. 'I have to be off, Rakel. I'll ring you when I've found a day. Say hello to Oleg from me. OK?'

  'OK.'

  Harry put down the receiver.

  'Well?' Halvorsen said. 'A convenient day?'

  'It's a meal. Something to do with Oleg. What would Robert be doing in Zagreb?'

  Halvorsen was about to say something when there was a soft knock at the door. They both turned. Skarre was standing in the doorway.

  'Zagreb police have just rung,' he informed them. 'The credit card was issued on the basis of a false passport.'

  'Mmm,' Harry hummed, leaning back in the chair and putting his hands behind his head. 'What would Robert be doing in Zagreb, Skarre?'

  'You know what I think.'

  'Dope,' Halvorsen said.

  'Didn't you mention a girl asking for Robert in the Fretex in Kirkeveien, Skarre? In the shop they thought she was from Yugoslavia, didn't they?'

  'Yes. It was the shop manager. She-'

  'Call Fretex, Halvorsen.'

  The office was quiet as Halvorsen flicked through the Yellow Pages and dialled a number. Harry started to drum his fingers on the table wondering how to phrase it: he was pleased with Skarre. He cleared his throat once. But then Halvorsen passed him the telephone.

  Sergeant Major Rue listened, spoke and acted. An efficient woman, Harry was able to confirm two minutes later when he rang off and coughed again.

  'That was one of her para 12 boys, a Serbian, who remembered the girl. He thinks her name is Sofia, but is not sure. He was certain she was from Vukovar.'

  Harry found Jon in bed in Robert's flat with an open Bible on his stomach. He looked anxious, as if he hadn't slept. Harry lit a cigarette, sat down on the fragile kitchen chair and asked Jon what he thought Robert had been doing in Zagreb.

  'No idea. He said nothing to me. Perhaps it was something to do with the secret project I'd lent him money for.'

  'OK. Do you know anything about a girlfriend – a young Croatian girl by the name of Sofia?'

  'Sofia Miholjec? You're kidding!'

  ''Fraid not. Does that mean you know who she is?'

  'Sofia lives in one of our buildings in Jacob Aalls gate. Her family was among the Croatian refugees in Vukovar the commander brought here. But Sofia… Sofia is fifteen.'

  'Maybe she was just in love with Robert? Young girl. Good-looking, grown lad. It's not exactly unusual, you know.'

  Jon was about to answer, but stopped himself.

  'You said Robert liked young girls,' Harry said.

  Jon studied the floor. 'I can give you the address of the family so you can ask her.'

  'OK.' Harry glanced at his watch. 'Anything you need?'

  Jon looked around. 'I should go round to my flat. Pick up some clothes and toiletries.'

  'Fine. I'll take you. Grab your coat and hat. It's got even colder.'

  The drive took twenty minutes. They passed the dilapidated old Bislett stadium that was due to be demolished, and Schroder restaurant, outside which stood a man in a thick woollen coat and hat whom Harry recognised. Harry
parked illegally in front of the entrance to Goteborggata 4, they entered and waited in front of the lift. Harry saw from the red number over the door that the lift was on the third floor, Jon's. Before they had time to press the button they heard the lift start to move and could see from the numbers that it was on its way down. Harry rubbed his palms against his thighs.

  'You don't like lifts,' Jon said.

  Harry eyed him in surprise. 'Is it obvious?'

  Jon smiled. 'My father doesn't, either. Come on. Let's take the stairs.'

  They set off and some way up Harry heard the lift door open beneath them.

  They let themselves into the flat and Harry stood by the door while Jon went to the bathroom and fetched a toilet bag.

  'Strange,' Jon said with a frown. 'It's as if someone has been here.'

  Jon slipped into the bedroom and returned with a bag.

  'It smells funny,' he said.

  Harry had a look around. There were two glasses on the sink, but no milk or other visible signs of liquid on the rims that would reveal anything. No wet marks left by melted snow on the floor, just a few splinters of light wood in front of the desk which must have come from one of the drawers. One drawer front looked as if it had split.

  'Let's get moving,' Harry said.

  'Why's my vac there?' Jon asked, pointing. 'Have your people been using it?'

  Harry knew SOC procedures and none of them involved using the vacuum cleaner at the scene of the crime.

  'Does anyone else have a key to this flat?' Harry asked.

  Jon hesitated. 'Thea, my girlfriend. But she would never have used the vac here of her own accord.'

  Harry studied the splinters of wood in front of the desk which would have been the first thing a vacuum cleaner would have swallowed. Then he went over to the machine. The attachment had been removed from the plastic shaft attached to the end of the hose. Cold shivers ran down his spine. He lifted the hose and peered down it. Ran a finger around the circular black edge and looked at his fingertip.

  'What's that?' Jon asked.

  'Blood,' Harry said. 'Check the door's locked.'

  Harry already knew. He was standing on the threshold to the room he hated and yet still never managed to keep away from. He removed the plastic lid in the middle of the machine. Loosened the yellow dust bag and lifted it out while thinking that this was in fact the house of pain. The place where he was always forced to use his ability to empathise with evil. An ability which more and more often he thought he had overdeveloped.

  'What are you doing?' Jon asked.

  The bag was so full it bulged. Harry grabbed the soft, thick paper and ripped it open. The bag split and a fine cloud of black dust rose like a spirit from a lamp. It ascended weightlessly towards the ceiling as Jon and Harry examined the contents on the parquet floor.

  'Mercy,' Jon whispered.

  18

  Thursday, 18 December. The Chute.

  'My God,' Jon groaned, groping for a chair. 'What's happened here? That's an… that's an…'

  'Yes,' Harry said, crouching beside the vacuum cleaner and concentrating on maintaining even breathing. 'It's an eye.'

  The eyeball looked like a blood-streaked, stranded jellyfish. Dust was stuck to the white surface. On the blood-soaked reverse Harry could make out the base of muscles and the thicker, wormlike peg that was the optical nerve. 'What I'm wondering is how it got through the filter unscathed and into the bag. If it was sucked in that is.'

  'I took out the filter,' Jon said in a tremulous voice. 'It sucks better.'

  Harry produced a pen from his jacket pocket and used it to turn the eye with great care. The consistency felt soft, but there was a hard centre. He shifted position so that the light from the lamp in the ceiling fell on the pupil, which was large, black, with blurred edges now that the eye muscles no longer kept it round. The light, almost turquoise iris encircling the pupil shone like the centre of a matt marble. Harry heard Jon's quick breaths behind him.

  'Unusually light blue iris,' Harry said. 'Anyone you know?'

  'No, I… I don't know.'

  'Listen, Jon,' Harry said, without turning round. 'I don't know how much practice you've had at lying, but you're not very good at it. I can't force you to tell me spicy details about your brother, but with this…' Harry pointed to the bloodstained eyeball. '… I can force you to tell me who it is.'

  He swung round. Jon was sitting on one of the two kitchen chairs with his head bowed.

  'I… she…' His voice was thick with emotion.

  'A she then,' Harry helped.

  Jon gave a firm nod of his bowed head. 'Her name's Ragnhild Gilstrup. No one else has eyes like her.'

  'And how did her eye end up here?'

  'I have no idea. She… we… used to meet here. She had a key. What have I done, Harry? Why has this happened?'

  'I don't know, Jon. But I have a job to do here, and we have to find you a place to go first.'

  'I can go back to Gorbitz gate.'

  'No!' Harry shouted. 'Have you got keys to Thea's flat?'

  Jon nodded.

  'OK, go there. Keep the door locked and don't open up for anyone except me.'

  Jon walked towards the front door, then paused. 'Harry?'

  'Yes?'

  'Does it have to come out, about Ragnhild and me? I stopped meeting her when Thea and I got together.'

  'Then it's not a problem.'

  'You don't understand,' Jon said. 'Ragnhild Gilstrup was married.'

  Harry inclined his head in acknowledgement. 'The eighth commandment?'

  'The tenth,' Jon said.

  'I can't keep that under wraps, Jon.'

  Jon regarded Harry with surprise in his eyes. Then he slowly shook his head from side to side.

  'What is it?'

  'I can't believe I just said that,' Jon said. 'Ragnhild's dead and all I can think about is saving my own skin.'

  There were tears in Jon's eyes. And for one vulnerable moment Harry felt nothing but sympathy. Not the sympathy he could feel for the victim or for the next of kin, but for the person who for one heart-rending moment sees his own pathetic humanity.

  There were times when Sverre Hasvold regretted giving up his life as a merchant seaman to be a caretaker in the brand-new block of flats at Goteborggata 4. Especially on freezing cold days like this one when they rang to complain that the refuse chute was blocked again. On average it happened once a month and the reason was obvious: the openings on every floor were the same circumference as the shaft itself. The old blocks of flats were better. Even in the thirties, when the first refuse chutes appeared, the architects had had enough sense to make the diameter of the openings narrower so that people would not force in things which would get stuck further down the shaft. Nowadays all they had on their minds was style and lighting.

  Hasvold opened the chute door on the second floor, put his head in and switched on his torch. The light reflected off the white plastic bags and he established that, as usual, the problem lay between the ground floor and the first floor, where the shaft narrowed.

  He unlocked the refuse room in the basement and switched on the light. The cold was so raw that his glasses misted up. He shivered and grabbed the almost three-metre-long iron rod he kept along the wall for exactly this purpose. There was even a plastic ball on the end so that he wouldn't puncture the bags when he prodded it up the chute. Drops were falling from the opening with a drip, drip, on to the plastic bags in the refuse container. The house rules made it very clear that the chute was to be used for dry matter inside sealed bags, but no one – not even the so-called Christians living in the building – took any notice of that kind of thing.

  The eggshells and milk cartons crunched under his feet in the container as he moved towards the round opening in the ceiling. He peered up the hole but all he could see was blackness. He poked the rod up. Waited until he hit the usual soft bulk of bags, but instead the rod met something solid. He poked harder. It wouldn't budge; something was wedged good and
proper.

  He took the torch hanging from his belt and shone the light up the shaft. A drop fell on his glasses. Blinded and cursing, he tore off his glasses and wiped the lenses on his blue coat while holding the torch under his arm. He shifted to the side and took a short-sighted squint up. He was alarmed. Pointed the torch upwards, his imagination beginning to work overtime. His heart was slowing as he stared. In disbelief, he put his glasses back on. Then his heart stopped beating.

  The iron rod slid and scraped down the wall until it hit the floor with a clang. Sverre Hasvold found himself sitting in the refuse container. The torch must have slipped down between the bags somewhere. Another drop dripped onto the plastic bag between his thighs. He jerked backwards as though it were caustic acid. Then he got to his feet and sprinted out.

  He had to have fresh air. He had seen things at sea, but nothing like this. This was… not normal. It had to be sick. He pushed open the front door and staggered out onto the pavement without noticing the two tall men standing there or the cold air that met him. Dizzy and breathless, he leaned against the wall and took out his mobile phone. Stared at it, helpless. They had changed the emergency numbers some years ago, made them easier to remember, but the old ones were the ones that occurred to him, of course. He caught sight of the two men. One of them was talking on his mobile; the other he recognised as one of the residents.

  'Sorry, but do you know how to ring the police?' Hasvold asked and could hear that he had become hoarse as though from a long bout of screaming.

  The resident glanced at the man beside him, who studied the caretaker for a moment before saying: 'Hang on, we may not need Ivan and the tracker dogs after all.' The man lowered his mobile and turned to Sverre Hasvold. 'I'm Inspector Hole, Oslo Police. Let me guess.. .'

  In a flat by Vestkanttorget Tore Bjorgen was looking down through the bedroom window onto the yard. It was as quiet outside as inside; no children running around screaming or playing in the snow. It must have been too cold and dark. And it was several years since he had seen children playing outside in the winter anyway. From the living room he could hear the TV newsreader warning about record low temperatures. The Social Services Secretary was going to implement special measures to take the homeless off the streets and to encourage the elderly living on their own to turn up the heating in their flats. The police were looking for a Croatian national by the name of Christo Stankic. There was a reward for any tip-offs leading to his arrest. The presenter didn't mention an amount, but Bjorgen assumed it would be more than enough for a return plane ticket to Cape Town and three weeks' food and accommodation.