by Jo Nesbo
'Cardiac tamponade?' Harry shouted.
'Internal bleeding that fills the area round the heart so that it can't beat properly. They had to drain a lot of blood. The situation has stabilised now, but he's still in a coma. We just have to wait. I'll ring you if there are any developments.'
'Thanks. Anything else I ought to know?'
'Hagen sent Jon Karlsen and Thea Nilsen back to Ostgard with two babysitters. And I've spoken to Sofia Miholjec's mother. She promised to take Sofia to a doctor today.'
'Mm. What about the Veterinary Institute report about the bits of meat in the vomit?'
'They said they suggested Chinese restaurants because China is the only country in the world where they eat that kind of thing.'
'Eat what kind of thing?'
'Dog.'
'Dog? Hang on.'
The music was gone and in its place she heard traffic noise. Then Harry's voice was there again. 'But they don't serve dog meat in Norway, for Christ's sake.'
'No, this is special. The Veterinary Institute managed to pinpoint the breed, so I'll ring the Norwegian Kennel Club tomorrow. They have a register of all pedigree dogs and their owners.'
'I don't quite see how that will help us. There must be hundreds of thousands of dogs in Norway.'
'Four hundred thousand. At least one for every household. I've checked it. The point is that this one is rare. Have you ever heard of a black Metzner?'
'Please repeat that.'
She repeated. And for a couple of seconds all she heard was the traffic noise in Zagreb until Harry shouted: 'Of course! That makes sense. A man looking for shelter. Why didn't I think of that before?'
'Think of what?'
'I know where Stankic is hiding.'
'What?'
'You must get hold of Hagen and have him authorise an armed operation by Delta.'
'Where? What are you talking about?'
'The container terminal. Stankic is hiding in one of the containers.'
'How do you know that?'
'Because there aren't many bloody places in Oslo where you can eat black Metzner. Make sure Delta and Falkeid have surrounded the terminal by the time I arrive on the first plane tomorrow. But no arrests before I get there. Is that clear?'
After Beate rang off, Harry stood in the street looking at the hotel bar. Where the plastic music was pounding away. And the half-finished glass of poison was awaiting him.
He had him now, the mali spasitelj. All that was needed was a clear head and a steady hand. Harry thought about Halvorsen. Of a heart drowning in blood. He could go straight up to his room, where there was no more alcohol, lock the door and throw the key out of the window. Or he could go in and finish off his drink. Harry shivered and took a deep breath and switched off his mobile. Then he went into the bar.
Staff at the Salvation Army's Headquarters had long since switched off the lights and gone home, but the light in Martine's office was still on. She dialled Harry Hole's number while asking herself the same questions: Was it because he was older that made it so exciting? Or because there seemed to be so many repressed emotions? Or because he looked so helpless. The incident with the woman Harry snubbed on the landing ought to have frightened her off, but for some reason or other the opposite was the case; she had become more intent than ever to… yes, what did she want actually? Martine groaned when the voice announced that the phone subscriber had switched off or was in area with poor coverage. She rang enquiries, got the number of his landline in Sofies gate and called. Her heart leapt when she heard his voice, but it was only an answering machine. She had the perfect excuse for popping by on her way home from the office and now he wasn't there! She left another message. Saying she had to give him the ticket for the Christmas concert in advance because she would be helping at the concert hall from the morning onwards.
She put down the phone and at that moment became aware that someone was standing in the doorway observing her.
'Rikard! Don't do that. You frightened me.'
'Sorry. I was on my way home and just poked my head in to see if I was the last. Shall I drive you home?'
'Thank you, but-'
'You've got your jacket on. Come on and then you don't have to bother with the alarm.' Rikard laughed his staccato laugh. Martine had managed to set off the new alarm twice last week when she had been last to leave, and they'd had to pay the security company to come out.
'OK,' she said. 'Thank you.'
'Not at all…' Rikard sniffled.
His heart was pounding. He could smell Harry Hole now. With infinite care he opened the door and groped for the light switch on the wall. In his other hand he held the gun, pointing it at the bed he could more or less make out in the dark. He breathed in and flicked the light switch; the bedroom was flooded in light. The room was bare – just a basic bed which was tidy and unoccupied. Like the rest of the flat. He had already searched the other rooms. And now he was in the bedroom and could feel his pulse beginning to calm down. Harry Hole was not at home.
He put his gun in the pocket of the filthy denim jacket and felt it crush the urinal block he had taken from the toilet in Oslo Central Station, which was next to the public telephone he had used to find out Hole's Sofies gate address.
It had been easier to enter the building than he had thought. After ringing twice at the main door without receiving an answer, he had been on the point of giving up. But then he pushed the door and although it was closed it had not snapped shut. Must have been the cold. On the second floor Hole's name was scribbled on a strip of masking tape. He had put his cap against the glass pane above the lock and hit it with the barrel of his gun; it had cracked with a crisp crack.
The sitting room faced the backyard so he took the risk of switching on a lamp. He looked around. Simple and spartan. Tidy.
But his Trojan Horse, the man who could lead him to Jon Karlsen, was not there. For the time being. But he hoped he had a weapon or ammunition. He started with the places it would be natural to imagine a policeman might keep a gun, in drawers or cupboards or under the pillow. On finding nothing, he carried out a systematic room-to-room search, but without any success. Then he began the random search that is manifest proof that you have in fact given up and are desperate. Under a letter on the telephone table he found a police ID card with a photo of Harry Hole. He pocketed it. He moved books and records which he noticed were arranged in alphabetical order on the shelves. There was a stack of papers on the coffee table. He flicked through them and stopped at a photograph with a motif he had seen in many variants: dead man in a uniform. Robert Karlsen. He saw the name Stankic. One form had Harry's name at the top; his eyes ran down it and stopped at a cross by a familiar expression. Smith amp; Wesson. 38. The signatory had written his name with grandiose flourishes. A gun licence? A request form?
He gave up. So Harry Hole had the gun on him.
He went into the cramped but clean bathroom and turned on the tap. The hot water made him tremble. The soot from his face turned the sink black. Then he turned on the cold tap and the coagulated blood on his hands dissolved and the sink went red. He dried himself and opened the cabinet above the sink. Found a roll of gauze which he tied around his hand and the wound from the glass.
There was something missing.
He saw a short bristle beside the tap. As if after a shave. But there was no razor, no shaving foam. Or a toothbrush, toothpaste or a toilet bag. Was Hole on his travels, in the middle of a murder inquiry? Or perhaps he lived with a girlfriend?
In the kitchen, he opened the fridge, which contained a milk carton with a sell-by date six days away, a jar of jam, white cheese, three tins of stew and a freezer compartment with sliced rye bread in a plastic wrapper. He took the milk, the bread, two of the tins and switched on the stove. There was a newspaper with today's date lying beside the toaster. Fresh milk, latest newspaper. He began to lean towards the travel theory.
He had taken a glass from the high wall cupboard and was about to pour some milk when
a sound made him drop the carton on the floor.
The telephone.
He watched the milk spread across the red terracotta tiles while listening to the insistent ringing in the hall. Three mechanical clicks followed five beeps and a woman's voice filled the room. The words came fast and the tone seemed cheerful. She laughed, then put down the phone. There was something about that voice.
He placed the opened tins of stew in the hot frying pan as they had done during the siege. Not because they didn't have plates, but so that everyone knew they had equal portions. Then he went into the hall. The small, black answering machine was flashing red and showed a number 2. He pressed PLAY. The tape started.
'Rakel,' a woman's voice said. It sounded a bit older than the one that had just spoken. After a couple of sentences she handed over to a boy who excitedly chatted away. Then the last message came again. And he knew for certain he had not been imagining that he had heard the voice before. It was the girl on the white bus.
When the messages were finished, he stood looking at the two colour photographs stuck to the wall under the mirror. In one, Hole, a darkhaired woman and a boy were sitting on a pair of skis in the snow squinting at the camera. The other was faded and old, and showed a small girl and boy, both in bathing costumes. She seemed to have Down's syndrome – he was Harry Hole.
He sat in the kitchen eating at his leisure and listening to the sounds in the stairwell. The glass pane was patched up with the transparent tape he found in the drawer of the telephone table. After eating he went to the bedroom. It was cold. He sat on the bed and ran a hand over the soft bedclothes. Smelt the pillow. Opened the wardrobe. He found a pair of grey boxer shorts and a folded white T-shirt with a drawing of a kind of eight-armed Shiva with the word FRELST, redeemed, underneath and JOKKE amp; VALENTINERNE above. The clothes smelt of soap. He undressed and put them on. Lay down on the bed. Closed his eyes. Thought of the photograph of Hole. Of Giorgi. Put the gun under the pillow. Even though he was absolutely exhausted he could feel an erection on the way. His dick pressed against the tight-fitting but soft cotton. And he went to sleep in the secure knowledge that he would wake up if anyone opened the front door.
'Expect the unexpected.'
That was the motto of Sivert Falkeid, the leader of Delta, the police Special Forces Unit. Falkeid stood on a ridge behind the container, a walkie-talkie in his hand and the swish of taxis and juggernauts heading home for Christmas on the motorway in his ears. Beside him stood Chief Inspector Gunnar Hagen with the collar of his green flak jacket turned up. Falkeid's boys were in the cold, ice-bound darkness beneath them. He checked his watch. Five to three.
It was nineteen minutes since one of the dog patrol's Alsatians had indicated that a person was inside a red container. Nevertheless Falkeid did not like the situation. Even though the task seemed easy enough. That was not what he disliked.
So far everything had gone like clockwork. It had taken a mere fortyfive minutes from the time he received Hagen's call for the five selected soldiers to appear primed and ready at the police station. Delta consisted of seventy people, in the main highly motivated, well-trained men with an average age of thirty-one. Details were drawn up according to need, and their spheres of activity included so-called 'difficult armed actions', the category into which this job fell. In addition to the five men from Delta there was one person from FSK, Forsvarets Spesialkommando, the military Special Forces. And this was where his misgivings began. The man was an ace marksman personally drafted in by Gunnar Hagen. He called himself Aron, but Falkeid knew that no one in FSK operated under their real name. In fact, the whole force had been secret since its inception in 1981, and it was only during the famous Enduring Freedom Operation in Afghanistan that the media had managed to get hold of any specific details at all about this crack unit which, in Falkeid's opinion, was more reminiscent of a secret brotherhood.
'Because I trust Aron,' had been Hagen's brief explanation to Falkeid. 'Do you recall the rifle shot in Torp in '94?'
Falkeid remembered the hostage drama at Torp airfield very well. He had been there. No one was told afterwards who had fired the shot that saved the day, but the bullet had gone through the armpit of a bulletproof vest hanging in front of the car window and into the bank robber's head, which had then exploded like a pumpkin in the back seat of a brand-new Volvo, which the car dealer took in part exchange, washed and resold. That wasn't what bothered him. Nor that Aron was carrying a rifle that Falkeid had not seen before. The letters MAR on the gunstock did not mean a thing to him. At this moment Aron was lying somewhere outside the terrain with laser sights and night-vision goggles, and had reported in that he had a clear view of the container. Otherwise Aron confined himself to grunts when Falkeid asked for updates on the radio. But that didn't bother him, either. What Falkeid did not like about the situation was that Aron should have been there at all. They had no need whatsoever of a marksman.
Falkeid hesitated for a moment. Then he raised the walkie-talkie to his mouth. 'Flash the light if you're ready, Atle.'
A light next to the container moved up and down.
'Everyone in position,' Falkeid said. 'We're ready to move in.'
Hagen nodded. 'Good. Before we go into action I would just like to have confirmation that you share my view, Falkeid. That it's best to make the arrest now and not to wait for Hole.'
Falkeid shrugged. It would be light in six hours, Stankic would come out and they could arrest him with the dogs on open ground. They said Gunnar Hagen was being groomed for the job of Chief Super when the time came.
'Seems sensible enough, yes.'
'Good. And that's what will be in my report. This was a joint decision. In case anyone should maintain I put the arrest forward to claim the kudos.'
'I don't think anyone will suspect you of that.'
'Good.'
Falkeid pressed the talk button on the walkie-talkie. 'Ready in two minutes.'
Hagen and Falkeid's frosty breath was white and merged into the same cloud before disappearing again.
'Falkeid…' It was the walkie-talkie. Atle. He whispered, 'A man just came out through the door of the container.'
'Stand by, everyone,' Falkeid said. In a firm, calm voice. Expect the unexpected. 'Is he going out?'
'No. He's standing still. He's… it looks like…'
A single shot resounded across the darkness of Oslo fjord. Then it went still again.
'What the hell was that?' Hagen asked.
The unexpected, thought Falkeid.
24
Saturday, 20 December. The Promise.
It was early saturday morning, and he was still asleep. In Harry's flat, in Harry's bed, in Harry's clothes. And he was having Harry's nightmares. About returning ghosts, always about returning ghosts.
There was a tiny sound, a mere scratching outside the front door. But it was more than enough. He woke up, put his hand under the pillow and was on his feet in an instant. The freezing floor burnt his bare feet as he crept into the hall. Through the wavy glass he could see the silhouette of someone. He had switched off all the lights and knew that no one could see him from the outside. The person seemed to be bending down and fidgeting with something Couldn't he get the key in the lock? Was Harry Hole drunk? Perhaps he hadn't been travelling after all. He had been out drinking all night.
He stood close to the door now and stretched out his hand for the cold metal door handle. Held his breath and felt the comforting friction of the gunstock against his other palm. The person outside also seemed to be holding their breath.
He hoped it didn't mean there would be unnecessary trouble; he hoped that Hole would be sensible enough to realise he had no choice: he had to take him to Jon Karlsen, or if that proved to be inappropriate, to bring Karlsen here to the flat.
With his gun raised so that it was immediately visible, he yanked open the door. The person outside gasped and retreated two paces.
There was something stuck to the outside door handle. A bunch of f
lowers wrapped in paper and cellophane. With a large envelope glued to the paper.
He recognised her at once, despite her horrified expression.
'Come in here,' he growled.
Martine Eckhoff hesitated until he raised the gun again.
He waved her into the sitting room with the barrel and followed. Asked her politely to sit in the wing chair while he sat on the sofa.
She dragged her eyes away from the gun and looked at him.
'Sorry about the clothes,' he said. 'Where's Harry?'
'What do you want?' she asked in English.
He was surprised by her voice. It was calm, almost warm.
'To get hold of Harry Hole,' he said. 'Where is he?'
'I don't know. What do you want from him?'
'Let me ask the questions. If you don't tell me where he is I will have to shoot you. Do you understand?'
'I don't know. So you'll have to shoot me. If you think that will help you.'
He searched for fear in her eyes. Without success. Perhaps it was her pupils; there was something wrong with them.
'What are you doing here?' he said.
'I brought Harry a concert ticket.'
'And flowers?'
'Just a whim.'
He seized the bag that she had set down on the table, rummaged through it until he found a wallet and a bank card. Martine Eckhoff. Born in 1977. Address: Sorgenfrigata, Oslo. 'You're Stankic,' she said. 'You're the man who was on the white bus, aren't you.'
He looked at her again and she held his gaze. Then she nodded slowly.
'You're here because you want Harry to lead you to Jon Karlsen, aren't you. And now you don't know what to do, do you.'
'Shut up,' he said. But he didn't achieve the tone he had intended. Because she was right: everything was falling apart. They sat without speaking in the darkened room as dawn filtered through.
In the end she broke the silence.
'I can take you to Jon Karlsen.'