by Jo Nesbo
The same gentle, melodic voice.
‘Bellman.’
‘Sorry, wrong number,’ Harry said, cradling the receiver. Closed his eyes. Shit, shit, shit!
49
Not how or why.
Harry tried to purge his brain of all the redundant information. To concentrate on the only issue that was important now. Where.
Where the hell could Arnold Folkestad be?
At a crime scene.
With surgical equipment.
When Harry understood, there was one thing and one thing alone that surprised him: that he hadn’t clicked before. It was so obvious that even a first-year student with a mediocre imagination would have managed to crunch the data and follow the perpetrator’s train of thought. Crime scene. A scene where a man dressed and masked like a surgeon would not attract much attention.
It was two minutes by car from PHS to the Rikshospital.
He could do it. Delta couldn’t.
It took Harry twenty-five seconds to get out of the building.
Thirty to reach his car, start it and turn into Slemdalsveien, which would take him almost straight to where he was heading.
One minute and forty-five seconds after that he pulled up in front of the entrance to the Rikshospital.
Ten seconds after that he had pushed through the swing door and passed reception. He heard a ‘Hey, you there!’ but steamed ahead. His footsteps resounded against the walls and ceiling of the corridor. As he ran he fumbled behind his back. Got hold of the Odessa he had stuffed inside his belt. Felt his pulse counting down, faster and faster.
He passed the coffee machine. Slowed down so as not to make too much noise. Stopped by the chair outside the door that led to the crime scene. Many people knew a dope baron had died in there, but not many knew he had been murdered. And that the crime was unsolved. However, Arnold Folkestad did.
Harry stepped up to the door. Listened.
Checked the safety catch was off.
His pulse had counted down and was calm.
Along the corridor he heard running footsteps. They were on their way to stop him. And before Harry Hole silently opened the door and stepped inside, he had time for one more thought: this was a very bad dream where everything recurred, time after time, and it had to stop here. He had to wake up. To blink into the sun one morning, wrapped in a cold, white duvet, with her arms holding him tight. Refusing to let go, refusing to let him be anywhere except with her.
Harry closed the door quietly behind him. Stared at a man in green bent over a bed containing a man he knew. Mikael Bellman.
Harry raised his gun. Cocked the trigger. Already imagining the salvo ripping up the green material, severing the nerves, smashing the marrow, the back arching and falling forward. But Harry didn’t want that. He didn’t want to shoot this man in the back and kill him. He wanted to shoot him in the face and kill him.
‘Arnold,’ Harry said in a husky voice, ‘turn around.’
There was a clatter on the metal table as the man in green dropped something shiny, a scalpel. He turned slowly. Pulled down the green mask. Looked at Harry.
Harry stared back. His finger tightened around the trigger.
The footsteps outside were getting closer. There were a lot of them. He would have to hurry if he was going to do this without witnesses. He felt the resistance on the trigger ceding; he had reached the trigger’s eye of the storm, where all is still. The silence before the explosion. Now. Not now. He had let his finger slip back a tiny fraction. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Arnold Folkestad. Had he been mistaken? Had he been mistaken again? The face before him was smooth, the mouth open, the black eyes unfamiliar. Was this the cop killer? He looked so. . uncomprehending. The green figure took a step to the side, and it was only now that Harry saw the person the green outfit covered was a woman.
At that moment the door burst open behind him, and he was pushed to the side by two other people in green operating attire.
‘What’s the score?’ asked one of the new arrivals in a high-pitched authoritative voice.
‘Unconscious,’ the woman answered. ‘Low pulse.’
‘Blood loss?’
‘There’s not much blood on the floor, but it could have run into the stomach.’
‘Determine the blood type and order three bags.’
Harry lowered his gun.
‘Police,’ he said. ‘What’s happened here?’
‘Get out. We’re trying to save a life here,’ the authoritative voice said.
‘Same here,’ Harry said, raising his gun again. The man stared at him. ‘I’m trying to stop a murderer, Mr Surgeon. And we don’t know if he’s finished his handiwork for the day, OK?’
The man turned away from Harry. ‘If it’s only this wound and no damage to the inner organs then there won’t have been much blood lost. Is he in shock? Karen, help this officer.’
The woman spoke through her mask without moving away from the bed. ‘Someone in reception saw a man in bloodstained scrubs and a mask come from the empty wing and walk straight out. This was so unusual she sent someone in to check. The patient was on the way to dying when he was found.’
‘Anyone know where the man could have gone?’ Harry asked.
‘They say he just disappeared.’
‘When will the patient come round again?’
‘We don’t know if he’ll survive. You look as if you need medical help yourself by the way.’
‘Not much else we can do beyond covering it with a patch,’ the authoritative voice said.
No more information to be gleaned. Yet Harry stayed where he was. Took two steps forward. Stopped. Stared at Mikael Bellman’s white face. Was he conscious? It was hard to say.
One eye stared straight up at him.
The other wasn’t there.
Just a black cavity with blood-streaked shreds of sinew and white threads hanging out.
Harry turned and left. Took out his phone as he strode down the corridor in search of fresh air.
‘Yes?’
‘Ståle?’
‘You sound upset, Harry.’
‘The cop killer got Bellman.’
‘Got?’
‘He performed an operation on him.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He removed one of his eyes. And left him to bleed to death. And it was the cop killer who was behind the explosion this evening, which I’m sure you heard about on the news. He tried to kill two policemen, one of whom was me. I need to know what he’s thinking because I’ve got no bloody idea any more.’
Silence. Harry waited. Heard Ståle Aune’s heavy breathing. And then at last his voice again.
‘I really don’t know. .’
‘That’s not what I want to hear, Ståle. Pretend you know, all right?’
‘OK, OK. What I can say is that he’s out of control, Harry. The emotional pressure has escalated, he’s boiling over now, so he’s stopped following patterns. He could do anything from now on.’
‘So what you’re saying is you have no idea what his next move will be?’
Another silence.
‘Thanks,’ Harry said and hung up. The phone rang at once. Bjørn.
‘Yes?’
‘Delta’s on the way to Folkestad’s address.’
‘Good! Tell them that he could be heading there now. And that we’ll give them an hour before we sound a general alert so he doesn’t get a tip-off from police radio or something. Call Katrine and tell her to come to the Boiler Room. I’m going there now.’
Harry arrived at reception, saw people stare at him and recoil. A woman screamed, and someone ducked behind a counter. Harry discovered the reason in the mirror behind the counter.
Almost two metres of bomb-ravaged man with the world’s ugliest automatic still in his hand.
‘Sorry, folks,’ Harry mumbled, and left through the swing doors.
‘What’s going on?’ Bjørn asked.
‘Not much,’ Harry said, raising his face to the rai
n to cool the fire for a second. ‘Bjørn, I’m five minutes away from home, so I’ll drive there for a shower, some bandages and some more substantial clothes first.’
They rang off, and Harry saw the parking warden standing beside his car with his notepad out.
‘Thinking of fining me?’ Harry asked.
‘You’re blocking the entrance to a hospital, so you can bet your life I am,’ said the warden without looking up.
‘Perhaps better if you move and then we can get the car out of the way,’ Harry said.
‘I don’t think you should talk to me like-’ the warden started, looked up and froze when he saw Harry and the Odessa. And was still frozen to the spot when Harry got into his car, stuffed the gun back in the belt, twisted the key, let go of the clutch and shot off down the road.
Harry turned into Slemdalsveien, accelerated and passed an oncoming tram. Said a silent prayer that Arnold Folkestad would be on his way home just like him.
He swung into Holmenkollveien. Hoping Rakel wouldn’t freak out when she saw him. Hoping Oleg. .
God, how he was looking forward to seeing them. Even now, in the state he was in. Especially now.
He slowed before turning into the drive up to the house.
Then he jammed on the brakes.
Put the car into reverse.
Backed up slowly.
He looked at the parked cars he had just passed, lining the pavement. Stopped. Breathed through his nostrils.
Arnold Folkestad had been on his way home, true enough. Just like him.
For parked between two cars which were more typical of Holmenkollen — an Audi and a Mercedes — was a Fiat of indeterminate vintage.
50
Harry stood under the spruce trees for a few seconds studying the house.
From there he couldn’t see any signs of a break-in, neither through the door with the three locks nor through the bars on the windows.
Of course it was by no means certain that it was Folkestad’s Fiat on the road. Lots of people had a Fiat. Harry had placed his hand on the bonnet. It was still warm. He had left his own car in the middle of the road.
Harry ran through the trees until he was at the back of the house.
Waited, listened. Nothing.
He crept over to the wall. Stretched, peered in through the windows, but saw nothing, only darkened rooms.
He continued round the house until he came to the illuminated windows of the kitchen and the living room.
Stood up on his tiptoes and looked in. Ducked down again. Leaned back against the rough timber and concentrated on breathing. Because he had to breathe now. Had to ensure his brain had enough oxygen to think at speed.
A fortress. And what bloody good had that been?
He had them.
They were there.
Arnold Folkestad. Rakel. And Oleg.
Harry concentrated on memorising what he had seen.
They were sitting in the entrance hall by the front door.
Oleg on a spindle-back chair placed in the middle of the room, with Rakel right behind him. Oleg had a white gag in his mouth, and Rakel was tying him to the chair.
And a few metres behind them, ensconced in an armchair, was Arnold Folkestad with a gun in his hand, evidently giving Rakel orders.
The details. Folkestad’s gun was a Heckler amp; Koch, standard police issue. Reliable, wouldn’t jam. Rakel’s mobile phone was on the living-room table. Neither of them looked hurt for the moment. For the moment.
Why. .?
Harry stopped thinking. There wasn’t room, there wasn’t time for any whys, just how he could stop Folkestad.
Harry had already seen that it was an impossible shot. He wouldn’t be able to hit Arnold Folkestad without endangering Oleg and Rakel.
Harry raised his head above the windowsill and ducked down again.
Rakel would soon have finished her job.
Folkestad would soon start his.
He had seen the baton. It was leaning against the bookcase beside the armchair. Soon Folkestad would smash Oleg’s face the way he had with the others. A young boy who wasn’t even a policeman. And Folkestad had to be under the illusion that Harry was already dead, so the revenge was pointless. Why. .? Stop. No whys.
He had to ring Bjørn. Get Delta sent here. They were in the forest on the wrong side of town. It could easily take forty-five minutes. Fuck! He would have to do this on his own!
Harry told himself he had time.
He had several seconds, maybe a minute.
But he couldn’t hope for the element of surprise if he tried to burst in, not with three locks to open. Folkestad would hear him long before he was inside. Holding a gun to either Rakel’s or Oleg’s head.
Quickly, quickly! Something, anything, Harry.
He took out his mobile phone. Wanting to text Bjørn. But his fingers wouldn’t obey, they had frozen, they were numb, as though the blood supply had been cut off.
Not now, Harry, don’t freeze. This is a standard number. It’s not them, they are. . victims. Faceless victims. They are. . the woman you were going to marry, and the boy who called you Dad when he was small and was so tired he forgot himself. The boy you never wanted to disappoint, but whose birthday you still forgot and that — that on its own — could make you cry and you became so desperate you had to trick him. You always had to trick him.
Harry blinked into the darkness.
You old trickster.
The mobile phone on the table. Should he ring Rakel’s phone, see if it would make Folkestad stand up and move away from Rakel and Oleg? Shoot him as he picked it up?
And what if he didn’t? If he stayed where he was?
Harry took another peek. Ducked down, hoping Folkestad hadn’t seen the movement. Folkestad had got up with the baton in his hand and pushed Rakel to one side. And even if he got a clear shot in there was very little chance that at a distance of almost ten metres he would be lucky enough to stop Folkestad in his tracks. A better precision weapon was required than a Russian Odessa and a more suitable calibre than a Makarov 9x18mm. He had to get closer, preferably within two metres.
He heard Rakel’s voice through the window.
‘Take me! Please.’
Harry pressed his head against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut. Act, act. But how? Most merciful God, how? Give a terrible sinner of a trickster a hint and he’ll pay you back with. . whatever you want. Harry inhaled, whispering a promise.
Rakel stared at the man with the red beard. He was standing directly behind Oleg’s chair with the end of the baton resting on his shoulder. In the other hand he was holding a gun pointed at her.
‘I’m really sorry, Rakel, but I can’t spare the boy. He’s the real target, you see.’
‘But why?’ Rakel wasn’t aware of the crying, only the hot tears running down her cheeks, like a physical reaction disengaged from what she felt. Or didn’t feel. The numbness. ‘Why are you doing this, Arnold? It’s just. . it’s just. .’
‘Sick?’ Arnold Folkestad smiled, apologetically — or so it seemed. ‘That’s probably what all of you’d like to believe. That we can all enjoy our grandiose revenge fantasies, but none of us is willing, or even capable, of carrying them out.’
‘But why?’
‘Because I can love, I can hate. Well, now I can’t love any more. So I’ve replaced it with. .’ He raised the baton aloft. ‘. . this. I’m honouring my beloved. René, you see, wasn’t just any lover. He was. .’ He put the baton down on the floor, rested it against the back of the chair and groped in his pocket, but without lowering the gun by so much as a millimetre. ‘. . the apple of my eye. Who was taken from me. And nothing was done about it.’
Rakel stared at what he was holding. Knowing she should be shocked, unnerved, frightened. But she felt nothing; her heart was already frozen.
‘He had such nice eyes, Mikael Bellman did. So I took from him what he took from me. The best he had.’
‘An eye. But why Oleg?’
&n
bsp; ‘Do you really not understand, Rakel? He’s a seed. Harry told me he was going to be a policeman. And he’s already failed in his duty, and that makes him one of them.’
‘Duty? What sort of duty?’
‘The duty to catch murderers and pass judgement on them. He knows who killed Gusto Hanssen. You look surprised. I’ve had a look at the case. And it’s obvious that if Oleg didn’t kill him himself, he knows who the guilty party is. Anything else is a logical impossibility. Hasn’t Harry told you? Oleg was there, present, when Gusto was killed, Rakel. And do you know what I thought when I saw Gusto in the crime-scene photos? How beautiful he was. He and René were beautiful young men with their whole lives before them.’
‘My boy has his whole life too! Please, Arnold, you don’t need to do this.’
As she took a step towards him he raised the gun. Pointing it, not at her but at Oleg.
‘Don’t worry, Rakel. You’ll have to die as well. You’re not a target as such, but you’re a witness, and I’ll have to dispose of you.’
‘Harry will find you. And he’ll kill you.’
‘I’m sorry to have to bring you so much pain, Rakel. I really do like you. But I think it’s only right that you should know. You see, Harry won’t find anything. He’s already dead, I’m afraid.’
Rakel stared at him in disbelief. He was really sorry. Suddenly the phone on the table lit up and emitted a simple whistling tone. She glanced at it.
‘Looks like you’re wrong,’ she said.
Arnold Folkestad frowned. ‘Give me the phone.’
Rakel picked it up and passed it to him. He pressed the gun against Oleg’s neck while grabbing the phone. Read the message quickly. Sent Rakel a sharp glare.
‘“Don’t let Oleg see the present.”’ What’s that supposed to mean?’
Rakel shrugged. ‘It means he’s alive anyway.’
‘Impossible. They said on the radio my bomb had gone off.’
‘Can’t you just get out right now, Arnold? Before it’s too late.’
Folkestad blinked pensively while staring at her. Or through her.
‘I see. Someone beat Harry to it. Went into the flat. Ka-boom. Of course.’ He chuckled. ‘Harry’s on his way here now, isn’t he? He doesn’t suspect a thing. I can shoot you first and then wait for him to come through that door.’