Jo Nesbo

by Headhunters

  I used the voice from the three-month sergeants’ course I had gone on, against my father’s wishes: ‘Good morning, Kjikerud!’

  He didn’t stir an eyelid. I inhaled to blow a reveille when I noticed that the ceiling liner was open and the edge of the Rubens was sticking out. A sudden chill, as when a fluffy spring cloud sails past the sun, made me shudder. And instead of making more noise, I grabbed his shoulder and shook him lightly. Still no reaction.

  I shook harder. His head frolicked to and fro on his shoulders, without any resistance.

  I placed my first finger and thumb against where I thought the main artery ran, but it was impossible to determine whether the pulse I felt came from him or my wildly racing heart. But he was cold. Too cold, wasn’t he? With trembling fingers I opened his eyelids. And that settled the matter. Involuntarily, I backed away when I saw the lifeless black pupils staring at me.

  I have always thought of myself as the kind of person who can think clearly in critical situations, someone who won’t panic. Of course, that could be because there have never really been any situations in my life that were critical enough for me to panic. Apart from the time when Diana became pregnant, of course, and on that occasion I hadn’t found it difficult to panic. So perhaps I was a panicky type after all. In any case, at this moment decidedly irrational thoughts entered my head. Like the car needing a wash. That Kjikerud’s shirt – with a Dior label sewn on – had presumably been bought on one of his holidays in Thailand. And that Turbonegro were actually what everyone thought they were not, that is, a decent band. But I knew what was happening, that I was about to lose my grip, and I clenched my eyes shut and blasted the thoughts out of my head. Then I opened my eyes again and had to concede that a tiny little bit of hope had managed to sneak in. But no, the realities were the same, the body of Ove Kjikerud was still sitting there.

  The first conclusion I drew was simple: Ove Kjikerud had to go. If anyone found him here, all would be revealed. Resolutely, I pushed Kjikerud forward against the steering wheel, leaned over his back, grabbed him round the chest and dragged him out. He was heavy and his arms were pulled upwards as though he was trying to wriggle out of my grasp. I lifted him up again and took a new hold, but the same thing happened; his hands swung up in my face and a finger got caught in the corner of my mouth. I felt a bitten-down nail scrape against my tongue and in horror I spat, but the taste of bitter nicotine remained. I dropped him onto the garage floor and opened the car trunk, but when I tried to pull him up, only his jacket and fake Dior shirt followed; he remained firmly on the cement floor. I cursed, grabbed the inside of his trouser belt with one hand, jerked him up and shoved him head first into the 480-litre trunk. His head hit the floor with a soft thud. I slammed the trunk lid and rubbed my hands together, the way one often does after a manual job well done.

  Then I went back to the driver’s side. There were no traces of blood on the seat, which was covered with one of those wooden-ball mats, the type that taxi drivers use the whole world over. What the hell had caused Ove’s death? Heart failure? Brain haemorrhage? Overdose of some substance or other? I realised that an amateur diagnosis was wasted time now, got in and, strange to say, noted that the wooden balls had retained body heat. The mat was the only thing of value I had inherited from my father, who had used it because of piles, and I did too as a precaution against the affliction in case it was hereditary. A sudden pain in one buttock made me jerk forward and hit my knee against the wheel. I eased myself out of the car. The pain had already gone, but something had undoubtedly stung me. I bent over the seat and stared, but could not see anything unusual in the dim compartment lighting. Could it have been a wasp? Not this late in the autumn. Something flashed between the rows of wooden balls. I bent closer. A thin, almost invisible, metal point protruded. Sometimes the brain reasons too fast for comprehension to keep abreast. That is the only explanation I have for the vague premonition that made my heart race even before I had raised the mat and caught sight of the object.

  Sure enough, it was the same size as a grape. And made of rubber, just as Greve had elucidated. Not completely round; the base was flat, apparently so that the tip of the needle always pointed straight up. I held the rubber ball against my ear and shook it, but could hear nothing. Fortunately for me the entire contents had been pressed into Ove Kjikerud when he sat down on the rubber ball. I rubbed my buttock and checked for any effects. I was a bit dizzy, but who wouldn’t have been after shifting the body of a colleague and being stabbed in the arse by a bloody Curacit needle, a murder weapon that had, in all likelihood, been meant for me? I could feel myself getting the giggles; now and then fear has that effect on me. I closed my eyes and breathed in. Deep. Concentrated. The laughter disappeared; anger took its place. It was fucking unbelievable. Or was it? Wasn’t it exactly what one should expect, that a violent psychopath like Clas Greve would get rid of any husband? I kicked the tire hard. Once, twice. A grey mark appeared on the tip of my John Lobb shoe.

  But how had Greve gained access to the car? How the hell had …?

  The garage door opened and the answer walked in.

  12

  NATASHA

  DIANA STARED AT ME from the garage door. She had obviously got dressed in a hurry and her hair was sticking out in all directions. Her voice was a barely audible whisper.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  I stared at her with the same question shooting through my brain. And felt my already broken heart being crumbled into even smaller bits from the answer I received.

  Diana. My Diana. It couldn’t have been anyone else. She had put the poison under the seat mat. She and Greve had colluded.

  ‘I saw this needle sticking up from the seat as I was about to sit down,’ I said, holding out the rubber ball.

  She approached me, the murder weapon carefully held in her hand. Tellingly careful.

  ‘You saw this needle?’ she said without managing to hide the scepticism in her voice.

  ‘I have sharp eyes,’ I said, although I don’t think she picked up on, or could be bothered with, the bitter double meaning.

  ‘Lucky you didn’t sit on it then,’ she said, examining the small object. ‘What is it actually?’

  Yes, she certainly was a professional.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said airily. ‘What did you want here?’

  She looked at me, her mouth dropped open and for a second I was staring into a void.

  ‘I …’

  ‘Yes, darling?’

  ‘I was lying in bed and I heard you go down to the garage, but the car didn’t start up and drive off. Naturally enough, I wondered if something had happened. And in a sense I was right.’

  ‘Well, nothing really happened. It’s just a little needle, darling.’

  ‘Needles like that can be dangerous, my love!’

  ‘Can they?’

  ‘Didn’t you know? HIV, rabies, all sorts of viruses and infections.’

  She came closer, I recognised the movements, the way her eyes softened, the lips pouted; she was going to hug me. But the embrace was interrupted, something had stopped her, something in my eyes perhaps.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said, looking down at the rubber ball and putting it on the workbench I would never, ever use. Then she took one quick pace towards me, put her arms around me, stooped a little to reduce the height difference, laid her chin on the side of my neck and ran her left hand through my hair.

  ‘I’m a bit worried about you, you know, my love.’

  It was like being embraced by a stranger. Everything was different with her now, even her smell. Or was it his? It was revolting. Her hand went back and forth in a slow massaging movement as if she were shampooing me, as if her enthusiasm for my hair was reaching new heights at precisely this moment. I felt like hitting her, hitting her with a flat hand. Flat so that I could feel the contact, the smack of skin on skin, feel the pain and the shock.

  Instead I closed my eyes and let her do it, let her massage me, soften me, p
lease me. I may be a very sick man.

  ‘I have to go to work,’ I said when she didn’t seem to want to stop. ‘I have to have the nomination tied up by twelve o’clock.’

  But she wouldn’t let go, and in the end I had to release myself from her embrace. I saw a glint in the corner of her eye.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  But she wouldn’t answer, just shook her head.

  ‘Diana …’

  ‘Have a good day,’ she whispered with a little quiver to her voice. ‘I love you.’

  Then she was out of the door.

  I wanted to run after her, but stood still. Comforting your own murderer, where was the sense in that? Where was the sense in anything? So I got into the car, exhaled deeply and looked at myself in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘Survive, Roger,’ I whispered. ‘Pull yourself together and survive.’

  Then I shoved the Rubens back under the lining, closed it up, started the car, heard the garage door go up behind me, reversed out and drove slowly round the bends down towards Oslo.

  Ove’s car was parked by the pavement four hundred metres away. Good, it could stay there for weeks without anyone reacting, until the snow and the snow ploughs came. I was more concerned that in my car I had a corpse to dispose of. I considered the problem. Paradoxically enough, it was now that my precautions when dealing with Kjikerud would receive their full reward. Once I had dumped the body somewhere, no one would be able to establish a link between the two of us. But where?

  The first solution that came to mind was the waste incineration plant at Grønmo. Before I did anything else I would have to find something to wrap the body in, then I could drive right up to the plant, open the trunk and manoeuvre the body onto the ramp and from there down into the crackling sea of flames. There was a risk that other waste-disposers would be standing around me, not least staff, monitoring the incinerator. What about burning it myself in some far-flung spot? Apparently human bodies burn pretty badly. I had read that in India they reckon it takes ten hours to burn an average funeral pyre. What about driving back to the garage after Diana had left for the gallery and finally using the workbench and compass saw that my father-in-law without any apparent irony had given me as a Christmas present? Hack the body up into suitably sized chunks, wrap them in plastic together with a rock or two and then sink the packs in some of the hundreds of woodland lakes around Oslo?

  I banged my fist against my forehead several times. What the hell was I thinking of? Hack the body up, why? First of all: hadn’t I seen enough episodes of CSI to know that that was asking to be found out? A drop of blood here, marks from the teeth of father-in-law’s saw there and I would be up shit creek. Secondly: why make any effort to hide the body? Why not just find a relatively deserted bridge and hoist Kjikerud’s earthly remains over the parapet? The body would perhaps float to the surface and be found, but so what? There was nothing that could link me to the murder, I didn’t know any Ove Kjikerud, and I couldn’t even spell the word ‘Curacit’.

  The choice fell on Lake Maridal. It was only a ten-minute drive from town; no one would be around on a midweek morning. I rang Ida-Oda and said I would be late in today.

  I drove for half an hour and had passed a few million cubic metres of forest and two hill billy settlements lying at such a shockingly short distance from Norway’s capital. But there, on a gravel byroad was the bridge I was after. I stopped the car and waited for five minutes. No people, cars or houses were in seeing or hearing range, just the odd chilling bird cry. A raven? Something black, anyway. As black as the mysterious still water only a metre beneath the low wooden bridge. Perfect.

  I got out and opened the trunk. Ove was lying as I had left him, face down, his arms by his sides and his hips at an angle with his backside sticking up. I took a last glance around to make sure I was alone. Then I acted. With speed and efficiency.

  The splash as the body hit the water was surprisingly restrained, more like a squelch, as if the lake had decided to be my fellow conspirator in this dark deed. I leaned against the railing and stared down at the silent, closed lake. I considered what to do next. And while I was doing that Ove Kjikerud seemed to be rising up to meet me; a pale green face with wide eyes that wanted to surface, a ghost with mud in its mouth and seagrass in its hair. I was thinking that I needed a whisky to steady my nerves when the face broke the surface of the lake and continued to rise towards me.

  I screamed. And the corpse screamed, a rattling noise that seemed to drain the air around me of oxygen.

  Then it was gone again, swallowed up by the black lake.

  I stared down into the dark. Had it happened? Of course it had bloody happened, the echo was still rolling round the treetops.

  I swung myself over the railing. Held my breath, waited for my body to be enclosed by ice-cold water. A shock ran through me from my heels to my head. And I discovered that I was standing with the water just over my waist, and that there was something moving under one foot. I stuck my hand down in the muddy water, grabbed hold of what I at first thought was seagrass until I felt the scalp beneath and pulled. Ove Kjikerud’s face reappeared, he blinked water off his eyelashes, and again it was there, the deep rattle of a man who was drawing air for all he was worth.

  It was too much. And for a moment I just wanted to let go of him and run away.

  But I couldn’t do that, could I?

  In any event I started to drag him towards the bank by the end of the bridge. Ove’s consciousness took another timeout and I had to fight to keep his head above water. Several times I almost lost my balance on the soft, slippery bed that shifted under my now ruined John Lobb shoes. But after a few minutes I had managed to haul both of us onto the bank and then into the car.

  I rested my head against the wheel and breathed out.

  The sodding bird cackled in derision as the wheels spun in the direction of the wooden bridge and we drove away.

  As I have said, I had never been to Ove’s home, but I had his address. I opened the glove compartment, took out the black GPS and tapped in the street name and number, narrowly avoiding an oncoming car. The GPS calculated, reasoned and reduced the driving distance. Analytically and without any emotional involvement. Even the woman’s gentle, controlled voice guiding me sounded unaffected by the circumstances. I had to be like that now, I told myself. Act correctly, like a machine, don’t make stupid mistakes.

  Half an hour later I was at the address. It was a quiet, narrow street. Kjikerud’s small, old place lay at the far end, with a green wall of dark spruce forest in the background. I came to a halt in front of the steps, cast an eye over the house and established yet again that hideous architecture is not a modern invention.

  Ove sat in the seat beside me, as hideous as sin as well, ashen and so wet that his clothes gurgled while I was searching his pockets and finally found a set of keys.

  I shook some life into him and he stared at me through bleary eyes.

  ‘Can you walk?’ I asked.

  He eyed me as though I were an alien. His jaw jutted forward even further than normal and made him look like a cross between the stone figures on Easter Island and Bruce Springsteen.

  I walked round the car, dragged him out and leaned him up against the wall. Unlocked the door with the first key I tried on the ring, thinking that my luck might finally be on the turn, and pulled him inside.

  I was on my way into the house when I remembered. The alarm. I definitely did not want security men from Tripolis swarming around here now, nor live camera surveillance of me with a half-dead Ove Kjikerud.

  ‘What’s the password?’ I shouted into Ove’s ear.

  He lurched and almost slipped out of my grasp.

  ‘Ove! Password?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I have to deactivate the alarm before it goes off.’

  ‘Natasha …’ he mumbled with closed eyes.

  ‘Ove! Pull yourself together!’

  ‘Natasha …’

  ‘The password!�
�� I slapped him hard, and instantly he opened his eyes wide.

  ‘That’s what I’m telling you, you bastard. NATASHA!’

  I let go of him, heard him topple to the floor as I dashed to the front of the house. I found the alarm box hidden behind the door; I had gradually understood how Tripolis operatives like to set them up. A little red light was flashing, showing the countdown to the tripping of the alarm. I tapped in the name of the Russian whore. And realised as I was about to press the final ‘a’ that Ove was dyslexic. Christ knows how he spelt her name! But my fifteen seconds were soon up and it was too late to ask him. I pressed the ‘a’ and shut my eyes, braced myself. Waited. No sound came. I opened my eyes again. The red light had stopped flashing. I breathed out, refrained from thinking about the margin of seconds I had had.

  When I turned round, Ove was gone. I followed the wet footprints into a sitting room. It obviously served as a room for relaxing, working, eating and sleeping. At any rate, there was a double bed under a window at one end, a wall-mounted plasma TV at the other and in between a coffee table on top of which was a cardboard box containing the remains of a pizza. Against the longer wall there was a vice bench with a sawn-off shotgun he was clearly modifying. Ove had crawled up into the bed where he now lay groaning. With pain, I assumed. I haven’t the foggiest idea what Curacit does to a human body, but I doubt anything good.

  ‘How are you?’ I asked, moving closer. I kicked something that rolled across the worn parquet floor, looked down and saw that the area around the bed was littered with empty cartridges.

  ‘I’m dying,’ he moaned. ‘What happened?’

  ‘You sat on a syringe loaded with Curacit when you got into the car.’

  ‘CURACIT?!’ He raised his head and glared at me. ‘You mean the poison Curacit? I’ve got fucking Curacit in my body?’

  ‘Yes, but obviously not enough.’

  ‘Not enough?’