The Redeemer

by Jo Nesbo

  He had rung the uniformed police from Mads Gilstrup's house and told them to send a patrol car. Then he had left without touching anything.

  He parked in the K3 garage at Police HQ and went up to his office. From there he phoned Torkildsen.

  'Halvorsen's mobile has gone walkabout and I want to know whether Mads Gilstrup left a message on it.'

  'And if he did, what then?'

  'I want to hear the message.'

  'That's phone-tapping and I daren't do it,' Torkildsen sighed. 'Ring our Police Answering Service.'

  'I need a court ruling for that, and I haven't got time. Any suggestions?'

  Torkildsen pondered. 'Has Halvorsen got a computer?'

  'I'm sitting next to it.'

  'No, no, forget it.'

  'Why's that?'

  'You can access all the messages on a mobile via the web page for Telenor Mobil, but of course you'll need his password to do that.'

  'Is it a password we choose?'

  'Yes, but if you don't have it you'll need a lucky break to—'

  'Let's have a go,' Harry said. 'What's the address of the web page?'

  'You'll need a big break,' Torkildsen said, with the tone of someone who was not used to having had many of them.

  'I have a feeling I know it,' Harry said.

  With the page up on his screen Harry typed in the password: Lev Yashin. And was informed that the password was incorrect. So he shortened it to 'Yashin'. And there they were. Eight messages. Six of them from Beate. One from a number in Trøndelag. And one from the mobile number on the business card Harry was holding in his hand. From Mads Gilstrup.

  Harry clicked on the PLAY button and the voice of the person he had seen less than hour ago lying dead in his house spoke to him with a metallic twang through the computer's plastic speakers.

  When the message was over Harry had the last piece of the jigsaw.

  * * *

  'Does anyone know where Jon Karlsen is?' Harry said on his phone to Skarre as he was walking down the stairs of Police HQ. 'Have you tried Robert's flat?'

  Harry went through the Stores door and smacked the bell on the counter in front of him.

  'I rang there, too,' Skarre said. 'No answer.'

  'Go and take a look. If no one opens up go in, OK.'

  'The keys are at Krimteknisk and it's past four now. Beate usually stays until late afternoon, but today what with Halvorsen and—'

  'Forget the keys,' Harry said. 'Take a crowbar with you.'

  Harry heard the shuffle of feet and a man in a blue overall, a mass of wrinkles and a pair of glasses on the tip of his nose hobbled in. Without gracing Harry with a glance he picked up the requisition order Harry placed on the counter.

  'Court order?' Skarre questioned.

  'Not necessary. The one we've got is still valid,' Harry lied.

  'Is it?'

  'If anyone asks, this was a direct order from me, alright?'

  'Alright.'

  The man in blue grunted. Then he shook his head and passed the requisition slip back to Harry.

  'I'll call you later, Skarre. Looks like there's a problem here . . .'

  Harry put the mobile in his pocket and stared at the blue overall in amazement.

  'You can't collect the same gun twice, Hole,' the man said.

  Harry didn't understand what Kjell Atle Orø meant, but he had a hot prickling sensation at the back of his neck. It was not the first time he had felt it. And he knew it meant the nightmare was not over yet. In fact, it had just begun.

  Gunnar Hagen's wife straightened her dress and came out of the bathroom. In front of the hall mirror her husband was trying to do up the black bow tie to go with his dinner suit. She stood and waited because she knew that soon he would snort with irritation and ask her to help.

  This morning when they called from Police HQ to say that Jack Halvorsen had died, Gunnar had neither felt like going nor thought he would be able to go to the concert. She knew it was going to be a week of brooding. Sometimes she wondered whether anyone apart from her knew how hard such incidents hit Gunnar. In any case, later in the day the Chief Superintendent had asked Gunnar to make an appearance at the concert as the Salvation Army had decided they were going to mark Jack Halvorsen's death with a minute's silence, and it went without saying that the police should be represented by Halvorsen's superior officer. But she could see he was not looking forward to going; the solemnity of it enveloped his brow like a tight-fitting helmet.

  He snorted and ripped off the bow tie. 'Lise!'

  'I'm here,' she said calmly, walked over, stood behind him and stretched out her hand. 'Give it to me.'

  The phone on the table under the mirror rang. He leaned over to pick it up. 'Hagen.'

  She heard a distant voice at the other end.

  'Good evening, Harry,' Gunnar said. 'No, I'm at home. My wife and I are going to the performance at the concert hall tonight, so I came home early. Anything new?'

  Lise Hagen watched the metaphorical, imaginary helmet tightening further as he listened in total silence.

  'Yes,' he said at length. 'I'll call the station and put everyone on full alert. We'll have every officer available involved in the search. I'm going to the concert soon and will be there for a couple of hours, but my mobile will be on vibrate mode the whole time, so all you have to do is call.'

  He hung up.

  'What's up?' Lise asked.

  'One of my inspectors, Harry Hole, has just come from Stores where he was supposed to be picking up a gun with the requisition order I signed for him today. He needed a replacement for one that went missing after someone broke into his flat. It seems that earlier today someone else picked up the gun and ammunition with the first order slip.'

  'Well, if that isn't the limit . . .' Lise said.

  'Afraid it isn't,' Gunnar Hagen sighed. 'Unfortunately there's worse. Harry had a suspicion who it might have been. So he rang Forensics and had his suspicion confirmed.'

  To her horror, Lise saw her husband's face go ashen. As though the repercussions of what Harry had said were only sinking in as he heard himself telling his wife: 'The blood sample of the man we shot at the container terminal shows he is not the man who threw up beside Halvorsen. Or spread blood over his coat. Or left a hair on the pillow at the Hostel. In a nutshell, the man we shot is not Christo Stankic. If Harry's right that means Christo Stankic is still out there. And he's armed.'

  'But then . . . he might still be after that poor man, what was his name again?'

  'Jon Karlsen. Yes. And that's why I have to call the station now and mobilise every officer available to search for both Jon Karlsen and Christo Stankic.' He pressed the backs of his hands against his eyes as though that was the source of the pain. 'And Harry received a call from an officer who broke into Robert Karlsen's flat to find Jon.'

  'Yes?'

  'Seems there had been a tussle there. The bedlinen . . . was soaked in blood, Lise. And no sign of Jon Karlsen, just a jackknife under the bed with dried black blood on the blade.'

  He took his hands away from his face and she could see in the mirror that his eyes were red.

  'This is bad news, Lise.'

  'I know, Gunnar, my love. But . . . but who was the person you shot down by the harbour then?'

  Gunnar Hagen swallowed hard before answering. 'We don't know, Lise. All we know is that he was living in a container and had heroin in his blood.'

  'My God, Gunnar . . .'

  She squeezed his shoulder and tried to catch his eye in the mirror.

  'He was resurrected on the third day,' Hagen whispered.

  'What?'

  'The Redeemer. We killed him on Friday night. Today is Monday. It's the third day.'

  Martine Eckhoff was so beautiful that she took Harry's breath away.

  'Hello, is that you?' she said in that deep alto voice Harry remembered from the first time he had seen her at the Lighthouse. At that time she had been wearing a uniform. Now she stood in front of him in a plain, el
egant, sleeveless black dress which glistened like her hair. Her eyes seemed larger and darker than usual. Her skin was white in a delicate, almost transparent, way.

  'I'm dolling myself up,' she laughed. 'Look.' She raised her hand in what Harry considered an unimaginably supple movement, like part of a dance, an extension of another equally graceful sequence. In her hand she was holding a white, tear-shaped pearl which reflected the frugal light in the landing by her flat. The other pearl hung from her ear.

  'Come in,' she said, retreating a step and letting go of the door.

  Harry crossed the threshold into her arms. 'So good that you came,' she said, pulling his face down to hers, breathing hot air into his ear as she whispered: 'I've been thinking about you all the time.'

  Harry closed his eyes, held her tight and felt the warmth emanating from the small, feline body. It was the second time in less than a day that he had stood like this with his arms around her. And he didn't want to let go. Because he knew it would be the last time.

  The pearl drop lay against his cheek under one eye, like a frozen tear.

  He freed himself.

  'Is something the matter?' she asked.

  'Let's sit down,' Harry said. 'We have to talk.'

  They went into the living room and she sat down on the sofa. Harry stood by the window looking down onto the street below.

  'Someone is sitting in a car looking up here,' he said.

  Martine sighed. 'It's Rikard. He's waiting for me. He's driving me to the concert hall.'

  'Mm. Do you know where Jon is, Martine?' Harry concentrated on the reflection of her face in the windowpane.

  'No,' she said, meeting his eyes. 'Are you trying to say there is a specific reason why I should know? Since you ask in that way, I mean?' The sweetness was gone from her voice.

  'We've just broken into Robert's flat, which we think Jon has been using,' Harry said, 'and found a bed covered in blood.'

  'I didn't know,' Martine said in a tone of surprise that sounded genuine.

  'I know you didn't know,' Harry said. 'The forensics department is checking the blood type now. That is to say, it has already been identified. And I'm pretty sure I know their conclusion.'

  'Jon's?' she said in breathless suspense.

  'No,' said Harry. 'But perhaps that's what you had been hoping?'

  'Why do you say that?'

  'Since it was Jon who raped you.'

  The room went quiet. Harry held his breath in order to hear her gasp for air and then, long before it had entered her lungs, exhale it again with a wheeze.

  'Why do you think that?' she asked with the tiniest tremor in her voice.

  'Because you said it happened in Østgård and there are not so many men who rape. But Jon Karlsen does. The blood in Robert's bed is from a girl called Sofia Miholjec. She went to Robert's flat last night because Jon Karlsen had ordered her to. As agreed, she let herself in with a key she had been given earlier by Robert, her best friend. After raping her, Jon beat her up. She said he often did that.'

  'Often?'

  'According to Sofia he raped her for the first time one afternoon in the summer of last year. It happened in the Miholjec's family home while her parents were out. Jon went there under the pretext of examining the flat. After all, that was his job. Just as it was his job to decide who would be allowed to keep the flats.'

  'You mean . . . he threatened her?'

  Harry nodded. 'He said the family would be evicted and sent home if Sofia did not do as he ordered and keep their secret. The Miholjecs' fate rested on his, Jon's, discretion. And her compliance. The poor girl didn't dare do anything else. But when she became pregnant she had to find someone to help her. A friend she could trust, someone older who could organise an abortion without too many questions being asked.'

  'Robert,' Martine said. 'My God. She went to Robert.'

  'Yes. And even though she didn't say anything to him, she thought Robert knew it was Jon. I think so, too. Robert knew Jon had raped before, didn't he?'

  Martine did not answer. Instead she coiled up on the sofa, drew her legs beneath her and wrapped her arms around her bare shoulders as if she were cold or wanted to disappear inside herself.

  When Martine finally began to talk her voice was so low that Harry could hear the ticking of Møller's watch.

  'I was fourteen. While he was doing it I lay there thinking that if I concentrated on the stars I would be able to see them through the roof.'

  Harry listened as she spoke about the hot day in Østgård, the game with Robert and Jon's reproving eyes that were dark with jealousy. And about when the door of the outside toilet opened and Jon stood there with his brother's jackknife. The rape and the pain afterwards as she was left crying while he went back to the house. And how incompre-hensible it was that the birds soon began to sing outside.

  'But the worst was not the rape,' Martine said with a tear-filled voice but dry cheeks. 'The worst was that Jon knew. Knew he didn't even have to make threats to keep me silent. I would never squeal. He knew I knew that even if I produced my shredded clothes and was believed, there would always be a shadow of doubt regarding motive and guilt. And that it was about loyalty. Would I be the one, the daughter of the commander, to drag my parents and the whole Army into a ruinous scandal? All these years, whenever I've observed Jon, he's given me a look which says: "I know. I know how you shook with terror and cried quietly afterwards so that no one would hear you. I know and can see your mute cowardice every single day."' The first tear rolled down her cheek. 'And that's why I hate him so much. Not for raping me; I would have been able to forgive that. But for always going round showing me he knew.'

  Harry went into the kitchen, tore off a paper towel from the roll, went back and sat down beside her.

  'Watch your make-up,' he said passing her the towel. 'Prime Minister and all that.'

  She dabbed carefully.

  'Stankic has been to Østgård,' Harry said. 'Was it you who took him there?'

  'What are you talking about?'

  'He's been there.'

  'Why do you say that?'

  'Because of the smell.'

  'Smell?'

  Harry nodded. 'A sweet, perfume-like smell. I recognised it the first time I opened the door to Stankic in Jon's flat. The second time when I was standing in his room in the Hostel. And the third time when I woke up in Østgård this morning. The smell was in the blanket.' He studied Martine's keyhole-shaped pupils. 'Where is he, Martine?'

  Martine stood up. 'Now I think you should go.'

  'Answer me first.'

  'I don't need to answer for something I haven't done.'

  She had reached the living room door when Harry caught up with her. He stood in front of her and gripped her shoulders. 'Martine . . .'