by Jo Nesbo
‘The church bells,’ said Carl. ‘We can say we never heard the crash because of the church bells.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘No church bells. There were no church bells the day he was up here.’
They looked quizzically at me.
‘Why not?’ asked Carl.
‘The plan isn’t a hundred per cent complete yet,’ I said. ‘But this didn’t happen today, the Dane lived a little longer.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t worry about the Dane,’ I said. ‘I reckon an enforcer keeps it to himself where and when he’s on the job, so we’re probably the only ones who know he was here today. So if he is found dead then it’s our story that gives the time of death. Our problem now is Willumsen.’
‘Yes, because he’s bound to know his enforcer was here,’ said Carl. ‘And he could tell the police.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said.
There was a short silence.
‘Exactly,’ said Shannon. ‘Because then he would have to tell the police he was the one who hired the enforcer.’
‘Of course,’ said Carl. ‘Right, Roy?’
I didn’t answer. Took a long, noisy slurp of my coffee. Put the mug down.
‘Forget the Dane,’ I said. ‘Willumsen is the problem because of course he won’t stop trying to get back what you owe him just because the Dane is gone.’
Shannon made a face. ‘And he’s willing to kill. Do you think his enforcer really meant that, Roy?’
‘I only heard it through the stovepipe hole,’ I said. ‘Ask Carl who was sitting right in front of him.’
‘I...I think so,’ said Carl. ‘But I was so shit-scared I would’ve believed anything. Roy’s the one of the three of us who understands how a...how the brain works.’
He so nearly said it. A killer’s brain.
Again it was me they looked to.
‘Yes, he would have killed you,’ I said, and looked at Shannon.
Her pupils expanded and she nodded her head slowly, Os-style.
‘And then it would’ve been your turn, Carl,’ I said.
Carl looked down at his hands. ‘I think I need a drink,’ he said.
‘No!’ I said. Took a breath and calmed myself. ‘I need you sober. And I need a towing rope and a driver who’s done this before. Shannon, can you go down and spread more sand on the corner?’
‘Yes.’ She reached out a hand towards me and I stiffened because for a moment I thought she was going to stroke my cheek; but she just rested it on my shoulder. ‘Thank you.’
Carl, sitting there, suddenly seemed to wake up. ‘Yes, of course, thank you! Thank you!’ He leaned across the table and grabbed my hand. ‘You saved Shannon and me, and here I am moaning and complaining as though this was your problem.’
‘It is my problem,’ I said. And wasn’t far off saying something very high-flown, like we were a family, and we were in a war together; but decided that could wait. After all, no more than half an hour ago I’d been in bed fucking my sister-in-law.
* * *
*
‘Dan’s really banging on the big bass drum in his editorial today,’ said Carl from the kitchen as I stood in the hallway getting dressed and wondering what kind of boots would be best if there was ice on the rock face. ‘He thinks Voss Gilbert and the council are populist and spineless. That the tradition was established during the time when Jo Aas was chairman, only it was a bit less obvious back then.’
‘He wants to get beaten up,’ I said, choosing Dad’s old Norwegian welt boots.
‘Does anybody want to get beaten up?’ said Carl, but by that time I was already halfway out the door.
I crossed to the barn where Shannon was shovelling sand into one of the zinc buckets.
‘Do you and Rita Willumsen still go ice-bathing three days a week?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And there’s just you two?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can anyone see you?’
‘It’s seven o’clock in the morning, and dark, so...no.’
‘When is the next time?’
‘Tomorrow.’
I scratched my chin.
‘What are you thinking?’ she asked.
I watched the sand trickling though the bullet hole in the bucket. ‘I’m thinking about how you can kill her.’
* * *
—
Later that evening, after I’d gone through the plan with Carl and Shannon for the sixth time, and Carl had nodded and we had both looked at Shannon, she set her conditions.
‘If I’m to be part of this, and if we succeed, then the hotel has to be rebuilt using my original drawings,’ she said. ‘Down to the smallest detail.’
‘Fine,’ said Carl after a few moments’ thought. ‘I’ll do the best I can.’
‘You won’t have to,’ said Shannon. ‘Because I’ll be in charge of the building, not you.’
‘Now listen—’
‘This isn’t a gambit, it’s an ultimatum,’ she said.
Carl could probably see as well as I could that she meant it. He turned to me. I shrugged, as if to say I couldn’t help him here.
He sighed. ‘Fine, Opgard men don’t bargain. If this works out well the job is yours, but I hope I can contribute.’
‘Oh, I’m sure we’ll keep you busy,’ said Shannon.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Then let’s run through the plan one more time.’
55
IT WAS SEVEN O’CLOCK IN the morning and still dark out.
I crept through the darkened bedroom, listening to the steady breathing from the double bed. Stopped when the floor creaked. Stood still and listened. No interruption to the rhythm. The only light came from the moon through a gap in the curtains. I carried on, put my knees against the mattress and slid carefully towards the one sleeping. This side of the bed was still warm from the other who had been lying here. And I couldn’t help myself, I pressed my face against the sheet and inhaled the scent of woman, and at once – as though from a film projector – the images of me and her were there. Naked and sweating from lovemaking, but hungry for more, always.
‘Good morning, darling,’ I whispered.
And rested the barrel of the gun on the sleeper’s temple.
The breathing stopped. There were a couple of loud, angry snores. And then he opened his eyes.
‘You sleep quietly for such a fat man,’ I said.
Willum Willumsen blinked a couple of times in the semi-darkness as though to make sure he wasn’t still dreaming.
‘What’s this?’ he asked, his voice hoarse.
‘It’s the hammer,’ I said. ‘The end. Death.’
‘What are you doing, Roy? How did you get in?’
‘Basement door,’ I said.
‘That’s locked,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ was all I said.
He sat upright in the bed. ‘Roy, Roy, Roy. I don’t want to harm you. Get the hell out and I swear I’ll forget this.’
I hit him on the bridge of the nose with the barrel of the pistol. The skin broke and he began to bleed.
‘Don’t move your hands from the duvet,’ I said. ‘Let the blood run.’
Willumsen swallowed. ‘Is that thing there a pistol?’
‘Correct.’
‘I get it. So this is a kind of repeat of what happened last time?’
‘Yes. The difference being that we parted company alive back then.’
‘And now?’
‘Now I wouldn’t be too sure about that. You threatened to kill my family.’
‘That’s a consequence of defaulting on a debt that big, Roy.’
‘Yes, and this is the consequence of setting in motion the consequence of defaulting on a debt that big.’
‘You think I should allow m
y creditors to ruin me without doing anything? D’you really think so?’ There was more indignation than fear in his voice, and I really had to admire Willum Willumsen for the speed with which he was able to grasp the reality of the situation, as people say.
‘I don’t have any particular thoughts on that, Willumsen. You do what you have to do, I do what I have to do.’
‘If you think this is the way to save Carl then you’re mistaken. Poul will get the job done no matter what, the contract can’t be cancelled because I have no way of getting in touch with him now.’
‘No, you haven’t,’ I said, and heard how like some half-remembered quote from the history of pop music it sounded when I said: ‘Poul is dead.’
Willumsen’s octopus eyes opened wide. Now he saw the pistol. And clearly recognised it.
‘I had to go back down into Huken again,’ I said. ‘The Jaguar is lying on top of the Cadillac, both of them roof-down. Both squashed flat, looks like a fucking veteran-car sandwich. And what’s left of the Dane is oozing out of the seat belt, like a fucking pork sausage.’
Willumsen swallowed.
I waved the gun. ‘I found it trapped between the gearstick and the roof, had to kick it loose.’
‘What do you want, Roy?’
‘I want you not to kill anyone in my family, including in-laws.’
‘Deal.’
‘And I want us to cancel Carl’s debt to you. Plus, you agree to make us a new loan of the same amount.’
‘I can’t do that, Roy.’
‘I’ve seen Carl’s copy of the loan contract that the two of you signed. We tear up yours and his here and now and sign the agreement for a new loan.’
‘It won’t work, Roy, the contract is at my lawyer’s office. And as I’m sure Carl told you, it was signed there in the presence of witnesses, so it won’t disappear just like that.’
‘When I say “tear up” I’m speaking figuratively. Here’s a loan contract that replaces the previous one.’
I lit the bedside lamp with my free hand, pulled out two sheets of A4 paper from my inside pocket and laid them on the duvet in front of Willumsen. ‘It says here that the loan is to be written down from thirty million to a much lower sum. In fact, two kroner. It also says that the background to the writing down of the loan is that you personally advised Carl to cut out the insurance costs for the hotel, and that you therefore consider yourself equally to blame for the situation in which Carl finds himself. In short, his misfortune is your misfortune. In addition you’re making him a new loan of thirty million.’
Willumsen shook his head vigorously. ‘You don’t understand. I don’t have that much money. I borrowed to be able to make the loan to Carl. It’ll break me if I don’t get it back.’ He sounded almost tearful as he went on. ‘Everyone thinks I’m raking it in now that the villagers are spending so much money. But they all go to Kongsberg and Notodden and buy new cars, Roy. They don’t want to be seen in a used car bought from me.’
The double chins on the collar of the striped pyjama jacket quivered lightly.
‘But all the same, you’re going to sign,’ I said, handing him the pen I’d brought with me.
I saw his gaze drift down the page. Then he looked enquiringly up at me.
‘We’ll take care of witnesses and dates after you’ve signed,’ I said.
‘No,’ said Willumsen.
‘No...to?’
‘I’m not signing. I’m not afraid to die.’
‘Maybe not. But you are afraid of going bankrupt?’
Willumsen nodded mutely. He gave a brief laugh. ‘Remember the last time we were in this situation, Roy? And I said the cancer had come back? I lied. But now it is back. I have a limited amount of time left. That’s why I can’t write off such a large debt, and why I certainly can’t lend any more. I want to leave a healthy business to my wife and my other heirs. That’s all that matters now.’
I nodded slowly, and for a long time, so that he would realise that I had thought this all the way through. ‘That’s a shame,’ I said. ‘A real shame.’
‘Yes, isn’t it?’ said Willumsen, handing the papers back to me, along with the addenda Carl had written during the night.
‘Yes indeed,’ I said, without taking the papers. Instead I took out my phone. ‘Because in that case we’re going to have to do something much worse.’
‘Considering the treatment I’ve been through I’m afraid torture isn’t going to have much effect on me, Roy.’
I didn’t reply, tapped in ‘Shannon’ and opened FaceTime.
‘Kill me?’ Willumsen asked, his voice pointing out the obvious idiocy in killing a person you’re trying to squeeze money out of.
‘Not you,’ I said, and looked at the display on the phone.
Shannon appeared on the screen. It was dark where she was, but light from the camera was reflected by the snow on frozen Lake Budal. She spoke, not to me but to someone behind the camera.
‘OK if I take a video, Rita?’
‘Of course,’ I heard Rita say.
Shannon turned the phone and Rita appeared in the sharp light from the camera. She was wearing a fur coat and hat with a white bathing cap sticking out beneath it. Her breath clouded in front of her face as she jumped up and down on the spot in front of a square hole in the ice, just wide enough for someone to get into. There was an ice-saw next to the hole, and the section of ice they had cut away.
‘Kill your wife,’ I said, and held the screen up to Willumsen. ‘I got the idea from Poul.’
I didn’t doubt that Willumsen had cancer. And I saw the pain in his eyes when it dawned on him that he could lose something he thought he could never lose, that he loved perhaps even more than himself, and that his only comfort was that she would survive him, and live on for him. I felt for Willumsen right then, I really did.
‘Drowning,’ I said. ‘An accident, of course. Your wife jumps in. Plop. And when she returns to the surface she finds the hole is no longer there. She’ll feel that the ice above her is loose and realise it’s the section they cut away and try to push it up. But all Shannon has to do is keep her foot on it, like a lid, because your wife has nothing to brace her feet against, just water. Cold water.’
Willumsen gave a low sob. Did it bring me pleasure? I hope not, because that would mean I’m a psychopath, and of course that’s not something you want to be.
‘We’ll start with Rita,’ I said. ‘Then, if you don’t sign, we go on to your other heirs. Shannon – who does not exclude the possibility that your wife was complicit in her death sentence – is highly motivated for the task.’
On the screen Rita Willumsen had undressed. She was obviously freezing cold, and no wonder. Her pale skin was burled and bluish in the sharp light. I noticed she was wearing the same bathing suit as when we rowed out on the lake that summer. She didn’t look older, but younger. As though time wasn’t even circular but moving backwards.
I heard the scratching of pen on paper.
‘There,’ said Willumsen, tossing the papers and the pen onto the duvet in front of me. ‘Now stop her!’
I saw Rita Willumsen move to the edge of the hole. Same pose as in the boat, as though she were about to dive.
‘Not until you’ve signed both copies,’ I said without taking my eyes from the screen. Heard Willumsen grab the papers again and write.
I checked the signatures. They looked right.
Willumsen yelled, and I looked at the screen. I hadn’t heard anything like a splash. Rita was good. The loose section of ice filled the screen and we saw a small pale hand take hold of it and lift it.
‘You can stop, Shannon. He’s signed.’
For an instant it looked as though Shannon was going to drop the lid over the hole anyway. But then she put it down beside her, and a moment later Rita appeared in the dark water, like a seal, hair smoot
h and glistening around the laughing face, her breath puffing white smoke signals into the camera.
I ended the connection.
‘Well then,’ I said.
‘Well then,’ said Willumsen.
It was cold in the room, and I had gradually slipped down under the duvet. Not with my whole body, but enough of it that it wouldn’t be completely wrong to say the two of us were sharing a bed.
‘You’re leaving now, presumably.’
‘If only it were that easy,’ I said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s pretty obvious what you’re going to do as soon as I leave here. You’ll call another enforcer or contract killer and try to wipe out the Opgard family before we deliver this document to your lawyer. Then once you realise you won’t have time you’ll report us to the police for blackmail and refute the validity of what you just signed. You will also, naturally, deny all knowledge of any enforcer.’
‘Is that what you believe?’
‘Yes it is, Willumsen. Unless you can persuade me to the contrary.’
‘And if I can’t?’
I shrugged. ‘You could certainly try.’
Willumsen looked at me. ‘Is that why you’re wearing the gloves and the bathing cap?’
I didn’t answer.
‘So you don’t leave behind any hairs or fingerprints?’ he went on.
‘Don’t worry about that, Willumsen. Instead try to find a way for us to get this done.’
‘Hm. Let’s see.’ Willumsen clasped his hands together at the top of his chest, where a forest of black hair peered out from his pyjamas. In the ensuing silence I could hear the traffic up on the highway. I had loved those early mornings at the service station, being there when a village awakens to a new day, when people emerge to take their appointed places in the machinery of our little society. To have the big view, to sense the invisible hand behind everything that went on, that made sure everything worked out more or less as it should.
Willumsen coughed. ‘I won’t be getting in touch with any other enforcer or the police because both of us have too much to lose if I do.’