The Redbreast (Harry Hole)

by Jo Nesbo

  Harry rubbed his chin.

  ‘Why me, Meirik? You have a whole department of experts here on infiltration and the extreme right.’

  ‘There’s always a first time.’

  ‘And what about the Märklin rifle? We’ve traced it to an old Nazi and now there are these threats signed Heil Hitler. Isn’t it better that I continue my work here . . . ?’

  ‘I have made up my mind, Harry.’ Meirik didn’t bother to smile any more.

  Something stank. Harry could smell it a long way off, but he didn’t know what it was or where it was coming from. He stood up and Meirik followed suit.

  ‘You leave after the weekend,’ Meirik said. He put out his hand.

  It struck Harry that was an odd thing to do and the same thought seemed to have crossed Meirik’s mind at that moment too – there was self-consciousness in his expression. But now it was too late. The hand hung in the air, helpless, with splayed fingers, and Harry quickly pressed flesh to get the embarrassing situation over with.

  As Harry passed Linda in reception, she shouted that there was a fax for him in his pigeon-hole and Harry nabbed it on his way past. It was Halvorsen’s list. He ran his eye down the list of names while trudging up the corridor trying to work out which part of him would benefit from six months’ socialising with neo-Nazis in some hole in southern Sweden. Not the part of him that was trying to stay sober. Not the part of him that was waiting for Rakel’s response to his dinner invitation. And definitely not the part trying to find Ellen’s murderer. He stopped in his tracks.

  The last name . . .

  There was no reason for him to be surprised that old acquaintances popped up on the list, but this was quite different. This was the sound he heard when he had cleaned his Smith & Wesson and then put it together again. The smooth click that told him everything fitted.

  He was in his office and on the phone to Halvorsen in seconds. Halvorsen noted down his questions and promised to ring back as soon as he had something.

  Harry leaned back. He could hear his heart beating. As a rule, this was not his forte, putting together small pieces of information which didn’t seem to have anything in common. Must have been a moment of inspiration. When Halvorsen rang a quarter of an hour later, Harry had the feeling he had been waiting for hours.

  ‘That’s right,’ Halvorsen said. ‘One of the boot prints the Crime Scene Unit found on the path was from a combat boot, size 45. They could specify the brand because the print was made by a boot which had hardly been worn.’

  ‘And do you know who wears combat boots?’

  ‘Oh yes, they’re NATO certified. Quite a few people order them, especially in Steinkjer. I’ve seen a number of these English football hooligans wearing them too.’

  ‘Right. Skinheads. Bootboys. Neo-Nazis. Did you find any photos?’

  ‘Four. Two from Aker Community Workshop and two of a demo outside Blitz, the youth centre, in 1992.’

  ‘Is he wearing a cap in any of them?’

  ‘Yes, in the ones taken at Aker.’

  ‘Combat cap?’

  ‘Let me see.’

  Harry could hear Halvorsen’s breathing crackle against the membrane of the microphone. Harry said a silent prayer.

  ‘Looks like a beret,’ Halvorsen said. ‘Are you sure?’ Harry asked, with no attempt to disguise his disappointment.

  Halvorsen was fairly sure and Harry swore aloud.

  ‘Perhaps the boots can help?’ Halvorsen suggested cautiously.

  ‘The murderer will have thrown away the boots unless he’s an idiot. And the fact that he kicked over the prints in the snow imply that he isn’t.’

  Harry was undecided. Again he had this sensation, this sudden certainty that he knew who the killer was, and he knew it was dangerous. Dangerous because it made you reject the nagging doubts, the small voices whispering the contradictions, telling you that despite everything the picture was not perfect. Doubts are like cold water, and you don’t want cold water when you are close to apprehending a murderer. Yes, Harry had been certain before. And had been wrong.

  Halvorsen spoke.

  ‘Officers in Steinkjer bought combat boots directly from America, so there can’t be many places that sell them. And if these boots were almost new . . .’

  Harry immediately followed his line of thought.

  ‘Good, Halvorsen! Find out who stocks them. Start with army surplus places. Afterwards, go round showing the photographs, and ask if anyone remembers recently selling him a pair of boots.’

  ‘Harry . . . Er . . .’

  ‘Yeah, I know. I’ll clear it with Møller first.’

  Harry knew that the chances of finding a salesman who remembered all the customers he sold shoes to was minimal. The chances were, of course, slightly better when customers had Sieg Heil tattooed on their necks, but anyway – Halvorsen might as well learn that 90 per cent of all murder investigations were spent looking in the wrong places. Harry rang off and called Møller. The Crime Squad chief listened to all his arguments and when Harry was finished, cleared his throat.

  ‘Good to hear that you and Waaler finally agree on something,’ he said.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He called me half an hour ago and said almost exactly the same as you have just said. I gave him permission to bring Sverre Olsen in for questioning.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Harry wasn’t sure what to do. So when Møller asked him if he had any more to say, Harry mumbled a ‘Bye’ and put down the receiver. He stared out of the window. The rush hour was beginning to get into gear in Schweigaards gate. He picked out a man in a grey coat and old-fashioned hat, and watched him slowly walk past until he was out of sight. Harry could feel that his pulse was almost normal again. Klippan. He had almost forgotten, but now it returned like a pounding hangover. He wondered whether to call Rakel’s internal number, but rejected that idea right away.

  Then something weird happened.

  At the margin of his field of vision, outside the window, a movement caught his eye. He couldn’t make out what it was at first; he could only see it closing in fast. He opened his mouth, but the word, the shout or whatever it was his brain was trying to formulate, never passed his lips. There was a soft thud, the glass in the window vibrated lightly and he sat staring at a wet patch where a grey feather was stuck, quivering in the spring wind. He didn’t move. Then he grabbed his jacket and sprinted for the lift.

  63

  Krokliveien, Bjerke. 2 May 2000.

  SVERRE OLSEN TURNED UP THE RADIO. HE FLICKED SLOWLY through his mother’s latest women’s magazine while listening to the newsreader talk about the threatening letters trade-union leaders had received. The gutter directly above the sitting-room window was still dripping. He laughed. The threats sounded like one of Roy Kvinset’s numbers. Hopefully there wouldn’t be so many spelling mistakes this time.

  He glanced at his watch. This afternoon the tables at Herbert’s would be buzzing. He was flat broke, but he had repaired the old Wilfa vacuum cleaner this week, so perhaps Mum wouldn’t mind lending him a hundred. Fuck the Prince! It was now two weeks since he last promised that Sverre would get his money ‘in a couple of days’. In the meantime, a couple of the guys he owed money to were beginning to use an unpleasantly menacing tone. And worst of all, his table at Herbert’s Pizza had been commandeered by someone else. It would soon be a long time since the raid on Dennis Kebab.

  The last time he was at Herbert’s he had felt an irresistible desire to stand up and yell that he was the one who had killed the police bitch in Grünerløkka. Blood had spurted out like a geyser following his final lunge. She had died screaming. He wouldn’t have considered it neces- sary to add that he hadn’t known she was a policewoman. Or that the sight of the blood had almost made him throw up.

  Fuck the Prince! He had known the whole time she was a cop.

  Sverre had earned the money. No one could tell him any different, but what could he do? After what had happen
ed, the Prince had forbidden him to phone. As a precaution, until the worst of the furore had quietened down.

  The gate hinges outside screeched. Sverre got to his feet, switched off the radio and hurried into the hall. On the way up the stairs he heard his mother’s footsteps on the gravel. Then he was in his own room and he heard her keys jangling in the lock. As she rummaged around downstairs, he stood in the middle of his room and studied himself in the mirror. He ran a hand across his scalp and felt the millimetre high prickles rub against his fingers like a brush. He had made up his mind. Even with the forty grand he would get himself a job. He was pissed off with staying at home and, to tell the truth, he was pissed off with ‘the comrades’ at Herbert’s too. Sick of tagging along with people who were going nowhere. He had taken the Heavy Current course at technical college and he was good at repairing electrical things. Lots of electricians needed apprentices and assistants. In a few weeks his hair would have grown over the Sieg Heil tattoo at the back of his head.

  His hair, yes. He suddenly remembered the telephone call he had received during the night, the policeman with the Trondheim accent who had asked him about red hair! When Sverre woke up in the morning he had imagined it was a dream, until his mother had asked him over breakfast what kind of person would ring at four in the morning.

  Sverre shifted his focus of attention from the mirror to the walls. The picture of the Führer, the posters of Burzum gigs, the flag with the swastika on, the Iron Cross and the Blood & Honour poster which was a copy of Joseph Goebbels’ old propaganda poster. For the first time it struck him that his room was like a boy’s room. If you replaced the Swedish White Aryan Resistance banner with a Manchester United scarf and the picture of Heinrich Himmler with one of David Beckham you would have thought it was a teenager’s room.

  ‘Sverre!’ It was Mum.

  He closed his eyes.

  ‘Sverre!’

  It wouldn’t go away. It would never go away.

  ‘Yes!’ he screamed out so loud that the scream filled his head.

  ‘There’s someone here who wants to talk to you.’

  Here? To him? Sverre opened his eyes again and stared irresolutely at himself in the mirror. No one came here. As far as he knew, no one even knew he lived here. His heart began to beat faster. Could it be that policeman with the Trondheim accent again?

  He was walking towards his bedroom door when it slid open.

  ‘Hello, Olsen.’

  Because the spring sun was low and shone right in through the window on the landing he could only see a silhouette filling the doorway. But he knew perfectly well whose voice it was.

  ‘Aren’t you happy to see me?’ the Prince said, closing the door behind him.

  He scanned the walls inquisitively. ‘Quite a place you have here.’

  ‘Why did she let you . . . ?’

  ‘I showed your mother this.’ The Prince waved around a card with a Norwegian coat of arms in gold on a light blue background. It said POLITI on the other side.

  ‘Oh fuck,’ Sverre said with a gulp. ‘Is that genuine?’

  ‘Who knows? Relax, Olsen. Take a seat.’

  The Prince pointed to the bed and sat the wrong way round on the desk chair.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Sverre asked.

  ‘What do you think?’ He beamed a broad smile at Sverre, who was sitting on the very edge of the bed. ‘The day of reckoning.’

  ‘The day of reckoning?’

  Sverre still had not collected himself completely. How did the Prince know he lived here? And the police ID card. Looking at him now, it struck Sverre that the Prince could easily be a policeman – the well-groomed hair, the cold eyes, the solarium-brown face and the well-trained upper body, the short jacket in soft black leather and the blue jeans. Strange he hadn’t noticed before.

  ‘Yes,’ the Prince said, still smiling. ‘The day of reckoning has come.’ He pulled out an envelope from his inside pocket and passed it to Sverre.

  ‘About time,’ Sverre said, flashing a fleeting nervous smile and sticking his fingers into the envelope. ‘What’s this?’ he asked, pulling out a folded A4 sheet.

  ‘It’s a list of the eight people Crime Squad will soon be visiting, and almost certainly taking blood from, to send for DNA testing to find a match for the skin particles they found on your cap at the scene of the crime.’

  ‘My cap? You said you’d found it in your car and burned it?’

  Sverre stared in horror as the Prince shook his head in regret.

  ‘It seems I went back to the scene of the crime. A young couple was waiting for the police, frightened out of their wits. I must have “lost” the cap in the snow a few metres from the body.’

  Sverre ran both hands across his head several times.

  ‘You seem baffled, Olsen?’

  Sverre nodded and attempted a smile, but the corners of his mouth didn’t seem to want to obey.

  ‘Do you want me to explain?’

  Sverre nodded again. ‘When a police officer is murdered the case has top priority until the murderer is caught, however long it takes. It isn’t written in any instruction manual, but when the victim is one of our own, no questions are asked about resources. That’s the problem with killing police officers – detectives simply won’t give up until they have . . .’ he pointed to Sverre,‘. . . found the guilty party. It’s just a question of time – so I took the liberty of giving the detectives a helping hand so the waiting time would not be too long.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘You might be wondering why I helped the police to find you when the odds are that you would report me in order to have your own sentence commuted?’

  Sverre swallowed. He tried to think, but it was too much and everything was blocked.

  ‘I can understand that this must be a hard nut to crack,’ the Prince said, stroking a finger along the imitation Iron Cross hanging from a nail on the wall. ‘Of course, I could have shot you right after the murder. But then the police would have known that you were in league with someone trying to cover their tracks and would have continued the hunt.’

  He unhooked the chain from the nail and hung it round his neck, over his leather jacket.

  ‘Another alternative was to “solve” the crime on my own, to shoot you while arresting you and make it look as if you had resisted arrest. The problem with that is that it might seem suspiciously clever for one person to solve a case on their own. People might start thinking, especially since I was the last person to see Ellen Gjelten alive.’

  He paused and laughed. ‘Don’t look so scared, Olsen! I’m telling you these are alternatives I rejected. What I’ve done is to sit on the sidelines, keep myself informed about progress and watch them close in on you. The plan has always been to jump in when they get close, take over the baton and do the last lap myself. By the way, a piss artist working in POT tracked you down.’

  ‘Are you . . . a policeman?’

  ‘Does it suit me?’ The Prince was pointing to the Iron Cross. ‘No, to hell with that. I’m a soldier like you, Olsen. A ship has to have water-tight bulkheads, otherwise the slightest leak will cause it to sink. Do you know what it would mean if I betrayed my identity to you?’

  Sverre’s mouth and throat were so dry he could no longer swallow. He was frightened. Frightened for his life.

  ‘It would mean that I couldn’t let you leave this room alive. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sverre’s voice was hoarse. ‘My m-money . . .’

  The Prince put his hand inside his jacket and pulled out a pistol.

  ‘Sit still.’

  He walked over to the bed, sat beside Sverre and, holding the pistol in both hands, pointed it at the door.

  ‘This is a Glock, the world’s most reliable handgun. I was sent it from Germany yesterday. The manufacture number has been filed off. The street value is about eight thousand kroner. Look on it as the first instalment.’

  Sverre jumped as it went off with a bang. He stared with
large eyes at the little hole at the top of the door. The dust danced in the stripe of sunlight which ran like a laser beam from the hole through the room.

  ‘Feel it,’ the Prince said, dropping the gun in his lap. Then he stood up and went to the door. ‘Hold it tight. Perfect balance, isn’t it?’

  Sverre reluctantly curled his fingers around the stock of the gun. He could feel he was sweating inside his T-shirt. There’s a hole in the ceiling. That was all he could think. And that the bullet had made a new hole and they still hadn’t got hold of a builder. Then what he had been expecting happened. He closed his eyes.

  ‘Sverre!’

  She sounds as if she’s drowning. He gripped the gun. She always sounds as if she’s drowning. Then he opened his eyes again and saw the Prince turn by the door, in slow motion. He swung up his arms; both hands were held round a shiny black Smith & Wesson revolver.

  ‘Sverre!’

  A yellow flame spat out of the muzzle of the gun. He could see her standing at the bottom of the stairs. Then the bullet hit him, bored through the top of his forehead, out through the back, taking the Heil from the Sieg Heil tattoo with it, into and through the wooden studwork in the wall, through the insulation before stopping behind the Eternit cladding panel on the outside wall. But by then Sverre Olsen was already dead.

  64

  Krokliveien. 2 May 2000.

  HARRY HAD SCROUNGED A COFFEE OFF SOMEONE IN THE Crime Scene Unit with a thermos. He was standing in front of the ugly little house in Krokliveien in Bjerke, peering at a young officer up a ladder who was marking the hole in the roof where the bullet had exited. Curious onlookers had already begun to gather and for the sake of security the police had cordoned off the area around the house with yellow tape. The man on the ladder was bathed in the afternoon sunlight, but the house lay in a hollow in the ground and it was already cold where Harry stood.

  ‘So you arrived immediately after it happened?’ Harry heard a voice behind him ask. He turned round. It was Bjarne Møller. He had become an increasingly rare sight at crime scenes, but Harry had heard several people say he had been a good detective. Some even suggested that he should have been allowed to continue. Harry offered him the cup of coffee, but Møller shook his head.