The Redbreast hh-3

by Jo Nesbo

  'I don't need to tell you how short a time two months is, but it means that we're going to need daily co-ordination meetings at ten in this room. Until these four men are off our hands you'll just have to drop everything else. There's a bar on holidays and time off. And sick leave. Any questions before we go on?'

  'Well, we think -' the Under Secretary of State began.

  'That includes depressions,' Brandhaug interrupted, and Bjarne Moller couldn't help laughing out loud.

  'Well, we -' the Under Secretary began again.

  'Over to you, Meirik,' Brandhaug called.

  'What?'

  The Head of the Security Service (POT) raised his shiny pate and looked at Brandhaug.

  'You wanted to say something about POT's threat assessment?' Brandhaug said.

  'Oh that,' Meirik said. 'We've brought copies with us.'

  Meirik was from Tromso and spoke a strangely haphazard mixture of Tromso dialect and standard Norwegian. He nodded to a woman sitting beside him. Brandhaug's eyes lingered on her. OK, she wasn't wearing make-up, and her short brown hair was cut in a bob and held in an unbecoming hairslide. And her suit, a blue woollen job, was downright dull. But even though she had made herself look exaggeratedly sober, in the way that professional women who were afraid of not being taken seriously often did, he liked what he saw. Brown, gentle eyes and high cheekbones gave her an aristocratic, almost un-Norwegian appearance. He had seen her before, but the haircut was new. What was her name again-it was something biblical-Rakel? Perhaps she was recently divorced. That might explain the new haircut. She leaned over the attache case between her and Meirik, and Brandhaug's eyes automatically sought the neckline on her blouse, but it was buttoned too high to show him anything of interest. Did she have children of school age? Would she have any objections to renting a room in one of the city centre hotels during the day? Was she turned on by power?

  Brandhaug: 'Just give us a short resume^ Meirik.'

  'Fine.'

  'I would like to say one thing first…' the Under Secretary of State said.

  'Shall we let Meirik finish first? Then you can say as much as you like afterwards, Bjorn.'

  That was the first time Brandhaug had used the Under Secretary's Christian name.

  'POT considers there to be a risk of an attack or the infliction of other damage,' Meirik said.

  Brandhaug smiled. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Chief Constable do the same. Smart girl, law degree and flawless administrative record. Perhaps he ought to invite her and her husband to a trout supper one evening. Brandhaug and his wife lived in a spacious timber house in the green belt in Nordberg. In winter you had only to put on your skis outside the garage and you were off. Brandhaug loved the house. His wife had thought it was too black. She said that all the dark wood made her afraid, and she didn't like the forest being around them, either. Yes, an invitation to supper. Solid timber, and fresh trout he'd caught himself. They were the right signals to give.

  'I may remind you that four American presidents have died as a result of assassinations. Abraham Lincoln in 1865, James Garfield in 1881, John F. Kennedy in 1963 and…'

  He turned to the woman with the high cheekbones who mouthed the name.

  'Oh, yes, William McKinley. In…'

  '1901,' Brandhaug said with a warm smile and a glance at his watch.

  'Exactly. But there have been a great many more attempts over the years. Harry Truman, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan were all targets of serious attacks while they were in office.'

  Brandhaug cleared his throat: 'You're forgetting that the present incumbent was shot at a few years ago. Or at least his house was.'

  'That's true. But we don't include that type of incident as there would be too many. I doubt that any American president over the last twenty years has completed his term of office without at least ten attempts on his life being uncovered and the perpetrator arrested. The media were none the wiser.'

  'Why not?'

  Crime Squad chief Bjarne Moller imagined he had only thought the question and was as surprised as the others when he heard his own voice. He swallowed when he noticed the heads turning and tried to keep his eyes on Meirik, but couldn't help them wandering in Brandhaug's direction. The Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs winked reassuringly.

  'Well, as you know, it's usual to keep attempted assassinations under wraps,' Meirik said, taking off his glasses. They looked like the glasses which go darker as you go into the sun, worn by Horst Tappert in the Oberinspektor Derrick role, very popular with German mail-order catalogues.

  Attempted assassinations have proved to be at least as contagious as suicides. And besides, we in the field don't want to reveal our working practices.'

  'What plans have been made regarding surveillance?' the Under Secretary of State asked.

  The woman with the cheekbones passed Meirik a sheet and he put on his glasses again and read it.

  'Eight men from the Secret Service are coming on Thursday. We will then start going through the hotels and the route, vet all those who will come into contact with the President and train the Norwegian police officers we're going to deploy. We'll need to call in units from Romerike, Asker and Baerum.'

  'And they will be used to what end?' Brandhaug asked.

  'Mainly observation duties. Around the American embassy, the hotel where the entourage will be staying, the car park -'

  'In short, all the places where the President isn't.'

  'POT will take care of that. With the American Secret Service.'

  'I thought you didn't like doing surveillance jobs, Kurt?' Brandhaug said with a smirk.

  The memory caused Kurt Meirik to grimace. During the Mining Conference in Oslo in 1998, POT had refused to offer surveillance on the basis of their own threat assessment. They concluded it was 'medium to low security risk'. On the second day of the conference the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration drew the conference's attention to the fact that one of the Norwegian drivers POT had cleared for the Croat delegation was a Bosnian Muslim. He had come to Norway in the 1970s and had Norwegian citizenship for many years. But in 1993 both his parents and four members of his family had been butchered by Croats at Mostar, in Bosnia Herzegovina. When the man's flat was searched they had found two hand-grenades and a suicide letter. Of course, the press had never got a sniff of it, but the repercussions reached government level, and Kurt Meirik's career had hung in the balance until Bernt Brandhaug himself had intervened. The matter had been hushed up after the police inspector in charge of the security clearances had resigned. Brandhaug couldn't remember the man's name, but ever since then his working relations with Meirik had been excellent.

  'Bjorn!' Brandhaug exclaimed, clapping his hands together. 'Now we're all keen to hear what it was you wanted to tell us. Come on!'

  Brandhaug scanned the room, swiftly moving past Meirik's assistant, but not so swiftly that he didn't notice her looking at him. That is, she was looking in his direction, but her eyes were expressionless, blank. He considered whether to return her look, to see what expression would emerge when she realised what he was doing, but he dropped the idea. What was her name? Rakel, wasn't it?

  5

  Palace Gardens. 5 October 1999.

  'Are you dead?'

  The old man opened his eyes and saw the outline of a head standing over him, but the face merged into a corona of white light. Was it her? Had she come to collect him already?

  Are you dead?' the bright voice repeated.

  He didn't answer because he didn't know whether his eyes were open or he was simply dreaming. Or, as the voice asked him, if he was dead. 'What's your name?'

  The head moved and he saw the tips of trees and blue sky. He had been dreaming. Something in a poem. German bombers are overhead. Nordahl Grieg. The King fleeing to England. His pupils began to adjust to the light again and he remembered he had sat down on the grass in the Palace Gardens to rest. He must have fallen asleep. A little boy crouched beside him and a pair of brown eyes
looked at him from under a black fringe.

  'My name's Ali,' the boy said.

  A Pakistani boy? He had a strange, turned-up nose.

  'Ali means God,' the boy said. 'What does your name mean?'

  'My name's Daniel,' the old man said with a smile. 'It's a name from the Bible. It means "God is my judge".'

  The boy looked at him. 'So, you're Daniel?'

  'Yes,' the man said.

  The boy didn't take his eyes off him and the old man felt disconcerted. Perhaps the young boy thought he was homeless as he was lying there fully clothed, using his woollen coat as a rug in the hot sun.

  'Where's your mother?' he asked, to avoid the boy's probing stare.

  'Over there.' The boy turned and pointed.

  Two robust, dark-skinned women were sitting on the grass some distance away. Four children were frolicking around them, laughing. 'Then I'm the judge of you, I am,' the boy said. 'What?'

  'Ali is God, isn't he? And God is the judge of Daniel. And my name's Ali and you're -'

  The old man had stuck out his hand and tweaked Ali's nose. The boy squealed with delight. He saw the heads of the two women turn; one was getting to her feet so he let go.

  'Your mother, Ali,' he said, motioning with his head in the direction of the approaching woman.

  'Mummy!' the boy shouted. 'Look, I'm the judge of that man.'

  The woman shouted to the boy in Urdu. The old man smiled, but the woman shunned him and looked sternly at her son, who finally obeyed and padded over to her. When they turned, her gaze swept across and past him as if he were invisible. He wanted to explain to her that he was not a bum, to tell her he'd had a hand in shaping society. He had invested in it, in spades, given everything he had until there was no more to give, apart from giving way, giving in, giving up. But he was unable to do that, he was tired and simply wanted to go home. Rest, then he would see. It was time some others paid.

  He didn't hear the little boy shouting after him as he was leaving.

  6

  Police HQ, Gronland. 9 October 1999.

  Ellen Gjelten looked up at the man who burst through the door.

  'Good morning, Harry.'

  'Fuck!'

  Harry kicked the waste-paper basket beside his desk and it smashed into the wall next to Ellen's chair and rolled across the linoleum floor, spreading its contents everywhere: discarded attempts at reports (the Ekeberg killing); an empty pack of twenty cigarettes (Camel, tax free sticker); a green Go'morn yoghurt pot; Dagsavisen; a used cinema ticket (Filmteateret. Fear amp; Loathing in Las Vegas); a used pools coupon; a music magazine (MOJO, no. 69, February 1999, with a picture of Queen on the cover); a bottle of Coke (plastic, half-litre); and a yellow Post-it with a phone number he had considered ringing for a while.

  Ellen looked up from her PC and studied the contents of the bin on the floor.

  'Are you chucking the MOJO out, Harry?' she asked.

  'Fuck!' Harry repeated. He wrestled off his tight suit jacket and threw it across the twenty metre square office he and Ellen Gjelten shared. The jacket hit the coat stand, but slid down to the floor.

  'What's up?' Ellen asked, reaching out a hand to stop the swaying coat stand from falling.

  'I found this in my pigeon-hole.' Harry waved a document in the air. 'Looks like a court sentence.'

  'Yep.'

  'Dennis Kebab case?'

  'Right.'

  'And?'

  'They gave Sverre Olsen the full whack. Three and a half years.'

  'Jesus. You ought to be in a stupendous mood.'

  'I was, for about a minute. Until I read this.'

  Harry held up a fax.

  'Well?'

  'When Krohn got his copy of the sentence this morning, he responded by sending us a warning that he was going to pursue a claim of procedural error.'

  Ellen made a face as if she had something nasty in her mouth.

  'Ugh:

  'He wants the whole sentence quashed. You won't fucking believe it, but that slippery Krohn guy has screwed us on the oath.' Harry stood in front of the window. 'The associate judges only have to take the oath the first time they act as judges, but it must take place in the courtroom before the case begins. Krohn noticed that one associate judge was new. And that she didn't take her oath in the courtroom.'

  'It's called affirmation.'

  'Right. Now it turns out that according to the certificate of sentence the judge had attended to the affirmation of the associate judge in his office, just before the case started. He blames lack of time and new rules.'

  Harry crumpled up the fax and threw it in a wide arc, missing Ellen's waste-paper basket by half a metre.

  'And the result?' Ellen asked, kicking the fax to Harry's half of the office.

  'The conviction will be deemed invalid and Sverre Olsen will be a free man for at least eighteen months until the case comes up again. And the rule of thumb is that the sentence will be a great deal milder because of the strain which the waiting period inflicts on the accused blah, blah, blah. With eight months already served in custody, it's more than bloody likely that Sverre Olsen is already a free man.'

  Harry wasn't speaking to Ellen; she knew all the ins and outs of the case. He was speaking to his own reflection in the window, articulating the words to hear if they made any sense. He drew both hands across a sweaty skull, where until recently close-cropped blond hair had bristled. There was a simple reason for him having had the rest shaved off: last week he had been recognised again. A young guy, in a black woollen hat, Nikes and such large baggy trousers that the crotch hung between his knees, had come over to him while his pals sniggered in the background and asked if Harry was 'that Bruce Willis type guy in Australia'. It was three-three!-years ago since his face had decorated the front pages of newspapers and he had made a fool of himself on TV shows talking about the serial killer he had shot in Sydney. Harry had immediately gone and shaved off his hair. Ellen had suggested a beard.

  'The worst thing is that I could swear that lawyer bastard had a draft appeal ready before the sentence was passed. He could have said something and the affirmation could have been taken there and then, but he sat there, rubbing his hands and waiting.'

  Ellen shrugged her shoulders.

  'That sort of thing happens. Good work by the defence counsel. Something has to be sacrificed on the altar of law and order. Pull yourself together, Harry.'

  She said it with a mixture of sarcasm and sober statement of fact.

  Harry rested his forehead against the cooling glass. Another one of those unexpectedly warm October days. He wondered where Ellen, the fresh, young policewoman with the pale, doll-like, sweet face, the little mouth and eyes as round as a ball, had developed such a tough exterior. She was a girl from a middle-class home, in her own words, an only child and spoiled rotten, who had even gone to a girl's boarding school in Switzerland. Who knows? Perhaps that was a tough enough upbringing.

  Harry laid back his head and exhaled. Then he undid one of his shirt buttons.

  'More, more,' Ellen whispered as she clapped encouragement.

  'In neo-Nazi circles they call him Batman.'

  'Got it. Baseball bat.'

  'Not the Nazi-the lawyer.'

  'Right. Interesting. Does that mean he's good-looking, rich, barking mad and has a six-pack and a cool car?'

  Harry laughed. 'You should have your own TV show, Ellen. It's because Batman always wins. Besides, he's married.'

  'Is that the only minus?'

  'That… and him making monkeys of us every time,' Harry said, pouring himself a cup of the home-blended coffee Ellen had brought with her when she moved into the office two years ago. The snag was that Harry's palate could no longer tolerate the usual slop.

  'Supreme Court judge?' she asked.

  'Before he's forty'

  'Thousand kroner he isn't.'

  'Done.'

  They laughed and toasted with their cardboard cups.

  'Can I have that MOJO magazine then
?' she asked.

  'There are pictures of Freddie Mercury's ten worst centrefold poses. Bare chest, arms akimbo and buck teeth sticking out. The full whammy. There you are.'

  'I like Freddie Mercury, I do. Liked.'

  'I didn't say I didn't like him.'

  The blue, punctured office chair, which had long been set at the lowest notch, screamed in protest as Harry leaned back, lost in thought. He picked up a yellow Post-it with Ellen's writing on from the telephone in front of him.

  'What's this?'

  'You can read, can't you? Moller wants you.'

  Harry trotted down the corridor, imagining as he went the pursed mouth and the two deep furrows the boss would get when he heard that Sverre Olsen had walked yet again.

  By the photocopier a young, rosy-cheeked girl instantly raised her eyes and smiled as Harry passed. He didn't manage a return smile. Presumably one of the office girls. Her perfume was sweet and heavy, and simply irritated him. He looked at the second hand on his watch.

  So perfume had started irritating him now. What had got into him? Ellen had said he lacked natural buoyancy, or whatever it was that meant most people could struggle to the surface again. After his return from Bangkok he had been down for so long that he had considered giving up ever returning to the surface. Everything had been cold and dark, and all his impressions were somehow dulled. As if he were deeply immersed in water. It had been so wonderfully quiet. When people talked to him the words had been like bubbles of air coming out of their mouths, hurrying upwards and away. So that was what it was like to drown, he had thought, and waited. But nothing happened. It was only a vacuum. That was fine, though. He had survived.

  Thanks to Ellen.

  She had stepped in for him in those first weeks after his return when he'd had to throw in the towel and go home. And she had made sure that he didn't go to bars, ordered him to breathe out when he was late for work, after which she declared him fit or unfit accordingly. Had sent him home a couple of times and then kept quiet about it. It had taken time, but Harry had nothing particular to do. And Ellen had nodded with satisfaction on the first Friday they could confirm that he had turned up sober for work on five consecutive days.