The Redbreast hh-3

by Jo Nesbo

  'Too much fuss. And too many flags. No wonder Hitler felt close to the Norwegians. Norwegians are hugely nationalistic. We just dare not admit it.'

  He poured the coffee.

  'Gudbrand Johansen ended up at the military hospital in Vienna,' Harry said. 'The night before he was supposed to leave for Norway he killed a doctor. Since then no one has seen him.'

  'Well, I never,' Fauke said, loudly slurping the scalding hot coffee. I knew there was something wrong with that boy.'

  'What can you tell me about Even Juul?'

  A lot. If I have to.'

  'Well, you have to.'

  Fauke raised a bushy eyebrow.

  'Are you sure you're not barking up the wrong tree now, Hole?’

  ‘I'm not sure of anything at all.' Fauke blew at his coffee thoughtfully.

  'OK. If it's absolutely necessary. Juul and I had a relationship which was like Gudbrand Johansen and Daniel Gudeson's in many ways. I was a surrogate father for Even. It probably has something to do with the fact that he had no parents.'

  Harry's coffee cup stopped in mid-air on the way to his mouth.

  'Not many people knew that because Even used to make things up as he went along. His invented childhood consisted of more people, details, places and dates than most people would remember from their childhood. The official version was that he had grown up with the Juul family on a farm in Grini, but the truth is that he grew up with various foster parents and in various institutions around Norway before finally landing in the childless Juul family as a twelve-year-old.’

  ‘How do you know he lied about it?'

  'It is rather a strange story, but one night Even and I were on watch outside the camp we had set up in the forest, north of Harestua, when something strange happened to him. Even and I were not particularly close at that point and I was extremely surprised when he began to tell me about how he had been abused as a child and how nobody had ever wanted him. He told me some extremely intimate details of his life, and some of it was painful listening. Some of the adults he had been placed with ought to have been…' Fauke shuddered.

  'Let's go for a walk,' he said. 'Rumour has it the weather's nice outside.'

  They walked up Vibes gate to Stenspark, where the first bikinis were on display and a glue-sniffer had strayed from his shelter at the top of the hill looking as if he had just discovered planet Earth.

  'I don't know what brought it on, but it was as if he became another person that night,' Fauke said. 'Very odd, but the strangest thing was that the next day he behaved as if he had forgotten the conversation we had had.'

  'You said that you weren't very close, but you told him about some of your experiences on the Eastern Front?'

  'Yes, of course. Not a lot else was happening in the forest. For the most part we were moving around and keeping an eye on the Germans. And there were quite a few long stories while we were waiting.'

  'Did you talk much about Daniel Gudeson?'

  Fauke stared at Harry.

  'So, you've found out that Even Juul is obsessed by Daniel Gudeson?’

  ‘I'm just guessing for the time being,' Harry said. 'Yes, I talked about Daniel a lot,' Fauke said. 'He was like a legend, Daniel Gudeson was. It's rare to meet such a free, strong and happy spirit as him. And Even was fascinated by the stories. I had to tell them again and again, especially the one about the Russian he went into no man's land to bury.'

  'Did he know that Daniel had been to Sennheim during the war?'

  'Of course. Even remembered all the details about Daniel I was beginning to forget and he reminded me. For some reason, he seemed to have totally identified with Daniel, although I can hardly imagine two more different people. Once when Even was drunk he suggested I start to call him Uriah, just as Daniel had done. And if you ask me, it was no coincidence that he only had eyes for young Signe Alsaker at the end of the war.'

  'Oh?'

  'When he found out that Daniel Gudeson's fiancee's case was due to come up, he went to the courtroom and sat there all day just looking at her. It was as if he had decided in advance that he was going to have her.'

  'Because she had been Daniel's girl?'

  'Are you sure this is important?' Fauke asked, walking up the path towards the hill so quickly that Harry had to walk faster to keep up with him.

  'Absolutely.'

  'I'm not sure if I should say this but, personally, I believe Even Juul loved the myth of Daniel Gudeson more than he ever loved Signe Juul. I'm sure that his admiration for Gudeson was a strong contributory factor in his not resuming medical studies after the war, but studying history instead. Naturally enough, he specialised in the history of the Norwegian Occupation and the Norwegian soldiers at the Eastern Front.'

  They had arrived at the top and Harry wiped away his sweat. Fauke was hardly out of breath.

  'One of the reasons that Even Juul established himself so quickly as a historian was that as a former Resistance man he was a perfect instrument for writing the history that the authorities felt postwar Norway deserved. By keeping quiet about the widespread collaboration with the Germans and focusing on the little resistance there was. For instance, Juul devotes five pages to the sinking of the Blucher on the night leading to 9 April in his history book, but he quietly ignores the fact that prosecutions against almost 100,000 Norwegians were being considered at the trials. And it worked. The myths of a Norwegian population fighting shoulder to shoulder against Nazism live on today'

  'Is that what your book will be about, herr Fauke?'

  'I'm only trying to tell the truth. Even knew that what he was writing was, if not lies, then a distortion of the truth. We talked about it once. He defended himself by saying that it served the purpose of bringing the people together. The only thing he couldn't bring himself to put in the desired heroic light was the King's escape to freedom. He wasn't the only Resistance man who felt deserted in 1940, but I've never met anyone so one-sidedly condemnatory as Even, not even among soldiers on the front. Remember that all his life he had been abandoned by people he loved and trusted. I think he hated every single one of them who left for London with the whole of his heart. Really.'

  They sat down on a bench and looked down over Fagerborg church, the roofs in Pilestredet which led down towards the town and the blue Oslo fjord twinkling far away.

  'It's beautiful,' Fauke said. 'So beautiful that it can sometimes seem worth dying for.'

  Harry tried to take it all in, to make it fit. But there was one minor detail missing.

  'Even began to study medicine in Germany before the war. Do you know where in Germany?’

  ‘No,' Fauke said.

  'Do you know if he had any specialisation in mind?’

  ‘Yes, he told me that he dreamed of following in the footsteps of his famous foster father and his father.’

  ‘And they were?'

  'You don't know about the Juul consultants? They were surgeons.'

  89

  Gronlandsleiret. 16 May 2000.

  Bjarne Moller, Halvorsen and Harry were walking side by side down Motzfeldts gate. They were in deepest Little Karachi and the smells, the clothes and the people around them reminded them as little of Norway as the kebabs they were chewing on reminded them of Norwegian grilled sausages. A boy, dressed up for the festivities in a Pakistani style, but with a 17 May ribbon on his gilt jacket lapels, came skipping down the pavement towards them. He had a strange, snubbed nose and was holding a Norwegian flag in his hand. Harry had read in the papers that Muslim parents were arranging a 17 May party for children today so that they could concentrate on Eid tomorrow. 'Hurrah!'

  The boy flashed them a white smile as he sped past.

  'Even Juul is not just anyone,' Moller was saying. 'He's perhaps our greatest authority on war history. If this is right, there'll be a hell of a fuss in the newspapers. It doesn't bear thinking about, if we're mistaken. If you are mistaken, Harry.'

  All I'm asking for is permission to bring him in for questioning, with a ps
ychologist present. And a search warrant for his house.'

  And all I'm asking for is at least one piece of evidence or a witness,' Moller said, gesticulating. 'Juul is well-known, and no one has seen him anywhere near the crime scenes. Not once. What about the telephone call Brandhaug's wife received from your local hostelry, for example?'

  I showed the photo of Even Juul to the woman working at Schroder's,' Halvorsen said.

  'Maja,' Harry prompted.

  'She couldn't remember seeing him,' Halvorsen said. 'That's exactly what I'm saying,' Moller groaned, wiping the sauce from his mouth.

  'Yes, but I showed the photo to a couple of them sitting there,' Halvorsen said, casting a quick glance at Harry. 'There was an old guy in a coat who nodded and said we should arrest that one.'

  'Coat,' Harry repeated. 'That's the Mohican, Konrad Asnes, wartime seaman. He's quite a character, but not a reliable witness any more, I'm afraid. Anyway, Juul has told us that he was at the Kaffebrenneri across the road. There are no pay phones over there. So if he was going to ring it would be natural to go over to Schroder's.'

  Moller pulled a face and looked sceptically at his kebab. He had only tagged along, somewhat unwillingly, to try the burek kebab which Harry had talked up as 'Turkey meets Bosnia meets Pakistan meets Gronlandsleiret'.

  'And do you really believe all that split-personality stuff, Harry?'

  I think it sounds just as incredible as you do, boss, but Aune reckons it's a possibility. And he's willing to help us.'

  And so you think Aune can hypnotise Juul and can coax out this Daniel Gudeson inside him and get a confession?'

  'It's not definite that Even Juul has any idea what Daniel Gudeson has done, so it's absolutely essential that we speak to him,' Harry said. According to Aune, people suffering from MPDs are very susceptible to hypnosis, since that's what they're doing to themselves all the time-self-hypnosis.'

  'Great,' said Moller, rolling his eyes. 'So what's the idea with the search warrant?'

  As you've said yourself, we have no evidence, no witnesses and we know you can never rely on the court buying all the psycho-stuff, but if we find the Marklin rifle, we're home and dry. We don't need any of the rest.'

  'Hm.' Moller came to a halt on the pavement. 'Motive?' Harry probed Moller's face.

  'My experience is that even confused people usually have a motive in their madness. And I can't see Juul's.'

  'Not Juul's, boss,' Harry said. 'Daniel Gudeson's. Signe Juul's sort of going over to the enemy might have given Gudeson the motive for revenge. What he wrote on the mirror-God is my judge-may suggest that he views the murders as a one-man crusade, that his is a just cause, despite the condemnation of others.'

  'What about the other murders? Bernt Brandhaug and-if you're right that it is the same murderer-Hallgrim Dale?'

  'I have no idea what the motives are, but we know that Brandhaug was shot with the Marklin rifle and Dale knew Daniel Gudeson. And according to the autopsy report Dale was cut up as if a surgeon had done the job. OK, Juul was beginning to study medicine and dreamed of becoming a surgeon. Perhaps Dale had to die because he had discovered that Juul was acting like Daniel Gudeson.'

  Halvorsen cleared his throat.

  'What?' Harry asked sourly. He had known Halvorsen long enough to anticipate that an objection was on its way. And very probably a well-founded one.

  'From what you've told us about MPDs, it must have been Even Juul who killed Hallgrim Dale. Daniel Gudeson wasn't a surgeon.'

  Harry swallowed the last bite of kebab, wiped his face with the serviette and looked around for a litter bin.

  'OK,' he said. 'I could have said that we should wait until we have the answers to all our questions before we do anything. And I am aware that the Public Prosecutor will consider the evidence pretty thin. But none of us can ignore the fact that we have a suspect who might kill again. You're frightened of the media circus, boss, if we charge Even Juul, but imagine the row that would break out if he committed any more murders. And then it came out that we had suspected him all along without doing anything to stop him..!

  'Yes, yes, yes, I know all that,' Moller said. 'So you think he'll kill again?'

  'There are a lot of things in this case I'm unsure about,' Harry said. 'But if there's one thing I'm absolutely certain of it's that he hasn't completed his project yet.'

  'And what makes you so sure about that?'

  Harry tapped his stomach and pulled a sardonic grin.

  'There's someone in here, morsing it up to me, boss. There's a reason why he bought the most expensive and best assassination rifle in the world. One of the reasons Daniel Gudeson became a legend was that he was a fantastic marksman. And something down here is telling me that he's decided to take this crusade to its logical conclusion. It's going to be the crowning glory, something to immortalise the legend of Daniel Gudeson.'

  The summer heat vanished for a second as a last wintry gust swept up Moztfeldtsgate, swirling the dust and the litter. Moller closed his eyes, pulled his coat tighter around himself and shuddered. Bergen, he thought. Bergen.

  'I'll see what I can manage,' he said. 'Make sure you're ready.'

  90

  Police HQ. 16 May 2000.

  Harry and Halvorsen were ready. So ready that when Hole's telephone rang, they both jumped up. Harry seized the receiver: 'Hole speaking!'

  'You don't need to shout,' Rakel said. 'That's why the phone was invented. What was it you said about the seventeenth the other day?'

  'What?' It took Harry a few seconds to connect. 'That I'm on duty?'

  'The other thing,' Rakel said. 'That you would move heaven and earth…'

  'Do you mean that?' Harry felt a strange, warm feeling in his stomach. 'You would like to be with me if I get someone to do my shift?' Rakel laughed.

  'Now you sound nice. I should point out that you weren't my first choice, but since father has decided that he wants to be on his own this year, the answer is yes, we would like to be with you.'

  'What does Oleg say to that?'

  'It was his suggestion.'

  'Yes? He's a clever lad, that Oleg.'

  Harry was happy. So happy that it was difficult to speak with his normal voice. And he didn't give a damn that Halvorsen was sitting across the desk from him with a grin spread from ear to ear.

  'Have we got a deal?' Rakel's voice tickled his ear. 'If I can make it, yes. I'll ring you later.'

  'OK, or you could come over for something to eat this evening. If you had the time, that is. Or the inclination.'

  The words came across as so exaggeratedly offhand that Harry knew she had been practising them before she rang. His laughter was bubbling inside him, his head as light as if he had taken a narcotic substance, and he was about to say yes when he remembered something she had said in the restaurant: I know it won't stop with the one time. It wasn't something to eat she was offering him.

  If you had the time, that is. Or the inclination.

  If he was going to panic, now was the time.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the telephone flashing.

  'I've got a call on the other line which I have to take. Rakel, can you hang on for a second.'

  'Of course.'

  Harry pressed the square key. It was Moller.

  'The arrest warrant is ready. The search warrant's on its way. Tom Waaler is all set with two cars and four armed men. I hope to Christ that the morse-code guy in your guts has a steady hand, Harry.'

  'He fucks up the odd letter, but never a whole message,' Harry said, signalling to Halvorsen that he should put on his jacket. 'See you.' Harry slammed down the phone.

  They were standing in the lift on their way down when it occurred to Harry that Rakel was still on the other line, waiting for an answer. He didn't have the mental energy to work out what that meant.

  91

  Irisveien, Oslo. 16 May 2000.

  The first summer's day of the year had begun to cool as the police car rolled into the quiet residential
area of detached houses. Harry was ill at ease. Not only because he was sweating under the bulletproof vest, but because it was too quiet. He stared at the curtains behind the meticulously trimmed hedges, but nothing stirred. It felt like a Western and he was riding into an ambush.

  At first, Harry had refused to put on a bulletproof vest, but Tom Waaler, who was in charge of the operation, had given him a simple ultimatum: either put on the vest or stay at home. The argument that a bullet from a Marklin rifle would cut through the vest like the proverbial knife through butter had occasioned only a bored shrug with Waaler.

  They went in two police cars. The second, in which Waaler sat, had gone up Sognsveien, into Ulleval Hageby, to enter Irisveien from the opposite direction, from the west. He could hear Waaler's voice crackle over the walkie-talkie. Calm and confident. Asked for position, went through the procedure again and the emergency procedure, asked every single officer to repeat their assignment.

  'If he's a pro, he might have connected an alarm to the gate, so we'll go over not through!

  He was efficient, even Harry had to concede that, and it was clear that the others in the car respected Waaler. Harry pointed to the red timber house. 'There it is.'

  'Alpha,' the policewoman in the front seat said into the walkie-talkie. 'We can't see you.'

  Waaler: 'We're right round the corner. Keep out of sight from the house until you can see us. Over.'

  'Too late. We're there now. Over.'

  'OK, but stay in the car until we come to you. Over and out.'

  The next moment they saw the nose of the second police car coming round the bend. They drove the last fifty metres to the house and parked the car to block the exit from the garage. The second car stopped in front of the garden gate.

  As they got out of the cars, Harry heard the dull echo of a tennis ball being struck by a not too tautly strung tennis racquet. The sun was moving towards Ullernasen and he caught the smell of frying pork chops coming from one window.

  Then the show was on. Two police officers jumped over the fence with MP-5 machine guns at the ready and sprinted round the outside of the house, one to the right and one to the left.