by Jo Nesbo
The old man chuckled. He would have to buy him a new one for autumn.
The pains came without warning this time and he gasped helplessly for air.
The flare was sinking and their stooped shadows scrambled towards him along the walls of the trench.
Everything went dark, but just as he felt himself slipping into the blackness, the pains released their hold again. The gun had slid on to the floor, and the sweat made his shirt stick to his body.
He straightened up, put the gun back on the window ledge. The bird had flown away. He had a clear line of fire.
The youthful face filled the telescopic sights again. The Prince had studied. And so should Oleg. That was the last thing he had said to Rakel. That was the last thing he said to himself before he shot Brandhaug. Rakel had not been at home the day he had dropped into Holmenkollveien to pick up a couple of books, so he had let himself in and he happened to see the envelope lying on the desk and the Russian embassy on the letterhead. He had read it, put it down and stared through the window at the garden, at the snowflakes lying there after the shower, the last throes of winter. Afterwards he had sifted through the other drawers in the desk until he found the other letters, the ones with the Norwegian embassy on the letterhead, and also those without letterheads, written on serviettes and sheets torn out of notepads, signed by Bernt Brandhaug. And he had thought about Christopher Brockhard.
No Russian arsehole will be able to shoot at our watch tonight.
The old man released the safety catch. He felt a strange calm. He had just remembered how easy it had been to cut Brockhard's throat. And to shoot Bernt Brandhaug. Grandpa's jacket, a new Grandpa's jacket. He emptied the air out of his lungs and crooked his finger around the trigger.
With a key card to all the rooms in his hand, Harry did a sliding tackle into the lift and got one foot between the closing doors. They slid open again. Amazed faces met him as he stood up.
'Police!' Harry shouted. 'Everyone out!'
It was as if the school bell had rung for lunchbreak, but a man in his fifties with a black goatee, a blue striped suit, a thick 17 May ribbon on his chest and a thin layer of dandruff on his shoulders remained where he was.
'We are Norwegian citizens, my good man, and this is not a police state!'
Harry walked round the man into the lift and pressed 21. But the goatee had not finished.
'Tell me one good reason why I as a taxpayer should put up with
…' Harry took out Weber's Smith amp; Wesson from his shoulder holster. 'I have six good reasons here, taxpayer. Out!'
Time passes quickly, and soon it is another day. In the morning light we'll see him better, see whether he is friend or foe.
Foe, foe. Too soon or not, I'll get him anyway.
Grandpa's jacket.
Shit, there is nothing afterwards.
The face in the sights looks serious. Smile, boy.
Betrayal, betrayal, betrayal.
The trigger has been pulled back so far now there is no longer any resistance, the threshold lies somewhere in a no man's land. Don't think about the noise and the recoil, just press, let it come when it comes.
The bang took him completely by surprise. For a fraction of a second it was totally quiet. Then the echo reverberated and the wave of sound settled over the city and the sudden silence of thousands of sounds that died away at this instant.
Harry was sprinting through the corridors on the twenty-first floor when he heard the bang.
'Fuck!' he wheezed.
The walls coming towards him and passing him on both sides gave him the feeling he was moving inside a runnel. Doors. Pictures, motifs of blue cubes. His strides were almost inaudible on the thick carpet. Great. Good hotels think about reducing noise. And good policemen think about what they have to do. Fuck, fuck, lactic acid on the brain. An ice machine. Room 2154, room 2156. Another bang. The Palace Suite.
His heartbeat drum rolls against his ribs. Harry stood beside the door and pushed his key card into the lock. There was a dull buzz. Then a smooth click and the light on the lock went green. Harry gingerly pressed down the handle.
The police had fixed procedures for situations like this. Harry had been on the course and learned them. He had no intention of following a single one of them now.
He tore open the door, rushed in with his gun held in front of him with both hands and threw himself into a kneeling position in the doorway to the living room. The light flooded into the room, dazzled him and stung his eyes. An open window. The sun behind the glass was like a halo over the head of the white-haired man who slowly turned round.
'Police! Drop the gun,' Harry shouted.
Harry's pupils shrank and out of the light crept the silhouette of the rifle pointing at him.
'Drop the gun,' he repeated. 'You've done what you came to do, Fauke. Mission accomplished. It's over now.'
It was peculiar but the brass bands were still playing outside as if nothing had happened. The old man raised the rifle and rested the butt against his cheek. Harry's eyes had got used to the light and he stared down the barrel of this weapon he had hitherto only ever seen in pictures.
Fauke mumbled something, but it was drowned out by a new bang, this time sharper and clearer.
'Well I'm…' Harry whispered.
Outside, behind Fauke, he saw a puff of smoke rise into the air like a white speech bubble from the cannon on the ramparts of Akershus Fortress. The 17 May salutes. What he'd heard was the 17 May gun salutes! Harry heard the cheering. He breathed in through his nostrils.
The room didn't smell of burned powder. He realised that Fauke had not fired the gun. Not yet. He gripped the butt of his revolver tightly as he watched the wrinkled face staring blankly back at him over the sights. It wasn't just a matter of his own and of the old man's life. The instructions were clear.
'I've come from Vibes gate. I've read your diary,' Harry said. 'Gudbrand Johansen. Or is it Daniel I'm talking to now?'
Harry clenched his teeth and crooked his trigger finger.
The old man mumbled again.
'What was that?'
'Passwort,' the old man said. His voice was hoarse and totally unrecognisable from the one he had heard before. 'Don't do it,' Harry said. 'Don't force me.'
A drop of sweat ran down Harry's forehead, down to the bridge of his nose until it hung off the tip, where it seemed unable to make up its mind. Harry shifted his grip on the gun.
'Passwort,' the old man repeated.
Harry could see the old man's finger tighten round the trigger. He could feel the fear of death squeezing his heart. 'No,' Harry said. 'It's not too late.'
But he knew it wasn't true. It was too late. The old man was beyond reasoning, beyond this world and this life. 'Passwort'
Soon it would be over for them both. There was only some slow time left, the time on Christmas Eve before… 'Oleg,' Harry said.
The gun was pointing directly at his head. A car horn sounded in the distance. A spasm flitted across the old man's face. 'The password is Oleg,' Harry said. The finger on the trigger paused. The old man opened his mouth to say something. Harry held his breath.
'Oleg,' the old man said. It sounded like a wisp of wind from his lips.
Harry was never quite able to explain it afterwards, but he saw it: the old man was dying at that very moment. And then it was a child's face looking at Harry from behind the wrinkles. The gun was no longer pointed at him and he lowered his revolver. Then he stretched out a hand and put it on the old man's shoulder.
'Do you promise me?' The old man's voice was barely audible. 'That they won't…'
'I promise,' Harry said. 'I shall personally see to it that no names will appear publicly. Oleg and Rakel will not suffer in any way
…'
The old man rested his eyes on Harry for a long time. The rifle hit the floor with a thud and then he collapsed.
Harry took the magazine out of the rifle and put it on the sofa before dialling reception and asking Bet
ty to call an ambulance. Then he rang Halvorsen's mobile and said the danger was over. Afterwards he pulled the old man on to the sofa and sat down in a chair to wait.
'I got him in the end,' the old man whispered. 'He was about to slip away, you know. In the mud.'
'Who did you get? Harry asked, pulling hard on his cigarette.
'Daniel, of course. I got him in the end. Helena was right. I was always stronger.'
Harry stubbed out his cigarette and stood by the window.
'I'm dying,' the old man whispered.
'I know.'
'It's on my chest. Can you see it?’
‘See what?’
‘The polecat.'
But Harry couldn't see a polecat. He saw a white cloud scud across the sky like a passing doubt. In the sunshine, he saw the Norwegian flags wafting on all the flagpoles of the city and he saw a grey bird flap past the window. But no polecats.
Part Ten
THE RESURRECTION
105
Ulleval Hospital. 19 May 2000.
Bjarne Moller found Harry in the waiting room of the oncological department. The head of Crime Squad took a seat beside Harry and winked at a small young girl, who frowned and turned away. 'I heard it's all over,' he said.
Harry nodded. 'Four o'clock this morning. Rakel has been here the whole time. Oleg's in there now. What are you doing here?'
'Just wanted a little chat with you.'
'I could do with a smoke,' Harry said. 'Let's go outside.'
They found a bench under a tree. Wispy clouds hurried past in the sky above them. All the signs were that it would be another warm day.
'So Rakel doesn't know anything?' Moller asked.
'Nothing.'
'The people in the know are me, Meirik, the Chief Constable, the Minister of Justice and the Prime Minister. And you, of course.’
‘You know better than I do who knows what, boss.’
‘Yes. Naturally. I'm merely thinking aloud.’
‘So what was it you wanted to say to me?'
'Do you know what, Harry? Some days I wish I worked somewhere else. Some place where there is less politics and more police work. In Bergen, for example. But then you get up on days like today, stand by your bedroom window looking at the fjord, the islands in it, and listen to the birds singing and… do you understand?… Then you don't want to go anywhere.'
Moller watched a ladybird crawling up his thigh.
'What I wanted to say is that we would like to keep things as they are, Harry.'
'And what things are we talking about?'
'Did you know that no American president in the last twenty years has lasted the full term without at least ten attempts on his life being uncovered? And that all the perpetrators without exception were arrested without anything coming to the ears of the media? No one profits from plans to assassinate a head of state becoming public knowledge, Harry. Especially not ones which could have succeeded, theoretically speaking.'
'Theoretically, boss?'
'Not my words. But the conclusion is, nevertheless, that we keep a lid on this. We don't want to sow instability. Or reveal weaknesses in the security system. Those aren't my words, either. Assassinations are contagious, just like…'
I know what you mean,' Harry said, expelling smoke through his nose. 'Primarily we're doing this for those sitting in positions of power, aren't we? People who could have and should have sounded the alarm before.'
'As I said,' Moller replied. 'On some days Bergen seems like a handsome alternative.'
Neither of them said anything for a few minutes. A bird strutted in front of them, wagged its tail, pecked at the grass and kept a watchful eye open.
'Wagtail,' Harry said. 'Motacilla alba. Cautious chap.’
‘What?'
'Our Small Birds. What shall we do about the murders Gudbrand Johansen committed?'
'We cleared up all the early murders to our satisfaction, didn't we?’
‘What do you mean?'
Moller squirmed.
'The only thing we'll achieve by stirring up things now is ripping open old wounds for the next of kin, and there's a risk someone will poke around and dig up the whole story. The cases were dosed.'
'Right. Even Juul. And Sverre Olsen. What about the murder of Hallgrim Dale?'
'No one will kick up a fuss about him. After all, Dale was a… er…'
'Just an old piss artist no one would give a toss about?'
'Please, Harry, don't make this more difficult than it already is. You know I'm not happy with this, either.'
Harry stubbed out his cigarette on the armrest of the bench and put the cigarette end back in the packet.
'I have to go in again, boss.'
'So we can count on you keeping this to yourself?'
Harry gave a laconic smile.
'Is it true what I've heard? About the person who wants to take over my job in POT?'
'Absolutely,' Moller said. 'Tom Waaler has said he'll apply. Meirik wants to make the whole neo-Nazi section part of the job description, so it'll become a kind of springboard for the top jobs. I'm going to recommend him, by the way. I suppose you're just happy he's going to disappear now you're back in Crime Squad? Now that his inspector post with us will become vacant.'
'So that's the reward for keeping my mouth shut?'
'What on earth makes you think that, Harry? It's because you're the best. You've proved it yet again, haven't you? I'm just wondering whether we can rely on you.'
'You know which job I want to work on?'
Moller rolled his shoulders.
'Ellen's murder has been cleared up, Harry'
'Not quite,' he said. 'There are a couple of details we still don't know. Among other things, what happened to the 200,000 Norwegian kroner for the purchase of the rifle. Perhaps there were several middlemen.'
Moller nodded.
'OK. You and Halvorsen have two months. If you don't find anything, the case is closed.’
‘Fair enough.' Moller stood up to go.
'There's just one thing I've been wondering, Harry. How did you guess the password was "Oleg"?'
'Well, Ellen was always telling me that the first thing that came into her mind was almost invariably right.'
'Impressive.' Moller nodded his head in appreciation. 'And so the first thing that came into your mind was the name of his grandchild?'
'No.'
'No?'
'I'm not Ellen. I had to give it some thought.'
Moller sent him a sharp look.
Are you teasing me now, Hole?'
Harry smiled. Then he gestured towards the wagtail.
'I read in the bird book I mentioned that no one knows why wagtails wag their tails when they stand still. It's a mystery. The only thing we know is that they can't stop…'
106
Police HQ. 19 May 2000.
Harry had just placed his feet on the desk and found the perfect sitting position when the telephone rang. So as not to lose his position, he stretched forward while using his backside muscles to balance on the new office chair with the treacherous well-oiled wheels. He was able to reach the phone with the tips of his fingers. 'Hole.'
'Harry? Isaiah Burne in Johannesburg speaking. How are you?'
'Isaiah? This is a surprise.'
'Is it? I'm ringing to thank you, Harry'
'Thank me for what?'
'For not starting anything?'
'Starting what?'
'You know what I mean, Harry. For not starting any diplomatic moves for a reprieve or anything like that.'
Harry didn't answer. He had been half expecting this call for a while. The sitting position wasn't comfortable any longer. Andreas Hochner's begging eyes were suddenly present. And Constance Hochner's imploring voice: Do you promise to do what you can, Mr Hole?
'Harry?'
'I'm still here.'
'The sentence was passed yesterday.'
Harry stared at the picture of Sis on the wall. It had been an unusua
lly warm summer that year, hadn't it? They had gone swimming even when it was raining. He felt an inexpressible sadness wash over him.
'Death penalty?' he heard himself ask.
'With no right of appeal.'
107
Schroder's. 2 June 2000.
'What are you doing this summer, Harry?' Maja was counting up the change.
'I don't know. We've talked about hiring a chalet somewhere here in Norway. Teach the boy to swim and all that.’
‘I didn't know you had any children.’
‘No, well, it's a long story.’
‘Really? Hope I get to hear it one day.’
‘We'll see, Maja. Keep the change.'
Maja performed a deep curtsey and went off with a wry grin on her face. It was empty in the cafe for a Friday afternoon. The heat had probably sent most people up to the terrace restaurant in St Hanshaugen.
'Well?' Harry said.
The old man stared down into his glass without answering. 'He's dead. Aren't you happy, Asnes?' The Mohican raised his head and looked at Harry. 'Who's dead?' he said. 'No one's dead. Just me. I'm the last of the dead.'
Harry sighed, stuffed the newspaper under his arm and walked out into the shimmering afternoon heat.
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