Blood on Snow: A novel

by Jo Nesbo

  “Hoffmann says you can live if we can have his wife,” Brynhildsen said.

  That was a lie, but I’d have said the same thing myself. I considered my options. The street was empty of traffic and people. Apart from the wrong people. And it was so quiet that I could hear the spring in the trigger mechanism complain gently as it stretched.

  “Fine,” Brynhildsen said. “We can find her without you, you know.”

  He was right, he wasn’t bluffing.

  “Okay,” I said. “I only took her to have something to bargain with. I had no idea the guy was a Hoffmann.”

  “I don’t know anything about that. We just want the wife.”

  “We’d better go and get her, then,” I said.

  CHAPTER 13

  “We have to take the underground,” I explained. “Look, she thinks I’m protecting her. And I am. Unless I can use her in a deal like this. So I told her that if I wasn’t home in half an hour, something serious must have happened and she should take off. And it’ll take at least three-quarters of an hour by car to get to my flat through the Christmas traffic.”

  Brynhildsen stared at me. “So call her and say you’re going to be a bit late.”

  “I haven’t got a phone.”

  “Really? So how come the pizza was waiting for you when you arrived, Johansen?”

  I looked down at the big red cardboard box. Brynhildsen was no idiot. “Phone box.”

  Brynhildsen ran his finger and thumb over either side of his moustache, as if he were trying to stretch the hairs. Then looked up and down the street. Presumably estimating the traffic. And wondering what Hoffmann would say if she got away.

  “CP Special.” This from the young lad. He was grinning broadly as he nodded towards the box. “Best pizza in the city, eh?”

  “Shut up,” Brynhildsen said, now finished with his moustache-stroking, having made up his mind.

  “We’ll take the underground. And we’ll call Pine from your phone box and get him to pick us up out there.”

  —

  We walked the five minutes it took to get to the underground station by the National Theatre. Brynhildsen pulled the sleeve of his coat down to cover the pistol.

  “You’ll have to get your own ticket, I’m not paying for it,” he said as we stood at the ticket booth.

  “The one I got when I came in is valid for an hour,” I lied.

  “That’s true,” Brynhildsen said with a grin.

  I could always hope for a ticket inspection, and that they’d take me to some nice, safe police station.

  The underground was as crowded as I had hoped. Weary commuters, gum-chewing teenagers, men and women wrapped up against the cold, with Christmas presents sticking out of plastic bags. So we had to stand. We positioned ourselves in the middle of the carriage, each of us with a hand on the shiny steel pole. The doors closed and the passengers’ breath began to build up on the windows again. The train pulled away.

  “Hovseter. I wouldn’t have had you down as living out west, Johansen.”

  “You shouldn’t believe everything you believe, Brynhildsen.”

  “Really? You mean like the fact that I’d have thought you could get pizza out in Hovseter rather than having to come all the way into the city?”

  “It’s a CP Special,” the young lad said respectfully, staring at the red box that was taking up a ridiculous amount of space in the overfull carriage. “You can’t get—”

  “Shut up. So you like cold pizza, Johansen?”

  “We reheat it.”

  “We? You and Hoffmann’s wife?” Brynhildsen laughed his one-snort laugh—it sounded like an axe falling. “You’re right, Johansen. We really shouldn’t believe everything we believe.”

  No, I thought. You, for instance, shouldn’t believe that a guy like me would seriously believe that a man like Hoffmann was going to let him live. And, given that someone like me didn’t believe that, you shouldn’t believe that he wouldn’t take desperate measures to change the state of play. Brynhildsen’s eyebrows almost met at the top of his nose.

  Obviously I couldn’t read what was going on in there, but I’d guess the plan was to shoot Corina and me in my flat. Then put the pistol in my hand and make it look like I’d shot her, then myself. A suitor driven mad by love, the old classic. A better option than dumping us in a lake in a valley just outside Oslo. Because if Corina just disappeared, her husband would automatically be the main suspect, and there wasn’t a lot about Hoffmann that would stand up to close scrutiny. Well, that’s what I’d have done if I was Brynhildsen. But Brynhildsen wasn’t me. Brynhildsen was a man with an inexperienced sidekick, a pistol hidden up one sleeve and the other hand loosely grasping a metal pole, but without the space to spread his legs far enough to keep his balance. That’s just the way it is when you’re a first-timer on this line. I counted down. I knew every jolt of the rails, every movement, every comma and full stop.

  “Hold this,” I said, pushing the pizza box into the chest of the young guy, who automatically took it.

  “Hey!” Brynhildsen shouted over the sound of shrieking metal, and raising the hand holding the pistol at the very second we hit the points. I started moving as the lurching of the train made Brynhildsen fling out his pistol arm in reflex as he tried to keep his balance. I grabbed the pole with both hands and levered myself past it with full force. I was aiming for the point where his eyebrows almost joined up at the top of his nose. I’ve read that a human head weighs about four and a half kilos, which, at a speed of seventy kilometres an hour, gives the sort of force that would take someone better at math than me to work out. When I leaned back again, there was a fine spray of blood coming from Brynhildsen’s broken nose, and his eyes were almost all whites, just a little bit of the irises visible under his eyelids, and he was holding his arms out stiffly from his sides, like a penguin. I could see Brynhildsen was out for the count, but to prevent any potential revival, I grabbed both his hands in mine, so that one of my hands was holding the pistol up his sleeve, making it look like we were doing some sort of folk dance, the two of us. Then I repeated the previous move, seeing as it had had such a successful outcome the first time. I pulled him hard towards me, lowered my head and smashed into his nose. I heard something break that probably wasn’t supposed to break. I let go of him, but not his pistol, and he collapsed in a heap while the other people standing around us gasped and tried to move away.

  I spun round and aimed the pistol at the apprentice, as a nasal, studiously disinterested voice over the loudspeaker announced “Majorstua.”

  “My stop,” I said.

  His eyes were wide open above the pizza box, his mouth gawping so much that in a perverse way it was almost flirtatious. Who knew, maybe in a few years’ time he’d be after me with more experience, better armed. Mind you, years? These youngsters learned all they needed to in three or four months.

  The train braked as it pulled into the station. I backed towards the door behind me. All of a sudden we had plenty of space—people were pressed up against the walls staring at us. A baby was babbling to its mother, but otherwise no one made a sound. The train stopped and the doors slid open. I took another step back and stopped in the doorway. If there was anyone behind me trying to get on, they very wisely chose a different door.

  “Come on,” I said.

  The kid didn’t react.

  “Come on,” I said, more emphatically.

  He blinked, still not understanding.

  “The pizza.”

  He took a step forward, listless as a sleep-walker, and handed me the red box. I stepped back onto the platform. I stood there, pointing the pistol straight at the youth to make sure he realised that this was my stop alone. I glanced at Brynhildsen. He was lying flat on the floor, but one shoulder was twitching slightly, like an electric charge in something that was fucked but not quite ready to die.

  The doors slid shut.

  The kid stared at me from behind the filthy, wintry, salt-streaked windows. The train set
off towards Hovseter and environs.

  “See you latel, all-a-gatol,” I whispered, lowering the pistol.

  I walked home quickly through the darkness, listening for police sirens. As soon as I heard them, I put the pizza box on the steps of a closed bookshop and began to walk back towards the station again. Once the blue lights had passed I turned round and hurried back. The pizza box was sitting untouched on the steps. Like I said, I was looking forward to seeing the look on Corina’s face when she took her first bite.

  CHAPTER 14

  “You haven’t asked,” she said in the darkness.

  “No,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “I suppose I’m just not a very inquisitive person.”

  “But you must be wondering. Father and son…”

  “I assumed you’d tell me whatever you felt like telling me when you felt like it.”

  The bed creaked as Corina turned towards me. “What if I never said anything?”

  “Then I’d never find out.”

  “I don’t get you, Olav. Why did you want to save me? Me? You’re so lovely, and I’m so despicable.”

  “You’re not despicable.”

  “How would you know? You don’t even want to ask about anything.”

  “I know that you’re here with me now. That’s enough for the time being.”

  “And later? Say you manage to get Daniel before he gets you. Say we get to Paris. Say we somehow manage to scrape enough money together to survive. You’ll still be wondering who she is, this woman who could be her own stepson’s lover. Because who could ever really trust someone like that? Such a talent for betrayal…”

  “Corina,” I said, reaching for the cigarettes. “If you’re worried about what I’m wondering or not wondering, feel free to tell me. All I’m saying is that it’s up to you.”

  She bit my upper arm gently. “Are you scared of what I might say, is that it? Are you scared I’ll tell you I’m not the person you’re hoping I might be?”

  I fished out a cigarette, but couldn’t find a lighter. “Listen. I’m someone who has chosen to earn their daily bread killing other people. I’m inclined to give people a bit of leeway when it comes to their actions and decisions.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t believe you. I think you’re just trying to hide it.”

  “Hide what?”

  I heard her gulp. “That you love me.”

  I turned towards her.

  The moonlight from the window sparkled in her moist eyes.

  “You love me, you fool.” She hit me limply on the shoulder. And repeated “You love me, you fool. You love me, you fool,” until her eyes were streaming with tears.

  I pulled her to me. Held her until my shoulder felt warm, then cold from her tears. Now I could see the lighter. It was on top of the empty red cardboard box. If I had been in any doubt, I knew now. She liked the CP Special. She liked me.

  CHAPTER 15

  The day before Christmas Eve.

  It had got colder again. That was the end of the mild weather for the time being.

  I called the travel agent’s from the phone box on the corner. They told me what plane tickets to Paris would cost. I said I’d call back. Then I phoned the Fisherman.

  I said without any preamble that I wanted money for fixing Hoffmann.

  “We’re on an open line, Olav.”

  “You’re not being bugged,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Hoffmann pays a guy at the phone company who knows what phones are being bugged. Neither of you is on the list.”

  “I’m helping you sort out your problem, Olav. Why should I pay you for that?”

  “Because you’ll earn so much from Hoffmann being out of the way that this will be small change.”

  A pause. But not a long one.

  “How much?”

  “Forty thousand.”

  “Okay.”

  “In cash, to be picked up from the shop first thing tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  “One more thing. I’m not going to risk coming to the shop this evening—Hoffmann’s people are getting a bit too close. Get the van to pick me up round the back of Bislett Stadium at seven o’clock.”

  “Okay.”

  “You got hold of the coffins and van?”

  The Fisherman didn’t answer.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’m used to organising everything myself.”

  “Unless there was anything else?”

  We hung up. I stood there looking at the phone. The Fisherman had agreed to forty thousand without a word of complaint. I’d have been happy with fifteen. Didn’t the old shyster know that? It didn’t make any sense. Okay, so it didn’t make sense. I’d undersold myself. I should have asked for sixty. Eighty, maybe. But it was too late now; I’d just have to be happy with the fact that I’d actually managed to renegotiate the terms once.

  —

  As a rule I get nervous more than twenty-four hours before a job. And then I get less and less nervous as I start to count down the hours.

  It was the same this time.

  I stopped by the travel agent’s and booked the Paris tickets. They recommended a small hotel in Montmartre. Reasonably priced, but cosy and romantic, the woman behind the counter said.

  “Great,” I said.

  “A Christmas present?” The woman smiled as she typed in the booking under a name that was close to mine, but not quite the same. Not yet. I’d correct it just before we set off. She had her own name on a badge on the front of the pear-green jacket that was evidently the agency’s uniform. Heavy make-up. Nicotine stains on her teeth. Suntan. Maybe subsidised trips to the sun were part of the job. I said I’d be back the following morning to pay in full.

  I went out onto the street. Looked left and right. Longing for darkness.

  On my way home I realised I was mimicking her. Maria.

  Was. That. It.

  —

  “We can buy what you need in Paris,” I said to Corina, who seemed considerably more nervous than I was.

  By six o’clock I had dismantled, cleaned and oiled my pistol and put it back together. Filled the magazine. I showered and changed in the bathroom. Thought through what was about to happen. Thought that I’d have to make sure Klein was never behind me. I put my black suit on. Then sat down in the armchair. I was sweating. Corina was freezing.

  “Good luck,” she said.

  “Thanks,” I said, then got up and left.

  CHAPTER 16

  I stamped my feet on the slope in the darkness behind the old skating and football stadium.

  It had said in the Evening Post that it was going to be really cold that night and over the next few days, and that the record was bound to be broken now.

  The black van pulled up at the edge of the pavement at exactly seven o’clock. Not a minute before, and not a minute after. I took that as a good sign.

  I opened the back door and jumped in. Klein and the Dane were each sitting on a white coffin. They were both wearing black suits, white shirts and ties, as I had requested. The Dane welcomed me with some funny remark in his guttural grunt of a language, but Klein just glared. I sat down on the third coffin and banged on the window of the driver’s cab. This evening’s chauffeur was the young guy who had noticed me when I first went into the fishmonger’s.

  The road up to Ris Church wound through quiet residential streets. I couldn’t see them, but I knew what they were like.

  I sniffed. Had the Fisherman used one of his own delivery vans? If he had, I hoped for his sake that he had put a fake number plate on it.

  “Where’s the van from?” I asked.

  “It was parked in Ekeberg,” the Dane said. “The Fisherman asked us to find something suitable for a funeral.” He laughed out loud. “ ‘Suitable for a funeral.’ ”

  I dropped my follow-up question about why it stank of fish. I’d just realised that it was them. I rem
embered that I too had smelled of fish after my visit to the back room.

  “How does it feel?” Klein suddenly asked. “Getting ready to fix your own boss?”

  I knew that the less Klein and I said to each other, the better. “Don’t know.”

  “Course you do. Well?”

  “Forget it.”

  “No.”

  I could see that Klein wasn’t going to let it go.

  “First, Hoffmann isn’t my boss. Second, I don’t feel anything.”

  “Of course he’s your boss!” I could hear the anger as a low rumble in his voice.

  “If you say so.”

  “Why would he not be your boss?”

  “It’s not important.”

  “Come on, man. You want us to save your arse tonight, how about giving us”—he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together—“something in return?”

  The van turned sharply and we slid around on the slippery coffin lids.

  “Hoffmann paid for my services per unit,” I said. “And that makes him my customer. Apart from that—”

  “Customer?” Klein repeated. “And Mao was a unit?”

  “If Mao was someone I fixed, then Mao was a unit. I’m sorry if that was someone you had an emotional attachment to.”

  “An emotional att—” Klein spluttered the words, then his voice cracked. He stopped and took a deep breath. “How long do you expect to live, then, fixer?”

  “Tonight it’s Hoffmann who’s the unit,” I said. “I suggest we try to focus on that.”

  “And when he’s been fixed,” Klein said, “someone else will be the unit.”

  He stared at me without even trying to conceal his hatred.

  “Seeing as how you evidently like having a boss,” I said, “maybe I should remind you of the orders the Fisherman gave you.”

  Klein was about to raise his ugly shotgun, but the Dane put a hand on his arm. “Take it easy, Klein.”

  The van slowed down. The young man spoke through the glass. “Time to get in your vampire beds, boys.”

  We each lifted the lid of our diamond-shaped coffin and squeezed inside. I waited until I saw Klein lower the lid on his own coffin before lowering my own. We had two screws to fasten the lids from the inside. Just a couple of turns. Enough to hold them in place. But not so much that they couldn’t be pushed off when the time came. I was no longer nervous. But my knees were trembling. Weird.