Police: A Harry Hole thriller (Oslo Sequence 8)

by Jo Nesbo

  He heard Rakel’s voice through the window.

  ‘Take me! Please.’

  Harry pressed his head against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut. Act, act. But how? Most merciful God, how? Give a terrible sinner of a trickster a hint and he’ll pay you back with . . . whatever you want. Harry inhaled, whispering a promise.

  Rakel stared at the man with the red beard. He was standing directly behind Oleg’s chair with the end of the baton resting on his shoulder. In the other hand he was holding a gun pointed at her.

  ‘I’m really sorry, Rakel, but I can’t spare the boy. He’s the real target, you see.’

  ‘But why?’ Rakel wasn’t aware of the crying, only the hot tears running down her cheeks, like a physical reaction disengaged from what she felt. Or didn’t feel. The numbness. ‘Why are you doing this, Arnold? It’s just . . . it’s just . . .’

  ‘Sick?’ Arnold Folkestad smiled, apologetically – or so it seemed. ‘That’s probably what all of you’d like to believe. That we can all enjoy our grandiose revenge fantasies, but none of us is willing, or even capable, of carrying them out.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because I can love, I can hate. Well, now I can’t love any more. So I’ve replaced it with . . .’ He raised the baton aloft. ‘. . . this. I’m honouring my beloved. René, you see, wasn’t just any lover. He was . . .’ He put the baton down on the floor, rested it against the back of the chair and groped in his pocket, but without lowering the gun by so much as a millimetre. ‘. . . the apple of my eye. Who was taken from me. And nothing was done about it.’

  Rakel stared at what he was holding. Knowing she should be shocked, unnerved, frightened. But she felt nothing; her heart was already frozen.

  ‘He had such nice eyes, Mikael Bellman did. So I took from him what he took from me. The best he had.’

  ‘An eye. But why Oleg?’

  ‘Do you really not understand, Rakel? He’s a seed. Harry told me he was going to be a policeman. And he’s already failed in his duty, and that makes him one of them.’

  ‘Duty? What sort of duty?’

  ‘The duty to catch murderers and pass judgement on them. He knows who killed Gusto Hanssen. You look surprised. I’ve had a look at the case. And it’s obvious that if Oleg didn’t kill him himself, he knows who the guilty party is. Anything else is a logical impossibility. Hasn’t Harry told you? Oleg was there, present, when Gusto was killed, Rakel. And do you know what I thought when I saw Gusto in the crime-scene photos? How beautiful he was. He and René were beautiful young men with their whole lives before them.’

  ‘My boy has his whole life too! Please, Arnold, you don’t need to do this.’

  As she took a step towards him he raised the gun. Pointing it, not at her but at Oleg.

  ‘Don’t worry, Rakel. You’ll have to die as well. You’re not a target as such, but you’re a witness, and I’ll have to dispose of you.’

  ‘Harry will find you. And he’ll kill you.’

  ‘I’m sorry to have to bring you so much pain, Rakel. I really do like you. But I think it’s only right that you should know. You see, Harry won’t find anything. He’s already dead, I’m afraid.’

  Rakel stared at him in disbelief. He was really sorry. Suddenly the phone on the table lit up and emitted a simple whistling tone. She glanced at it.

  ‘Looks like you’re wrong,’ she said.

  Arnold Folkestad frowned. ‘Give me the phone.’

  Rakel picked it up and passed it to him. He pressed the gun against Oleg’s neck while grabbing the phone. Read the message quickly. Sent Rakel a sharp glare.

  ‘“Don’t let Oleg see the present.”’ What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Rakel shrugged. ‘It means he’s alive anyway.’

  ‘Impossible. They said on the radio my bomb had gone off.’

  ‘Can’t you just get out right now, Arnold? Before it’s too late.’

  Folkestad blinked pensively while staring at her. Or through her.

  ‘I see. Someone beat Harry to it. Went into the flat. Ka-boom. Of course.’ He chuckled. ‘Harry’s on his way here now, isn’t he? He doesn’t suspect a thing. I can shoot you first and then wait for him to come through that door.’

  He seemed to run through his reasoning one more time and nodded as if he had come to the same conclusion. And pointed the gun at Rakel.

  Oleg began to wriggle on the chair, tried to jump, and groaned desperately through the gag. Rakel stared into the muzzle of the gun. Felt her heart stop beating. As though her brain had accepted the inevitable and was starting to close down. She was no longer afraid. She wanted to die. To die for Oleg. Perhaps Harry would get here before . . . perhaps he would save Oleg. For she knew something now. She closed her eyes. Waited for something she didn’t know. A blow, a stab, pain. Darkness. She had no gods she wanted to pray to.

  A lock on the front door rattled.

  She opened her eyes.

  Arnold had lowered his gun and was staring at the door.

  A small pause. Then it began to rattle again.

  Arnold stepped back, seized the blanket from the armchair and slung it over Oleg so that it covered both him and the chair.

  ‘Act as if nothing’s happened,’ he whispered. ‘If you say one word I’ll put a bullet through the back of your son’s head.’

  There was a third rattle. Rakel saw Arnold position himself behind Oleg and the chair so that the gun couldn’t be seen from the front door.

  Then the door opened.

  And there he was. A towering figure, beaming smile, open jacket and ravaged face.

  ‘Arnold!’ he exclaimed with delight. ‘What a pleasure!’

  Arnold laughed back. ‘You’re quite a sight, Harry! What happened?’

  ‘Cop killer. A bomb.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Nothing of any consequence. What brings you here?’

  ‘I was passing. And remembered I had to discuss a couple of things about the timetable. Would you mind coming over here for a second?’

  ‘Not until I’ve given her a good hug,’ he said and opened his arms to Rakel, who flew into his embrace. ‘How was the trip, darling?’

  Arnold cleared his throat. ‘You can let him go now, Rakel. I’ve got a few things to do tonight.’

  ‘Now you’re being a bit stern, Arnold,’ Harry laughed and let go of Rakel, pushing her away and taking off his coat.

  ‘Come over here then,’ Arnold said.

  ‘There’s better light here, Arnold.’

  ‘My knee hurts. Come over here.’

  Harry bent down and pulled at his shoelaces. ‘I’ve been in one helluva an explosion today, so you’ll have to excuse me if I remove my shoes first. You’ll have to use your knee on the way out anyway, so bring the timetable over here if you’re in such a hurry.’

  Harry stared down at his shoes. The distance from Arnold and the chair covered with the blanket was six or seven metres. Too far for someone who had admitted that his vision and the shakes meant he couldn’t hit a target more than half a metre away. And now, the target had suddenly crouched down and made itself much smaller by lowering its head and leaning forward so that it was protected by its shoulders.

  He pulled at the laces, pretending they were knotted.

  Tempting Arnold. He had to tempt him over.

  For there was only one way. And perhaps that was what had made him so calm and relaxed. All or nothing. The bet was already made. The rest was in the lap of the gods.

  And perhaps it was this calmness that Arnold sensed.

  ‘As you wish, Harry.’

  Harry heard Arnold walking across the floor. Still concentrating on his laces. Knew Arnold had passed Oleg on the chair, Oleg who was perfectly still, as though he knew what was going on.

  Then Arnold passed Rakel.

  The moment had arrived.

  Harry looked up. Stared into the gun muzzle, the black eye staring at him from twenty, thirty centimetres.

  He had known f
rom the moment he entered the house that the slightest sudden move would set Arnold off. Shooting the closest person first. Oleg. Had Arnold known that Harry was armed? Had he known that he would take a gun with him to the meeting with Truls Berntsen?

  Maybe. Maybe not.

  It didn’t make any difference. Harry would never have time to draw a weapon now, however accessible it was.

  ‘Arnold, why—?’

  ‘Farewell, my friend.’

  Harry watched Arnold Folkestad’s finger tighten around the trigger.

  And he knew it wouldn’t be coming, the clarification, the one we think we will glimpse at our journey’s end. Neither the big revelation, why we are born and die, and what the point is of both, plus the bit in between. Nor the small one, what makes a person like Folkestad willing to sacrifice his life to destroy the lives of others. Instead, there would be this syncope, this swift cessation of life, this trivial but logically placed pause in the middle of a word. The where for.

  The powder burned with – literally – explosive speed, and the pressure created dispatched the bullet from the brass cartridge at a speed of approximately three hundred and sixty metres per second. The soft lead was shaped by the grooves in the barrel making the bullet rotate so that it would be more stable through the air. But in this case that wasn’t necessary. Because after only a few centimetres of air the chunk of lead penetrated the skin and was slowed in its encounter with the skull. And when the bullet reached the brain its speed was down to three hundred kilometres an hour. The projectile passed through and destroyed first the motor cortex, paralysing all movement, then it pierced the parietal lobe, smashed the functions in the right and front lobes, sliced the optical nerve and hit the inside of the cranium on the opposite side. The angle and reduced speed meant that the bullet, instead of continuing and exiting, ricocheted, hit other parts of the skull at slower and slower rates and finally came to a halt. By then it had already done so much damage the heart had stopped beating.

  51

  KATRINE SHIVERED AND snuggled up under Bjørn’s arm. It was cold in the large church. Cold inside, cold outside, and she should have put on more clothes.

  They were waiting. Everyone in Oppsal Church was waiting. Coughing. Why was it that people started coughing as soon as they entered a church? Was it the room itself that provoked tight throats and pharynxes? Even in a modern church made of glass and concrete like this? Was it their anxiety not to make a sound which they knew would be amplified by the acoustics that created this compulsive action? Or was it just a human way of releasing pent-up emotion, coughing it out instead of bursting into tears or laughter?

  Katrine craned her head. There was a small turnout, only those closest. Few enough people to have only an initial in Harry’s contacts list. She saw Ståle Aune. Wearing a tie for once. His wife. Gunnar Hagen, also with wife.

  She sighed. She should have worn more. Even if Bjørn didn’t seem to be cold. Dark suit. She hadn’t known he would look so good in a dark suit. She brushed his lapel. Not that there was anything on it, it was just what you did. An intimate act of love. Monkeys picking lice from the coat of another monkey.

  The case was solved.

  For a while they had been afraid they’d lost him, that Arnold Folkestad – now also known as the Cop Killer – had managed to escape abroad or find a hidey-hole in Norway. It would have had to be a deep, dark hole, for during the twenty-four hours after the initial alert, his description and personal information had been broadcast on every media outlet in such detail that every person of sound mind in the country had grasped who Arnold Folkestad was and what he looked like. And Katrine had at that point come to her own conclusions about how close they had been earlier in the case when Harry had asked her to check the connections between René Kalsnes and other police officers. If she had only widened her search to include former officers they would have found Arnold Folkestad’s ties to the young man.

  She stopped brushing Bjørn’s lapel and he flashed her a smile of gratitude. A quick, forced smile. A little tremble around the chin. He was going to cry. She saw it now, for the first time she was going to see Bjørn Holm cry today. She coughed.

  Mikael Bellman slipped into the end of the row. Glanced at his watch.

  He had another interview in three-quarters of an hour. Stern. A million readers. Another foreign journalist wanting the story of how the young Chief of Police had worked indefatigably week after week, month after month, to catch this murderer, and how in the end he had himself almost become the Cop Killer’s victim. And Mikael would once again pause briefly before saying that the eye he had sacrificed was a cheap price for what he had achieved: preventing an insane murderer from taking even more of his officers’ lives.

  Mikael Bellman pulled the sleeve over his watch. They should have started by now. What were they waiting for? He had given some thought to his choice of dress today. Black, to match the moment and the eyepatch? The patch was a real hit; it told his story in such a dramatic and effective way that according to Aftenposten he was the most photographed Norwegian in the international press this year. Or should he choose something dark but more neutral, which would be acceptable and not so conspicuous for the interview afterwards? He would have to go straight from the interview to a meeting with the City Council chairman, so Ulla had opted for dark, neutral colours.

  If they didn’t start soon he would be late.

  He mused. Did he feel anything? No. What should he feel? After all, it was only Harry Hole, not exactly a close friend, nor one of his officers in Oslo Police District. But there was a certain possibility that the press were waiting outside, and of course it was good PR to show your face in church. It was indeed impossible to get around the fact that Harry Hole had been the first to point the finger of guilt at Arnold Folkestad, and with the dimensions this case had taken on that linked Mikael and Harry. And PR was going to be even more important than ever. He already knew what the meeting with the City Council chairman was going to be about. The party had lost a strong personality with Isabelle Skøyen and was on the lookout for someone new. A popular, respected person they would like to have on the team, to lead Oslo forward. When the chairman had rung he had opened by singing the praises of the warm, contemplative impression Bellman had made in the Magasinet interview. And then wondered if their party political programme chimed with Mikael Bellman’s own political standpoints.

  Chimed.

  Lead Oslo forward.

  Mikael Bellman’s town.

  So get that organ cranked up!

  Bjørn Holm could feel Katrine trembling under his arm, felt the cold sweat under his suit trousers and reflected that it was going to be a long day. A long day before he and Katrine could take off their clothes and crawl into bed. Together. Let life carry on. The way life carried on for those of them who were left, whether they wanted it to or not. And as his gaze swept across the rows of pews he thought of all those who were not here. Of Beate Lønn. Of Erlend Vennesla. Anton Mittet. Roar Midtstuen’s daughter, Fia. And of Rakel Fauke and Oleg Fauke, who weren’t here either. Who had paid the price for attaching themselves to the man who was being positioned in front of them by the altar. Harry Hole.

  And in a strange way it was as though the man at the front was continuing to be what he had always been: a black pit sucking in everything that was good around him, consuming all the love he was offered and also the love he wasn’t.

  Katrine had said yesterday after they had gone to bed that she had also been in love with Harry Hole. Not because he deserved it, but because he had been impossible not to love. As impossible as he was to catch, keep or live with. Yes, of course she had loved him. But it had passed, the desire had cooled, or at least she had tried to cool it. But the delicate little scar after the short heartbreak she shared with several women would always be there. He had been someone they’d had on loan for a while. And now it was over. Bjørn had asked her to drop the subject there.

  The organ piped up. Bjørn had always had a weaknes
s for organs. His mother’s organ in the sitting room in Skreia, Gregg Allman’s B3 organ, creaking pump organs squeezing out an old hymn, to Bjørn it was all the same, like sitting in a bathtub of warm notes and hoping the tears didn’t get you.

  They had never caught Arnold Folkestad; he had caught himself.

  Folkestad had probably come to the conclusion that his mission had ended. And with it, his life. So he had done the only logical thing. It took them three days to find him. Three days of desperate searching. BjØrn had had the feeling the whole country had been on the march. And perhaps that was why it felt like a bit of an anticlimax when the news came that he’d been found in the forest in Maridalen, only a few hundred metres from where Erlend Vennesla had been spotted. With a small, almost discreet, hole in his head and a gun in his hand. It was his car that had put them on the track; it had been seen in a car park close to where the trail paths started: an old Fiat that had also featured in the nationwide alert.

  Bjørn himself had led the forensics team. Arnold Folkestad had looked so innocent lying on his back in the heath, like a leprechaun with his red beard. He lay beneath a patch of open sky unprotected by the trees clumped together around him. In his pockets they had found the keys for the Fiat and the door that was blown up in Hausmanns gate 92, a standard Heckler & Koch gun as well as the one he held in his hand, together with a wallet containing a dog-eared photo of a man Bjørn immediately recognised as René Kalsnes.

  As it had rained non-stop for at least twenty-four hours and the body had been out in the open for three days there hadn’t been much evidence to examine. But it didn’t matter; they had what they needed. The skin around the entry wound in his right temple had scorch marks from the flame discharge of the weapon and the residue of burnt powder, and the ballistic results showed the bullet in his head came from the gun in his hand.