The Son

by Jo Nesbo

  Franck barked with laughter.

  ‘I think,’ Einar Harnes said with forced composure as he returned the papers to his briefcase, ‘that we should end it here so I can speak to my client to take his instructions.’

  Franck had a habit of grinning when he got angry. And now the rage bubbled in his head like a boiling kettle and he had to pull himself together not to laugh out loud again. He glared at Harnes’s so-called client. Sonny Lofthus must be mad. First his attack on old Halden and now this. The heroin must finally have corroded his brain. But Sonny wouldn’t be allowed to upset this, it was much too big. Franck took a deep breath and heard an imaginary click like a boiling kettle switching itself off. It was just a question of keeping cool, giving it time. Giving withdrawal a little more time.

  Simon was standing on Sannerbrua looking down at the water which flowed eight metres below them. It was six o’clock in the evening and Kari Adel had just asked about the rules for overtime in the Homicide Squad.

  ‘No idea,’ Simon said. ‘Talk to Human Resources.’

  ‘Can you see anything down there?’

  Simon shook his head. Behind the foliage on the east side of the river he could make out the towpath which followed the water all the way down to the new Opera House by Oslo Fjord. A man was sitting on the bench feeding the pigeons. He’s retired, Simon thought. That’s what you do when you retire. On the west side was a modern apartment block with windows and balconies offering a view of both the river and the bridge.

  ‘So what are we doing here?’ Kari said, kicking the tarmac impatiently.

  ‘Is there somewhere you need to be?’ Simon said and looked around. A car drove past at a leisurely pace, a smiling beggar asked if they had change for a 200-kronor note, a couple in designer sunglasses with a disposable barbecue in the bottom tray of their pram laughed at something as they strolled by. He loved Oslo in the summer holidays when the city emptied of people and became his once more. When it returned to being the slightly overgrown village of his childhood where nothing much ever happened and anything that did happen meant something. A city he understood.

  ‘Some friends have invited Sam and me over for dinner.’

  Friends, Simon thought. He used to have friends. What happened to them? Perhaps they were asking exactly the same question. What happened to him? He didn’t know if he could give them a proper answer.

  The river couldn’t be more than a metre and a half deep. In some places rocks protruded from the water. The post-mortem report mentioned injuries consistent with a fall from a certain height, something which could fit with the broken neck which was the actual cause of death.

  ‘We’re here because we’ve walked up and down Aker River and this is the only place where the bridge is high enough and the water shallow enough for him to hit the rocks that hard. Besides, it’s the nearest bridge to the hostel.’

  ‘Residential centre,’ Kari corrected him.

  ‘Would you try to kill yourself here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I mean if you were going to kill yourself.’

  Kari stopped shuffling her feet. Looked over the railing. ‘I suppose I would have chosen somewhere higher. Too great a risk of surviving. Too big a risk of ending up in a wheelchair . . .’

  ‘But you wouldn’t push someone off this bridge, either, if you were trying to kill them, would you?’

  ‘No, maybe not,’ she yawned.

  ‘So we’re looking for someone who broke Per Vollan’s neck and then threw him into the river from here.’

  ‘That’s what you call a theory, I suppose.’

  ‘No, that’s what we call a theory. That dinner . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Ring your other half and say it’s off.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘We’re starting door-to-door inquiries for potential witnesses. You can begin by ringing the doorbell of anyone whose balcony overlooks the river. Next we need to go through the archives with a fine-tooth comb for potential neck-breakers.’ Simon closed his eyes and inhaled the air. ‘Don’t you just love Oslo in the summer?’

  9

  EINAR HARNES NEVER had any ambition to save the world. Just a small part of it. More specifically his part. So he studied law. Just a small part of it. More precisely the part he needed to pass the exam. He got a job with a firm of lawyers operating decidedly at the bottom of Oslo’s legal system, worked for them just long enough to get his licence, started his own firm with Erik Fallbakken, an ageing, borderline alcoholic, and together they had set a new low for dregs. They had taken on the most hopeless cases and lost every one of them, but in the process had earned themselves a reputation as the defenders of the lowest in society. The nature of their clients meant the legal partnership of Harnes & Fallbakken mostly had its invoices paid – if indeed they ever were – on the same dates that people collected their benefits. Einar Harnes had soon realised that he wasn’t in the business of providing justice, he merely offered a marginally more expensive alternative to debt collectors, social services and fortune-tellers. He threatened the people he was paid to threaten with lawsuits, employed the city’s most useless individuals on minimum wage and promised potential clients victory in court without exception. However, he had one client who was the real reason Harnes was still in business. This client had no record in the filing system – if you could call the total chaos that reigned in the filing cabinets, managed by a secretary who was more or less permanently on sick leave, a system. This client always paid his bills, usually in cash, and rarely asked for an invoice. Nor was this client likely to ask for one for the hours Harnes was about to run up, either.

  Sonny Lofthus sat cross-legged on the bed with white desperation radiating from his eyes. It was six days since the notorious interview and the boy was having a rough time, but he had lasted longer than they had expected. The reports from the other inmates Harnes was in contact with were remarkable. Sonny hadn’t tried to score drugs; on the contrary, he had turned down offers of speed and cannabis. He had been seen in the gym where he had run on the treadmill for two hours without stopping and then lifted weights for another two. Screams had been heard coming from Sonny’s cell at night. But he was holding out. A guy who had been a hard-core H user for twelve years. The only people Harnes had heard of who had managed that before were people who had replaced drugs with something equally addictive, which could stimulate and motivate them just as much as the high from a hit. And it was a short list. They might find God, fall in love or have a child. That was it. In short, they finally found something which gave their lives a new and different purpose. Or was it only a drowning man’s last trip to the surface before he finally went under? All Einar Harnes knew for certain was that his paymaster wanted an answer. No. Not an answer. Results.

  ‘They have DNA evidence so you’ll be convicted whether or not you confess. Why prolong the agony for no reason?’

  No reply.

  Harnes ran his hand so hard over his slicked-back hair that the roots stung. ‘I could have a bag of Superboy here in an hour, so what’s the problem? All I need is your signature here.’ He tapped his finger on the three A4 sheets on his briefcase which was resting on his thighs.

  The boy tried to moisten his dry, cracked lips with a tongue that was so white that Harnes wondered if it might be producing salt.

  ‘Thank you. I’ll consider it.’

  Thank you? I’ll consider it? He was offering drugs to a pathetic junkie in withdrawal! Had the boy repealed the laws of gravity?

  ‘Listen, Sonny—’

  ‘And thank you for your visit.’

  Harnes shook his head and got up. The boy wouldn’t last. Harnes would just have to wait another day. Until the age of miracles had passed.

  When a prison officer had accompanied the lawyer through all the doors and locks and he was back at reception where he asked them to call him a taxi, he thought about what his client would say. Or rather what his client would do if Harnes didn’t save the world.

&n
bsp; His part of the world, that is.

  Geir Goldsrud leaned forward in his chair and stared at the monitor.

  ‘What the hell is he up to?’

  ‘Looks like he’s trying to get someone’s attention,’ said another prison officer in the control room.

  Goldsrud looked at the boy. The long beard reached down to his bare chest. He was standing on a chair in front of one of the surveillance cameras, tapping the lens with the knuckle of his index finger while mouthing incomprehensible words.

  ‘Finstad, come with me,’ Goldsrud said, getting up.

  They passed Johannes who was mopping the floor in the corridor. The sight vaguely reminded Goldsrud of something from a movie. They walked downstairs to the ground floor, let themselves in, passed the communal kitchen and walked further down the corridor where they found Sonny sitting on the chair he had just been standing on.

  Goldsrud could see from his upper body and arms that the boy had recently worked out, the muscles and veins were clearly outlined under his skin. He had heard that some of the most hardened intravenous drug users would do biceps curls in the gym before shooting up. Amphetamine and all sorts of pills were in circulation, but Staten was one of the few prisons in Norway – quite possibly the only one – where they actually had some limited control over the importation of heroin. Even so, it didn’t appear as if Sonny had ever had problems getting hold of it. Until now. Goldsrud could tell from the shaking that the boy hadn’t had a fix for several days. No wonder he was desperate.

  ‘Help me,’ Sonny pleaded when he saw them approach.

  ‘Sure,’ Goldsrud said, winking at Finstad. ‘A wrap will cost you two thousand.’

  He meant it as a joke, but he could see that Finstad hadn’t been quite sure.

  The boy shook his head. His muscles were bulging even in his neck and throat. Goldsrud had heard a rumour that the boy had once been a promising wrestler. Perhaps it was true what they said, that any muscles you build up before you’re twelve, you can regain in a matter of weeks as an adult.

  ‘Lock me up.’

  ‘We don’t lock you up until ten o’clock, Lofthus.’

  ‘Please.’

  Goldsrud was puzzled. It happened that inmates asked to be locked in their cells because they were scared of someone. Sometimes, but not always, they had cause to be. Fear was a common by-product of a life of crime. Or vice versa. But Sonny was probably the only inmate in Staten who didn’t have a single enemy among the other prisoners. On the contrary, they treated him like a sacred cow. And the lad had never shown any signs of fear and he clearly had the physique and mental stamina to handle addiction better than most. So why . . .?

  The boy picked at a scab from a needle mark on his forearm and it was then Goldsrud realised there were scabs on all the marks. He had no fresh ones. The boy had quit. That was why he wanted to be locked up. He was in withdrawal and all too aware that he would take anything he was offered, no matter what it was.

  ‘Come on,’ Goldsrud said.

  ‘Lift your legs, will you, Simon?’

  Simon looked up. The old cleaner was so small and bent double that she barely reached over the cleaning cart. She had worked at Police HQ since before Simon had started there himself sometime in the previous millennium. She was a woman with strong opinions, and always referred to herself – and to her colleagues regardless of gender – as a cleaning ‘lady’.

  ‘Hi, Sissel, is it that time again?’ Simon looked at his watch. Past four o’clock. The official end of the working day in Norway. Indeed, employment law practically prescribed that you had to leave on the dot for king and country. In the past he couldn’t have cared less about leaving on time, but that was then. He knew that Else was waiting for him, that she had started cooking dinner several hours ago and that when he came home she would pretend the meal was something she had just thrown together in a hurry and hope that he wouldn’t see the mess, the spills and the other signs that revealed her sight had deteriorated a little more.

  ‘Long time since you and I last had a fag together, Simon.’

  ‘I use snus now.’

  ‘I bet it’s that young wife of yours who made you quit. Still no kids?’

  ‘Still not retired, Sissel?’

  ‘I think you already have a kid somewhere, that’s why you don’t want another one.’

  Simon smiled, looked at her as she ran the mop under his legs and wondered, not for the first time, how it had been possible for Sissel Thou’s tiny body to squeeze out such a huge offspring. Rosemary’s Baby. He cleared away his papers. The Vollan case had been shelved. None of the residents in the Sannerbrua flats had seen anything and no other witnesses had come forward. Until they found evidence to suggest that a crime had been committed, the case would be downgraded, said his boss, and told Simon to spend the next couple of days fattening up reports on two solved murder cases where they had been given a bollocking by the public prosecutor who had described them as ‘on the thin side’. She hadn’t found any actual errors; she only wanted to see ‘a certain raising of the level of detail’.

  Simon switched off his computer, put on his jacket and headed for the door. It was still summer which meant that many of the staff who were not on holiday had left at three o’clock and in the open-plan office that smelled of glue from the old partition walls warmed by the sun he heard only scattered keystrokes. He spotted Kari behind one of the partitions. She had put her feet on the desk and was reading a book. He popped his head round.

  ‘So no dinner with friends tonight?’

  She automatically slammed the book shut and looked up at him with a mixture of irritation and guilt. He glanced at the title of the book: Company Law. He knew that she knew that she had no reason to feel bad for studying during work hours since no one had given her anything to do. It was par for the course in Homicide; no murders equalled no work. So Simon concluded from her blushes that she knew her law degree would eventually take her away from the department and it felt like a kind of treachery. And irritation, because though she had convinced herself that it must be acceptable to use her time like this, her instinctive reaction when he appeared had been to shut the book.

  ‘Sam is surfing in Vestlandet this weekend. I thought I would read here rather than at home.’

  Simon nodded. ‘Police work can be dull. Even in Homicide.’

  She looked at him.

  He shrugged. ‘Especially in Homicide.’

  ‘So why did you become a homicide investigator?’

  She had kicked off her shoes and pulled up her bare feet on the edge of the chair. As if she was hoping for a longer reply, Simon concluded. She was probably one of those people who prefer any company to solitude, who would rather sit in a near-deserted open-plan office with the chance of company than in their own living room where they were guaranteed peace and quiet.

  ‘You may not believe it, but it was an act of protest,’ he said, perching on the edge of the desk. ‘My father was a watchmaker and wanted me to take over his business. I didn’t want to be a bad copy of my father.’

  Kari wrapped her arms around her long, insect-like legs. ‘Any regrets?’

  Simon looked towards the window. The heat made the air outside quiver.

  ‘People have made money selling clocks.’

  ‘Not my father,’ Simon said. ‘And he didn’t like fakes, either. He refused to follow the trend and make cheap copies and plastic digital watches. He thought it was the path of least resistance. He went bankrupt in style.’

  ‘Well, that explains why you didn’t want to be a watchmaker.’

  ‘No, I ended up a watchmaker all the same.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Crime scene technician. Ballistics expert. Bullet trajectories and all that. It’s almost the same as tinkering with watches. We’re probably more like our parents than we’d like to believe.’

  ‘So what happened?’ she smiled. ‘Did you go bankrupt?’

  ‘Well.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I guess I becam
e more interested in the why rather than the how. I don’t know if it was the right decision to become a tactical investigator. Projectiles and bullet wounds are more predictable than the human brain.’

  ‘So that’s when you went to work for the Serious Fraud Office?’

  ‘You’ve read my CV.’

  ‘I always read up on people I’m going to work with. Had you had enough of blood and guts?’

  ‘No, but I was scared Else, my wife, might have. When I got married, I promised her more regular working hours and no more shifts. I liked the Serious Fraud Office; it was a little like working with watches again. Talking of my wife . . .’ He got up from the desk.

  ‘Why did you leave the Serious Fraud Office if you enjoyed it so much?’

  Simon smiled a tired smile. No, his CV wouldn’t tell her that, would it?

  ‘Lasagne. I think she’s cooking lasagne. See you tomorrow.’

  ‘Incidentally, I got a call from an old colleague. He told me he had seen a junkie wandering around wearing a dog collar.’

  ‘A dog collar?’

  ‘Like the one Per Vollan used to wear.’

  ‘What did you do with the information?’

  Kari opened her book again. ‘Nothing. I told him the case had been shelved.’

  ‘Downgraded. Until new evidence is found. What’s the name of the junkie and where can we find him?’

  ‘Gilberg. At the hostel.’

  ‘The residential centre. Fancy a break from reading?’

  Kari sighed and closed her book. ‘What about the lasagne?’

  Simon shrugged. ‘All good. I’ll call Else, she’ll understand. And lasagne tastes better when it’s reheated.’

  10

  JOHANNES TIPPED THE dirty water down the sink and put the bucket and the mop in the broom cupboard. He had washed every corridor on the first floor and in the control room and was looking forward to the book waiting for him back in his cell. The Snows of Kilimanjaro. It was a collection of short stories, but he read only the one story over and over again. It was about a man with gangrene in his foot who knows he is going to die. About how this knowledge doesn’t make him a better or worse person, just more insightful, more honest, less patient. Johannes had never been much of a reader, the book had been recommended to him by the prison librarian, and since Johannes had been interested in Africa ever since he had sailed to Liberia and the Ivory Coast, he had read the first few pages about this apparently innocent, dying man in a tent on the savannah. The first time he had only skimmed through it, now he read slowly, one word at a time, looking for something even though he didn’t even know what it was.