by Jo Nesbo
‘Get back, miss!’
The words coming from the policeman in front of her were muffled. He appeared to be shouting. Martha just looked at him. Like the others he was wearing Delta Force’s black uniform and bulletproof vest. Then she retreated back through the door, into the stairwell. Leaned against the wall. Checked her pockets. The card was still in her jacket pocket as if she had known all along that she would need it one day. She rang the number under the name.
‘Yes?’
The voice is a strangely accurate temperature gauge. Simon Kefas’s sounded tired and stressed, but lacking the excitement which a raid, a big arrest, should give it. From the acoustics she also deduced that he wasn’t in the street outside or in any of the rooms at the Ila Centre, but in a big space, surrounded by other people.
‘They’re here,’ she said. ‘They’re throwing grenades.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘This is Martha Lian from the Ila Centre. There’s an armed response unit here. We’re being raided.’
In the pause which followed she heard a voice in the background make an announcement, a name, a call for a doctor to attend the post-op ward. The Chief Inspector was in a hospital.
‘I’ll be over right away,’ he said.
Martha ended the call, opened the door and returned to the corridor. She could hear the crackling and hissing of police radios.
The police officer pointed his gun at her. ‘Hey, what did I just tell you?!’
A metallic voice in his radio said: ‘We’re bringing him out now.’
‘Go on, shoot me if you have to, but I’m in charge here, and I’ve yet to see a search warrant,’ Martha declared and marched past him.
And then she saw them emerge from room 323. He was handcuffed and being led out by two police officers. He was almost naked, wearing only a pair of slightly too big, white underpants and he looked oddly vulnerable. Despite his muscular torso he seemed skinny, sunken, finished. A trickle of blood was dripping from one ear.
He looked up. Met her eyes.
Then they walked past her and out of sight.
It was over.
Martha breathed a sigh of relief.
Having knocked on the door twice, Betty took out the master key and let herself into the suite. As usual she took longer than necessary so that even if the guest was in his room, he would have time to avoid a potentially embarrassing situation. This was the policy at the Plaza Hotel: the staff shouldn’t see or hear anything that shouldn’t be seen or heard. But this wasn’t Betty’s policy. Quite the opposite. Her mother had always said that Betty’s curiosity would get her into trouble one day. And, yes, it had done, and on more than one occasion. But as a receptionist it had also come in useful; no one else at the hotel had the same nose for con men as Betty. It had almost become her trademark, exposing people who intended to live, eat and dine at the hotel with no intention of paying their bills. And she was often proactive; Betty had never hidden her ambitions. During her last annual review, her boss had praised her for being vigilant, but discreet, and always putting the hotel’s interests first. Said that she could go far, that reception was just a stepping stone for someone like her. The suite was one of the biggest in the hotel with a panoramic view of Oslo. It had a bar, a kitchenette, a bathroom and the separate bedroom had an en suite bathroom. She could hear the shower running in the en suite.
According to guest registration his name was Fidel Lae and money was clearly no object. The suit she was bringing him was made by Tiger and had been bought in Bogstadveien earlier that day, sent to the tailor for alterations using their express service, and then delivered to the hotel by taxi. In the summer the hotel would usually employ a bellboy to take items to rooms, but this summer had been so quiet that the receptionists did it themselves. Betty had volunteered immediately. Not because she had any real grounds for suspicion. When she had checked him in, he had paid for two nights in advance and con men did not do that. But there was something about him that didn’t ring true. He hadn’t looked like the kind of guy who books the top-floor suite. More like someone who slept rough or would stay in a hostel for backpackers. He seemed so inexperienced and concentrated so hard during check-in as if he had never stayed in a hotel before, but had read about it in theory, and was now keen to get everything just right. Plus he had paid cash.
Betty opened the wardrobe and saw there was already a tie and two new shirts in there, also by Tiger and probably bought at the same shop. A pair of new, black shoes was on the floor. She read the name ‘Vass’ on the insole. She hung up the suit next to a long, soft suitcase with wheels. It was almost as tall as she was; she had seen cases like this before, they were used for transporting snowboards or surfboards. She was tempted to unzip it, but poked the suitcase instead. The fabric gave way. Empty – or at least there wasn’t a snowboard inside. Next to the suitcase stood the only item in the wardrobe which didn’t look new, a red sports bag with the words Oslo Wrestling Club.
She closed the doors to the wardrobe, walked over to the open bedroom door and called out towards the bathroom door: ‘Mr Lae! Excuse me, Mr Lae!’
She heard the tap turn off and shortly afterwards a man appeared with swept-back wet hair and shaving foam all over his face.
‘I’ve hung your suit in the wardrobe. I was told to pick up a letter, to be franked and posted?’
‘Oh, yes. Thank you so much. Could you hang on a minute?’
Betty walked over to the living-room window, took in the view towards the new Opera House and the Oslo Fjord. The new high-rise buildings stood close together like pickets in a fence. Ekebergåsen. The Post Office building. The town hall. The rail tracks which came in from the whole country and merged together in a nerve bundle below her at Oslo Central Station. She noticed the driving licence on the large desk. It wasn’t Lae’s. Next to it lay a pair of scissors and a passport-sized photo of Lae wearing the prominent, square glasses with the black frames she had seen him with when she had checked him in. Further along the desk lay two identical and clearly new briefcases. The corner of a plastic bag stuck out from under the lid of one of them. She stared. Matt, but transparent plastic. With the traces of something white on the inside.
She took two steps back so that she could look into the bedroom. The door to the bathroom was open and she could see the back of the guest in front of the mirror. He had a towel wrapped around his waist and was concentrating hard on shaving. It meant that she had a short window of opportunity.
She tried opening the briefcase containing the plastic bag. It was locked.
She looked at the code lock. The small metal wheels showed 0999. She looked at the other briefcase. 1999. Did the two briefcases have the same code? In which case 1999 looked like the code. A year. The year of someone’s birth, perhaps. Or the Prince song. In which case it wouldn’t be locked.
Betty heard the guest turn on the tap in the bathroom. He was splashing water on his face now. She knew she really shouldn’t.
She lifted the lid of the second briefcase. And gasped.
The briefcase was stuffed full with bundles of banknotes.
Then she heard footsteps coming from the bedroom and quickly shut the lid, took three brisk steps and stopped at the door to the corridor with her heart pounding.
He came out from the bedroom and looked at her with a smile. But something about him had changed. Perhaps it was just that he was no longer wearing his glasses. Or it was the bloody piece of tissue over one eye. At that moment she realised what was different. He had shaved off his eyebrows, that was it. Who on earth removes their eyebrows? Apart from Bob Geldof in The Wall, of course. But he was mad. Or pretending to be mad. Was the man in front of her insane? No, mad people didn’t have briefcases full of money, they only thought they did.
He opened the desk drawer, took out a brown envelope and handed it to Betty.
‘Please would you make sure that goes in today’s post?’
‘I’m sure we can manage that,’ she said,
hoping he hadn’t detected her trepidation.
‘Thank you so much, Betty.’
She blinked twice. Of course – her name was on the hotel badge.
‘Have a nice day, Mr Lae,’ she smiled and put her hand on the door handle.
‘Wait, Betty . . .’
She felt her smile congeal. He had seen her open the briefcase, he was about to—
‘Perhaps it’s . . . eh, customary to tip for such services?’
She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Not at all, Mr Lae.’
It wasn’t until she was in the lift that she realised she was sweating profusely. Why could she never rein in her curiosity? Nor could she very well tell anyone that she had been riffling through a guest’s property. Anyway, since when was it illegal to keep money in a briefcase? Especially if you worked for the police. Because that was what it said on the front of the brown envelope. Police HQ, Grønlandsleiret 44. For the attention of Simon Kefas.
Simon Kefas was standing inside room 323, looking around.
‘So Delta raided the room?’ he said. ‘And took away the guy in the bottom bunk? Johnny – what was his name?’
‘Puma,’ Martha said. ‘I called because I thought perhaps you had . . .’
‘No, I had nothing to do with it. Who is Johnny’s room-mate?’
‘He calls himself Stig Berger.’
‘Hm. And where is he now?’
‘I don’t know. No one does. The police have asked everyone here. Listen, if it’s not you, then I want to know who ordered the raid.’
‘I don’t know,’ Simon said, opening the wardrobe. ‘Only the Commissioner can authorise a Delta deployment, check with him. Are these Stig Berger’s clothes?’
‘As far as I know.’
He had a hunch that she was lying, that she knew they belonged to him. He picked up the blue trainers at the bottom of the wardrobe. Size 8½. Put them back, closed the wardrobe and spotted the photo fixed to the wall next to the wardrobe. Any doubts he might have had until now evaporated.
‘His name is Sonny Lofthus,’ Simon said.
‘What?’
‘The other resident. His name is Sonny and this is a picture of his father, Ab Lofthus. His father was a police officer. His son became a killer. So far he has killed six people. You’re welcome to complain to the Commissioner, but I think we can safely say that Delta’s presence was justified.’
He saw how her face seemed to stiffen and the pupils contracted as if there was suddenly too much light. Staff here had seen a thing or two, but it was still a shock to learn that they had given shelter to a mass murderer.
He squatted down on his haunches, there was something under the bunk bed. He pulled it out.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘A stun grenade,’ he said, holding up the olive-green object which looked like the rubber grip on the handlebars of a bicycle. ‘It produces a powerful flash of light and a bang of around 170 dB. It’s not dangerous, but it leaves people so blind, deaf, dizzy and disorientated for a few seconds that Delta have time to do what they have to do. But they didn’t pull the pin out of this one, so it never went off. That’s how it is, people make mistakes under pressure. Don’t you agree?’
He glanced at the trainers and then looked up at her. But when she returned his gaze, it was steady and firm. He saw nothing there.
‘I have to get back to the hospital,’ Simon said. ‘Will you call me if he comes back again?’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Probably not,’ Simon said. ‘But the patient is my wife. She’s going blind.’
He looked down at his hands. He was tempted to add: just like me.
28
HUGO NESTOR LOVED Vermont. It was one of the few restaurant-bar-nightclub combinations that had actually succeeded in all three areas. The clientele was made up of the rich and beautiful, the not-beautiful but rich, the not-rich but beautiful, a cross section of celebrities, semi-successful financiers and people who worked nights in the entertainment and nightlife industry. Plus successful criminals. It was at Vermont in the nineties that the Tveita Gang and people involved in money laundering, bank and post office robberies had bought methuselahs of Dom Perignon, and because Norwegian strippers at the time had lacked a certain finesse, had better ones flown in from Copenhagen for a quick lap dance in their private dining room. They had used drinking straws to blow cocaine directly into the various orifices of the strippers, and eventually into their own, while the waiters brought them oysters, Périgord truffles and foie gras from geese that had been treated much as they were treating themselves. In short, Vermont was a place with style and tradition. A place where Hugo Nestor and his people could sit every night at their cordoned-off table and watch the world outside go to hell. A place where you could do business, where bankers and financiers could mix with criminals without the cops who frequented Vermont reading too much into it.
Consequently the request from the man who had sat down at their table wasn’t among the more unusual. He had come in, looked around and pushed his way through the crowds right over to them, but been stopped by Bo when he tried to straddle the red cordon that marked out their territory. After exchanging a few words, Bo had come over to Nestor and whispered into his ear: ‘He wants an Asian girl. He says it’s for a client who’ll pay whatever it costs.’
Nestor tilted his head and sipped his champagne. There was a saying of the Twin’s that he had made his own: Money can buy you champagne. ‘Does he look like a cop to you?’
‘No.’
‘Me neither. Get him a chair.’
The guy was wearing a suit that looked expensive, a freshly ironed shirt and a tie. He had pale eyebrows above a pair of prominent, exclusive spectacles. No, correct that, no eyebrows.
‘She has to be under twenty.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Nestor said. ‘Why are you here?’
‘My client is a friend of Iver Iversen.’
Hugo Nestor looked at him closely. He didn’t have any eyelashes, either. Perhaps he had alopecia universalis like Hugo’s brother – alleged brother – who didn’t have a single body hair. In which case the hair on the guy’s head had to be a wig.
‘My client is in shipping. He’ll pay you cash and in heroin that has come in by sea. You probably know better than I do what that means in terms of purity.’
Fewer stops. Fewer middlemen cutting the drugs.
‘Let me call Iversen,’ Nestor said.
The guy shook his head. ‘My client demands total discretion, neither Iversen nor anyone else must know. If Iversen is dumb enough to tell his close friends what he gets up to, then that’s his problem.’
And potentially ours, Nestor thought. Who was this guy? He didn’t look like an errand boy. A protégé? A highly trusted family lawyer?
‘I understand, of course, that a direct approach from a man you don’t know requires extra assurances of a safe transaction. My client and I therefore suggest an advance to prove we’re serious. What do you say?’
‘I say 400,000,’ Nestor said. ‘It’s just a figure I plucked out of the air, I still don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Of course not,’ the guy said. ‘We can do that.’
‘How soon?’
‘I’m thinking tonight.’
‘Tonight?’
‘I’m only in town until tomorrow morning, then I fly back to London. The money is in my suite at the Plaza.’
Nestor exchanged looks with Bo. Then he drained the tall champagne flute in one gulp.
‘I don’t understand a word you’re saying, mister. Unless you’re trying to tell me that you’re inviting us back for a drink in your suite.’
The guy flashed a smile. ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’
They searched the guy the moment they reached the car park. Bo held him while Nestor checked him for weapons and microphones. The guy let himself be frisked without resisting. He was clean.
Bo drove the limo to the
Plaza and they walked from the multi-storey car park behind Spektrum to the towering glass prism that was the Plaza Hotel. They looked down at the city from the external lift and Nestor thought it was a metaphor – people down there grew smaller the higher he himself rose.
Bo took out his pistol as the guy opened the door to the suite. There was no obvious reason to expect an ambush; Nestor currently had no living enemies that he knew of. No unresolved disputes in the market and the police were free to arrest him if they wanted to, but they didn’t have anything on him. And yet he sensed an unease which he couldn’t quite pin down. He put it down to professional vigilance and decided not to drop his guard, something other people in the business could learn from. Nestor hadn’t got to where he was without good reason.
The suite was fine. Amazing view, he’d give them that. The guy had set out two briefcases on the coffee table. While Bo checked the other rooms, the guy went behind the bar and started mixing drinks.
‘Go ahead,’ he said, extending his hand towards the briefcases.
Nestor sat down at the coffee table and opened the lid of first one, then the other. There was more than 400,000 kroner. There had to be.
And if the drugs in the other briefcase were as pure as the guy had suggested, there was more than enough to buy a small village of Asian girls.
‘Do you mind if I turn on the TV?’ Nestor asked, picking up the remote control.
‘Be my guest,’ the guy said; he was busy mixing drinks, something he didn’t look comfortable doing, although at least he was slicing lemon for the three gin and tonics.
Nestor pressed the pay-TV button, flicked past the children and family movies to the porn channel and turned up the sound. He went over to the bar.
‘She is sixteen years old and will be delivered to the car park at Ingierstrand Lido at midnight tomorrow. You’ll pull up in the middle of the car park and stay in your car. One of my men will come over to you, get in the back and count the money. Then he’ll leave with the money and someone else will bring the girl. Understood?’
