The Son

by Jo Nesbo

  Morgan didn’t know if it was because Franck had high blood pressure, but the red, nauseating substance was seeping through the white gauze and Morgan was starting to feel faint again.

  One of the telephones next to the monitors rang. Goldsrud picked it up and listened.

  ‘They’ve found the finger,’ he said, covering the mouthpiece with his hand. ‘We’ll drive you up to Ullevål Hospital for surgery, so they can—’

  ‘Where?’ Franck interrupted him. ‘Where did they find it?’

  ‘In plain sight on the dashboard of your Porsche. It was double-parked down in Grønland.’

  ‘Find him! Find him!’

  Tor Jonasson hung from the strap attached to the bar in the metro train. Mumbled an apology as he bumped into one of the other sleepy morning commuters. He had to sell five mobile phones today. That was his target. And when he stood – or hopefully sat – on the train later this afternoon, he would know if he had succeeded. And that would bring him . . . happiness. Maybe.

  Tor sighed.

  He looked at the uniformed man standing with his back to him. Music was coming from the earphones he was wearing. The cable went to his hand which was holding a mobile that bore the tiny label of the shop where Tor worked on the back. Tor changed position so that he could study the man in profile. Tried to get a good look at him. Wasn’t he the guy who wanted to buy batteries for that museum piece? The Discman. Tor had been intrigued enough to look it up on the Net. They had made Discmans up until 2000, when a Walkman that was compatible with MP3 had been invented. Tor stood so close behind him that he could hear the sound from the earphones over the carriage’s rattling steel wheels, but it disappeared when the train went round a bend and the carriage creaked.

  It had sounded like a lone female voice. But he had recognised the tune:

  ‘That you’ve always been her lover . . .’ Leonard Cohen.

  Simon stared at the sound file icon in disbelief. It had taken him only a few seconds to play it. He pressed play again.

  There was no doubt, it was the voice he had initially thought it was. But he didn’t understand what it was about.

  ‘What are you doing? Picking your lottery numbers?’

  Simon turned round. Sissel Thou was doing her morning round and emptying the waste-paper bins.

  ‘Something like that,’ Simon said and pressed the stop button while she grabbed the bin from under his desk and tipped it into the trolley.

  ‘You’re throwing your money away, Simon, the lottery is for the lucky ones.’

  ‘And you don’t think that’s us?’ Simon said as he stared at the computer screen.

  ‘Look at the world we’ve created,’ she said.

  Simon leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. ‘Sissel?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘A young woman was murdered and now it turns out she was pregnant. But I don’t think the killer was scared of her, I think he was scared of her baby.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  Silence.

  ‘Is that a question, Simon?’

  Simon leaned his head against the neck rest. ‘If you knew you were carrying the devil’s son, would you still give birth to him, Sissel?’

  ‘We’ve had this conversation before, Simon.’

  ‘I know, but what did you say?’

  She gave him a reproachful look. ‘I said that nature sadly doesn’t give the poor mother any choice, Simon. Or the father, for that matter.’

  ‘I thought Mr Thou abandoned you?’

  ‘I’m talking about you, Simon.’

  Simon closed his eyes again. He nodded slowly. ‘So we’re slaves to love. And who we’re given to love, that’s a lottery too. Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘It’s brutal, but that’s how it is,’ Sissel declared.

  ‘And the gods laugh,’ Simon said.

  ‘Probably, but meanwhile someone has to clear up the mess down here.’

  Simon heard her footsteps fade away. Then he forwarded the sound file from his computer to his mobile, went to the Gents, entered one of the cubicles and played the recording again.

  After playing it twice he finally understood what the numbers meant.

  PART FOUR

  33

  SIMON AND KARI walked through the sunshine across the slightly too big, slightly too exposed, and slightly too summer-quiet Rådhusplassen.

  ‘Fidel Lae’s description helped us find the rental car,’ Kari said. ‘It had been returned, but fortunately it hadn’t been cleaned yet. Forensics found mud stains that match the mud on the track leading to the dog kennel. And here was I thinking mud was just mud.’

  ‘Every type has its own unique blend of minerals,’ Simon said. ‘Rented under what name?’

  ‘Sylvester Trondsen.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘A thirty-three-year-old man on unemployment benefit. Couldn’t find him at his registered address. He has two convictions for assault. Our officers linked him to Nestor.’

  ‘OK.’ Simon stopped in front of an entrance between two boutiques. The door was tall and wide and signalled solidity and gravity. He pressed one of the buttons for the third floor. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘One of the residents at the Ila Centre told officers that it looked as if the new guy in room 323 and the deputy manager were getting along well.’

  ‘Martha Lian?’

  ‘They were seen leaving the centre in a car the other day.’

  ‘Iversen Property,’ said a voice through the holes in the brass plate over the doorbells.

  ‘I want you to wait in reception while I talk to Iversen,’ Simon said as they rode up in the lift.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I might break a few rules and I would prefer not to drag you into it.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I’m sorry, but that was actually an order, just so you know.’

  Kari rolled her eyes, but said nothing.

  ‘Iver,’ the young man introduced himself as he came to meet them in reception. He shook hands firmly first with Simon, then with Kari. ‘You’re here to see my father.’

  Something about the boy told Simon that he would normally be smiling and easy-going, that he didn’t have experience of the pain and grief which Simon could read in the eyes under the floppy fringe. He guessed that was why the boy seemed so lost and confused.

  ‘This way.’ His father must have told him they were police officers and presumed, as did the father, that their visit related to the investigation into his mother’s murder.

  The office had views of Vestbanen and Oslo Fjord. Next to the door was a glass display cabinet with a detailed model of a skyscraper shaped like a Coca-Cola bottle.

  The father looked like an older replica of the son. Same heavy fringe, smooth, healthy skin, a sunny but subdued gaze in his eyes. Tall, with good posture, firm chin, a man who looked you straight in the eye, friendly, but with a boyish, playful challenge. There was something assured, West Oslo-solid about these types, Simon thought, as if they had all been cast in the same mould; resistance fighters, polar explorers, the crew of the Kon-Tiki, police commissioners.

  Iver Senior asked Simon to take a seat and sat down himself behind a desk below an old black-and-white photo of an apartment block, which was definitely Oslo at the turn of the nineteenth century, but which Simon couldn’t momentarily place.

  Simon waited until Iver Junior had left the office and then he came straight to the point.

  ‘Twelve years ago a girl was found dead in a backyard in Kvadraturen in Oslo. This is what she looked like when she was found.’

  Simon put the photo on Iversen’s desk and watched the property investor’s face carefully when he saw the picture. Not much of a reaction.

  ‘A boy by the name of Sonny Lofthus confessed to the killing,’ Simon said.

  ‘I see.’ Still no reaction.

  ‘The girl was pregnant when she was found.’

  Now there was a reaction. Flared nostrils, expanding pupils. />
  Simon waited a couple of seconds before launching the second stage of the attack.

  ‘DNA evidence from toothbrushes in your home proves that someone in your household was the father of the unborn baby.’

  A thickening of the artery in his neck, a change in facial colour, uncontrolled blinking.

  ‘The red toothbrush is yours, Iversen, isn’t it?’

  ‘How . . . how did you . . .?’

  Simon smiled quickly and looked down at his hands. ‘I, too, have a junior, she’s waiting in reception. Only her brain is a bit quicker than mine. She was the first to draw the simple, logical conclusion that when the DNA on only two of three toothbrushes in the Iversen family shows a family relationship to the foetus, then the son in the house can’t be the father. Then all three members of the family would be related to the foetus. So it had to be the only other male. You.’

  Iver Iversen’s healthy skin colour paled before disappearing altogether.

  ‘You’ll probably find the same thing happening to you when you get to be as old as me,’ Simon said to comfort him. ‘Their minds are so much quicker than ours, these youngsters.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘That’s the thing about DNA. It doesn’t leave much room for buts . . .’

  Iversen opened his mouth while at the same time routinely forcing it into a half-smile. It was at this point in an awkward conversation that he would obviously normally provide what was known as comic relief, a disarming remark. Yes, that was it, something that made it feel less dangerous. But nothing came. There was nothing there.

  ‘Now this old slowcoach . . .’ in front of him Simon tapped his forehead with his finger, ‘. . . takes a little longer, but gets a little further. And the first thing he thought is that a married man like you has the most obvious motive in the world for getting rid of a pregnant and potentially troublesome woman. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  Iversen made no reply, but felt his Adam’s apple reply on his behalf.

  ‘The police released a photo of the woman to the newspapers asking if anyone knew her identity. And when her lover and the father of her child stayed as silent as the grave, didn’t even provide the police with an anonymous tip-off, that makes it extra suspicious. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  ‘I didn’t know . . .’ he began, but stopped. Already regretting it. And then regretted having made it so plain that he regretted it.

  ‘You didn’t know that she was pregnant?’ the police officer asked.

  ‘No!’ Iversen said, folding his arms across his chest. ‘I mean, I knew . . . I know nothing about this. I’d like to call my lawyer now.’

  ‘You clearly know something. But actually I believe you when you say you don’t know everything. I think your wife, Agnete, was the one who knew everything. What do you think?’

  Kefas. Chief Inspector, wasn’t that how he had introduced himself? Iver Iversen reached for the telephone.

  ‘What I think is that you have no proof and that this meeting is over, Mr Kefas.’

  ‘You’re right about the former, but wrong about the latter. This meeting isn’t over because you ought to know what bridges you’ll be burning by picking up that phone, Iversen. The police have no evidence against your wife, but the man who shot her clearly does.’

  ‘And how is that possible?’

  ‘Because he has been a scapegoat and father confessor for criminals in this town for twelve years. He knows everything.’ Kefas leaned forward in his chair and jabbed the desk with his finger with every word. ‘He knows that Kalle Farrisen killed the girl and that Agnete Iversen paid him to do it. He knows this because he went to prison for the murder. The fact that he hasn’t come after you yet is the only reason I believe you might be innocent. Go ahead, pick up the phone and we’ll play this by the book. That is to say, arrest you as an accessory to murder, tell the media everything we know about you and the girl, explain to your business associates that you’ll be away for a while, tell your son that . . . well, what do you want us to tell your son?’

  What to tell his son. Simon waited. Let it sink in. It was important for what was coming next. Let it take root. Give Iversen time to understand the magnitude, the consequences. Open himself up to alternatives which just two minutes ago would have been completely out of the question. Like Simon himself had had to do. And it had driven him here, to this.

  Simon saw Iversen’s hand flop and heard a wobbly, croaky voice: ‘What do you want?’

  Simon straightened up in the chair. ‘You tell me everything now. If I believe you, then it’s possible that not very much needs to happen. After all, Agnete has already been punished.’

  ‘Punished?!’ The widower’s eyes blazed, but the fire was extinguished when it met Simon’s icy stare.

  ‘Fine. Agnete and I, we . . . didn’t have much of a marriage. Not in that way. An associate had some girls. Asian. That’s how I met Mai. She . . . had something, something I needed. Not youth or innocence and all that, but a . . . loneliness in which I recognised myself.’

  ‘She was a prisoner, Iversen. She had been abducted from her home and her family.’

  The property investor shrugged. ‘I know, but I paid for her freedom. I gave her a flat where we met. It was just her and me. Then one day she told me she hadn’t had her period for months. That she might be pregnant. I said she had to get rid of it, but she refused. I didn’t know what to do. So I asked Agnete . . .’

  ‘You asked your wife?’

  Iversen held up a dismissive hand. ‘Yes, of course. Agnete was a grown-up. She didn’t mind others taking over duties she would rather not undertake herself. To be frank, I think she preferred women to men.’

  ‘But she gave you a son?’

  ‘They take their duties very seriously in her family and she was a good mother.’

  ‘A family that is also the biggest private property owner in Oslo, with a perfect image and a family name so untarnished that an Asian bastard would quite simply be unthinkable.’

  ‘Yes, Agnete was old-fashioned. And I went to her because ultimately she was in charge.’

  ‘Because this company is built on her money,’ Simon said. ‘So Agnete decided to get rid of the problem. All of the problem.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know anything about that,’ Iversen said.

  ‘No, because you didn’t ask. You left it to her to contact people who could do the job for you. And they in turn had to buy themselves a scapegoat when a witness told the police that they had seen someone inject the girl in that backyard. The tracks had to be covered and you paid.’

  Iversen shrugged again. ‘I haven’t killed anyone, I’m just keeping my end of our deal by telling you what happened. The question is, are you going to keep yours?’

  ‘The question,’ Simon said, ‘is how a woman like your wife found a piece of lowlife like Kalle Farrisen.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of Kalle Farrisen.’

  ‘No,’ Simon said, folding his hands in front of him. ‘But you know who the Twin is.’

  A moment of perfect silence descended on the room. It was as if even the traffic outside held its breath.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ Iversen said at last.

  ‘I worked for the Serious Fraud Office for many years,’ Simon said. ‘Iversen Property did business with the Twin. You helped him launder money from his drugs and trafficking activities and in return he provided you with fictitious, tax-saving losses to the tune of hundreds of millions of kroner.’

  Iver Iversen shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I know nothing about any Twin.’

  ‘Apart from you being afraid, that’s a lie,’ Simon said. ‘I have evidence that the two of you worked together.’

  ‘Do you now?’ Iversen said and pressed his fingertips together. ‘Then why didn’t the Serious Fraud Office ever bring a case against me?’

  ‘Because when I worked for the Serious Fraud Office I was leaned on from the inside,’ Simon said. ‘But I know that the Twin used his blood money to buy commercial property fro
m you and sell it back to you later at a much higher price. Or at least that’s what the paperwork said. He would appear to have made a profit which allowed him to deposit his drugs money in the bank without the tax authorities asking questions about how he came by it. And it provided you with an apparent loss which you could offset against future profits and thus avoid contributing to society. A win–win situation.’

  ‘An interesting theory,’ Iversen said, shrugging. ‘I’ve told you everything I know. Is there anything else?’

  ‘Yes. I want to meet the Twin.’

  Iversen heaved a sigh. ‘I’ve just told you I don’t know any Twin.’

  Simon seemed to nod quietly to himself. ‘Do you know something? We heard that so often at the Serious Fraud Squad that people started doubting if the Twin even existed, they thought he was just a myth.’

  ‘It sounds to me as if he might just be that, Kefas.’

  Simon rose. ‘It’s all good with me. But myths don’t control the drugs and sex trafficking market in an entire city, year in, year out, Iversen. Myths don’t liquidate pregnant women at the request of their business partners.’ He leaned forward, planted both palms on the desk and exhaled so that Iversen got a taste of his old man’s breath. ‘Men don’t get so terrified that they’re willing to dive off a cliff because of a myth. I know he exists.’

  Simon pushed himself up to standing and headed for the door while he waved his mobile phone. ‘I’m calling a press conference the moment I get into the lift, so perhaps now is a good time for that father–son chat.’

  ‘Wait!’

  Simon stopped in front of the door without turning round.

  ‘I’ll . . . I’ll see what I can do.’

  Simon took out his card and put it on top of the glass display cabinet with the Coca-Cola skyscraper.

  ‘You and he have until six o’clock.’

  ‘Inside Staten?’ Simon repeated as they went down in the lift. ‘Lofthus attacked Franck in his own office?’

  Kari nodded. ‘That’s all I know for now. What did Iversen say?’

  Simon shrugged. ‘Nothing. Not surprisingly, he insisted on speaking to his lawyer first. We’ll have to talk to him tomorrow.’