The Son

by Jo Nesbo

  Arild Franck sat on the edge of the bed waiting to be taken into surgery. He was dressed in one of the hospital’s pale blue gowns and had an ID bracelet around his wrist. He had felt no pain for the first hour, but it was starting to hurt now and that measly little injection the anaesthetist had given him was doing no good at all. He had been promised a proper injection which they claimed would numb his entire arm right before the operation. A surgeon specialising in hands had stopped by and told him in detail what microsurgery was capable of these days, that the severed finger had arrived at the hospital, that the cut was nice and clean, and that once the finger was reunited with its rightful owner, the nerves would surely reattach so he would be able to use his finger for both ‘this and that’ in a few months. His attempt at humour was probably well intended, but Franck wasn’t in a joking mood. So he had interrupted the surgeon and asked how long he would need to reattach the finger and when he could return to work. And when the surgeon had said that the operation itself would take several hours, Franck had – to the surgeon’s amazement – looked at the clock and sworn softly, but audibly.

  The door opened and Franck lifted his head. He hoped it was the anaesthetist because it wasn’t just his finger that was throbbing furiously now, it was his head and all of his body.

  But it wasn’t anyone in white or green, it was a tall, slim man in a grey suit.

  ‘Pontius?’ Franck said.

  ‘Hello, Arild. I just wanted to see how you were doing.’

  Franck narrowed one eye. As if it made it easier for him to work out the real reason for the Commissioner’s visit. Parr sat down on the bed beside him. Nodded towards his bandaged hand.

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘It’ll be fine. Tell me you’re looking for him?’

  The Commissioner shrugged. ‘Lofthus has vanished into thin air. But we’ll find him. Have you any idea what he wanted?’

  ‘Wanted?’ Franck snorted. ‘Who knows what he wants? He’s clearly on some sort of deranged crusade here.’

  ‘Quite,’ Parr said. ‘So the real question is when and where he will strike next. Did he give you any indication?’

  ‘Indication?’ Franck groaned and bent his elbow gently. ‘Like what?’

  ‘You must have talked about something.’

  ‘He talked. I was gagged. He wanted to know who the mole was.’

  ‘Yes, I saw.’

  ‘You saw?’

  ‘From the papers in your office. Or at least those that weren’t covered in blood.’

  ‘You were in my office?’

  ‘This is a top-priority case, Arild. The man is a serial killer. It’s bad enough that the press is after us, but now the politicians are starting to interfere as well. From now on I’m going to be hands-on.’

  Franck shrugged his shoulders. ‘OK.’

  ‘I have a question—’

  ‘I’m about to go into surgery and it hurts like hell, Pontius. Can’t it wait?’

  ‘No. Sonny Lofthus was interviewed in connection with the murder of Kjersti Morsand, but denied any involvement. Did anyone tell him that her husband was our prime suspect before we found Lofthus’s hair at the crime scene? Or that we had evidence to suggest Yngve Morsand killed her?’

  ‘How would I know? What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, I was just wondering.’ Parr put his hand on Franck’s shoulder and Franck felt the pain shoot down to his hand. ‘You just concentrate on your surgery.’

  ‘Thank you, but there isn’t really a lot to think about.’

  ‘No,’ Parr said, taking off his rectangular glasses. ‘I don’t suppose there is.’ He started polishing them with an absent-minded expression. ‘All you do is lie there while someone else does all the work.’

  ‘Yes,’ Franck said.

  ‘While someone else puts you back together. Makes you whole again.’

  Franck gulped.

  ‘So,’ Parr said, putting his glasses back on. ‘Did you tell him who the mole was?’

  ‘You mean, did I tell him it was his own father? Ab Lofthus, he confessed. If I had written that down on a piece of paper, that boy would have cut off my head.’

  ‘What did you tell him, Arild?’

  ‘Nothing! What could I have told him?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’ve been wondering. I’ve been wondering what made the boy so sure that you had information that he was willing to break into your prison to get hold of it.’

  ‘The boy’s insane, Pontius. Sooner or later every drug addict turns psychotic, you know that. The mole? Dear God, that story disappeared along with Ab Lofthus.’

  ‘So what did you tell him?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He only severed one of your fingers. Everyone else was killed. You were spared, you must have given him something. Don’t forget I know you, Arild.’

  The door opened and two smiling hospital workers dressed in green entered. ‘Ready to roll?’ one of them smiled.

  Parr straightened his glasses. ‘You haven’t got the guts, Arild.’

  Simon walked down the street, bowing his head against the sea air that was sweeping in from the fjord, passing over Aker Brygge and Munkedamsveien before it was narrowed by the buildings and then accelerated up Ruseløkkveien. He stopped outside the church which had been squeezed in between two apartment blocks. St Paul’s Church was more modest than its namesakes in other capitals. A Catholic Church in a Protestant country. It was facing the wrong way, westerly, and had just a hint of a church tower at the front. Only three steps led to the entrance. But it was always open. He knew that because he had been here before, late one evening in the middle of a crisis, and had hesitated before walking up those three steps. It had been right after he had lost everything, before he had found his salvation in Else.

  Simon climbed the steps, pushed down the copper handle, opened the heavy door and entered. He wanted to close the door quickly behind him, but the stiff springs resisted. Had they been just as stiff that time? He didn’t remember, he had been too drunk. He let go of the door which shut behind him, one centimetre at a time. But he remembered the smell. Foreign. Exotic. An atmosphere of spirituality. Magic and mysticism, fortune-teller and travelling circus. Else liked Catholicism, not so much the ethics as the aesthetics, and had explained to him how everything in the church building, even the most basic elements such as bricks, mortar and stained-glass windows, was endowed with a religious symbolism that bordered on the comical. And yet this simple symbolism possessed a gravitas, a subtext, a historical context and the faith of so many thinking people that it was impossible to dismiss. The narrow, whitewashed and plainly decorated room containing rows of pews that led up to a single altar with Jesus hanging on the cross. A symbol of victory in defeat. Up against the wall on the left-hand side, halfway towards the altar, was the confessional box. It had two compartments, one had a black curtain in front of the opening, like a photo booth. When he came here that night, he hadn’t known which of the two cubicles was intended for the confessing sinner before his alcohol-clouded brain had deduced that if the priest shouldn’t be able to see the sinners, the priest must be in the photo booth. So he had staggered inside the curtainless cubicle and started talking to the perforated wooden board separating them. Confessed his sins. In an unnecessarily loud voice. Simultaneously hoping and dreading that there was someone on the other side, or that someone, anyone, would hear him and do the necessary. Offer him forgiveness. Or condemn him. Anything but this suffocating vacuum where he was alone with himself and his mistakes. Nothing had happened. And the next morning he had woken up without the usual headache – which was strange – and realised that life would continue as if nothing had happened, that ultimately no one cared. It was the last time he had set foot inside a church.

  Martha Lian was standing near the altar with a brusquely gesticulating woman in an elegant suit and the type of short hairstyle which some older women think makes them look younger. The woman was pointing and explaining, and Simon caug
ht words such as ‘flowers’, ‘ceremony’, ‘Anders’ and ‘guests’. He had almost reached them when Martha Lian turned to face him. The first thing that struck him was how different she looked since the last time. How empty. Alone. And how miserable.

  ‘Hi,’ she said in a dull voice.

  The other woman stopped talking.

  ‘I’m sorry for intruding,’ Simon said. ‘At the Ila Centre, they said I would find you here. I hope I’m not interrupting something important.’

  ‘Oh no, it’s—’

  ‘Yes, we’re actually planning my son and Martha’s wedding right now. So if it could wait, Mr . . .?’

  ‘Kefas,’ Simon said. ‘And, no, it can’t wait. I’m a police officer.’

  The woman looked at Martha with raised eyebrows. ‘That’s exactly what I mean when I say that you’re living in a world that’s all too real, darling.’

  ‘Which you’ll be spared from having to take part in, Mrs . . .?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Miss Lian and I will discuss this in private. Duty of confidentiality, and all that.’

  The woman marched off on hard heels, and Simon and Martha sat down on the front pew.

  ‘You were seen driving off in a car with Sonny Lofthus,’ Simon said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘He wanted to learn to drive,’ Martha said. ‘I took him to a car park where we could practise.’

  ‘He’s wanted all over Norway now.’

  ‘I saw it on TV.’

  ‘Did he say or did you see him do anything that could suggest where he might be now? And I want you to think about this very carefully before you reply.’

  Martha looked as if she thought very carefully indeed before she shook her head.

  ‘No? Anything about his plans for the future?’

  ‘He wanted to learn to drive.’

  Simon sighed and smoothed his hair. ‘You understand that you risk being charged as an accessory if you help him or hide information from us?’

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  Simon looked at her without saying anything. She was getting married shortly. So why did she look so unhappy?

  ‘OK, OK,’ he said and got up.

  She stayed where she was and looked down at her lap.

  ‘Just one thing,’ she said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you think he’s the crazed killer everyone says he is?’

  Simon shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘He’s not crazy. He’s punishing people. He’s on a kind of vendetta.’

  ‘What is he trying to avenge?’

  ‘I think it’s about his father who was a police officer; after he died, people said he was corrupt.’

  ‘You say he punishes people . . .’ She lowered her voice. ‘Does he punish justly?’

  Simon shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But he makes allowances.’

  ‘Allowances?’

  ‘He confronted the assistant prison governor in his office. That was audacious and it would have been much easier for him and a lot less risky if he had sought Franck out at his home.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But it would have brought Franck’s wife and child into the firing line.’

  ‘Innocent bystanders. He doesn’t want the innocent to get hurt.’

  Simon nodded slowly. He saw something happen in her eyes. A spark. A hope. Was it really that simple? Was she in love? Simon straightened his back. Looked up at the altarpiece which showed the Saviour on the cross. Closed his eyes. Opened them again. To hell with it. To hell with it all.

  ‘Do you know what his father, Ab, used to say?’ he said, hoisting up his trousers. ‘He said that the age of mercy is over and that the day of judgement has arrived. But as the Messiah is running late, we have to do his job for him. He alone can punish them, Martha. Oslo Police is corrupt, they’re protecting the crooks. I think Sonny is doing this because he feels he owes it to his father, that this is what his father died for. Justice. The kind of justice which is above the law.’

  He watched the older woman by the confessional box where she was discussing something with a priest in a low voice.

  ‘And what about you?’ Martha said.

  ‘Me? I am the law. So I have to catch Sonny. That’s just the way it is.’

  ‘And that woman, Agnete Iversen, what crime did she commit?’

  ‘I can’t tell you anything about her.’

  ‘I read that her jewellery was stolen.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Did that include a pair of pearl earrings?’

  ‘I don’t know. Is it important?’

  She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It isn’t. I was trying to think of anything that might help you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Simon said and buttoned his jacket. The hard heels were approaching. ‘You have other things on your mind, I can see.’

  Martha quickly glanced up at him.

  ‘I’ll talk to you later, Martha.’

  As Simon left the church, his mobile rang. He looked at the display. The area code told him the call was coming from Drammen.

  ‘Kefas.’

  ‘It’s Henrik Westad.’

  The police officer who was investigating the murder of the shipping owner’s wife.

  ‘I’m at the Cardiology Unit at Buskerud Central Hospital.’

  Simon could guess what was coming next.

  ‘Leif Krognæss, our witness with heart trouble. They thought he was out of danger, but . . .’

  ‘He died suddenly,’ Simon said, sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. ‘He was alone in the ward when it happened. The post-mortem won’t find any abnormalities. And you’re calling me because you don’t want to be the only one who can’t sleep tonight.’

  Westad didn’t reply.

  Simon put the mobile in his pocket. The wind was rising and he looked up at the sky above the roofs. He couldn’t see it yet, but he could tell from his headache. A low pressure system was heading his way.

  The motorbike in front of Rover was about to rise from the dead. It was a Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail, the 1989 model, with a huge front wheel, Rover’s favourite. When he got it, it had been a dilapidated 1340cc wreck whose owner had treated it without the love, patience and understanding which an HD – in contrast to its more pliable Japanese cousins – demanded. Rover had replaced the crank bearing, the big-end bearing, the piston rings and reseated the valves, and very little of the original was left as the bike was transformed into a 1700cc with 119 b.h.p. to the rear wheel, which used to have only 43. Rover was wiping oil off the forearm with a tattoo of a cathedral when he noticed a change in the light. His first thought was that it was clouding over like the weather forecast had promised. But when he looked up, he noticed a shadow and a silhouette in the doorway to his workshop.

  ‘Yes?’ Rover called out and continued to rub oil off his arm.

  The man started walking towards him. Silently. Like a predator. Rover knew that the nearest weapon was too far away for him to be able to reach it in time. And that was how it should be. He was done with that way of life. It was bullshit when people said it was hard not to fall back into your bad old ways once you were out of prison; it was just a question of willpower. It was that simple. If you wanted to, you could do it. But if your intention was merely an illusion, wishful thinking, just something to dress yourself up in, then you would be back in the gutter on day two.

  The man was now so close that Rover could make out his facial features. But surely that was . . .

  ‘Hello, Rover.’

  It was him.

  He held up a yellowing business card saying ‘Rover’s Motorcycle Workshop’.

  ‘The address was right. You said you could get me an Uzi.’

  Rover was now wiping his hands while he stared at him. He had read the newspapers. Seen the picture on TV. But what he was staring at now wasn’t the boy from the cel
l at Staten, it was his own future. The future as he had imagined it.

  ‘You took out Nestor,’ Rover said, pulling the rag between his fingers.

  The boy made no reply.

  Rover shook his head. ‘That means it’s not just the police who are looking for you, but the Twin as well.’

  ‘I know I’m trouble,’ the boy said. ‘I’ll leave immediately if that’s what you want.’

  Forgiveness. Hope. A clean break. A second chance. Most people blew it, they continued making the same stupid mistakes their whole lives, they could always find an excuse to screw things up. They didn’t know it themselves, or they pretended not to, but they had lost before they had even started. Because they didn’t really want to succeed. But Rover wanted to. It wasn’t that that was going to bring him down. He was stronger now. Wiser. But that said: if you’re going to walk with your head held high, there’s always a chance of falling flat on your face.

  ‘Why don’t we close the garage door?’ Rover said. ‘It looks like rain.’

  34

  THE RAIN WAS lashing the windscreen when Simon took the key out of the ignition and prepared to sprint from the car park to the hospital building. He spotted a blond figure in a coat right in front of his car. It was raining so hard that the raindrops bounced off the bonnet and the man’s outline was blurred. The door to the driver’s side was opened and another, dark-haired man asked him to come with them. Simon looked at the clock on the dashboard. 4 p.m. It was two hours before the deadline.

  The two men drove him to Aker Brygge, a seafront development with shops, offices, some of the city’s most expensive flats and around fifty cafes and bars. They walked along the promenade by the water and saw the ferry from Nesoddtangen dock as they turned into one of the many alleyways; they carried on walking until they reached a small iron staircase that led down to a door with a porthole that presumably evoked associations with seafood. Next to the door was a small sign saying ‘Nautilus Restaurant’ in unusually discreet letters. One of the men held the door open and they entered a narrow hallway where they shook the rain off their coats and hung them up in the unmanned cloakroom. There wasn’t a soul to be seen and the first thought that crossed Simon’s mind was that this was a perfect location for money laundering. Not too big, but with a rent and a position that made profitability plausible, but whose profits would never be questioned, as profits on which taxes are paid rarely are.