The Son

by Jo Nesbo

  ‘Now some people might think decapitating a man is excessive, but if you want to instil loyalty in your staff, sometimes you have to go the extra mile. I’m sure you’ll agree with me, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ the older man said.

  The big man tilted his head and studied him. ‘Trouble hearing, Chief Inspector?’

  The older man shifted his gaze from the aquarium back to the big man. ‘Old age, I’m afraid. So if you could speak up, that would be helpful.’

  The Twin laughed in surprise. ‘Speak up?’ He took a drag of his cigarette and looked across to the blond man.

  ‘Did you check them for wires?’

  ‘Yes, boss. We also checked the restaurant.’

  ‘Then you’re going deaf, Kefas. What’s going to happen to you and your wife when . . . what’s the saying? The blind will be leading the deaf?’

  He looked around with his eyebrows raised and the four men immediately burst out laughing.

  ‘They laugh because they’re scared of me,’ the big man said, addressing the young man. ‘Are you scared, boy?’

  The young man said nothing.

  The older man glanced at his watch.

  Kari glanced at her watch. 7.14. Parr had stressed that they had to be on time.

  ‘This is it,’ Parr said, pointing to the name at the front. He went up to the door of the restaurant and held it open for Kari.

  It was dark and quiet in the cloakroom, but she could hear a voice coming from a room further down the corridor.

  Parr took his pistol out of the shoulder holster and signalled to Kari to do the same. She knew stories were going around the station about her performance with the shotgun at Enerhaugen, so she had explained to the Commissioner that she, despite the evidence, was a novice in armed raids. But he had responded that Simon had insisted that she – and only she – should accompany him and added that in nine out of ten cases it was enough to show your warrant card. And in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases enough to show it along with a weapon. Even so, Kari’s heart was pounding wildly as they moved swiftly down the corridor.

  The voice fell quiet as they entered the dining room.

  ‘Police!’ Parr said, aiming the pistol at the people sitting at the only occupied table. Kari had taken two steps to the side and had the bigger of the two men in her sights. For one moment it was completely quiet except for Johnny Cash’s voice and ‘Give My Love to Rose’ pouring out of a small speaker on the wall between the buffet and the stuffed head of a long-horned ox. A steak restaurant serving breakfast. The two men at the table, both wearing pale grey suits, looked at them in surprise. Kari realised that they weren’t the only customers in the bright room after all; at a table by the window overlooking the seafront, an elderly couple looked like they were having a simultaneous heart attack. We must be in the wrong place, Kari thought. This couldn’t possibly be the restaurant Simon wanted them to go to. Then the smaller of the two men dabbed his mouth with his napkin and spoke.

  ‘Thank you for coming here in person, Commissioner. I can assure you that neither of us is armed or has evil intentions.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Parr thundered.

  ‘My name is Jan Øhre, I’m a lawyer and I represent this gentleman, Iver Iversen Senior.’ He extended his hand towards the taller man and Kari immediately recognised the likeness to Iversen Junior.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘The same as you, I presume.’

  ‘Really? I was told there were criminals on the menu.’

  ‘And that’s a promise we intend to keep, Parr.’

  ‘Well,’ the big man said, ‘you should be scared.’

  He nodded to the blond man who pulled a slim, long-bladed knife from his belt, took a step forward, put his arm around the young man’s forehead and pressed the knife against his throat.

  ‘Do you really think I care about you stealing a bit of loose change from me, Lofthus? Forget the money and the drugs. I’ve promised Bo that he gets to cut you into little pieces, and I regard the lost drugs and the money as a good investment. A good investment in motivation, yes? There are several ways we can do this, of course, but you’ll suffer a less painful death if you tell us what you did with Sylvester so that we can give him a Christian burial. So, what’s it to be?’

  The young man gulped, but said nothing.

  The big man banged the table with his fist so the glasses jumped. ‘Are you deaf as well?’

  ‘Perhaps he is,’ said the blond man whose face was right by the young man’s ear sticking up under the arm he had wrapped around him. ‘Buddha here is wearing earplugs.’

  The others laughed.

  The big man shook his head in despair while he scrolled his way to the code on the other briefcase.

  ‘He’s yours, Bo, cut him up.’ There was a ping when the big man opened the briefcase, but the men were too focused on Bo’s knife to notice the small metal pin falling from the inside of the briefcase and bouncing across the stone floor.

  ‘Your tiny, clever mother is right about a lot of things, but wrong as far as you’re concerned,’ Simon said. ‘She never should have let the devil’s child suck her tits.’

  ‘What the h—’ the big man began. His men turned round. In the briefcase, next to a pistol and an Uzi, lay an olive-green object that looked like a handlebar grip of a bicycle.

  The big man looked up again, just in time to see the older man flip down the sunglasses from his forehead.

  ‘It’s correct that I agreed with Chief Inspector Simon Kefas to meet you here with my client,’ Jan Øhre said, having shown Pontius Parr ID to prove that he was indeed a lawyer. ‘Didn’t he tell you?’

  ‘No,’ Pontius Parr said. Kari could see the confusion and anger in Parr’s face. Øhre exchanged glances with his client. ‘Am I to take it that you don’t know about our deal, either?’

  ‘What deal?’

  ‘Our plea bargain for a reduced sentence.’

  Parr shook his head. ‘All Simon Kefas told me was that I would have a couple of criminals handed to me on a plate. So what’s this about?’

  Øhre was about to reply when Iver Iversen leaned over and whispered something in his ear. Øhre nodded and Iversen sat back in his chair again and closed his eyes. Kari studied him. He looked broken, she thought. Beaten, resigned.

  Øhre cleared his throat. ‘Chief Inspector Kefas believes he has some . . . eh, evidence against my client and his late wife. It concerns a number of property transactions with a party by the name of Levi Thou. Perhaps better known by his nickname, the Twin.’

  Thou, Kari thought. Not a common name, and yet she had heard it recently. Someone she had said hello to. Someone at the police station.

  ‘Kefas also claims to have evidence of an alleged hit which he believes Agnete Iversen ordered. Kefas said that out of consideration for Iversen’s son, he would refrain from presenting proof of the latter, and as far as the property transactions are concerned my client will be given a reduced sentence in return for a guilty plea and for giving evidence against Thou in a subsequent trial.’

  Pontius Parr took off his rectangular glasses and polished them with his handkerchief. Kari was surprised at how childishly blue his eyes were.

  ‘It sounds like an deal we can honour.’

  ‘Good,’ Øhre said, opened the briefcase that was lying on the chair next to him, took out an envelope and pushed it across the table to Parr.

  ‘Here is a printout of all property transactions undertaken to launder money for Levi Thou. Iversen is also prepared to testify against Fredrik Ansgar, formerly of the Serious Fraud Office, who made sure that no one ever investigated the transactions.’

  Parr took the envelope. Squeezed it.

  ‘There’s something else inside,’ he said.

  ‘A memory stick. It contains a sound file which Kefas sent to my client from a mobile, and which he requested should also be handed over to you.’

  ‘Do you know what’s on it?’
>
  Øhre and Iversen exchanged looks again. Iversen cleared his throat.

  ‘It’s a recording of someone. Chief Inspector Kefas said that you would know who it was.’

  ‘I brought along a computer in case you wanted to listen to it straight away,’ Øhre added.

  The open briefcase. The weapons. The olive-green grenade.

  Chief Inspector Simon Kefas had time to press his eyes shut and cover his ears. There was a flash of light that felt like fire breathing on his face and a bang like a punch to the stomach.

  Then he opened his eyes, lunged forward, grabbed the pistol from the briefcase and turned round. The blond man was frozen, as if he had just stared straight into the eyes of Medusa. He still had his arm around Sonny’s head and the knife in his hand. And Simon saw it now, Sonny had been right: the guy really did have a cross on his forehead. A cross-hairs sight. Simon pulled the trigger and saw the hole the bullet made below the blond fringe. As the man fell, Sonny grabbed the Uzi.

  Simon had explained to him that they would have a maximum of two seconds before the temporary paralysis would lift. They had sat in the hotel room at the Bismarck and practised this very moment, seizing the weapons and discharging them. They hadn’t been able to predict the sequence of events in detail, obviously, and right up until the point where the Twin opened the briefcase, triggering the stun grenade, Simon had been sure that it would all go to hell. But when he saw Sonny pull the trigger and pirouette on one foot, he knew that the Twin wouldn’t go home happy after this day at work. The bullets spat from the stuttering weapon that never made it past the first syllable. Two of the Twin’s men were already down, and the third had managed to stick his hand inside his jacket when the spray of bullets drew a dotted line across his chest. He remained standing for a moment before his knees received the message that he was dead, and by then Simon had already turned to the Twin. And stared in astonishment at the empty chair. How could such a big man move so—

  He spotted him at the end of the aquarium, right by the swing door to the kitchen.

  He took aim and pressed the trigger three times in quick succession. He saw the Twin’s jacket twitch and then the glass in the aquarium cracked. For a moment it looked as if the water might retain its rectangular shape, held together by habit or unseen forces, before it came crashing towards them like a green wall. Simon tried to leap aside, but he was too slow. He crunched a lobster underfoot as he took a step, felt his knee buckle and fell his full length in the deluge. When he looked up again, he couldn’t see the Twin, only the flapping kitchen door.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Sonny asked as he offered to help Simon back on his feet.

  ‘Never been better,’ Simon groaned and knocked aside Sonny’s hand. ‘But if the Twin gets away now, he’ll be gone for good.’

  Simon ran to the kitchen door, kicked it open and entered holding the pistol in front of him. The harsh smell of a commercial kitchen. His gaze quickly scanned the brushed metal worktops and cookers, rows of pots, ladles and palette knives hanging from the low ceiling and obstructing his view. Simon squatted down to look for shadows or movement.

  ‘The floor,’ Sonny said.

  Simon looked down. Red stains on the blue-grey tiles. His eyes hadn’t deceived him, one of his bullets had found its target.

  He heard the distant sound of a door slamming.

  ‘Come on.’

  The blood trail led them out of the kitchen, along a dark corridor where Simon tore off his sunglasses, up a staircase and down another corridor, which ended in a metal door. A door that would have made the very noise they had just heard. Even so, Simon checked all the side doors on their way down the corridor and looked inside. Nine out of ten men fleeing from two men and an Uzi would always take the shortest and most obvious way out, but the Twin was the tenth man. Always cold, always rational and calculating. The type who survives a shipwreck. He might simply have slammed the door in order to misdirect them.

  ‘We’re losing him,’ Sonny said.

  ‘Calm down,’ Simon said and opened the last side door. Nothing.

  And the bloodstains were now unequivocal. The Twin was behind the metal door.

  ‘Ready?’ Simon asked.

  Sonny nodded and positioned himself with the Uzi aimed right at the door.

  Simon pressed his back against the wall beside the door, lowered the handle and pushed open the metal door.

  He saw Sonny get hit. By the sunlight.

  Simon stepped outside. He felt the wind on his face. ‘Damn . . .’

  They were looking out at an empty street that lay bathed in morning sunshine. The street was Ruseløkkveien which intersected Munkedamsveien and disappeared upwards in the direction of the Palace Gardens. No cars, no people.

  And no Twin.

  43

  ‘THE BLOOD STOPS here,’ Simon said, pointing at the tarmac. The Twin must have realised he was leaving a trail of blood and managed to stop it from dripping on the ground. The type that survives a shipwreck.

  He stared up at the deserted Ruseløkkveien. Let his gaze sweep past St Paul’s Church, past the small bridge where the road bent and disappeared out of sight. He looked left and right across Munkedamsveien. Nothing.

  ‘Bloody he—’ Sonny slapped his thigh with the Uzi in frustration.

  ‘If he’d stayed on the road, we would have been in time to see him,’ Simon said. ‘He must have gone in somewhere.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Perhaps he had a car out here.’

  ‘Perhaps. Hey!’ Simon pointed at the ground between Sonny’s shoes. ‘Look, there’s another bloodstain. What if—’

  Sonny shook his head and opened his jacket. The side of the clean shirt Simon had given him was red.

  Simon swore silently. ‘That bastard managed to reopen the wound?’

  Sonny shrugged.

  Simon let his gaze wander upwards again. There was no street parking. No shops were open. Only closed gates leading to backyards. Where could he have gone? Look at it from another perspective, Simon thought. Compensate for the blind spots. Let in . . . He shifted his gaze. His pupils reacted to something. A sharp flash of sunlight bouncing off a small piece of moving glass. Or metal. Brass.

  ‘Come on,’ Sonny said. ‘We’ll try the restaurant again, perhaps he—’

  ‘No,’ Simon said in a low voice. A brass door handle. A closer that makes the door shut slowly behind you. A place that is always open. ‘I can see him.’

  ‘You can?’

  ‘The church door up there, do you see it?’

  Sonny stared. ‘No.’

  ‘It’s still shutting. He’s inside the church. Come on.’

  Simon ran. He put one foot in front of the other and took off. It was a simple action, something he had done since he was a boy. He had run and run, every year a little faster. And then, every year a little more slowly. Neither his knees nor his breathing worked together like they used to. Simon managed to keep up with Sonny for the first twenty metres, then the boy took off. He was at least fifty metres ahead when Simon saw him leap up the three steps, throw open the heavy door and disappear inside.

  Simon slowed down. Waited for the bang. The staccato, almost childish sound that gunshots acquired when you heard them through a wall. It didn’t come.

  He walked up the steps. Pulled open the heavy door and entered.

  The smell. The silence. The weight of so many thinking people’s faith.

  The pews were empty, but candles were lit on the altar and Simon remembered that morning mass would start in half an hour. The candles flickered over the lost Saviour on the cross. Then he heard the whispering, chanting voice and turned to the left.

  Sonny was sitting in the open cubicle of the confessional with the Uzi aimed at the perforated wooden board separating it from the other cubicle whose black curtain almost covered the board opening. There was only a tiny crack between the curtain and the board, but through it Simon could see a hand. And on the
stone floor, from underneath the curtain, a pool of blood was slowly spreading.

  Simon crept closer; he caught Sonny’s whispering:

  ‘All earthly and heavenly gods have mercy on you and forgive your sins. You will die, but the soul of the penitent sinner shall be led to Paradise. Amen.’

  Silence followed.

  Simon watched Sonny tighten his finger around the trigger.

  Simon put his gun back in the shoulder holster. He wasn’t going to do anything, not a damn thing. The boy’s verdict would be pronounced and executed. His own judgement would come later.

  ‘Yes, we killed your father.’ The Twin’s voice sounded feeble behind the curtain. ‘We had to. The mole had told me that your father was planning to kill him. Are you listening?’

  Sonny didn’t reply. Simon held his breath.

  ‘He was going to do it that very night, in the medieval ruins in Maridalen,’ the Twin continued. ‘The mole said that the police were on to him, that it was only a question of time before he was exposed. So he wanted us to make the killing look like a suicide. Give the impression that your father was the mole, so that the police would call off the search. I agreed to it. I had to protect my mole, yes?’

  Simon saw Sonny moisten his lips: ‘And who is he, this mole?’

  ‘I don’t know. I swear. We only ever communicated by email.’

  ‘Then you won’t ever know.’ Sonny raised the Uzi again, curled his finger around the trigger. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Wait! You don’t have to kill me, Sonny, I’ll bleed to death in here anyway. All I ask is that I get to say goodbye to my loved ones before I die. I let your father write a note telling you and your mother that he loved you. Please, show this sinner the same mercy?’

  Simon could see Sonny’s chest heave and sink. The muscles rippled along his jaw line.

  ‘Don’t,’ Simon called out. ‘Don’t give it to him, Sonny. He—’

  Sonny turned to him. There was gentleness in his eyes. Helene’s gentleness. He had already lowered the Uzi. ‘Simon, all he’s asking is—’