by Nesbo, Jo
More than a week passed before the police came to ask if we’d seen my father after he was released. We said no. They said they’d make a note of it. Thanked us, and left. They didn’t seem particularly bothered. By that time I had already hired a van and taken the mattress and bedclothes to the dump to be incinerated. And that night I had driven deep into the far reaches of Nittedal, to a lake where the sun never sets, but where I wouldn’t be fishing for trout for a good long while.
I sat there on the shore looking out over the sparkling surface, thinking that this is what we leave behind, a few ripples in water, there for a while and then gone. As if they’d never been there. As if we had never been here.
That was the first time I fixed someone.
A few weeks later I got a letter from the university: “It is with great pleasure that we can confirm that you have been accepted to…” with a date and time for registration. I slowly tore it into pieces.
CHAPTER 12
I was woken by a kiss.
Before I realised it was a kiss, there was a moment of pure and utter panic.
Then it all came back, and the panic was replaced by something warm and soft that, in the absence of any better word, I can only call happiness.
She had rested her cheek on my chest and I looked down at her, and the way her hair was flowing over me.
“Olav?”
“Yes?”
“Can’t we just stay here for ever?”
I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do. I pulled her closer to me. Held her. Counting the seconds. Those were seconds we had together, seconds no one could take away from us, seconds we consumed there and then. But—like I said—I can’t count for very long. I put my lips to her hair.
“He’d find us here, Corina.”
“Let’s go far away, then.”
“We have to deal with him first. We can’t spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders.”
She ran one finger down my nose and chin, as if there was a seam there. “You’re right. But then we can go, can’t we?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
“Where to?”
“Wherever you want.”
She ran her finger down my neck, over my throat and between my collarbones. “In that case, I want to go to Paris.”
“Paris it is, then. Why there?”
“Because that’s where Cosette and Marius were together.”
I laughed, swung my feet down onto the floor and kissed her on the forehead.
“Don’t get up,” she said.
So I didn’t get up.
At ten o’clock I was reading the paper and drinking a cup of coffee at the kitchen table. Corina was asleep.
The record-breaking cold was continuing. But the milder weather yesterday had made the roads like glass. A car had slid onto the wrong side of the Trondheim road. A family of three on their way up north for Christmas. And the police still had no leads on the murder in Vinderen.
—
At eleven o’clock I was standing in a department store. It was full of people looking for Christmas presents. I stood by the window, pretending to look at a dinner service while I watched the building on the other side of the road. Hoffmann’s office. There were two men standing outside. Pine, and a guy I hadn’t seen before. The new guy was stamping his feet, and the smoke from his cigarette was drifting right into Pine’s face, who said something the other man didn’t seem very interested in. He wore a huge bearskin hat and overcoat, but he still had his shoulders hunched up to his ears, while Pine looked relaxed in his dog-shit-coloured jacket and clown’s hat. Pimps are used to standing outside. The new guy pulled his hat further down over his ears. But I think this was more because of Pine’s verbal diarrhoea than the cold. Pine had taken the cigarette from behind his ear and was showing it to the other guy. Presumably he was telling the same old story, about how he’d had that cigarette there since the day he stopped smoking. That it was his way of showing the tobacco who was in charge. I reckon he just wanted people to ask him why he had a cigarette tucked behind his ear, so he could then bore the shit out of them.
He was wearing too many clothes for me to be able to see if he had a gun, but Pine’s jacket was lopsided. A seriously fat wallet, or a shooter. Too heavy for it to be that vicious knife he went round with. Presumably the same knife he had used the time he persuaded Maria to work for him. Showing her what the knife could do to her, to her boyfriend, if she didn’t suck and fuck back the money he owed. I had seen the terror in Maria’s wide-open eyes, staring at his mouth, trying desperately to lip-read what Pine wanted as he rattled on. Like he was now. But the new guy was ignoring the pimp and looking up and down the street with a dark glare from beneath his bearskin hat. Calm, focused. Must have been hired in. From abroad, maybe. He looked professional.
I left the shop through the door onto the next street. Went into a phone box on Torggata. Held up a page of the newspaper that I’d torn out. Drew a heart on the steamed-up window of the phone box while I waited for the call to be picked up.
“Ris Church, parish office.”
“Sorry to bother you, but I’ve got a wreath I want to deliver for the Hoffmann funeral the day after tomorrow.”
“The undertakers can look after—”
“The problem is that I live outside the city and am going to be driving through the city late tomorrow evening, after closing time. I thought I might deliver the wreath directly to the church.”
“We don’t have any staff who—”
“But I was assuming that you’d be receiving the coffin tomorrow evening?”
“That would be the normal way of things, yes.”
I waited, but nothing more followed.
“Perhaps you could check for me?”
A barely audible sigh. “One moment.” The sound of paper rustling. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Then I’ll call in to the church tomorrow evening. I’m sure the family will want to see him one last time, so I’ll be able to pass on my condolences to them as well. They’ve probably arranged a time with you to be let down into the crypt. I could call the family directly, but I’m reluctant to bother them….”
I waited, listening to the silence at the other end. I cleared my throat: “…at this tragic time for them, so close to Christmas.”
“I can see that they’ve asked to come between eight and nine o’clock tomorrow evening.”
“Thank you,” I said. “But I’m afraid I can’t make it then. It might be just as well if you don’t mention to them that I was thinking of coming in person. I’ll try to find another way of delivering the wreath.”
“As you wish.”
“Thanks for your help.”
I walked to Youngstorget. There was no one standing in Operapassasjen today. If it had been Hoffmann’s man there the day before, then he’d seen what he wanted to see.
The young guy refused to let me behind the counter. Said the Fisherman was in a meeting. I could see shadows moving behind the glass in the swing door. Then one of the shadows stood up and went out the same way I had done, through the back door.
“You can go through,” the young guy said.
“Sorry,” the Fisherman said. “It’s not just fish for Christmas that people are making a fuss about.”
I must have screwed up my nose at the strong smell, because he started to laugh.
“Don’t you like the smell of skate, lad?” He nodded towards the fish that had been partially filleted on the counter behind us. “Shipping dope in the same truck as a load of skate works perfectly, you know. The sniffer dogs don’t stand a chance. Not many people do it, but I like making fish balls from skate. Try one.” He nodded towards a bowl on the tiled wooden table between us. Pale grey fish balls floated in a cloudy liquid.
“So how are things going with that side of the business?” I asked, acting as if I hadn’t heard his invitation.
“There’s nothing wrong with demand, b
ut the Russians are starting to get greedy. They’ll be easier to deal with when they can no longer play me and Hoffmann off against each other.”
“Hoffmann knows that you and I have been talking.”
“He’s not stupid.”
“No. Which is why he’s well guarded these days. We can’t just go and take him out. We’ll need to have a bit of imagination.”
“Your problem,” the Fisherman said.
“We need to get on the inside.”
“Still your problem.”
“The death was announced in the paper today. Hoffmann junior is being buried the day after tomorrow.”
“And?”
“That’s where we can take Hoffmann.”
“The funeral. Nice.” The Fisherman shook his head. “Too risky.”
“Not the funeral. The evening before. In the crypt.”
“Explain.”
I explained. He shook his head. I went on. He shook his head even more. I held one hand up and carried on talking. He was still shaking his head, but now he was grinning. “Well! How on earth did you come up with that?”
“Someone I know was buried at the same church. And that’s how it worked then.”
“You know I should say no.”
“But you’re going to say yes.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll need money for three coffins,” I said. “Kimen Funeral Directors have them ready-made. But you probably know that….”
The Fisherman looked at me warily. Wiped his fingers on his apron. Tugged at his moustache. Wiped his fingers on his apron.
“Have a fish ball, and I’ll see what I’ve got in the till.”
I sat there and looked at the fish balls swimming in what I would have guessed was semen if I didn’t know better. Actually, when I came to think about it, I didn’t know better.
—
I walked past Maria’s supermarket on the way home. It occurred to me that I might as well buy food for dinner there. I went in and grabbed a basket. She was serving a customer with her back to me. I walked along the aisles and picked out fish fingers, potatoes and carrots. Four beers. They had an offer on King Haakon chocolates, ready-wrapped in Christmas paper. I put a box in the basket.
I walked towards Maria’s checkout. There was no one else in the shop. I saw she had seen me. She was blushing. Damn. I suppose it wasn’t so strange, the business about dinner that time was probably still a bit raw, she probably didn’t invite many men back to hers like that.
I went up to her and said a quick hello. Then looked down at my basket as I concentrated on putting the food—the fish fingers, potatoes, carrots and beer—on the conveyor belt. I held the box of chocolates in my hand for a moment. Hesitating. The ring on Corina’s finger. The one he, the son, had given her. Just like that. And here I was, thinking of turning up with a box of fucking chocolates as a Christmas present, wrapped up like it was Cleopatra’s crown jewels.
“Was. That. It.”
I looked at Maria in surprise. She had spoken. Who the hell knew she could do that? It sounded strange, obviously. But it was words. Words, as good as any others. She brushed her hair from her face. Freckles. Gentle eyes. A bit tired.
“Yes,” I said, overemphasising the word. Stretching my mouth.
She smiled slightly.
“That…is…it,” I said slowly, and rather too loudly.
She gestured questioningly towards the box of chocolates.
“For…you.” I held it out. “Happy…Christmas.”
She put a hand over her mouth. And behind the hand her face ran through a whole range of expressions. More than six. Surprise, confusion, joy, embarrassment, followed by raised brows (why?), lowered eyelids and a grateful smile. That’s what happens when you can’t talk—you end up with a very expressive face, and learn to perform a sort of pantomime that looks a bit exaggerated to anyone who’s not used to it.
I handed her the box. Saw her freckled hand approach mine. What did she want? Was she thinking of taking my hand? I pulled it back. Gave her a quick nod and headed for the door. I could feel her eyes on my back. Damn. All I’d done was give her a box of chocolates, so what exactly did the woman want?
—
The flat was dark when I let myself in. On the bed I could make out Corina’s shape.
So quiet and motionless that I almost found it odd. I walked slowly over to the bed and stood above her. She looked so peaceful. And so pale. A clock began to tick inside my head, ticking as if it were working something out. I leaned closer to her, until my face was right above her mouth. Something was missing. And the clock was ticking louder and louder.
“Corina,” I whispered.
No reaction.
“Corina,” I repeated, a bit louder, and heard something I had never heard before in my own voice, a faint note of helplessness.
She opened her eyes.
“Come here, teddy bear,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around me and pulling me down onto the bed.
“Harder,” she whispered. “I won’t break, you know.”
No, I thought, you won’t break. We, this, won’t break. Because this is what I’ve been waiting for; this is what I’ve been practising for. Nothing but death can ruin this.
“Oh, Olav,” she whispered. “Oh, Olav.”
Her face was glowing, she was laughing, but her eyes were shiny with tears. Her breasts shone white beneath me, so white. And even if at that moment she was as close as you can ever be to another person, it was as if I was looking at her the way I had first seen her, from a distance, behind a window on the other side of the street. And I thought that you can’t see a person more nakedly than that, when they don’t know they’re being watched, studied. She had never seen me like that. Maybe she never would. Then it struck me. I still had those sheets of paper, the letter, the one I had never quite finished. And if Corina found it, she might misunderstand. All the same, it was odd that my heart started to beat faster because of a little thing like that. The sheets of paper were under the cutlery tray in the kitchen drawer, and there was no reason for anyone to move that. But I made up my mind to get rid of them at the earliest opportunity.
“That’s it, Olav, like that.”
Something loosened inside me when I came, something that had been lying there shut away. I don’t know what it was, but the pressure from my ejaculation shook it out and revealed it. I lay back, gasping for breath. I was a changed man, I just didn’t know in what way.
She leaned over me and tickled my forehead.
“How do you feel, my king?”
I answered, but my throat was full of saliva.
“What?” she laughed.
I cleared my throat and repeated: “Starving.”
She laughed even louder.
“And happy,” I said.
—
Corina couldn’t stand fish. She was allergic to it, always had been, something in her family.
The supermarkets were all shut now, but I said I could order a CP Special from Chinese Pizza.
“Chinese Pizza?”
“Chinese food and pizzas. Separately, I mean. I have dinner there almost every day.”
I got dressed again and went down to the phone box on the corner. I had never had a telephone installed in the flat, didn’t want one. I didn’t want people to have a way to hear me, find me, talk to me.
From the phone box I could see up to my window on the fourth floor. And I could see Corina standing there, her head circled in light like some fucking halo. She was looking down at me. I waved. She waved back.
Then the coin fell with a metallic gulp.
“Chinese Pizza, how can I help you?”
“Hi, Lin, it’s Olav. One CP Special, takeaway.”
“No eat here, Mistel Olav?”
“Not today.”
“Fifteen minute.”
“Thanks. One more thing. Has anyone been in asking about me?”
“Ask about you? No.”
“Great. Is the
re anyone sitting there that you’ve seen me eating with before? Anyone with a funny thin moustache that looks like it has been drawn on? Or in a brown leather jacket with a cigarette tucked behind his ear?”
“Let’s see. Nooo…”
There were only about ten tables, so I believed him. Neither Brynhildsen nor Pine was waiting for me. They’d been there with me on more than one occasion, but presumably they didn’t know just how much of a regular I was. Good.
I shoved open the heavy metal door of the phone box and peered up at the window. She was still standing there.
—
It took a quarter of an hour to walk to Chinese Pizza. The pizza was waiting in a red cardboard box the size of a camping table. CP Special. The best in Oslo. I was looking forward to seeing Corina’s face when she tasted her first bite.
“See you latel, all-a-gatol,” Lin called as usual as I headed out of the door, which swung shut behind me before I had time to reply with the crocodile rhyme.
I hurried away along the pavement and swung round the corner. I was thinking about Corina. I must have been thinking about Corina very hard. At least that’s the only excuse I have for the fact that I didn’t see them, hear them, or even think the obvious thought: that if they had worked out that it was my regular haunt, then they’d also have worked out that it might have occurred to me that they might have worked it out, and that I therefore wouldn’t go anywhere near it without a degree of caution. So they weren’t waiting inside in the warmth and light, but outside in the frozen darkness of space, where I could have sworn that even molecules were having trouble moving.
I heard two steps crunch on the snow, but the bastard pizza slowed me down and I didn’t have time to draw my pistol before I felt cold hard metal pressing against my ear.
“Where is she?”
It was Brynhildsen. His pencil-thin moustache moved when he spoke. He had a young guy with him who looked more scared than dangerous, and who might as well have had a “trainee” badge on his jacket, but he still did a thorough job of searching me. I guessed Hoffmann had the sense to get the young lad to help Brynhildsen without arming him. Maybe he had a knife or something hidden away. Pistols were confirmation gifts.
