Killed

by Thomas Enger

  As the tears cleaned his eyes, his sight returned and he took another deep breath. He had the advantage of a few kilos over the other man and he managed to push him so far into the room with the treadmill that they hit the wall. The man groaned, but was not put off his stride, not by a long shot; he raised his knee and hit Blystad in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. He dropped the gun and before he managed to straighten up, the man had bent down and picked it up.

  Blystad threw himself at the man, and managed to grab hold of the gun just as he fired a shot – he felt a wave of air rush past his face, and bent his hand away from his body as more projectiles ripped into the walls around them. Their faces were only centimetres apart, and Blystad headbutted him, as hard as he could, twisted him round and pushed him over to the other wall. He butted his head again, hard enough to make the man crumple in his arms, and he used the opportunity to thump his hand against the wall several times until his visitor dropped the gun to the floor.

  Then he pummelled his face and upper body, punching as fast and hard as he could, aiming for the man’s nose, because he knew that the bone in the nose was easy to break; he felt and heard it crunch under his knuckles.

  Finally the man sank to the floor.

  Blystad stood with his hands on his knees, gasping for breath, but he knew he didn’t have much time; he had to get out and away as fast as he could. He stood up again, wiped off the sweat and blood and plaster dust as best he could. His hands were shaking.

  There wasn’t time to think, and he saw his mobile phone flashing on the treadmill. He rushed over, saw that someone was calling and ignored it. He didn’t want to talk to anyone in emergency services now, it was too late for that. Even though it was self-defence, he had killed someone. And he had a record that would not play in his favour.

  Blystad ran out of the room, and stopped abruptly by the man who was lying there. He had a gun in his hand, but there was no doubt that he was dead. Blystad hardly dared look at him, but he did all the same – saw that one of the bullets had hit him in the chest, another a little further down. The third bullet had hit the wall.

  A moment later he heard the man in the room behind him gasp. Blystad stepped over the body and ran up the stairs as fast as he could. He dashed into the bedroom, picked up the rucksack, knowing that it didn’t matter what he left behind in the house, it would be impossible to hide his tracks anyway – so he just grabbed the most important things, car keys, credit cards, put on a pair of shoes by the door in the hall, pulled on a jacket and ran out of the house, where he was met by a welcome cold wind that stripped off a new layer of sweat that had formed on his skin.

  He was just about to get in the car when the side mirror splintered.

  The man he had knocked unconscious was standing in the doorway with a gun in his hand; he was obviously still groggy because he held on to the door frame when he fired another shot. The bullet flew over the top of Blystad’s head. Then the man charged down the steps onto the gravel.

  There was nowhere to hide, other than the car. And he wouldn’t be protected there for long. All he had in the car were his tools. Lots of tools.

  The heavy steps lurched closer over the gravel. His mobile phone started to ring. For a moment Blystad was completely paralysed, then all at once he did the first thing that popped into his head – he opened the boot and rummaged around.

  The nail gun.

  He couldn’t remember if it was loaded or not, but he picked it up. In itself, the nail gun weighed nearly three kilos, and judging by the extra weight he guessed there were nails in it. Luckily he didn’t need any plugs, cables or compressors; he simply switched it on and held it out towards the house, he didn’t even aim, just fired away. He knew that a nail gun could spit out up to 60 nails a minute, so he just carried on. Blystad saw that he’d hit his target and that the man staggering towards him had been caught off guard. Soon he was lying on the ground screaming, holding his face with both hands. His gun beside him.

  Blystad dropped the nail gun, hurried over to him, kicked the gun out of reach. One of the nails had hit the man in the eye. His phone continued to ring, but Blystad still didn’t answer. Instead he turned and ran back towards the car with only one thought in his head.

  To get away.

  41

  Durim Redzepi waited.

  And waited.

  It was supposed to be an easy job. Jeton Pocoli and Flurim Ahmetaj’s friend, in and out. Two against one. Two experts against an unsuspecting idiot.

  What the hell were they doing? How hard could it be?

  Redzepi ran his fingers through his hair. Looked at Ahmetaj who was leaning back, totally calm, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. For him, it was simply a matter of doing the job he’d been asked to do. Getting the money, moving on. They were on overtime now, and some, and he was bored.

  Redzepi took his wallet out of his jacket pocket and opened it, took out the photograph of his girls. He’d done this so often the picture was in danger of wearing thin.

  He’d called home the day before and spoken to his brother Jetmir, who didn’t really want to talk to him, or that’s what it felt like – he couldn’t wait to put down the phone. Said that Mischa was screaming in the bedroom, but Redzepi couldn’t hear a child crying.

  Jetmir was just fed up, Redzepi thought. Fed up of him calling and nagging, only to get the same answer. ‘No, Durim’, with a sigh in his voice. ‘We haven’t found your girls.’ And he knew what his brother was thinking.

  But Jetmir didn’t know what it was like to live with no answers. The pain had dulled over time, but the fire was still burning somewhere inside.

  ‘Do you ever think about the people back home?’ Redzepi asked.

  Ahmetaj sent him a lazy look. Took his time.

  ‘There’s not much to think about.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s another life. They’re there and I’m here.’

  Redzepi nodded pensively.

  ‘So you’ve never thought about going back?’

  Ahmetaj shook his head.

  ‘Why would I?’

  ‘Well, I just thought … like me, you’ve got no roots here. No family.’

  Ahmetaj leaned back again and closed his eyes.

  ‘I’m happy here,’ he said. ‘I don’t need a family.’

  There was silence, but Redzepi continued to think about Kosovo until there was a beep on the screen in front of Ahmetaj. They both sat up. There was movement on the GPS trackers.

  All of them.

  Redzepi looked at Ahmetaj.

  ‘How can he be on the move now?’

  He rang Jeton Pocoli. No answer. Tried Flurim’s friend, with the same result.

  ‘Shit,’ he said to himself, and started the car. Put it into first gear. ‘Where’s he heading?’

  ‘He’ll be on the main street any minute now,’ Ahmetaj said. ‘Then we’ll see.’

  They stared at the monitor. Waited. A minute passed.

  ‘Shit,’ Ahmetaj said. ‘He’s coming this way.’

  Redzepi thought hard. He looked at the gun lying beside him. He couldn’t shoot a man through a car window, not when the car was moving. There was a food shop on the other side of the road. People might see them. See the car. Tip off the police.

  ‘Here he comes,’ Ahmetaj said, and pointed out the window. Redzepi followed the red car with his eyes. Saw the carpenter behind the wheel. Alone.

  What the hell had happened?

  Redzepi stared at him as he passed.

  ‘Are you not going to follow him?’ Ahmetaj asked, when the van Blystad was driving turned out onto the main road.

  Redzepi shook his head.

  ‘We’ve got him on GPS.’

  Redzepi was more concerned about Jeton Pocoli and Flurim Ahmetaj’s friend, as neither of them had answered the phone. It was obvious that they hadn’t done the job.

  Redzepi drove towards the residential area where he’d dropped them off only twenty minut
es earlier. He stopped outside the red house and saw Jeton Pocoli lying on his back in the front yard, not moving.

  ‘Keep an eye on where he’s going,’ Redzepi said, pointing to the monitor.

  He got out and hurried over to his friend, who had dark stripes of blood running down both sides of his face.

  ‘Get me away from here,’ Pocoli begged. ‘Get me to hospital. This is fucking agony.’

  Redzepi looked away.

  Thought about what might happen. A stint in hospital, questioning, the possibility of too much talk – everything. Too risky, no gain.

  He picked up the gun that was lying beside Jeton Pocoli and remembered what Daddy Longlegs always said about critical situations. It was all about damage control.

  Durim Redzepi put the gun to his friend’s head.

  And pulled the trigger.

  Roger Blystad couldn’t slow down, even though he knew he was driving much faster than he should. The adrenaline was pumping through his veins. He looked at his knuckles, still bloody and raw from the fight.

  He replayed what had happened over and over, hitting the guy with the spade, the gunshots, the man falling down the stairs, the fight that followed, and the bullets he’d dodged; it was like a film he couldn’t stop. The worst thing was the open eyes, devoid of life. He now knew why they always closed dead people’s eyes.

  And the blood.

  All the blood.

  Blystad had seen a dead person before, but only from a distance, from the third floor in Eckersbergs gate. He had still never dreamt that it would feel like this, so intense, so juddering, so sickening.

  And now? What was he going to do now? Where was he going to go?

  The emergency control centre had rung him again, and when he was finally calm enough to answer, he told them that his three-year-old son had got hold of his phone and pushed the buttons. Blystad had done his best to assure the man on the other end that everything was fine.

  He overtook a small car that was driving religiously at the speed limit, checked in the rear-view mirror, couldn’t see anyone following him. There was no reason to either – the two men had come to his house. Easy enough, then, you would think, to kill him. There weren’t likely to be more.

  Or were there?

  He hadn’t seen a car outside, but they definitely hadn’t got there on foot. His car was so big and heavy that it wouldn’t be hard to catch up with it. He decided to dump it as soon as possible, but first he had to find somewhere safe.

  But should he go to the police or not? The right thing to do would be to hand himself in.

  But then again, he’d shot someone with a nail gun. He’d killed a man. He could of course plead self-defence, but did that guarantee that he’d walk free? Would he survive another spell in prison?

  No, he thought, he would rather chance it on the run. And now he was driving to Oslo, the largest city in Norway. The easiest place to disappear. He would find somewhere out of the way to park, book into a cheap hotel, and then try to work out what to do next. Maybe head down to the continent. Take the train to Gothenburg and go east from there. There were plenty of options.

  There was nothing for him in Norway. Mariana was dead. His mother was dead. Nothing left to fight for.

  Or yes, thinking about it, perhaps there was.

  Blystad struck the steering wheel. Wasn’t it about time that he stayed in one place, confronted his problems, got rid of them once and for all? He was no longer the same man, not after he’d killed someone. He was done with being the victim who hid himself away. He’d fled too many times before.

  It was time to start living again.

  And he had an idea about what he could do, who he could talk to. It was two years since they’d last met, and he’d steered clear of him on purpose ever since. But now, he no longer had a choice.

  42

  Charlie Høisæther was in the middle of a takeaway supper – fried acarajé filled with onions and prawns – when the phone rang. He finished chewing what he had in his mouth, washed it down with a couple of swigs of beer, then popped the white earpieces in and turned the page in the newspaper.

  ‘Talk,’ he said.

  ‘I think we’ve found a good place,’ Freddy said.

  Charlie scanned the headlines. He’d learned some Portuguese in the time that he’d lived in Natal, but he would never dare try to speak.

  ‘For what?’ he asked.

  ‘For the leisure complex you want to build.’

  Charlie grabbed the beer can again and emptied it.

  ‘We have found a good place?’

  ‘Yes, Eduardo and me.’

  Eduardo, Charlie thought, the young lad.

  ‘Were you asked to do that?’ he said.

  ‘No, but we have, all the same – that’s OK, isn’t it? You wanted somewhere. You’ve been looking for a good place for ages.’

  Charlie turned to the next page.

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘On Avenida Bernardo Vieria, not too far from Midway Mall.’

  Charlie frowned.

  ‘So, in the middle of town.’

  ‘Yes, it’s more likely then that punters will see it and come.’

  Charlie would rather that the centre was away from the worst of the traffic, he wanted it to be a place where people went because they wanted to, not because they happened to drive past.

  ‘Parking space?’

  ‘Plenty of possibilities,’ Freddy said. ‘We might have to knock down a few buildings, but we can manage that.’

  ‘We’ again, Charlie noted.

  ‘It was Eduardo’s idea, in fact,’ Freddy continued. ‘There’s a petrol station and car wash nearby where his dad used to work. And there’s an electrical goods supplier in one of the buildings, and according to Eduardo, the owner wants to sell. Doesn’t cost much either.’

  Charlie scratched his head.

  ‘So everything’s going well with Eduardo then?’

  ‘Very well. He’s keen. Does everything I ask him to, and more.’

  Freddy laughed briefly.

  Charlie put the phone in the pocket of his shorts, got up from the white stool by the kitchen island and carried his plate and beer can over to the sink.

  ‘Shall I come and pick you up?’ Freddy asked.

  ‘Give me fifteen minutes,’ Charlie said.

  Twenty-five minutes later, he found himself out on the street, dressed in shorts, sandals and a white t-shirt. It was scorching hot and the cool air in Freddy’s Mercedes was a pleasant reprieve.

  ‘Where’s Eduardo?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘He’s waiting for us there,’ Freddy said.

  They passed low white houses, red- and green-painted shops, with shutters rolled down over the windows, and the usual tags and graffiti. Charlie had got used to the potholes in the road. They passed people on mopeds without helmets, who wove in and out between the cars, tooting their horns – a feature of Brazilian traffic culture that Freddy had quickly adopted after arriving here a couple of years ago.

  Not long after, he parked on the right-hand side of the road by two girls in short dresses leaning against a wall outside a clothes shop.

  ‘Is this it?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘Yep,’ Freddy said, and got out.

  Charlie followed him, but took time to assess the girls. They could both have danced at Senzuela, he thought. The shop next door looked pretty disused, and the corrugated iron looked like it hadn’t been hosed down for years. There was an advert for a tyre manufacturer plastered on one of the doors.

  Freddy walked over to a fence and then pointed towards an open area about the size of half a football pitch. The odd grass tussock burst out from the ground; there were some planks here and there, stones, and earth that looked coarse, grey and dry.

  ‘What d’you think?’ Freddy said, full of enthusiasm. ‘It could work, couldn’t it?’

  ‘Where’s Eduardo?’

  ‘Inside,’ Freddy said.

  ‘I want to talk to him.’

/>   Freddy sent Charlie a long look.

  ‘OK.’

  The girls outside the clothes shop had gone when Charlie and Freddy came back. Freddy opened a green metal door beside the shop and went down some stairs.

  ‘Cars and bikes could park down here,’ Freddy said, his voice bouncing off the walls. ‘We’ll just make an opening outside somewhere with a barrier and that kind of thing, then people can drive down here.’

  Charlie didn’t answer.

  Soon they came into an area that resembled a car park. A big, open area, with load-bearing pillars and widely spaced bulbs that washed the dark walls with a yellowish-white light.

  ‘Is the owner here as well?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘No, he’s…’

  Eduardo de Jesus Silva slipped out from behind one of the pillars. Charlie had expected the nineteen-year-old to grin and come towards him as though he were Jesus.

  He didn’t.

  Instead, he had a serious expression on his face.

  ‘Mister High,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Then he heard a sound behind him – a sound he’d become very familiar with at close hand, over the past two years. The rustle of Freddy’s holster as he drew his gun, the sound of metal against one of the rings he wore on his fingers.

  Charlie turned slowly and stared straight down the barrel of a Glock 17.

  ‘Freddy,’ he said. ‘What the fuck?’

  Freddy held the gun to Charlie’s head.

  ‘There’ll be nothing left of this place tomorrow,’ he said. ‘They’re going to blow it to bits.’

  He stared at Charlie with cold eyes.

  ‘I don’t know if there’ll ever be an ice rink here.’ He shrugged, showed the one palm that wasn’t holding a gun. ‘Maybe I’ll build a gym complex instead.’