The Thirst: Harry Hole 11

by Jo Nesbo

  Life, draining out of him. He could feel the cooling blood filling his shoes. He hated blood. It was other one who loved blood. The other, the man he had entered into a pact with. And when had he realised that it wasn’t he who was the devil, but the other, the blood-man? That it was he, Valentin Gjertsen, who had sold and lost his soul? Valentin Gjertsen lifted his face towards the sky and laughed. The storm was here. The demon was free.

  Harry ran with the Glock in one hand, his phone in the other.

  Across the open ground. Downhill, with the wind behind him. Valentin was injured, and would have taken the easiest possible path to get as much distance between himself and those he knew would soon be coming after him. Harry felt the jolts from his feet transmit themselves to his head, felt his stomach want to turn itself inside out again, and swallowed to keep the vomit down. Thought about a forest track. Thought about a guy in new Under Armour gear ahead of him on the path. And ran.

  He was getting close to the forest and slowed down. He knew he would have to face the wind when he changed direction.

  There was a small, dilapidated shack in among the trees. Rotten planks, corrugated-iron roof. For tools, maybe, or somewhere the animals could shelter from the rain.

  Harry shone his phone towards the shack. He couldn’t hear anything but the storm, it was dark and he would hardly have been able to smell blood on a warm day with the wind in the right direction. All the same, he knew that Valentin was here. The way he just knew things at regular intervals, and kept getting them wrong.

  He shone the light down at the ground again. There was less of a gap between the drops of blood. Valentin had slowed down here too. Because he wanted to evaluate the situation. Or because he was exhausted. Because he had to stop. And the blood – which had led in a straight line so far – turned off here. Towards the shack. He hadn’t been mistaken.

  Harry set off towards the patch of woodland to the right of the shack. He ran in among the trees before he stopped, switched off the light on his phone, raised his Glock and walked in an arc so he could approach the shack from the other side. He lay down and snaked across the ground.

  He had the wind in his face now, which lowered the chance of Valentin hearing him. It was carrying sounds towards him, and Harry could hear police sirens in the distance, rising and falling between the gusts.

  Harry crept over a fallen tree. A silent flash of lightning. And there, a silhouette standing out against the shack. It was him. He was sitting between two trees with his back to Harry, only five or six metres ahead of him.

  Harry aimed his pistol at the figure.

  ‘Valentin!’

  His cry was partially drowned out by a delayed rumble of thunder, but he saw the figure before him stiffen.

  ‘I’ve got you in my sights, Valentin. Put your gun down.’

  It was as if the wind suddenly eased. And Harry heard another sound. High-pitched. Laughter.

  ‘Harry. You came out to play again.’

  ‘You shouldn’t give up until the game turns in your favour. Put the gun down.’

  ‘You found me. How did you know I’d be sitting outside the shack and not inside?’

  ‘Because I know you, Valentin. You thought I’d look in the most obvious place first, so you sat down outside where you could dispatch one last soul.’

  ‘Fellow travellers.’ Valentin coughed wetly. ‘We’re twin souls, so our souls ought to be in the same place, Harry.’

  ‘Put the gun down now, or I’ll shoot.’

  ‘I often think about my mother, Harry. Do you?’

  Harry saw the back of Valentin’s head rock back and forth in the darkness. It was suddenly lit up by another flash of light. More raindrops. Big and heavy this time, not torn by the wind. They were in the eye of the storm.

  ‘I think of her because she’s the only person I’ve ever hated more than myself, Harry. I’m trying to lay waste to more than she did, but I don’t know if that’s possible. She destroyed me.’

  ‘And more isn’t possible? Where’s Marte Ruud?’

  ‘No, more isn’t possible. Because I’m unique, Harry. You and I, we aren’t like them. We’re unique.’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you, Valentin, but I’m not unique. Where is she?’

  ‘Two bits of bad news, Harry. One. You can forget the little red-haired girl. Two. Yes, you are unique.’ More laughter. ‘It’s not a nice thought, is it? You take refuge in normality, in the averageness of the herd, and think you’ll find a sense of belonging there, something that’s your true self. But the real you is sitting here now, Harry. Wondering whether or not you’re going to kill me. And you use these girls, Aurora, Marte, to fuel your delicious hatred. Because now it’s your turn to decide if someone should live or die, and you’re enjoying it. You’re enjoying being God. You’ve dreamt of being me. You’ve been waiting for your turn to be a vampire. You recognise the thirst – just admit it, Harry. And one day you too will drink.’

  ‘I’m not you,’ Harry said, and swallowed. He heard the roaring in his head. Felt a fresh gust of wind. A new, shattered raindrop against the hand that was holding the pistol. That was that. They would soon be out of the calm eye.

  ‘You’re like me,’ Valentin said. ‘And that’s why you’re also being fooled. You and me, we think we’re clever bastards, but we all get fooled in the end, Harry.’

  ‘Not—’

  Valentin spun round and Harry had time to see the long barrel point towards him before he squeezed the trigger of the Glock. Once, twice. Another flash lit up the forest and Harry saw Valentin’s body: just like the lightning, it was frozen in a jagged shape against the sky. His eyes were bulging, his mouth was open, and the front of his shirt dyed red with blood. In his right hand he was holding a broken branch which was pointing at Harry. Then he fell.

  Harry got to his feet and went over to Valentin, who was on his knees with his torso slumped against one of the trees, staring into space. He was dead.

  Harry aimed the pistol at Valentin’s chest and fired again. A crack of thunder swallowed the sound of the shot.

  Three shots.

  Not because it made any sense, but because that was what music was like, that was how the story went. There should be three.

  Something was approaching; it sounded like thundering hooves against the ground, pushing the air ahead of it and making the trees bend.

  Then came the rain.

  31

  WEDNESDAY NIGHT

  HARRY WAS SITTING at smith’s kitchen table with a cup of tea in his hands and a towel around his neck. Rainwater was dripping onto the floor from his clothes. The wind was still howling and the rain was hammering against the windowpanes, making the police cars outside in the yard look like distorted UFOs with their revolving blue lights. It was as if all the water had slowed down slightly in the air currents. Moon. It smelt of moon.

  Harry concluded that Hallstein Smith – who was sitting opposite him – was still in shock. His pupils were dilated, his expression apathetic.

  ‘You’re quite sure …’

  ‘Yes, he’s completely dead now, Hallstein,’ Harry said. ‘But it’s by no means certain that I’d be alive now if you hadn’t taken his revolver with you when you left him.’

  ‘I don’t know why I did that, I thought he was dead,’ Smith whispered in a metallic, robotic voice, and stared down at the table where he had laid the long-barrelled revolver beside the pistol he had wounded Valentin with. ‘I thought I hit him in the middle of the chest.’

  ‘You did,’ Harry said. Moon. That was what the astronauts had reported. That the moon smelt of burnt gunpowder. The smell was partly coming from the pistol Harry was carrying inside his jacket, but mostly from the Glock on the table. Harry picked up Valentin’s red revolver. Sniffed the barrel. That too smelt of powder, but not as much. Katrine came into the kitchen with rain dripping from her black hair. ‘The crime-scene team are down with Gjertsen now.’

  She looked at the revolver.

  ‘It’s b
een fired,’ Harry said.

  ‘No, no,’ Smith whispered, mechanically shaking his head. ‘He only pointed it at me.’

  ‘Not now,’ Harry said, looking at Katrine. ‘The smell of powder hangs around for days.’

  ‘Marte Ruud?’ Katrine said. ‘Do you think …?’

  ‘I shot first.’ Smith raised his glassy eyes. ‘I shot Valentin. And now he’s dead.’

  Harry leaned forward and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘And that’s why you’re alive, Hallstein.’

  Smith nodded slowly.

  Harry signalled to Katrine with his eyes that she should look after Hallstein, and stood up. ‘I’m going down to the barn.’

  ‘No further than that,’ Katrine said. ‘They’re going to want to talk to you.’

  Harry ran from the farmhouse down to the barn, but all the same he was soaked again by the time he reached the office. He sat down at the desk and let his eyes roam around the room. He stopped at the drawing of the man with bat’s wings. It radiated more loneliness than any actual eeriness. Possibly because it seemed so familiar. Harry closed his eyes.

  He needed a drink. He thrust the thought aside and opened his eyes again. The picture on the computer screen in front of him was split in two, one window for each security camera. Using the mouse, he moved the cursor over to the clock, wound back to the minutes before midnight, which was roughly the time Smith had called. After twenty seconds or so a shape slid into shot in front of the gate. Valentin. He came from the left. From the main road. Bus? Taxi? He had a white key ready, unlocked the gate and sneaked in. The gate closed behind him, but the latch didn’t click. Fifteen to twenty seconds later Harry saw Valentin on the other image with the empty stalls and scales. Valentin came close to losing his balance on the metal weighing platform, and the dial behind him whirred and showed that this monster who had killed so many people, some of them with his bare hands, weighed just seventy-four kilos, twenty-two kilos less than Harry. Then Valentin walked towards the camera, it was as if he was staring straight into the lens, yet still didn’t see it. Before he disappeared from view Harry saw him put his hand into his deep coat pocket. All Harry could see in the picture now were the empty stalls, the scales and the top part of Valentin’s shadow. Harry reconstructed those seconds, he remembered every word of his phone conversation with Hallstein Smith. The rest of the day and the hours at Katrine’s were completely gone, but those seconds had been riveted into place. It had always been like that, whenever he drank his private brain took on a Teflon coating, while his police brain retained its layer of adhesive, as if one part wanted to forget and the other had to remember. Internal Investigations were going to have to transcribe a very long interview report if they wanted to include all the details he could remember.

  Harry saw the edge of the door come into shot as Valentin opened it, then his shadow lifted one arm, then let it fall.

  Harry speeded up the replay.

  He saw Hallstein from the back as he shuffled past the stalls and went out.

  And a minute later Valentin dragged himself out the same way. Harry slowed the video down. Valentin was leaning against the stalls, looked like he might collapse at any moment. But he kept going, metre by metre. He stood on the scales, swaying. The dial showed he was one and a half kilos lighter than when he had arrived. Harry glanced at the pool of blood on the floor behind the computer screen, before watching as Valentin struggled to get the door open. And that was where Harry could feel the will to survive. Unless it was just fear of getting caught? And it occurred to Harry that this film clip was inevitably going to be leaked at some point, and would end up being a hit on YouTube.

  Bjørn Holm’s pale face appeared in the doorway. ‘So this is where it started.’ He walked in, and Harry was once again fascinated that this otherwise not particularly elegant forensics expert became a ballet dancer the moment he entered a crime scene. Bjørn crouched down beside the pool of blood. ‘They’re taking him away now.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘Four entry wounds, Harry. How many of them are from …?’

  ‘Three,’ Harry said. ‘Hallstein only shot once.’

  Bjørn Holm grimaced. ‘He shot an armed man, Harry. Have you thought about what you’re going to say to Internal Investigations about your shots?’

  Harry shrugged. ‘The truth, of course. That it was dark and Valentin was holding a branch in an attempt to fool me into thinking he was armed. He knew he was finished, and he wanted me to shoot him, Bjørn.’

  ‘All the same. Three shots in the chest of an unarmed man …’

  Harry nodded.

  Bjørn took a deep breath, looked over his shoulder and lowered his voice. ‘But of course it’s dark, raining hard, a full-blown storm down in those woods. And if I were to go down there now and have a look on my own, there’s always a chance I might find a pistol hidden where Valentin was lying.’

  The two of them looked at each other as the wind made the walls creak.

  Harry saw Bjørn Holm’s cheek flush red. And knew what that had cost him. Knew that he was standing there offering Harry more than he actually owned. He was offering him everything he held dear. Their shared values, their moral code. His, their, soul.

  ‘Thank you,’ Harry said. ‘Thank you, my friend, but I have to say no.’

  Bjørn Holm blinked twice. Swallowed. Breathed out in a long, shivering wheeze, and gave a brief, out-of-place chuckle of relief.

  ‘I’d better get back,’ he said, standing up.

  ‘Go on,’ Harry said.

  Bjørn Holm stood in front of him, hesitating. As if he wanted to say something, or take a step forward and give him a hug. Harry leaned over towards the computer screen again. ‘We’ll talk soon, Bjørn.’

  On the screen he watched the forensics expert’s hunched shoulders as he made his way outside.

  Harry slammed his fist down on the keyboard. A drink. Fuck, fuck! Just one drink.

  His eyes settled on the bat-man.

  What was it Hallstein had said? He knew. He knew where I was.

  32

  WEDNESDAY NIGHT

  MIKAEL BELLMAN STOOD with his arms folded, wondering if Oslo Police District had ever held a press conference at two o’clock in the morning before. He was leaning against the wall to the left of the podium, looking out across the room, which contained a mixture of night editors and other newsroom staff, journalists who were probably supposed to be covering the ravages of Emilia and sleepy reporters who had been dragged out of bed. Mona Daa had arrived wearing gym clothes under her raincoat, and looked wide awake.

  Up on the podium, beside head of Crime Squad Gunnar Hagen, Katrine Bratt was talking through the details of the raid on Valentin Gjertsen’s flat in Sinsen and the subsequent drama out at Hallstein Smith’s farm. Flashlights kept going off, and Bellman knew that even if he wasn’t sitting up there, the occasional camera was still being aimed at him, so he tried to settle his face into the expression Isabelle had recommended when he called her on the way here. Serious, but with the inner satisfaction of the victor. ‘Remember that people are dead,’ Isabelle had said. ‘So no grinning or obvious celebration. Think of yourself as General Eisenhower after D-Day, you bear the leader’s responsibility for both the victory and the tragedy.’

  Bellman stifled a yawn. Ulla had woken him when she got home from her girls’ night out in the city. He couldn’t recall having seen her drunk since they were young. Speaking of drunk: Harry Hole was standing next to him, and if Bellman hadn’t known better he would have sworn that the former detective was inebriated. He looked more exhausted than any of the reporters, and that was booze he could smell on his wet clothes, wasn’t it?

  A Rogaland dialect cut through the room. ‘I appreciate that you don’t want to go public with the name of the officer who shot and killed Valentin Gjertsen, but surely you can tell us if Valentin was armed, or shot back?’

  ‘Like I said, we want to wait until we’re in full command of the facts before making the details public,�
� Katrine said, then pointed at Mona Daa who was waving her hand.

  ‘But you’re willing and able to tell us the details surrounding Hallstein Smith’s involvement?’

  ‘Yes,’ Katrine said. ‘We have all the details on that point because we have a recording of the incident, and were talking to Smith on the phone as it happened.’

  ‘So you said, but who was he talking to?’

  ‘Me.’ She paused. ‘And Harry Hole.’

  Mona Daa tilted her head. ‘So you and Harry Hole were here in Police HQ when it happened?’

  Mikael Bellman saw Katrine glance at Gunnar Hagen as if to ask for help, but the head of Crime Squad appeared not to notice what she wanted. Nor did Bellman.

  ‘We don’t want to go into the working methods of the police in too much detail at present,’ Hagen said. ‘Out of consideration for both loss of evidence and our tactics in future cases.’

  Mona Daa and the rest of the room seemed content with this, but Bellman could see that Hagen didn’t know what he was hiding.

  ‘It’s late, and all of us have work to do,’ Hagen said, looking at the time. ‘The next press conference will be at twelve noon, hopefully we’ll have more for you then. In the meantime, have a good night. We can all sleep a bit more soundly now.’

  The blitz of flashlights intensified as Hagen and Bratt stood up. Some of the photographers turned their lenses on Bellman, and when some of the people standing up came between Bellman and the cameras, he took a step forward so the photographers could get an unimpeded view.

  ‘Hold on, Harry,’ Bellman said, without looking round or changing his Eisenhower expression. Once the cascade of flashes had stopped, he turned towards Harry Hole, who was standing there with his arms folded.

  ‘I’m not going to throw you to the wolves,’ Bellman said. ‘You did your job, you shot a dangerous serial killer.’ He put one hand on Harry’s shoulder. ‘And we look after our own. OK?’