The Thirst: Harry Hole 11

by Jo Nesbo

  ‘Does it?’

  ‘I’ve been there. How are you holding up?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes. All this responsibility. Pregnant. And you’re close to Harry as well.’

  Katrine stroked her stomach. And was struck by a strange thought, or at least one she had never had before. How close they were, birth and death. It was as if one foretold the other, as if life’s never-ending game of musical chairs demanded a death before granting new life.

  ‘Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?’

  Katrine shook her head.

  ‘Names?’

  ‘Bjørn’s suggested Hank,’ Katrine said. ‘After Hank Williams.’

  ‘Of course. So he thinks it’s going to be a boy?’

  ‘Regardless of sex.’

  They laughed. And it didn’t feel absurd. They were laughing and talking about a life that was about to start, instead of impending death. Because life was magical and death trivial.

  ‘I’ve got to go, but I’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything,’ Katrine said.

  Rakel nodded. ‘I’ll stay here, but just say if there’s anything I can do to help.’

  Katrine hesitated, then made her mind up. Stroked her stomach again. ‘I sometimes worry that I’m going to lose it.’

  ‘That’s natural.’

  ‘And then I wonder what would be left of me afterwards. If I’d be able to go on.’

  ‘You would,’ Rakel said firmly.

  ‘You have to promise that you’d do the same,’ Katrine said. ‘You say that Harry will be OK, and hope is important, but I also think it’s right that I tell you that I’ve spoken to the Delta group, and their evaluation is that the hostage taker – Hallstein Smith – probably won’t … well, the most common …’

  ‘Thanks,’ Rakel said, taking Katrine’s hand. ‘I love Harry, but if I lose him now, I promise to carry on.’

  ‘And Oleg, how would he …?’

  Katrine saw the pain in Rakel’s eyes and instantly regretted saying it. Saw Rakel try to say something, but she failed and ended up shrugging her shoulders instead.

  When she went outside again she heard a chopping sound and looked up. The sunlight shimmered off the body of the helicopter up in the sky.

  John D. Steffens pushed open the door of A&E and breathed in the cold air. Then he went over to the older paramedic who was leaning against the wall, letting the sunlight warm his face as he smoked, slowly, visibly enjoying it with his eyes closed.

  ‘Well, Hansen?’ Steffens said, leaning against the wall alongside him.

  ‘Good winter,’ the paramedic said, without opening his eyes.

  ‘Could I …?’

  The paramedic took out his packet of cigarettes and held it out.

  Steffens took a cigarette and the lighter.

  ‘Is he going to make it?’

  ‘We’ll see,’ Steffens said. ‘We managed to get some blood back into him, but the bullet’s still in his body.’

  ‘How many lives do you think you have to save, Steffens?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You worked the night shift, and you’re still here. As usual. So how many have you seen ahead of you, how many do you have to save in order to do good?’

  ‘I don’t quite know what you’re talking about now, Hansen.’

  ‘Your wife. The one you didn’t save.’

  Steffens didn’t answer, just inhaled.

  ‘I checked up on you.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Because I’m worried about you. And because I know what it’s like. I lost my wife too. But all the overtime, all the lives saved, won’t bring her back. But you know that, don’t you? And one day you’ll make a mistake, because you’re tired, and you’ll have another life on your conscience.’

  ‘Will I?’ Steffens said, and yawned. ‘Do you know a haematologist who’s better than me in A&E?’

  Steffens heard the paramedic’s footsteps move away.

  Closed his eyes.

  Sleep.

  He wished he could.

  It had been 2,154 days. Not since Ina, his wife and Anders’s mother, died – that was 2,912 days ago. But since he last saw Anders. During the initial period after Ina’s death there had at least been sporadic phone calls, even if Anders was furious and blamed him. On good grounds. Anders moved, fled, put as much distance between them as he could. By giving up his plans to study medicine, for instance, and studying to become a police officer instead. During one of their irregular, ill-tempered phone conversations Anders had said he’d rather be like one of his lecturers, a former murder detective, Harry Hole, whom Anders evidently worshipped the way he used to worship his own father. He had tried to see Anders at his various addresses, at Police College, but had been rejected. He had more or less ended up stalking his own son. In an attempt to make him realise that they each lost her a little less if they didn’t lose each other. That together they could keep a part of her alive. But Anders hadn’t been willing to listen.

  So when Rakel Fauke had come for an examination and Steffens realised she was Harry Hole’s wife, he had naturally been very curious. What did this Harry Hole have that made him so able to influence Anders? Could he teach him something he could use to approach Anders again? And then he had discovered that the stepson, Oleg, reacted just like Anders had when he realised that Harry Hole couldn’t save his mother. It was the same, endless paternal betrayal.

  Sleep.

  It had been a shock, seeing Anders today. His first crazy thought was that they had been tricked, that Oleg and Harry had arranged some sort of reconciliation meeting.

  Sleep now.

  It was getting darker, and a chill fell across his face. A cloud passing in front of the sun? John D. Steffens opened his eyes. There was a figure standing in front of him, surrounded by a halo from the sun shining immediately behind.

  John D. Steffens blinked. The halo was stinging his eyes. He had to clear his throat before he could get any sound out. ‘Anders?’

  ‘Berntsen’s going to make it.’ Pause. ‘They’re saying it’s thanks to you.’

  Clas Hafslund was sitting in his winter garden, looking out across the fjord, where the ice had this peculiar layer of perfectly still water on top of it, making it look like a vast mirror. He had put down his newspaper, which once again was printing page after page about that vampirist case. Surely they had to get tired of it soon? Out here on Nesøya they didn’t have monsters like that, thank goodness. Everything was nice and peaceful, all year round. Even if right at the moment he could hear the irritating sound of a helicopter somewhere, probably an accident on the E18. Clas Hafslund jumped when he heard a sudden bang.

  The sound waves rolled across the fjord.

  A gun.

  It sounded like it had come from one of the neighbouring properties. Hagen’s, or Reinertsen’s. The two businessmen had spent years arguing about whether the boundary between them ran to the left or the right of an oak tree that was hundreds of years old. In an interview with the local paper, Reinertsen had said that even if the dispute might appear comical because it concerned just a few square metres on the edge of what were otherwise very large plots of land, it wasn’t a petty matter, but about the principle of ownership itself. And he was certain that Nesøya’s homeowners would agree that this was a principle which was every citizen’s duty to fight for. Because there could be no doubt that the tree belonged to his, Reinertsen’s, land, you only had to look at the coat of arms of the family he had bought the estate from. It featured a large oak, and anyone could see that it was a copy of the one at the heart of the dispute. Reinertsen went on to declare that sitting and looking at the mighty tree warmed the very depths of his soul (here the journalist noted that Reinertsen would have had to sit on the roof of his house in order to see it), knowing that it was his. The day after the interview was printed, Hagen had chopped the tree down and used it to fuel his stove, and told the newspaper that it had warmed not only his soul but his toes as well. And
that Reinertsen from now on would have to enjoy the sight of the smoke from his chimney, because whenever he lit his stove over the course of the next few years, it would be with nothing but the wood from the oak. Provocative, of course, but even if the bang had undoubtedly come from a gun, Clas Hafslund found it hard to believe that Reinertsen had just shot Hagen because of a damn tree.

  Hafslund saw movement down by the old boathouse that lay approximately 150 metres away from both his and Hagen’s and Reinertsen’s properties. It was a man. In a suit. He was wading out onto the ice, pulling an aluminium boat behind him. Clas blinked. The man stumbled and sank to his knees in the icy water. Then the kneeling man turned towards Clas Hafslund’s house as if he could feel that he was being watched. The man’s face was black. A refugee? Had they reached Nesøya now? Affronted, he reached for the binoculars on the shelf behind him and trained them on the man. No. He wasn’t black. The man’s face was covered with blood. Now he put both hands on the side of the boat and pulled himself to his feet again. And stumbled on. Taking the rope again, he dragged the boat behind him. And Clas Hafslund, who was by no means a religious man, thought that he was seeing Jesus. Jesus, walking on water. Jesus dragging his cross to Calvary. Jesus who had risen from the dead in order to pay a visit to Clas Hafslund and the whole of Nesøya. Jesus with a big revolver in his hand.

  Sivert Falkeid was sitting at the front of the inflatable boat with the wind in his face and Nesøya in sight. He looked at his watch one last time. It was precisely thirteen minutes since he and Delta had received the message and immediately linked it to the hostage situation.

  ‘A call reporting shots being fired on Nesøya.’

  Their response time was acceptable. They would be there before the emergency vehicles that had also been sent to Nesøya. But either way, it went without saying that a bullet travelled faster.

  He could see the aluminium boat and the outline of the water’s edge where the ice started.

  ‘Now,’ he said, and moved back in the boat to the others, so that the bow of the boat lifted and they could use their speed to slide across the ice on the meltwater.

  The officer steering the boat pulled the propeller out of the water.

  The boat lurched as it hit the edge of the ice, and Falkeid heard it scrape the bottom of the boat, but they had enough speed to carry them far enough onto the ice for them to be able to walk on it.

  Hopefully.

  Sivert Falkeid climbed over the side and tentatively put one foot down on the ice. The melt-water reached just above his ankle.

  ‘Give me twenty metres before you follow,’ he said. ‘Ten metres apart.’

  Falkeid started to splash towards the aluminium boat. He estimated the distance to be three hundred metres. It looked abandoned, but the report had said that the man they assumed had fired the shot had dragged it out of the boatshed belonging to Hallstein Smith.

  ‘The ice is holding,’ he whispered into his radio.

  Everyone in Delta had been equipped with ice picks on a cord attached to the chest of their uniform, so that they could pull themselves out if they went through the ice. And that cord had just tangled itself around the barrel of Falkeid’s semi-automatic, and he had to look down to free his weapon.

  And he therefore heard the shot without having any chance of seeing anything that might indicate where it had come from. He instinctively threw himself down in the water.

  There was another shot. And now he saw a little puff of smoke rise from the aluminium boat.

  ‘Shots from the boat,’ he heard in his earpiece. ‘We’ve all got it in our sights. Awaiting orders to blast it to hell.’

  They had been informed that Smith was armed with a revolver. Naturally the risk of him managing to hit Falkeid from more than two hundred metres away was fairly slim, but that was still the situation. Sivert Falkeid lay there breathing as the numbingly cold melt-water soaked through his clothes and covered his skin. It wasn’t his job to work out what it would cost the state to spare the life of this serial killer. Cost in the form of trials, prison guards, the daily rate at a five-star prison. His job was to work out how great a threat this individual posed to the lives of his men and others, and adapt his response accordingly. Not to think about nursery places, hospital beds and the renovation of rundown schools.

  ‘Fire at will,’ Sivert Falkeid said.

  No response. Just the wind and the sound of a helicopter in the distance.

  ‘Fire,’ he repeated.

  Still no acknowledgement. The helicopter was approaching.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ a voice said in his earpiece. ‘Are you wounded?’

  Falkeid was about to repeat his order when he realised that what had happened when they were training in Haakonsværn had happened again. The salt water had ruined the microphone and only the receiver was working. He turned towards their boat and shouted, but his voice was drowned out by the helicopter, which was now hovering motionless in the air right above them. So he gave the hand signal to open fire, two rapid downward movements of his right arm with his fist clenched. Still no response. What the hell? Falkeid began to snake his way back to the inflatable when he saw two of his men walking towards him on the ice without even crouching in order to present a smaller target.

  ‘Get down!’ he yelled, but they kept walking calmly towards him.

  ‘We’ve got comms with the helicopter!’ one of them shouted over the noise. ‘They can see him, he’s lying in the boat!’

  He was lying in the bottom of the boat, with his eyes closed against the sun that was shining down on him. He couldn’t hear anything, but he imagined the water lapping and splashing against the metal beneath him. That it was summer. That the whole family was sitting in the boat. A family outing. Children’s laughter. If he could just keep his eyes closed, maybe he could stay there. He didn’t know for certain if the boat was floating or if his weight meant it was caught on the ice. It didn’t really matter. He wasn’t going anywhere. Time was standing still. Perhaps it always had been, unless perhaps it had only just stopped? Stopped for him, and for the man who was still sitting in the Amazon. Was it summer for him too? Was he also in a better place now?

  Something was shading the sun. A cloud? A face? Yes, a face. A woman’s face. Like a darkened memory that was suddenly illuminated.

  She was sitting on top of him, riding him. Whispering that she loved him, that she always had. That she had been waiting for this. Asking if he felt the same, that time was standing still. He felt vibrations in the boat, her groans rose to a continuous scream, as if he had plunged a knife into her, and he released the air from his lungs and the sperm from his testicles. And then she died on top of him. Hit his chest with her head as the wind hit the window above the bed in the flat. And before time began to move again, they both fell asleep, unconscious, without memory, without conscience.

  He opened his eyes. It looked like a big, hovering bird.

  It was a helicopter. It was hovering ten, twenty metres above him, but he still couldn’t hear anything. But he realised that was what was making the boat vibrate.

  Katrine was standing outside the boathouse, shivering in the shade as she watched the officers approach the Volvo Amazon inside the building.

  She saw them open the front doors on both sides. Saw a suited arm fall out from one side. From the wrong side. From Harry’s side. The naked hand was bloody. The officer put his head inside the car, presumably to check for breathing or a pulse. It took a while, and eventually Katrine couldn’t hold back any longer, and heard her own trembling voice: ‘Is he alive?’

  ‘Maybe,’ the officer shouted above the noise of the helicopter out over the water. ‘I can’t feel a pulse, but he might be breathing. If he is alive, I don’t think he’s got long left, though.’

  Katrine took a few steps closer. ‘The ambulance is on its way. Can you see the gunshot wound?’

  ‘There’s too much blood.’

  Katrine went inside the boathouse. Stared at the hand danglin
g out of the door. It looked as if it was searching for something, something to hold on to. Another hand to hold. She stroked her own hand over her stomach. There was something she should have told him.

  ‘I think you’re wrong,’ the other officer said from inside the car. ‘He’s already dead. Look at his pupils.’

  Katrine closed her eyes.

  He stared up at the face that had appeared above him on both sides of the boat. One of them had pulled his black mask off, and his mouth was opening, forming words; from the way his neck muscles were tensing it looked like he was shouting. Perhaps he was shouting at him to drop the revolver. Perhaps he was shouting his name. Perhaps he was shouting for revenge.

  Katrine went over to the door on Harry’s side of the car. Took a deep breath and looked inside. Stared. Felt the shock hit her even harder than she had prepared herself for. She could hear the siren of the ambulance now, but she had seen more dead bodies than these two officers, and knew from a brief glance that this body had been permanently vacated. She knew him, and knew that this was just the shell he had left behind.

  She swallowed. ‘He’s dead. Don’t touch anything.’

  ‘But we ought to try to revive him, shouldn’t we? Maybe—’

  ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Let him be.’

  She stood there. Felt the shock slowly fade. Give way to surprise. Surprise at the fact that Hallstein Smith had chosen to drive the car himself rather than make his hostage drive. That what she had thought was Harry’s seat wasn’t.

  Harry lay in the bottom of the boat, looking up. People’s faces, the helicopter that was blocking the sun, the blue sky. He had managed to stamp his foot down on the revolver again before Hallstein Smith pulled it free. And then Hallstein seemed to give up. Maybe it was his imagination, but he had thought he could feel through the teeth, in his mouth, how the other man’s pulse became weaker and weaker. Until in the end it was gone altogether. Harry had lost consciousness twice before he managed to get his hands and the handcuffs round to the front of his body again, loosened the seat belt and fished the key to the handcuffs out of his jacket pocket. The car key had broken off in the ignition and he knew he didn’t have the strength to climb the steep, ice-covered slope back to the main road, or get over the high fences of the properties on either side of the road. He had called for help, but it was as if Smith had beaten his voice out of him, and the weak cries he did manage to make were drowned by a helicopter somewhere, probably the police helicopter. So that they would be able to see him from the air, he had dragged Smith’s boat out onto the ice, lain down in it and fired several shots into the air.