Nemesis - Harry Hole 02

by Jo Nesbo

  'Play? Is that how you see it? A kind of ludo with human fate.'

  Harry saw the anger in Arne Albu's eyes. Something else, too. His jaw was working and the blood vessels in the temples and forehead stood out. It was desperation.

  'Do you realise what you've done?' he almost whispered, no longer making any attempt to smile. 'She's left me. She's . . . taken the children and gone. Because of a petty affair. Anna didn't mean a thing to me any more.'

  Arne Albu stood close to Harry. 'Anna and I met when a friend of mine was showing me round his gallery and she happened to have a private viewing there. I bought two of her paintings, I don't really know why. I said they were for the office. Of course they were never hung up anywhere. When I went to fetch the pictures the next day, Anna and I fell into conversation and suddenly I had invited her to lunch. Then it was dinner. And two weeks later a weekend trip to Berlin. Things got out of hand. I was stuck and didn't even make an attempt to extricate myself. Not until Vigdis discovered what was going on and threatened to leave me.'

  His voice had begun to tremble.

  'I promised Vigdis it was just a one-off, an idiotic infatuation men of my age occasionally pursue when they meet a young woman. She reminds them what it had been like once. To be young, strong and independent. But you aren't any more. Independent, least of all. When you have children, you'll know . . .'

  His voice gave way and he was breathing heavily. He buried his hands in his coat pockets and went on.

  'Anna was an intense lover. It verged on the abnormal. It was as if she could never let go. I literally had to tear myself away; she ruined one of my jackets as I was trying to get out of the door. I think you know what I mean. She once told me about what it was like after you left. She almost went to pieces.'

  Harry was too surprised to answer.

  'But I probably felt sorry for her,' Albu continued. 'Otherwise I wouldn't have agreed to meet her again. I'd said quite clearly it was over between us, but she just wanted to give me back a few things, she said. I wasn't to know you would come and blow everything out of proportion. Make it look as if we had . . . taken up where we'd left off.' He bent his head. 'Vigdis doesn't believe me. She says she'll never be able to trust me again. Not another time.'

  He lifted his face and Harry saw the despair in his eyes. 'You took the only thing I had, Hole. They're all I have left. I don't know if I can get them back.' His features distorted in pain.

  Harry thought of the pressure cooker. Any moment now.

  'The only chance I have is if you . . . if you don't . . .'

  Harry reacted instinctively when he saw Albu's hand moving in his coat pocket. He kicked out and hit Albu in the side of the knee, sending him into a kneeling position on the pavement. Harry swung his forearm into the face of the Rottweiler as it attacked; he heard the sound of material being ripped and felt teeth puncturing his skin, sinking into the flesh. He hoped its jaws would lock, but the smart bastard let go. Harry aimed a foot at the black mound of naked muscle and missed. He heard its claws scratch at the tarmac as it launched itself and saw the jaws open to meet him. Someone had told him that Rottweilers know before they are three weeks old that the most effective method of killing someone is to tear open the throat, and now the seventy-kilo muscle machine was past his arms. Harry used the momentum the kick had given him to spin round. As the dog's jaws locked it was thus not around his throat, but his neck. Not that that meant his problems were over. He reached behind him and grabbed the upper jaw with one hand and the lower with the other and pulled with all his strength. Instead of opening, however, the jaws sank a few more millimetres into his neck. The sinews and muscles of the dog's jaws were like steel. Harry charged backwards and threw himself against the wall. He heard the dog's ribs crack, but the jaws didn't yield. He felt himself panicking. He had heard about jaws locking, about the hyena whose jaws were fastened onto the male lion's throat long after it had been torn to shreds by lionesses. He felt the warm blood running down his back inside the T-shirt and discovered he had fallen to his knees. Had everything begun to lose sensation? Where was everyone? Sofies gate was a quiet street, but Harry had never seen it as deserted as now, he thought. It struck him how everything had happened in silence, no shouts, no barking, just the sound of flesh against flesh and flesh being torn. He tried to shout, but couldn't force out a sound. His field of vision was beginning to darken at the margins; he knew an artery was being squeezed and he was getting tunnel vision because his brain wasn't receiving enough blood. The shiny lemons outside Ali's shop were losing their shine. Something black, flat, wet and solid came up and exploded in his face. He tasted gravel. Far away, he could hear Albu's voice: 'Let go!'

  The pressure around his neck eased. Harry's position on earth moved slowly away from the sun and it was pitch dark when he heard someone say: 'Are you alive? Can you hear me?'

  Then a steel click close to his ear. Gun parts. Cocking the trigger.

  'Fu . . .' He heard a deep groan and the splat of vomit as it hit the tarmac. More steel clicks. Safety catch being removed . . . In a few seconds it would all be over. That was how it felt. Not despair - not fear - not even regret. Only relief. There wasn't much to leave behind. Albu was taking his time. Time for Harry to realise there was something after all. Something he was leaving behind. He filled his lungs with air. The network of arteries absorbed the oxygen and pumped it up to the brain.

  'Right, now . . .' the voice began, but it stopped abruptly as Harry's fist struck the larynx.

  Harry got to his knees. He didn't have much strength left. He tried to retain consciousness while waiting for the final onslaught. A second passed. Two seconds. Three. The smell of vomit burned in his nose. The streetlights above him came into focus. The street was empty. Deserted. Apart from a man lying beside him in a blue quilted jacket and what looked like a pyjama top sticking out from the neck, gurgling. The light shone on metal. It wasn't a gun; it was a lighter. Only now did Harry see that the man was not Arne Albu. It was Trond Grette.

  With a scalding hot cup of tea in his hand, Harry sat at the kitchen table opposite Trond, whose breath was still laboured and wheezy, and whose panic-stricken goitre eyes bulged out of his skull. As for himself, he was dizzy and nauseous, and the pains in his neck throbbed like burns.

  'Drink,' Harry said. 'There's loads of lemon in it. It numbs the muscles and relaxes them so you can breathe more easily.'

  Trond obeyed. To Harry's great surprise, the drink seemed to work. After a few sips and a couple of coughing fits a hint of colour returned to Trond's pale cheeks.

  'Ulkterbl,' he wheezed.

  'Sorry?' Harry sank back in the other kitchen chair. 'You look terrible.'

  Harry smiled and felt the towel he had tied around his neck. It was already soaked in blood. 'Was that why you threw up?'

  'Can't stand the sight of blood,' Trond said. 'I go all . . .' He rolled his eyes.

  'Well, it could have been worse. You saved my bacon.'

  Trond shook his head. 'I was a fair distance away when I saw you. I just shouted. I'm not sure that was what made him call off the dog. Sorry I didn't get the registration number, but I did see it was a Jeep Cherokee they made off in.'

  Harry dismissed this with a wave of his hand. 'I know who he is.'

  'Oh?'

  'He's under investigation. But perhaps you'd better tell me what you were doing around here, Grette.'

  Trond fidgeted with his teacup. 'You should definitely go to casualty with that wound.'

  'I'll consider it. Have you had a little think since we last talked?'

  Trond nodded slowly.

  'And what conclusion did you come to?'

  'I can't help him any longer.' It was difficult for Harry to determine whether it was only the sore larynx which made Trond whisper the last sentence.

  'So where's your brother?'

  'I want you to tell him it was me who told you. He'll understand.'

  'Alright.'

  'Porto Seguro.' 'Uhuh.'
/>
  'It's a town in Brazil.'

  Harry wrinkled his nose. 'Fine. How will we find him there?' 'He's just told me he has a house there. He refused to give me an address, only a telephone number.' 'Why? He's not a wanted man.'

  'I'm not sure that is correct.' Trond took another sip. 'At any rate, he said it would be better if I didn't have his address.' 'Mm. Is it a large town?' 'About a million, according to Lev.'

  'Right. You haven't got anything else? Other people who knew him and might have his address?'

  Trond hesitated before shaking his head. 'Out with it,' Harry said.

  'Lev and I went for a coffee last time we met in Oslo. He said it tasted even worse than usual. Said he'd taken to drinking cafezinho at a local ahwa.'

  'Ahwa? Isn't that an Arab coffee house?'

  'Correct. Cafezinho is a kind of strong Brazilian variant of espresso. Lev says he goes there every day. Drinks coffee, smokes a hookah and plays dominoes with the Syrian owner who has become a kind of pal. I can remember his name - Muhammed Ali. Like the boxer.'

  'And fifty million other Arabs. Did your brother say which coffee bar it was?'

  'Probably, but I don't remember. There can't be so many ahwas in a Brazilian town, can there?'

  'Maybe not.' Harry thought. Definitely something concrete to work on. He was about to put a hand to his forehead, but as soon as he tried to raise his hand his neck hurt.

  'One last question, Grette. What made you decide to tell me this?'

  Trond's teacup did a few circuits. 'I knew he was here in Oslo.'

  The towel felt like a heavy rope around Harry's neck. 'How?'

  Trond scratched under his chin for a long time before answering. 'We hadn't spoken for over two years. Out of the blue he rang me and said he was in town. We met at a cafe and had a long chat. Hence, the coffee.'

  'When was this?'

  'Three days before the bank raid.' 'What did you talk about?'

  'Everything. And nothing. When you've known one another for as long as we have, the big things have often grown so big it's the small things you talk about. About . . . the old man's roses, etc.'

  'What sort of big things?'

  'Things done that were best undone. And things said best unsaid.' 'So you talk about roses instead?'

  'I tended the roses when Stine and I were left in the house. It was where Lev and I had grown up. It was where I wanted our children to grow up.' He bit his lower lip. His gaze was fixed on the brown-and-white wax cloth; the cloth was the only thing Harry had taken when his mother died.

  'He didn't say anything about the robbery?'

  Trond shook his head.

  'You're aware the robbery must have been planned at that point. That your wife's bank was going to be hit?'

  Trond let out a deep sigh. 'Had that been the case, I might have known and could have prevented it. Lev relished telling me about his bank robberies, you see. He got hold of copies of the videos, which he kept in the loft in Disengrenda, and every so often insisted we watch them together. To see what a clever big brother he was. When I married Stine and started working, I made it clear I wouldn't listen to any more of his plans. It would put me in a delicate position.'

  'Mm. So he didn't know Stine worked in the bank?'

  'I had told him she worked for Nordea, but not which branch, I don't think.'

  'But they knew each other?'

  'They had met a few times, yes. A couple of family gatherings. Lev was never a big fan of that sort of thing.' 'How did they get on?'

  'Well, Lev can be a charmer when he wants to be.' Trond smiled wryly. 'As I said, we shared one set of genes. I was happy he could be bothered to show his good side to her. And since I had told her how he could behave towards people he didn't appreciate, she was flattered. The first time she came to our house he took her around our neighbourhood and showed her all the places he and I had played when we were small.'

  'Not the footbridge though?'

  'No, not that.' Trond lifted his hands pensively and looked at them. 'But you mustn't believe that was for his own sake. Lev was more than happy to talk about all the bad things he had done. It was because he knew I didn't want her to know I had a brother like that.'

  'Mm. Are you sure you're not painting a nobler picture of your brother than he deserves?'

  Trond shook his head. 'Lev has a dark and a light side. Like all of us. He would die for those he likes.'

  'But not in prison?'

  Trond opened his mouth, but no answer came out. His skin twitched under one eye. Harry sighed and, with difficulty, stood up. 'I have to get a taxi to A&E.'

  'I've got a car,' Trond said.

  The engine hummed quietly. Harry stared at the streetlights gliding by in the dark night sky, the dashboard and the diamond ring glinting on Trond's little finger as he held the steering wheel.

  'You lied about the ring you're wearing,' Harry whispered. 'The diamond is too small to cost thirty thousand. I reckon it cost about five and you bought it for Stine at a jeweller's here in Oslo. Am I right?'

  Trond nodded.

  'You met Lev in Sao Paulo, didn't you. The money was for him.' Trond nodded again.

  'Enough money to keep him going,' Harry said. 'Enough for a plane ticket when he decided to return to Oslo to do another job.' Trond didn't answer.

  'Lev's still in Olso,' Harry whispered. 'I want his mobile number.'

  'Do you know what?' Trond carefully turned right by Alexander Kiellandsplass. 'Last night I dreamed that Stine came into the bedroom and talked to me. She was dressed as an angel. Not like a real angel, but the kind of outfit you wear at carnivals. She said she didn't belong up there. And when I awoke, I thought of Lev. I thought of him sitting on the edge of the school roof with his legs dangling down as we went into the next lesson. He was a small dot, but I remember what I was thinking. He belonged up there.'

  25

  Baksheesh

  Three people were sitting in Ivarsson's office: Ivarsson, behind the tidy desk, and Beate and Harry each in their - slightly lower - chairs. The trick with the low chairs is such a well-known dominance technique that one could be excused for thinking it was no longer used, but Ivarsson knew better. His experience was that basic techniques never went out of fashion.

  Harry had tipped his chair back so that he could see out of the window. The view took in the Hotel Plaza. Rounded clouds swept over the glass tower and the town without releasing any rain. Harry hadn't slept, even though he had taken painkillers after the tetanus injection he had received at the hospital. The explanation he had given to his colleagues of a stray feral dog had been original enough to be credible and close enough to the truth for him to be able to carry it off with some conviction. His neck was swollen and the tight bandage chafed against his skin. Harry knew exactly how much it would hurt if he twisted his head towards Ivarsson, who was talking. He also knew he wouldn't have turned his head, even if it hadn't hurt.

  'So you want air tickets to Brazil to search there?' Ivarsson said, brushing the tabletop clean and pretending to stifle a smile. 'While the Expeditor is demonstrably busy robbing banks here in Oslo?'

  'We don't know where in Oslo he is,' Beate said. 'Or whether he is in Oslo. But we hope we can trace the house his brother says he has in Porto Seguro. If we find it, we'll also find his fingerprints. And if they match the prints we have on the Coca-Cola bottle, we have damning evidence. That ought to make the trip worthwhile.'

  'Really? And which prints are these that no one else has?'

  Beate struggled in vain to catch Harry's eye. She swallowed. 'Since the principle is that we are meant to be independent of each other, we decided to keep it to ourselves. Until further notice.'

  'Dear Beate,' Ivarsson began, winking his right eye. 'You say "we" but I only hear Harry Hole. I appreciate Hole's keenness to adhere to my method, but we mustn't let principles stand in the way of results we can achieve together. So I repeat: which prints?'

  Beate sent Harry a desperate look.

&nbs
p; 'Hole?' Ivarsson said.

  'This is how we're running it,' Harry said. 'Until further notice.'

  'As you like,' Ivarsson said. 'But forget the trip. You'll have to talk to the Brazilian police and ask them to help you to get hold of prints.'

  Beate cleared her throat. 'I've checked. We have to send written applications via the Chief Constable in Bahia province and have a Brazilian district attorney go through the case, which will eventually result in a search warrant. The person I spoke to said that from experience this would take, without contacts in the Brazilian administration, somewhere between two months and two years.'

  'We've got seats on the plane leaving tomorrow evening,' Harry said, studying a fingernail. 'What's the decision?'