by Jo Nesbo
'What are you talking about? You've got to come here, for fuck's sake! Now!'
Waaler listened to the breathing crackling against the membrane, without answering.
'If they get me, I'll take you with me. I hope you understand that, Prince. I'll sing if I can get off. I'm not fucking taking your rap if you—'
'That sounds like panic, Knave. And we don't need panic now. What guarantee do I have that you haven't already been arrested and this isn't a trap to set me up? Do you understand now? Come on your own and stand under a streetlight so I can see you clearly when I come.'
The Knave groaned: 'Shit! Shit! Shit!'
'Well?'
'Right. Fine. Bring the pills. Shit!'
'Container terminal in forty minutes. Under a light.'
'Don't be late.'
'Hang on, there's more. I'll park down the road from you. When I say so, hold the gun in the air so I can see it clearly.' 'What for? You paranoid, or what?'
'Let's just say the situation is a little unclear at the present moment and I'm not taking any chances. Do as I say.'
Waaler pressed the red button and looked at his watch. Flicked the volume control right round. Guitars. Beautiful pure noise. Beautiful pure fury.
Bjarne Moller stepped into the flat and scanned the room with a disapproving expression.
'Cosy nook, isn't it,' Weber said.
'An old acquaintance, I heard?'
'Alf Gunnerud. At least the flat's in his name. There are loads of fingerprints here. Have to see whether they're his. Glass.' He pointed to a young man applying a thin brush to the window. 'Best prints are always on glass.'
'Since you're taking prints now, I assume you've found other things here?'
Weber pointed to a plastic bag on a floor rug with a number of other objects. Moller crouched down and poked a finger through a split in the bag. 'Hm. Tastes like heroin. Must be close on half a kilo. And what's this?'
'A photograph of two children. We still don't know who they are. And a Trioving key which certainly doesn't fit this door.'
'If it's a system key, Trioving can soon tell us who the owner is. There's something familiar about the boy in the photo.'
'I thought so, too.'
'Fusiform gyrus,' a woman's voice said behind them. 'Froken Lonn,' Moller said in surprise. 'What's Robberies Unit doing here?'
'It was me who got the tip-off there was heroin here. I was asked to call you in.'
'So you have informers in the narco family, too?'
'Bank robbers, narco, it's all one big happy family, you know.'
'Who was the informer?'
'No idea. He rang me at home after I'd gone to bed. Wouldn't give his name or say how he knew I was in the police. But the tip-off was so specific and detailed I took action and woke one of the police solicitors.'
'Hm,' Moller said. 'Drugs. Previous conviction. Chance valuable evidence may be lost. You got the green light straight away, I imagine.'
'Yes.'
'I don't see a body, so why was I called?'
'The informer tipped me off about something else.'
'Oh, yes?'
'Alf Gunnerud is supposed to have known Anna Bethsen intimately. He was her lover and dealer. Until she dumped him for someone else while he was inside. What do you think about that, PAS
Moller?'
Moller looked at her. 'I'm happy,' he said, without showing any reaction. 'Happier than you can imagine.'
He continued to look at her and, in the end, had to lower his gaze.
'Weber,' he said. 'I want you to cordon off this apartment and call in all the people you have at your disposal. We have a job to do.'
39
Glock
Stein Thommesen had been working for two years as a uniformed policeman. His greatest wish was to become a detective and his dream to become a police expert with fixed hours, his own office and a better salary than an inspector. To be able to go home to Trine and tell her about an interesting problem at work he and a specialist from the Serious Crime Unit were discussing, which she would find immensely, unimaginably complicated. In the meantime he was doing shifts for a pittance, he woke up dog-tired even after sleeping for ten hours, and when Trine said she wasn't going to live like that for the rest of her life, he would try to explain what it does to you spending your working hours driving teenagers with an overdose to A&E, telling kids that he has to arrest their father because he's been beating up their mother, and taking all the shit from people who hate the uniform you're wearing. And Trine would roll her eyes. Heard it all before.
When Inspector Tom Waaler from Crime Squad came into the duty room and asked Stein Thommesen if he would go with him to bring in a wanted man, Thommesen's first thought was perhaps Waaler would give him a few tips on how to go about becoming a detective.
He mentioned it to Waaler in the car on their way down Nylandsveien towards the traffic machine and Waaler smiled. Slap a few words down on a piece of paper, that's all there was to it, he said. He, Waaler, might be able to put in a good word for him.
'That would be . . . great.' Thommesen wondered if he should say 'Thank you', or if it would sound ingratiating. After all, there wasn't a lot to thank him for as yet. He would certainly tell Trine that he had put out feelers, though. Yes, that was exactly the word he would use: 'feelers'. Then nothing, maintain the mystique, until perhaps he heard something.
'What sort of guy are we pulling in?' he asked.
'I was out patrolling and heard on the radio they had recovered a quantity of heroin in Thor Olsens gate. Alf Gunnerud.'
'Yes, I heard that. Almost half a kilo.'
'Then a guy tipped me off he'd seen Gunnerud down at the container terminal.'
'Informers must be on their toes this evening. It was an anonymous tip-off that led to the heroin seizure as well. Might be a coincidence, but it's odd that two anonymous—'
'Could be the same informer,' Waaler interrupted. 'Maybe some-one's got it in for Gunnerud, been screwed or something?'
'Perhaps . . .'
'So you want to be a detective,' Waaler said and Thommesen thought he noted a touch of irritation in his voice. They turned off the traffic machine towards the docks area. 'Yes, I can see that. It's a change, isn't it? Thought about which section?'
'Crime Squad,' Thommesen said. 'Or Robberies Unit. Not Sexual Offences, I don't think.'
'No, of course not. Here we are.'
They crossed a dark, open square with containers piled up on top of each other and a large, pink building at the end.
'Guy standing under the streetlamp fits the description,' Waaler said.
'Where?' Thommesen said, peering into the dark.
'By the building over there.'
'Holy shit! You've got good eyes.'
'Are you armed?' Waaler asked, slowing down.
Thommesen looked at Waaler in surprise. 'You didn't say anything about—'
'That's fine, I am. Stay in the car so you can call for support if he gives us any trouble, OK?'
'OK. Are you sure we shouldn't call—?'
'No time.' Waaler switched his lights on full beam and came to a halt. Thommesen estimated the distance to the silhouette under the light to be fifty metres, but later measurements would show the exact distance was thirty-four.
Waaler loaded his Glock 20 - he had applied for and received a special permit to carry it - and, grabbing a large black torch from between the front seats, got out of the car. He shouted as he started to move towards the man. There would turn out to be a large discrepancy on exactly this point in the two policemen's incident reports. In Waaler's report, he had shouted: 'Police! Let's see them!' meaning: 'Put your hands above your head.' The Public Prosecutor agreed it was reasonable to assume that an ex-con with several arrests behind him would be familiar with that kind of jargon. And Inspector Waaler had clearly stated he was from the police. In Thommesen's original report, Waaler shouted: 'Hi, this is your police friend. Let's see it.' After some consultation betw
een Waaler and Thommesen, however, Thommesen said that Waaler's version was probably closer to the truth.
There was no disagreement about what happened next. The man under the light reacted by putting his hand inside his jacket and taking out a gun which, it would transpire, was a Glock 23 with the serial number filed off and therefore impossible to trace. Waaler, who was, according to SEFO, the independent police authority, one of the best marksmen in the police force, screamed and fired three shots in quick succession. Two hit Alf Gunnerud. One in the left shoulder, the other in the hip. Neither of them was fatal, but they knocked Gunnerud backwards and he stayed on the ground. Waaler ran towards Gunnerud with his gun raised and shouting: 'Police! Don't touch the gun or I'll shoot! Don't touch the gun, I said!'
From this point on Stein Thommesen's report had little of any substance to add since he was thirty-four metres away, it was dark and, in addition, Waaler was in his line of vision. On the other hand, there was nothing in Thommesen's report - or in the evidence at the scene - which contradicted the next events as described in Waaler's report: Gunnerud grabbed the gun, pointed it at him despite the warnings and Waaler got his shot in first. The distance between the two was between three and five metres.
I'm going to die. And there's no sense in it. I'm staring down a smoking barrel. This wasn't the plan, not mine at any rate. I might have been heading this way all the time, though. But it wasn't my plan. My plan was better. My plan made sense. The cabin pressure is falling and an invisible force is pressing against my eardrums from inside. Someone leans over and asks me if I'm ready. We're landing now.
I whisper I've been a thief, liar, pusher and fornicator. But I've never killed anyone. The woman in Grensen I hurt, that was just one of those things. The stars beneath are shining through the fuselage.
'It's a sin . . .' I whisper. 'Against the woman I loved. Can it be forgiven, too?' But the stewardess has already moved away and the landing lights are ablaze on all sides.
It was the evening Anna said 'No' for the first time and I said 'Yes' and shoved the door open. It was the purest junk I had ever got my hands on and we weren't going to spoil the fun by smoking it. She protested but I said it was on the house and prepared the syringe. She had never injected heroin and I gave her the shot. It was harder to do it to others. After a couple of failures she looked at me and murmured: 'I've been drug-free for three months. I was cured.' 'Welcome back,' I said. She laughed and said: 'I'm going to kill you.' I found the vein the third time. Her pupils opened, slowly like black roses. Drops of blood from her forearm landed on the carpet with weary sighs. Then her head tipped backwards. The day after she rang me and wanted more. The wheels are screaming on the tarmac.
We could have made something good out of our lives, you and I. That was the plan, it made sense. I have no idea what the sense of this is.
According to the post-mortem the 10-millimetre bullet hit and smashed Alf Gunnerud's nasal bone. Fragments of the bone followed the projectile through the thin tissue in front of the brain, and the lead and bone destroyed the thalamus, the limbic system and the cerebellum before the bullet penetrated the rear cranium. Finally, it bored a hole in the tarmac which was still porous after the road-maintenance people had repaired the car park two days before.
40
Bonnie Tyler
It was a dismal, short and generally unnecessary day. Leaden clouds heavy with rain swept across the city without releasing a drop and occasional gusts of wind tugged at the newspapers in the stand outside Elmer's Fruit&Tobacco kiosk. Headlines on the newspaper stand implied that people had begun to get sick of the so-called war on terror, which now had the somewhat odious connotation of an election slogan and had furthermore lost momentum since no one knew where the principal offender was. Some even thought he was dead. The newspapers had thus begun to give column space to reality-TV stars, minor foreign celebrities who had said something nice about Norwegians and the Royals' holiday plans. The only drama to break the monotony was a shooting incident by the con-tainer terminal where a wanted murderer and drug pusher had raised a gun at a policeman and been killed before firing a shot. The Head of the Narcotics Unit reported a substantial heroin seizure in the dead man's apartment while the Head of Crime Squad commented that the murder the thirty-year-old was alleged to have committed was still under investigation. The newspaper with the latest editorial deadline had, however, added that the evidence against the man, who was not of foreign origin, was compelling. And, oddly enough, the policeman involved was the same one who had shot dead the neo-Nazi Sverre Olsen in his home in a similar case over a year ago. The policeman had been suspended until the independent police authorities had finished making their inquiries, the paper wrote, and quoted the Chief Superintendent, who said this was routine procedure in such situations and had nothing to do with the Sverre Olsen case.
A chalet fire in Tryvann had also found space in a tiny paragraph because an empty petrol canister had been found close to the scene of the totally destroyed house, and therefore police could not rule out the possibility of arson. What didn't appear in print were attempts by journalists to contact Birger Gunnerud to ask him how it felt to lose his son and chalet in the same night.
It got dark early and by three o' clock streetlights were already on.
A freeze-frame of the Grensen robbery quivered on the screen in the House of Pain when Harry walked in.
'Got anywhere?' he asked with a nod to the picture showing the Expeditor in full swing.
Beate shook her head. 'We're waiting.'
'For him to strike again?'
'He's sitting somewhere and planning another hold-up right now. It'll be some time next week, I reckon.' 'You seem sure.' She shrugged. 'Experience.'
'Yours?'
She smiled but didn't answer.
Harry sat down. 'Hope you weren't put out that I didn't do what I said on the phone.'
She frowned. 'What do you mean?'
'I said I wasn't going to search his flat until today.'
Harry studied her. She looked totally, and genuinely, perplexed. Well, Harry didn't work for the Secret Service. He was about to speak, but then changed his mind. Instead Beate said: 'There's something I have to ask you, Harry.'
'Shoot.'
'Did you know about Raskol and my father?' 'What about them?'
'That Raskol was . . . in the bank that time. He shot my father.' Harry lowered his gaze. Examined his hands. 'No,' he said. 'I didn't.'
'But you had guessed?'
He raised his head and met Beate's eyes. 'The thought had occurred to me. That's all.' 'What made you think it?' 'Penance.' 'Penance?'
Harry took a deep breath. 'Sometimes a crime is so monstrous it clouds your vision. Externally or internally.' 'What do you mean?'
'Everyone has a need to do penance, Beate. You, too. God knows I do. And Raskol does. It's a basic need, like washing. It's about harmony, an absolutely essential inner balance. It's the balance we call morality.'
Harry saw Beate blanch. Then blush. She opened her mouth.
'No one knows why Raskol gave himself up,' Harry said. 'I'm convinced, though, that it was in order to do penance. For someone whose only freedom is the freedom to wander, prison is the ultimate self-punishment. Taking a life is different from taking money. Suppose he had committed a crime that caused him to lose his balance. So he chooses to do secret penance, for himself and God - if he has one.'
Beate finally stammered out the words: 'A . . . moral . . . murderer?'
Harry waited. But nothing was forthcoming.
'A moral person is someone who accepts the consequences of their own morality,' he said softly. 'Not those of others.'
'And what if I strapped this on?' Beate said bitterly, opening the drawer in front of her and taking out a shoulder holster. 'What if I locked myself in one of the visitors' rooms with Raskol and said afterwards he attacked me and I shot in self-defence? To avenge my father the same way you deal with vermin. Is that moral enough for you?' She slam
med the shoulder holster on the table.
Harry leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes until he heard her accelerated breathing calm down. 'The question is what is moral enough for you, Beate. I don't know why you have your gun with you, and I have no intention of preventing you from doing whatever you want.'
He stood up. 'Make your father proud, Beate.'
As he grabbed the door handle he heard Beate sobbing. He turned.
'You don't understand!' she sobbed. 'I thought I could . . . I thought it was a kind of . . . a score to settle.'
Harry remained motionless. Then he pushed a chair close to her, sat down and placed a hand against her cheek. Her tears were hot and rolled over his rough hand as she spoke. 'You join the police because you have some idea that there has to be order, a balance to things, don't you. A reckoning, justice and all that. And then one day you have the chance you have always dreamed of, to even the scores. Only to find out that's not what you want after all.' She sniffled. 'My mother once said there's only one thing worse than not satisfying a desire. And that is not to feel any desire. Hatred - it's sort of all you have left when you've lost everything else. And then it's taken from you.'
