The Redeemer

by Jo Nesbo

  When, at last, he did look up he was staring into the darkness and he knew he was in the basement and not in reception, which for some strange reason was floor 1 in this country.

  He stepped out of the lift and the doors closed behind him. In the dark he sat down and tried to think clearly. Because this upset all his plans. The airport bus left in eight minutes. That was all the time he had to make a decision.

  'I'm trying to look at some pictures here,' Harry said in desperation.

  Halvorsen peered up from his desk opposite Harry's. 'Be my guest.'

  'Stop snapping your fingers then. Why do you do that?'

  'This?' Halvorsen looked at his fingers, snapped them and, a little abashed, laughed. 'It's just an old habit.'

  'Oh yes?'

  'My dad was a fan of Lev Yashin, the Russian goalkeeper in the sixties.'

  Harry waited for him to go on.

  'My dad wanted me to be the keeper at the Steinkjer club. So when I was small he used to snap his fingers between my eyes. Like this. To harden me, so that I wouldn't be afraid of shots at goal. Apparently, Yashin's father had done the same. If I didn't blink, I got a sugar cube.'

  The words were followed by a moment of total silence in the office.

  'You're kidding,' Harry said.

  'No. Nice brown sugar.'

  'I meant the snapping. Is it true?'

  'Absolutely. He did it all the time. During mealtimes, when we were watching TV, even when my pals were there. In the end I started doing it to myself. I wrote Yashin on all my school bags and carved his name into my desk. Even now I always use Yashin as my password on computer programs or anything that needs one. Despite knowing that I am being manipulated. Do you understand?'

  'No. Did the snapping help?'

  'Yes, I'm not afraid of shots coming at me.'

  'So you . . .'

  'No. Turned out I had no ball sense.'

  Harry pinched his top lip between two fingers.

  'Can you see anything in the pictures?' Halvorsen asked.

  'Not when you're sitting there snapping your fingers. And talking.'

  Halvorsen gave a slow shake of the head. 'Shouldn't we be on our way to the Salvation Army Headquarters?'

  'When I've finished. Halvorsen!'

  'Yes?'

  'Do you have to breathe so . . . weirdly?'

  Halvorsen clamped his mouth shut and held his breath. Harry's eyes shot up, and back down again. Halvorsen thought he caught a hint of a smile. But he wouldn't have put money on it. Now the smile was gone, replaced by a deep furrow in the inspector's brow.

  'Come and have a look at this, Halvorsen.'

  Halvorsen walked round the desks. There were two photographs in front of Harry, both of the crowds in Egertorget.

  'Can you see the man with the woollen hat and neckerchief at the side?' Harry pointed to a grainy face. 'He's right in line with Robert Karlsen on the very edge of the band, isn't he?'

  'Yes . . .'

  'But look at this picture. There. The same hat and the same neckerchief, but now he's in the middle, right in front of the band.'

  'Is that so strange? He must have moved to the middle to hear and see better.'

  'But what if he did that in reverse order?' Halvorsen didn't answer, so Harry went on. 'You don't change a place at the front for somewhere by the speaker where you can't see the band. Unless you have a good reason.'

  'To shoot someone?'

  'Cut the flippancy.'

  'OK, but you don't know which photo was taken first. I bet he moved to the middle.'

  'How much?'

  'Two hundred.'

  'Done. Look at the light under the lamp post. It's in both photos.' Harry passed Halvorsen a magnifying glass. 'Can you see any difference?'

  Halvorsen nodded slowly.

  'Snow,' Harry said. 'On the photo with him at the side it's snowing. When it started in the evening, yesterday, it didn't stop until well into the night. So that photo was taken later. We'll have to call that Wedlog guy from Dagbladet. If he was using a digital camera with an internal clock, he may have the precise time the photo was taken.'

  Hans Wedlog, from Dagbladet, was one of those who swore by singlelens reflex cameras and rolls of film. Hence, as far as the timing of individual photos was concerned, he had to disappoint the inspector.

  'OK,' Hole said. 'Did you cover the concert last night?'

  'Yes, Rødberg and I do all the street-music stuff.'

  'If you use rolls of film, you must have crowd shots lying around somewhere, haven't you?'

  'Yes, I have. And I wouldn't have if I used a digital camera. They would have been deleted already.'

  'That's what I was wondering. I was also wondering whether you would do me a favour.'

  'Uh-huh?'

  'Could you check your film from the day before yesterday to see if you can find a guy with a woollen hat and a black raincoat? And a neckerchief. We're poring over one of your photos right now. Halvorsen can scan it in and send it to you if you're near a computer.'

  Harry could hear Wedlog had reservations. 'I can send you the photos, no problem, but checking them sounds like police work, and as a press guy I don't want to get any lines crossed here.'

  'We're a bit short on time, I'm afraid. Would you like a photo of the police suspect or not?'

  'Does that mean you would let us print it?'

  'Yep.'

  Wedlog's voice warmed up. 'I'm in the lab now, so I can check right away. I took loads of pictures of the crowd, so there's hope. Five minutes.'

  Halvorsen scanned the photo in and sent it, and Harry sat drumming his fingers while they waited.

  'What makes you so sure he was there the evening before?' Halvorsen asked.

  'I'm not sure of anything,' Harry said. 'But if Beate is right and he is a pro, he would have done a recce, and preferably at a time when conditions were as similar to those of the planned hit as possible. And there was a street concert the day before.'

  The five minutes came and went. Eleven minutes later the phone rang.

  'Wedlog here. Sorry, no woolly hats and no black raincoats. And no neckerchief.'

  'Fuck,' Harry said, loud and clear.

  'Apologies. Shall I send them over so that you can check them for yourself? I had the lights focused on the audience that night. You'll have a better view of the faces.'

  Harry hesitated. It was important to prioritise how time was allocated, especially in these critical first twenty-four hours.

  'Send them and we'll look at them later,' Harry said, on the point of giving Wedlog his email address. 'By the way, better if you send them to Lønn at Krimteknisk. She's got a thing about faces. Perhaps she can see something.' He gave Wedlog the address. 'And I don't want my name mentioned in the byline, OK?'

  'Course not. It'll be an "anonymous source in the police force". Nice to do business with you.'

  Harry put down the receiver and nodded to a wide-eyed Halvorsen. 'OK, Junior, let's head for the Salvation Army HQ.'

  Halvorsen glanced over at Harry. The inspector was unable to conceal his impatience as he scanned the noticeboard and the announcements about visiting preachers, music rehearsals and duty rosters. At length the uniformed, grey-haired reception lady was finished with incoming phone calls and turned to them with a smile.

  Harry told her the purpose of their visit in swift, concise terms. She nodded as though she had been expecting them and gave them directions.

  They didn't speak as they waited for the lift, but Halvorsen could see the beads of sweat on the inspector's brow. He knew Harry didn't like lifts. They got out on the fourth floor and Halvorsen followed Harry at a canter through the yellow corridors culminating in an open office door. Harry came to such an abrupt halt that Halvorsen almost crashed into him.

  'Hello there,' Harry said.

  'Hi,' said a woman's voice. 'Is it you again?'

  Harry's sizeable figure filled the doorway and prevented Halvorsen from seeing who was speaking, but he noted th
e change in Harry's voice. 'Indeed it is. The commander?'

  'He's waiting for you. Just go in.'

  Halvorsen followed Harry through the small anteroom, with a quick nod to a small girl-woman behind a desk. The walls of the commander's office were decorated with wooden shields, masks and spears. On the well-stacked bookshelves were carved African figures and pictures of what Halvorsen supposed were the commander's family.

  'Thank you for seeing us at such short notice, herr Eckhoff,' Harry said. 'This is Police Officer Halvorsen.'

  'Tragic business,' said Eckhoff, who had got up from behind his desk and indicated two chairs with his hand. 'The press have been on our backs all day. Let me hear what you have so far.'

  Harry and Halvorsen exchanged glances.

  'We don't wish to go public with it yet, herr Eckhoff.'

  The commander's eyebrows sank menacingly close to his eyes. Halvorsen released a silent sigh and prepared himself for yet another of Harry's cockfights. But then the commander's eyebrows shot back up.

  'Forgive me, Inspector Hole. Professional deformation. As the commanding officer here, I sometimes forget that not everyone reports to me. How can I help?'

  'In a nutshell, I was wondering whether you could imagine any potential motives for what has happened.'

  'Hm. Of course, I have thought about this. It's difficult to see any causes. Robert was a mess, but a nice boy. Quite different from his brother.'

  'Jon isn't nice?'

  'He's not a mess.'

  'What sort of messes was Robert involved in?'

  'Involved? You're suggesting things of which I know nothing. I meant that Robert had no direction in his life, unlike his brother. I knew their father well. Josef was one of our best officers. But he lost his faith.'

  'You said it was a long story. Would it be possible to have a short version?'

  'Good question.' The commander heaved a heavy sigh and gazed out of the window. 'Josef was working in China at the time of floods. Few there had heard about Our Lord, and they were dying like flies. No one, according to Josef 's interpretation of the Bible, would be saved unless they received Jesus; they would burn in hell. He was distributing medicines in the Hunan province. The floodwaters were full of Russell's vipers and many people had been bitten. Even though Josef and his team had taken a whole chest of serum with them, they tended to arrive too late because this snake has a hemotoxic venom which dissolves artery walls and makes victims bleed from the eyes, ears and all other orifices, killing them within one to two hours. I was myself witness to the effects of this venom when I was working as a missionary in Tanzania and saw people bitten by boomslangs. A terrible sight.'

  Eckhoff closed his eyes for a moment.

  'However. In one of the villages Josef and his nurse were giving penicillin to twins who both had pneumonia. While they were doing this, the father came in. He had just been bitten by a Russell's viper in the water on the rice paddy. Josef Karlsen had one dose of serum left which he asked the nurse to load into a syringe and give to the man. In the meantime Josef went outside to evacuate as he, like many others, had stomach cramps and diarrhoea. While he was crouching in the floodwater he was bitten in the testicles and screamed so loudly that everyone knew what had happened. On returning to the house, the nurse said the Chinese heathen refused to let her inject him because if Josef had also been bitten, he wanted Josef to have the serum. And if Josef was allowed to live, he could save many children's lives, and he was only a farmer who didn't even have a farm any more.'

  Eckhoff took a breath.

  'Josef said he was so frightened he didn't even consider rejecting the offer, and told the nurse to give him the injection at once. Afterwards he began to cry while the Chinese farmer tried to console him. After he'd finally pulled himself together he asked the nurse to enquire whether the Chinese heathen had heard of Jesus. She didn't even have time to pose the question because the farmer's trousers started to run red with blood. He died within seconds.'

  Eckhoff watched them as though waiting for the story to sink in. A trained preacher's pause for effect, thought Harry.

  'So the man is burning in hell now?'

  'According to Josef 's understanding of the Bible, yes. However, Josef has renounced religion now.'

  'So that was the reason he lost his faith and left the country?'

  'That was what he told me.'

  Harry nodded and spoke to the notepad he had taken out: 'So now Josef Karlsen will burn because he was unable to accept . . . er, the paradox about faith. Have I understood correctly?'

  'You're moving into a difficult area for theologians, Hole. Are you a Christian?'

  'No. I'm a detective. I believe in proof.'

  'Which means?'

  Harry sneaked a peep at his watch and hesitated before giving a rapid answer, delivered in flat intonation.

  'I have problems with a religion which says that faith in itself is enough for a ticket to heaven. In other words, that the ideal is your ability to manipulate your own common sense to accept something your intellect rejects. It's the same model of intellectual submission that dictatorships have used throughout time, the concept of a higher reasoning without any obligation to discharge the burden of proof.'

  The commander nodded. 'A considered objection, Inspector. And of course you are not the first to have made it. Nevertheless, there are a great many far more intelligent people than you or I who believe. Is that not a paradox to you?'

  'No,' Harry said. 'I meet a lot of people who are more intelligent than me. Some of them kill for reasons neither you nor I can fathom. Do you think Robert's death may be directed against the Salvation Army?'

  The commander's instinctive reaction was to sit bolt upright in his chair.

  'If you think this is the action of a politically motivated group, I doubt it. The Salvation Army line has always been to remain neutral in political matters. And we have been pretty consistent in this. Not even during the Second World War did we come out with a public condemnation of the German occupation. We went about our work as before.'

  'Congratulations,' Halvorsen commented drily, and received a warning glare from Harry.

  'The one invasion we have given our blessing to is that of 1888,' Eckhoff said, undaunted, 'when the Swedish Salvation Army decided to occupy Norway, and we had the first soup station in the poorest working-class district of Oslo. Where your Police HQ is situated now, you know, boys.'

  'No one bears a grudge against you for that, I would imagine,' Harry said. 'It seems to me that the Salvation Army is more popular than ever.'

  'Well, yes and no,' Eckhoff said. 'We enjoy the trust of the Norwegian people. We can feel that. But recruitment is so-so. This autumn there were only eleven cadets at the Officer Training School in Asker although the hall of residence has room for sixty. And since it is our policy to adhere to a conservative interpretation of the Bible on issues such as homosexuality, it goes without saying that we are not popular in all quarters. We will catch up, we will, we're just a bit slower than our more liberal counterparts. But do you know what? I think in our changing times it doesn't matter so much if some things move a little slower.' He smiled at Halvorsen and Harry in a way that suggested they had expressed agreement. 'Anyway, younger personnel will take over. With a younger view of things, I assume. At the moment we are about to appoint a new chief of administration and some very young candidates have applied.' He placed a hand on his stomach.