The Redeemer

by Jo Nesbo

  'Hole speaking.'

  'I can hear.'

  'I've authorised round-the-clock surveillance for Jon Karlsen. And I didn't authorise his removal from Ullevål Hospital.'

  'The hospital determines the latter,' Hagen said. 'And I determine the former.'

  Harry counted three houses in the white landscape before answering. 'You put me in charge of this investigation, Hagen.'

  'Yes, but not of overtime expenses. Which as you ought to know went over-budget ages ago.'

  'The boy's scared out of his wits,' Harry said. 'So you put him in the flat belonging to the killer's previous victim, his own brother. To save the few hundred kroner a day a hotel room would have cost.'

  The loudspeakers announced the next stop.

  'Lillestrøm?' Hagen sounded surprised. 'Are you on the airport express?'

  Harry mouthed a silent curse. 'Quick trip to Bergen.'

  'Is that so?'

  Harry gulped. 'I'll be back this afternoon.'

  'Are you out of your mind, man? We're under the spotlight here. The media—'

  'A tunnel's coming,' Harry said, pressing the red button.

  Ragnhild Gilstrup awoke slowly from a dream. It was dark in the room. She knew it was morning, but she didn't know what the sound was. It was like a large, mechanical clock. But they didn't have any clocks like that in the bedroom. She rolled over and recoiled. In the gloom she saw a naked figure standing by the foot of the bed watching her.

  'Good morning, darling,' he said.

  'Mads! You frightened me.'

  'Oh?'

  He had just had a shower. Behind him the door to the bathroom was open and the ticking sound came from the soft, resonant drips of water from his body onto the parquet floor.

  'Have you been standing like that for long?' she asked, pulling the duvet round her more tightly.

  'How do you mean?'

  She shrugged, but was taken aback. There was something about the way he said it. Cheery, almost teasing. And the tiny smile. He never used to be like that. She stretched and yawned – a sham, she acknowledged to herself.

  'When did you get home last night?' she asked. 'I didn't wake up.'

  'You must have been enjoying the sleep of the innocent.' Again that little smile.

  She studied him. Over recent months he had indeed changed. He had always been slim, but now he looked stronger and fitter. And there was something about his stance; he seemed to have become more erect. Of course she had wondered if he had a lover, but that had not bothered her overmuch. Or so she thought.

  'Where were you?' she asked.

  'Meal with Jan Petter Sissener.'

  'The stockbroker?'

  'Yes. He thinks the market prospects are good. Also for property.'

  'Isn't it my job to talk to him?' she asked.

  'Just like to keep myself up to date.'

  'You don't think I keep you up to date, dear?'

  He looked at her. Held her gaze until she felt something that never happened when she was speaking to Mads: blood suffusing her face.

  'I'm sure you tell me what I need to know, darling.' He went into the bathroom where she heard him turn on the tap.

  'I've been examining a couple of interesting property ideas,' she shouted, mostly to say something, to break the strange silence that had followed the last thing he said.

  'Me too,' Mads shouted. 'I went to have a look at an apartment building in Gøteborggata yesterday. The one the Salvation Army owns, you know.'

  She froze. Jon's flat.

  'Fine property. But do you know what? There was police tape over the door to one of the flats. A resident told me there had been a shooting there. Can you imagine?'

  'Well I never,' she shouted. 'What was the police tape for?'

  'That's what the police do, secure the premises while they turn the flat upside down for fingerprints and DNA to find out who's been there. Anyway, the Salvation Army may be willing to lower the price if there's been a shooting in the building, don't you think?'

  'They don't want to sell. I've told you.'

  'They didn't want to sell, darling.'

  A thought struck her. 'Why would the police search the flat if the shooting came from the corridor outside?'

  She heard Mads turn off the tap and looked up. He was standing in the doorway, with a yellow smile in the white shaving foam and a razor in his hand. And soon he would sprinkle on the expensive aftershave she could not bear.

  'What are you talking about?' he said. 'I didn't say anything about corridors. And why so pale, darling?'

  * * *

  The day had risen late and there was still a layer of transparent icy mist hanging over Sofienberg Park as Ragnhild hurried up Helgesens gate breathing into her beige Bottega Veneta scarf. Even wool bought in Milan for nine thousand kroner could not keep the cold out, but at least it covered her face.

  Fingerprints. DNA. To find out who had been there. That must not happen; the consequences would be disastrous.

  She rounded the corner to Gøteborggata. There weren't any police cars outside anyway.

  The key slid into the lock of the main entrance, and she scuttled in towards the lift. It was a long time since she had been here, and the first time she was arriving unannounced, of course.

  Her heart was pounding as the lift was going up and she was thinking of her hair in his shower cabinet, clothing fibres in the carpet, fingerprints everywhere.

  The corridor was empty. The orange tape across the door showed that no one was at home, but she knocked anyway and waited. Then she took out the key and tried it. It didn't fit. She tried again, but could only get the tip into the cylinder. Christ, had Jon changed the lock? She took a deep breath, turned the key round and said a silent prayer.

  The key slipped in and the lock gave a gentle click as it opened.

  She inhaled the smell of the flat that she knew so well and made for the wardrobe where she knew he kept the vacuum cleaner. It was a black Siemens VS08G2040, the same model as they had at home, 2000 watts, the most powerful on the market. Jon liked things to be clean. The vacuum cleaner gave a hoarse roar as she plugged it in at the wall. It was ten o'clock. She should be able to clean all the floors and wipe all the walls and surfaces within an hour. She regarded the closed bedroom door and wondered whether to start there. Where the memories, and the evidence, were strongest. No. She placed the nozzle of the vacuum cleaner against her forearm. It felt like a bite. She pulled it away and saw that blood had already gathered.

  She had been cleaning for a few minutes when she remembered. The letters! God, she had almost forgotten they might find the letters she had written. The first ones in which she had written about her innermost dreams and desires, and the last ones, the desperate, naked ones where she had implored him to get in touch. She left the vacuum cleaner on, draped the hose over a chair and ran over to Jon's desk and began to pull out the drawers. The first contained pens, tape and a hole punch. The second telephone directories. The third was locked. Of course.

  She grabbed the letter opener from the bureau, forced it in above the lock and leaned with all her strength against the shaft. The old, dry wood creaked. And while she was thinking the letter opener would break, the front of the drawer split along its length. She pulled out the drawer with a jerk, brushed away the wooden splinters and looked down at the envelopes. The piles of them. Her fingers flipped through them. Hafslund Energi. Den norske Bank. Intelligent Finance. The Salvation Army. A blank envelope. She opened it. 'Dear Son,' it said at the top. She continued to flick through the pile. There! The envelope bore the investment fund's name – Gilstrup Invest – in a discreet pale blue, down in the right-hand corner.

  Relieved, she took out the letter.

  When she had finished reading she laid the letter aside and felt the tears streaming down her cheeks. It was as though her eyes had been opened again, as though she had been blind and now she could see and everything was as it had been. As though everything she had believed in and had once rejec
ted was true again. The letter had been brief, yet, after reading it, everything was changed.

  The vacuum cleaner groaned without remorse and drowned everything except the simple, unambiguous sentences on the writing paper, their absurd and at the same time self-evident logic. She didn't hear the traffic from the street, the creaking of the door or the person standing right behind her chair. It wasn't until she caught his aroma that the hairs on her neck stood up.

  The SAS plane landed at Flesland Airport buffeted by westerly gales. In the taxi to Bergen the windscreen wipers hissed and the studded winter tyres crunched on wet, black tarmac as they cut their way between cliff faces with comb-overs of wet grassy tufts and bare trees. Winter in western Norway.

  When they arrived in Fyllingsdalen, Skarre rang.

  'We've found something.'

  'Out with it then.'

  'We've been through Robert Karlsen's hard drive. The only thing of doubtful character was cookies to a couple of porn sites on the Net.'

  'We would have found that on your computer too, Skarre. Get to the point.'

  'We didn't find any persons of doubtful character in the papers or letters, either.'

  'Skarre . . .' Harry warned.

  'On the other hand, we did find an interesting ticket stub,' he said. 'Guess where to.'

  'I'll clobber you.'

  'To Zagreb,' Skarre hurried to add. And then when Harry didn't answer: 'In Croatia.'

  'Thank you. When was he there?'

  'In October. Departure 12 October, returning the same evening.'

  'Mm. Just the one October day in Zagreb. Doesn't sound like a holiday.'

  'I checked with his boss at Fretex in Kirkeveien, and she says that Robert didn't do any jobs abroad for them.'

  Harry rang off wondering why he hadn't told Skarre he was pleased with his work. He could have done that, no problem. Was he becoming mean in his old age? No, he thought, as he took the four kroner change from the taxi driver; he had always been mean.

  Harry stepped out into a sad, gonorrhoeal discharge of a Bergen squall which, according to myth, starts one afternoon in September and finishes one afternoon in March. He walked the few paces to the front door of Børs Kafé and stood inside scanning the room and wondering what the imminent smoking law would do to places like this. Harry had been to Børs twice before and it was a place where he instinctively felt at home, yet an outsider at the same time. The waiters bustled around wearing red jackets and expressions that said they were working at a high-class establishment while serving half-litres and bone-dry witticisms to local crabbers, retired fishermen, hardy wartime seamen and others whose lives had capsized. The first time Harry went there a washed-up celeb had been dancing the tango with a fisherman between the tables while an older lady dressed to the nines had sung German ballads to accordion accompaniment and reeled off rhythmic obscenities with heavily rolled 'r's during the instrumental breaks.

  Harry's eyes found what they were looking for, and he headed for the table where a tall, thin man towered over one empty and one almost empty beer glass.

  'Boss.'

  The man's head bobbed up at the sound of Harry's voice. His eyes followed after a slight delay. Behind the mist of intoxication his pupils were contracting.

  'Harry.' To his surprise, the voice was clear and distinct.

  Harry pulled over a free chair from a neighbouring table.

  'Travelling through?' asked Bjarne Møller.

  'Yes.'

  'How did you find me?'

  Harry didn't answer. He had been prepared, but still he could hardly believe what he was seeing.

  'So they're gossiping at the station, are they? Well, well.' Møller took another deep draught from the glass. 'Strange change of roles, isn't it. It used to be me who found you like this. Beer?'

  Harry leaned over the table. 'What's happened, boss?'

  'What's usually happened when a grown man drinks during working hours, Harry?'

  'He's either been given the sack or his wife's left him.'

  'I haven't been given the boot yet. As far as I know.' Møller laughed. His shoulders shook, but no sound came out.

  'Has Kari . . . ?' Harry stopped, not knowing quite how to formulate the words.

  'She and the kids didn't come with me. That's OK. That was decided in advance.'

  'What?'

  'I miss the boys, of course I do. I'm managing though. This is just . . . what do they call it? . . . a passing phase . . . but there's a more elegant word . . . trans . . . no.' Bjarne Møller's head had sunk down over his glass.

  'Let's go for a walk,' Harry said, waving his hand for the bill.

  Twenty-five minutes later Harry and Bjarne Møller were standing in the same rain cloud by a railing on Fløien mountain, looking down on what might have been Bergen. A cable car sliced diagonally like a piece of cake and pulled by thick steel wires had transported them up from the town centre.

  'Was that why you came here?' Harry asked. 'Because you and Kari were going to split up.'

  'It rains here as much as they say,' Møller said.

  Harry sighed. 'Drinking doesn't help, boss. Things get worse.'

  'That's my line, Harry. How are you getting on with Gunnar Hagen?'

  'OK. Good lecturer.'

  'Don't make the mistake of underestimating him, Harry. He's more than a lecturer. Gunnar Hagen was in FSK for seven years.'

  'Special Forces?' Harry asked in surprise.

  'Indeed. I was told that by the Chief Superintendent. Hagen was redeployed in FSK in 1981 when the force was set up to protect our oil rigs in the North Sea. As it's secret service, it's never been on any CV.'

  'FSK,' Harry said, conscious that the ice-cold rain was seeping through his jacket onto his shoulders. 'I've heard the loyalty there is uncommonly fierce.'

  'It's like a brotherhood,' Møller said. 'Impenetrable.'

  'Do you know anyone else who's been in it?'

  Møller shook his head. He already looked sober. 'Anything new in the investigation? I've been given some insider information.'

  'We don't even have a motive.'

  'The motive's money,' Møller said, clearing his throat. 'Greed, the illusion that things will change if you have money. That you can change.'

  'Money.' Harry looked at Møller. 'Maybe,' he demurred.

  Møller spat with disgust into the grey soup in front of them. 'Find the money. Find the money and follow it. It will always lead you to the answer.'

  Harry had never heard him talk like that before, not with this bitter certainty, as though he had an insight he would have preferred not to possess.

  Harry breathed in and took the plunge. 'Boss, you know I don't like to beat about the bush, so here it is. You and I are the types of people who don't have many friends. And even though you may not regard me as a friend I am at any rate something of the kind.'