The Redeemer

by Jo Nesbo

  He pressed the point where the final link in the chain met one cuff against the bar of the bed head, but instead of pulling he twisted. After a quarter-turn the link locked against the bar. He tried to twist further, but it wouldn't budge. He tried again, but his hands slipped.

  'Hello?' came the voice from the living room.

  He took a deep breath. Closed his eyes and saw his father with enormous forearms in a short-sleeved shirt before the line of steel rods on the building site. He whispered to the boy: 'Banish all doubt. There's only room for willpower. The steel has no willpower and that's why it always loses.'

  Tore Bjørgen drummed his fingers with impatience on the rococo mirror with the pearl-grey clam adornments. The owner of the antiques shop had told him that 'rococo' was often used in a derogatory sense, to mean the style was over the top, almost grotesque. Tore had realised afterwards that that was what had tipped the balance, when he had made up his mind to take out a loan to be able to lay out the twelve thousand kroner which the mirror had cost.

  The switchboard at Police HQ had tried to put him through to Crime Squad, but no one had picked up and now they were trying the uniformed police.

  He heard sounds from the bedroom. The rattle of chains against the bed. Perhaps Stesolid had not been the most effective sedative after all.

  'Duty officer.' The deep, calm voice startled Tore.

  'Um, this is . . . it's about the reward. For . . . erm, that guy who shot the guy from the Salvation Army.'

  'Who's speaking? And where are you ringing from?'

  'Tore. From Oslo.'

  'Could you be a bit more precise, please?'

  Tore gulped. He had – for several good reasons – exercised his right not to disclose his telephone number when phoning and he knew that now 'unknown number'would be flashing on whatever display the duty officer had.

  'I can help you.' Tore's voice had gone up a register.

  'First of all I need to know—'

  'I've got him here. Chained to the bed.'

  'You've chained someone up, you say?'

  'He's a killer, isn't he? He's dangerous. I saw him with a gun at the restaurant. His name's Christo Stankic. I saw the name in the paper.'

  The other end went quiet for a moment. Then the voice was back, but a little less unruffled. 'Calm down now. Tell me who you are and where you are, then we'll come at once.'

  'And what about the reward?'

  'If this leads to the arrest of the correct person I will confirm that you helped us.'

  'And I'll be given the reward straight away?'

  'Yes.'

  Tore thought. About Cape Town. About Father Christmas in the baking sun. The telephone creaked. He breathed in ready to answer and looked into the twelve thousand kroner rococo mirror. At that moment Tore realised three things. The creaking sound had not come from the telephone. You don't get top-quality mail-order handcuffs in a beginners' pack for 599 kroner. And in all probability he had celebrated his last Christmas.

  'Hello?' said the voice on the telephone.

  Tore Bjørgen would have liked to answer, but a thin nylon string of shiny beads, looking every inch like a Christmas decoration, was blocking the airway essential for the production of sound from vocal cords.

  19

  Thursday, 18 December. The Container.

  FOUR PEOPLE WERE IN THE CAR DRIVING THROUGH THE darkness and the snow between the high drifts.

  'Østgård is up here to the left,' Jon said from the back seat where he had his arm around Thea's cowed figure.

  Halvorsen turned off the main road. Harry observed the scattered farmhouses, lit up and flashing like lighthouses at the tops of hills or among clumps of trees.

  As Harry had said that Robert's flat was no longer a safe hideout, Jon had himself suggested Østgård. And insisted on Thea joining him.

  Halvorsen swung onto the drive between a white farmhouse and a red barn.

  'We'll have to ring the neighbour and ask him to clear away some snow with his tractor,' Jon said as they waded through the fresh snow towards the farmhouse.

  'Nothing doing,' Harry said. 'No one must know you're here. Not even the police.'

  Jon walked over to the house wall beside the steps, counted five boards and plunged his hand in the snow and under the boarding.

  'Here,' he said, holding up a key.

  It felt even colder indoors than outside, and the painted wooden walls seemed to have frozen into ice blocks, rendering their voices harsh. They stamped the snow off their footwear and entered a large kitchen with a solid table, kitchen cabinet, storage bench and Jøtul woodburning stove in the corner.

  'I'll get the fire going.' Jon's breath was icy and he rubbed his hands for warmth. 'There's probably some firewood inside the bench, but we'll need more from the woodshed.'

  'I can get it,' Halvorsen said.

  'You'll have to dig a pathway. There are two spades in the porch.'

  'I'll join you,' Thea mumbled.

  It had stopped snowing and the weather was clearing. Harry stood by the window smoking and watching Halvorsen and Thea shovelling the light, fresh snow in the white moonlight. The stove was crackling and Jon was on his haunches staring into the flames.

  'How did your girlfriend take the Ragnhild Gilstrup business?' Harry asked.

  'She's forgiven me,' he said. 'As I said, it was before her time.'

  Harry watched his cigarette glow. 'Still no ideas about what she might have been doing in your flat?'

  Jon shook his head.

  'I don't know whether you noticed,' Harry said, 'but it looked as though the bottom drawer of your desk had been broken into. What did you keep there?'

  Jon shrugged. 'Personal things. Letters for the most part.'

  'Love letters? From Ragnhild, for example?'

  Jon blushed. 'I . . . don't remember. I threw away most of them, but I may have kept the odd couple. I kept the drawer locked.'

  'So that Thea wouldn't find them if she was alone in the flat?'

  Jon gave a slow nod.

  Harry went out to the steps overlooking the farmyard, took a few final drags on his cigarette, threw it into the snow and took out his mobile phone. Gunnar Hagen answered on the third ring.

  'I've moved Jon Karlsen,' Harry said.

  'Be specific.'

  'Not necessary.'

  'Pardon?'

  'He's safer now than he was. Halvorsen will stay here tonight.'

  'Where, Hole?'

  'Here.'

  Listening to the silence on the phone, Harry had an inkling of what was coming. Then Hagen's voice came through loud and clear.

  'Hole, your commanding officer has just asked you a specific question. Refusing to answer is regarded as insubordination. Am I making myself clear?'

  Harry often wished he had been wired in a different way and that he possessed a bit more of the social survival instinct most people have. But he didn't, and he never had done.

  'Why is it important for you to know, Hagen?'

  Hagen's voice shook with fury. 'I'll tell you when you can ask me questions, Hole. Have you got that?'

  Harry waited. And waited. And then, hearing Hagen take a deep breath he said: 'Skansen Farm.'

  'What did you say?'

  'It's east of Strømmen. The police training ground in Løren Forest.'

  'I see,' Hagen said at length.

  Harry rang off and punched in another number while watching Thea, who, illuminated by the moon, was standing and staring in the direction of the outside toilet. She had stopped shovelling snow and her body was frozen in a strange pose.

  'Skarre here.'

  'Harry. Anything new?'

  'No.'

  'No tip-offs?'

  'Nothing serious.'

  'But people are ringing in?'

  'Christ, yes, they've twigged there's a reward on offer. Bad idea, if you ask me. Loads of extra work for us.'

  'What do they say?'

  'What don't they say! They describe faces they'
ve seen that are similar. The funniest one was a guy who rang the duty officer claiming he had chained Stankic to his bed at home and asked if he was entitled to the reward.'

  Harry waited until Skarre's peal of laughter died away. 'How did they establish that he hadn't?'

  'They didn't need to. He put down the phone. Obviously confused. He claimed he had seen Stankic before. With a gun in the restaurant. What are you up to?'

  'We— What did you say?'

  'I asked if—'

  'No, the bit about seeing Stankic with a gun.'

  'Ha ha, people have got fertile imaginations, haven't they.'

  'Put me through to the duty officer you spoke to.'

  'Well—'

  'Now, Skarre.'

  Harry was put through, spoke to the officer in charge and after three sentences asked him to stay on the line.

  'Halvorsen!' Harry's shout rang around the farmyard.

  'Yes?' Halvorsen appeared in the moonlight in front of the barn.

  'What's the name of that waiter who saw a guy in the toilet with a gun covered in soap?'

  'How am I supposed to remember that?'

  'I don't care how, just do it.'

  In the night stillness the echoes rang out between the walls of the house and the barn.

  'Tore something or other. Maybe.'

  'Bullseye! Tore's the name he gave on the phone. Good man. And now the surname, please.'

  'Er . . . Bjørg? No. Bjørang? No . . .'

  'Come on, Lev Yashin!'

  'Bjørgen. That was it. Bjørgen.'

  'Drop the spade. You have permission to drive like a maniac.'

  * * *

  A police car stood waiting for them as twenty-eight minutes later Halvorsen and Harry drove past Vestkanttorget and turned into Schives gate to Tore Bjørgen's address, which the duty officer had been given by the head waiter at Biscuit.

  Halvorsen came to a halt next to the police car and rolled down the window.

  'Second floor,' the policewoman in the driver's seat said, pointing up to an illuminated window in the grey-brick facade.

  Harry leaned across Halvorsen. 'Halvorsen and I'll go up. One of you stay here in contact with the station, and one of you come with us to the backyard and keep an eye on the kitchen stairs. Have you got a gun in the boot I can borrow?'

  'Yep,' the woman said.

  Her male colleague bent forward. 'You're Harry Hole, aren't you?'

  'That's right, Officer.'

  'Someone at the station said you don't have a gun licence.'

  'Didn't have, Officer.'

  'Oh?'

  Harry smiled. 'Overslept the first shooting test in the autumn. But you will be pleased to know that in the second I was the third best in the whole force. OK?'

  The two officers exchanged glances.

  'OK,' the man mumbled.

  Harry jerked open the car door and the frozen rubber seal groaned. 'OK, let's check if there's anything in this tip-off.'

  For the second time in two days Harry had an MP5 in his hands as he buzzed the intercom of someone called Sejerstedt and explained to a nervous lady's voice that they were from the police. She could go to the window and see the police car before she opened up. She did as he suggested. The female officer went into the backyard and took up position while Halvorsen and Harry went up the staircase.

  The name Tore Bjørgen was written in black on a brass plate above a doorbell. Harry thought of Bjarne Møller, who the first time they had gone into action together had taught Harry the simplest and still the most effective method of finding out whether someone was at home. He pressed his ear against the glass in the door. There wasn't a sound from inside.

  'Loaded and safety catch off ?' Harry whispered.

  Halvorsen had taken out his service revolver and was standing against the wall on the left of the door.

  Harry rang.

  Holding his breath, he listened.

  Then he rang a second time.

  'To break in or not to break in,' Harry whispered, 'that is the question.'

  'In that case we should have phoned the public prosecutor first for a search—'

  Halvorsen was interrupted by the tinkle of glass as Harry's MP5 struck the door. Harry thrust his hand in and opened up.

  They slipped into the hall and Harry pointed to the doors Halvorsen should check. He went into the living room. Empty. But he noticed at once that the mirror over the telephone table had been hit by something hard. A round piece of glass in the middle had fallen out and, as though from a black sun, black lines radiated out to the gilt ornamental frame. Harry concentrated on the door at the end of the room that stood ajar.

  'No one in the kitchen or bathroom,' Halvorsen whispered behind him.

  'OK. Brace yourself.'

  Harry moved towards the door. He could sense it now. If there was anything here they would find it inside. A defective exhaust silencer went off outside. The brakes of a tram squealed in the distance. Harry noticed that he had hunched up as if by instinct. To make himself the smallest target possible.

  He pushed open the door with the muzzle of the machine gun and neatly stepped in and to the side so as not to be silhouetted. Hugged the wall keeping his finger on the trigger and waited for his eyes to get used to the dark.

  In the light that came through the doorway he saw a large bed with brass rails. A pair of naked legs protruded from under the duvet. He strode forward, took the duvet by the end and whipped it off.

  'Wow!' Halvorsen exclaimed. He was standing in the doorway and slowly lowered his revolver as he stared at the bed in amazement.

  He took stock of the fence. Then he began his run-up and launched himself, using the worm-like movements on his way up that Bobo had taught him. The gun in his pocket hit him in the stomach as he swung himself over. In the light of the street lamp, on the ice-covered tarmac on the other side, he saw that there was a big tear in his blue jacket. White material billowed out.

  A sound made him move away from the light, into the shadow of the containers that were lined up on top of each other in the huge port area. He listened and watched. The wind whistled through the broken windows of a dark, derelict wooden hut.

  He didn't know why, but he felt he was being observed. No, not observed, he had been discovered, caught. Someone knew he was there, but they may not have seen him. His eyes searched the illuminated fence for possible alarms. Nothing.