The Redeemer

by Jo Nesbo

  'What you saw was someone who was with the police for twelve years, but is not any more. I stopped two years ago.' Harry met the barman's scrutiny. And wondered to himself what the man had been inside for. The size of his muscles and tattoos suggested he had been given a long sentence.

  'No one calling themselves a redeemer lives here. And I know everyone.'

  The barman was about to turn away when Harry leaned over the counter and grabbed his upper arm. The barman looked down at Harry's hand, and Harry could feel the man's biceps swelling. Harry let go. 'My son was shot by a dealer standing outside his school selling shit. Because he told him he would report him to the head teacher if he continued.'

  The barman didn't answer.

  'He was eleven when he died,' Harry said.

  'I have no idea why you're telling me this, mister.'

  'So that you understand why I'm going to sit here and wait until someone comes to help me.'

  The barman nodded slowly. The question came lightning fast. 'What was your boy's name?'

  'Oleg,' Harry said.

  They stood facing each other. The barman screwed up one eye. Harry could feel his mobile phone vibrating in his pocket, but let it ring.

  The barman rested his hand on the envelope and pushed it back to Harry. 'This is not necessary. What's your name and where are you staying?'

  'I've come straight from the airport.'

  'Write your name on this serviette and go to Balkan Hotel by the train station. Over the bridge and straight ahead. Wait in your room. Someone will contact you.'

  Harry was about to say something, but the barman had turned back to the TV and resumed his commentary.

  When he went outside, Harry saw he had a missed call from Halvorsen.

  'Do vraga!' he groaned. Shit!

  The snow in Gøteborggata looked like red sorbet.

  He was confused. Everything had happened so fast. The last bullet which he had fired at the fleeing Jon Karlsen had hit the outside of the flat with a soft thud. Jon Karlsen had fled through the door and was gone. He crouched down and heard the bloodstained glass tear the material of his jacket pocket. The policeman was lying face down in the snow, which was drinking in the blood flowing from the slashes to his neck.

  The gun, he thought, and grabbed the man's shoulder and turned him over. He needed a weapon to shoot with. A gust of wind blew the hair away from the unnaturally pale face. In haste, he searched through the coat pockets. The blood flowed and flowed, thick and red. He barely had time to sense the acidic taste of bile before his mouth was full. He turned, and the yellow contents of his stomach splashed over the blue ice. He wiped around his mouth. The trouser pockets. Found a wallet. Trouser waistband. For Christ's sake, cop, you must have a gun if you have to protect someone!

  A car swung round the corner and came towards them. He took the wallet, stood up, crossed the road and began to walk. The car stopped. Mustn't run. He began to run.

  He slipped on the pavement by the corner shop and landed on his hip, but was up in a second without feeling any pain. Headed for the park, the same way he went last time. This was a nightmare with an unending succession of meaningless events. Had he gone mad or were these things really happening? Cold air and bile stung his throat. He had reached Markveien when he heard the first police sirens. And he knew. He was frightened.

  22

  Friday, 19 December. The Miniatures.

  THE POLICE STATION WAS LIT UP LIKE A CHRISTMAS TREE in the afternoon gloom. Inside, in Interview Room 2, Jon Karlsen sat with his head in his hands. On the other side of the small round table in the cramped room sat Officer Toril Li. Between them two microphones and the copy of the prime witness's statement. Through the window Jon could see Thea waiting for her turn in the adjacent room.

  'So he attacked you, did he?' the policewoman said while reading the statement.

  'The man with the blue jacket came running towards us with a gun.'

  'And then?'

  'It happened so fast. I was so frightened I can only remember fragments. Perhaps I've got concussion.'

  'I see,' said Toril Li with an expression that bespoke the opposite. She glanced at the red light that told her the machine was still recording.

  'But Halvorsen ran to the car?'

  'Yes, his gun was there. I remember he put it in the centre console before we set out from Østgård.'

  'And what did you do?'

  'I was confused. At first I thought of hiding in the car, but then I changed my mind and ran to the front door of the nearby building.'

  'And the gunman fired a shot at you?'

  'I heard a bang, anyway.'

  'Go on.'

  'I made it inside and when I looked out he had attacked Halvorsen.'

  'Who hadn't got into the car?'

  'No. He had been complaining the door was stuck because of the cold.'

  'And the man attacked Halvorsen with a knife, not a gun?'

  'It looked like that from where I was standing. He jumped on Halvorsen from behind and stabbed him several times.'

  'How many times?'

  'Four or five. I don't know . . . I . . .'

  'And then?'

  'Then I ran down to the basement and called you on the emergency number.'

  'But the gunman didn't go after you?'

  'I don't know. The door was locked, wasn't it.'

  'But he could have smashed the glass. I mean, he had already stabbed a policeman.'

  'Yes, you're right. I don't know.'

  Toril Li looked down at the statement. 'Vomit was found beside Halvorsen. We assume it belongs to the gunman, but can you confirm that?'

  Jon shook his head. 'I stayed on the basement stairs until you came. Perhaps I ought to have helped . . . but I . . .'

  'Yes?'

  'I was scared.'

  'You probably did the right thing.' Again the expression said something different from the mouth.

  'What do the doctors say? . . . Will he . . . ?'

  'He'll be in a coma until his condition improves. But whether his life can be saved, they don't know yet. Let's move on.'

  'It's like a recurring nightmare,' Jon whispered. 'It just keeps happening. Again and again.'

  'Please don't make me repeat myself. You have to speak into the microphone,' Toril Li intoned.

  Harry stood by the hotel-room window surveying the town in which maimed and mangled TV aerials made strange signs and gestures to the yellow-brown sky. The sound of Swedish from the TV was muted by the thick, dark carpets and curtains. Max von Sydow was playing Knut Hamsun. The minibar door was open. The hotel's brochure lay on the coffee table. On the front page was a picture of the statue of Josip Jelacic in Jelacic Square, and on top of Jelacic were four miniature bottles. Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Jägermeister and Gordon's. As well as two bottles of Ozujsko beer. None of the bottles had been opened. Yet. Skarre had phoned an hour ago to tell him what had happened in Gøteborggata.

  He wanted to be sober when he made this call.

  Beate answered on the fourth ring.

  'He's alive,' she said before Harry could ask. 'They've put him on a respirator and he's in a coma.'

  'What do the doctors say?'

  'They don't know, Harry. He could have died on the spot because it looks as though Stankic tried to sever his main artery, but he managed to get his hand in between. He has a deep cut on the back of his hand and bleeding from smaller arteries on both sides of the neck. Then Stankic stabbed him several times in the chest above the heart. The doctors say the knife may have caught the tip.'

  Apart from an almost imperceptible tremor in the voice, she could have been talking about any victim at all. Harry knew it was the only way she could talk about this right now; as a part of the job. In the silence Max von Sydow roared with indignation. Harry was searching for words of comfort.

  'I've been talking to Toril Li,' he said instead. 'She reported back on Karlsen's statement. Have you got anything to add?'

  'We found the bullet
in the front of the building, to the right of the door. The ballistics guys are checking it out now, but I'm pretty sure it will match the bullets in Egertorget, Jon's flat and outside the Hostel. This is Stankic.'

  'What makes you so sure?'

  'A couple driving by stopped when they saw Halvorsen lying on the pavement. They said they saw someone resembling a beggar crossing the street in front of them. The girl said he slipped on the pavement a bit further down. We checked the place. My colleague, Bjørn Holm, found a foreign coin buried so deep in the snow that at first we thought it must have been there for a few days. He didn't know where it was from, either, as all we could see was Republika Hrvatska and five kune. So he checked.'

  'Thanks, I know the answer,' Harry said. 'So it is Stankic.'

  'We've taken samples of the vomit on the ice to make sure. The pathologists are checking the DNA against hairs we found on the pillow in his hostel room. We get the results tomorrow, I hope.'

  'Then we know we have DNA at any rate.'

  'Well, funnily enough, a pool of vomit is not the ideal place to get DNA. Surface cells from the mucous membranes are scattered when there is such a volume of sick. And under the open sky—'

  '—they are exposed to pollution from innumerable other DNA sources. I know all that, but at least we have something to go on now. What are you doing at the moment?'

  Beate sighed. 'I've received a rather strange text message from the Veterinary Institute and have to ring up and find out what they mean.'

  'The Veterinary Institute?'

  'Yes, we found some half-digested bits of meat in the vomit, so we sent them for DNA analysis. The idea was they would check them against the meat archive which the Agricultural High School in Ås uses to trace meat to its place of origin and the producer. If it has any special qualities perhaps we can link it to an eating house in Oslo. It's a shot in the dark, but if Stankic has found a bolt-hole in the last twenty-four hours he must be moving as little as possible. And if he has eaten somewhere close by it's probable he would go there again.'

  'Well, why not? What was the text message?'

  'In which case it must be a Chinese restaurant. Bit cryptic.'

  'Mm. Call back when you know any more. And . . .'

  'Yes?'

  Harry could hear that what he was going to say would sound ridiculous: Halvorsen was a toughie; they could do the most extraordinary things nowadays and everything would be fine.

  'Nothing.'

  After Beate had rung off, Harry addressed himself to the table and the bottles. Eeny, meeny . . . Mo was the bottle of Johnnie Walker. Harry held the miniature with one hand and unscrewed – or to be more precise – twisted the top with the other. He felt like Gulliver. Trapped in a foreign land with pygmy bottles. He breathed in the familiar, sweet smell from the narrow opening. It was just a mouthful, but his body was already alarmed by the prospect of a toxic attack and was on full alert. Harry dreaded the inevitable first fit of puking, but knew this would not stop him. On the TV Knut Hamsun said he was tired and could not write any more.

  Harry inhaled as though preparing for a long and deep dive.

  The telephone rang.

  Harry hesitated. The telephone went quiet after one ring.

  He was raising the bottle when the telephone rang again. And went quiet.

  He realised they were calling from reception.

  He put the bottle down on the bedside table and waited. When there was a third ring, he picked up the receiver.

  'Mr Hansen?'

  'Yes.'

  'There is somebody in the lobby for you.'

  Harry stared at the gentleman in the red jacket on the label. 'Say I'm on my way.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  Harry held the bottle with three fingers. Then he leaned back and emptied the contents down his throat. Four seconds later he was bent over the toilet bowl throwing up his airline lunch.

  * * *

  The receptionist pointed to the suite of furniture by the piano where a small, grey-haired woman with a shawl over her shoulders was sitting erect in a chair. She observed Harry with calm, brown eyes as he walked towards her. He stopped in front of the table on which there was a small battery-powered radio. Excited voices were commenting on a sports event, perhaps a football match. The sound merged with a potpourri of classic film muzak that the pianist behind her was concocting as his fingers glided across the keys.

  'Doctor Zhivago,' she said in English with a nod in the direction of the pianist. 'Nice, isn't it, Mr Hansen?'

  Her pronunciation and intonation were precise. She smirked as if she had said something amusing and signalled with a discreet but firm flick of the hand that he should sit down.

  'Do you like music?' Harry asked.

  'Doesn't everyone? I used to teach music.' She leaned forward and turned up the volume of the radio.

  'Are you frightened we're being monitored?'

  She sat back in her chair. 'What do you want, Hansen?'

  Harry repeated the story of his son and the man outside the school, while the bile burned in his throat and the pack of hounds in his stomach snapped and howled for more.

  'How did you find me?' she asked.

  'I was tipped off by a person from Vukovar.'

  'Where do you come from?'

  Harry swallowed. His tongue felt dry and swollen. 'Copenhagen.'

  She studied him. Harry waited. He felt a drop of sweat roll down between his shoulder blades and another forming on his top lip. To hell with this. He needed his medicine. Now.

  'I don't believe you,' she said at length.

  'OK,' Harry said, getting up. 'I have to go.'

  'Wait!' The small woman's voice was firm and she motioned for him to sit down again. 'This does not mean that I don't have eyes in my head,' she said.

  Harry sat down.

  'I can see hatred,' she said. 'And grief. And I can smell booze. I believe the bit about your dead son.' She evinced a brief smile. 'What is it you want done?'

  Harry tried to collect himself. 'How much does it cost? And how quickly can it be done?'

  'That depends, but you won't find any professional operatives more reasonable than us. We start at five thousand euros plus expenses.'

  'OK. Next week?'

  'That . . . may be rather short notice.'

  The woman had hesitated for only a fraction of a second, but it had been enough. Enough for him to know. And now he could see that she knew he knew. The voices on the radio were screaming with excitement and the crowd in the background was cheering. Someone had scored.

  'Aren't you sure your operative will return in time?' Harry said.

  She looked at him long and hard. 'You're still a policeman, aren't you.'

  Harry nodded. 'I'm an inspector in Oslo.'