The Redeemer

by Jo Nesbo

  'I've come here to tell you I don't want you as my enemy.'

  'Enemy?' Mads Gilstrup laughed. 'You lot will always be my enemies. Do you remember the summer you bought Østgård and I was invited by the commander himself, Eckhoff? You were sorry for me. I was the poor boy you'd deprived of childhood memories. You're sensitive about things like that. My God, how I hated you all!' Gilstrup laughed. 'I stood watching you playing and enjoying yourselves as though the place belonged to you. Especially your brother, Robert. He had a way with the girls, he did. Tickled them and took them into the barn and . . .' Gilstrup shifted his foot and hit the bottle, which toppled over with a clunk. Brown alcohol gurgled out onto the parquet floor. 'You didn't see me. None of you saw me. It was as though I didn't exist. You were absorbed in each other. So I thought, well, OK, then I must be invisible. I'll show you what invisible people can do.'

  'Is that why you did it?'

  'Me?' Mads laughed. 'But I'm innocent, Jon Karlsen, aren't I? We, the privileged, always are. Surely you must know that. We always have a clear conscience because we can afford to buy it from others. From those who are employed to serve us, to do the dirty work. That's the law of nature.'

  Jon nodded. 'Why did you ring the policeman and confess?'

  Gilstrup shrugged. 'I thought of ringing the other one, Harry Hole, in fact. But the duffer didn't have a business card, so I rang the one whose number I did have. Halvorsen something or other. I don't remember because I was drunk.'

  'Have you told anyone else?' Jon asked.

  Gilstrup shook his head, picked up the bottle off the floor and took a swig.

  'My father.'

  'Father?' Jon said. 'Ah, yes, of course.'

  'Of course?' Mads chortled. 'Do you love your father, Jon Karlsen?'

  'Yes. Very much.'

  'And do you not agree that love for a father is a curse?' Jon did not answer and Mads went on. 'Father was here right after I phoned the policeman, and when I told him, do you know what he did? He fetched his ski pole and hit me. And he can still hit hard, the bastard. Hatred gives you strength, you know. He said that if I mentioned a word of this to anyone, if I dragged the family's name into the dirt, he would kill me. Those were his exact words. And do you know what?' Mads's eyes filled with tears and a sob caught his voice. 'I still love him. And I think that's what makes him hate me with such passion. The fact that I, his only son, am so weak that I can't even return his hatred.'

  The room echoed as he banged the bottle down hard on the floor.

  Jon folded his hands. 'Listen to me. The policeman who heard your confession is in a coma. If you promise me you will never come after me or mine, I promise I will never reveal what I know about you.'

  Mads Gilstrup did not appear to be listening to Jon. Instead his gaze had turned to the screen where the happy couple were standing with their backs to them. 'Look, now she's saying yes. I play that precise bit again and again because I can't understand it. She swore, didn't she? She . . .' He shook his head. 'I thought it might make her love me again. If I managed to carry out this . . . crime, then she would see me as I am. A criminal must be brave. Strong. A man, isn't that right? Not . . .' he snorted through his nose and spat out the words: 'the son of one.'

  Jon rose to his feet. 'I have to go.'

  Gilstrup nodded. 'I have something that belongs to you. Let's call it . . .' He bit his top lip as he reflected. 'A farewell present from Ragnhild.'

  On the Holmenkollen train Jon sat staring at the black bag he had been given by Mads Gilstrup.

  It was so raw that those who had ventured out for a ramble were walking with hunched shoulders and bowed heads, swathed in hats and scarves. Standing in Jacob Aalls gate and pressing the Miholjec family doorbell, however, Beate Lønn did not feel the cold. She had not felt a thing since the latest message they had received from the hospital.

  'It's not his heart that's the biggest problem now,' the doctor had said. 'The other organs have problems too. Above all his kidneys.'

  Fru Miholjec was waiting in the doorway above the stairs and showed Beate into the kitchen where her daughter Sofia was sitting fidgeting with her hair. Then she filled the kettle and put out three cups.

  'It might be best if I talk to Sofia on my own,' Beate said.

  'She wants me to be present,' fru Miholjec said. 'Coffee?'

  'No thanks. I have to get back to Rikshospitalet. This doesn't have to take long.'

  'Fine,' fru Miholjec said, emptying the kettle.

  Beate sat facing Sofia. Tried to catch eyes which were studying split ends.

  'Are you sure we shouldn't do this on our own, Sofia?'

  'Why should we?' she said in the contrary tone that irritated teenagers use with amazing efficacy to achieve their purpose: to irritate.

  'This is quite a personal thing, Sofia.'

  'She's my mother!'

  'Fine,' said Beate. 'Did you have an abortion?'

  Sofia recoiled. She pulled a grimace, a mixture of anger and pain. 'What are you talking about?' she snapped without quite hiding the surprise in her voice.

  'Who was the father?' Beate asked.

  Sofia continued to smooth out non-existent knots. Fru Miholjec's jaw had dropped.

  'Did you have sex with him of your own free will?' Beate went on. 'Or did he rape you?'

  'How dare you say that to my daughter?' the mother exclaimed. 'She's just a child, and you dare to talk to her as if she were a . . . a whore.'

  'Your daughter was pregnant, fru Miholjec. I need to know if this has any relevance for the murder case we're working on.'

  The mother seemed to have control of her jaw again, and her mouth closed. Beate leaned towards Sofia.

  'Was it Robert Karlsen, Sofia? Was it?'

  She could see the girl's lower lip quivering.

  The mother got up from her chair. 'What is this she's saying, Sofia? Tell me it isn't true.'

  Sofia rested her face on the table and covered her head with her arms.

  'Sofia!' the mother shouted.

  'Yes,' Sofia whispered, stifling a sob. 'It was him. It was Robert Karlsen. I didn't think . . . I had no idea that . . . he was like that.'

  Beate stood up. Sofia was sobbing and the mother looked as though someone had struck her. All Beate felt was numbness. 'The man who killed Robert was caught last night,' she said. 'Special Forces shot him at the container terminal. He's dead.'

  She watched for reactions, but saw none.

  'I'll be off now.'

  No one heard her and she walked to the door unaccompanied.

  He was standing by the window staring across the billowing white countryside. It resembled a sea of milk frozen in mid movement. On the crests of some waves he glimpsed houses and red barns. The sun hung low over the ridge, drained.

  'They're not coming back,' he said. 'They've gone. Or perhaps they were never here? Perhaps you were lying?'

  'They've been here,' Martine said, taking the casserole out of the oven. 'It was warm when we arrived and you saw the prints in the snow yourself. Something must have happened. Sit down, the food's ready.'

  He put the gun beside the plate and ate the stew. He noticed the tins were the same brand as the ones in Harry Hole's flat. There was an old, blue transistor radio on the windowsill playing comprehensible pop music interrupted by incomprehensible Norwegian chat. Right now it was a tune he had once heard in a film, one his mother played now and then on the piano in front of the window which 'was the only one in the house with a view of the Danube', as his father used to joke when he wanted to tease her. And if the teasing nettled her he always used to bring the squabble to an end by asking how such a beautiful, intelligent woman could marry a man like him.

  'Is Harry your lover?' he asked.

  Martine shook her head.

  'Why were you taking him a concert ticket then?'

  She didn't answer.

  He smiled. 'I think you're in love with him.'

  She raised her fork and pointed it at him as though wan
ting to emphasise something, but then changed her mind.

  'What about you? Have you got a girl back home?'

  He shook his head while drinking water from a glass.

  'Why not? Too busy working?'

  He sprayed water all over the tablecloth. Must be the tension, he thought. That was why he burst into hysterical laughter. She laughed with him.

  'Or perhaps you're gay?' she said, wiping away a tear. 'Perhaps you've got a boy back home?'

  He laughed even louder. And continued to laugh long after she had stopped speaking.

  She served both of them more stew.

  'As you like him so much you can have this,' he said, throwing a photo onto the table. It was the one on the hall mirror with Harry, the dark-haired woman and the boy. She picked it up and studied it.

  'He looks happy,' she said.

  'Perhaps he was having a good time. At that moment.'

  'Yes.'

  A greyish darkness had seeped in through the window and settled over the room.

  'Perhaps he'll have good times again,' she said softly.

  'Do you think that's possible?'

  'To have good times again? Of course.'

  He studied the radio behind her. 'Why are you helping me?'

  'I told you, didn't I? Harry wouldn't have helped you and—'

  'I don't believe you. There must be something else.'

  She shrugged.

  'Can you tell me what this says?' he said, unfolding the form he had found in the pile of papers on Harry's coffee table and passing it to her.

  She read while he examined Harry's photograph on the ID card from his flat. The policeman was staring above the camera lens and he guessed Harry was looking at the photographer instead of the camera. And he thought that said something about the man in the picture.

  'It's a requisition form for something called a Smith & Wesson .38,' Martine said. 'He's been asked to show this form, signed, and collect the gun from Stores at Police HQ.'

  He nodded slowly. 'And it has been signed?'

  'Yes. By . . . let me see . . . Chief Inspector Gunnar Hagen.'

  'In other words Harry hasn't collected his gun. And that means he is not dangerous. Right now he is defenceless.'

  Martine blinked twice in quick succession.

  'What is it you have in mind?'

  26

  Saturday, 20 December. The Magic Trick.

  THE STREET LIGHTS WENT ON IN GøTEBORGGATA.

  'OK,' Harry said to Beate. 'So this is where Halvorsen was parked?'

  'Yes.'

  'They got out. And were attacked by Stankic. Who first shot at Jon fleeing into the flats. And then went for Halvorsen who was moving to get his gun from the car.'

  'Yes. Halvorsen was found lying beside the car. We found blood on Halvorsen's coat pockets, trouser pockets and waistband. It isn't his, so we assume it's from Stankic, who must have been searching him. And he took his wallet and mobile phone.'

  'Mm,' Harry said, rubbing his chin. 'Why didn't he just shoot Halvorsen? Why use a knife? He didn't need to be quiet; he'd already woken up the neighbourhood when he shot at Jon.'

  'We were asking ourselves the same question.'

  'And why stab Halvorsen and then flee? The only reason for tackling Halvorsen must be to get him out of the way so that he can grab Jon afterwards. But he doesn't even try.'

  'He was disturbed. A car came, didn't it?'

  'Yes, but we're talking here about a guy who has stabbed a policeman in broad daylight. Why would he be frightened off by a car coming past? And why use a knife when he already had his gun out?'

  'Yes, that's the point.'

  Harry closed his eyes. For a long time. Beate stamped her feet on the snow.

  'Harry,' she said. 'I want to go. I—'

  Harry slowly opened his eyes. 'He'd run out of bullets.'

  'What?'

  'That was Stankic's last bullet.'

  Beate heaved a weary sigh. 'He was a pro, Harry. You don't exactly run out of ammunition, do you?'

  'Yes, that's exactly why,' Harry enthused. 'If you have a detailed plan of how you intend to kill a man and you need one or, maximum, two bullets, you don't take a huge ammo supply with you. You have to enter a foreign country, all baggage is X-rayed and you have to hide it somewhere, don't you?'

  Beate didn't answer.

  Harry went on. 'Stankic fires his last bullet at Jon and misses. So he attacks Halvorsen with a sharp instrument. Why? Well, to get his service revolver off him and chase Jon. That's why there's blood on Halvorsen's waistband. You don't look for a wallet there, you look for a gun. But he doesn't find one because he doesn't know it's in the car. And now Jon has locked himself in the house and Stankic has only a knife. So he gives up and makes a run for it.'

  'Great theory,' Beate said with a yawn. 'We could have asked Stankic, but he's dead. So it doesn't matter.'

  Harry observed Beate. Her eyes were small and red from lack of sleep. She had been tactful enough not to mention that he stank of recent and not so recent booze. Or wise enough to know there was no point confronting him. But he also understood that at this moment she had no confidence in him.

  'What did the witness in the car say?' Harry asked. 'That Stankic made off down the left-hand side of the road?'

  'Yes, she watched him in the mirror. Then he fell on the corner. Where we found a Croatian coin.'

  He focused on the corner. That was where the beggar with the beard had been standing the last time he had been here. Perhaps he had seen something? But now it was minus twenty-two and no one was around.

  'Let's go to Forensics,' Harry said.

  Without a word they drove up Toftes gate to Ring 2. Past Ullevål Hospital. They were passing white gardens and English-style brick houses in Sognsveien when Harry broke the silence.

  'Pull in.'

  'Now? Here?'

  'Yes.'

  She checked her mirror and did as he said.

  'Put the hazard lights on,' Harry said. 'And then concentrate on me. Do you remember the association game I taught you?'

  'You mean the one about speaking before you think?'

  'Or saying what you think before thinking that you shouldn't think that. Empty your mind.'

  Beate closed her eyes. Outside, a family passed them on skis.

  'Ready? OK. Who sent Robert Karlsen to Zagreb?'

  'Sofia's mother.'

  'Mm,' Harry said. 'Where did that come from?'

  'No idea,' Beate said, opening her eyes. 'She has no motive as far as we're aware. And she is definitely not the type. Perhaps because she is a Croat like Stankic. My subconscious doesn't have such complicated thoughts.'