The Redeemer

by Jo Nesbo

  'Who?'

  'Halvorsen. He died in the night. Nine minutes past two. While I was out by the barn.'

  Part Four

  MERCY

  29

  Monday, 22 December.

  The Commanding Officer.

  IT WAS THE SHORTEST DAY OF THE YEAR, BUT FOR INSPECTOR Harry Hole the day seemed impossibly long before it had even started.

  After hearing the news of Halvorsen's death he had first gone for a walk outdoors. Trudged through the deep snow to the woods and sat there watching day break. He had hoped the cold would freeze, alleviate or, at least, numb his feelings.

  Then he had walked back. Martine had watched him with questions in her eyes, but said nothing. He had drunk a cup of coffee, kissed her on the cheek and got into the car. In the mirror, Martine had seemed even smaller standing on the step with her arms crossed.

  Harry drove home, had a shower, changed clothes and flicked through the papers on the coffee table three times before giving up, bewildered. For the umpteenth time since the day before yesterday he would check his watch only to see his bare wrist. He fetched Møller's watch from the drawer in the bedside table. It was still working and would have to do for the time being. He drove to Police HQ and parked in the garage beside Hagen's Audi.

  Walking up the stairs to the sixth floor he could hear voices, footsteps and laughter resounding in the atrium. But when the Crime Squad department door closed behind him it was as though the volume had been switched off. In the corridor he met an officer who observed him, shook his head in silence and walked on.

  'Hi, Harry.'

  He turned. It was Toril Li. He could not recall her using his first name before.

  'How are you doing?' she asked.

  Harry was about to answer, opened his mouth, but realised all of a sudden that he had no voice.

  'We thought we might assemble after the briefing to pay our respects,' Toril Li said with brisk delicacy, as though to cover for him.

  Harry nodded in silent gratitude.

  'Maybe you could get in touch with Beate?'

  'Of course.'

  Harry stood in front of his office door. He had been dreading this moment. Then he entered.

  In Halvorsen's chair sat a person leaning back and bobbing up and down, as if he had been waiting.

  'Good morning, Harry,' said Gunnar Hagen.

  Harry hung his jacket on the hatstand without replying.

  'Sorry,' Hagen said. 'Poor choice of words.'

  'What do you want?' Harry sat down.

  'To express my regret about what has happened. I'll do the same at the morning meeting, but first I want to do it face to face with you. Jack was your closest colleague, wasn't he?'

  'Halvorsen.'

  'I beg your pardon.'

  Harry rested his head in his hands. 'We called him Halvorsen.'

  Hagen nodded. 'Halvorsen. One more thing, Harry—'

  'I thought I had the requisition order at home,' Harry said between his fingers. 'But it's gone.'

  'Oh that . . .' Hagen shifted; he seemed uncomfortable in the chair. 'I wasn't thinking about the gun. With regard to travel expense cutbacks, I've asked accounts to present me with all receipts for approval. It turns out you've been to Zagreb. I don't recall having authorised any foreign travel. And if the Norwegian police have carried out any investigations there, it is a flagrant breach of instructions.'

  They've finally found it, thought Harry, his face still buried in his hands. The blunder they have been waiting for. The formal reason for kicking the alkie inspector back to where he belongs, among the uncivilised civilians. Harry tried to sound out what he felt. But the only thing he was conscious of was relief.

  'You'll have my notice on your desk tomorrow, boss.'

  'I have no idea what you're talking about,' Hagen said. 'I assume there has been no investigation in Zagreb. That would have been very embar-rassing for all concerned.'

  Harry looked up.

  'The way I read it,' Hagen said, 'you've been on a little study trip to Zagreb.'

  'Study trip, boss?'

  'Yes, an unspecified study trip. And here is my written consent to your oral enquiry about a study trip to Zagreb.' A printed A4 sheet sailed over the desk and landed in front of Harry. 'And so this business should be a thing of the past.' Hagen stood up and went to the wall where the photo of Ellen Gjelten hung. 'Halvorsen is the second partner you've lost, isn't he?'

  Harry inclined his head. It went quiet in the cramped, windowless room.

  Then Hagen coughed. 'You've seen the little piece of carved bone on my desk, haven't you? I bought it in Nagasaki. It's a copy of the little finger belonging to Yoshito Yasuda, a well-known Japanese battalion commander.' He turned to Harry. 'The Japanese usually cremate their dead, but in Burma they had to bury them because there were so many and it can take up to two hours for a body to burn out. So instead they would cut off a little finger, cremate it and send the ashes home to the family. After a decisive battle by Pegu in the spring of 1943 the Japanese were forced to retreat and hide in the jungle. The battalion commander begged his superior officer to attack that same evening so that they could recover the bones of their dead men. His request was rejected – the victors' numbers were too large – and that evening he stood weeping before his men in the light of the campfire and told them of the CO's decision. On seeing the hopelessness in his men's faces, he dried his tears, drew his bayonet, laid his hand on a tree stump, cut off his little finger and threw it on the fire. The men cheered. It came to the CO's ears and the next day the Japanese attacked in full force.'

  Hagen went to Halvorsen's desk and picked up a pencil sharpener, which he studied in minute detail.

  'I made a number of mistakes in my first days here as boss. For all I know one of them may have been an indirect cause of Halvorsen's death. What I'm trying to say . . .' He put down the sharpener and breathed in. 'Is that I wish I could do as Yoshito Yasuda did and enthuse all of you. But I don't know how.'

  Harry was nonplussed, so he kept his mouth shut.

  'So let me just put it like this, Harry. I want you to find the person or persons behind these murders. That's all.'

  The two men avoided each other's eyes. Hagen clapped his hands together to break the silence. 'But you would be doing me a favour if you would carry a weapon, Harry. You know, in front of the others . . . at least until the New Year. Then I'll rescind the instruction.'

  'Fine.'

  'Thank you. I'll write you a new requisition order.'

  Harry nodded, and Hagen moved towards the door.

  'How did it turn out?' Harry asked. 'The Japanese counter-attack?'

  'Oh, that.' Hagen turned with a lopsided grin. 'It was crushed.'

  Kjell Atle Orø had been working in Stores at the bottom of Police HQ for nineteen years, and this morning he was sitting with the pools coupon before him wondering whether he had the nerve to go for an away win for Fulham against Southampton on Boxing Day. He wanted to give the coupon to Oshaug when he went for lunch, so he was in a hurry. That was why he cursed when he heard someone strike the metal bell.

  He came to his feet with a groan. In his time Orø had played firstdivision football for Skeid and had had a long and injury-free career; he was therefore eternally bitter that what had seemed an innocent strain in a game for the police team had resulted in him still dragging his right leg ten years later.

  A man with a blond crew cut was standing in front of the counter.

  Orø took the requisition order he was passed and squinted at the letters he reckoned were getting smaller and smaller. Last week when he had told his wife he would like a bigger TV for Christmas, she had suggested he book an appointment with the optician.

  'Harry Hole, Smith & Wesson .38, yes,' Orø groaned, limping back to the armoury where he found a service revolver that looked like the previous owner had been gentle. It struck him that they would soon be receiving the weapon belonging to the officer who had been stabbed to death in Gøtebor
ggata. He reached down the holster and the standard three boxes of ammunition and went back to the counter.

  'Sign here,' he said, pointing to the order sheet. 'Can I see some ID?'

  The man who had already put his ID card on the counter took the pen Orø passed him and signed as instructed. Orø peered at Harry Hole's ID card and the scribbles. He wondered if Southampton could stop Louis Saha.

  'And remember to shoot at the bad boys,' Orø said, but received no response.

  Hobbling back to the pools coupon, he reflected that the policeman's sulkiness was perhaps not so surprising. The ID card said he was in Crime Squad. Wasn't that where the dead officer had been working?

  Harry parked the car by the Henie-Onstad Art Centre in Høvikodden and walked from the beautiful low brick building down the slight slope to the fjord.

  On the ice stretching to Snarøya he could see a lone black figure.

  He tested a sheet of ice adjacent to the shore with one foot. It broke with a loud crack. Harry shouted David Eckhoff 's name, but the figure on the ice did not stir.

  Then he swore, and, realising that the commander could not weigh much less than his own ninety-five kilos, balanced on the stranded ice sheets and gingerly placed his feet on the treacherous snow-camouflaged ice field. It took his weight. He made his way across the ice with short, quick steps. It was further than it had seemed from land, and when at last Harry was so near that he could say with certainty that the figure wearing the wolf pelt, sitting on a folding chair and bent over a hole in the ice with a jig in his mittens, was indeed the Salvation Army commander, he could see why he hadn't heard him.

  'Are you sure this ice is safe, Eckhoff?'

  David Eckhoff turned and looked down at Harry's boots first.

  'Ice on Oslo fjord in December is never safe,' he said with frozen breath issuing from his mouth. 'That's why you fish alone. But I always use these.' He motioned towards the skis he was wearing. 'They spread the weight.'

  Harry nodded slowly. He seemed to hear the ice cracking beneath his feet. 'They told me at headquarters I would find you here.'

  'Only place you can hear yourself think.' Eckhoff grabbed the jig.

  He had put a box of bait and a knife on some newspaper beside the opening in the ice. The front page announced mild weather from Christmas Day onwards. Nothing about Halvorsen's death. It must have gone to print too early.

  'A lot to think about?' Harry asked.

  'Hm. My wife and I have to host the Prime Minister during the concert this evening. And then there's Gilstrup's contract that has to be signed this week. Yes, there are a few things.'

  'I wanted to ask just one question,' Harry said, concentrating on spreading his weight equally between both feet.

  'Uh-huh?'

  'I asked Skarre, one of my men, to check if there were any sums of money passing between your account and Robert Karlsen's. There weren't. But he found another Karlsen who transferred regular sums of money. Josef Karlsen.'

  David Eckhoff stared into the circle of dark water without batting an eyelid.

  'My question,' Harry said, focusing on Eckhoff, 'is why you've received eight thousand kroner from Robert and Jon's father every quarter for the last twelve years.'

  Eckhoff jerked as though he had a big fish on the hook.

  'Well?' Harry said.

  'Is this of any importance?'

  'I think so, Eckhoff.'

  'In that case it will have to remain between the two of us.'

  'I can't promise that.'

  'Then I can't tell you.'

  'Then I'll have to take you to the station and ask you to make a statement there.'

  The commander looked up with one eye closed and scrutinised Harry to gauge the strength of his potential adversary. 'And you think Gunnar Hagen will approve of that? Dragging me down there?'

  'Let's find out.'

  Eckhoff was about to say something, but paused as though scenting Harry's determination. Harry was reflecting that a man does not become the leader of a flock through brute strength but through his ability to read situations correctly.

  'Fine,' said the commander. 'But it's a long story.'

  'I have time,' Harry lied, feeling the cold from the ice through his soles.

  'Josef Karlsen, father of Jon and Robert, was my best friend.' Eckhoff fixed his gaze on a point on Snarøya. 'We studied together, we worked together and were both ambitious and promising, as they say. But most important of all we shared a vision of a strong Salvation Army that would do God's work on earth. That would prevail. Do you understand?'

  Harry nodded.

  'We also came up through the ranks together,' Eckhoff continued. 'And, yes, after a while Josef and I were seen as rivals for the job I have now. I didn't think the position was that important, it was the vision that was driving us. But when I was chosen something happened to Josef. He seemed to crumble. And who knows, we don't know ourselves inside out, I might have reacted in the same way. Anyway, Josef was given the trusted post of chief administrator and even though our families kept in touch as before there was not the same . . .' Eckhoff groped for words: '. . . confidentiality. Something was oppressing Josef, something unpleasant. It was the autumn of 1991 when I and our chief accountant, Frank Nilsen, Rikard and Thea's father, discovered what. Josef had been misappropriating funds.'

  'What happened?'

  'We have, so to speak, little experience of that sort of thing at the Salvation Army, so until we knew what to do Nilsen and I kept it to ourselves. Of course I was disappointed by Josef 's behaviour, but at the same time I could see a cause-and-effect scenario of which I was a part. I could have handled the situation when I was chosen and he was rejected with greater . . . sensitivity. However, the Army was going through a period of poor recruitment at that time and did not enjoy anywhere near the widespread goodwill it enjoys today. We simply could not afford to have a scandal. I had been left a summer house by my parents in Sørlandet which we seldom used, and we intended to take our holidays in Østgård. So I sold it in a hurry and received enough to cover the shortfall before it was discovered.'

  'You?' Harry said. 'You patched over Josef Karlsen's embezzlement with your own capital?'

  Eckhoff shrugged. 'There was no other solution.'

  'It's not exactly commonplace in business for the boss to—'

  'No, but this is no commonplace business, Hole. We do God's work. Then it's personal whatever happens.'

  Harry nodded slowly. He thought about the carved little finger on Hagen's desk. 'So Josef packed it in and travelled abroad with his wife. And no one was any the wiser?'

  'I offered him a job, less high-powered,' Eckhoff said. 'But of course he couldn't accept it. That would have raised all sorts of questions. They live in Thailand, I gather. Not far from Bangkok.'

  'So the story about the Chinese peasant and the snake bite was made up?'

  Eckhoff smiled and shook his head. 'No. Josef was a real doubter. And that story made a deep impression on him. Josef doubted as indeed we all do at times.'

  'You too, Commander?'

  'Me too. Doubt is faith's shadow. If you are unable to doubt you can't be a believer. It's the same as with courage, Inspector. If you are unable to feel fear, you cannot be courageous.'