The Kingdom

by Jo Nesbo

  ‘Have you told anyone else besides Carl and me?’ I asked.

  ‘No, I’m bound by professional confidentiality.’ He stopped abruptly. Put three fingers to his forehead. ‘Ouch. Maybe you didn’t know Shannon was pregnant? I just assumed that...since you and Carl are so close.’

  ‘They probably wanted to keep it to themselves until they feel fairly sure it’s going well,’ I said. ‘Given Shannon’s history of trying to get pregnant...’

  ‘Yes, but it was very unprofessional of me,’ said Stanley. He looked genuinely upset.

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘If you don’t tell anyone, I won’t either.’

  I was out of the door before Stanley could remind me that I was going to tell him why I’d asked about New Year’s Eve. Out of the surgery. Into the Volvo. Sat there, staring through the windscreen.

  So Carl knew Shannon was pregnant. He knew, and he hadn’t confronted Shannon with it. Hadn’t told me either. Did that mean he knew he wasn’t the father? Did he realise what was going on? That it was me and Shannon against him. I pulled out my phone. Hesitated. Among other things, Shannon and I had planned everything in such detail so as to avoid having more phone contact than would otherwise seem natural between a brother-in-law and sister-in-law. According to True Crime, that’s the first thing the police check, who the victim’s closest relatives or other potential suspects have been in phone contact with at the time immediately preceding the murder. I made up my mind, tapped in the number.

  ‘Now?’ said the voice at the other end.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ve got some free time now.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Carl. ‘Fritt Fall in twenty.’

  65

  FRITT FALL WAS OCCUPIED BY the usual early-afternoon gang of horse-racing enthusiasts and people who keep the social security system ticking over.

  ‘A beer,’ I said to Erik Nerell.

  He gave me such a cold stare. I had had him on my list of people I suspected of torching the hotel, but today that list had been reduced to one.

  Heading for an empty table by the window I saw Dan Krane sitting alone with his beer at another window table. He was staring out emptily. He looked – how shall I put it? – a bit scruffy. I left him alone, and reckoned he’d show me the same courtesy.

  I was halfway through my beer when Carl trotted in.

  He gave me a bear hug and bought a cup of coffee, getting the same frosty treatment at the counter as I had. I saw Dan Krane register Carl’s presence, finish his beer and leave the premises with demonstratively heavy footsteps.

  ‘Yes, I saw Dan,’ said Carl before I had a chance to ask him and sat down. ‘Apparently he’s no longer living at the Aas place.’

  I nodded slowly. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Oh yes...’ said Carl and took a drink of coffee. ‘Excited about the owners’ meeting this evening, of course. And Shannon’s taking more and more of the decisions at home. Today she decided she’s going to use the Cadillac up until the meeting, so I’m driving the wifemobile.’ He nodded towards the Subaru out on the car park.

  ‘The most important thing is that you arrive for the ceremony in style,’ I said.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ he said and took another sip. Waited. Almost dreading things, the way it looked. Two brothers sitting there, full of dread. Lying in bunk beds, dreading the sound of the door opening.

  ‘I think I know who torched the hotel,’ I said.

  Carl looked up. ‘Oh?’

  I saw no reason to milk it and told him straight out. ‘Grete Smitt.’

  Carl gave a loud laugh. ‘Grete’s a bit touched, Roy, but not that touched. And she’s quietened down now. It’s done her good, hooking up with Simon.’

  I stared at him. ‘Simon? You mean, Simon Nergard?’

  ‘You didn’t know that?’ Carl chuckled humourlessly. ‘The rumour is that Simon got her to drive him home to Nergard on New Year’s Eve and she stayed over. And ever since they’ve been like peanut butter and jelly.’

  My brain was processing this as fast as it could. Could Grete and Simon have torched the hotel together? I mulled it over. It tasted funny. On the other hand, a lot of things had tasted funny recently. But that wasn’t something I needed to take up with Carl. In fact, I didn’t actually need to take it up with anyone, because what the fuck did it matter who had done it? I cleared my throat. ‘There was something you wanted to talk to me about.’

  Carl looked down into his coffee cup, nodded. Looked up, checked that the six other customers were sitting far enough away, leaned forward and said in a low voice: ‘Shannon is pregnant.’

  ‘Oh wow!’ I smiled, trying not to overact. ‘Congratulations, brother!’

  ‘No,’ said Carl, shaking his head.

  ‘No? Something wrong?’

  The shaking turned into nodding.

  ‘With the kid?’ I asked. Even though I was lying, the very thought of there being something wrong with the child Shannon was carrying, our child, made me feel ill.

  Carl’s head went back to shaking.

  ‘Then what?’ I asked.

  ‘It isn’t me who’s the...’

  ‘Who’s the what?’

  His head finally stopped and he gave me a defeated, broken look.

  ‘Not the father?’

  He nodded.

  ‘How...?’

  ‘Shannon and I haven’t had sex since she came home from Toronto. I haven’t been allowed to touch her. And it wasn’t her who told me she was pregnant, it was Stanley. Shannon doesn’t even know that I know.’

  ‘Fucking hell,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, fucking hell.’ His heavy gaze wouldn’t let go of me. ‘And you know what, Roy?’

  He waited, but I didn’t answer.

  ‘I think I know who it is.’

  I swallowed. ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yeah. Early last autumn Shannon suddenly had to go to Notodden, see. An interview about an architect job, she said. When she came back she was absolutely frantic, for days on end. Didn’t eat, didn’t sleep. I thought it was because obviously, nothing had come of the architect job. When I gathered from Stanley that Shannon was pregnant, I asked myself how in the world she’d managed to meet another man. I mean, Shannon and I, we live in each other’s pockets. And so I began to think differently about that trip to Notodden. Shannon tells me everything, and what she doesn’t tell me, I can easily read on her. But there’s been something there I haven’t quite managed to get hold of. Something she’s been hiding. As if she had a guilty conscience about something. And when I think back, it happened after that night away she had in Notodden. And suddenly she’s taking these day trips to Notodden, says she has to go shopping. You follow?’

  I had to cough to get some volume into my voice. ‘I think so.’

  ‘So the other day I asked her where she stayed when she spent the night at Notodden, and she said the Brattrein Hotel, I called to check. Sure enough, the reception said a Shannon Alleyne Opgard had booked a room there on 3 September. But when I asked who with, he said she’d booked the room just for herself.’

  ‘He told you all this? Just like that?’

  ‘It’s just possible I said my name was Kurt Olsen and I was calling from the sheriff’s office in Os.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ I said, and could feel the back of my shirt getting wet.

  ‘So I asked them to go through the guest register for that particular date. And then an interesting name cropped up, Roy.’

  My mouth felt dry. What the fuck had happened? Had Ralf remembered I was there and given my name? Wait, now I remember, that’s right: he said he’d reserved a room for me when he saw me going into the restaurant, he’d presumed I was going to be staying there. Had he put me down as a booking and then forgotten to delete it when it turned out I didn’t need a room?
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br />   ‘An interesting and very familiar name,’ said Carl.

  I steeled myself.

  ‘Dennis Quarry.’

  I stared at Carl. ‘What?’

  ‘Dennis Quarry. The actor. The director. The American who stopped by the service station. He was staying at the hotel.’

  I didn’t realise I’d stopped breathing until I inhaled again. ‘So what?’

  ‘So what? He gave his autograph to Shannon at the service station, don’t you remember?’

  ‘Sure. But...’

  ‘Shannon showed me the piece of paper afterwards, in the car. She laughed because he’d written his phone number and email address there too. Said he reckoned on being in Norway for quite a while. Was going to be –’ Carl made quotation marks in the air with his fingers – ‘directing. I thought no more about it, and I don’t think she did either. Not until after what happened between Mari and me...’

  ‘You think she met him to get her revenge?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

  I shrugged. ‘Maybe she loves him?’

  ‘Shannon doesn’t love anyone. The only thing she loves is that hotel of hers. She needs a good hiding.’

  ‘And I guess someone’s given her that.’

  It just came out of me. Carl pounded his fist on the table, and his eyes looked as if they might explode out of his skull. ‘Did that bitch say that?’

  ‘Shush,’ I said, and grabbed hold of my beer glass as though it were a lifebuoy. In the ensuing silence I noticed everyone in the place had turned to look at us. Carl and I stayed quiet until we heard the conversations resume, and saw Erik Nerell bent over his mobile again.

  ‘I saw the bruises when I was at home at Christmas,’ I said in a low voice. ‘She came out of the bathroom.’

  I saw Carl’s brain was trying to cook up an explanation. Why the hell did I have to blurt that out just when I needed him to trust me?

  ‘Carl, I...’

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said in a hoarse voice. ‘You’re right. It happened a few times after she came back from Toronto.’ He breathed in so heavily I saw his ribcage rise. ‘I was so stressed out by all that hotel chaos, and she kept going on at me about what happened with Mari. And when I’d had a few bevvies, sometimes I...sometimes I snapped. But it hasn’t happened since I stopped drinking. Thanks, Roy.’

  ‘Thanks?’

  ‘For confronting me with that. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it for a long time. I was starting to get afraid I had the same thing as Dad. That you start doing stuff you don’t really want to, and then you find you can’t stop, right? But I did it. I changed.’

  ‘You’re back in the flock,’ I said.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Are you sure you’ve changed?’

  ‘Yes, you can bet on it.’

  ‘Or you can do it for me. In fact, why not do it for both of us while you’re at it?’

  He just looked at me as though it was some stupid word game he didn’t understand. And I was coming out with a lot of stuff now I didn’t even understand myself.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, and drew a hand across his face, ‘I just had to talk to someone about this kid. And that someone always turns out to be you. Sorry about that.’

  ‘Think nothing of it,’ I said, and turned the knife in myself. ‘I’m your brother, after all.’

  ‘Yes, you’re the one who’s always there when I need someone. God, I’m so glad I have you at least.’

  Carl laid his hand on top of mine. His was bigger, softer, warmer than mine, which was ice-cold.

  ‘Always,’ I said hoarsely.

  He looked at his watch. ‘I’ll have to sort out this business with Shannon later,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘And this about me not being the father, that stays between us, OK?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. Weirdly, I almost laughed.

  ‘Start of the new building. We’ll show ’em, Roy.’ He clamped his jaws together and his eyes tight into a fighting face, shook a bunched fist at me. ‘The Opgard boys are gonna win.’

  I smiled and raised my glass, showed I intended to stay and finish my drink.

  Watched Carl as he hurried towards the door. Saw through the window as he got into the Subaru. Shannon had arranged for her to use the Cadillac today. But Carl would be driving the Cadillac to the launch up at the hotel site. Or more accurately, driving in that direction.

  A single brake light flared as the Subaru stopped for a trailer before swinging out onto the main road.

  I ordered another beer. Drank it slowly as I thought.

  I thought of Shannon. Of what it is that drives us human beings. And I thought about myself. About why I had practically asked to be exposed. Told Carl that I knew he beat Shannon. Hinted that I knew he had forged my signature. Asking to be exposed so that I didn’t have to go through with it. Didn’t have to go on filling Huken with cars and corpses.

  66

  AFTER FOUR BEERS AT FRITT Fall I left the place.

  The time was only one thirty, time enough to get stone-cold sober again, but I knew those beers were a sign of weakness. A flight response. A single false step would be enough to screw up the whole plan, so why drink now? It was probably a sign that there was a part of me that perhaps didn’t want to succeed. The reptile me. No, the reptile brain didn’t have anything to do with this, see, I wasn’t thinking straight, I was already getting my concepts mixed up. Anyway, the me-me was absolutely certain of what he wanted, and that was to get what was rightfully his, whatever was left of it. And get rid of those who stood in the way and threatened the people it was my duty to defend. Because I was no longer the big brother. I was her man. And father to the child. That was my family now.

  All the same, there was something that didn’t add up.

  I left the Volvo at the workshop, and from the centre I walked south-east on the pedestrian and cycle track that ran alongside the main road. When I reached the workshop I stood and looked across the road, to the wall of the house with the poster advertising Grete’s Hair and Sun Salon.

  Checked my watch again.

  I just about had time; but I should have let it rest, this wasn’t the time to deal with it. Maybe no time was the time to deal with it.

  So God knows why I suddenly found myself there on the other side of the road, peering into the garage, at the red Audi A1 standing there.

  * * *

  —

  ‘Hi!’ Grete called from the hairdressing chair. She had her head inside the pride of the place, the 1950s salon hairdryer. ‘I didn’t hear the phone or the doorbell.’

  ‘I didn’t ring,’ I said, and established that we were alone. The fact that she was giving herself a perm indicated that she didn’t have any imminent appointments. All the same, I locked the door behind me.

  ‘I can do you in ten minutes,’ she said. ‘Just need to get my own hair into shape here first. Got to look presentable yourself when you’re a hairdresser, right?’

  She sounded nervous. Maybe because I had arrived with no warning. Maybe because she noticed something about me. That I hadn’t just come in for a trim. Or maybe because, deep down, she had been expecting me for a long time now.

  ‘Nice car,’ I said.

  ‘What? I can’t hear so well in here.’

  ‘Nice car! I saw it outside Stanley’s on New Year’s Eve, but I didn’t know it was yours.’

  ‘Oh yeah. It’s been a good year for the hairdressing business. Like it’s been a good year for all the businesses here.’

  ‘Same make and same colour that passed me just before midnight when I was on my way to the square. Not many red Audis in the village, so I imagine it was you, right? But then Stanley tells me you were going home to your parents to bring in the New Year with them, and that’s in the opposite direction. Besides, the car turned off towards Nergard and th
e road up to the hotel. Not much there, apart from Nergard. Opgard. And the hotel. And that got me to thinking...’

  I leaned forward and looked at the scissors lying on the worktop in front of the mirror. They all looked pretty similar to me, but I guessed it must be her famous Niigata 1000 scissors that lay in the open box, almost as if they were being exhibited.

  ‘You said to me on New Year’s Eve that Shannon hates Carl, but she needs him for her hotel. Did you think that if the hotel burned down and the project was abandoned then Shannon wouldn’t need Carl any more, and then you could have him?’

  Grete Smitt studied me calmly, all trace of nervousness gone. Her forearms lay motionless on the armrests of the large, heavy chair, her head swathed in a crown of plastic and filaments. She looked like a fucking queen on the throne.

  ‘Of course that thought occurred to me,’ she said, her voice lower now. ‘And you have too, Roy. That’s why I suspected you of starting the fire. You disappeared some time before midnight.’

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ I said.

  ‘Well, then there’s only one other person it could be,’ said Grete.

  My mouth felt dry. It made no fucking difference who torched the fucking hotel. There was a vague buzzing sound; I couldn’t tell if it was coming from inside the hair-drying helmet or my own head.

  She stopped talking when she saw I had taken the scissors out of the box. And she must have seen something in my eyes, because she raised her arms up in front of her.

  ‘Roy, you’re not going to...’

  And I don’t know. I don’t fucking know what I was going to. I only know that everything burst out of me. Everything that had happened, everything that shouldn’t’ve happened, everything that was going to happen and mustn’t happen, but that there was no longer a way round. It rose up in me like shit in a blocked toilet, had been doing so for a long time now, and now it had reached the rim and was overflowing. The scissors were sharp, all that remained was to stab them into that repulsive mouth of hers, cut open those white cheeks, cut out those ugly words.