The Snowman

by Jo Nesbo

  “I did the calculations ages ago. It’s all calculated.”

  A revving motorbike skidded up the winding roads of Holmenkollen in the dark. The roar reverberated between the houses and onlookers considered it madness in these snowy conditions. The rider should have his license taken away. But the rider didn’t have one.

  Harry accelerated up the drive to the black timber house, but in the sharp turn the wheels spun on the fresh snow and he felt the bike losing speed. He didn’t try to correct the skid; he jumped off and the bike rolled down the slope, burst through a few low spruce branches before coming to a halt against a tree trunk, tipped onto its side and, spitting snow from the back wheel, breathed its last.

  By then Harry was already halfway up the steps.

  There were no footprints in the snow, neither to nor from the house. He took out his revolver as he bounded up to the door.

  It was unlocked. As promised.

  He slipped into the hall, and the first thing he saw was the cellar door wide open.

  Harry stopped to listen. There was a noise, a kind of drumming. It seemed to be coming from the kitchen. Harry hesitated. Then he opted for the cellar.

  With his revolver pointing in front of him, he sidled down the staircase. At the bottom he stopped to let his eyes get accustomed to the dark and listened. He had a sense that the whole room was holding its breath. He spotted the garden chair under the door handle. Oleg. His eyes delved further. He had decided to go upstairs again when his attention was caught by the dark stain on the brick floor by the freezer. Water? He took a step closer. It must have come from under the freezer. He forced his thoughts away from where they wanted to go and pulled at the lid. Locked. The key was in, but Rakel didn’t usually lock the freezer. Images from Finnøy emerged in his brain, but he hurried, twisted the key and lifted the lid.

  Harry just caught the glint of metal from the murky depths before a burning pain in his face made him throw himself backward. A knife? He had fallen on his back between two dirty-laundry baskets and a figure, speedy and nimble, was already out of the freezer and standing over him.

  “Police!” Harry shouted and quickly raised his gun. “Don’t move!”

  The figure stopped with one hand raised over his head. “H-Harry?”

  “Oleg?”

  Harry lowered the revolver and saw what the boy was holding in his hand. A speed skate.

  “I … I thought Mathias had come back,” he whispered.

  Harry got to his feet. “Where is Mathias?”

  “I don’t know. He said we would meet soon, so I assumed …”

  “Where did the skate come from?” Harry tasted metallic blood in his mouth and his fingers found the cut on his face, which was bleeding profusely.

  “It was in the freezer.” Oleg gave a sly grin. “I was getting so much hassle for leaving the skates on the steps, so I keep them under the peas where Mom won’t see them. We never eat peas, as you know.”

  He followed Harry, who was already on his way up the stairs.

  “Luckily I’d had the blades sharpened, so I could cut the ties. The lock was impossible, but I managed to stab a couple of holes in the plate at the bottom to get some air. And I smashed the bulb so that the light wouldn’t come on when he opened the lid.”

  “And your body heat melted the ice that ran out of the hole,” Harry said.

  They emerged in the hall, and Harry pulled Oleg over to the front door, opened it and pointed.

  “See the neighbors’ light? Run over and stay there until I come to get you. OK?”

  “No!” said Oleg firmly. “Mom—”

  “Shh! Now listen. The best thing you can do for your mom right now is to get away from here.”

  “I want to find her!”

  Harry grabbed Oleg’s shoulders and squeezed until tears of pain formed in the boy’s eyes.

  “When I say run, you run, you damn idiot.”

  He said it in a low voice but with such repressed fury that Oleg blinked in confusion and a tear rolled over his eyelashes and onto his cheek. Then the boy turned on his heel, rushed out the door and was swallowed up by the darkness and the driving snow.

  Harry grabbed the walkie-talkie and pressed the talk button. “Harry here. Are you far away?”

  “We’re by the stadium. Over.” Harry recognized Gunnar Hagen’s voice.

  “I’m inside,” Harry said. “Drive up to the front of the house, but don’t enter until I say. Over.”

  “Roger.”

  “Over and out.”

  Harry went toward the sound he’d heard earlier in the kitchen. From the doorway he watched the thin stream of water falling from the ceiling. It had been tinted gray by the dissolved plaster and was drumming furiously on the kitchen table.

  Harry took the staircase to the second floor in four long strides. Tiptoed to the bedroom door. Swallowed. Studied the door handle. From outside he could hear the distant sound of police sirens approaching. Blood from his cut dripped onto the parquet floor with a gentle plop.

  He could feel it now, as pressure on his temples; this was where it would end. And there was a kind of logic to it. How many times had he stood like this in front of the bedroom door, at daybreak, after a night when he had promised to be at home with her, how often had he stood there with a bad conscience knowing she was inside asleep? Carefully he pressed the door handle, which he knew would creak halfway down. And she would wake up, look at him with sleepy eyes, try to punish him with her glare, until he slipped under the duvet, snuggled up to her body and felt its stiff resistance melt. And she would grunt with pleasure, but not too much pleasure. And then he would stroke her more, kiss and nibble at her, be her servant until she was sitting on him, no longer the queen in her slumbers, but purring and moaning, wanton and offended at the same time.

  He closed his fist around the handle, noticed how his hand recognized the flat angular shape. He pressed with infinite care. Waited for the familiar creak. But it was not forthcoming. Something was different. There was resistance. Had someone tightened the springs? Gingerly, he let go. Stooped down to the keyhole and tried to peep in. Black. Someone had blocked the hole.

  “Rakel!” he shouted. “Are you there?”

  No answer. He placed his ear against the door. Thought he could hear a scratching sound, but wasn’t sure. He held the handle again. Wavered. Changed his mind, let go and hastened into the adjacent bathroom. Pushed open the little window, forced his body through and leaned out backward. Light was streaming from between the black iron bars of the bedroom window. He wedged his heels against the inside of the frame, tensed his leg muscles and stretched out of the bathroom and along the outside wall. His fingers groped in vain to find a hold between the rough logs as the snow settled on his face and melted into the blood running down his cheek. He applied greater force; the window frame was pressing into his leg so hard it felt as if the bone would crack. His hands crept along the wall like frenetic five-legged spiders. His stomach muscles ached. But it was too far—he couldn’t reach. He stared down at the ground beneath him, knowing that under the thin layer of snow there was pavement.

  He felt something cold against his fingertips.

  An iron bar.

  Got two fingers around the bar. Three. Then the other hand. Let his aching legs swing free, dangled and hurriedly found a foothold to relieve the pressure on his arms. At last he could see into the bedroom. And he saw. His brain struggled to absorb the sight while it knew immediately what it was looking at: the finished work of art, the prototype of which he had already seen.

  Rakel’s eyes were wide open and black. She was wearing a dress. Crimson. Like Campari. She was “cochineal.” Her head strained toward the ceiling as though she were standing by a fence trying to see over, and from this position she stared down and out at him. Her shoulders were pulled back and her arms hidden. Harry assumed her hands were tied behind her back. Her cheeks bulged as though she had a sock or a cloth in her mouth. She sat astride the shoulders of an enormo
us snowman. Her bare legs were crossed in front of the snowman’s chest, and he could see her tensed leg muscles quivering. She mustn’t fall. She couldn’t. For around her neck there was not a gray, lifeless wire, as with Eli Kvale, but a white glowing circle, like an absurd imitation of an old toothpaste advertisement promising a ring of confidence, good fortune in love and a long and happy life. A wire ran from the black handle of the cutting loop to a hook in the ceiling above Rakel’s head. The wire continued to the other end of the room, to the door. To the door handle. The wire was not thick, but long enough to have provided noticeably more resistance when Harry had begun to press the handle. If he had opened the door, indeed if he had even pressed the handle right down, the white glowing metal would have cut into her throat, right under her chin.

  Rakel was staring back at Harry without blinking. The muscles in her face were twitching, alternating between fury and naked fear. The loop was too narrow for her to remove her head unscathed; instead she held her head down so that it did not touch the death-bringing glow that hung almost vertically around her neck.

  She looked at Harry, down at the floor and back to Harry. And Harry understood.

  Gray clumps of snow were already lying in the water covering the floor. The snowman was melting. Fast.

  Harry got a good foothold and shook the bars as hard as he could. They didn’t budge, didn’t even offer a hopeful creak. The iron was thin but firmly attached to the timber.

  The figure inside was swaying.

  “Hold on!” Harry shouted. “I’ll be there soon!”

  Lies. He wouldn’t even be able to bend the bars with an iron lever. And he didn’t have time to start sawing them off. Fuck her father, the crazy bastard! His arms were aching. He heard the ear-piercing siren of the first car turning into the drive. He looked around. It was one of Delta’s special vehicles, a large, armored beast of a Land Rover. A man dressed in a green flak jacket jumped out of the passenger seat, took cover behind the vehicle and held up a walkie-talkie. Harry’s handset crackled.

  “Hello!” Harry shouted.

  The man, taken aback, looked left and right.

  “Up here, boss.”

  Gunnar Hagen straightened up behind the vehicle as a patrol car swung up in front of the house with the blue light swirling.

  “Should we storm the house?” Hagen shouted.

  “No!” screamed Harry. “He’s got her strung up. Just …”

  “Just?”

  Harry raised his eyes, stared. Not down to the city, but up to the illuminated Holmenkollen ski jump farther up the ridge.

  “Just what, Harry?”

  “Just wait.”

  “Wait?”

  “I have to think.”

  Harry rested his forehead against the cold bars. His arms were aching and he bent his knees to put most of his body weight on his legs. The cutting loop must have an off-switch. On the plastic handle, probably. They could smash the window and poke a long pole in with a mirror attached so that they could perhaps … But how the hell would they be able to press the off-switch without everything moving and … and …? Harry tried not to think about the ludicrously thin layer of skin and soft tissue that protected the carotid artery. Tried to think constructively and ignore the panic that was roaring in his ears, telling him to get in and take control.

  They could enter through the door. Without opening it. Just saw away the panel. They needed a chain saw. But who would have one? Only the whole of fucking Holmenkollen. After all, they all had a spruce forests in their yards.

  “Get hold of a chain saw from the neighbor’s house,” Harry yelled.

  Down below he heard the sound of running. And a splash inside the bedroom. Harry’s heart stopped and he stared in. The snowman’s whole left side was gone. It had sheared off and landed in the water. The snowman was collapsing. He saw Rakel’s body tremble as she fought to maintain her balance to keep away from the white, tear-shaped gallows noose. They would never get back with the chain saw in time, let alone cut through the door.

  “Hagen!” Harry heard the shrill hysteria in his own voice. “The patrol cars have a tow rope. Sling it up here and back the Land Rover up to the wall.”

  Harry heard a buzz of voices, the Land Rover’s engine revving in reverse and a car trunk being opened.

  “Catch!”

  Harry let go of the bar with one hand and turned to see the coiled rope coming toward him. He lunged in the dark, caught it and held on as the rest unfurled and fell back down to the ground with a thud.

  “Tie the end to the tow bar.”

  There was a carbine hook attached to his end of the rope. As quick as lightning he smacked the hook against the junction of the bars in the middle of the window and the lock snapped shut. Speed-cuffing.

  Another splash from inside the bedroom. Harry didn’t look. There was no point.

  “Go!” he yelled.

  Then he grabbed the edge of the gutter with both hands, using the bars as a ladder, and heard the Land Rover’s revs increase as he swung himself onto the roof. With his chest on the roof tiles and his eyes closed he could hear the motor engage, the rev count fall and the iron bars groan. More groaning. And more. Come on! Harry was aware that time was passing more slowly than he thought. And yet not slowly enough. Then—as he was waiting for the auspicious crack—the rev count suddenly rose to a ferocious whine. Shit! Harry realized the tires of the Land Rover were spinning around helplessly.

  A thought fluttered through his brain: He could say a prayer. But he knew that God had made up His mind, that destiny was sold out, that this ticket would have to be bought on the black market. His soul wouldn’t be worth much without her anyway. The thought was gone that very same second, interrupted by the sound of rubber, a sinking rev count and an increasing groan.

  The big heavy tires had spun their way down to the pavement.

  Then came the crack. The rev count roared and died. A second of total silence followed. And then a hollow crash as the bars hit the car roof below.

  Harry pushed himself up. He stood with his back to the yard on the edge of the gutter and felt it give way. Then he bent down, grabbed the gutter with both hands and kicked off. Swung like a pendulum from gutter to window. Jackknifed. The moment the old, thin windowpane gave with a tinkle under his boots, Harry let go. And for a few tenths of a second he had no idea where he would land: down in the yard, on the jagged glass teeth of the window or in the bedroom.

  There was a bang, a fuse must have been blown, and everything went black.

  Harry sailed through a room of nothing, felt nothing, remembered nothing, was nothing.

  And when the light came back on his only thought was that he wanted to return to that space. Pain radiated from all over his body. He was lying on his back in icy-cold water. But he must have been dead because he was looking up at an angel dressed in blood red, seeing her shining halo glow in the dark. Slowly sound returned. The scratching. The breathing. Then he saw the distorted face, the panic, the gaping mouth stuffed with the yellow ball, the feet scrambling up the snow. He just wanted to close his eyes. A noise, like low moaning. Wet snow crumbling.

  In retrospect, Harry couldn’t really account for what happened; he could remember only the nauseating smell as the cutting loop burned through flesh.

  At the very moment the snowman collapsed he stood up. Rakel fell forward. Harry raised his right hand as he fastened his left arm around her thighs to hold her up. He knew it was too late. Flesh sizzled, his nostrils were filled with a sweet, greasy smell and blood ran down his face. He looked up. His right hand was situated between the white glow of the loop and her neck. The weight of her neck forced his hand down against the white-hot wire, which ate through the flesh of his fingers like an egg slicer through a hard-boiled egg. And when it was right through it would cut open her throat. The pain came, delayed and dull, like an initially reluctant then insistent steel hammer on an alarm clock. He fought to stay upright. Had to have his left hand free. Blinded by blood, h
e hauled her up onto his shoulders and stretched his free hand over his head. Felt her skin against his fingertips, her thick hair, felt the loop burn into his skin before his hand found the hard plastic, the handle. His fingers found a flip switch. Moved it to the right. But stopped as soon as the noose started tightening. His fingers found another switch and pressed. The sounds disappeared, the light flickered and he knew he was on the point of losing consciousness again. Breathe, he thought, the important thing was to get oxygen to the brain. But his knees were giving way, nevertheless. The white glow above him changed to red. And then gradually to black.

  At his back he heard the sound of glass being crushed under several pairs of boot heels.

  “We’ve got her,” a voice said behind him.

  Harry sank to his knees in the blood-tinged water, with clumps of snow and unused plastic ties floating around him. His brain engaged and disengaged as if the power supply to it were failing.

  Someone said something behind him. He caught fragments of it, inhaled air and groaned, “What?”

  “She’s alive,” the voice repeated.

  His hearing stabilized. And sight. He turned. The two men clad in black had laid Rakel on the bed and cut the plastic ties. The contents of Harry’s stomach came up without warning. Two heaves and it was all out. He stared down at the vomit floating in the water and felt a hysterical urge to laugh out loud. Because the finger seemed to have been spewed up with everything else. He lifted his right hand and looked at the bleeding stump as confirmation. It was his finger floating in the water.

  “Oleg …” It was Rakel’s voice.

  Harry picked up a plastic tie, wrapped it around the stump of his middle finger and tightened it as hard as he could. Did the same with his index finger, which had been sliced through to the bone but was still firmly attached.

  Then he went to the bed, spread the duvet over Rakel and sat beside her. The eyes staring up at him were large and black with shock, and blood ran from the wounds where the loop had come into contact with the skin on both sides of her neck. He took her hand with his uninjured left.